r ,%. .«< -^^ ^^^1^ -■ .0. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) v "'*»•-« "■> • BISHOP CUMMINS ■ i-'.-f h^' ON THE -^=.. ^v ,--,v ■■;>?! f'u^: PRAYER BOOK. '• Thus fiivith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." — Jeremiah vi. 1(). "The immediate present," says the latest historian of England, '' however awful its import, will ever seem common and familiar to those who live and breathe in the midst of it. In the days of the September massacre at Paris, the theatres were open as usual ; men ate and drank ; and laughed and cried, and went about their common work, unconscious that those days which were passing by them, so much like other days, would remain the dies iiefasti, accursed in the memory of mankind forever. Nothing is terrible ; nothing is sublime in human things, so long as they are before our eyes. It is only when time has done its ; work that such periods stand out in their true significance." It may be doubted if this remark is true of the age in which we live. The impression is deep and profound in every thought- ful mind, that the age in which our lot is cast is no common or ordinary age, but one ever to be remembered for its great eveuto, its strange characteristics. And among these it may be doubted if there is any peculiarity more marked, and, indeed, more mo- mentous, than the spirit of change, nay, of rash and reckless innovation, which, under the noble name of progress, deludes the minds of millions. In science, in philosophy, in religion, it is a time marked by the casting off of all the authority of the -^' — r."- i^«T''T».f ,1^" past, by an attempt to unsettle the foundations on which succes- sive generations have built and dwelt in security and peace. In the sphere of religious truth this tendency finds its widest, its most alarming development ; and there is nothing sadder on this earth than the spectacle of a gifted mind like Kobertson, of Brighton, letting go at one time all the precious faith of his child- hood, and sinking into the darkest abyss of doubt, where the only ray of light left him was the single truth, '' it must at least be right to do right." How precious at such a time the inheritance of a faith whose cardinal doctrine is, that it admits of no change, but is, like its Great Author," the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever," — which, rejoicing in all progress, in science, in philosophy, in freedom, earnestly denies that in Divine truth there can be any progress, and contends steadfastly for the faith once delivered unto the saints, whose utterance ever is, the old paths are the only true paths, the only safe paths, and whose voice ever sounding amid the din and strife of the present is, " Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." ' ^i V .- But not less marked than this is another peculiarity marking the religious character of our age. It is the longing for unity. It is the profound feeling that the present state of Christendom is not what its Divine Founder designed it to be, that His prayer that His people may all be one, has never yet been realized, and that the spectacle of a divided and warring Christendom — Christ's seamless robe torn and rent — is a grief to the heart of the Divine Master, and a mighty hindrance to the final triumph of His kingdom. Under the influence of this conviction men are yearning for unity, some blindly feeling after it, and willing for its attain- ment to sacrifice even vital truth. Rejoicing in this tendency of men's minds, and desiring to add my mite to its safe direction, I propose to-day for my theme the fitness of the Book of Com- man Prayer to he the bond of unify, the manual of worship for jf ;o J. ■ - ■ ■ ' , ■ 6 \ ~ nil the confessions which divide Protestant Christendom^ the i/olden chain to restore the ancient tinity of the Kingdom of the Redeemer. ,, I. And first, the special fitness of the Prayer Book to fulfil this office arises from the fact that it embodies^ as no other uninspired volume does, the ancient and jyrimitive catholic faith of Christ's Church; not catholic in any corrupt, or perverted, or exclusive sense, but catholic in the sense of the once universal, unadulterated faith of Scripture — the faith of the Church when its heart was yet warm with its first fresh love, ere philosophy, falsely so called, had defiled the pure well-spring of sacred truth. And this old and undefiled faith the Prayer Book embodies, not merely in confessions and creeds and articles of dogmatic theology, but what is far better, in devotional oflGices, in the utterances of prayer and praise, in supplication and adoration ; so that the incense of its devotion is fragrant with the most precious truth of God's Holy Word. This goodly robe of the bride of Christ is wrought out of the purest gold of Divine truth — its warp and its woof are alike — Holy Scripture. Let us look more closely into this statement. What great cardinal truth of the ancient primitive fiith is not interwoven into the very texture of the Liturgy. ] . Is it the doctrine of the Trinity, the Tri-uuity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? The wondrous thing about the Liturgy here is, that it brings this sublime verity close to our hearts in all its blessed practical significance, as nothing else can bring it. Says one, who is not of this fold, but who bears his admiring testimony from without, " Who that has been able, in some frame of holy longing after God, to clear away the petty shackles of logic, committing the soul freely to the inspiring impulse of this Divine mystery as it is celebrated in some grand Doxology of Christian worship — as the Gloria Fatri — a hymn of the ages, framed to be continuously chanted by the long procession of times, until times are lapsed into eternity — and has been lifted into conscious fellowship with the great celestial minds in their highest ranges of blcsseduess and their shining tiers of Glory — who has not known it as being at once the deepest, highest, widest, most enkindling, and most practical of all practical truths?" This is the work of the Prayer Book — to turn a theological mystery into a precious heart-truth of deepest experience. For as soon as the soul of the worshipper has prostrated itself in deepest humility and penitence before God, and received the declaration of His abundant pardon to those who "truly repent and unfeignedly believe," it rises into strains of loftiest adoration in a chant which has borne to heaven the praises of saints for one thousand five hundred years, or in the thrilling accents of the angels' song, or iu the hymn of St. Ambrose, cries with the Seraphim, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabbaoth, the Father of an infinite Majesty, Thine adorable and true and only Son ; also, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter ! " '^ " ' Then, the worshipper turns to the ancient symbols and makes his confession of faith in a Creed so primitive and pure as to bo rightly called the Creed of Apostles, or iu another, scarcely less ancient and venerable, and chants " God of God, Light o/* Light, very God o/very God!" And again there is^heard the deep, earnest, plaintive pleading of the Litany, and to each adorable person of the Godhead does the prayer ascend, until it reaches its climax in "Oh, holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons and one God, have mercy upon us!" How can this foundation truth ever be lost out of the heart of a Church whose unchanging order of prayer thus enshrines it in the deepest, holiest feelings of the soul ? And if one wh(f» ministers at her altars should prove recreant to this great truth, how keen is the rebuke which he must feel, as forever he is constrained to unite in such utterances. 2. Is the Atonement, the vicarious sacrifice of Christ upon the cross for us men and our salvation, a vital part of the Christian system? Not less full is the Prayer Book of this than of the Trinity; not in the formal and abstruse terms of the theological science, serving only to confuse and perplex the mind of the simple believer in Jesus, but in strong eryings and pleadings for mercy " through the satisfaction of «Tesus Christ our Lord." , - Of the two hundred Prayers and Collects of this book, all, with scarce an exception, are offered in one name, are based upon one plea, '* through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, our adorable Redeemer." Redemption througk the blood of the Lamb is the key-note which floats through all this mingled chorus of praise and prayer. "Lamb of dod that taketh away the sins of the world," is the Church's ever repeated cry in the Gloria in Excehis ; " When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers," is its echo in the Te Dcum. " By Thine agony and bloody sweat ; by Thy cross and passion ; by Thy precious death and burial," is the sinner's only claim to salvation. , But if we would know all the fulness with which the Prayer ]3ook sets forth the propitiatory sacrifice for sin by the blood of Christ, we must turn to the most sacred and precious of all its offices, "the Order for the Administration of the Supper of the Jiord." Language seems powerless to convey its sense of the infinite preciousness of the Redeemer's sacrifice. At each notice of the celebration of this sacred feast, the Minister is k> remind the recipient that it is " in remembrance of His meri- torious cross and passion, whereby alone we obtain remission of our sins." In the exhortation preceding the Office of Consecra- tion, he is to bid them give thanks to God " for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ, both God and Man, who did humble Himself even to the death of the cross for us miserable sinners." As he kneels before the Holy Table, he prays '' that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood." And more significant than all, he is bidden to declare J\\i{t upon the cross, Jesus Christ "made a full, perfect, and Buificient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Blessed testimony to a blessed truth I How sublimely does this volume witness to this "old path." this "good way" of salvation, in a day when men would take from the Gospel its very life-blood, by seeking to eliminate the truth of Christ's vicarious sacrifice. Let us thank God that its ceaseless utter- ance is, " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!" 3. Again, is the plenary inspiration of Jloly Scripture a vital truth, essential to the very being of the faith ? It is recognized and acknowledged throughout the whole framework of the Liturgy. The Prayer Book honors the Word of God as it is honored in no other volume on earth. " Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith :" " hear what the Holy Ghost saith," is its repeated utterance as it echoes the teachings of Holy Scripture. Here is no doubting, hesitating acknowledg- ment of the plenary inspiration of the Bible And now, more than ever, we prize this testimony when recreant sons of our 3Iother Church in England have risen up to assail this pillar of the truth. Never can such false teaching widely prevail among men using this book, which bids them pray, " Blessed Lord, who hath caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learn- ing." Or again, " Oh, God, who hast instructed Thy Church by the heavenly doctrine of the Evangelists, give us grace that, being not like children carried away by every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truths of Thy Holy Gospel." Time forbids us to go further into this investigation, deeply interesting as it might prove. We might take successively other vital and central truths, dear to the hearts of God's people in all time, and show how each is incorporated into the very life of devotion. Thus the truth of man's ruined nature, the oflice and work of the Holy Spirit in the renewal and sanctification of the heart, justification by faith, " only for the merits of our Lord 9 and Saviour, Jesus Christ" — "a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort" — these are everywhere inwrought into the texture of this book. This, then, is our first argument. If to pray aright we need to pray " with the spirit and the understanding also," and if all the primal and essential doctrines of salvation are brought to the heart as blessed realities, and made the very flame of devo- tion by him who worships God in the order of this book, is it not eminently worthy of the high office we claim for it to lead the devotions of all who would " worship in spirit and in truth ?" II. We advance to another position. The Prayer Book is fitted to unite all reformed communions, because it enshrines most faithfully the true spirit of the Reformation. The Book of Common Prayer is the fairest and most beauteous child of the great Reformation. It is a blessed monument of God's goodness to His Church, in bringing her great deliverance after long ages of bondage and darkness. It is the precious casket in which are laid up the spoils of the mightiest conflict waged with the powers of darkness, since the fathers of Chris- tendom fell asleep, for " the truth as it is in Jesus." How wondrously can we trace the hand of God in the agencies and instruments employed in the accomplishment of this work ! First c:ime the "Reformers before the Reformation," Wicliflfe and his brotherhood, sowing in tears the seed for a harvest, to be reaped in joy by others. Then followed, in God's good time, Cranmer and his co-laborers, Jewel and Latimer and Ridley, and others whose names \j\\\ never die : first, in 1554, only permitted to translate the Prayers and the Litany into the English tongue j next, under Edward VI., setting forth the first Book of Common Prayer, drawn up in the words of the royal decree, "according to the most sincere and pure Christian religion taught by Scripture, and according to the usages of the Primitive Church." Then came the memorable Whitsunday of 1549, when, for the first time, the reformed Liturgy led the worship of a whole A 10 realm, rejoicing in "the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free." Soon, indeed, under another reign, there returned for a season a night of superstition, to be followed only by a more glorious day, whose meridian brightness other generations are yet to behold. But what a history is condensed into the few sentences just uttered ! What prayers and sacrifices, what patient waiting and suffering, what stripes and imprisonments, what burnings at the stake were needed to win for the Church of the future, the glorious heritage of this book ! And the great principle which guided the English Reformers was that enjoined in the text ; they sought to find "the old paths" — "the good way" of the Church in its days of primitive purity. Isaac Walton tells us that when Sir Henry Wotton was present at a Church festival in the city of Rome, and listening to strains of exquisite music, a Priest thinking the time a favorable one to win him over to the Romish faith, sent to him a note with this question : " Where was your religion before Luther ?" To which question Sir Henry presently underwrote : " My religion was to be found then, where yours is not to be found now, in the Word of God." The work of reformation at which the martyrs and confessors of the English Church labored^ and which hundreds among them sealed with their blood, was not the work of constructing a new system, but of restoring the old to its lost purity. They were like men who went forth to cleanse and restore some grand old cathedral, whose windows were darkened by the accumulated dust of ages, whose courts were defiled with unclean ness, and whose altars were polluted with strange • fire : and their work was to clear away the heaps of rubbish, to kindle a new and holy fire on its altar, to fill its courts with the incense of pure devotion, and to let in the unobscured glad sunlight of truth, filling and flooding its whole vast area. Such was the work which bequeathed to us the Book of Common Prayer, combining the "old paths" of the Apostolic 11 Church, and the "good way" of the Great Reformation. May we not safely challenge any portion of reformed Christendom to produce in any confession or symbol, or formulary of devotion, that which represents so faithfully the spirit of that great movement. Hear the grand and stately protest of the Articles of Religion, as for three hundred years they have borne their solemn witness against transubstantiation, purgatory, pardons, the worshipping and adoration of images and relics, the invoca- tion of saints, the denial of the cup to the laity, the use of prayers in a strange tongue, the five added and spurious sacra- ments, the requiring anything to be believed as necessary to salvation '• which is not read in Holy Scripture nor may be proved thereby," and then remember that the authors of this protest gladly laid down their lives in its defence, and sealed it with their blood. ^ We are not unmindful of the retort that may be made, that not a few, trained under all the influences of this book, and familiar with all the hallowed memories which consecrate it, have found their way back to the altars of a corrupt and idolatrous Church, even while the language of the Liturgy yet lingered on their lips. But we lay hold of the very objection to strengthen our posi- tion ! The perverted religiousness of the human heart, which hungers for a sensuous worship and another gospel, can find no- satisfaction in the simple scriptural worship of this book. A pure and Apostolic Church affords no abiding place for suth a spirit. " They went out from us because they were not of us.'' They go forth to bear witness that, whilst this Liturgy remains intact, it will prove a mighty breakwater to save the Church of Christ from ever again being devastated by the floods of supersti- tion and idolatry. III. Again, wo claim this high position for the Prayer Book, because it is committed to no human system of theology, but is broad enough and comprehensive enough to embrace men who differ widely in their interpretations and definitions of Scriptural truth. < 12 I It is indeed a peculiar glory of the Prayer Book that it is marked by the " elastic tenderness of a nurse who takes into account the varying temperaments and dispositions of children;" not by the rigid precision of an imperious task-master, who would prostrate into a procrustean bed all the varieties of human feeling and human conscience. It bears upon its very forefront Augustine's motto : " In essentials, unity ; in non-essentials, liberty ; in all things, charity." They who framed the Liturgy recognized the truth, that their work was not for a day, but for all time; not for a nation or a denomination, but for a great Catholic Church, which, in God's good time, might be co-exten- sive with the earth. . . .» '^ ; ^ Hence they were careful that its doctrinal teachings should be set forth only as the Bible sets them forth, and as they were en^bodied in ancient creeds and liturgies, purified from all the errors which were the growth of a later and darker age. They called no man master on earth. They followed not Augustine, nor Luther, nor Calvin, but Christ and his Apostles. Hence the theology of the Prayer Book is not the confession of Augsburg, nor that of the Synod of Dort, nor yet of the Westminster Assembly. It is not Lutheranism, nor Calvinism, nor Arminian- ism. But better than all, it embraces all that is precious and of vital truth in each of these systems, yet committing itself to none ; and a disciple of each of these schools may find in it that which gives " rest to his soul." Does the follower of Calvin find the doctrine of election a " doctrine full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to the . soul of a godly person ? " So teaches the Seventeenth Article of Religion of the Prayer Book. Does the Arminian hold nothing to be more vital and essential than the doctrine of the free, unlimited, unrestricted offer of salvation to all mankind ? He finds it running like a silver thread through all the texture of these beauteous garments of the Bride of Christ. Does the Wesleyan regard it as the blessed privilege of a child of God to know God as a reconciled father, who, in Christ, has put away 13 ." his sins, and given him joy and peace in believing? Where else is such a truth so fully recognized as in those seraphic strains of devotion which lift the soul into holy communion with God, and cause it to realize its acceptance in the beloved ? Does the Ijutheran place a high value upon the worthy partaking of the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood? Surely, the lofly glowing language of the Communion Office is fitted to meet the deepest longings of the soul as it feeds on Christ in the heart by faith with thanksgiving. Are not these facts evidence that the system of the Prayer Book is the system of the Bible ? This is the boast, this is the honor of our Church. Let her willingly submit to the ignorant reproach that men of every creed can find in her something to favor their views, while she shares this reproach with the Word of God. It is this fact which fits her for universality. In this fact is found her chief power. IV. Once more : In claiming for the Prayer Book that it is fitted to be a basis of unity to all Christians, we claim for it what the experience of centuries has confirmed, that it is emi- nently adapted to unfold and nourish the spiritual life of the believer. Where is the longing of the soul which it does not satisfy? Where the craving it does not appease ? Where the deepest experience of the love of God which finds not here an appropriate utterance ? Where the contrition which cannot unburden itself in its penitential pleadings ? What soul-sorrow finds not fitting expression ? What soul-rapture may not find wings for its heavenward flight in these anthems worthy to be chanted by cherubim and seraphim ? Here we advance our argument to a high position indeed. We claim that the voice of three hundred years bears testimony to the truth that the Prayer Book is eminently fitted to develop and nourish the very loftiest type of spiritual piety. We are willing to test it by its fruits in the lives of the faithful. And just as the course of a stream may be traced at a distance by the^ ■HI 14 luxuriant skirt of trees lining its banks and fed by its waters, so through all the lapse of three centuries may we trace the wind- ings of this river that makes glad the city of our God, by the trees of righteousness, the saints of lofty stature, whose roots found rich nourishment in its living fountains. The monks of the Midlle Ages spent almost a lifetime in illuminating, by curious skill of the pencil, the Missal and the Breviary; but what an illuaiinated edition of the Prayer Book would it be, could we gather around it the lives of the elect and saintly spirits who have beea nourished at its rich banquet of spiritual food. It will well repay us to walk with reverent step and admiring hearts along the far-stretching galleries of the Church's history, and pause before the portraits of men and women whose names are dear to all God's people, and who may be justly claimed as living epistles, witnessing to the power and preciousness of this book. " Come and see" is our reply to him who would depreciate the Liturgy, and tell us that its tendency is to deaden spirituality, and to make formal, lifeless Christians. " Come and see " the saints of lofty stature, the men and women of lofty holiness, the mighty wrestlers with God, the meek and lowly followers of the Lamb, wh)se names and works are now the heritage of all Christendom, and whose lives are most truly the fruits of Prayer Book nurture. To what sphere of faithful service for Christ can we turn • without meeting a cloud of witnesses to this truth ? Is it among ; those who "resisted unto blood" for the precious truth of the ■Gospel ? What venerable and saintly forms are those which pass •before us, girded for the sacrifice and chanting, " This is the day the Lord hath made; this is the way, narrow though it be, yet full of the peace of God, and leading to eternal bliss?" , Need ^ *ell you ? They arc Ridley and Latimer, Cranmer and Brae ■ ,, Rogers and Philpot and Taylor, on their way to the .stake, to swell " the noble army of martyrs !" Is it among great doctors and masters and learned theologians, \ whose writings form the stately buttresses defending and uphold- 15 ing the temple of truth ? Where shall we find names more august than that of the Church of England's great apologist, Jewel, whose piety was as profound as his learning, and of whose departure it has been beautifully said by his biographer, Walton, that "■ it was a question whether his last ejaculations or his soul did first enter Paradise?" — or the incomparable Hooker, whose meekness and heavenly-mindedness we are apt to forget amidst the bright shining of his wondrous intellect — or the myriad- minded Jeremy Taylor, or Stilliugfleet, or Chillingworth, or Barrow, colossal champions of the reformed faith. Is it among true hearted and faithful and holy pastors ? What beauteous pictures are those that live in our memories of the life of the saintly Leigh ton, of whom Burnet said, after an intimacy of more than twenty-two years, '' I never once saw him in any other temper but that in which I wished to be in the last moment of my life — of the simple minded and gentle country parson of Bemerton, whose dying request "was, ' Bead me the prayers of my mother, the Church of England ; there are no prayers like theUi ; ' " of the home and the flock of Jjeigh Bichuiond in the beauteous Isle of Wight, where the grave of the Dairyman's Daughter, a Prayer Book Christian, is a spot sacred to the heart of millions who have wept over her touching story, of the lives and labors of Tillotson and Ken, of Usher and Hall, of Simeon and Cecil, of Newton and Ven. Shall we seek among the sweet singers of the Church for* traces of its influence ? Where but ac these fountains did Cowper, and Charles Wesley, and Wordsworth, and Keble drink in inspiration ? Passing to the noble sphere of a world-embracing philanthropy whose names are enshrined so sacredly in the hearts of all good men, as tho^e two Prayer-Book Christians, one whose last request was, " Lay me quietly in my grave, place a sun-dial over fny breast, and let me be forgotten," and yet whose statue in St. Paul's Cathedral bears the name of John Howard; and the other who sleeps in Westminster Abbey by the side Pitt and Burke, le and Canning and Sheridan, his compeers, yet greater than them all — William Wilberforce. Or, rising to the highest field of holy labors, whose names shine out against the darkness of heathenism so bright as those of Marty ne, of Heber, of Selwyn, and a host like-minded, who found in this book strength and holy inspiration. By its fruits is the tree known ; and by its fruits let the Prayer Book be tested. Is it presumption, then, to claim for it a fitness to be the Prayer Book of all Protestant Christendom, to bind together in one great Christian family those now divided and discordant ? Will it be said that it is in vain to hope for, to pray for, to labor for such a result ? Nay, not so ; there is a yearning for unity, deep-seated and wide-spread, which can only come from above, and which stirs the noblest among us to heroic action ? What a sublime thought that this is the work God hath com- mitted to us, whose birthright is this heritage — to restore the long-lost unity of Protestant Christendom upon the basis of the Prayer Book ! To grasp this thought in all its fulness would of itself elevate the Church to a status never yet attained in this generation. It would heal every division, and hush every voice of strife among ourselves into silence. It would animate us to the noblest endeavors after a character becoming a position of honor and responsibility such as this. It would incite to noble deeds of piety, noble works of love, to prove to all men what mighty power for good God has entrusted to His Church. It would restrain all harsh judgment and condemnation of those whom we seek to bring into our heritage. And its voice of love would ever be to all who profess and call themselves Christians, " stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest to your souls." " Come and sit down with us at this feast of fat *' 'ngs. Come and share our inheritance. Come back under the saelter of the old roof-tree of our Father's house. Come with us and 17 we will do you good, for tlie Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." Oh ! blessed vision of the Church of the future, as it rises before uie to-day, a city at unity in itself; its strength no longer ^wasted in intestine warfare but combined against a common foe, going forth from conquering unto conquest, fair as the sun, beauteous as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners. i & A. LETTER FROM THB RIGHT REV/BISHOP JOHNS, 1). D., IN RRPLY TO A LETTER OF WITHDRAWAL, BY THE REV. J. A. LATANE. Malvern, Feb. 2d, 1874. Reverend and Dear Brother : " You might well suppose that the announcement contained in your letter would cause me both ' surprise and pain,' in which your many friends have largely shared, on hearing of your with- drawal from the Church of their deliberate choice and devoted affection . " For many years your own love for that Church, and your diligent labors in her Ministry, have coinpared favorably with those of your attached brethren of the Clergy, and secured for you the kind regards of the intelligent and pious Laity through- out the Diocese. Of this you have received many and unmistak- able proofs, which respect for your delicacy restrains me from mentioning. In all this favorable manifestation, no one rejoiced more cordially than myself I thankfully regarded you as one, on whom, in my age and infirmities, I could rely, to aid in steadying my feeble steps, and supplying my lack of service. Thia I am sure you perceived, and can in some degree understand the shock and sorrow, which vour announcement has caused. " You need not, my dear brother, apprehend any ungenerous construction o^ your motive in taking this serious step. For our brethren in Virginia, I can engage, that one and all will render 20 ;■■ ■- ; '' #. you full credit for ()bnscieutiousnoss, however decidedly they may diHallow the reasons you assign for leaving the P]piscopal Church, and regard it as a causeless separation. ^ " Your just testimony, as to the unchanged Protestant and Scriptural teaching of the Articles and OflBces of the Church, is no more than was to have been expected from one of your intelligence and candor, though it is testimony, which many persons must find difficult to reconcile with your ' withdrawal/ " Your testimony may be presented as follows : You, of course, regard the doctrines held by what you call the ' Low Church Party,' to be sound and scriptural. Now, on page thirteen you represent ' the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church, which were designed to be the standard of doctrine for the Church,* as sustaining the Low Church Party in its teaching, and as proving ' conclusively that it (the Low Church Party) holds to-day the doctrines held by the framers of the Prayer Book.' " This passage in its connection affords favorable testimony to the orthodoxy of the XXXIX Articles, and directly to the orthodoxy of the Prayer Book. '' Again, page four : ' It is true that her standards of doctrine remain unchanged, and the XIX and XXIII Articles in the Prayer Book still testify to her original Protestant stand on the question ' (the questiou of the Ministry, which carries with it the whole question about Priest, Sacrifice- and Altar.) " Once more, page 4 : 'I am satisfied that this doctrine ('that Baptism invariably effects regeneration,') was not held by the framers of the Prayer Book, iwr intended to be expressed in the Services, and therefore it is not really the doctrine of the Church.' "I do not cite these passages as dissenting from them, for I think them accurately true ; but as expressing your deliberate opinion as to the strict conformity of the teaching of the Church, in the Articles and Offices, with the Word of God as interpreted by the Heformers. " For separation from a Church, justly entitled to such testi- 21 iiiony, what reasons can be assigned ? Those alleged in your letter I cannot recite in full — nor is it necessary, being, as you say, 'just those, which have been for some years a burden and grief to many in the Church;' and it might be added, whicli have been often and clamorously urged by advei-saries without They may be thus summarily stated : *' There are in some of the Formularies provided in the Bo(»k of Common Prayer, a few, very few, words or phrases whi-.; t:. :. "if .-•^....^■M ^i.?K*'*' r'V^X ■•• .-^ '•:'■-■; ':, ■-.■■,s'n?'^ ■■••"■■■' ■'.;%'- \w EXTRACTS FROM ^ISr ADDRESS > . 'v-'. OF THK RIGHT REV. BISHOP DOANE, D. D., IN RKPERENCE TO THE SECESSION OF BISHOP CUMMINS, OF KENTUCKY. I NOW turn for a moment, by the strange law of association, which we call contrast, to speak, as I think a Bishop ought to speak, within the sphere of his direct, diocesr.n responsibility, about the revolt of the late Assistant Bishop of Kentucky, and his unjustifiable attempt to found, in America, a schismatic branch of the Church. The younger Clergy have a right to know, and the older Clergy have given me continual reason to think that they are glad to know, what their Bishop thinks about a matter, insignificant in its present position, but pregnant with fatal principles of error. And the lay people need more instruc- tion than they get, about such things, especially when we remem- ber how many there are, whom the fair beauty of the King's Daughter has attracted f jr admiration, more than her true Queen- ship of Divine Descent and Royal Marriage has won, to recognize her claim on their allegiance. I say but little about the man who has lifted his heel against the Mother, whose bread he had been eating for eight and twenty years. It would be well, I think, if none of us made mention of. his name, save only in our prayers, if perhaps this thought of his heart may be forgiven ^him. Nor do I say much of the movement itself. Its only principle is one which contradicts itself; the carrying of the Apostolic ofiice into a body that denies a continu- ous Apostolate. Having in it, at its birth, the seed of its own .J 30 death, a papal individualism that matches its protestant self-will, it cannot come to much. It has no raison d'etre at all. Men may go out into the wilderness, to see a reed set in the quaking morass of an unsteady faith, shaking with every blast of vain doctrine, or swayed by the feeblest gales of popular applause. But they will not stay there. Vagueness, negations, and instability will not hold men long. I am inclined to think that the old sequence of things in the plain of Shinar is con- tinually reproduced, — the attempt to build a great ecclesiastical structure of human devising, with bricks for stone, and slime for mortar; followed by a' breaking up of the oneness of speech >' of the old Creeds into the confused tongues of varying opinions and beliefs ; and that succeeded by the destruction, sent from God, of the half finished structure, the Babel of pride and self- will. It is the quick device of Rome, to say that this is Old Catholicism in the Episcopal Church; and the Press, ingeniously, and often intentionally ignorant, and playing with wonderful facileness into Roman hands, cries out — " A second Reinkens." There are no two things farther removed, and no two men more diametrically opposite. Reinkens has been constrained, by the well-considered, patient, deliberate action of a large body of able, intelligent, earnest men, into an Episcopate, which he fills with conspicuous and most unassuming modesty. This man, with heated haste, heads, of his own choosing, an assemblage of men " in debt, and in distress, and discontented," and rushes into violent schism. And it is to be borne in mind always, that this Church has changed no single formulary of the Faith, since the first, or the second, or the third promise of this man, to conform to her doctrine and worship. Fluctuating changes of opinion, individual practices, unauthor- ized, or at least not authorized, variations of view, looking in either direction, all these were, seven years ago, and are to-day, in the Church. But no solitary article, no single principle, no word of worship, no definition of doctrine has been touched. 31 j> lor- in ay, DO ed. They are, and the Church is, the same. Whereas, the KomnD Catholic Church has changed the Creed twice, within our memory, by separate definitions; and under penalty of excom- munication, has imposed new terms of Communion on her Bishops, Priests, and people; and added new dogmas to the Faith, which no baptismal or ordination vow pledged them to accept. So that the Old Catholics took therir first stand upon the point whence Rome had moved. With them the Church has changed, and the men seem to have changed, only, in the same way that the sun seems to us to move. With us the Church is unchanged, and the men have gone out to follow their own devisings. ]. emphasize this, because I must allude to it again, and so I pasi on to discuss with you what seem to me the princi- ples and the warning of this schism. The principle is, indulged individuaUsm. The warning is, the respomihdlty for irresponsibility . There will, undoubtedly, be various opinions in the minds of men, from their different standpoints, as to the causes which have led to this Tyrannical majorities; the indiff"erence and timidity of Bishops ; the longing for more liberality; excessive ritualism, etc. But, after all, these are only the superficial reasons ; they are not causes at all. The true cause is indulged individualism. For years the degenerate descendants of the old school in the Church that called itself exclusively, and with a savor of Pharisaism, Evan- gelical^ has been engaged in a bad thing; bitter denundations of men and measures, from whom they differed, and of which they disapproved. The more they diminished in numbers, the more they increased in venom. And pamphlets have reeked, and platforms have rung, with the gall of their bitterness. This was bad enough. But bad things encouraged, always grow to worse. And the next phase of this evil speaking, after it had spread its seed of suspicion and false witness, ivas an attack upon the Church, " her imperfect reformation," and upon the Book of Common Prayer, " its germs of Romanism." And in this atmos- phere, fatal to honest judging, clear seeing, or true loving, having 32 ...(. I i 1 nothing in it of theology but the odium; men have steeped themselves, till some people have come really to believe it true, not only that many Bishops, Priests, and laymen in the Church are, in disguise or by avowal, Romanists ; but that the Church and the Book of Common Prayer, and really, as the Bishop of Delaware has suggested in his admirable letter, the Bible, in certain expressions, are all Romish, at least, by implication. And then comes the cry of conscience^ so easily mistaken for self-will. What can such men do ? The Bible will not retrans- late itself into their language. The Prayer Book will not dilute itself into denials or double meanings. The Church will not give up her ancient formularies. They must leave her, and either join the sect that suits them, or make a new one, which for the time will suit them, while they compose it themselves and control its views. A very large proportion of those who have helped to swell this cry stand back aghast at the results of what they have assisted in bringing about, and excuse the separatists on the ground of their conscientious scruples, and ask for change on account of their own conscientious scruples, and to bring their wanderers home N0W3 this is one side of the case ; and it is the side whose seed has bloomed out into noxious flower, and borne its unripe fruit. But there is another side of the danger, which I desire to state as strongly, yet undeveloped into its full results. Another set of men, with the same savor of " I am holier than thou,'' have arrogated to themselves the exclusive title of Catholic. They are as far removed from the mighty and spiritual intellect of Pusey, or the sweet and holy learning of Keble, as the modern radical from the old evangelical. And they too have indulged in this sort of thing, calling bad names, attributing evil motives, denouncing, with intense bitterness, all who differ from them. They have not, it is true, attacked the Book of Common Prayer ; but the Reformation they condemn entirely, chiefly bj the illogi- cal absurdity of vilifying the characters of its leading men. And the Protestantism of the Church, not a good, distinctive title, I \ W' 33 1 state set \; have hey t of dern Iged ives, hem. lyerj llogi- And ble, I graut, but au essential, distinctive feature of the Church in every age, they despise and denounce in most unmeasured terms. And, living in this atmosphere, they come to be infected with it until their consciences become troublesome, and every little matter of taste becomes a conscience, and every personal opinion gets into their creed, generally as its first article ; and what can they do ? Tlicy must leave the Church, and join the greatest schism of history, — the Roman Communion ] or, remaining in the Church, they must keep up an irritating resistance to all authority of Rubric, or of Bishop, or of Canon, with which they disagree; and provoke, with their violent unwisdom, extreme ) positions in the other direction. And with them the cry is : " What can we do ? " Their conscience is the trouble with them, too. And if they go to Rome, " they could not help it." In both these instances, the trouble is that which the prophet denounced in the Israelites of old. Having gone to enquire of (xod with the idols of their wilful opinions in their hearts, God has answered them according to their idols j and they have mis- taken the echo of their own wishes, flung back from the Divine silence, for the voice of God. It seems to me, that one and the sumo evil underlies both these cases — indulged individualism. It grows out of mistaken regard for the Protestant bodies about us, on the one hand ; which fraternizes with them, occupies their pulpits, and calls it an exchange, confounds their piety, which is undoubted, with their theology, which is imperfect, and their authority, which is not ; until the individual is always consider- ing their feelings, conciliating their prejudices, and consulting their views. Or it grows out of an intense tenderness for Rome, which imports her phraseology, imitates her ceremonies, and uses her books of devotion. Under an impression that they are longing and striving for unity, such men are, really, in the one case, proposing an amalgamation with the incoherent antagonisms of discordant sects j or, in the other ease, cultivating a tendency to unite with the communion, which is the mistress of schism. Tlie question, so far as it applies to men still in the Church, is 34 not of the responsibility for the end of all this, but of the respon- sibility for the heginning of it. It is easier to see the end from ^ the beginning, in morals. And in the department of morals, the illustration furnishes itself readilij. Habits of wrong ; indulged in, in the drunkard, the gambler, the speculator, weaken the moral sense until harmless tastes become sins, and sins become a habit, a disease ; and, in time, all self-control gone, they cannot help it. In a sense they become irresponsible ; but the time was, in each separate life, when he was not irrespon- sible ; or, if he was, somebody was not. There was a time when he was responsible ; and, therefore, he is responsible, or, if he inherited the disease, his father is responsible, /or hh irre^ponu- hillty. And it is just here that the warning seems to me to apply, to our belief, for which we are just as much accountable as for our life ; for our faith, as for our morals and our duty. If a man allows his religion to consist in a hatred of Rome, or in a contempt for Protestantism; if a man of sheer self-will, and taste, and liking, chooses to dally, and play, and trifle with separatists from the authority, or corrupters of the faith of the Church, whose sworn Minister or member he is, he may get to the point where he cannot help going to Rome, or founding n schism, or joining a sect. Rut the time was when he could help it, and, therefore, he is responsible, or those whose influence has moulded him, are, with him, responsible for his irresponsibiliti/. It is not our business to condemn the past, or to curse those who are gone. Anathema means, a thing laid up in store. The Church adds to it, always, Marantha, — the Lord cometh. Rut learning from