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 Lay, Henry C. 1823-1885. 
 
 The Church in the nation 
 

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Iltt ^islwir iadaorfe JwtuwiS, J88S. 
 
 THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 
 
 PURE AND APOSTOLICAL 
 GOD'S AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE 
 
 HENRY c'^LAY, D.D., LLD. 
 
 BISHOP OF EASTON. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 
 1885 
 
COPYKIGHT, 
 
 1885, 
 
 BY E. P. DDTTON & CO. 
 
 PRESS OP J. J. LITTLE «s CO., 
 NOS. lO TO 20 ASTOR FLACE, NEW YORK, 
 
SOCI^ GERMANS PER ANNOS XXXVIII. 
 
 IN REBUS ADJDVANTI, 
 
 Operisque Unjusoe in Labors Limae Se Diligenter Exercenti, 
 
 LIBRUM DEDICAVIT 
 
 CONJUX AMANS. 
 
The Fourth Lecture contained in this volume was the 
 last public utterance of the Bishop of Easton. During 
 the night after its delivery he was prostrated by a severe 
 attack of illness. He never recovered his health, and, 
 after just six months of great weakness and suffering, pa- 
 tiently and courageously endured, he entered into rest. 
 
 With physical strength unequal to the task, and with 
 distrust in his own learning and powers of expression, 
 he yet felt constrained to accept an invitation, more than 
 once offered, to address men, for whom especially he 
 felt he had a message, on a subject very near his heart. 
 
 This book contains the guiding principles of his life. 
 Whatever of success in the ministry was his, he believed 
 was all owing to his loyalty to that true branch of the 
 Church Catholic, to which in ordination he had pledged 
 obedience. His feelings toward this National Church 
 were those not only of love and veneration, but also of 
 admiration and utmost confidence. In those dark hours 
 of watching on the very brink of the grave, his thoughts 
 were always turned to the glorious opportunities vouch- 
 safed to the Grand Old Mother Church, if her sons 
 would but see and do their duty. In her service he 
 found his greatest joy ; and Life, without work for her, 
 possessed no charms for him. 
 
 That this book might be read by many was his earn- 
 est hope ; that it might do somewhat toward the fur- 
 therance of Christ's Kingdom was his devout and fer- 
 vent prayer. 
 
 G. W. L. 
 
 Easton. 
 The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, 
 Anno Domini 1885. 
 
777^ BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1880, George A. Jarvis, 
 of Brooklyn, N. Y., moved by his sense of the great 
 good which might thereby accrue to the cause of 
 Christ and to the Church, of which he was an ever 
 grateful member, gave to the General Theological Sem- 
 inary of the Protestant Episcopal Church certain securi- 
 ties exceeding in value eleven thousand dollars for the 
 foundation and maintenance of a Lectureship in said 
 Seminar)^ Out of love to a former Pastor and endur- 
 ring friend, the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Henry Paddock, 
 D. D., Bishop of Massachusetts, he named his Foun- 
 dation "The Bishop Paddock Lectureship," 
 
 The deed of trust declares that : 
 
 " The subjects of the Lectures shall be such as appertain to 
 the defence of the religion of Jesus Chkist, as revealed in the 
 Holy Bible 2^n<l illustrated in the Book of Cormnon Frayer against 
 the varying errors of the day, whether materialistic, rationalis- 
 tic, or professedly religious, and also to its defence and confirm- 
 ation in respect of such central truths as the Trinity, the At- 
 onemetit, Justification, and the Inspiration of the Word of God, 
 and of such central facts as the Churches Divine Order and Sac- 
 rameftts, her historical Reformation and her rights and powers as 
 a pure and National Church. And other subjects may be chosen 
 if unanimously approved by the Board of Appointment as being 
 both timely and also within the true intent of this Lectureship." 
 
The Bishop Paddock Lectures. 
 
 Under the appointment of the Board created by the 
 Trust, viz., the Dean of the General Theological Semi- 
 nary and the Bishops respectively of Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, and Long Island, the Rt. Rev. Henry 
 C. Lay, D. D., LL.D., Bishop of Easton, delivered 
 the Lectures for the year 1885, contained in this 
 volume. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 The True Ideal of the Church. 
 
 PACK 
 
 1. The subject of the Lectures defined 17 
 
 2. A Church with prescriptive authority offensive to the 
 uhra-Protestant and the pseudo-CathoUc mind 18 
 
 3. Pertinency of the general subject to theological students. 21 
 
 4. The Divine ideal of the Church deserves first to be con- 
 sidered. The search for the Ideal not unpractical or 
 illusive 23 
 
 5. The Church Ideal as recognized in the Popular Relig- 
 ion of our age and country. It lacks the broad foun- 
 dations of the doctrines of the Incarnation and the 
 mission of the Comforter in their just proportions. 
 This defect influences the conception of organism, 
 
 bodily worship and sacraments 25 
 
 These errors do not imply wilful deviations from the 
 
 truth. 
 
 29 
 
 A general survey of historical Christianity exhibits no 
 trace of Denominationalism, but a visible Church, and 
 
 a Kingdom of Covenant 30 
 
 Christ, as Pilate certified, is a King, with territory, 
 subjects, and citizens born thereinto : King by inherit- 
 ance, by conquest, by voluntary concession of subjects. 32 
 The Church of the Acts an kKuXiidia of such as bear 
 
 a signature. 36 
 
 Christ, a Living King, ruling the Church by interme- 
 diary agencies 38 
 
 The Church a Covenant Kingdom — Two contracting 
 parties: stipulations on both sides. Signatures, Seals 
 and Forfeitures all prescribed 41 
 
 ix 
 
Contents. 
 
 12. The Covenant, brief at first, capable of indefinite ex- 
 pansion 43 
 
 13. The Church a " true native extract" of Christ's own 
 body, and involving the mystery of the Incarnation. 
 The line between the natural and the supernatural in 
 sacraments no more to be drawn, than an absolute 
 severance can be made between the two natures in the 
 One Person of our Lord 44 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The Particular or National Church. 
 
 1. The Truth revealed, in need of an mstrument for its con- 
 servation and perpetuation 51 
 
 2. The organization in the great XL. days. The Church 
 of the Acts one in Doctrine, Fellowship, Sacrament, 
 and Worship 53 
 
 3. Objections raised. Was there no division in the Apos- 
 
 tolic Church ? 54 
 
 4. The Church as admini'jtered by St. Paul, Timothy and 
 Titus. The Seven Churches of Asia prove Diocesan 
 Episcopacy as early as the year 96 A. D 56 
 
 5. Mention made of the Congregational theory, and also 
 of the Papal. Bishop Andre wes on " Holy Roman 
 Catholic." 58 
 
 6. The Church of the Nicene period, one, yet diverse. In- 
 timation of such distribution of work in the Feeding of 
 
 the 5000 63 
 
 7. Canons of Nicsea and ('onstantinople recognizing 
 adaptation of Church economies to civil facts. Church 
 and State necessarily considerate of each other 64 
 
 8. Constitution of Church into Parishes, Dioceses, Pro- 
 vinces 68 
 
 9. Our Lord's use of eOvoi suggestive. — Use of these re- 
 flections 71 
 
 10. National Church autonomous. Its rights not for- 
 feited by temporary submission to unlawful authority. 73 
 
 11. Effort of the Gallican Church to assert her autonomy 
 Bull, Unam Sanctam, accepted for four centuries. — 
 Declaratio of 1682 and its propositions. Bossuet's 
 Defensio. Chmxh assaulted by National Convention, 
 
Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1789. Resistance of clergy. Non-juring Bishops 
 refugees in England and their entertainment. The 
 Empire. Napoleon proposes to re-construct the 
 Church. The Pope deprives the non-jurors of their sees. 75 
 
 12. Vatican Council. As Pius VII. deprived Bishops, Pius 
 IX. suppresses or absorbs the episcopate itself. As- 
 saults of the State at this present time on the Church's 
 independence 81 
 
 13 Objection answered that National Churches are a failure. 
 Illustration of Jewish Church. National Churches to- 
 day far from being defunct 83 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 A Church in The United States, National and Pure. 
 
 1. There is in the United States a Church of prescriptive 
 right. Two questions involved. Legitimacy and Purity 89 
 
 2. Legitimacy: the simplicity of the argument in the way 
 of its acceptance. Historically. The Church grew 
 out of the Church of England. The continuity affirmed 
 by the State of Maryland, and by General Convention 
 
 of 1814 91 
 
 3. Purity, not less than Catholicity, a note of the Church.. 97 
 Purity is not freedom from infirmity, but substantial 
 integrity. The Church is pure in that she has kept 
 the Faith : has observed the distinction between Faith 
 and Doctrine. Issue here with Rome. Purity of the 
 Church in teaching doctrine intelligibly, symmetrically 
 and in its spintualness 98 
 
 4. Objections to claim of Legitimacy, such as the Pope 
 the Patriarch of the West. Canonical irregularities in 
 Anglican Orders. American Church self-made 108 
 
 5. The value of all such particular objections considered, no 
 
 6. Moral Certainty, and its regard to the circumstances of 
 the case. Burnett's common-sense view. Objection of 
 irregularities fatal to Papal Succession no 
 
 7. Charitable construction a rule of law. Anglican and 
 American Orders meet all reasonable requirements.. .. 116 
 
 8. Purity objected to by reason of bracket in the Creed. 
 Acknowledged to be a mistake, but Church not ob- 
 noxious to charge of Apollinarianism 118 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 . PAGE 
 
 9. Objection by reason of name, Protestant Episcopal. 
 Origin of the name. Bishop Meade's view of the 
 subject 119 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Church s Duty to Her own Children and Her own 
 People. 
 
 1. Principle of authority now be to applied to specific 
 duties 129 
 
 2. The Church owes a duty to the Nation. She is author- 
 ized and furnished to be its religious guardian 130 
 
 3. The sphere of her activities co extensive with the 
 nation. Illustration drawn from Parish arrangements 
 in Maryland. Hard thinking as well as hard work a 
 condition of success. In what sense the Reformation 
 
 is not a finality 136 
 
 4. The Church should demand that the State respect her 
 rights and liberties. Illustration in the matter of Di- 
 vorce. The Church's regulations 00 that subject. . .. 141 
 
 5. The Church's duty to her own children. To respect 
 their manhood. Admission to the Holy Communion, 
 without unnecessary obstruction, the right of laymen. 
 John luglesant quoted 144 
 
 6. Duty to her children requires that the Church enforce 
 discipline Reasons why the subject is imperfectly 
 apprehended. Spiritual Discipline proceeds from the 
 Bishop. Pastoral influence preferable to official disci- 
 pline. Ordinary ; its meaning in the law books. Ex- 
 plained by the Bishop of Oxford 148 
 
 7. The Church needs a rod in reserve, as well as the 
 spirit of meekness. Our Disciplinary System has yet to 
 be formulated and adjusted. The Church must seek 
 
 to command respect as well as to inspire affection 158 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The Church's Duty to a divided Christendom. 
 
 1. Heavenly Charity and Wisdom from above, twin-sis- 
 ters. Both to be observed in dealing with Divisions.. . 163 
 
Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2. Oiir attitude towards the Roman Churches. The res 
 gesta show that we never renounced communion with 
 them. Papal Supremacy renounced in 1535. No rival 
 altars erected for thirty-five years. Severance effected 
 in 1569, by the bull excommunicating and anathema- 
 tizing Elizabeth and her subjects. Complaint of Jewell. 
 Eirenicon of Pusey 164 
 
 3. The Bishops of this Church in 1880 asserted their rights 
 to intervene in Roman countries. On two grounds, viz.: 
 the wrong done to the Faith and to the independence 
 
 of the Episcopate. 168 
 
 4. Illustration of the practical difficulties of M. Loyson. 
 Intrusion sometimes a duty. Prudence and com-tesy to 
 be used. Our failure in Mexico should not dishearten, 
 but lead us to amend mistakes 170 
 
 5. The multiplicity of " orthodox churches." Denomina- 
 tionalism not deliberately intended. Division origin- 
 ally a lamented necessity. It is by a drift that men 
 have come to prefer it to unity. Mitigations of a cen- 
 sorious judgment 176 
 
 6. Divergencies between the old and the new religion. 
 The exclusively subjective view of the Christian man 
 and consequent depreciation of his corporate life in the 
 mediatorial kingdom. The doctrine of the revival, and 
 of sanctification attained by act of faith rather than 
 by self-discipline. The Church suspected of indifference 
 
 to experimental piety 183 
 
 7. Yet many minds are thinking about unity. The eco- 
 nomical question. The request for comprehension, a 
 thing possible in the future . . 188 
 
 8. This a part of the large problem, how to comprehend in 
 one Church, various races and languages and shades 
 of opinion. The case of the Negro race, an illustration 
 of the whole. Legislation attempted and defeated in 
 
 1883.... 190 
 
 9. Suggestion that it may be solved by making the race, 
 nationality, or denomination, a Guild, or Conference of 
 the Diocese, with a Suffragan over it ; all under the 
 Episcopal and Diocesan government : and by a dis- 
 cretion in things liturgical, and in qualification for 
 Orders 193 
 
Contents. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Church's claim upo?i the Loyal Service of 
 Her Clergy. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Our Lord's consent to subordination of office, an exam- 
 ple to all who inherit a Divine commission 197 
 
 2. The Church's claim t the loyal service of her clergy. 
 The future of the American Church dependent on the 
 fealty of her Ministry 198 
 
 3. The field of the Church, the world. That world parcel- 
 led out among particular Churches. Each such Church 
 responsible for its own allotment, and for the work done 
 therein by its representatives I99 
 
 4. The authority of the body delegated to individual min- 
 isters. Orders no man's right, but a privilege con- 
 ceded : and that with the precautions of examination, 
 publicity, challenge, and specific pledges to do certain 
 things in a certain way . 200 
 
 5. Qbjections stated 203 
 
 6. The objection considered that the Minister is not a 
 machine In grace as in nature, results are attained 
 by composition of forces. In religious ministrations, 
 subordination and individuality restrain, but do not 
 destroy each other 204 
 
 7. Objection. We are Priests of the Catholic Church, 
 and so entitled to correct and supplement the teaching 
 of the local body. This to be considered before taking 
 Orders. Enquiry into supposed omissions and sup- 
 pressions, viz. Auricular Confession. Eucharistic Ador- 
 ation. Solitary Celebration, and Prayers for the Dead. 208 
 
 8. Objection that the pretence of authority is the claim of 
 Infallibility. Authority in things scientific, social and 
 civil, although confessedly fallible, is acknowledged 
 and revered. The Church's statement of authority not 
 extravagant 2l8 
 
 9. Objection that the Prayer Book is too small to be a 
 complete directory, and too large to be binding in its 
 syllables. Room for discretion. To be precise is to be 
 honest 221 
 
 10. Disloyalty exemplified in the concrete 225 
 
 11. Conclusion. The Clergy, as they keep themselves pure, 
 
 are also to keep the official conscience clean 230 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 The True Ideal of the Church. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE TRUE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." — Eph. ii. 20. 
 
 npHE Founder of these Lectures has prescribed 
 
 -*- as the subject of them, " The Defence of 
 
 the ReHgion of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the 
 
 Holy Scriptures and illustrated in the Book of 
 
 Common Prayer against the varying errors of 
 
 the day," and also its defence and confirmation 
 
 in respect of certain " Central Truths " and 
 
 " Central Facts " set forth in the Deed of Trust. 
 
 Among these Central Facts are specified : 
 
 "The Church's Divine Order and Sacraments; 
 
 Her Historical Reformation; and Her Rights and 
 
 Powers as a Pure and National Church." 
 
 It is with the last of these that we propose to 
 deal; and inasmuch as Duties and Responsibilities 
 are the correlatives of Rights and Powers, we 
 may be permitted to enlarge the statement and 
 to speak of The Pure and National Church, 
 2 17 
 
TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 Her Rights and Powers, Her Duties and 
 Responsibilities. 
 
 That there is in the land a Church whose juris- 
 diction is co-cxtensive with the Nationahty, that 
 her Purity in Doctrine and Order is such as to 
 deserve our confidence, that she has Rights and 
 Powers which are entitled to recognition, that 
 she has Duties which may not be devolved on 
 others, and Responsibilities which she must coura- 
 geously accept, — these are the theses which we 
 seek to defend. Or to use a shorter title, Law, 
 Liberty, and Loyalty in a Pure and Na- 
 tional Church, sum up the matters which I 
 come to lay before you. 
 
 n. In a country which has barely begun to 
 have a religious history, the affirmation of a Na- 
 tional Church with prescriptive Rights runs 
 counter to our habits of thought. Moreover the 
 ultra- Protestant and the pseudo-Catholic mind, 
 have agreed together to minimize to the very ut- 
 most the right of any local ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tion to meddle with our doctrine, our morals, or 
 our devotions. In the view of many the function 
 of the Church is to advise, rather than to teach. 
 Her utterances are worth just so many times the 
 utterance of one of the units whereof she is made 
 
The Tnic Ideal of the Chmrh. 19 
 
 up. Her authority is the aggregate wisdom of 
 the age in which she lives. 
 
 Thus, in the opinion of one, the individual is his 
 own authority. He receives the truth of God as 
 he reads it in nature or in The Book. The word 
 Must in the mouth of the Church is offensive to 
 him. He looks for a Church of the Future, held 
 together by the law of love, without dogmas or 
 positive institutions. 
 
 In the view of another, no one ecclesiastical 
 corporation within restricted limits, utters the 
 Catholic voice with binding authority. He looks 
 behind the living utterance of a present guide, 
 and sees the teaching of Prophets and Doctors, 
 in the haze which Newman once threw over it 
 as a vast system, " not to be comprised in a few 
 sentences, not to be embodied in one code or 
 treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, 
 pervading the Church like an atmosphere, irregu- 
 lar in its shape from its very profusion and ex- 
 uberance : at times separable only in idea from 
 Episcopal tradition, yet at times melting away 
 into legend and fable ; partly written, partly 
 unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the 
 supplement of Scripture ; partly preserved in 
 intellectual expressions, partly latent in the 
 
The Church in the Nation. 
 
 spirit and temper of Christians : poured to and 
 fro in closets and upon the housetops, in Utur- 
 gies, in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popu- 
 lar prejudices, in local customs.^ " 
 
 There is to some minds a fascination in the 
 haziness of that description. 
 
 It is held by some that the young Priest, with- 
 out guidance, supervision or responsibility to any 
 present authority, may out of these scattered 
 members, build up his body of divinity. Un- 
 regulated private judgment, whether it call itself 
 Evangelical or Catholic, is destructive of unity. 
 Conformity to an abstract Christianity, or to 
 an abstract Catholicity, is meaningless, so far 
 as concerns co-ordinated and efficient work for 
 God. They both come to the same thing. 
 They mean irresponsibility, individualism, and 
 license without limit. 
 
 It is a grave question, and intensely practical 
 to each several Christian soul: Has my Lord 
 confided me for guidance to any visible author- 
 ity? Has the Father in Heaven provided for me 
 an earthly mother, very far, alas ! from being as 
 pure and infallible as Himself, but for all that, 
 very wise and very loving, whom I may venerate 
 
 ' Development of Christian Doctrine, ch. ii. sec. 2. 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 
 
 21 
 
 as my own proper guardian, whom I may trust 
 with confidence and love with enthusiasm ? 
 
 III. These lectures are delivered under the 
 auspices of the General Theological Seminary. 
 Hence the pertinency of my theme. To fight 
 well, it becomes you to define your allegiance, 
 and that, in the concrete as well as in the abstract. 
 I mean the allegiance due to the Church, Dioce- 
 san and National, as well as to the Church Catho- 
 lic. There are army corps as well as armies, 
 regimental flags as well as national banners. 
 The good soldier adds to his patriotism the esprit 
 du eorps. He is to be pitied, who ventures into 
 the fray, ignorant or dubious of an immediate 
 authority, whose marching orders he is bound to 
 obey. Alas ! for him, whose beloved is to him 
 no more than another man's beloved, who re- 
 cognizes no special matronly dignity and purity, 
 in her who calls him son. Stinted must be the 
 service of him, who fails to realize that the Church 
 is, of right, the Church of the nation, and that in 
 her behalf, he is a debtor to all within the nation's 
 limits, accessible to him and content to accept his 
 ministrations. 
 
 I find in this task a labor of love, and in per- 
 forming it, I seem to be discharging a debt of 
 
22 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 gratitude. For I can truly say, after checkered 
 experience, that the ministry is a pleasant work. 
 For the content I have found in it, and for any 
 help and comfort I may ever have given to fel- 
 low-sinners and fellow-sufferers, I am chiefly in- 
 debted to the pains- taking of a Bishop, who was 
 thoroughly persuaded that he was a pastor of 
 pastors, who made of each young clergyman 
 personally, a study and a care. 
 
 Bishop Cobbs did not teach ecclesiastical op- 
 timism, or encourage ecclesiastical insolence. 
 To faults of practice and deficiencies of adminis- 
 tration in the Church he was keenly alive. 
 To the zeal of the denominations, and the 
 saintliness of many of their members he paid all 
 due tribute. But he persuaded us, that this 
 Church that gives us orders, is a Pure Church, a 
 National Church, unique among religious bod- 
 ies, in prestige and authority. 
 
 He admonished us that she has not been dere- 
 lict to the doctrine and traditions of the Catholic 
 body whereof she is a member : and that in all 
 that touches experimental religion, in all that con- 
 cerns the life of God in the soul of man, its ori- 
 gin, its development, its evidences and results, 
 no particular Church, from the earliest days, has 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 23 
 
 ever spoken with more wisdom, more unction, 
 more fidelity to her instructions. Without such 
 confidence, I trust not a Wind and unreasoning 
 confidence, the burden of the ministry had been 
 intolerable. 
 
 Sufficient indeed are the difficulties, which may 
 not be avoided : but if one is uncertain of the 
 rock on which he stands, of the shield which 
 guards his breast, of the sword with which he 
 smites or of the authority from which his orders 
 emanate, little wonder is it, if he faint in the day 
 of adversity. 
 
 God grant that I may find arguments and 
 words to fortify you in a reasonable and yet an 
 enthusiastic devotion to the Church which de- 
 mands your affections and your allegiance as her 
 rightful due ! 
 
 IV. In entering upon this duty, it seems requi- 
 site to dwell upon that which underlies all such 
 discussion, the just conception of the Catholic 
 Church of Christ. Out of this must grow our esti- 
 mate of the Particular or National Church. Our 
 text tells us of the Church as an edifice, with 
 apostles and prophets for a foundation, Jesus 
 Christ himself being the corner-stone, our sepa- 
 rate selves as living stones builded into the one 
 
24 The Clnirch in the Natioii. 
 
 harmonious whole, and all intended to be an ha- 
 bitation of God, through His Spirit. 
 
 We may be told that the search for the ideal 
 is illusory and unpractical. 
 
 Men disdain the realities of opportunity and 
 privilege, because they find in them an imperfect 
 realization of the ideal. The divine workman has 
 consented to fetter Himself by such conditions as 
 limit the earth-born poet or artist. His utter- 
 ances, in themselves essential truth, must reach 
 our ears through the medium of language; among 
 the most magnificent of our endowments, but by 
 no means a perfect vehicle of thought. 
 
 The City of God, as the Great Architect has 
 planned it, lieth four-square ; and the length and 
 the breadth and the height of it are equal : nor 
 shall that ideal fail to be realized. But by rea- 
 son of the rigidity of material and the inadequacy 
 of His journeymen, we see in this present time 
 many a wall outside of alignment, many a de- 
 fect of proportion, many an accretion marring the 
 graciousness of the contour. 
 
 It is by reference to an ideal that we deter- 
 mine our standard of spiritual excellence. 
 
 To be perfect as God is perfect, to possess that 
 mind which is in Christ Jesus, is our habitual as- 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 25 
 
 piration. We do not consent to dismiss from 
 our thought as a dream and a delusion, the ideal 
 of saintliness because the realization falls short of 
 the mark. 
 
 In the visible Church, as in the personal relig- 
 ious life, it is by recurrence to the pattern showed 
 in the mount, that we must save ourselves from 
 progressive deterioration. 
 
 V. Now there is a Church Ideal which differs 
 widely from the true. It is claimed, and with 
 reason, by orthodox Christians around us, that 
 amid their innumerable discrepancies, there is a 
 substantial agreement among themselves, evi- 
 denced by the fact that they work together har- 
 moniously in revival services, in Christian as- 
 sociations, and in Bible and Tract Societies. It is 
 said, and I think truly said, that there is in the 
 United States, an average Popular Religion, al- 
 most identical in its teaching as to the subjective 
 element in religion, however those who hold it 
 have built up partition walls, easily scaled when 
 zeal and love are awakened. 
 
 This Church Ideal, as commonly accepted, is 
 very familiar to the missionaries of the Church, 
 and the rural pastors whose journeys bring them 
 into contact with the multitude. Occasion often 
 
26 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 causes them to sit down by the fireside of stran- 
 gers not of our communion, accepting a hospital- 
 ity which, to the praise of our people be it spoken, 
 seldom fails to welcome heartily any man of God 
 who asks a lodging. The form of the welcome is 
 almost stereotyped. The host is not of your 
 church ; but that makes no manner of difference; 
 that which suits one man does not suit another. 
 He loves all the churches : there is good in all, 
 and there are good people in all : and they all 
 offer different roads to the same destination. 
 
 When we engage in conversation with some 
 representative man of sufficient intelligence, it 
 soon appears that he is heartily at one with the 
 CathoHc Creed in some of its articles, such as 
 affirm a Father-God, a Saviour dying for men, 
 Forgiveness to be had for sin, and the Future 
 Life of glory. Of the Personality of the Holy 
 Ghost, he has never thought seriously. He 
 conceives of Him as an influence. The Holy 
 Catholic Church is meaningless to him, or even, 
 as he thinks, a dangerous phrase. Of the 
 Communion of Saints, he can give no intelligible 
 account. 
 
 He uses the word Church much as fashionable 
 people use the word Society, to describe those 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 27 
 
 with whom they are on famiHar terms. It is 
 a comprehensive word, including the great mul- 
 titude of people who love the Lord Jesus and are 
 seeking the Kingdom. It does not imply any 
 organic union. The Church is the aggregate of 
 faithful men, and " Churches " are associations, 
 promotive of individual piety, and of united 
 action, none of them claiming any paramount 
 right of jurisdiction over the souls of men, but 
 each one relying for acceptance upon its scriptural 
 doctrines, its efficient arrangements, its spiritual 
 fervor. I do not say that any article of the 
 Creed, except perhaps the Descent into Hell, 
 is distinctly repudiated, but the doctrines of the 
 Incarnation, the Paraclete, the Church, have 
 been dwarfed of their just proportions, in the 
 accepted schemes of divinity. 
 
 One grieves to say it, but the fact often stares 
 us in the face : there are multitudes of good, 
 prayerful people in the land, who are at last, 
 unconscious Sabellians and Apollinarians. 
 
 Now the Church, in its true ideal, grows out 
 of the Incarnation and the Mission of the Com- 
 forter. Explain the Church away, let it be no lon- 
 ger the visible body of an invisible Head, united 
 to Him by the joints and bands of a veritable 
 
28 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 humanity, a meeting place, where things spiritual 
 and things material so interpenetrate, that while 
 we may discriminate, we cannot sever them : 
 and little wonder is it, that men forget that our 
 Lord was perfect man, of a reasonable soul and 
 human flesh subsisting : little wonder that they 
 forget the reverence due to a redeemed body, 
 the excellence of bodily acts of worship, the 
 nearness to us of souls at rest in Paradise, and 
 the blessedness of the expectation that we and 
 they, alike, shall have one common birthday into 
 the perfected joy, when our Lord shall come 
 again. 
 
 Let the Church become vague and unreal 
 to the thought, and the Holy Ghost is wronged 
 of that domain, to which He was sent from the 
 Father and the Son at Pentecost, dwelling there- 
 in as in a Palace, and thence, ministering gifts to 
 one and to another, according to His sovereign 
 will and pleasure. No wonder that in the thought 
 of many, " Holy Spirit " is no more than a 
 synonym for "the grace of God." 
 
 Nor are other consequences wanting. If the 
 Church is unreal, then are the Sacraments un- 
 realities, in which grace is no longer " exhibited 
 and conferred." I need barely allude to the dis- 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 29 
 
 placement in the popular system of the Lord's 
 Supper from its proper eminence. I will not 
 display at length the painful statistics which show 
 the disuse of Baptism. Suffice it to say, that 
 official reports from congregations where pro- 
 vision is made for baptizing infants, often show 
 that in the year not more than one child has 
 been baptized in the families represented by a 
 hundred communicants. 
 
 VI. I have it not in my heart to speak other- 
 wise than kindly and respectfully of the multi- 
 tudes who adhere to this popular religion. I 
 cannot divest myself of the impression, that it is 
 no compromise of principle to introduce a mea- 
 sure of modesty and courtesy into our criticism 
 of systems, whose adherents largely outnumber 
 us. I have learned long since, that if among 
 them some great truths are suppressed, saving 
 truth is earnestly preached and zealously pro- 
 mulgated. I cannot, if I were so disposed, shut 
 my eyes to the magnificence of their undertak- 
 ings, to the ubiquity of their enterprise, to the 
 wisdom of their administrative policies, to the 
 saintly character of many of their heroes. I am 
 far from imputing to them reckless division of 
 the Body of Christ or conscious withholding of 
 
30 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 God's holy truth. As a rule, they are doing the 
 best they know, in a state of things into which 
 they were born, and which they did not create, 
 following the purest patterns of doctrine and 
 practice familiar to them. If we may not win 
 them, we can largely influence them, and this is 
 no small gain. It is for this reason I urge, that 
 the true Ideal of the Church, now generally dis- 
 carded, should be distinctly asserted and unfalter- 
 ingly maintained. 
 
 It is not difficult to persuade one's self that 
 whatever is, is right. Men who have opened 
 their eyes upon an ecclesiastical chaos, and who 
 from childhood have learned at the feet of their 
 wisest and best, that it is God's will it should be 
 so, learn to reconcile themselves to an ideal of 
 Christianity, as a conglomerate of religious asso- 
 ciations, each standing on a platform of its own 
 construction. 
 
 VII. But if one emancipates himself from the 
 limitations of his country and his time, if from a 
 standpoint far enough removed from the dis- 
 tractions of his immediate atmosphere to allow 
 the panorama of history to unfold before him, he 
 casts a rapid glance over all the countries and 
 all the lands, he sees the Church otherwise than 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 31 
 
 as men discern it now. He beholds a something 
 visible and real: an organic body with numerous 
 members, harmoniously articulated together. It 
 stands out above the plane of human affairs, as 
 boldly as rises the Pyramid above the sands of 
 Egypt. No more than that enormous construc- 
 tion, can this fact in history be explained away. 
 It stands before our eyes, as the most real and 
 the most enduring of all social organisms ; not 
 an aggregate of units, but a Corporation with a 
 charter, with the power of self-perpetuation, with 
 organic laws, with rulers and subjects, and with 
 legislative powers, again and again exercised, to 
 meet the exigencies of time and circumstances. 
 If this conception of God's plan for perpetuat- 
 ing and extending his religion, be a delusion, if 
 the leaves of the Gospel, adequate, when rightly 
 applied, to the healing of the nations, were con- 
 signed to no visible witness and keeper,but left in- 
 stead to be dispensed by individuals and volun- 
 tary associations : if, in a word, denominational- 
 ism, as we know it, is the normal method ordain- 
 ed of God, and approved of God to these ends, 
 we have a right to throw the burden of proof on 
 those who contradict the unbroken testimony of 
 the ages. 
 
32 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 The impromptu utterances of experience and 
 conviction are sometimes more forcible than the 
 definition coldly elaborated. 
 
 While I was considering how to express the 
 divine ideal of the Church, a brother in the Epis- 
 copate suggested, as something most needful for 
 the clergy to know well, and for the people to 
 know now, that " CHRISTIANITY is A Kingdom 
 UNDER A King, both living realities to- 
 day: THE FORMER NOT AN ABSTRACTION, 
 
 but a real thing, the latter not a 
 dead Saviour, but a living Lord; and 
 Christianity, not only a Kingdom, but 
 A Covenant Kingdom with all which 
 
 THAT involves." 
 
 I adopt this language as my own, and urge 
 that this representation of our holy religion, is 
 not dependent on scattered texts, figurative in 
 their construction and doubtful in their interpre- 
 tation. It is inwrought into the very warp of 
 sacred narrative : it is enunciated in statements 
 the simplest and most direct : it underlies all the 
 economy of evangelic dispensation. 
 
 VIII. At the place of execution there was 
 set above the head of the dying Jesus a sentence 
 of accusation written : so written in the languages 
 
Tlie True Ideal of the CJmrch. 33 
 
 appropriate to religion, to philosophy, and to em- 
 pire, that all may read. It is inscribed by the 
 hand of a heathen magistrate, and is the echo 
 of that prisoner's own words when standing 
 at his tribunal. Some strange instinct lends 
 obstinacy to him who all that dark day had 
 wavered and vacillated. No remonstrance can 
 now lead him to erase or mar the record. As 
 Caiaphas in his very worldliness had announced 
 the need of an atonement, so the Deputy, grop- 
 ing in the dark, incredulous or disdainful of all 
 pretension to essential truth, writes it large and 
 clear, that Jesus IS THE FOUNDER OF A King- 
 DOM, AND ITS PROPER KiNG. 
 
 Let it not be said in disparagement of the veri- 
 ty of our Lord's Kingdom, that it is not of nature 
 but of grace; that the secret of its strength is in 
 its truthfulness and not in might of arm ; that it 
 comes not to rival any earthly throne, or to win 
 any subject from his civil allegiance. 
 
 These allegations, so far from being object- 
 ions, are necessary postulates with those who 
 affirm the reality of the King and the visibility 
 of the Kingdom. That His domain is extended 
 not by force, but by the manifestation of the 
 truth; that His empire over His subjects is main- 
 3 
 
34 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 tained by the influence of love rather than the 
 infliction of penalties, so far from removing His 
 royalty from the category of Kingdoms, ele- 
 vates it above them all, and makes it the subli- 
 mest of Kingdoms. 
 
 Let us put the popular gloss upon our Lord's 
 disavowal before Pilate. Assume for a moment 
 that the Kingdom which He asserts, is a King- 
 dom only in the way of analogy and figure ; 
 that in its essence, it exists only in the realm of 
 Spirit ; that it is no more than the " fellowship 
 of kindred minds," the voluntary submission of 
 thought and will to a spiritual mastery : a some- 
 thing analogous to the Schools of thought which 
 great minds have founded, visible embodiment 
 being a permissible accident, but in no wise es- 
 sential to the truth of the definition. 
 
 How shall we reconcile with such conception, 
 our Lord's evident actions and His distinctest 
 affirmations ? Kingdoms must have a territory 
 — Christ tells us that His own embraces earth 
 and heaven. Kings must have subjects. Birth 
 within their proper domain, adoption or natural- 
 ization confer the privileges of citizenship and 
 entail its obligations. And Christ declares that 
 it is by a birth that men enter into His kingdom, 
 
The True Ideal of the Church. 35 
 
 by a birth not all secret and invisible, not by two 
 several and separable acts of initiation, but by 
 one birth, in which the spiritual and the material 
 unites. It needs little skill to interpret the say- 
 ing. The laws of language imperatively forbid 
 us to say, " born of water and born of spirit ;" it 
 is the ivater-and-spirit-born who are the citizens 
 of the kingdom.' The post-resurrection teach- 
 ing is to the same effect. He that believeth and 
 is baptized shall be saved. So long as the rite 
 of initiation is a visible transaction, the society 
 into which it introduces us, must be actual not 
 idsal, accessible to man in the completeness of 
 his humanity, with bodily attendance as well as 
 spiritual submission. Kings, however designa- 
 ted, rule by divine right. " By me kings rule and 
 princes administer justice." The crown may 
 descend by inheritance, it may be grasped by 
 conquest, it may be conceded by subjects in ac- 
 knowledgment of superiority of merit. 
 
 Christ claimed His empire as His Father's 
 heir, and denied that He was justly liable for 
 the payment of the half-shekel Temple dues. 
 
 ' If there were two several births, the preposition would 
 have need to be repeated. But there is one yevvrjdi'i, i'l 
 ■Cdaroi Kcii Ilvev/uaro?. John iii. 5. 
 
36 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 He claims the Kingdom, because He won it 
 back when it was in revolt against its lawful 
 sovereign. It is confirmed to Him by the vol- 
 untary submission of His saints, who delight to 
 lay all honors at the feet of Him, the King and 
 the King-maker; therefore on His head are many 
 crowns. It belongs to kings to govern through 
 the intervention of subordinates, confiding to 
 them within suitable limits their own powers, 
 and investing them with the authority to estab- 
 lish courts and try causes : to administer penal- 
 ties and to remit them : to levy contribution of 
 service and of goods. 
 
 And what is the post-resurrection Gospel, what 
 the Acts of the Apostles, but an account devel- 
 oping into form and actual being, the empire of 
 His thought, establishing its hierarchies, defin- 
 ing the condition of citizenship and the mode of 
 initiation, ordering its discipline and prescrib- 
 ing its obligations ? Where may we find a 
 hint that the administration of the divine gift 
 was left at loose ends ? What sign is there, that 
 the subordinate honors of this kingdom might 
 be self-assumed, without official investiture .-' 
 
 IX. Again we say, the Church of the Acts was 
 an organized Society, and not an undisciplined 
 
The Tntc Ideal of the Church. ij 
 
 crowd of believers. The Church of the ages suc- 
 ceeding knew not of itself as a congeries of asso- 
 ciations. Says Jeremy Taylor, " Here is- the first 
 separation and singularity of the Gospel : all 
 that hear the voice of Christ's first call, all that 
 profess themselves His disciples, all that take 
 His signature, they and their children are the 
 Church ; an 'EKuXr/dicx:, called out from the rest 
 of the world, the " elect " and the "chosen of 
 God." ' 
 
 The elect are such as bear the visible divine 
 signature ; with this agrees our Lord's own ac- 
 count of His Kingdom. If that Kingdom were 
 purely spiritual, if the signature of its members 
 were the inward faith and not the visible sacra- 
 ment. He would not fail to tell us so. But He 
 speaks in another fashion. His Kingdom is a 
 field where wheat and tares grow together, and 
 neither may be rooted out, until they have borne 
 their fruits, and endured the divine discrimina- 
 tion. His Kingdom is a net, comprehending the 
 good and the evil. 
 
 Or again, unless the Church be real and visi- 
 ble, what can we make of such words as these : 
 " I am the true vine, and my Father is the hus- 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. III. Sermon x. 
 
38 The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 bandman. Every branch in me that beareth 
 not fruit, he taketh away." ' Barrenness is not 
 predicable of such as are united to Christ by a 
 hving faith. If those only are elect members 
 of the vine, who are thus united to it, then is 
 barrenness in the branch simply inconceivable. 
 
 But because the Church is a visible Kingdom, 
 and Baptism the formal signature of the citizen- 
 ship, therefore is it that men who show not the 
 fruits of the spirit, have in the truth and reality 
 of this citizenship, the aggravation of their un- 
 faithfulness. 
 
 X. Our Prince is a Living Lord. When 
 with superhuman strength He pulled down the 
 temple of the world's idols, He did not lie 
 crushed and exanimate beneath the ruins. 
 When He made perfect our redemption, He 
 did not retire victorious, but exhausted, into rest 
 and inaction. An ever-living King, He rules 
 His Church, howbeit He carries on its work on 
 earth by delegation to chosen men. " Thou 
 hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity 
 captive, Thou hast received gifts for men." "^ 
 
 Thus sung the Psalmist. And then St. Paul, 
 in his comment on the psalm, gives us the cata- 
 1 John XV. i. 2 Psalm kviii, i8. 
 
The True Ideal of the CJuirch. 39 
 
 logue of these gifts. It is a noble passage ; a 
 magnificent description of a body to be seen and 
 touched and handled, and yet having its utmost 
 glory in a spiritual life, which itself unseen and 
 untouched, permeates the structure. " When he 
 ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and 
 gave gifts to men. * * * And he gave some 
 apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- 
 gelists ; and some pastors and teachers ; for the 
 perfecting of the saints, for the work of the min- 
 istry, for the edifying of the body of Christ ;" and 
 the purpose of these gifts of earthly ministries is 
 that we " may grow up into him in all things, 
 which is the head, even Christ, from whom the 
 whole body fidy joined together and compacted 
 by that which every joint supplieth, according 
 to the effectual working in the measure of every 
 part, maketh increase of the body unto the edify- 
 ing of itself in love." ' 
 
 Our Prince, however secluded from our view 
 in the present time, liveth and abideth ever. He 
 walks unseen in the midst of the golden candle- 
 sticks and holds in his hand the stars of the 
 churches. 
 
 Joash indeed grasped the bow and fitted the 
 > Epistle in Ordination of Priests. Eph. iv. 7. 
 
40 The CJnircJi in tJic Nation. 
 
 arrow for its flight. But it was the hands of 
 EHsha superposed upon the king's hands, that 
 converted that feeble missile into the arrow of the 
 Lord's deliverance. And thus the Catholic 
 Christian recognizes in all the Church's doings, 
 the presence most awful and most real ; hovvbeit 
 none may mark the manner of His coming and 
 going, of the king that was dead, and is alive, and 
 behold He liveth for evermore. 
 
 Mothers bring their little children to an earth- 
 ly representative to be touched and blest, and 
 underneath the apparent transaction, a King cra- 
 dles them in everlasting arms and consents to be 
 their refuge. We gather around the sacred table, 
 and one delegated to feed the flock, gives to each 
 one his portion : but there stands there in the 
 shadow, the true Melchizedec, without begin- 
 ning of years or end of days, offering to us the 
 bread and wine of his crucified humanity. Alas ! 
 Alas ! that men are taught, that it is of a purer 
 evangel, to think of their Lord as dead or absent 
 from His Church and her ordinances. The fa- 
 thers have eaten the sour grapes of sacramental 
 rationalism, and the children's teeth are set on 
 edge in the repudiation of inspiration, of mira- 
 cle, and of the supernatural in religion. 
 
The Trite Ideal of the Church. 41 
 
 XI. In nothing is the Kingdom of God more di- 
 verse from other Kingdoms than in this : that it is 
 a Kingdom of covenant. "Gather my saints 
 together unto me." The paralleHsm tells us who 
 are the saints. " Those that have made a cove- 
 nant with me by sacrifice." ^ 
 
 The kingdom rests not on an unformulated 
 understanding : its terms, its conditions and lim- 
 its are not vague and uncertain. There is a cov- 
 enant between contracting parties, with stipula- 
 tions on either side, authenticated by solemn 
 seals and solemnized by sacrifice. In vain may 
 we search the record for any proffer of nobility 
 in the New Jerusalem, save to those who are 
 comprehended within the covenant. 
 
 The time would fail me to trace out this cove- 
 nant from its origin, through its various amplifica- 
 tions and ratifications, up to its present complete- 
 ness. 
 
 See its essential principles in a single instance. 
 The contracting parties are Jehovah and the 
 Father of the Faithful. The stipulations are, on 
 the one part the concession of inheritance, on 
 the other imphcit trust and a self- surrender 
 which kept nothing back. Circumcision be- 
 
 1 Psalm 1. 5. 
 
42 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 comes the signature. The blood of sacrifice con- 
 fesses that the death-penalty is incurred if the 
 compact be broken. God swears to Abraham, 
 and in solemnization of that oath, amid an horror 
 of great darkness, passes, as a smoking furnace 
 and a burning lamp, between the divided sacri- 
 fice.' 
 
 This and all other preliminary covenants, cul- 
 minate at last in the One Covenant comprehensive 
 and enduring. We may find its essence summed 
 up in a few potential words. " He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved." The Ineffable 
 Trinity is the party of the first part : the child 
 of Adam is the party of the second part. The 
 concession on the one part is Life eternal, on the 
 other it is trust, which is but another word for the 
 abnegation of all self-will. The seals are to be 
 recognized in the application of material sub- 
 stance by one sent to baptize, and in the accept- 
 ance by the subject of the appointed signature. 
 And all is done in the presence of a Lamb as it 
 had been slain, testifying at once to the worth of 
 the life now covenanted to the sinner, and to his 
 guiltiness of that body and that blood should 
 he, to whom God is content to swear, perjure 
 1 Gen. XV. 8, ad fin. 
 
TJie True Ideal of the Church. 43 
 
 himself by deliberate repudiation or by careless 
 violation of the high engagement. 
 
 XII. Such is the covenant of adoption in its 
 briefest statement. And then, when we unfold 
 the deed itself, covering many a closely-written 
 page, how magnificent are its amplifications and 
 its iterations ! 
 
 On the human side, to faith, is added virtue, 
 knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, 
 brotherly-kindness, charity: yea, all in chaiacter 
 and in conduct that is lovely and of good report. 
 And God's promise, issuing from that pledge of 
 life, flows on, and as it flows in sacred pages, ever 
 augments its tide : waters to the ankles, waters 
 to the knees, waters to the loins, waters to swim 
 in, an illimitable ocean, until we sink prostrate 
 before the wealth of the divine assurance. " All 
 things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or 
 Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 
 present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and 
 ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." 
 
 Nor does that covenant fail to be often re- 
 newed. Again and again we come to God to 
 confirm the wavering purpose, to profess, in spite 
 of failure, an unchanged confidence : and the God 
 of covenant lays upon us the hand of benedic- 
 
44 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 tion and certifies us by a visible sign, of His favor 
 and gracious goodness towards us : and often in 
 the Holy Eucharist extends to us tokens of en- 
 during love, and so assures us, that we have not 
 ceased to be very members incorporate in the 
 mystical body of His Son. 
 
 Xin. While we have thus expounded some 
 characteristic features of the Church of God, we 
 have contributed nothing, we can contribute 
 nothing toward discovering the ultimate secret 
 of its being, or disclosing the marvel of its crea- 
 tion. Some things there are, which it is impossi- 
 ble for a mail to utter : some things there are, fa- 
 miliar to us in their manifestations, whose abso- 
 lute being is enveloped in inscrutable mystery. 
 
 The visible Church is the outcome of the In- 
 carnation. *' We are members oi [sh, out of^ 
 of the substance of) his body, of his flesh and of 
 his bones." ' The words are plainly borrowed 
 from Adam's account of the mother of all living. 
 "These words," says Hooker, " may be fitly the 
 words of Christ concerning his Church, flesh of 
 my flesh and bone of my bones, a true native 
 extract out of mine own body." "" Nor is this all: 
 there is a mystery, a great mystery in the union 
 
 ' Ephes. V. 30. 2 Polity V. Ivi. 7. 
 
TJie Tme Ideal of tJie CJuircJi. 45 
 
 that is betwixt Christ and His Church. There 
 is a half whispered intimation of a home forsaken 
 for the Church's sake, and a revelation of the en- 
 trance into a union so intimate, that the Christ 
 and the Church are in some sense one. 
 
 Howcan these things be? Let us plant ourselves 
 upon the immovable rock of the Incarnation, and 
 these mysterious economies of grace shall cease 
 to offend us. For if in that original mercy " two 
 whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the 
 Godhead and Manhood, were joined together, 
 never to be divided," whereof is one Christ ; if, 
 in His self-assertion at one time and His child- 
 like dependence at another : if in His claim to un- 
 derstand all secrets, followed by a declaration 
 that there was one day of which He knew not : 
 if in innumerable such particulars, the divine and 
 the human in the one Christ so interpenetrate 
 each other, as to become inextricably commin- 
 gled, and to forbid any line of absolute demar- 
 cation : if He, in devising a remedy for the 
 blind man's eyes, incorporated with the common 
 clay, the moisture of His lips : in view of these 
 things, we shall not be scandalized because there 
 is in the administration of the purchased grace, 
 that which can be neither dissected nor analyzed : 
 
46 The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 because in Church and Sacraments, however we 
 may sometimes recognize an element distinctly 
 spiritual, and an element as distinctly human, 
 there is a bound where heaven is so let down 
 towards earth, and earth so caught up towards 
 heaven, tliat their several confines melt one in- 
 to another, and heaven and earth are one. 
 
 Brethren, it may seem a rash endeavor, to 
 persuade men to recognize a divine ideal of the 
 Church, when believers as well as unbelievers 
 unite in esteeming as among the most delusive 
 of dreams, the vision of a Church, one and un- 
 divided, a Kingdom real and potential. Nor can 
 I be indifferent to the consequences that may be 
 imputed, consequences which I heartily depre- 
 cate, of forgetting that true circumcision which is 
 of thxC heart, and of failing to recognize the mind 
 of Christ, in some who accept not His visible sig- 
 nature, and even deem it a superfluity. 
 
 I have feared to w^eaken the force of a most 
 needed statement, by precipitate mention of ex- 
 ceptions and explanations. The Church, let us 
 think of her sometimes, as she was in the day of 
 her espousals : a helpmeet taken from an opened 
 side : fearfully and wonderfully constructed : 
 
The Trice Ideal of the CJiurch. 47 
 
 breathed upon by her Creator, and by that 
 breath endued with Hfe and beauty. Christ loved 
 the Church and gave Himself for her : let there 
 be no stint in the love and reverence of Christ's 
 people, for the Church, His bride. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 The Particular or National Church. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE PARTICULAR OR NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 " The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my 
 right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven 
 stars are the angels of the seven churches : and the seven 
 candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." — Rev. 
 i. 20. 
 
 'T^^HE last section of the Holy Gospel tells us 
 -^ of our Lord's forty days sojourn with us, 
 after He had made perfect our redemption. The 
 Revelation of St. John the Divine, is in some 
 sort a continuation of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 Thanks be to the God of mercy, that He has 
 been pleased to give, for our enlightenment, this 
 invaluable supplement to the personal biography 
 of the Lord and of the twelve ! For there is no 
 commentary so reliable upon constitutions, 
 whether religious or political, as the forms in 
 which they at once embodied themselves, and 
 the things done under their instructions by those 
 whose names stand first on the roll of corporators. 
 
 51 
 
52 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Many a victory has been fruitless, because 
 the victor was not at pains to secure its re- 
 sult Many a generous device for the good 
 of men has failed of its end because the beautiful 
 ideal was sent forth unclad and undefended, 
 unfurnished with feet for travel, and hands for 
 apprehension. Moral truth, however enunci- 
 ated, loses its hold on men, and escapes into the 
 cloud-land of speculation, unless by some de- 
 vice it is inwrought into character and life. 
 
 The divine love had been brought down 
 from heaven and perfumed all the air. But as 
 we detain some sweet essence and preserve it, 
 and apply it, by enclosing it in a suitable recep- 
 tacle, or by kneading it into something of more 
 earthly mould, so was it necessary, if love was 
 to do its work, that it should find a living 
 organism, at once its guardian and its almoner. 
 Thus the truth, like the leaven which a woman 
 took and hid in three measures of meal till the 
 whole was leavened, was committed to the 
 Church, to be incorporated into the mass of 
 humanity. The fountain of life was opened, and 
 conduits were provided to convey the stream to 
 fainting souls. For the conservation and dis- 
 semination of the Gospel, the apparatus of disci- 
 
The Particular or National Church. 53 
 
 pline and administration were supplied hy its 
 Author. 
 
 II. The King has won His crown. He is 
 presently to sit down at the right hand of God, 
 and the Holy Ghost is to become, in His stead, 
 the present Paraclete. And He lingers, when all 
 heaven was impatient and longing for His return. 
 He lingers forty days. We are left in no doubt 
 of the employment of those forty days. The 
 kingdom is now definitely organized and con- 
 structed. Its officers are finally commissioned. 
 He is with the governors of the Church, " speak- 
 ing to them of the things pertaining to the king- 
 dom of God." We need not fear to affirm that 
 as the Eleven shared with St. Paul, the dignity 
 of a personal investiture conferred by the Chief 
 Shepherd and Bishop of souls, so were they and 
 he alike, personally instructed by the Master 
 Himself, concerning the Eucharist and all the 
 essentials of religious administration. 
 
 Presently the city of God uprises from its 
 foundations, and its outlines are distinctly visi- 
 ble against the dark sky of heathendom. It is a 
 city set on a hill, and cannot be hid. It is no 
 encampment of tents, however goodly, where 
 isolated families gather around separate hearth- 
 
54 The Church in the Nation. . 
 
 stones. No sign is there of different religious 
 denominations of Christians. 
 
 The kingdom is one, visible and undivided. 
 Citizenship is obtained by an initiation which no 
 one disputes. There is an authority which 
 rules, defines, levies contribution and disciplines 
 offenders. The keys are held in open view. 
 The doors unlocked at Pentecost, admit the 
 homeless thousands. Closed against the inces- 
 tuous person, he is delivered to vSatan. One 
 graphic description makes all plain. 
 
 Hffav dk TtpoGKaprepovvTSi rrj didaxij 
 Tcov anoaroXoov, nai rfj hoivgov[(y, xai ti] 
 nXaffei rov aproi), iiai raU TtpoffsvxoiH. 
 
 They continued steadfastly in the Doctrine, 
 the Fellowship, the breaking of Bread, the 
 Prayers. Pearson, Andrewes and others have 
 shown that we have here the " image of the 
 Primitive Church." Its four great bulwarks of 
 Faith and Fellowship, of Sacrament and Ser- 
 vice, leave no room for any theory of ecclesiastical 
 association resting upon the basis of elective 
 affinities. 
 
 III. And here we turn aside to meet an ob- 
 jection. It may be asked, was human nature in 
 those days, other than what it now is ? Were 
 
The Particular or National Church. 55 
 
 Christians never restive under authority ? Never 
 dazzled by the glory of one great name ? Never 
 tempted to become enamoured of a thing indif- 
 ferent, and on that ground to separate themselves 
 from the faithful ? Were there no Legalists, no 
 Rationalists, no Second Adventists, none who 
 despised the mystic grace of Eucharist and of 
 Marriage ? 
 
 None of these are absent The perversions of 
 our later days have all their counterpart in that 
 early record. But there is for them no toler- 
 ance or patient recognition. They are there only 
 for rebuke and vehement expostulation. If any 
 resisted an Apostle's jurisdiction because his bodi- 
 ly presence was weak and his speech contemptible, 
 if any elected an individual Apostle of whom he 
 would be a partizan, if any for some such thing 
 as dread of idol's meat, should dwell and eat 
 apart from his brethren, if any explained away 
 the verity of Christ's coming in the flesh, or made 
 His table common, not discerning the Lord's 
 body there, or insulted the Church's rule of chas- 
 tity, or troubled God's people by private specula- 
 tion touching the day of the Lord as near at 
 hand : an Apostle was ever ready with his trum- 
 pet to recall the stragglers and to re-form the 
 
$6 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 line of battle. When Ebionites, Cerinthians, Do- 
 cetae and Nicolaitanes would foist upon the one 
 Faith their deceitful speculations, St. John 
 drops for the timehismessagcsof love, shows him- 
 self in his old age the Son of Thunder still, while 
 his warning reverberates through the Church. 
 " Look to yourselves * * * whosoever trans- 
 gresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, 
 hath not God." 
 
 IV. There is a formative period in which the 
 first commissioned Hierarchy reserves to itself a 
 universal control: although thus early, as in the 
 Council of Jerusalem, they summoned elders, and 
 brethren in consultation, and furnished to suc- 
 ceeding- ages that type of conciliar legislation 
 which, maintaining authority, bars out tyrannical 
 dominion over the faithful. 
 
 In the Epistles we see this government begin- 
 ning to be distributed and localized. Titus is 
 left in Crete under Apostolic instruction to " set 
 in order the things that are wanting, and to or- 
 dain elders in every city,' as 1 had appointed thcc.'' 
 
 To Timothy is entrusted a delegated authority 
 at Ephesus, during St. Paul's absence, and sub- 
 ject to his revision. " Till I come, " is the term 
 
 1 Titus i. 5- 
 
The Particular or National Chn7rJi. 57 
 
 of his commission. He is to preach, to ordain 
 deacons and elders, to discipline, if need be, 
 ministers and people, and to guard the purity 
 of doctrine and the proprieties of public 
 worship.' 
 
 Presently we discern a more distinct crystalliza- 
 tion. The Church of Jerusalem is under the ju- 
 risdiction of St. James the Lord's brother. Tim- 
 othy had ministered to the Church of Ephesus, 
 one might say, as the Suffragan of St. Paul. But 
 now this Church as well as six other Churches in 
 Asia Minor, has an organization of its own. Re- 
 sponsibility is not left indefinite. Over each such 
 community, Christ's Angel-messcnger presides. 
 God is too reasonable to hold men to responsi- 
 bility whom he has not clad with adequate pow- 
 ers. To take a single illustration, if the angel of 
 the Church in Pergamos is censured for tolerat- 
 ing the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, while he of 
 Ephesus is praised for his resistance, it is of ne- 
 cessity that the officer held accountable should 
 be the accredited authority, competent to 
 repress heresies. The use of the mystic number 
 seven, the symbol of completeness, suggests 
 that which I believe is by none denied, 
 
 ' I Tim. iii. 14, 15 ; iv. 13. 
 
58 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 that we are not to confine our thought to the 
 mere locaHties specified. 
 
 The vision is of the many Churches in many 
 places, each a lamp of the many-branched can- 
 dlestick : and of many stars, each the conspicu- 
 ous representative of the individual Church. The 
 Son of man, the One True Light, is /// the midst 
 of the candlesticks which borrow from Him their 
 lustre. He walkcth in their midst, as the Priest 
 in the temple lighted and watched and fed the 
 lamps. He holdcth the stars in His rigJit hand, 
 because all hierarchies are efficient so long only 
 as He sustains them. 
 
 Thus, according to the date commonly assign- 
 ed to the Apocalypse, in the year 96, local 
 Churches are organized under responsible gover- 
 nors. From this point it is but a little way to the 
 familiar constitution of the Church of the Ante- 
 Nicene century ; and we approach the subject of 
 this Lecture, the Autonomy of the Particular or 
 National Church. 
 
 V. But here all discussion is simply nugatory, 
 if either of the two ecclesiastical theories with 
 which we of this Church are chiefly at issue, 
 can be successfully maintained. According to 
 the former of these theories, " During a great 
 
The Particular or National Church. 59 
 
 part of this (the second) century, all the Churches 
 continued to be, as at first, independent of each 
 other ; or were connected by no consociations or 
 confederations. Each Church wa^ a kind of 
 small independent republic, governing itself by 
 its own laws, enacted, or at least sanctioned by 
 the people." 
 
 " The form of the ecclesiastical constitution 
 and government which had been introduced 
 (/. e. in the second century) was more and more 
 confirmed (/. e. in the third century). * * * 
 A person bearing the title of bishop presided 
 over each Church in the larger cities, and man- 
 aged its affairs with some degree of authority." 
 
 But this, Mosheim affirms, was an innovation. 
 It was after another sort that "Christians man- 
 aged ecclesiastical affairs so long as their congre- 
 gations were small. * * Three or four Presby- 
 ters, men of gravity and holiness, placed over 
 these little societies, could easily proceed with 
 harmony, and needed no head or president. 
 But when the Churches became larger * * * it 
 became necessary that the Council of presbyters 
 should have a president. He was at first denom- 
 inated the angel, but afterwards the bishop, ^ 
 
 * It would seem that the Church of Jerusalem 
 
6o The Church in the Nation. 
 
 * * * was the first to elect such a president, 
 and that other Churches, in process of time, fol- 
 lowed the example." ' 
 
 I refer you elsewhere for the abundant 
 refutation of an hypothesis, for the support of 
 which the professional historian cites not one 
 authority, unless perchance an obiter dictiini of 
 the hasty Jerome, an inference of his own from 
 a fact in nomenclature which no one denies, may 
 be considered a testimony. 
 
 And while I may not suffer to pass without 
 mention, neither do I propose to discuss form- 
 ally, the theory that the plenitude of authority 
 and the assurance of indefectibility inhere in the 
 person of a single Bishop. It may be pre- 
 sumed that the early Church knew her name 
 when she graved incisively upon her Creeds and 
 over the portals of her temples the title, " One, 
 Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church." They are 
 modern hands that have inserted a caret, and in a 
 later Creed even erased the familiar characters. 
 So that the title of eminent dignity, has now be- 
 come " the Holy Roman Church, mother and 
 mistress of all churches." How utterly this 
 
 1 Mosheim, Book I. Cent. i. Part ii. Ch. ii. 
 ii. Ch. ii. § 2. Cent. iii. Part ii. Ch. ii. § i, 
 
The Particular or National Church. 6i 
 
 theory enslaves the churches of the saints, may- 
 appear from the words of De Maistre : " / think 
 it useless to dwell on these foolish details. It is 
 more worth luhile to establish zuithont delay the 
 decisive and immovable pi'oposition that THERE 
 ARE NO LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH : 
 and that all that is concealed beneath this fine 
 name, is only a conspiracy of the temporal pozucr, 
 to despoil the Holy See of its legitimate rights." ^ 
 Bishop Andrewes has succinctly presented the 
 nature of our contention. " Quarrel with us, if 
 you will, over the name of Orthodox ; of Catho- 
 lic you cannot. Of that, both the thing and the 
 word, we believe as do you : even better than 
 you. For you yourselves dropped the name of 
 Catholic, when of late, you unhappily added 
 Roman to it : and reduced Catholic (/. c. of the 
 whole world) to Roman {i. e. of one city) : 
 Catholic, which is diffused in all the world, and 
 Roman, which is only one city of the world. 
 Roman Catholic is a new word ; as much as to 
 say Catholic and not Catholic. Roman is jcard 
 TtoXsoo^, Catholic. uaO^ 6\ov. So that now (if I 
 may so say, and the nature of the word allows), 
 
 ' De I'Elise Gallicane, Livre ii. Chap. xiv. The capitals 
 are his own. 
 
62 TJic CJiurch in the Nation. 
 
 you are rather to be called CathopoHcs than Ca- 
 tholics. * •» * * Belong ye then to your 
 Roman Catholic Church, a thing not found in 
 the Creed, and we, to that in which we believe, 
 a Church which is simply Catholic, not restricted 
 to Rome, but such as we possess in the Creed — 
 a Church which is orthodox, which does not 
 bow down to or worship any image ; which 
 does not worship it knows not what; which 
 prays in the spirit and prays with the under- 
 standing likewise ; which does not call on them 
 on whom it believes not ; in which Christ is the 
 Head of the Faith, and the Holy Ghost His 
 Vicar ; to this we belong and profess to be- 
 long ; and you, since you have many of the 
 doctrines of the Catholic Faith still remaining 
 among you, though in part corrupted, we are 
 able to call members of the Catholic Church, 
 but not sound members." ' I waive then, 
 these controversies. Congregational and Papal. 
 Our champions have met the argument, Scrip- 
 tural, Patristic, Historical, with such learning and 
 ability, as to exhaust the subject. We ask you 
 now, to take a broad survey of the Church as 
 
 > Translated (the latter part by Rev. F, Merrick) from Tor- 
 tura Torti. Parker, p. 494-5- 
 
The Particular or National ChurcJi. 63 
 
 she appeared when she had adjusted her econo- 
 mies and become rooted in the soil. 
 
 VI. We see unity reconciled with diversity. 
 We behold a great company in all the world, in 
 a union most intimate, wherein each baptized 
 man was home-born ; and there are also local 
 Churches, exercising jurisdiction within narrower 
 limits, and holding more familiar correspondence 
 with those which lie adjacent. The unity of a 
 living organism is not the unity of a stone. It 
 does not imply absolute identity of structure, or 
 even an absence of all differentiation of mem- 
 bers. The truest unity is that wherein many 
 members can be discriminated in their severalty, 
 while knit together in one visible body, acting 
 in concert and to a common end. " Pbirality 
 which docs not rcdnce itself to nnity, is confusion : 
 unity zvhich does not depend npoii plnrality is 
 tyranny y^ The unity of the Godhead is not 
 marred but manifested by the revelation of a 
 three-fold personality. The unity of the Episco- 
 pate is not impaired, because, according to 
 Cyprian's maxim, there is but " one bishopric, 
 and an undivided share thereof is perfectly and 
 wholly holden of every particular bishop." 
 ' Pascal, Pensees, part ii. art. xvii, ci. 
 
64 The Cluu'cJi in the Nation. 
 
 When our Lord fed the five thousand. He 
 afforded us a parable of the economical arrange- 
 ments which were to prevail in the Church. 
 There was no confusion or disorder. He made 
 the men sit down in numbered companies; 
 ■npaaiai npaffuxi, i. e. as it were, Areolatim, in 
 " square garden plots," as Trench explains it, 
 after Theophylact, * so that ministering apostles 
 might without jostling one against another, make 
 equable distribution of the divine bounty. Even 
 without such precedent, the Church may find in 
 the canon " Let all things be done decently and 
 in order," ample authority for prudential distri- 
 bution of her ministries of grace. The necessi- 
 ties of the case, and the teachings of common 
 sense as well, caused these lines of demarcation 
 to be drawn with reference to geographical and 
 national boundaries, and to respect affinities of 
 race and language. Some of these arrangements 
 were in their nature temporary, as the distribu- 
 tion of the missionary work, for instance, between 
 the two great missionary Apostles. Others were 
 as permanent as the conditions out of which 
 they took their rise. 
 
 Vn. The fathers of Nicaea decreed, " Let 
 • On Miracles, xvi. 
 
TJie Particular or National CJmrcJi. 65 
 
 the ancient customs prevail which are in Egypt, 
 Libya and Pentapolis, according to which the 
 Bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these 
 places. For this also is customary with the 
 Bishop of Rome." The Council of Constantino- 
 ple further ordained " the Bishop of Constanti- 
 nople shall have the primacy of honor after the 
 Bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is new 
 Rome." ' Two things impress us in these de- 
 crees ; one is, that the crystallization of a Church, 
 diffused around certain centres and within defi- 
 nite limits, becomes matter of prescription, and 
 is not to be wantonly disturbed. And another 
 very far-reaching principle is to be found by im- 
 plication, in the explanation " Constantinople is 
 near Rome, " viz., that it behooves the Church, 
 saving her spiritual independence, to adapt her- 
 self in the details of administration to the civil 
 facts of the age in which she lives. 
 
 While we contend for the divine authority of 
 the Church, let us not forget that the State is 
 also commissioned from on high ; that there are 
 set up in the world two jurisdictions, concurrent, 
 and not necessarily conflicting. 
 
 The form of the Civil Constitution is not pre- 
 ' Hammond on Canons (Stanford & Swords), pp. 34 and 65. 
 5 
 
66 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 scribed in the revelation from God. Just as the 
 Hebrew poetry, dependent on paralleHsm of 
 thought rather than on the rhythm of sentences or 
 the accord of syllables, preserves its beauty and 
 majesty, into whatsoever language it be translated, 
 so do the twin commandments, which summarize 
 the Christian law, utter the same tones, even and 
 undisturbed, under all the various types of civil 
 rule, and regardless of the personal qualities of 
 the ruler, from Nero, the absolute monarch, down 
 to Victoria the constitutional Queen ; and still 
 down the scale, to the well-ordered republic, and 
 the loose democracy. Civil rulers, in their 
 sphere, no less than Priests and Bishops in theirs, 
 are representative of God. We are admonished, 
 as it were in one breath, " Fear God, honor the 
 king." The king, by what ever name we call him, 
 is " supreme," a power " ordained of God." He 
 is God's minister, entrusted with a sword, dele- 
 gated to execute wrath upon him that doeth 
 evil. Such statements do indeed sound as an 
 anachronism in our ears. But for all that, I am 
 bold to claim, that among the incidental pur- 
 poses of our blessed religion, it was largely in- 
 tended to strengthen by its sanction the civil rule 
 and so to guard society against rash changes ; 
 
The Particular or National Church. 6"/ 
 
 that loyalty to the State enters largely into the 
 practical duties of the Christian life, and that def- 
 erence to its order, is a duty binding on the 
 Church. 
 
 The Church and the State move in their seve- 
 ral orbits, each in its own plane. These planes 
 may be parallel, yet even thus, there is an influ- 
 ence of attraction or repulsion, an interchange 
 of sympathies and influences, which forbid either 
 to say to the other, I have no need of thee. And 
 because in origin and in purpose, they have much 
 in common, the one will at times, without re- 
 buke, invade the province of the other, and 
 friendly alliance grow up between co-ordinate 
 powers. Thus has the Church been the bulwark 
 of the throne, while Kings have been the nursing 
 fathers, and Queens the nursing mothers of the 
 Church. 
 
 The Bible student cannot fail to note the stress 
 that is laid in the prophetic page, upon the four 
 great dynasties who wielded by turns the sceptre 
 of the world, and their intimate association with 
 the march of the redemptive plan. He recognizes 
 the fitness of the times for the advent of the 
 Prince of Peace, when for a little space the earth 
 was quiet and at rest, and the sceptre of univer- 
 
68 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 sal empire was held in the constraining grasp of 
 Rome. 
 
 It was no more than a recognition of these 
 providences, it was no more than a fitting regard 
 to expediences and to the just rights of accredi- 
 ted authority, that in things discretionary and 
 mutable, the Churchy should have regard to ex- 
 isting institutions, and adapt her arrangements 
 with reference to them. 
 
 VIII. Thus is it that we discern at last a set- 
 tled order, which I need not set forth in detail. 
 Over the Parish, the equivalent of the modern 
 Diocese, is the Bishop, who holds his jurisdiction 
 by immediate derivation from Christ. In the 
 grouping of Parishes into Dioceses and of Dio- 
 ceses into Patriarchates, and in the distribution 
 of appeals and of dignities consequent thereon, 
 we find a general conformity, although not abso- 
 lutely invariable, to the political configuration of 
 the Empire. 
 
 Following the language of Article xxxiv. we 
 have spoken of the autonomy of the " Particular 
 or National Church," These two descriptions, 
 however agreeing in substance, vary in suitable- 
 ness at different times. Under the Roman Em- 
 pire, nationalities, in the political sense, were ob- 
 
The Particular or National Church. 69 
 
 literated, so that the Catholic body might also 
 be deemed one National or Imperial Church, 
 Yet even then, the Particular Church of peoples 
 speaking the same language and dwelling within 
 naturally-defined limits, asserted the right to 
 manage her own affairs. 
 
 The transition is easy and natural to National 
 Churches, as we know them now, under their 
 own Bishops and Metropolitans, exercising their 
 own discipline, establishing their own ceremo- 
 nies, but always with deference to the ancient 
 canons and the Catholic traditions. After quot- 
 ing the Constantinopolitan Canons, tlie R"ev. F. 
 Meyrick, says : " We m.ay see in them, as in a 
 mirror, the whole constitution of the Church at 
 the time of the Council of Constantinople. We 
 must again remind our readers that in reading 
 of a * Diocese,' they must put out of their 
 thoughts what is now called by that name, but 
 was then denominated a Parish, and they must 
 recollect that something is meant, very little if 
 at all, different from a National Church. That 
 which was presided over by a Bishop was called 
 napoinia, or Parish ; that which was pre- 
 sided over by a Metropolitan was called an 
 inapxioc, or Province, and consisted of many 
 
70 TJic CJiurcJi in the Nation. 
 
 napoiKiai ; that which was presided over by a 
 Patriarch, Exarch, or Primate (according as he 
 had one or other of these three names) was called 
 a Diocese. Now, this word Diocese is not orig- 
 inally an ecclesiastical term : it is the name of a 
 civil division of the Empire, constituted by seve- 
 ral provinces, and ruled by a praefect. There was 
 then established in each of these Dioceses a 
 Church containing a hierarchy, in which we may 
 mark three steps — the lowest, the Bishops, whose 
 jurisdiction was confined to their Ttapondai ,• 
 the next, the Metropolitans (two, three, or more 
 in number, according as the Diocese was larger 
 or smaller), each of whom had jurisdiction over 
 a province ; and, lastly, a Primate, who had jur- 
 isdiction over the whole Church of the Diocese. 
 There is nothing more clearly brought out by the 
 ancient canons than that each of these Churches 
 was a distinct and independent whole in itself, 
 bound, it is true, to the other sister Churches by 
 the tie of love and the bond of the Holy Spirit, 
 uniting them all to their one Head and to one an- 
 other, but absolutely free from all authoritative 
 control, exercised by any Bishops whatever, with- 
 out the limits of that Church or Diocese. At the 
 time of the Second Council, the world was divided 
 
The Particular or National Church. yi 
 
 into thirteen such Dioceses, besides the city and 
 neighborhood of Rome, which constitued one Di- 
 ocese by themselves ; five of them are referred to 
 in the above quoted canons, viz., Egypt, the East 
 (/. e. the parts about Antioch), Asia, Pontus, 
 Thrace. The eight others are — Italy, Macedonia, 
 Dacia, Ulyria, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain. As 
 then there were fourteen Dioceses, the theory of 
 the Church was, that there should be fourteen 
 Diocesan Churches ; and this theory was carried 
 out, except so far as it was prevented from taking 
 effect by the inhabitants of some of these Dioceses 
 not having been Christianized. It is of these Di- 
 oceses that the Canon speaks: " Bishops who are 
 outside a Diocese must not invade the Churches 
 which are across the borders, nor bring confusion 
 into the Churches.' " ' 
 
 IX. It cannot be that the word eOvo?, of so 
 distinctive meaning, was used, without a purpose, 
 by our Lord as the initial and as the ending of 
 His Kingdom. Teach all the nations : so reads 
 our commission. Before Him shall be gathered 
 all the nations : such is the array of the Last 
 
 1 Meyrick's Exam, of the Rev. R. I. Wilberforce's charges 
 against the Church of England, p. 74-5. 
 
72 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Judgment.' These intimations unite with the 
 intrinsic reasonableness, to vindicate the wisdom 
 of the Church, in plotting out her demesnes, 
 with reference to race, language, nationality. 
 
 Shall I ask forgiveness for occupying your 
 time with a historic outline so very familiar to 
 Churchmen, and in which many of my hearers, 
 as I am glad to know, have been most thorough- 
 ly indoctrinated in the class-room ? It is just 
 this thing which men know so well, that they 
 clean forget or absolutely ignore. It is by the 
 utter neglect of these authoritative precedents, 
 that within our day, some have been found to 
 claim autonomy for the diocese, and to see in 
 the Church of the United States, no more than an 
 association of dioceses, with limited powers, 
 dissolvable at pleasure. It is due to the same 
 cause, that serious proposals have been made 
 to secure Christian unity in the land, by im- 
 parting to the great religious bodies a due minis- 
 terial succession, under such concordat as may 
 be needed to guard the essential faith, leaving 
 them thereafter as separate as before. 
 
 The separation inaugurated by the sometime 
 Assistant-Bishop of Kentucky, and others, may 
 ' zdvra rd eOvr/. Matt. xxv. 32 : xxviii. 19. 
 
The Particular or National Church. 73 
 
 well teach us the lesson that it is schism to in- 
 vade the unity of the authoritative Church in 
 any nation, or to set at naught her discipline ; 
 and that this schism is in nowise palliated, even if 
 a Bishop technically competent to convey, and 
 a Priest competent to receive Episcopal orders, 
 should endeavor to secure for a new sect, the 
 help of a personal succession from the Apostles. 
 X. The powers exercised by the National 
 Churches in primitive times, as in later centuries, 
 were by no means inconsiderable. We need on- 
 ly mention such names as Gangra, Antioch, 
 Carthage and the like, to remind ourselves that 
 non-oecumenical Synods grappled with the 
 gravest questions of Faith and Doctrine, of Or- 
 der and Discipline. ^ We do not pretend that 
 the Divine Ideal of the Church has never 
 been tampered with, or that confusion has not 
 invaded the Kingdom of Him who is the Au- 
 thor of order. But certain it is that the Church 
 of history lies before us in an orderly array of 
 companies, distinguished but not separated by 
 lines of national demarcation. The indepen- 
 dence of National Churches in all matters of lo- 
 cal jurisdiction, in canon law, in liturgies and 
 
 • See note at the end of this Lecture. 
 
74 'i^is Church in the Nation. 
 
 usages, is too well known to need setting forth 
 at large. This independence is not forfeited by 
 the submission, whether cowardly or enforced, 
 for years or for centuries, to any usurped author- 
 ity. David was God's Anointed, however he was 
 sometimes sinning, sometimes fugitive, some- 
 times yielding under protest to the exaction of 
 the sons of Zeruiah, 
 
 "The river Rosny, when it entereth into the 
 Lake of Lozanna, thou thinkest it quite devour- 
 ed, but that lively and running water cutteth and 
 divideth that dead and standing pool, making way 
 through her swallowing depths. Our Church 
 in like manner hath made her way through 
 many ages, hath run into the lake, yet not over- 
 whelmed, but hath past through the bottomless 
 gulphs thereof with glory and triumph ; and 
 many rivers meeting her, she passeth through 
 many countries, and at the last falls into her 
 ocean, the Church of Christ in God, the bottom- 
 less sea of all goodness, and there is drowned, 
 losing herself to find herself in Him." ' 
 
 That the Church owes a debt of gratitude to 
 Popes and to Princes, none may deny. Casau- 
 
 1 Mournay, Count de Plessis, as quoted by Burnett on Art. 
 xix. (Appleton, p. 250.) 
 
TJic Particular or National Church. 75 
 
 bon pauses in his controversy to make excuse : 
 " Be it granted that Popes JuHus and Innocent 
 transgressed the bounds of their lawful power, 
 usurped a right over their brethren till then nev- 
 er made use of, and that (you may add if you 
 please) a right which was not lawful ; yet were 
 they not without reason for what they did; when 
 such was the condition of the time, that as phy- 
 sicians speak, desperate remedies were to be ap- 
 plied to desperate diseases " ^ 
 
 Remembering the infirmity which belongs to 
 all human administrations, little marvel is it, that 
 in days of trial and poverty the Church should 
 invoke the fostering care of Princes and tolerate 
 their intrusion into things spiritual : or that in 
 centuries of darkriess and violence, she should in- 
 voke against rude barons and avaricious tyrants, 
 the influence and prestige which attached to the 
 world's imperial city, and to the see which held 
 by universal concession the primacy of dignity. 
 The benefactor of yesterday becomes often the 
 oppressor of to-day. Pope and Prince have 
 sometimes agreed together to reduce to vassalage 
 the free Church of a nation. 
 
 XI. Of the National Churches, those which 
 
 ' Anglo-Cath. Lil)r. Vol. iii. p. 225. 
 
j6 The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 have been most strenuous in asserting their 
 autonomy are the Anghcan and the GalHcan. 
 Touching the former, I may barely refer you 
 to a vast array of apologists, men of wisdom and 
 profound learning, from Jewell, down to the 
 Lecturer on this foundation for 1881, indicating 
 the self-assertion of the Church of England. 
 
 The history of the Gallican Church is not less 
 instructive. There is a mine of wealth in it, 
 which few of us have the opportunity to explore. 
 Of her rulers, Casaubon wrote, nearly three hun- 
 dred years ago: "It is their peculiar praise (I 
 say it without flattery) that with an heroic piety 
 and religious generosity they have, by the 
 blessing of God, preserved the Christian liberty 
 of their Church, if not wholly untouched, yet 
 firm and unshaken to this day. Who that dwells 
 even in the most remote regions, and has re- 
 ceived but the slightest account of the affairs of 
 France, has not heard something of the liberties 
 of the Gallican Church ? So in the language of 
 the law are the rights of ecclesiastical liberty 
 called ; which though they were from the begin- 
 ning to the universal Church (for they have all 
 one and the same author and founder, Jesus 
 Christ), yet by a certain fate it has happened that 
 
The Partiadar or National CJuirch. yj 
 
 in all the noblest kingdoms of Europe the 
 Churches have suffered their rights and Hberties 
 to be taken from them ; whence it has come to 
 pass, that while the neighboring people groan 
 under their servitude, the name of the liberties 
 of the Galilean Church has been celebrated with 
 great fame, even among far distant nations.' " 
 
 A rapid glance at some of the more notable in- 
 cidents of this history will serve to illustrate the 
 audacity of the Pope, the tyranny of the State, 
 the unnatural coalition of them both, to humili- 
 ate a glorious Church. 
 
 In the year 1302 Boniface VIII. promulgated 
 the Bull tuiain sajictam. Archbishop Kenrick, 
 while he affirms that this bull is " repudiated by 
 all, not excepting the most ardent advocates of 
 papal infallibility," says that " for four whole 
 centuries it seems to have been in force, and 
 was said even by the most learned theologians 
 of the seventeenth century to be matter of 
 faith. ^' * No man can deny that the pur- 
 pose of Boniface in that bull was to claim for 
 himself temporal power, and to propound this 
 opinion to the faithful, to be held under pain of 
 
 > Anglo-Cath. Libr. vol, iii. p. 116. 
 
78 TJie CJiurch in the Nation. 
 
 damnation." ' But after nearly four centuries of 
 submission, on the 17th of March, 1682, the 
 Hierarchy and Faculties of France agree with 
 singular unanimity in setting forth that famous 
 Declaration which, while it professes to guard 
 the majesty of the Holy See and the obedience 
 due to it, defends the prerogatives of the 
 National Church. It denies any papal authority 
 in things civil and temporal. It denies that 
 kings can be deposed or subjects absolved from 
 allegiance by the power of the keys. It denies 
 that the judgment of the Chief Pontiff is irre- 
 formable, unless confirmed by the assent of the 
 whole Church. It affirms that the Pope himself 
 is restrained by canons made by the Spirit of 
 God and consecrated by the reverence of all the 
 world ; and that he is further restrained from 
 interference with the internal affairs of the 
 French Church : valcre ctiam regulas, mores et 
 institiita a Regno et Ecelesia Gallicana rcccptos, 
 Patrnmgne terminos ma7iere inconcnssos.'' 
 
 Thus there was inaugurated the struggle be- 
 
 ' Freidrich, Documenta ad illustrandum, Cone. Vatica- 
 num, Part I. p. 204. 
 
 2 For original see Bossnet's Defensio vol. i, p. xlv. It is 
 translated in Jervis' Church of France, (Murray) vol. ii. p. 49 
 
TJie Particidar or National Church. 79 
 
 tvveen Gallicans and Ultramontanes, made 
 memorable by the names of Bossuet and Bellar- 
 mine, of the Jansenists and the Port-Royalists. 
 We proceed a century. The year 1789 finds 
 Louis XVI. seated on a tottering throne. The 
 National Convention seeks to reconstruct the 
 social fabric upon principles which led presently 
 to the national apostasy and the enthronement 
 of the Goddess of Reason in 1793. Among its 
 early measures is the enactment of a civil con- 
 stitution of the clergy. The critical question 
 was indeed concerning the supremacy of the 
 Holy See. But more than this, the Civil power 
 proposed to legislate absolutely for the Spiritual, 
 to confiscate its wealth, to obliterate its dioceses, 
 suppressing fifty sees at once ; to order its disci- 
 pline, to make of its Bishops mere creatures and 
 servants of the State. And when the oath to 
 support this constitution was enforced, a great 
 rift was made in the Galilean Church between 
 the constitutional Bishops and Clergy on the one 
 side, and the Non-jurors on the other. 
 
 The story now becomes one of moral sublimity. 
 Of the Sorbonne, thirty only, out of eighteen 
 hundred, take the oath. One hundred and 
 twenty-five Bishops prefer to surrender their 
 
86 The ChuTch in the Nation. 
 
 sees. Driven into exile, suffering and poverty- 
 stricken, their resolution is undaunted. The 
 hospitality of England rose with the demand 
 upon it. We read of one national collection 
 made for their benefit, amounting to ;^40,ooo. 
 Bishop Horsley, preaching before the House of 
 Lords, pays tribute to " the venerable exiles, the 
 prelates and clergy of the fallen Church of 
 France, endeared to us by the edifying example 
 they exhibit, of patient suffering for conscience' 
 sake." 
 
 And how were these men rewarded by the 
 Primate to whom they had given unswerving 
 allegiance at a cost so great ? 
 
 The Empire is developing in France cut of 
 the ruins of the Revolution. The First Consul 
 desires the glory of restoring to France the 
 Church, so dear to faithful hearts, while yet he 
 proposes so to restore it, that it shall not be a 
 co-ordinate power, but a vassal to his absolute 
 will. He demands that the Bishops, one and 
 all, shall resign their sees, and leave the field 
 open for a radical re-arrangement. 
 
 And thus in 1801, the Pope, by the brief " Tarn 
 multa et tam prseclara," pleading the pres- 
 *»ure of necessity, demands of these non-juring 
 
The Particular or National Church. 8 1 
 
 martyrs that they shall resign their sees within 
 ten days. And when those grand old men re- 
 fuse, Pius VII. by the bull " Qui Christi Domini 
 vices," suppressed, annulled and forever extin- 
 guished all the French sees in existence, and 
 founded new sees in accordance with the con- 
 cordat made with the First Consul.^ 
 
 Thus mournfully opened this nineteenth cen- 
 tury upon her whom we are proud to own in her 
 adversity as a Sister-Church. And later events 
 have been equally calamitous. 
 
 XII. In the Vatican Council, the French 
 Bishops, in common with the overseers of other 
 Churches who had preserved a certain measure 
 of autonomy, find the true hierarchy confronted 
 by an irresistible majority of Cardinals, mitred 
 Abbots and Generals of Orders, Titular Bishops 
 and Italians. The protests of Darboy and 
 Dupanloup are as little heeded as those of Ken- 
 rick and Strossmayer. Pius VII suppressed sees : 
 Pius IX suppresses the Episcopate itself, and for- 
 ces the Bishops on bended knees to disown all 
 right of spiritual jurisdiction, save by derivation 
 from himself. 
 
 ' This strange story is rehearsed at length in Jervis' Gallican 
 Church and the Revolution (Regan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882). 
 
 6 
 
82 Tlic Church in the Nation. 
 
 And even to-day, around the ancient Church 
 of France, reft of her powers and degraded into 
 vassalage, are rallying the so-called statesmen 
 eager to destroy her. It is with lively sympa- 
 thy that we hear of Seminaries without students 
 for the Priesthood, of Churches unsupplied with 
 ministrations, of industrious cures living on the 
 wages of a day-laborer, of religious emblems 
 banished out of sight, and even Sisters of Char- 
 ity driven ignominiously from their places by 
 the sick and the dying. 
 
 Unhappy Church of France, whose once Bish- 
 op of Autun led the way in despoiling her, 
 whose acknowledged Ruler has passed by on the 
 other side in her extremity, and in the revival of 
 prosperity confiscated all her dignities for his 
 own adornment. Poets, Philosophers, Doctri- 
 naires and Atheists, Revolutionists, Imperialists, 
 Republicans, and at last Curia and Pope, have 
 agreed in this, that the Church of France shall 
 not be the mother and mistress of her own spir- 
 itual household. I have ventured to give this 
 rapid outline of a history, whose incidents might 
 of themselves profitably employ the time allot- 
 ted to these lectures, for the purpose of meeting 
 an objection. 
 
The Particiilai" or National Church. 83 
 
 XIII. What is the v/orth, one may say, of 
 the National Churches, whose sovereignty you 
 maintain, when their history shows them so im- 
 potent, in the presence of Kings who recognize 
 no Hmitation of their prerogative, of Pontiffs 
 v/ho claim universal empire, of legislative mobs, 
 who destroy by an edict the pious up- growth of 
 centuries ? Remember how your own Anglican 
 Reformation was marked by subservience, and 
 plunder, and royal arrogance in determining 
 religious definitions and causes ecclesiastical ; 
 and see, even to-day, deeply rooted as is the 
 Church of England, how distracted she is by her 
 submission to civil courts, and how men are 
 threatening to secularize her Universities, to as- 
 sume control of her endowments, and to displace 
 her from her seat of eminent dignity. Is it not 
 Utopian to hold that the National Church can 
 plant herself on her high commission, and 
 maintain her essential rights, when on every 
 hand such claims are resisted and derided ? 
 
 I answer, that with the history of the earlier 
 Israel before us, these things need not move us. 
 It is no new thing for the Church to present the 
 picture of altars thrown down and prophets flee- 
 ing into exile, and her children in apostasy, save 
 
84 The ChiDxJi in the Natioti. 
 
 a faithful few. We have seen men whose exam- 
 ple was for evil only, sitting in IMoses' seat, and 
 the High Priesthood bought with money, and 
 Kings and Cliurchmcn alike resisting and perse- 
 cuting the Lord's Christ. And yet that ancient 
 Church subserved its purpose, and above its de- 
 bris uprose the fair towers of the early, undivi- 
 ded Church of Christ. 
 
 We have the surest promises, that however 
 man may mar the handiwork of God, he shall 
 never destroy it or frustrate its design. None may 
 pretend that the Church is a failure in the sense 
 in which the Jewish Church seemed to have fail- 
 ed when our Lord came to it. Men may twit us 
 with our seeming dependence for the power of 
 self-reformation upon the caprices of Henry VHI, 
 or with the time-serving of Cranmcr, or with the 
 rationalizing determinations of Privy Councils in 
 our own times : but for all that, if there is any- 
 thing in this world instinct with energy, and 
 moral influence, and spiritual affection, and deeds 
 of charity, it is the Church of England. 
 
 And as for the Churches of the Roman obe- 
 dience, serious as is our controversy with them, 
 none but the unreasonable and the uncharitable; 
 may charge them with apostasy. Tlie Arch- 
 
TJie Partiadar or National Church. 85 
 
 bishop of Paris, shot to the death at the portal 
 of Notre Dame, is one of many faithful pastors. 
 The Church that brings forth such sons as Fene- 
 lon and Pascal, is far from dead. And as for the 
 representatives of Rome in these United States 
 aX-XorpioETtiaKOTToi^ as we hold them to be, 
 none can lay down their late official utterance, 
 without devout thankfulness to Almighty God, 
 for the evidence there afforded, that they are 
 keen- eyed to discern the dangers which threaten 
 American society, that they desire to lead their 
 people up to just ideas of personal devotion, of 
 Christian home-life, of separation from the 
 world's vices.' 
 
 No, the true moral of history is, that where the 
 National Church is least disturbed, relying on 
 her own resources and the promises of her God, 
 rather than on the aid of Princes and outside 
 Hierarchies, there is she most glorious and most 
 effective.'* 
 
 ' Pastoral Letter of Plenary Council, Baltimore, 1884. 
 - The following summary of the powers exercised by Provincial 
 Synods or National Churches in the first six centuries, is so terse 
 and convincing that 1 give it at length. 
 
 " But this right of provincial synods, that they might decree in 
 causes of faith, and in cases of reformation, where corruptions 
 had crept into the sacraments of Christ, was practised much 
 above a thousand years ago by many both national and provin- 
 
86 TJic CJitirch in the Natio7i. 
 
 cial synods. For the Council at Rome under Pope Sylvester, 
 Anno 324, condemned Photinus and Sabellius ; (and their here- 
 sies were of high nature against the faith.) The Council at 
 Gangra about the same time condemned Eustathius for his con- 
 demning of marriage as unlawful. The first Council at Car- 
 thage, being a provincial, condemned rebaptization, much 
 about the year 348. The provincial Council at Aquileia in the 
 year3Si, in which St. Ambrose was present, condemned Palla- 
 dius and Secundinus for embracing the Arian heresy. The sec- 
 ond Council of Carthage handled and decreed the belief and 
 preaching of the Trinity ; and this a little after the year 424. 
 The Council of Milevis in Africa,in which St. Augustine was pres- 
 ent, condemned the whole course of the heresy of Pelagius, that 
 great and bewitching heresy, in the year 416. The second 
 Council at Orange, a provincial too, handled the great contro- 
 versies about grace and freewill, and set the Church right in 
 them, in the year 444. The third council at Toledo, (a national 
 one) in the year 589, determined many things against the Arian 
 heresy, about the very prime articles of faith, under fourteen 
 several anathemas. The fourth Council at Toledo did not only 
 handle matters of faith for the reformation of that people, but 
 even added also some things to the Creed which were not ex- 
 pressly delivered in former Creeds. Nay, the Bishops did not 
 only practise this to condemn heresies in national and provincial 
 synods, and so reform those several places and the Church itself 
 by parts, but they did openly challenge this, as their right and 
 due, and that without any leave asked of the see of Rome : for in 
 this fourth Council of Toledo they decree, " That if there hap- 
 pen a cause of faith to be settled, a general, that is, a national 
 synod of all Spain and Galicia shall be held thereon ; " and this 
 in the year 643 : where you see it was then catholic doctrine 
 in all Spain that a national synod might be a competent judge 
 in a cause of faith." 
 
 " Laitd^s Conference with Fisher,'''' (Oxford) p. 126-7. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 The Church in the United States Na- 
 tional AND Pure. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE CHURCH LV THE UNITED STATES NA- 
 TIONAL AND PURE. 
 
 " Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit your- 
 selves ; for they watch for your souls, as they that must give 
 account." — Hebrews xiii. 17. 
 
 'T~^HE Lord Jesus is described by the writer of 
 -*- this Epistle, a {q^n verses later, as " that 
 Great Shepherd of the sheep." To Him belongs 
 the absolute supervision of the flock, to Him is 
 due an obedience which knows no limit or con- 
 dition. 
 
 But He is not the only Shepherd. He has 
 His deputies to whom He has said, " Feed my 
 sheep. Feed my lambs." To these pastors we 
 are, in the text, remitted. Whatever questions 
 may be raised as to the limit of their accounta- 
 bility, or as to the measure of the obedience to 
 be rendered to them, it is beyond all question 
 that Rule, and submission to Rule, are here set 
 forth as essential characteristics of the Christian 
 
90 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Church. The Church possesses, by delegation 
 from Almighty God, a right to govern. 
 
 It is commonly held that in these United 
 States there is no ecclesiastical body possessed of 
 prescriptive rights ; that the relation between 
 the denomination and its adherents, is by volun- 
 tary compact dissolvable at will, and that obedi- 
 ence to pastors rests upon no deeper foundation 
 than the duty of every peaceable man to conform 
 to the regulations of any society, of any sort, 
 in which he has consented to be enrolled. 
 
 We dare not thus explain away the " obedi- 
 ence of faith " to which we are called, or reduce 
 our accountability for individual souls and for the 
 religion of the nation wherein we are set, to a 
 mere advisory function. 
 
 We claim that Almighty God has not left the 
 people of this land without a company of Pastors 
 to whom it belongs by prescriptive right to open 
 the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven. W^e are 
 ^^ bold to affirm, that the body known as the Prot- 
 estant Episcopal Church in the United States of 
 America stands before the men of this nation 
 as the lawful representative of the Catholic 
 Church and of its Head. 
 
 This statement raises at once the question of 
 
The Church in the United States National. 91 
 
 Legitimacy and of Purity. If so be that we 
 have intruded where wc have no right to be, all 
 such pretension falls to the ground ; or if we have 
 fallen into such depravation of faith, doctrine or 
 discipline as to mar our Catholicity, our claim to 
 religious obedience is to that extent impaired, 
 
 II. Confining ourselves for the present to 
 the question of Legitimacy, it is the very sim- 
 plicity of the argument that stands in the way 
 of its reception. The particular objections which 
 may be alleged, admit of detailed controversy. 
 But the original question, How should the Cath- 
 olic Church be set up in the midst of a new-born 
 nation, rests upon essential grounds which may 
 not be successfully disputed. 
 
 We have said that as the waters of life issued 
 from the opened sepulchre, their currents adapt- 
 ed themselves by an inevitable necessity to the 
 configuration, geographical and national, of the 
 world which they were to vivify. With this 
 agree the intimations of the Master Himself and 
 of His Apostles, the facts of Church history and 
 the dictates of human prudence. It is under the 
 operation of this uniform law that the Churches 
 of Europe, of Africa and of the East took shape 
 and form. 
 
92 The CJiiirch in the Nation, 
 
 The discovery of a continent is a new fact in 
 the world's history, but the precedents and prin- 
 ciples of the past, are adequate to meet the ex- 
 igence. The nations of the old world plant col- 
 onies on this Western shore : they send hither 
 their laws and institutions ; they do also rightly 
 transmit the religious organization of the Moth- 
 er country. There is no room, in point of le- 
 gitimacy, for any rival claimant. 
 
 Our ancestors then, as colonists of England, 
 retained their allegiance to the Church of Eng- 
 land. From her they received their pastors and 
 teachers: to the Bishop of London and his com- 
 missaries they rendered canonical obedience; to 
 the nursing care of that Mother they were in- 
 debted for whatever of religious privilege they 
 possessed. 
 
 Presently the time arrived when the child-na- 
 tion should come of age, and enter upon its in- 
 heritance. It realizes the necessity of a new 
 ecclesiastical adjustment. Separated by the act 
 of Divine Providence from its filial subjection, 
 its scattered members take counsel together. 
 They ask and obtain, first of all, from the Church 
 of Scotland the gift of Apostolic Orders ; and 
 presently the Church of England, exacting pru- 
 
The Church hi the United States National. 93 
 
 dent safeguards, supplies them with all that was 
 needed to make of the daughter- Church, a sis- 
 ter, and to secure for her a place among the na- 
 tional Churches of the world. 
 
 This is the plain account of the circumstances 
 under which the Church of America came into 
 independent existence. It differs, no doubt, in 
 accident and circumstances from ancient prece- 
 dents : but in all substantial features it agrees 
 with the founding, the development and the 
 final establishment of Churches in earlier days, 
 set up among nations emerging into civilization 
 and independence. 
 
 Whatever authority then is possessed as her /y 
 inherent right by the Church of England, within 
 her proper domain, that same authority belongs 
 to the American Church within the limits of her 
 nationality. 
 
 I grant freely that in thus contending for the 
 prescriptive authority of the American Church, 
 1 have made large assumptions. I have told 
 you frankly that I pre-suppose the broad and 
 sure foundations laid by Catholic and Anglican 
 Doctors. If any believe not that the Church is 
 visible and one, unalterable in the essential of 
 Apostlic Faith and Order : or if any hold that the 
 
94 The CJuirch in the Nation. 
 
 Bishops of a national Church owe any debt, save 
 that of love and comity, to a foreign Church or 
 minister by the sufferance of a Universal Pontiff, 
 to such our words are but as the idlest tales. 
 
 But if the Church of England, venerable, es- 
 tablished, and endowed, has a Mother's rights 
 and a Mother's responsibility for the Lord's child- 
 ren in England, she has duly transmitted to this 
 Church wherein we minister, howbeit without 
 antiquity or civil recognition or inherited wealth, 
 the like authority within our natural limits. 
 
 That this view and no other was taken by our 
 ancestors may be abundantly proven. As early 
 as the 3rd of November, 1776, the Constitutional 
 Convention of the State of Maryland set forth a 
 " Declaration of Rights." — Section xxxiii. treats 
 of religion. 
 
 It asserts, first of all, the principle of religious 
 toleration, and then affirms " the churches, chap- 
 els, glebes and all other property now belonging 
 to the Church of England, ought to remain to the 
 Church of England forever." In the act of 1777, 
 concerning marriages, and in the Vestry Act 
 of 1779, mention is made of " Ministers of the 
 Church of England," " parish churches and 
 chapels of the Church of England," and of " per- 
 
TJic Church in the United States National. 95 
 
 sons publicly known to be of the profession in 
 religion known by the name of the Church of 
 England." Again, the preamble of the act to 
 incorporate a Clergy Relief Fund, 1784, recites 
 that application had been made " by a Commit- 
 tee appointed by and in behalf of the Clergy of 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church in this State, 
 formerly denominated the Church of England." 
 Such citations might be indefinitely multiplied. 
 They serve to show that in the judgment of civil- 
 ians, dealing with questions of vested right, the 
 continuity between the Church of England and 
 our own, is evident and unbroken. 
 
 If we turn to the utterances of our own eccle- 
 siastical authorities, they have been always to the 
 same effect. One illustration is a fair specimen of 
 them all. I allude to the Declaration set forth 
 by the House of Bishops, May 20th, 18 14, com- 
 municated to the House of Deputies, and return- 
 ed by them with the answer that they concurred 
 therein. 
 
 " It having been credibly stated to the 
 House of Bishops, that on questions in reference 
 to property devised before the Revolution, to 
 congregations belonging to the Church of Eng- 
 land, and to uses connected v/ith that name, some 
 
g6 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 doubts have been entertained in regard to the 
 identity of the body to which the two names 
 have been apphed, the House think it expedient 
 to make the declaration, and to request the 
 concurrence of the House of Clerical and Lay 
 Deputies therein, that the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the United States of America i.s the 
 same body heretofore known in these States by 
 the name of the "Church of England ;" the change 
 of name, although not of religious principle in 
 doctrine, or in worship, or in discipline, being in- 
 duced by a characteristic of the Church of Eng- 
 land, supposing the independence of Christian 
 Churches, under the different sovereignties to 
 which, respectively, their allegiance in civil con- 
 cerns belongs. But that when the severance al- 
 luded to, took place, and ever since^ this Church 
 conceives of herself as professing and acting on 
 the principles of the Church of England, is evi- 
 dent from the organization of our Convention, 
 and from their subsequent proceedings as record- 
 ed on the Journals ; to which, accordingly, this 
 Convention refer for satisfaction in the premises. 
 But it would be contrary to fact, were any one 
 to infer that the discipline exercised in this 
 Church, or that any proceedings there, are at all 
 
The Church in the United States National. 97 
 
 dependent on the will of the civil or of the eccle- 
 siastical authority of any foreign country," ^ 
 
 It will readily occur to you, that this affirma- 
 tion of Legitimacy cannot be confined to our- 
 selves. It is equally applicable, for instance, to 
 the Churches of the Roman obedience in Mexico, 
 and in the nations of South America. I do not 
 avoid this argument. It is within the scope of 
 these Lectures to consider our attitude towards 
 the Church of Rome and the questions which 
 have been mooted in connection with our abortive 
 effort in Mexico, and with the Old-Catholic 
 movements in Europe. This subject is reserved 
 for special treatment hereafter. 
 
 III. But let me remind you that the thesis 
 proposed by the Founder of these Lectures, which 
 I am endeavoring to illustrate and enforce, in- 
 volves more than Legitimacy and Prescriptive 
 Right. My theme is the Rights and Powers of 
 a " Pure and National Church." 
 
 In proffering the Church as the guide and 
 teacher of the Nation, in the things of God, it 
 would avail little for practical uses, barely to show 
 that Priestly authority has been transmitted ac- 
 cording to the rule of Scripture and of the 
 
 1 Reprinted in Journal of Gen. Con., 1847, p. 228. 
 
 7 
 
98 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Ancients; or that this Church, originally a 
 branch of an ancient stock, in the natural order 
 of things, rooted itself in the soil of a new world, 
 and by an undisputed concession, passed out of 
 the dependence of infancy, and according to the 
 old-time rule, accepted an autonomy made neces- 
 sary by the up-growth of a new nationality. 
 
 Order and organization are but means to ends : 
 conduits, stretching across the campagna of life 
 to the distant hills, beautiful and venerable in 
 themselves, but having their utmost worth in this, 
 that they safely convey the water from the living 
 rock to the lips of thirsting men. 
 
 We have need then to vindicate the Purity of 
 the Church, and to meet such objections as may 
 be preferred against her, not in the spirit of re- 
 sentment, but in all candor and fairness. 
 
 The argument need not draw us into personal- 
 ities, nor lead us to compare ourselves with other 
 men and to claim superior sanctity. 
 
 The spectacle is sometimes seen of a maa 
 conscious of many infirmities, most reluctant to 
 palm himself off to others at an estimate beyond 
 his true value, yet having no concession to make, 
 when his substantial integrity is impugned, and 
 repelling with indignation, any assault upon 
 
The Church in the United States National. 99 
 
 his honorable discharge of all fiduciary engage- 
 ments. 
 
 It cannot be charged against the fathers and 
 members of this Church that they are lost in 
 mutual admiration, or blindly devoted to all 
 the details of our ecclesiastical administration. I 
 appeal with confidence to my cotemporaries, and 
 ask them, whether for the last thirty years : or to 
 be more precise, from the date of the Memorial 
 Movement of 1853, associated with the names of 
 Muhlenberg and of Bishop Alonzo Potter, self- 
 scrutiny, even to the point of self-depreciation, 
 has not specially characterized our consultations ? 
 
 What are we doing to promote Christian unity ? 
 And what to carry our message to the hard- 
 handed multitudes? And what to resist the swell- 
 ing tide of vice and drunkenness ? And what 
 to convert the formalist and worldly-minded 
 who throng our aisles, and it may be, our 
 altars as well, into prayerful, self-denying, open- 
 handed saints ? These questions are freely asked. 
 
 We have invited criticism from ^vithout, and 
 when the righteous has smitten us friendly, we 
 have thanked him for his frankness. A glance at 
 our religious journals suffices to show, that no one 
 deems it necessary to refrain his critical speech ; 
 
100 The CJiurch in I he Nation. 
 
 the serious and the thoughtful, who have learned 
 that public evils easily espied, may not hastily be 
 cured, offer modestly their contribution for the 
 supply of deficiencies : while the irreverent and 
 self-sufficing, the men of shibboleth and party, 
 are permitted to rail recklessly not merely at di- 
 lapidation or excrescence, but at the substantial 
 fabric. But after meek acceptance of such re- 
 proofs as men may administer for our deficien- 
 cies in prudence and invention, in zeal and good 
 works, we may yet stand up with holy courage, 
 and afiirm that no treachery lies at our doors. 
 We have kept safely, even if we have not admin- 
 istered in the fullness of charity. We have kept 
 the Faith. Nor only so. We have kept the whole 
 deposit of doctrine and order committed to our 
 trust. 
 
 Here we have our cause, for the most part, in 
 common with the Church of England, and fall 
 back with confidence upon her great Doctors, 
 who have so ably defended her from every im- 
 putation cast upon her. 
 
 It belongs to a Pure Church to be a witness and 
 keeper of the written Word of God. Well and 
 truly has this duty been performed. The dignity 
 of that Word and the reverence due to it, its par- 
 
The Church in the United States National. lOI 
 
 amount authority above all human utterances, 
 its profitableness for all spiritual exigencies, its 
 adequateness of revelation for all questions of 
 duty and for all that belongs to the rescue and 
 the renovation of the fallen, are invariably at- 
 tested in her every utterance. None may de- 
 prive us of this our glorying. The Church's 
 one offensive weapon is the Word of God. As 
 the Priest that is to be, comes to ask of her a 
 commission, " to seek for Christ's sheep that are 
 dispersed abroad, and for His children who are 
 in the midst of this naughty world, that they 
 may be saved through Christ for ever," it is the 
 Bible which she places in his hands, with the re- 
 minder, "Ye cannot by any other means, com- 
 pass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining 
 to the salvation of man, but with doctrine and 
 exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and with a life agreeable to the same." 
 
 Nor has she wrapped this precious talent in a 
 napkin and hidden it in secret. She acknowl- 
 edges the instruction of the Giver, 'Occupy till I 
 come.' Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not 
 now the prisoners who petitioned Queen Eliza- 
 beth at her coronation, for release. In the 
 Church's estimate they are living creatures and 
 
102 TJic CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 many-winged, flying abroad through all the na- 
 tions. 
 
 That volume has not lain idle and disused in 
 her hands. Who can compute the labor that has 
 been expended in transcribing, printing, and 
 diffusing! In repeated translations, and in efforts 
 even now in progress, to secure the truest ren- 
 dering into modern speech of those venerable 
 documents ! Nor only so, but in expositions of 
 the sacred text, involving enormous research in- 
 to all literature, sacred and profane ! And as for 
 the habitual use of it, it may be doubted wheth- 
 er any Church, in any age, has made so large a 
 use of Holy Scripture for purposes of instruct- 
 ion and devotion, in her public assemblies. 
 
 Are you impatient of statements so self-evi- 
 dent ? My brethren, we have all need to im- 
 press upon our hearts, our infinite debt of grati- 
 tude to the Spirit of all good, for the singular 
 grace He has accorded to the English-speaking 
 Church, of fidelity to a trust so sacred. When one 
 thinks how seldom it is, that among the great 
 company of preachers who fill the pulpits of the 
 land, one, after the example of the Master, stands 
 up " for to read," and how it has never so much 
 as occurred to the many, in hours of penitence 
 
The Church in the United States National. 1 03 
 
 and sadness, of thankfulness and adoration, to 
 pour out their hearts in formulas so precious to 
 us that we know not how to dispense with 
 them, the Miserei'c mei, the Dc profundis, the 
 Jubilate, the Quam dilecta : when one recalls 
 the thrill of approbation and of gratitude to God 
 which pervaded all our hearts, by reason of an 
 utterance of the Roman Hierarchy, in Plenary 
 Council assembled in Baltimore, " the most high- 
 ly valued treasure of every family library, and the 
 mjst frequently and lovingly made tise of, should 
 be the Holy Scriptures :" in view of such things, 
 no words are adequate to express our debt of 
 love and veneration to the dear old Mother, for 
 Scriptures kept and guarded, for the gift of a 
 translation so beautiful that it crystallized and 
 fixed the language in which it was written, and 
 for the skill and spiritualness by which the Sa- 
 cred Word has been made to underlie, to inter- 
 penetrate, to beautify and to spiritualize, all our 
 devotions and all spiritual functions. 
 
 The Church is Pure in that she has kept the 
 Faith : in that she has not fallen into the error 
 of erasing the line of demarcation between arti- 
 cles of Faith and articles of Doctrine: in that 
 she has preserved unimpaired the great Doctrines 
 
104 The Church in the Natiofi. 
 
 of our Holy Religion as well as its essential Creed. 
 
 The Faith is that acknowledgment of Father, 
 Son and Holy Ghost, imposed by our Blessed 
 Lord, as the profession to be made by all who 
 are admitted into His earthly family, presently 
 elaborated into the Creeds of Christendom. 
 Such Creeds, identical in substance, although at 
 the first varied in phraseology, were in early days 
 the symbols by which all Christians recognized 
 their unity ; the pass- words at which the Church 
 in each and every nation opened its doors to the 
 baptized stranger. 
 
 Could some saint of the days of the General 
 Councils awake as from a swoon and approach 
 our portals, he would be challenged just as his 
 cotemporaries were wont to challenge each 
 professed Christian : there would be laden upon 
 him no greater burden than the same yoke of 
 necessary belief, which the fathers imposed upon 
 all such as would be saved. 
 
 The Faith is somewhat to be exacted of men 
 as a pre-requisite for Holy Baptism, as an unal- 
 terable condition of salvation, under the sanction, 
 " He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
 saved." Belief and Baptism in the thrice holy 
 name, stand unique, above and apart from all 
 
The Church in the United States National. 105 
 
 other things, as the primary essentials of Christian 
 citizenship. 
 
 A particular Church is not at hberty to deny 
 or to conceal any part of this Faith. Neither is 
 it permissible to erect into an article of Faith, 
 any doctrine whatsoever, albeit it is assured to 
 us by Scripture itself and by Catholic consent. 
 Whenever this process begins, the Unity of 
 Christendom receives a fatal wound. Error in 
 doctrine may be tolerated in a Church, so long 
 as the erroneous teaching is not imposed upon 
 the conscience. 
 
 Communion between Sister Churches, who 
 differ much in their doctrinal confessions, is en- 
 tirely practicable, so long as the Catholic Creeds 
 abide as the sufficient text of orthodoxy. There 
 is a reason for this. The Creeds are in the 
 main, the recitation of the facts of our holy re- 
 ligion. Doctrinal statements involve more or less 
 of human wisdom or unwisdom, in formulating 
 and reconciling the scattered utterances of the 
 inspired volume. I do not disparage the value of 
 Doctrine. The Church cannot meet her obliga- 
 tions to her own children without statements 
 auxiliary to the great confessions. But this 
 Church has distinctly recognized on the one 
 
io6 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 hand her hbcrty to teach all that her Lord has 
 commanded to be observed, and on the other 
 her lack of authority to add to the Faith once 
 delivered, any religious doctrine, however true, 
 however precious. 
 
 And this is our great contention with the 
 Church of Rome. It needs not that we prove 
 that Purgatory is an invention, or that Transub- 
 stantiation is a false explanation of the Real 
 Presence. We are not required to demonstrate 
 that the Blessed Virgin did inherit a fallen na- 
 ture, being herself saved by the grace of her Son, 
 not in reward of her own unsullied righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 Reserving all questions of the truth or false- 
 hood of the doctrinal statements in controversy, 
 we ask, was it ever heard, until of late, that to 
 affirm these things was necessary in order to be 
 a Christian ; that to refuse assent to them was to 
 become heretic, and to incur the dire penalties 
 in store for him who denies that Jesus Christ 
 has come in the flesh ? 
 
 The convert-Cardinals, whose names once 
 stood so high on the rolls of the Church of Eng- 
 land, have sought to answer these questions. 
 
 Newman proposed a most ingenious theory 
 
The CJntrch in the U fitted States National. 107 
 
 of Development, which failed however to be ac- 
 cepted by his associates. 
 
 It could not be so stretched as to embrace 
 doctrines for which it could not be pretended 
 there was in the Apostolic teaching so much as 
 a protoplastic cell, out of which they might be 
 evolved. Manning presently, as by a word, 
 changes the line of battle, and deserts as worth- 
 less the familiar Roman entrenchments. In the 
 " Temporal mission of the Holy Ghost " he 
 teaches in substance, that the appeal from the 
 living voice of the Church to any tribunal what- 
 soever, human history included, is an act of 
 private judgment and a treason. 
 
 It is necessary to the Purity of the Church, 
 that besides keeping the Faith and guarding it 
 apart, she should maintain that truth of Doctrine, 
 which grows out of the Faith, and which is need- 
 ed in order that the man of God may be thor- 
 oughly furnished unto all good works. This 
 truth must be taught distinctly and intelligibly ; 
 it must be held in its symmetry, no individual 
 feature being exaggerated to the dwarfing of 
 others : it must be presented in its evangelic pow- 
 er and spiritualness, and not in the shape of 
 lifeless formulas. Of this doctrinal Purity the 
 
io8 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 truest safeguard is the substantial Liturgy of 
 the ages, wherein the company of behevcrs 
 throughout the world, have embodied in de- 
 votional forms, the most assured convictions of 
 Christian souls. By all such tests, the Church 
 is ready to be tried. 
 
 To resist the force of these general statements 
 particular objections arc made against the Legiti- 
 macy and the Purity of the Anglican and of the 
 American Churches, to which it seems necessary 
 to advert. 
 
 IV. One class of objections may be grouped 
 together, inasmuch as they impugn the Mission 
 and lawful Jurisdiction of these Churches. 
 
 It is said that apart from the Papal claim to 
 the universal Episcopate, the Bishop of Rome is at 
 least the Patriarch of the West ; that the Popes 
 who sent missionaries into the British Islands, 
 Eleutherius in the second century, Celestine in 
 the fifth, and Gregory in the sixth, acquired 
 thereby rights of eminent domain, so that when 
 Archbishops of Canterbury ceased to be invest- 
 ed with the pallium, their Mission was lost for- 
 ever. Such objections not only make large as- 
 sumptions of historical facts, disputed and denied, 
 but pre-supposc a rigidity in Patriarchal and Me- 
 
The Church iji Ihe United States National. 1 09 
 
 tropolitan arrangements, at variance with the 
 grounds of expediency on which they have always 
 rested, and with the changes to which they have 
 been subjected, sometimes by the authority of 
 Councils, and sometimes by less formal, but 
 universally accepted compacts. They strike at the 
 root of the autonomy of National Churches, and 
 make all ecclesiastical bodies dependent, in all 
 time, upon the Bishop, perchance thousands of 
 miles distant, whose charity sent forth the sow- 
 er to scatter the good seed beside all waters. 
 
 Objection is made to the irregularities attend- 
 ant on the withdrawal of the Church of England 
 from Papal rule : to the vices of those who 
 promoted this revolt, to the spiritual tyranny ex- 
 ercised by the civil authority, to the deprivation 
 of Bishops by the secular arm, and the consecra- 
 tion of Bishops without the consent of a majori- 
 ty of the comprovincials. 
 
 And as for the American Church, it is ob- 
 jected that its Mission from the Church of Eng- 
 land, valueless as that was, lapsed ipso facto with 
 the political separation : that a few persons in 
 Priests' orders who were left as waifs upon these 
 shores, sustained by a small company of baptized 
 laymen, invented and created a brand-new 
 
1 1 o The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Church, and by their voluntary compact, impart- 
 ed to it Mission and Jurisdiction. The patient 
 waiting upon the providence of God, the studi- 
 ous care to keep strictly within the lines of settled 
 usage, the distinct investiture of the daughter 
 by the mother from whom most naturally she 
 would ask the gifts of Orders, Mission and Juris- 
 diction, these are kept back, and the story is told, 
 as if our ancestors had proceeded on the desert- 
 island theory, and evolved an original doctrine, 
 liturgy and ministry out of their own unaided 
 resources. 
 
 V. Without entering into the details of the 
 controversies on these subjects, which fill hun- 
 dreds of volumes, we venture to call attention to 
 some great principles in the light of which these 
 things are to be viewed. Particular objections, 
 as Bishop Butler has taught us, are simply inex- 
 haustible. Nothing is so surely ascertained, that 
 ingenuity cannot find something to say against it. 
 There is an outline, an effect, a general result 
 which of itself refutes the frivolity of minute crit- 
 icism. 
 
 VI. When the Church asserts authority for 
 her rule, men have a right to demand such ac- 
 count of herself as to lead to moral certainty. 
 
The Church in the United States National. 1 1 1 
 
 This has been defined as " siich a high degree of 
 probability as would justify a prudent man in 
 acting upon it, under the circumstances of the case, 
 as if it lucre an absolute certainty." ^ 
 
 A prudent man then recognizes the " circum- 
 stances of the case." He does not set up criteria 
 of his own as indispensable. He agrees in ad- 
 vance that God has not violently held men back 
 from disfiguring His handiwork. To recur to 
 the familiar figure, the river of the Church, passing 
 through the lake of the world, has at times been 
 chilled in its flow, and the turbid waters on either 
 side have marred its transparency. The prudent 
 man will not shut his eyes to the facts of history; 
 heresies and schisms, intrusions of the civil into 
 the spiritual, and of the spiritual into the civil 
 domain, cruel kings making of the Church's doc- 
 trine a plaything, and lording it over conscience, 
 vile men filling the Church's highest offices and 
 betraying her sacred rights. The history is again 
 of well-meaning men, weak and friendless, sur- 
 rounded by the prejudiced and inimical, irresolute 
 for lack of precedent to guide them in novel cir- 
 
 1 Reynold's Law of Evidence (Baltimore) p. 7. The definition 
 is taken from Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Introduction to the 
 Indian Evidence Acts of 1872, p. 35. 
 
1 1 2 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 cumstances, sometimes erring in judgment, 
 sometimes making undue concession to the 
 temper of the age. The prudent man will con- 
 sent in advance, that arrangements of expedien- 
 cy, most necessary to be observed for the peace 
 and order of the Church, are matters of consent, 
 not necessarily invariable or immutable, but 
 to be observed in the spirit rather than in the 
 letter, in unforseen exigencies. He will agree 
 that where the intent was to do the right, and 
 where substantial principles were respected and 
 observed, irregularities of form and method may 
 be condoned, and defects of accuracy, supple- 
 mented or cured by the common consent of all 
 who have a share in the subject matter. 
 
 Bishop Burnett has well summed up the 
 common-sense view of the matter : 
 
 " The Roman empire, though a great body, yet 
 was all under one government, and therefore all 
 the councils that were held while that empire 
 stood, are to be considered only as national syn- 
 ods, under one civil policy. The Christians of 
 Persia, India, or Ethiopia, were not subject to the 
 canons made by them, but were at full liberty to 
 make rules and canons for themselves. And in 
 the primitive times we see a vast diversity in 
 
The Church tJt the United States National. 1 1 3 
 
 their rules and rituals. They were so far from 
 imposing general rules on all, that they left the 
 Churches at full liberty : even the Council of 
 Nice made very few rules : that of Constantino- 
 ple and Ephesus made fewer ; and though the 
 abuses that were growing in the fifth century 
 gave occasion to the Council of Chalcedon to 
 make more canons, yet the number of these is 
 but small : so that the tyranny of subjecting 
 particular Churches to laws that might be incon- 
 venient for them, was not then brought into 
 the Church. * * * * 
 
 " But now that the Roman empire is gone, 
 and that all the laws which they made are at an 
 end, with the authority that made them ; it is a 
 vain thing to pretend to keep up the ancient 
 dignities of sees ; since the Foundation upon 
 which that was built is sunk and gone. Every 
 empire, kingdom, or state is an entire body 
 within itself. The magistrate has that authority 
 over all his subjects, that he may keep them all at 
 home, and hinder them from entering into any 
 consultations or combinations, but such as shall 
 be under his direction ; he may require the pas- 
 tors of the church under him to consult together 
 about the best methods for carrying on the ends 
 8 
 
1 14 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 of religion, but neither he nor they can be bound 
 to stay for the concurrence of other Churches. 
 In the way of managing this, every body of men 
 has somewhat pecuHar to itself: and the pastors 
 of that body are the properest judges in that 
 matter. We know that the several churches, 
 even while under one empire, had great varieties 
 in their forms, as appears in the different prac- 
 tices of the Eastern and Western Churches ; and 
 as soon as the Roman empire was broken, we 
 see this variety did increase. The GalHcan 
 churches had their missals different from the Ro- 
 man, and some churches of Italy followed the 
 Ambrosian. But Charles the Great, in compli- 
 ance with the desires of the pope, got the Gal- 
 ilean churches to depart from their own missals, 
 and to receive the Roman ; which he might the 
 rather do, intending to have raised a new empire 
 to which a conformity of rites might have been 
 a great step. Even in this church there was a 
 great variety of usages, which perhaps were be- 
 gun under the Heptarchy, when the nation was 
 subdivided into several kingdoms. 
 
 " It is therefore suitable to the nature of things, 
 to the authority of the magistrate and to the 
 obligations of the pastoral care, that every 
 
The Church in the United States National. 1 1 5 
 
 church should act within herself as an entire and 
 independent body. The Churches owe not only 
 a friendly and brotherly correspondence to one 
 another, but they owe to their own body govern- 
 ment and direction, and such provisions and 
 methods as are most likely to promote the great 
 ends of religion, and to preserve the peace of the 
 society both in Church and State. Therefore we 
 are no other way bound by ancient canons, but 
 as the same reason still subsisting, we may see 
 the same cause to continue them, that there 
 was at first to make them. " ^ 
 
 In view of alleged irregularities, Burnett further 
 observes that " of all bodies in the world, the 
 Church of Rome has the worst grace to re- 
 proach us." Brought to such tests as she would 
 impose on others, how shall she defend the legi- 
 timate transmission of the Papacy itself through 
 long periods of strife and of rival claimants to 
 obedience? Can she blot out the records of 
 monsters of iniquity who purchased the tiara for 
 money, and shocked the world by their vices ? 
 Can she reconcile with the canon of Nice, the 
 orders conferred on the first Archbishop of Balti- 
 more by a single titular Bishop ? 
 
 1 Burnett on Art. xxxiv. p. 490. 
 
ii6 Tlie Church in the Nation. 
 
 VII. Charitable construction has its place in 
 our courts of law. It is necessary in the State 
 of Maryland, to the validity of a marriage, that it 
 shall have been duly celebrated by a minister of 
 religion. But when people have spent a long 
 life together as man and wife, in good repute, 
 and with universal recognition, the Courts have 
 determined that the lawful marriage was not to 
 be disputed because through accident or careless- 
 ness, an original record could not be produced.^ 
 
 Unmoved then by particular objections grow- 
 ing out of circumstances, the prudent man de- 
 mands such showing as shall enable him to rely 
 with moral certainty upon those things which 
 are of vital importance. He sees the Archbish- 
 
 '" Where parties live together ostensibly as man and wife, 
 demeaning themselves towards each other as such, and are 
 i-eceived into society and treated by their friends and relations 
 as having, and being entitled to that status, the law will, in 
 favor of morality and decency, presume that they have been 
 legally married." — Redgrave vi. Redgrave Admin., j8 Mary- 
 lattd, gy. 
 
 This principle is urged to meet any possible objection by 
 reason of the absence of official documents touching Consecra- 
 tions and the like. Hugh Davey Evans, whose works exhaust 
 the questions of Anglican Orders, shows that the very assaults 
 made upon them, have brought to light an overwhelming mass 
 of documentary evidence. There is no need or room for char- 
 itable construction. 
 
The Church in the United States National. 1 1 7 
 
 op of Canterbury, his Suffragans, and the Bish- 
 ops of the Northern Province, occupying sees 
 for twelve hundred years without any rival claim- 
 ant, receiving their Episcopal authority in strict 
 accordance with rules which always prevailed for 
 its safe transmission. If to lack the confirmation 
 of the Pope, invalidates such transactions, then 
 we have no standing. But if that be not neces- 
 sary, if it lies within the competence of the 
 Bishops of a Province to perpetuate their order 
 and to supply vacant sees within provincial lim- 
 its, the assurance that all was rightly done, 
 amounts to moral certainty. 
 
 And so also of the hierarchy of the American 
 Church. Consider again the circumstances of 
 the case. A new country breaks the political 
 ties which bind it to the old world. Insuperable 
 difficulties are in the way of the assertion by the 
 English Church of continued religious authority. 
 What could the scattered Churchmen of the land 
 do, but make the best provisional arrangements 
 possible at the moment, repairing quickly to the 
 mother-land for the gift of apostolic authority ? 
 And when the men whom they proposed were 
 accepted and sent back with the full benediction 
 of the Church across the sea, without a cavil, it 
 
1 1 8 The CJmi'ch iji the Nation. 
 
 becomes morally certain that the Church of 
 America is the lawful descendant of that body 
 which, from the earliest days, under many vicis- 
 situdes, has been the representative of Christ in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 VI 11. It has been objected against the American 
 Church that it has put in brackets an article of 
 the Apostles' Creed. 
 
 Scarcely any of us deny that this was a mis- 
 take. Many are rejoicing in the expectation 
 that it will presently be repaired. Even in this 
 single point of view, we look with eager longing 
 to the action of the General Convention of 1886. 
 God forbid that results so valuable, should be en- 
 dangered, perhaps lost, through failure to recog- 
 nize an unlocked for opportunity, on the con- 
 tinuance of which none may safely count. May 
 those who have long been distressed at this one 
 signal error of those to whom we owe the pro- 
 foundest debt of gratitude, be privileged without 
 delay to see this blot removed. 
 
 But while we confess a mistake, let us not ex- 
 aggerate it. The Church has not fallen into here- 
 sy. It has not equivocated concerning the two 
 natures united in the one Christ. It has not de- 
 nied the Descent into Hell. The theological 
 
The Church in the United States National. 119 
 
 statements of Art. ii. and iii. are as precise as 
 those of the Athanasian formula. In several of 
 the Offices, the Apostles' Creed is recited in full. 
 Only through a fear of misapprehension, this 
 modification has, in vague and uncertain rubric, 
 been made permissive in the recital on occasion 
 of Morning and Evening Prayer. 
 
 Let the Church be faulted, if you will, for tim- 
 idity and unwisdom. But charity apart, it is 
 most unjust to charge heresy, when none had it 
 in mind to deny the truth involved. 
 
 It rests upon the same grounds of excuse, if 
 not of justification, as the addition of the Filioque. 
 Particular Churches, holding the same faith, have, 
 without evil intent, modified the phrases in which 
 it is expressed. That the Father is the Fount 
 of Divinity, none intended to deny, although the 
 nature of the Procession, and of the mission of 
 the Comforter has been variously expressed. 
 IX. It is said that in accepting the title of Protes- 
 tant Episcopal, we have virtually surrendered 
 all claim to be the Catholic Church of the United 
 States. 
 
 We do not deny the potency of a name. Most 
 desirable is it that the name, like the title to an 
 act of Congress, should express in the concisest 
 
120 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 and most definite words the quality of tliat which 
 it describes. But the failure of the name fully 
 to describe the thing, does not destroy it. 
 
 All the world knows that in the most solemn 
 offices we make profession of our belief in one 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church. To convert 
 our corporate designation into a denial of an ar- 
 ticle of faith is simply unreasonable. The Bish- 
 op of Western New York, in his report to the 
 House of Bishops, in 1883, has cited ample au- 
 thority and precedent for the use of a designation 
 other than Catholic, as a specific title, by Church- 
 es venerable and wide-spread. How came we 
 by this designation ? 
 
 On the 9th of November, 1780, while the war 
 of Independence was in progress, there was held 
 in Chestertown, Maryland, now within the limits 
 of the diocese of Easton, the first of those con- 
 sultations which had in view the organizing of 
 the scattered fragments of the Church. It was 
 convened at the instance of Dr. Smith, the first 
 Bishop-elect of Maryland, well-known for his ac- 
 tivity and influence in drafting the Ecclesiastical 
 Constitution and in revising the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer. The name " Protestant Episcopal " 
 seems to have been there accepted. This primary 
 
The Church in the United States National. 1 2 1 
 
 meeting at Chestertown was followed by several 
 others. In May, 1783, an address was issued to 
 " the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 of Maryland," and in August, 1783, before peace 
 was finally concluded, the Convention set forth 
 " a Declaration of certain Fundamental Rights 
 and Liberties of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 of Maryland." ' 
 
 The name thus introduced was accepted by 
 common consent. In 1784 numerous petitions 
 came up to the General Assembly of Virginia, 
 asking for an "Act to incorporate the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in Virginia." " 
 
 At the Council, preliminary to a General Con- 
 vention, held in New Brunswick in October, 1784, 
 the delegates from eight states agreed that "there 
 should be a General Convention of the Episco- 
 pal Church in the United States," but thereafter, 
 the prefix of Protestant constantly appears. 
 
 The use of this name was not confined to our- 
 selves. In the correspondence, as far back as 
 1782, of Dr. George Berkeley, described by 
 
 1 Reprint of Maryland Convention Journals appended to 
 Journal of 1856. See particulars in article of Rev. F. Gibson, 
 Church Review, Jan. 1885. 
 
 "^ Hawks' Hist, of Virginia, p. 157. 
 
The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Wilberforce as the " eldest son of the great Bish- 
 op Berkeley, the heir of his father's virtues and 
 of his interest in the welfare of America," he urg- 
 ed the Scottish Bishops that " a most important 
 good might ere long be derived to the suffering 
 and nearly neglected sons of Protestant Episco- 
 pac)^ on the other side of the Atlantic, from the 
 suffering Church of Scotland." ^ 
 
 It seems, then, that in a day of confusion and 
 uncertainty, when the name of the Church of 
 England, previously borne, was at once obsolete 
 and practically odious, when greedy men stood 
 ready, as presently they succeeded in Virginia, to 
 strip the Church bare of her possessions, it be- 
 came necessary to adopt a name under which 
 suitable acts of Incorporation might be secured 
 from the civil authority. It needs no argument 
 to show what a storm of prejudice would have 
 been aroused had a body of Christians, so few in 
 numbers, and by their own confession, lacking 
 in the present the power of self-perpetuation, de- 
 manded of the State to be recognized as " the 
 Church of the United States." I dare not fault 
 those pioneers in an untried way, for consenting 
 to accept a name which sufficiently distinguished 
 > Wilberforce's Hist. American Church, Ch. vi. p. 149. 
 
The Church in the United States National. 123 
 
 them from other reh'gious bodies, under the pro- 
 tection of the law, while they erased not one syl- 
 lable from the formularies which committed them 
 to the faith of the Catholic Church, one and 
 undivided. 
 
 The chief object of these LECTURES is to urge 
 that this Church has resting upon her the awful 
 responsibility of being our Lord's accredited rep- 
 resentative to the people of this land. Here may 
 we stand, as an anvil when it is beaten upon. 
 Whether it is best to force from the lips of men 
 indifferent, or in a sense hostile, a style of address 
 whereof they deny the suitableness ; whether it is 
 wise to endanger the tenure of our property in 
 a thousand courts of law, and to throw away a 
 name of which the history of a century has giv- 
 en us no cause to be ashamed ; a name, which, if 
 it be discarded by ourselves, would presently be 
 gladly caught up, and proudly displayed else- 
 where, let the wise among us determine. 
 
 Bacon's words seem rightly to apply to us : . 
 
 " Preserve the rights of thy place, but stir not 
 questions of jurisdiction : and rather assume thy 
 right in silence and de-facto, than voice it with 
 claims and challenges." ' 
 
 1 Essay of Great Place. 
 
124 T^fi'C Church in the Natio7t. 
 
 At a time when by reason of civil war, the 
 Southern dioceses had need to dehberate apart, 
 this question of the Church's name was largely 
 discussed. Bishop Meade, while not dissenting 
 from other Bishops on the substantial questions 
 involved, suggested considerations which de- 
 serve to be put on record. He reminded us 
 that names, being designed to preserve identity, 
 and to secure recognition, may now express the 
 essence and now the accidents of that which is 
 intended to be described. 
 
 Thus, to produce the most illustrious of 
 precedents, Almighty God made Himself known 
 to Moses under a name which affirms the Abso- 
 lute and the Self-Existent. " I AM THAT I AM." 
 
 And yet He consented to be known as God 
 in history, and to borrow a name from mortals, 
 so that men might know Him and address Him 
 as "The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob." 
 
 So also have men acquired new designations 
 borrowed from their history. Thus Scipio be- 
 came Africanus, and Saul, after the conversion of 
 Sergius Paulus, bscomes Paul, according to the 
 more obvious (although by no means certain) 
 explanation of the change in nomenclature which 
 begins with Acts xiii. 
 
The Church in the United States National. 125 
 
 In point of fact, this Church, continuous with 
 the Church of England, has protested and still 
 protests against the claims of a Universal Pon- 
 tiff, against unwarrantable additions to the Faith, 
 against grave errors in doctrine and discipline, 
 concerning which it was impossible to be silent. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it has been our lot, at 
 great cost and sacrifice, under many difficul- 
 ties and disadvantages, involving a century of 
 growth repressed, of scandals and disorders 
 for want of authoritative discipline, to testify 
 to the divine order of the Sacred Ministry. 
 
 It is no disgrace to us, that these, the most 
 salient features in the history of centuries, have 
 become emblazoned on the Church's crest and 
 enter into men's definition of her. 
 
 To be convinced on reasonable grounds that 
 this Church is, in this nation, the legitimate and 
 accredited representative of the Church of the 
 Ages and of her Head, is enough to solemnize and 
 even appal those who accept a commission from 
 her. It needs not to number the people. Nu- 
 merical inferiority does not discharge us of our 
 trust. God sends us forth to speak and to do in 
 His behalf Methinks I hear Him giving to this 
 National Church, that same weighty charge which 
 
126 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 is addressed to the individual priest within his 
 limited cure of souls. " See that ye never cease 
 your labor, your care and diligence, until ye 
 have done all that lieth in you, according to your 
 bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall 
 be committed to your charge, unto that agree- 
 ment in the faith and knowledge of God, and to 
 that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, 
 that there be no place left among you, either for 
 error in religion or for viciousness of life." 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Church's Duty to Her Own Chil- 
 dren AND Her Own People. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE CHURCH'S DUTY TO HER OWN CHILDREN 
 AND HER OWN PEOPLE. 
 
 "Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the 
 Lord, that thou fulfil it." — Coloss. iv. 17. 
 
 TDISHOP WORDSWORTH, briefly com- 
 ^^ ments on this saying : " This is an example 
 of Paul's prudence in government. He gives a 
 public command to the Pastor to do his duty to 
 the flock : and thus he also commands the flock to 
 recognize and obey their Pastor." — Theophyl. 
 
 There can be no true responsibility without 
 adequate powers : no right to govern without a 
 correlative duty to obey. 
 
 Proposing in the remainder of these Lectures, 
 to make practical application of the great princi- 
 ples of ecclesiastical authority, I desire to remind 
 you that we cannot sever the Rights and Powers 
 of a National Church from her Duties and Re- 
 sponsibilities. Neither can we speak of these 
 9 129 
 
130 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 attributes cf the authority that governs without 
 due regard to the Hberties and privileges, the 
 accountability and obligations of those who are 
 governed. 
 
 Keeping all these in view, let me endeavor to 
 present, one after another, some of the great 
 trusts confided to the Church, and the rights and 
 duties consequent thereon. 
 
 II. The Church is in the Nation, a city set on 
 an hill, that cannot be hid, a candlestick, light- 
 diffusing unto all that are in the house. If 
 its brightness be obscured, God's pilgrims 
 must grope uncertainly ; and if the light that is 
 in it be darkness, how great is that darkness ! 
 
 In approaching this subject, I have been glad- 
 dened by the recent utterance of a Virginia lay- 
 man that " he believes the Church he loves to be 
 the Power ordained of God for the conservation 
 of religion, and the stability of public virtue on 
 this continent." ^ He adopts and applies to the 
 Church of his allegiance, words of Burke con- 
 cerning the Church of England : " I would have 
 her a common blessing to the world : an exam- 
 ple, if not an instructor, to all who have not the 
 happiness to belong to her. I would have her 
 
 ' Hon. H. W. Sheffey, in Church Review, Oct. 1884. 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Oivn People. 131 
 
 give a lesson of peace to mankind, that a vexed 
 and wandering generation may be taught to 
 seek repose in the maternal bosom of her Chris- 
 tian Charity." 
 
 Our national responsibility is not indeed un- 
 divided. A majority of the people prefer to ren- 
 der allegiance elsewhere, and there is no open 
 door by which we can approach them. We pre- 
 tend no exclusive possession of intelligence and 
 learning, of benevolence and zeal, of moral ex- 
 cellence and Christian virtue. If I omit, in this 
 connection, mention of the great religious bodies 
 in the land, and of our duty towards them, or by 
 reason of them, it is in order to reserve the sub- 
 ject for specific discussion. 
 
 In the nature of things we must at times fasten 
 our gaze, on scenes in the history of the world 
 and of the Church, which are far from lovely. 
 We wander amid perplexities and lose ourselves 
 in discussions unedifying, if not frivolous. 
 
 But there comes a time to the faithful student 
 and thinker, when he reaches the summit of as- 
 sured results : when by reason of the elevation 
 on which he stands, the garden of the Lord is 
 seen in its gracious configuration, unshadowed 
 by the monuments of man's wickedness and 
 
132 The Chirch in the Nation. 
 
 weakness, watered by a pure river, parted into 
 the four heads of ApostoHc Doctrine, and Fellow- 
 ship, and Prayers, and Sacraments; and permeat- 
 ing all the earth. 
 
 In the midst of a nation whose growth within 
 a century transcends all precedent, we see a 
 Church organized under various pastors, unique 
 in her characteristics and with the stamp of royal 
 lineage on her brow. 
 
 She clasps to her bosom the roll of Sacred 
 Scriptures, indited by those who were moved of 
 the Holy Ghost, but does not hoard them there. 
 For she is ever displaying them before the eyes 
 of men, bidding them to hear and read, to mark 
 and learn, and inwardly digest. And because 
 some are slow to learn, and may be confused by 
 reason of the multiplicity of the revelations, she 
 has accepted from the hand of Moses the tablets 
 of the Law ; from the lips of Jesus the formula of 
 devotion ; and from the undivided world-wide 
 Church, the confession of the Faith; inscribing 
 these on the background of her altars, as the 
 Agenda, Precanda, Credenda of all Christian 
 souls. 
 
 She bears in her hand a sceptre of authority. 
 This pastoral staff, is one with that delivered by 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Own People. 133 
 
 our Lord to the foreman of the ApostoHc College, 
 multiplied, like the consecrated loaves, but never 
 newly-invented, her own peculiar investiture sep- 
 arate but not divided from the insignia which 
 mark the universal Church of God. That sceptre 
 was delivered by Apostolic hands to the mission- 
 aries who penetrated to the utmost bounds of the 
 West, and evangelized the rude peoples out of 
 whose commingling, sprang the English nation. 
 Times there were, when despite continuous pro- 
 test, it was, so to speak, suppressed by those who 
 claimed for one Bishop absolute sovereignty 
 over his fellows, instead of a Primacy of honor, 
 which they were ready to concede. Times there 
 were, when it was draped in mourning for the 
 pride of those who bare it, or when it was thrust 
 into a corner by the insolence of the great. But 
 through all vicissitudes it v/as never surrendered 
 or lost; and when the children had migrated and 
 builded them houses beyond the sea, the spirit- 
 ual mother endowed the daughter with the cre- 
 dentials and badges of authority, necessary to the 
 fulfilling here of a ministry identical in all essen- 
 tials with that which belonged to herself at home. 
 The vesture by which men are wont to recog- 
 nize her is the adornment of saintly formula and 
 
134 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 ceremony, whereof the warp and woof are 
 the golden and silver threads of Scripture and of 
 ancient liturgy. Demand of her, her mission: and 
 you shall see her taking to her breast some little 
 child cast out into the open field to die, and 
 breathing upon it with a new name, the assurance 
 of a new adoption : you shall see her extending to 
 men exhausted by life's battle the bread and wine 
 of spiritual refreshment, and with it the blessed 
 hope that the Lord will presently appear to ad- 
 mit her and her children to the Marriage Supper 
 of the Lamb. 
 
 If it be so, that the commission, the doctrine, 
 the sacraments committed to our dispensation 
 are in all essentials identical with those com- 
 mitted to Archippus in the Lord : if the fel- 
 lowship stands unimpaired by any revolt against 
 lawful authority, any anathema hurled against 
 other churches, any arbitrary exaction of terms 
 of communion : if our mission here, is in strict 
 accord with ancient canons and usages, with the 
 conventions of human prudence and in the just 
 ordering of Divine providence, then does this 
 Church possess a ministry which must be ful- 
 filled to the Nation and to the individuals who 
 compose it : a ministry which we may not de- 
 
TJlc C lucre lis Duty to Her Ozvii People. 135 
 
 volve on others, however they be personally- 
 worthy : a ministry from which we may not shrink 
 appalled by the seeming odds against us. 
 
 If God's pure word be in our hands and on our 
 lips, and His anointing oil upon our brows, yea, 
 if the prophetic mantle of Him who was taken 
 up into heaven has fallen upon us, we need not 
 cry " Alas ! Master, what shall we do ?" It is di- 
 vine illumination rather than human reinforce- 
 ment that we need. The mountains that seem 
 to hem us in, are even now full of horses and 
 chariots of fire round about us. 
 
 Shall it be said that this assertion of authority 
 to guide and govern the souls of men, an author- 
 ity resting on a divine commission, and in no 
 wise impaired by the fact that the many know 
 not of it, or deny it, or deride it, shall it be said, 
 that it tends to promote in us Pharisaism and 
 spiritual pride ? 
 
 The danger is far from unreal. The vessel with 
 all sails set, clad from deck to top- mast with 
 snow-white canvas and bright pennons, may ca- 
 reen and founder at the breath of prosperity. 
 She must be full ballasted as well. Privilege 
 needs always a counterpoise, and the all-sufficing 
 corrective of spiritual elation, is the sense of re- 
 
136 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 sponsibility. In the moment when we begin to 
 magnify ourselves by reason of dignity of office 
 and mission, we do most effectually disable our- 
 selves for the right discharge of such high func- 
 tions. 
 
 III. The sphere of our activities is, then, co-ex- 
 tensive with the limits of the nation. It were a 
 poor ambition to occupy the fat valleys, and 
 crown lofty summits with our Churches. We 
 should crave instead, the blessing of those who 
 sow beside all waters and send forth thither the 
 feet of patient toilers. While we do not neglect 
 the rich, the cultivated, the noble, remembering 
 that Joanna wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and 
 Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea contributed 
 an influence of wealth and position which poor 
 fishermen could not render, Ave must remember 
 that our Lord's compassion is for the multitude : 
 there must ever ring in our ears His injunction, 
 '• Give ye them to eat." We must not yield to 
 incredulity because the multitude is counted by 
 thousands, and that a careless glance at our re- 
 sources shows that in the order of nature it is 
 impossible for us to supply so great a need. 
 
 In the Dioceses of the State of Maryland, by 
 concurrence of law, civil and ecclesiastical, there 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Ozun People. 137 
 
 is a territorial distribution, so exact, that every 
 dwelling is within a cure bounded by geograph- 
 ical lines. Within such bounds each Curate (us- 
 ing that word in the sense of old canons) is re- 
 sponsible, for no other Priest is at liberty to ob- 
 trude save at his invitation.' 
 
 In one such parish there is a valuable glebe 
 purchased in 1696, adequate to the support of a 
 Rector. In the progress of the well-known ec- 
 clesiastical decay and the almost universal ac- 
 ceptance of Methodism by descendants of 
 Church-of-England men, the ministration shrank 
 into the chaplaincy of some eighteen families. 
 
 In the day of revival, when it was proposed to 
 rebuild and enlarge the Parish Church, and to 
 erect a Chapel at a centre of population, objec- 
 tions were preferred by some who clung to early 
 associations, and who counted all change as vex- 
 atious innovation. But the Vestry were men ac- 
 cessible to the appeal of justice. It was argued, 
 and with success, here is a parish bounded by 
 well-known streams and by the State-line of Del- 
 
 > Provision is made also for separate congregations, without 
 territory. Thus, the Parish of St. Paul's embraces the city of 
 Baltimore. Grace, Christ, St. Peter's and others, are Churches, 
 not Parishes. 
 
138 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 aware, of whose religious interests the Rector 
 and Vestry are the guardians : and this glebe is 
 held by them in trust for the use and benefit of 
 every individual within these bounds who will 
 accept the Church's ministrations. 
 
 Let the small illustrate the great. The com- 
 mission of the Catholic Church is to make dis- 
 ciples of the nations — all of the nations; and in the 
 partition of duties the task confided to this Na- 
 tional Church is, Evangelize this nation. The 
 spiritual riches committed to us, more precious 
 than houses and lands, are held by us in trust, 
 not only to be applied to such as claim a share 
 therein, but to be freely offered to such as need it, 
 though all unknowing of that need. In a word, 
 our ministry in the Lord may not be fulfilled, 
 unless in its plan and ultimate purpose, it aims 
 to afford to all the people of the land, opportu- 
 nity to become partners with us. We find in 
 these considerations, incentives to liberality and 
 to missionary activity, duties which are constant- 
 ly enforced from all our pulpits, and which we 
 need not here expound. There is, however, an- 
 other class of duties which in our day thrust 
 themselves upon the thoughtful, as of the pro- 
 foundest interest : I mean the duty of Adapta- 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Own People. 139 
 
 tion, of Enterprise, of Religious Inventiveness. 
 
 Experience has demonstrated that the mighti- 
 est engines expend their powers in vain, unless 
 adapted to the work undertaken. Agriculture 
 itself is no longer remunerative unless industry- 
 is guided by ingenuity. Hard thinking is as 
 necessary as hard work to the success of Pastor, 
 Bishop, Diocese, or National Church. St. Barna- 
 bas was endued " with singular gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost ;" and we pray, " Leave us not, we be- 
 seech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts." But 
 the Collect teaches us that gifts singular and 
 manifold may be profitless for want of added 
 grace : " grace to use them alway to God's hon- 
 or and glory." 
 
 When it becomes manifest, after fair experi- 
 ment, that our work is partial and sporadic, and 
 that our spiritual forces are expended before 
 reaching tl.e confines of " black countries," where 
 they should be in most active operation : when 
 the habit of punctual and dutiful attendance on 
 public worship is seen to be on the wane : when 
 plain indications suggest the apprehension that 
 many of our communicants are deficient in relig- 
 ious sensibility as in religious knowledge, decor- 
 ous rather than devout, while the fragrance of 
 
140 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 saintliness little pervades their homes, it is not 
 well for us to disclaim responsibility. We may 
 not rail at obtuseness and perversity. We may 
 not wash our hands of them, and say. It is not the 
 Church's fault : if they cared to seek, they would 
 find ; if they would knock, the doors would fly 
 open to them. 
 
 No : it is in the very nature of our task to over- 
 come indifference, to break down the barriers of 
 prejudice, to compel men to come in, who are 
 prompt to excuse themselves. And where we 
 discern notable defect and failure, it behooves us 
 to suspect the adaptation of our methods or our 
 skill in using them. 
 
 The question has been lately raised whether 
 the Reformation is to be taken as a finality.' 
 Doctrine and essential order apart, there can be 
 but one answer to this inquiry. No National 
 Church can meet its responsibilities by working 
 in the lines of a mere inheritance. New prob- 
 lems are presented as civilization progresses and 
 as changes occur in things political and social. 
 Much room is there among us for that heaven- 
 taught prudence which some call worldly wis- 
 
 ' Correspondence between the Presiding Bishop and the Bishop 
 Assistant of New York. 
 
The ChiircJis Duty to Her Own People. 141 
 
 dom. We need not shrink from the introduction 
 of agencies supplemental to those with which we 
 are familiar. Ancient ones, long disused, may- 
 be revived ; only, we devoutly hope, under such 
 safeguards as experience has shown to be neces- 
 sary in order to save them from abuse. And 
 new ones will be devised under pressing exigen- 
 cies where precedents are not available. 
 
 Guilds, Sisterhoods, Brotherhoods and Orders, 
 under special rules of life : lay teachers, out-of- 
 door sermons, musical services and services for 
 preaching only, are auxiliaries to be welcomed 
 and to be fairly tested. Only, in the name of 
 decency and order, let all be done within the 
 limits of canonical permission. Let us not sever 
 ourselves from the Bishop, who is the centre of 
 unity, and defiantly ignore his right to oversee, 
 in all that concerns the reputation and efficiency 
 of the Church. 
 
 IV. While the Church has no special privileges 
 to demand from the State, nor meddles with its 
 civil rule, she must not truckle to the State, nor 
 surrender her rights, nor hesitate to exercise her 
 moral influence. 
 
 It would seem sometimes as if belief in any- 
 thing sufficed to disfranchise men : as if all leg- 
 
142 TJie Chuj'ch in the Nation. 
 
 islation should be in the interest of those who 
 beheve nothing. Combinations of capitaHsts 
 and workers largely characterize the age. Rail- 
 road Corporations, Manufacturers who have 
 goods in bond, Brewers, and Cloak- makers ' 
 even, insist that they have rights which de- 
 serve to be respected. Let not Christian men 
 hesitate to demand that some consideration is 
 due to their Christianity. A firm and mod- 
 est self-assertion befits the Church in the pres- 
 ence of the State. It limits the ringing of 
 our Church bells when neighbors are thereby 
 annoyed, and we bow to the mandate of the 
 Court. But we may in turn urge a considera- 
 tion for ourselves, when our neighbors demand 
 a license, destructive to a life of Christian quiet 
 and decency. 
 
 It has been hard for us to realize that the State 
 has no more power to coerce the Church in 
 things spiritual, than the Church the State in 
 temporals. A notable instance is in the matter 
 of Divorce. It used to be held, and the super- 
 stition still lingers, that where a divorce has been 
 
 1 " Cloak-makers have been invited to appear next Friday 
 before the Committee of Ways and Means."— ^a//. Sun, Jan. 
 i8(h, /SSj. 
 
The Chiirclis Duty to Her Ozun People. 143 
 
 decreed by a civil court, we may not go behind 
 that record, or originate an investigation. It is 
 not pretended that we can disturb the question 
 of civil rights, of legitimacy and of inheritance, 
 thus determined by the proper tribunal. But 
 that which we yield, we in turn demand. Let 
 not the civil courts meddle with the Church when 
 she refuses her countenance to any persons di- 
 vorced contrary to God's Word. 
 
 In this particular the Church has most distinct- 
 ly asserted herself. Why is it that action so em- 
 phatic is so commonly unknown, and a law so 
 definite occasionally disregarded ? Scandals 
 which have put us all to the blush would have 
 been avoided, if the Clergy observed the canon 
 of Marriage and Divorce. It is most explicit in 
 two particulars. If any person applies to be 
 baptized, confirmed, communicated or married, 
 and there is " reasonable cause to doubt " whether 
 such person " has been married otherwise than 
 as the Word of God and discipline of this Church 
 allow," the Priest to whom such application is 
 made, is forbidden to determine it. He must re- 
 fer it to the Bishop "for his godly judgment 
 thereupon." 
 
 And again, if the facts in the case be disputed, 
 
144 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 the Bishop, untrammelled by the decision of any- 
 civil court, or by the ostensible causes for divorce 
 assigned in any civil procedure, is at liberty to 
 institute his own original investigation into the 
 facts, " in such manner as he shall deem expedi- 
 ent;" whether in person, by commissary, or by 
 commission. In the result, he delivers "his 
 judgment in the promises," a judgment as bind- 
 ing in religion, as is that of the Common Law 
 Judge in civil rights. 
 
 V. I proceed now to consider the Duty of the 
 Church to her own Baptized Children. The 
 most important particulars of this duty are also 
 the most obvious. I need not here enlarge upon 
 those characteristics which enter into the very 
 definition of a Church, viz., that therem "the 
 pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacra- 
 ments be duly ministered, according to Christ's 
 ordinance." 
 
 It becomes the Church to recognize the liberty 
 wherewith Christ has made us free, and to re- 
 spect the Christian manhood of her children. If 
 uniform and mechanical obedience to precepts 
 were the true ideal of Christian living, the end 
 might be gained by the stat voluntas pro ratione 
 of ecclesiastical absolutism. The kingdom of 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Own People. 145 
 
 Christ is an empire over human will and affection, 
 and through these, over human actions. In its 
 purview, faith and obedience are the free acts of 
 cheerful givers, while unbelief and disobedience 
 are criminal only, when they are deliberate re- 
 volt against a manifested authority. We are to 
 deal, in our ministrations, with responsible men 
 and not with unreasoning babes. Little would 
 be gained could we, so to speak, inoculate others 
 with our own convictions. But when by mani- 
 festation of the truth, by sound words which can- 
 not be condemned, we win men to righteous- 
 ness, ours is a substantial victory. Hence the 
 vanity of all sumptuary laws ; for while law re- 
 strains from crime it is utterly impotent to 
 make men good. Hence the worthlessness of all 
 spiritual confession and direction, which in any- 
 wise impair the sense of individual responsibility 
 for the diligent keeping of the man's own heart. 
 The truest security for the liberties of the lay- 
 man, is to be found in the accepted principle, 
 that it is the inalienable right of every Christian 
 man to approach the sacrament, who does not 
 interpose a bar. We may be dubious of his in- 
 tegrity and grieved by reason of his unspiritual- 
 ness, and we may admonish, warn and caution 
 10 
 
146 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 him without exceeding our authority : but the 
 sacrament may not be denied him, if he insist 
 on coming, save for cause of avowed unbehef 
 or evident evil-hving. 
 
 John Inglesant, in the well-known religious 
 romance, is represented as finding, after long ex- 
 periment of things Anglican and Roman, this 
 characteristic and vital distinction between the 
 two systems. " The Jesuits do not like Plato. 
 * * ^ Aristotle, as interpreted by the School- 
 men, is more to their mind. According to their 
 reading of Aristotle, all his ethics are subordinated 
 to an end, and in such a system they see a weap- 
 on which they can turn to their own purpose of 
 maintaining dogma, no matter at what sacrifice 
 of the individual conscience or reason. * * * 
 You will do wrong — mankind will do wrong — if 
 it allows to drop out of existence * * * an 
 agency by which the devotional instincts of hu- 
 man nature are enabled to exist side by side with 
 the rational. The English Church, as established 
 by the law of England, offers the supernatural to 
 all who choose to come. " It is like the Divine 
 Being Himself, whose sun shines alike on the 
 evil and on the good. Upon the altars of the 
 Church the Divine presence hovers as surely, to 
 
The Clmrclis Duty to Her Ozvn People, uj 
 
 those who believe it, as it does upon the splendid 
 altars of Rome. Thanks to circumstances which 
 the founders of our Church did not contemplate, 
 the way is open ; it is barred by no confession, 
 no human priest." ^ 
 
 I do not accept this statement and its phrases 
 without qualification. I quote it, as forcibly sug- 
 gesting how effectual a guarantee was gained for 
 Christian liberty when a renewed examination 
 and a specific permit, ceased to be demanded of 
 the communicant on each occasion of approach- 
 ing the Holy Table. Confession and Absolution 
 are among the burning questions of the day. 
 
 There is no doubt that as things are, there is 
 too much estrangement between Priest and peo- 
 ple; that Christian men and women do not ask 
 and do not receive that assistance in their per- 
 sonal religious life which they sorely need. 
 
 The outpouring of confidence and the confes- 
 sion of fault are often means of recovery to the 
 fallen : in the ministry of God's Holy Word, the 
 benefit of absolution may be discreetly added to 
 the ghostly counsel and advice, if a penitent 
 "humbly and heartily desire it." All of these 
 principles are substantially asserted in the formu- 
 
 I John Inglesant, a Romance. Macmilhn, p. 441. 
 
148 TJic CJnirch in tJic Nation. 
 
 laries of the Church, although for prudential 
 reasons she has omitted some part of the lan- 
 guage I have quoted from the English Prayer 
 Book. 
 
 But all these things must be reconciled with 
 that liberty never invaded for many centuries and 
 restored to us at the Reformation, of the " often 
 receiving of the Holy Communion of the Body 
 and Blood of our Saviour Christ, when it shall be 
 publicly administered in the Church," without 
 challenge, except for cause of evil life. 
 
 VI. While she respects the just hberties of her 
 children, the Church is equally bound to main- 
 tain over them a prudent and effective Discipline. 
 Discipline is bound up in the terms of the origi- 
 nal commission. BoGua ra apvia }xov, noiixaive 
 Tci TTpopaTa jhotk 
 
 " If there be no sheep that may stray, why be 
 they called shepherds ? If there be no city that 
 may be betrayed, why be they called watcli- 
 mcn ?" ' 
 
 We read in Revelation. Tloipavai aiJtovi 
 f K papScp aiSf/pa. " He shall have the gen- 
 tleness and love of a shepherd for his flock, but 
 the pastoral crook will become a rod of iion in 
 ' Jewell Ai;ol. C h. viii. Sect, 6. 
 
The ChiircICs Duty to Her Own People. 149 
 
 his hands to shatter into shivers the potter's ves- 
 sels of false doctrine." * 
 
 That corporate authority implies individual 
 restraint, that to surrender Discipline is to vacate 
 responsibility, that the Discipline of offenders is a 
 debt due to the Church's reputation and a char- 
 ity to the offender as well, that the Church which 
 allows her members with impunity to violate their 
 baptismal vows, cannot command the respect of 
 her own people and of the world, are proposi- 
 tions so self-evident that I have not the heart 
 to argue them. 
 
 And yet it seems that we have drifted so far 
 away from any practical recognition of this 
 duty that it needs to be re-stated and re- 
 affirmed. 
 
 The Church of England, while lamenting the 
 decay of primitive discipline and expressing her 
 desire for its restoration, finds hindrances in her 
 way which cannot be affirmed of us. Our diffi- 
 culty lies in that exaggerated notion of individ- 
 ual independence which leads many to demand 
 privileges as a right, utterly regardless of the 
 responsibilities which they entail, so that reproof 
 or official censure for flagrant transgression is 
 
 1 Wordsworth Com., Rev. ii. 27. 
 
150 The C/iuirh in tJie Nation. 
 
 not regarded as the inevitable duty of one who 
 watches and must give account for souls, but as 
 a meddlesome intrusion within the domain of 
 personal conscience. 
 
 Upon an examination of the Church's offices 
 and canons, it appears that she has not failed to 
 assert the right and to confess the duty of main- 
 taining Discipline, Neither are her ministers un- 
 furnished with adequate powers to guard the pu- 
 rity of the flock by the infliction of spiritual cen- 
 sures. I refer you to the Communion Office, the 
 Ordinal, and Art. xxxiii. in proof of this state- 
 ment 
 
 Where this duty fails to be discharged, some 
 part of the explanation may doubtless be found 
 in the absence of plain directions as to the meth- 
 ods of procedure, and in that indefiniteness as to 
 Priestly responsibility wliich grows out of un- 
 certainty as to ecclesiastical domicile. But 
 more than this, there is a very general misunder- 
 standing as to the source and residence of Dis- 
 ciplinary authority. Who is it that disciplines, 
 and who is it that restores ? I answer that, ac- 
 cording to the law of this Church, and in the very 
 nature of his office, the ultimate authority resides 
 in the Bishop. 
 
TJic CJiurcJis Duty to Her Ozvn People. 151 
 
 The Minister is to guard the Holy Table 
 against the approach of wicked men. It is not 
 left to him to say what constitutes unworthiness ; 
 there must be open and notorious evil-living, 
 or else wrong done by word or deed to a neigh- 
 bor, or else malice and hatred. He must knozv 
 these things so to be. Suspicion, rumor, anony- 
 mous or irresponsible testimony are not grounds 
 on which to proceed. ^ He must so know them, 
 that he can produce the grounds of his knowl- 
 ,edge. 
 
 But although the knowledge be certain, and 
 the crime flagrant, not yet is the Minister bound 
 to institute criminal procedures. Be it ever re- 
 membered that Discipline is the very last resort 
 to be applied in the one out of many thousand 
 cases, and only where courageous, prudent and 
 sympathetic pastoral counsel has been tried in 
 vain. The most salutary discipline is that to 
 which the offender voluntarily submits ; and 
 the most wholesome penance is that which 
 is self-imposed. Because I am pleading for 
 the restoration of Discipline, let me the 
 more earnestly protest that nothing is more 
 unwise than the endeavor to compel by 
 
15- The Church in the Nation. 
 
 authority that which may be won by influence.^ 
 St. Paul forebore to assert his apostoHc right to 
 obedience, when there was reason to hope that 
 acquiescence could be secured by the mention 
 of his gray hairs and his fetters, 
 
 " Though I might be much bold in Christ to 
 enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet for 
 love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such an 
 one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of 
 Jesus Christ." '^ 
 
 The official dealing of the minister with an 
 offender, is after the model of that conduct which 
 our Lord prescribes to the individual wronged 
 
 1 Formularies of Faith in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 The Sacrament of Orders, pp. io8, log. 
 "And in this part also two things be to be noted. The first 
 is, that all punishment which Priests or Bishops may by the au- 
 thority of the gospel, inflict or put to any person, is by word on- 
 ly, and not by any violence or constraint corporal. The second 
 is, that although Priests and Bishops have the power and juris- 
 diction to excommunicate, as is aforesaid ; yet they be not bound 
 so precisely by any commandment of God, but that they ought 
 and may attemper, moderate, or forbear the execution of their 
 said jurisdiction in that part at all times, whensoever they shall 
 perceive and think that by doing the contrary they should not 
 cure or help the offenders, or else give such occasion of further 
 trouble and unquietness in the Church, that the peace and tran- 
 quillity thereof might thereby be impeached, troubled, or other- 
 wise interrupted or broken." 
 
 2 Philemon 8 and 9, 
 
The ChiircJis Duty to Her Oiuu People. 153 
 
 by his brother : Speak first to the man alone : and 
 if he will not listen, fortify yourself with the help 
 of a few who are most likely to influence him. 
 In the last resort, Tell it to the Church, 
 
 If the offender refuses to be advised, the 
 minister admonishes him not to present himself 
 at the Holy Table, or repels him therefrom. But 
 all such admonitions are to be promptly reported 
 to the Ordinary, in whose hands is lodged the 
 ultimate adjudication. The neglect or failure of 
 one thus admonished or repelled, to ask the inter- 
 vention of the Bishop, is an acceptance of the in- 
 hibition, unless the Bishop shall intervene of his 
 own motion, believing that an injustice has been 
 done to one ignorant how to vindicate himself 
 
 To the Ordinary belongs whatever disciplinary 
 authority attaches historically to that word, ex- 
 cept in so far as it may be limited by canonical 
 enactment. Some authorities may well be quoted 
 here: 
 
 •* Ordinary. — The person who has ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
 as of cause and of common right, in opposition to persons who 
 are extraordinarily appointed." — Hook {on Word) Church Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 " Ordinary. — Is a civil law term, and there signifies any 
 Judge that hath authority to take cognizance of causes in his 
 own right, as he is a magistrate, and not by deputation ; but in 
 
154 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 the common law, it is taken for him that hath exempt and im- 
 mediate jurisdiction in causes ecclesiastical." He quotes Lynde- 
 wood to the same effect. — Cowel, Law Dictionary, pub. iboy . 
 
 "An Ordinary (a name taken from the Canonists] is he that 
 hd-ih. jurisdiction in his own right , and not by deputation." 
 — Wood's Institutes, 1722. 
 
 "Ordinary, in the ecclesiastical law, is a word applied to a 
 bishop, or any other who hath ordinary jurisdiction in his own 
 right, and not by deputation. But sometimes it is taken less 
 strictly, for every one that is in the place of the bishop ; as 
 guardian of the spiritualities, chancellors, commissaries, and all 
 such as are in the place of the ordinary." — Burn'' s New Law 
 Diet., ii. p. 171. 
 
 In view of the importance of this subject, not 
 generally understood, I quote by permission a 
 letter from the Bishop of Oxford. It may be re- 
 membered that Dr. Mackarness refused, on the 
 demand of certain aggrieved parishioners, to in- 
 stitute proceedings against the Rev. T. T. Carter 
 of Clewer, and that in the protracted litigation 
 which ensued, the Bishop defended his own 
 cause and held his own successfully, against 
 great ecclesiastical lawyers. It was to him, 
 therefore, that a note of enquiry was ad- 
 dressed, on behalf of the Committee on the 
 Godly DiscipHne of the Laity. His reply is 
 as follows : 
 
TJic CJuircJis Duty io Her 0%vn People. 155 
 
 CuDDESDON Palace, Wheatley, Oxford^ 
 2gth November, 1879. 
 My Dear Brother — 
 
 ***** It seems to me to be incorrect to speak of 
 the Bishop as a Judge of Appeal. He may be so, no doubt, in 
 regard of certain inferior, or peculiar, jurisdictions, such as those 
 of an Archdeacon, Dean and Chapter, or other "exempt" au- 
 thority ; — but not necessarily. These depend on ancient cus- 
 tom, and have no existence, I suppose, with you : they have 
 been materially abridged, and diminished, of late years with us. 
 Speaking generally, I should say that the Consistory Court of 
 the Bishop is the primary tribunal for the trial of ecclesiastical 
 offences. By custom here in England the Chancellor, or offi- 
 cial-Principal of the Bishop presides in this Court. But his 
 jurisdiction is entirely by delegation from the Bishop : and inas- 
 much as he is the Bishop by delegation, so to say, there is no 
 appeal from him to the Bishop. The appeal lies to the Provin- 
 cial Court, In this Consistory Court the Bishop, or his Chancel- 
 lor, tries such as are accused of ecclesiastical offences according 
 to the Canons of the Church ; and this he does either on his own 
 mere motion, or on complaint ; he visits offenders with eccle- 
 siastical censures. If he has coercive jurisdiction, enforced by 
 secular penalties, it is such as has been conferred by the State; 
 or — being founded on compact — such as the temporal law en- 
 forces on the parties to that compact. How far— if at all— your 
 temporal Courts recognize the validity of the Canons of the Uni- 
 versal Church, or of any portion of them, I do not know. But 
 I imagine that the manner in which discipline is to be exorcised 
 must depend on the Canons, unless its rule can be ascertained 
 from the common law — if we may so speak— of the Church. 
 Beside the jurisdiction of the Consistory Court, the Bishop has 
 the right to "visit " all persons (and most corporations) eccle- 
 siastical — and to receive presentments from Church officers, and 
 to proceed "sine strepitu judicii " in the correction of offenders 
 
156 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 in his Visitation. But the extent and effect of this jurisdiction 
 is very uncertain, and is practically in abeyance with us at the 
 present time, though the Visitation Courts are still held in an- 
 cient form^ The only support to a supposed jurisdiction belong- 
 ing to the parochial Clergy is to be found, I think, in the pre- 
 face to the Communion Office in our Prayer Book. This is no 
 jurisdiction, properly so called, hut arises from the necessity of 
 the case, where the Parish Priest is obliged to decide on refusing 
 the Communion to an evil liver, before the offence can possibly 
 be tried before the Bishop. But then he is to give an account 
 of his refusal to the Ordinary : and it is added in our Prayer 
 Book — not in yours- -that "the Ordinary shall proceed against 
 the oft'ending person according to the Canon." On the whole, 
 it would seem that if Discipline is to go beyond the sphere of 
 pastoral warning, admonition and reproof, it implies a regular 
 hearing by the Bishop, or his Judge, with opportunity of de- 
 fence, under the direct authority of Canonical law. I imagine 
 that any exercise of Discipline, which could not be justified by 
 the laws (in that behalf ) of the religious Society to which the of- 
 fender belonged, would not be upheld by your Tribunals, any 
 more than by ours. That there is a sad lack of Discipline in the 
 Church, is undeniably true. But may it not be a question 
 whether the awakening of a keener abhorrence of sin in the 
 whole body of Churchmen is not a pre-requisite to the enact- 
 ment of stricter Canons, or the establishment of a more effective 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction ?***** 
 
 Your faithful £i-iend and brother, 
 
 J. F. OxoN. 
 The Right Rev. 
 The Bishop of Easlon. 
 
 In response to a further communication, his 
 Lordship wrote as follows: 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Own People. 157 
 
 CuDDESDON Palace, Wheatley, Oxon. 
 
 2nd March, i88^. 
 My Dear Brother— 
 
 * * * On reconsideration I do not see any need to alter what 
 I wrote. But I fear that my remarks were not much to your 
 purpose. I referred to an appellate jurisdiction ; you were 
 thinking rather of appeal in the popular sense. In this popular 
 sense, it is true that members of the Church have a right to ap- 
 peal to the Bishop for his guidance and direction in spirit, 
 ual questions ; and they may be said (popularly) to appeal against 
 the Parish Priest, if he hns exercised his authority in repelling 
 them from Communion. But I contend that the act of the Parish 
 Priest was not a sentence, of which judicial notice could be 
 taken, so as to vary, or reverse, it by another sentence. It was 
 merely an exercise of his Cura Pastoralis, to which the Bishop's 
 consent was necessary, before it could become a sentence of the 
 Church. All this however is of little importance in its bearing 
 on the grave question, with which you deal. You wish to es- 
 tablish, or re-establish some real and effective discipline, 
 whether in the hands of Priest or Bishop, by means of which the 
 souls of the guilty might be saved, and others, admonished by 
 their example, might be afraid to offend. We are often told here 
 by candid critics that it is our relations to the State which make 
 an effective discipline impossible to us, I wish we could learn 
 from you that your freedom from such relations had given you 
 the Church Discipline in which we are deficient. But the papers, 
 which you have kindly sent me, do not give much encouragement 
 in this direction. Be assured that English Churchmen woiild be 
 deeply grateful to their brethren in your branch of the Church, if 
 you show us the example, and illustrate the methods which we 
 lack. • * * * 
 
 I am your sincere Friend and Brother, 
 
 J. F. Oxon. 
 
158 The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 Of all that appertains to Discipline, the Church 
 in the United States has preserved the essential 
 principles intact. The canonical enactments 
 necessary for the right understanding and due 
 application of them have yet need to be formula- 
 ted. In an appendix to these Lectures, I pro- 
 pose to give some account of the Disciplinary 
 Legislation accomplished and attempted in the 
 last fifteen years. 
 
 VII. That the " awakening of a keener ab- 
 horrence of sin in the whole body of Churchmen" 
 is the truest work to which we can address our- 
 selves, none may deny. That the discipline of the 
 martinet is inapplicable to Christ's freedmen, all 
 will agree. But when there is public disorder, or 
 individual revolt against laws as benign as they 
 arc necessary, the Church must be bold enough to 
 say, " I will come to you shortly * * * What 
 will ye ? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in 
 love, and in the spirit of meekness ?" ' 
 
 It is no marvel that we have failed thus far to 
 establish an intelligible and uniform discipline, 
 defining the limits which clergymen and laymen 
 may not trangress, and restraining them when 
 individual liberty resists the authority of law. 
 
 1 I Cor. iv. 19. 
 
The Church's Duty to Her Oiun People. 159 
 
 When one remembers that our fathers had 
 need to transfer bodily, as it were, Anghcan rules 
 and methods to a country most part wilderness, 
 and to a nation entering on a new experiment in 
 government : when one recalls the local tradi- 
 tions and prejudices, the accidental complications 
 of the mother Church with the State, the interfer- 
 ence of ecclesiastical and civil courts, which have 
 their influence upon us, it seems most reasonable 
 that time and deliberation should be needed to 
 perfect our jurisprudence. 
 
 The Church ought to be revered as well as 
 loved. She may win affection by her benign 
 liberality : but her own children will mock her 
 to the face, unless she has a rod in reserve for 
 such as offend of malicious wickedness, unless 
 her frown is as terrible as her smile is gracious. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 The Church's Duty to a Divided Christ 
 
 ENDOM. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE CHURCH'S DUTY TO A DIVIDED CHRIST- 
 ENDOM. 
 
 "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peacea- 
 ble." — yames m.. 17. 
 
 nnHE heavenly Charity of St. Paul, and the 
 -■- Wisdom from above of St. James are full 
 sisters. The Charity is truth-loving, just as the 
 Wisdom is pure. They are virtues alike in 
 gentleness and patience, and in freedom from 
 self- glory and censoriousness. 
 
 We who stand in the midst of a divided 
 Christendom have need to cultivate them both. 
 To surrender truth of doctrine and purity of or- 
 der will heal no wounds. But guarding these 
 securely, how much room is there for sound 
 discretion, tempered with long-suffering tender- 
 ness, in dealing with the problems which grow 
 out of the segregation into separate communi- 
 ties, of those who hold the orthodox faith. 
 
 163 
 
1 64 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 II. I turn first to the Churches of the Ro- 
 man obedience. We so call them because we 
 know not of any authority which authorizes a 
 " Holy Roman Church " to demand recognition 
 save at her own imperial home. We are con- 
 fronted with various National Churches which 
 acknowledge Rome as their Mother and their Mis- 
 tress : and so confronted, that we must deter- 
 mine what measure of consideration is due them. 
 
 The Church of England, and by consequence 
 our own, is guiltless of voluntary separation 
 from the communion of other Western Churches. 
 A brief reference to the res gestcB amply vindi- 
 cates this statement. In 1531 the Clergy in 
 Convocation asked that payments to the Pope 
 might be abolished, and suggested that should 
 he refuse acquiescence England should withdraw 
 from obedience to Rome. In 1532-3, an act 
 was passed, abolishing appeals to the Pope of 
 Rome and transferring the spiritual jurisdiction 
 heretofore by him exercised, to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. In 1534 the act was finally rat- 
 ified by which tribute was forbidden to be paid 
 to the Pope, or his permission to be asked in the 
 designation and consecration of Bishops. Thus 
 far the King; and Parliament. 
 
The Church's Duty to Christendom. 165 
 
 Then the Church took definite action. The 
 Convocation of Canterbury declared, March 3 1st, 
 1534, and that of York, May 5th, 1534, that " the 
 Bishop of Rome has no greater jurisdiction con- 
 ferred on him by God, in this Kingdom of Eng- 
 land, than any other foreign Bishop.'' In this 
 statement, simple, terse and emphatic, the Bish- 
 ops, Universities, Chapters and Monasteries 
 concurred with singular unanimity. And thus, 
 in 1534, the Papal Supremacy was finally and 
 utterly repudiated. Let that date never be for- 
 gotten.' 
 
 There is another date, 1569, of utmost interest 
 in the history of the Western Church. During 
 the thirty-five years' interval between the two, 
 under Henry and Edward and Mary and Eliza- 
 beth, the tide of Reformation surged sometimes 
 forward and sometimes backward. But during 
 tliose thirty-five years, from 1534 to 1569, there 
 were no rival altars set up in England. There 
 was not an English Church, and a Roman Cath- 
 olic Church, claiming jurisdiction in the same 
 territory. 
 
 The severance came in that year 1569, being 
 
 ' The history is related with much precision in Blunt's Hist. 
 of the Reformation, Ch. V. 
 
1 66 TJic Church in the Nation. 
 
 the eleventh year of the reign of Elizabeth, 
 when Pius V., by the bull Regnans in coelo, ex- 
 communicated that sovereign and absolved her 
 subjects from allegiance to her: all who should 
 obey her mandates incurring like anathema.^ 
 
 A rival Communion was thenceforth established 
 as in partibns infidclinm, until in our own day, a 
 Bishop of Melipotamus was succeeded by an 
 Archbishop of Westminster. 
 
 Never has the Church of England broken com- 
 munion with the historic Churches of Europe. 
 There is no anathema to be found in her records, 
 hurled against the Church of France, because she 
 accords to the Bishop of Rome an authority 
 which the Church of England denies. She 
 thrusts none out, but was herself thrust out and 
 anathematized. How much this severance has 
 been lamented, appears in the utterances of An- 
 glican Doctors from Jewell to Pusey. The form- 
 er writes thus sadly of the Bishop of Rome : 
 
 "Would that he had so behaved himself, that 
 this falling away had not needed ! But so the 
 
 ' The original is in Burnett's Hist, of Reformation, Records, 
 Pt. ii. Book iii. No. xiii. Its claim for the Pope is astounding, 
 " Regnans in Coelo ♦ * * Hunc unum super omnes gentes et 
 omnia regna Principem constituit, qui evellat, destruat, disper- 
 dat," &c. 
 
The C /lurch's Duty to Christendom. 167 
 
 case stood, that unless we left him, we could not 
 come to Christ. Neither will he now make any 
 league with us, than such a one as Nahash, the 
 king of the Ammonites, would have made in 
 times past with the city of Jabez, which was, to 
 put out the right eye of each one of the inhabi- 
 tants, and so to receive them into his friendship." ' 
 
 And as for the Eirenicon of Pusey, it stands a 
 monument of hopeful ingenuity, seeking to bridge 
 a gulf, seemingly impassable, after that the de- 
 crees of Trent had converted Doctrines which 
 might possibly be tolerated, into Articles of 
 Faith which could not possibly be accepted. 
 
 But history steadily advances, and that which 
 the author of the Eirenicon deprecated as fatal to 
 a healthful re-union has come to pass. It is 
 vain to seek some modus vivendi by which the 
 Pope may be recognized as the mouthpiece 
 through which a united Church may utter her 
 mind. No less will suffice than to agree that in 
 definitions of doctrine, his utterances are irre- 
 formable of themselves, and not from the consent 
 of the Church: " ex sese non aiitein ex eonsensu 
 ecclesics." * 
 
 1 Jewell's Apol. Ch. xiii. Sect. 9. 
 ^Vatican Council, Canon iv. 
 
1 68 TJie CImrch in the Nation. 
 
 III. The Bishops of this Church, in the year 
 1880, set themselves seriously to consider their 
 duty towards the children of God within the 
 Churches overmastered by exterior power. They 
 declare a right of intervention, and state two 
 grounds of justification. First, that by the de- 
 crees of Trent in 1565, by the dogma of the Im- 
 maculate Conception in 1854, and by the decree 
 of the InfaUibility in 1870, false dogmas have 
 been imposed on men's consciences as necessary 
 to salvation. 
 
 Secondly, that in the Latin Churches, Bishops 
 are deprived of their independence, and the Di- 
 vine Constitution of the Church so changed, as 
 to destroy the autonomy, if not the existence of 
 National Churches. 
 
 On these grounds they declare that it is our 
 right and our duty, to protect in the holding of 
 the primitive faith and in the recovering of the 
 primitive order, those who have been deprived 
 of both. 
 
 St. Paul would not stretch himself " beyond 
 his measure." " The busy body in other men's 
 matters " of St. Peter, is literally one who plays 
 the Bishop outside of his bounds.^ 
 
 • dXXorptoETtidHOTtoi. — i Pet. iv. 15. 
 
The ChurcJCs Duty to Christendom. 169 
 
 The ancient canons are in nothing more pre- 
 cise than in forbidding Episcopal intrusion. 
 
 Have we then an adequate warrant for an- 
 swering the summons, when the men of Italy 
 or of France, or of Mexico or of Cuba, cry to us 
 to come to their relief? 
 
 Bingham has left little to be said both as to 
 the principle and as to the precedents. Atha- 
 nasius did not hesitate to hold ordinations in Arian 
 churches. So also Eusebius of Samosata, so also 
 Epiphanius. 
 
 " Dioceses were but limits of convenience, for 
 the preservation of order in times of peace : but 
 the faith was a more universal thing, and when 
 war was made upon that, then the whole world 
 was but one diocese, and the whole Church but 
 one flock ; and every pastor thought himself 
 obliged to feed his great Master's sheep accord- 
 ing to his power, whatever part of the world they 
 were scattered in. * * * 
 
 " In things that did not appertain to the faith, 
 they were not to meddle with other men's dio- 
 ceses, but only to mind the business of their 
 own ; but when the faith or welfare of the Church 
 lay at stake, and religion was manifestly invaded, 
 then, by this rule of there being but one Episco- 
 
I/O TJie Chtaxh in the Nation. 
 
 pacy, every other Bishopric was as much their 
 diocese as their own ; and no human laws or 
 canons could tie up their hands from performing 
 such acts of their Episcopal office in any part of 
 the world, as they thought necessary for the 
 preservation of religion." ' 
 
 IV. And such an exigency now meets us, in 
 such wise that it cannot be ignored. 
 
 I take the matter out of the region of abstrac- 
 tions. I state the case as personally urged by a 
 French Priest upon an American Bishop visiting 
 Paris. I am, said he, in substance, a Catholic 
 Priest of the Gallican Church, ready and willing 
 to render Imufnl obedience to my diocesan, the 
 Archbishop of Paris. In discharging my office, 
 I am approached by a man who desires admis- 
 sion to the holy sacraments. There is no disquali- 
 fication known to me. He stands ready to pro- 
 fess the faith in the words of the ancient Creeds, 
 perhaps of the Tridentine formula. Only, he is 
 not prepared to affirm the Immaculateness of the 
 Virgin and the infallibility of the Pope. And 
 my diocesan forbids me to admit him to the 
 Lord's table. 
 
 Grave is the responsibility of refusing to obey 
 
 * Antiq., B. ii. Ch. v. 
 
The Church's Duty to Chj'istendom. lyi 
 
 my ecclesiastical superiors. But as a child must 
 disobey the father, if he bid him deny the Christ, 
 so must the Priest resist the Bishop who bids him 
 impose on faithful men a yoke of falsehood. 
 
 And is each Priest, he continued, thus unhap- 
 pily circumstanced, to act on his individual re- 
 sponsibility in the determination of questions so 
 grave ? Is he to be left bareheaded to endure 
 the storm of obloquy and reproach ? Is no charity 
 due from the free, to such as are in spiritual bon- 
 dage ? Have you so lost faith in the world-wide 
 jurisdiction of the Episcopate that you cannot 
 recognize and direct one who is suffering a moral 
 martyrdom in asserting for himself and his flock 
 the liberty in Christ, dearer to yourselves than 
 hfe itself? 
 
 Intrusion ! Who hesitates to intrude upon the 
 domicile of a neighbor, when there issues from it 
 the cry of the broken-hearted ? Who fears to 
 protect in enfolding arms, the child, when the 
 heart of the mother is hardened against it, and 
 her hand smites it for obeying God ? 
 
 Such an appeal is irresistible. 
 
 Charity demands, and the great commission 
 authorizes us, when unlawful terms of commun- 
 ion are imposed on the faithful, courageously and 
 
1/2 The C /lurch in the Nation. 
 
 lovingly to extend over them the sheltering wings 
 of the Universal Episcopate. It may be said, that 
 such arguments as these have been urged to jus- 
 tify insubordination by all the self-willed from 
 the Donatist to the Puritan. But mark the dif- 
 ference. The question is not here of laxity of 
 discipline or of ceremonial, offensive to a scrupu- 
 lous conscience. It concerns the Faith itself. It 
 deals with the inalienable rights of a Christian cit- 
 izen. It invokes as the arbiter, the unequivocal 
 utterances of the undivided Church in the General 
 Councils. No excuse may here be found for 
 that schismatic temper, which claims that the 
 Church must defer to individual convictions. 
 
 Such intervention best befits the Church next 
 at hand. It is for England to take the lead in 
 sustaining the Old Catholic movement in Europe, 
 as it ours to protect and guide like endeavors 
 in Mexico and in South America. 
 
 There is much room in such undertakings for 
 prudence and for courtesy. It ill becomes us to 
 alienate people from their religion, even although 
 the truth be darkened with errors and supersti- 
 tions, unless we accept the responsibility of sup- 
 plying something better. Most scrupulous should 
 we be to avoid unnecessary offence, and coarse 
 
IJie Church's Duty to Christeudom. 173 
 
 assaults upon inveterate prejudices. In these 
 particulars, the conduct of the American Church 
 at Rome, under the Rev. Dr. Nevin, has differed 
 widely from the policy pursued by those who 
 promote what is called the Free Church of Italy. 
 In placarding the walls of the city with denunci- 
 ations of the Virgin, they excited a mob into riot; 
 but it may be doubted whether they led any to 
 serious reflection. 
 
 Let us not shrink from asserting this Catholic 
 principle, because a first experiment, in Mexico, 
 has not been felicitous. 
 
 If mistake and ill-success in any enterprise, 
 are so to dishearten us that we shall make no 
 further venture of faith, then may we well limit 
 our care to keeping ourselves out of harm's way, 
 and reconcile ourselves to so much of evil and 
 suffering as do not thrust themselves on our no- 
 tice. The great St. Peter, not altogether eman- 
 cipated from the narrowness of race and educa- 
 tion, made very great mistakes at Antioch, and 
 was severely and publicly rebuked by his col- 
 league. But we do not read that in his mortifi- 
 cation, he determined to let the Gentiles alone 
 for ever. The possibility of mistake and disaster 
 is always to be taken into account. 
 
174 1^^i<^ Church in the Nation. 
 
 During the Civil War, one of the great Com- 
 manders gave orders to his Quarter-master, to 
 include in his estimates the loss of one supply- 
 train a week. 
 
 Let us look things in the face. If the Church 
 Militant is to conquer at last, she must expect to 
 lose treasure and lives as well : to advance, and 
 then retreat, and then renew the advance. Our 
 failure in Mexico will prove a blessing in dis- 
 guise, if it shall lead us to a more thorough in- 
 vestigation of the principles which are to guide 
 us in the responsibility, more and more inevita- 
 ble as time goes on, of dealing with the religious 
 interests of Spanish-speaking Americans. 
 
 The Bishops of this Church did not exceed 
 their powers when they extended their official 
 protection to Mexicans striving for Catholic pur- 
 ity and freedom. 1 believe that for the most 
 part they are satisfied that the elders and breth- 
 ren should have been taken into their confidence 
 and that their counsel should have been used. 
 
 It seems, in the light of experience, that an 
 undue regard was had to an alleged national sen- 
 sitiveness. We treated with a few people, whose 
 utmost pretension was to be a nascent Church, 
 as if they were a National Church. We encour- 
 
TJic Church's Duly to Christendom. iy$ 
 
 aged the veriest babe in knowledge and culture, 
 needing to be supported in nursing arms, to ex- 
 pect from us the consideration due to a manly- 
 ally. We forbore to provide a simple liturgy 
 adapted to their needs, and bade those few strug- 
 gling persecuted Churchmen, to do a work far 
 more difficult than the revision in which we have 
 been of late engaged ; viz. to compile a liturgy, 
 out and out, from the Mozarabic and other lit- 
 urgies of Southern Europe. 
 
 We have failed once : but that does not imply 
 final surrender. Let time be given to recover 
 from the disappointment and to revise the plan 
 of the campaign, and it cannot be doubted this 
 Church will presently stretch forth her hand to 
 assist earnest men in Mexico in their endeavor 
 to reach the purer atmosphere of evangelic truth. 
 If, as has been urged, the national sensitiveness is 
 so great that they cannot acquiesce in the con- 
 dition of pupilage to this Church until they reach 
 maturity, if they demand of us orders and sub- 
 sidies, and deny to us supervision and control, 
 then have we a plain intimation of Providence to 
 stay our hand. We seek not to hoard our apos- 
 tolic authority : but we are not at liberty to im- 
 part it without adequate security, that we are 
 
1/6 TJie CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 committing it to such as appreciate the gift and 
 will rightly use it. 
 
 V. I turn next to the religious bodies of our 
 country, churches, sects and denominations, ac- 
 cording to the customary modes of speech. 
 
 While this Church is a factor, and an influen- 
 tial factor, in guiding the religious thought of the 
 nation, she is very far out- numbered by several 
 Christian corporations. The allegiance of people 
 is divided among societies counted by the hun- 
 dred. In point of numbers they range almost 
 from the quaternion to the legion : in point of 
 doctrine, from a Christianity (if the conception is 
 possible) without the supernatural, to the full pro- 
 fession of orthodoxy. 
 
 I speak of these bodies as Churches. It seems 
 most courteous to designate them as they desire 
 to be designated, remembering always, that they 
 repudiate the definition of that word, as implying 
 either historical continuity, or unbroken succes- 
 sion of orders, or paramount authority. 
 
 And furthermore, while these Churches are oc- 
 casionally in fierce controversies one with anoth- 
 er, yetthey are not without a family likeness and a 
 community in policies and purposes. " The Pop- 
 ular Religion " is not a mere abstraction. It suffi- 
 
The Church's Duty to Christendom. 177 
 
 ciently describes that substantial teaching of Pu- 
 ritan and Methodist Churches which remains, 
 when one ehminates those accidental features, 
 which however valued and gloried in, they them- 
 selves allow, are not of the essence of Christian 
 character. 
 
 This Popular Religion and these influential 
 Churches which hold it, deserve our careful study 
 and our most respectful consideration. 
 
 Let us glance backward at the origin of this 
 multiplicity of Churches. Was such division 
 intended by the reformers of renown ? Did 
 Luther or Calvin or Baxter or Wesley deliberate- 
 ly propose to discard the accepted principles 
 touching the organic unity of the Church ? Did 
 any one of them ever propound the thesis that 
 the normal constitution of the Church, according 
 to the command of our Lord and the example of 
 His Apostles, was that of numerous Societies, 
 exercising jurisdiction within the same territory, 
 eaeh one publishing its own Confession, united in 
 belief and affection, but diverse in doctrine, and 
 independent in authority? 
 
 None of these had any other design in the 
 beginning, but to purify or to vivify the Nation- 
 al Church into which they were born. 
 
1/3 Tlie CJiurch in the Nation. 
 
 But the Reformation was effected under many- 
 difficulties and in an atmosphere surcharged with 
 prejudices. There was not the apparatus for 
 investigation so accessible to us now. Men 
 floundered in the bog before they reached the 
 firm ground of CathoHc teaching. Witness Cran- 
 mer's crude utterances about Bishops and Priests, 
 which after accurate study he utterly repudiated. 
 
 The absence of Episcopal guidance on the 
 Continent left their reformation to drift as a ship 
 without a rudder. The plea of present necessity 
 came in, to excuse departures from historic pre- 
 cedents, regretted at the moment, and the conse- 
 quences of which no one had the foresight to 
 estimate. I need not dwell upon the correspond- 
 ence between the Continental and Anglican Re- 
 formers, the strong bonds of sympathy which 
 united them, and the importation into the Eng- 
 lish mind of what was deemed a charitable tole- 
 ration. 
 
 I have mentioned the name of Baxter. His non- 
 conformity was not founded on essential sectari- 
 anism. The nonconformists of Baxter's day ex- 
 cused themselves in setting up separate congre- 
 gations, upon the ground that unscriptural cere- 
 monies, imperfect discipline, needless impositions 
 
The Church's Duty to Christendom. 179 
 
 and ecclesiastical tyranny did not suffer them to 
 minister peaceably, and with a good conscience, 
 at the altars of the Church of England. 
 
 As for Wesley, who knows not that so far from 
 setting out to disintegrate, he affirmed a mission 
 to quicken dead formulas into life, and to supple- 
 ment mechanical routine with spiritual earnest- 
 ness. The readiest solution of the Coke and As- 
 bury commission seems to be, that in the default 
 of the English Church to make any provision ade- 
 quate to the emergency, he, in the discharge of a 
 grave prophetic mission, felt called upon to or- 
 ganize into " Societies " such devout people as 
 might presently become the Church of the na- 
 tion.' 
 
 While then, the story abounds in exhibitions 
 of human rashness and unreasonableness and 
 self-assertion, it is also a history of good men 
 groping in the twilight, to find remedies for pa- 
 tent evils ; of legitimate authority, crippled by the 
 influence of the Curia or the Court ; of the Church 
 at times given to slumber, and impatient with 
 
 » " I was determined, as little as possible to violate the estab- 
 lished order of the National Church to which I belonged. But 
 the case is widely different between England and North Amer- 
 ica," and the rest. — Stevens^ Hist. M. E. Church, vol. ii. p. 
 182. 
 
I So TJie Chiircli in the Nation. 
 
 those who would rouse her into activity : of in- 
 ventions of men pro re nata, who did not foresee 
 that they would thus revolutionize the whole 
 ideal of the Church. 
 
 Such is the disorderly inheritance that has 
 come down to us. The Republic is our political 
 idol, and the political instinct revolts against the 
 pretence of the Church, to be the Kingdom of 
 God, instead of a Republic of Saints. There has 
 been cultivated an indifference, amounting almost 
 to contempt, towards any godliness, whether in 
 doctrine or experience, anterior to the printing of 
 the Bible. And this habit, by an inevitable re- 
 bound, has impugned the worth of the witnesses to 
 the genuineness and the safe custody of that 
 volume itself. Historical Religion, as we know 
 and receive it, is not so much as brought to the 
 notice of most religious people, and the sugges- 
 tion of its worth serves only to excite a smile of 
 incredulity. 
 
 While we confess and bewail the sin and 
 wretchedness of our unhappy divisions, we may 
 be permitted to console ourselves with the reflec- 
 tion that they who took the initiative, did not 
 anticipate or desire the consequence ; and that 
 they who perpetuate the separation are not pur- 
 
The Church's Duty to Christendom. i8l 
 
 posely rending the unity of Christ's body. 
 Again, we have need to ask ourselves, whether 
 these evils are not the result of past negligence. 
 While men slept the dull animal sleep of the 
 middle ages, or lost themselves in the intellect- 
 ual dreaminess of the Georgian era, the enemy 
 sowed those tares whereof we are reaping the 
 harvest. 
 
 We do well to ask, whether it is not of a piece 
 with God's working, when the official messenger 
 lingers on the way, to permit the footman to 
 run, aye, and to overrun him. 
 
 We do well to remember that these Churches 
 have carried a message of salvation into every 
 corner of the land, and that as the case now 
 stands, the question of adequate religious occu- 
 pancy of the territory is not as between us and 
 them, but between them and unbelief 
 
 Moreover, when one considers the magnifi- 
 cence of their operations in the dissemination of 
 Holy Scripture and of religious books, some of 
 which we also recognize as Classics : when one 
 recalls their valuable contributions to the study 
 of theology, and the immense endowment of re- 
 ligious and benevolent institutions : when one 
 remembers how He from whom come our Apos- 
 
1 82 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 tolic gifts, committed as it were an angel's lyre 
 into the hands of Doddridge or of Watts, and 
 endued John Wesley with a magnetic power 
 over human souls, and a skill in organization 
 and administration almost without a parallel : 
 nay more, when in fraternal converse it is made 
 plain, that these men, not of our household, do 
 hate sin, and defy its Prince, do love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, walking in the Spirit and exhibit- 
 ing in life His fruits : in view of all these things, 
 it becomes us, not to rest less immovably on our 
 base of historic prescription, but to recognize 
 the facts and the charitable explanation of them, 
 and to render fitting homage to the Christ-like- 
 ness wherever it appears. 
 
 Such reflections will make us as ready to praise 
 what is praiseworthy, as to blame what is worthy 
 of blame. They will break down the barriers 
 which hinder the expression of Christian sympa- 
 thy where it may lawfully be expressed. They 
 will incline us to accept valuable lessons of prac- 
 tical wisdom. Above all, they will remind us 
 that our tenure of influence is dependent on 
 fidelity and vigilance ; that to the Church, as to 
 the individual, belongs the warning, " Hold that 
 fast which thou hast, that no man take thy 
 
The Churclis Duty to Christendom. 183 
 
 crown." Need I say, that they will restrain us 
 from bitter and taunting words, and indine us 
 to speak the truth in love. 
 
 VI. In comparing the mind of the Church with 
 that of the Popular Religion, the divergence seems 
 widest in the departments of Ecclesiastical Con- 
 stitutions and of what is known as Experimental 
 Religion. 
 
 A former Lecturer on this foundation called 
 attention to the truth that Christian Anthropology 
 ranges itself under two heads, now deahng espe- 
 cially with man's corporate life as a member 
 of the Church of God, and now with the pro- 
 gress of grace in each man's heart.^ The former 
 of these, too exclusively engaged the thoughts of 
 the mediaeval divines. The Reformation sought 
 to restore the sense of personal responsibility and 
 the privilege of immediate communion with God, 
 And in the "passionate reclamation," the just 
 balance between these diverse but not antagonis- 
 tic views of the Christian life, was very seriously 
 disturbed. We deem it the glory of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, that it presents practical relig- 
 ion in both of its characteristics. One does not 
 exclude, or contradict, or obscure the other. The 
 J Paddock's Lectures, 1881, p. 30. 
 
1 84 The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 true Christian is described as the very member 
 of a body corporate, and also, as one who has 
 dwelHng in his heart, the living graces of Faith, 
 Repentance, Love and Holy Purposes. 
 
 We live in a period of intense recoil from the 
 exclusively corporate conception of religion. The 
 popular conception admits only the personal ele- 
 ment. 
 
 If one desires to carry with him the sympa- 
 thies of the crowded congregation and to v/in for 
 himself the name of liberality and largeness of 
 mind, his surest method of success is to teach that 
 the all-in-all of Christianity is to worship God in 
 Spirit and to love the Lord Jesus Christ sincere- 
 ly. That Church-membership is matter of ex- 
 pediency, and not of duty. That Sacraments — 
 helps to some — are not necessary to all. That or- 
 ganic unity is but a dream ; and that in the mul- 
 tiplicity of Churches, stimulating each other's zeal 
 and offering in their variations wide room for in- 
 dividual predilection, consists the glory of mod- 
 ern Christendom. 
 
 If one would reach the very pinnacle of public 
 favor, let him proceed somewhat farther, that the 
 Church is a useful brace for weak and flaccid 
 natures, but a support unworthy of one in full 
 
The Church's Duty to Christendom. 185 
 
 spiritual health and vigor. Let him teach that to 
 place the Sacraments beside the Word, is to put 
 out the candle of the Reformation. 
 
 But waiving these extremists, the average min- 
 ister of the Popular Religion, minimizes the cor- 
 porate and sacramental elements of religion so 
 far as he can do so consistently, with the conser- 
 vation of Christian companionship, and of the 
 badges whereby religious people may be visibly 
 distinguished from those who are not Christened. 
 
 And here is our complaint and our lamentation. 
 Like the Pope, they will not make friends with 
 us, unless we put out an eye. Nothing less than 
 a surrender of our deepest convictions that the 
 Church has a divine charter which is not open to 
 change or amendment, that the ministerial com- 
 mission passes by direct descent from age to age ; 
 that separation from the historic body is inexcu- 
 sable so long as unlawful terms of communion 
 are not imposed : nothing less than a retreat, all 
 along the line, from our most venerable entrench- 
 ments, will exempt us from the charge of unchar- 
 itable judgment and of ecclesiastical arrogance 
 
 I have suggested that there is also a diver- 
 gence in things experimental. In the Church, 
 as she came forth from the hands of her Creator, 
 
iS6 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 there was no superfluous apparatus. If we dis- 
 use the Baptism of infants, or deny its inward 
 grace, for the system of privilege and nurture 
 founded upon it, wc must substitute the Revival. 
 If we discard Confirmation, we must summon 
 children to come to a mourner's seat that they 
 may be prayed for. So also of the Sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper. Men seek in their fear and 
 weakness for encouragement and comfort. This 
 Sacrament is administered for our comfort. It 
 assures us, that they who have once bathed in the 
 laver of regeneration, do not by after-errors, for- 
 feit that cleansing ; but may be washed anew and 
 often from the soil contracted in their infirmity. 
 And when, in present penitence and faith, we 
 have renewed the vow of allegiance, it assures us 
 by visible tokens formally delivered to us, that 
 we are still members of Christ, and heirs through 
 hope, of His Everlasting Kingdom. 
 
 In the absence of these consolations the man 
 is directed to his spiritual consciousness. Person- 
 al assurance of acceptance with God, is added in 
 supplement to the conditions of Salvation which 
 Apostles preached. The Spirit witnesses no long- 
 er by the heart-yearnings He inspires, and the 
 fruits He matures, in the chastened life and tem- 
 
The C Jul reus Duty to CJuistendom. 187 
 
 per, but by His direct communication. Hence 
 comes the superfluity of self-examination : for 
 why draw out the question of our safety into such 
 elaboration, when God's Spirit has spoken in the 
 soul and left no room for doubt ? 
 
 Connected with these is a teaching, too adven- 
 turous to be accepted by the mass of penitent 
 believers, yet ever and anon most earnestly 
 pressed upon them, of a Perfect Love attained in 
 this present time, of a Sanctification which leaves 
 no room for the dust and ashes of humiliation 
 and self-reproach. 
 
 There are many good people who verily be- 
 lieve that in refusing to accept as universal and 
 necessary conditions of genuine spirituality, the 
 instantaneous conversion, the direct witness, the 
 personal assurance, we convict ourselves as for- 
 malists, who know not the religion of the heart. 
 
 How then shall we behave ourselves under 
 these painful circumstances ? 
 
 The truth cannot be surrendered or com- 
 promised. It is to be affirmed confidently, calm- 
 ly, lovingly, as occasion shall serve and need 
 shall require. It is to be exemplified in policy 
 and life, rather than disputed over. Men will 
 learn of themselves and judge right judgment, if 
 
1 88 TJie CJiUTch in the Nation. 
 
 we set plainly before them the elements of the 
 calculation, and without over-much prompting, 
 give them time for determination. 
 
 Christian souls grow weary of destructive crit- 
 icism. Let us, when choice is allowed us, prefer 
 to expound the excellence of the things that are 
 freely given us of God, rather than dwell on the 
 mistakes of men. 
 
 Constancy and forbearance will be the easier, 
 if we are persuaded, and upon just grounds, that 
 the time will come, when longing eyes shall be 
 directed to this Church as the centre and hope 
 of unity. 
 
 VII. Division, in its extravagance, tends to its 
 own cure. To the practical mind of the Ameri- 
 can, the economical question is assuming great 
 interest. The waste of wealth and power, and 
 the friction of machinery so complicated, cannot 
 be ignored. When two or three are set to do 
 the work to which one man is adequate, the rev- 
 enues are divided, the clergy are impoverished, 
 and the ministerial standard deteriorates accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 And some have great searchings of spirit, when, 
 after the most plausible efforts to show that Pro- 
 testant Christendom is one at heart, although 
 
TJic CJiurcJi's Duty to Christendom. 189 
 
 many in form ; the conviction presses hard upon 
 them, that behevers are not one in the sense of 
 the High-priestly prayer : are not one, as the 
 Father and the Son are one. 
 
 They recognize the fact that a true unity im- 
 pHes a common ministry, a common faith, a com- 
 mon worship. "What ministry has such prestige 
 as that, for most of the centuries, universally ac- 
 cepted ? What formulas of belief so authorita- 
 tive as the ancient Creeds ? What worship so 
 void of idiosyncracies, so expressive of the needs 
 and aspirations of all true Christian souls, as some 
 pure specimen of the substantial Liturgy ? 
 
 We may not be blind to the possibility that 
 the time may come when organized bodies will 
 knock at our doors. I believe it is more than 
 possible — at the least, it is a contingency worthy 
 to be seriously pondered in advance. 
 
 It is not probable that they will approach us 
 with an unconditional surrender of organism and 
 custom, consenting to be absorbed into our com- 
 munion upon such terms as are accepted by in- 
 dividuals, clerical and lay, who have drifted to 
 us. It may be, that they desire these three ben- 
 efits, the authentication of their Orders, the se- 
 curity of some external band to resist disintegra- 
 
IQO The Church in the Nation. 
 
 tion for trivial causes, and such safeguards as may- 
 ensure the perpetuation of a true faith. To ob- 
 tain these benefits, they would perchance make 
 concessions in matters of ritual and ceremony, 
 but not to the absolute destruction of their iden- , 
 tity. 
 
 VIII. And this leads the thought onward to a 
 larger problem. This nation is unique in the 
 character of its population. It is not homoge- 
 neous. It is made up of men differing in race, in 
 original nationality, in language and in temper- 
 ament. Germans, Swedes, Italians are here. 
 Black men, millions of them, dwell side by side 
 with us, jealous of their rights ; and red men, 
 thousands of them, need the helping hand of re- 
 ligion to protect them against a civilization 
 which destroys what it does not elevate. 
 
 One Church may comprehend them all. For 
 one was large enough at first to embrace Jew and 
 Gentile, the free-born Roman and the Slave 
 Onesimus. We cannot make or authenticate 
 many Churches, however importunate the plead- 
 ing; for the Church, the undefiled, is One 
 
 And yet the problem, although difiicult, is not 
 insoluble, if it be approached courageously and 
 with a common desire for reconciliation, which 
 
The CJitircJis Duty to Christendom. 191 
 
 will propose no ultimatum not imperatively de- 
 manded by the law of God and the invariable can- 
 ons and customs of the universal Church. Among 
 the essential rights of a National Church is the 
 right to grow, the right to adapt her arrange- 
 ments to her own peculiar needs. 
 
 The question of our duty to the colored race, 
 now most urgently pressed upon us, will, if it be 
 satisfactorily determined, settle the principles by 
 which we may be guided in all the questions of 
 comprehension which may hereafter arise. 
 
 How does this case present itself? We desire 
 to take the men of African descent into fuh 
 communion, to share with them all the religious 
 rights and privileges which we ourselves claim 
 and enjoy, and impose on them the same yoke of 
 discipline to which we ourselves submit. 
 
 But it is agreed by those who have this con- 
 summation most at heart, that to secure it three 
 several concessions are needed. 
 
 The Bishops proposed such enlargement of 
 their power of dispensation as might enable them 
 to ordain colored men, not learned in ancient 
 languages, prudent, but not possessing " extraor- 
 dinary strength of natural understanding." ' 
 
 ' " Report on Papers from Sewanee Conference, Journal H. 
 of Bishops, 1883, p. 124. 
 
ig2 The Cluirch in the Nation. 
 
 This proposition failed in tlie House of Depu- 
 ties. 
 
 The Bishops next proposed tliat •' in any dio- 
 cese containing a large number of persons for 
 whom by reason of peculiarity of race or language 
 it is expedient to make special religious provis- 
 ion, it shall be lawful for the Bishop and Conven- 
 tion of the same to constitute such population in- 
 to a special missionary organization, under the 
 charge of the Bishop." It was proposed that 
 they should have an Executive Committee to 
 act as a Council of advice to the Bishop ; that they 
 should be superintended by an officer of the 
 Bishop's appointment : that they should be con- 
 vened in Convocation for the furtherance of their 
 work. 
 
 This second concession failed to receive the 
 acquiescence of the Deputies. The third, touch- 
 ing the rubrical relaxation and the liturgical lib- 
 erty to meet the case of the imperfectly educated, 
 was not brought forward. 
 
 It appears then, that we have already entered, 
 however unsuccessfully, upon the discussion, how 
 shall we in this Church comprehend under a com- 
 mon discipline men of all races and of all lan- 
 guages, in such wise, as not to disregard the ties of 
 
The Churc/is Duty to Ch'istendom. 193 
 
 nature; of charitably adapting our offices and can- 
 ons to their edification, rather than violently ac- 
 commodating them to a rigid system.^ 
 
 IX. I venture, with all humility, to suggest that 
 the Bishops have not erred in the solution, as far 
 as proposed. 
 
 We must not demand impossibihties. We 
 must have Negro and Indian priests who know 
 no Latin. Only those ordained under such dis- 
 pensation should not demand a vote in the ec- 
 clesiastical legislature until they are qualified, as 
 white men are required to be qualified, to dis- 
 charge so responsible an office. 
 
 Again, the Church is one house, but in the one 
 house there may be many apartments. A house- 
 hold discriminated is not a house divided. If one 
 roof cover us, and one patriarchal authority guide 
 us, and one table be open to all the children, they 
 may be permitted a certain freedom in the volun- 
 tary grouping, in the ordering of their chambers 
 and the shape of their furniture. 
 
 Or to speak without a figure, if the colored 
 race, or the German, or the Scandinavian: or if any 
 considerable body of Christians, now an indepen- 
 
 ' For an outline of the discussion on these subjects, in the 
 House of Bishops, sec Appendix II, 
 
 13 
 
194 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 dent sect, shall cotne to us and ask to be received 
 into our communion ; accepting all necessary ob- 
 ligations ; yet asking that they may be allowed a 
 subordinate organization of their own ; permission 
 in matters of detail, financial and administrative, 
 to regulate their own affairs ; indulgence in some 
 harmless traditions and customs ; we need not 
 repel them with a cold non-possumus. Unity 
 consists with variety. Home is a thing compo- 
 site. It is true on earth as in heaven. In my 
 Father's house {oudix) there are many {^}j.ovai) 
 abidiiig-plaees. 
 
 Furthermore it was agreed, that while the Di- 
 ocesan should reserve full jurisdiction over all the 
 clergy and people, he would need in the admin- 
 istration of the special department, the assistance 
 of a "Superintendent." 
 
 Have we not need to re-open the question of 
 the Chorepiscopus, the Suffragan Bishop now 
 forbidden by canon, not by the Constitution ? 
 
 If the Sewanee solution be accepted, well may 
 the Superintendent be a Suffragan Bishop, in of- 
 fice one with the Diocesan, in race and language 
 and sympathies one with the people to whom he 
 specially ministers ; a daysman betwixt them, 
 that may lay his hand upon them both. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Church's Claim Upon the Loyal 
 Service of Her Clergy. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE CHURCH'S CLAIM UPON THE LOYAL SERVICE 
 OF HER CLERGY. 
 
 " God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all 
 churches of the saints." — i Cor. xiv. 33. 
 
 T X THEN the Eternal Son, in whom dwelt the 
 ^ ' fulness of wisdom, came to earth upon a 
 mission of redemption, He fully accepted that sub- 
 ordination of office which is involved in the very- 
 conception of ambassage. "My meat is to do the 
 will of him that sent me and to finish his work." 
 " I must work the works of him that sent me." 
 " My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." 
 These are some of the many utterances which 
 attest His acceptance of a stewardship in which 
 He must be found faithful. 
 
 Illustrious example ! To seek Another's glory, 
 to finish Another's work, to enunciate Another's 
 words, to do Another's will : thus did the great 
 Minister of righteousness describe the spirit and 
 
 197 
 
igS The CImrch in the Nation. 
 
 the end of His earthly ministration. The example 
 becomes the more binding in view of that word, 
 As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 
 The authority thus transmitted is, hke His own, 
 an ambassage under instructions. 
 
 n. I am to speak to you, at this our last con- 
 ference, of the Duty of the Church to demand the 
 Loyal Service of her Clergy : and by inference 
 of the obligation resting on every Bishop, Priest 
 and Deacon, to regard his office as a trust, to be 
 discharged strictly within the terms and the lim- 
 itations under which it was confided to him. And 
 I frankly confess, that in all that has been here- 
 tofore spoken, I have had this end chiefly in view. 
 For I do believe, in the depths of my soul, that 
 the loyal ministry is the only safe and happy min- 
 istry : and that the disloyalty of using official posi- 
 tion for the promulgation of individual fancies, is 
 the evil most to be feared in the magnificent 
 work which lies before us. 
 
 Of the late Bishop of London, Dr. Jackson, it 
 was said, " His forecast of the Church's future 
 was hopeful even to joyousness." ' There is 
 nothing to dim the like forecast for ourselves, if 
 only the Church shall courageously accept the 
 
 ' Archbishop Canterbury's Memorial Sermon. 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 199 
 
 responsibility of rule, and her Clergy shall be 
 examples to the flock in dutiful obedience to her 
 lawful commands. 
 
 III. When He, to whom "all power" was given, 
 had reached the limit appointed for an earth- 
 ly ministry. He made over a measure of this gift 
 to the Universal Church. To her it belongs to 
 teach the nations, to gather out of them a great 
 flock in all the parts of the world, and to rule 
 that flock prudently with all her power. 
 
 In the very nature of things, there must be a 
 division of labor and responsibility. Every farm 
 is divided into fields, every factory into depart- 
 ments, every hospital into wards. So must the 
 Church be distributed into provinces, so must the 
 Catholic body hold the particular Church 
 responsible for the conduct of affairs within 
 the limits assigned her, and attribute to her all 
 the powers necessary to meet that responsibility. 
 
 We have heard many addresses in behalf of 
 Foreign Missions, in which it was rightly urged 
 that each several soul, certified of its redemption, 
 owns itself a debtor to every soul of man included 
 in that redemption. And then it has been fur- 
 ther urged that we have no right to discriminate : 
 that this Church, and each one of us by deputy, 
 
200 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 should aim to preach the Gospel to " every crea- 
 ture." 
 
 We are conscious of a fallacy here. We do 
 not deny the proposition that a soul in Central 
 Africa is worth as much as a soul in Texas, but 
 yet it seems somehow irrelevant. All becomes 
 plain when we remind ourselves that the world- 
 wide duty is confided to the universal Church, and 
 that in the assignment of office, the particular 
 Church, while indifferent to none, while ready to 
 do good to all, must devote herself especially to 
 the task which, in the ordering of Providence, 
 none other can so well discharge. 
 
 So then, the Church in the United States has 
 the charge and government therein, and is quoad 
 hoc the accredited representative of the Catholic 
 body : and so also, individual allegiance is due 
 to her directly, and through her, to the universal 
 Church. 
 
 In view of this grave and inalienable respon- 
 sibility, it is for the Church to prescribe the Doc- 
 trine that shall be taught, the Ceremonies to be 
 observed, and the Discipline to be enforced. 
 
 IV. But again : some part of her offices the 
 Church can discharge in the way of conciliar ac- 
 tion : but the most of them, and the most impor- 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 201 
 
 tant of them, must be delegated to individuals ; 
 and so when Bishops, Priests and Deacons are 
 commissioned, they are accredited in their seve- 
 ral capacities as her representatives, and the com- 
 mission is, in effect, a power of attorney to act 
 in her behalf and to speak in her name. 
 
 While membership in the Church is a personal 
 right, never to be abridged except for cause ; 
 office is not a right, but a privilege to be con- 
 ferred, in utter indifference to any considerations, 
 save the glory of God and the edifying of the 
 Church. The theory, at least, is of selection ; of 
 the "choice of fit persons to serve in the sacred 
 ministry." 
 
 The men thus called are not hastily sent out. 
 There is a season interposed, of study and of 
 preparation, examinations being had at intervals 
 to determine proficiency in sacred studies and 
 aptitude to discharge the sacred ministry. And 
 this delay serves another valuable use. It guards 
 the novice against precipitation and mere im- 
 pulse. It gives him ample time to decide wheth- 
 er he can conscientiously accept a trust, and ad- 
 minister it according to its terms. 
 
 Bear with me, while I emphasize some of the 
 features of the Ordination itself The faithful 
 
202 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 people have their rights. They may demand 
 some assurance that shepherds, not wolves, are 
 to be sent among them. Hence the public ad- 
 ministration before a congregation representa- 
 tive of the community, with invitation to "Good 
 people " to show cause, if cause there be, why 
 the ordination should not proceed, with recog- 
 nition of the right of the congregation to under- 
 stand " the minds and wills " of such as are to be 
 ordered. 
 
 And then pledges are demanded, with the 
 avowed purpose that " this your promise may 
 the more move you to your duties." In the 
 preliminary Declaration, and in the public prom- 
 ises, if language has any meaning, the Church 
 demands and the Candidate agrees, that it is 
 consistent with his private judgment, and he binds 
 himself in conscience, to teach as true, and as the 
 paramount and all-saving truth, the Book which 
 this Church has received as God's holy word, 
 and the doctrine which she has deduced there- 
 from. He further promises in the worship of 
 Almighty God, to conform to the rites and cere- 
 monies by this Church prescribed ; consents, in 
 sum, to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and 
 the Discipline of this Church as the Lord hath 
 
The ClmrcJi's Claim upon Her Clergy. 203 
 
 commanded, AND AS THIS CHURCH HATH RE- 
 CEIVED THE SAME. 
 
 A promise so deliberate and so sacred, stands 
 forever inviolable, so long as we hold the com- 
 mission whereof it is the condition precedent. 
 
 V. To all these it may be opposed, and the 
 replies are very full of truth, that ministers are 
 not machines, but men : that mechanical service 
 and servile repetition of formula, are poor things 
 when set side by side with the intelligent expo- 
 sition, the free range of thought and imagination, 
 the changeful variety of forms and practical 
 methods, where individuality is not stamped out 
 of existence, and where the manifestations of the 
 Spirit, individually distributed for the common 
 profit, are not fettered in their workings by the 
 arbitrary and the technical. 
 
 Or else, that we are Catholic Priests, as well as 
 American, and as such claim for our lawful herit- 
 age every thing in doctrine and ritual which is 
 not in terms forbidden to us. 
 
 Or else, that this allegation of Church authority 
 as paramount to individual freedom, is but the at- 
 tenuated reproduction of an exploded Infallibility. 
 
 Or else, that the Prayer Book, were it as 
 voluminous as the largest Encyclopedia, could 
 
204 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 not prescribe all the possible details attendant 
 on sacred ministration ; and were it as brief as 
 the Epistle to Philemon, no honest man could 
 say, " These are just the words and phrases, 
 which more precisely and exactly than any 
 others express my own convictions." 
 
 These objections I desire to meet with all pos- 
 sible fairness and respect. 
 
 VI. Ministers are not machines. Conceding 
 to the utmost that a ministry with no room for 
 individualism would be singularly narrow and 
 lifeless, is it inevitable that submission to author- 
 ity must be rejected as destructive of it? Every 
 where in nature we see harmony that grows out 
 of discords, peace that comes in the reconciliation 
 of antagonisms. In chemistry, the strongest af- 
 finities exist between the most dissimilar sub- 
 stances ; and when combination ensues, the 
 compounds so formed are the most permanent. 
 So also in the mechanical forces. Mere attrac- 
 tion would soon end in absolute rest and 
 absence of energy, were it not met by re- 
 pulsive force, such as the centrifugal tendency 
 of the revolving planets, which prevents their 
 falling on the sun, and the molecular repul- 
 
The CJmrcJis Claim upon Her Clergy. 205 
 
 sion to which the elasticity of most bodies is 
 due.' 
 
 The first problem we encounter in religion is 
 to reconcile two realities, diverse and sometimes 
 antagonistic, God's will and man's will ; and in 
 the Church, God's authority, and her own, as by 
 Him delegated, on the one hand ; and on the 
 other, individual responsibility and by conse- 
 quence individual liberty of thought and act, 
 have need to be so asserted as that neither shall 
 be paralyzed or destroyed. To demand absolute 
 identity of opinion on all doctrinal points, and an 
 unreasoning performance of routine duties, with- 
 out play for the various gifts and tastes of indi- 
 vidual officers, would secure uniformity, but it 
 would possess neither Hfe nor beauty. While for 
 the Church to bestow commissions, as it were in 
 blank, authorizing men to teach in her behalf any 
 thing which they sincerely believe, and to con- 
 duct worship and administer sacraments as they 
 may deem most expedient, is to subvert order 
 and introduce confusion. It is to abdicate her 
 high functions as pillar and ground, witness and 
 keeper of the truth. All questions of degree are 
 
 ' I have copied here a paragraph from "The Continuity of 
 Law," an address to the Convention of East on, 1884. 
 
206 TJie ChinxJi in the Nation. 
 
 delicate, and the question here is whether au- 
 thority and hberty, stabihty and elasticity, rev- 
 elation and reason, in fine, do each in its turn find 
 suitable recognition in the complex administra- 
 tion of the Church, 
 
 Are her clergy then unduly straitened ? Bear 
 in mind their liberty of prophesying, for with few 
 exceptions, all of us are preachers. We have 
 abundant opportunity to present sacred truth in 
 our own language, under our own illustrations, 
 and in such garb as we deem most suitable for 
 edification. We do not speak with a sword sus- 
 pended over us: for mere mistake does not ex- 
 pose us to penalties. To constitute an offence, 
 one must teach advisedly some erroneous doc- 
 trine. ' Opportunity has never yet been refused 
 to amend a hasty statement, liable to misconcep- 
 tion, and the prosecution always lapses Avhen 
 the accused declares that he will not persist in 
 the teaching. 
 
 See here the respect shown to the individual 
 conscience. The Church meddles not with the 
 
 1 "Prepared as I am (believing it to be the righteous intention 
 of the Church) to grant to individual minds a large latitude of 
 statement, I cannot allow this liberty to extend to a categori . 
 cal denial of our dogmatic formularies." — S.OxontoMr. Allies, 
 Life of Wilberforce, Vol. 2, chap. I. 
 
The ChitrcJis Claim upon Her Clergy. 207 
 
 man's thoughts. If he has in his heart turned 
 traitor to the truth as it is in Jesus, she leaves 
 him to be judged by the One Heart-searcher. 
 She herself intervenes only when erroneous utter- 
 ance threatens to infect the flock. She does not 
 enforce truth-teaching by process of law. 
 
 We may, if we can find listeners, preach ser- 
 mons savorless of all rehgion without penal con- 
 sequences. Great is the liberty of prophesying ! 
 Freely used, and sometimes abused ! In this as- 
 pect the Church is an indulgent matron. But the 
 gentlest of mothers rages when the life or inno- 
 cence of her children is imperilled. There is a line 
 which the Clergy may not overpass. She says to 
 them plainly, you shall not call yourself by my 
 name, while you hinder or slander God's word 
 written, or deny its profitableness to men, the 
 truth of its history and the inspiration of .its 
 utterances. You shall not contradict the defini- 
 tions of doctrine which this national Church has 
 deliberately promulgated for the edification of 
 the people, and to which you have as deliberate- 
 ly assented. Is this to turn a man into a ma- 
 chine ? I answer no ; it is to elevate the man into 
 an ambassador. Take away these restraints 
 upon your liberty, and you arc left a scribe, 
 
2o8 The Church hi the Nation. 
 
 a disputant, building the edifice of your life-work 
 upon the uncertain foundation of your personal 
 genius ; and when you die, your thoughts shall 
 perish with you. But if you have learned, like 
 the Baptist, so to merge your personality in your 
 office that you have little patience with the enqui- 
 ry. Who art thou : if you are content to be a voice 
 in the wilderness, uttering a message in no sense 
 your own, save that you believe it and love it, 
 then will men marvel at the calm and restful au- 
 thority with which you speak. Then will you 
 build upon a foundation that cannot be moved : 
 and when you are dead and gone, the gold, sil- 
 ver and precious stones of the superstructure shall 
 still abide. 
 
 VII. Again, we are Catholics, and claim as our 
 heritage the undoubted doctrines and practices of 
 the Universal Church. 
 
 In no sense and in no degree has the Anglican 
 branch of the Church invented a religion of her 
 own. " We use the ceremonies, observations and 
 sacraments of our religion, as the Apostles and 
 first Fathers of the Primitive Church did," is a 
 fair expression of her oft-repeated affirmations. 
 
 It is conceivable that she has not kept her 
 pledges. She may have suppressed or obscured 
 
The CJiurch's Claim upon Her Clergy. 209 
 
 blessed truths affirmed by universal consent : she 
 may have imported into her standards, novelties 
 for which no such consent can be pretended. You 
 have the right herein to search her to the utter- 
 most. If the allegation be sustained, although it 
 be safe to continue in her communion, to accept 
 her Orders is to become partaker of her fault. 
 
 There are but few earnest souls who have 
 failed to receive some hard blows from Giant 
 Despair, or from his wife Diffidence. Few but 
 have lain in an ague-fit upon the dungeon floor 
 of Doubting Castle. Whatever be the moan 
 that issues from the burdened soul, whether it be 
 the question, Is there a personal God ; is there 
 a historic Christ ; or Is there a Church worthy of 
 my allegiance ; those who have fought their way 
 to the repose of conviction, unite in the same 
 council concerning them all. The truth is nev- 
 er to be feared. No objection, seemingly forci- 
 ble, is to be dismissed in terror, lest an answer 
 cannot be found. Come out of that dark cell of 
 mental brooding, and let the clear sunlight of 
 reason and of evidence illuminate the contro- 
 versy. 
 
 The doctrines or usages, said to be obscured 
 or disused among us, and which it is claimed, the 
 14 
 
2IO The CJmrch in the Nation. 
 
 Priest, in the plenitude of his Catholic commis- 
 sion, has the right to supplement, are not numer- 
 ous. Sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Adora- 
 tion, Solitary Celebration, are the burning ques- 
 tions ; and to these may be added Prayers for the 
 Dead. 
 
 Grouping together the first three of these, the 
 question is not whether a sinful soul may not 
 unburden itself to the Priest, and the Priest 
 comfort that soul with the benefit of a personal 
 absolution. This is expressly advised in the cell 
 of a man condemned to death, and by parity 
 of reason, may be extended to urgent cases of 
 spiritual distress. 
 
 Neither is it denied to any, to worship Christ 
 really present in the Eucharist. Nor is the char- 
 acter of the Eucharist impugned as -a Memorial 
 Sacrifice, in which material gifts are consecrated 
 and offered to Almighty God, and in which the 
 Church on earth unites with the High-Priest 
 passed within the veil, to plead the merits and 
 the memory of the one perfected and sufficient 
 sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction. 
 
 But if one pretend that the strain of the univer- 
 sal tradition requires him to teach, that without 
 the preface of a personal absolution, the Holy Sa- 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 211 
 
 crament cannot usually be received in the fulness 
 of its blessing : or that while the elements are 
 present in their forms, the substance is no longer 
 bread and wine, but Christ : or else that the par- 
 ticipation by the faithful is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence at the Eucharistic Celebration, then an issue 
 of fact is raised. We have no such custom: 
 neither had the Churches of God. 
 
 Carter of Clewer — I reverence him as among 
 the saints of our day — is the well-known advocate 
 of Sacramental Confession. When the testimony 
 of antiquity is under his review, like an honest 
 man, he sums it up in the statement : "Two facts 
 therefore may be considered to be established, (i) 
 that the original penitential system, the only one 
 known to the Church of the primitive ages, was the 
 public discipline ; (2) that private confession was 
 then in frequent use, but only in connexion with 
 the public discipline, and not as a means of ob- 
 taining private absolution." ^ 
 
 So, also, Keble writes in defence of Eucharis- 
 tic Adoration. But if any pretends that it is his 
 duty to teach this doctrine by a ritual obser- 
 vance, let him listen to Keble's testimony : 
 
 " The primitive Liturgies are almost or alto- 
 
 ' Doctrine of Absolution, p . 24. 
 
212 The CJinrcJi in the Nation. 
 
 gather silent as to any worship of Christ's Body 
 and Blood after consecration. We find in them 
 neither any form of prayer addressed in special to 
 His holy Humanity so present, nor any rubric 
 enjoining adoration, inward or outward." ^ 
 
 Is it Catholic for the Priest to celebrate alone ? 
 Let Bellarmine certify us of the facts. " No- 
 where is it expressly read that the sacrifice was 
 offered by the ancients without the Communion 
 of one or more besides the Priest himself" 
 
 Bellarmine proceeds to defend the solitary mass 
 by four conjectures — I am content barely to state 
 them, asking you to observe the dates. The 
 first conjecture rests on an inference drawn from a 
 direction of a Council of Nantes of date 658, that 
 Presbyters are not to celebrate mass alone, unless 
 they have one person at least to make the re- 
 sponses : and also on a decree of the twelfth 
 Council of Toledo, of date 681, rebuking certain 
 Priests who did not commune when offering the 
 sacrifice. What sort of sacrifice is that, says the 
 Council, at which he who sacrifices thinks it not 
 worth while to participate ? 
 
 The second conjecture rests on the allegation 
 that there were Priests who, having no cure of 
 1 Eucharistic Adoration, chap. iii. sec. 2, 
 
The Cliurclis Claim upon Her Clergy. 213 
 
 souls, could not administer, but who undoubt- 
 edly celebrated ; the case of the Presbyter Paul- 
 inus, afterwards Bishop of Nola. 
 
 The third conjecture is founded on Chrysos- 
 tom's complaint, " In vain is had the daily 
 oblation when there is none to partake with 
 us ;" and a saying of Ambrose that the Greeks 
 were wont to commune post annum. 
 
 The fourth conjecture refers to religious services 
 held for a special purpose, at which it is improb- 
 able that there was an administration. The illus- 
 trations are, St Augustine's offering for his moth- 
 er at her grave, and a sacrifice by one of his 
 Presbyters at a country house to drive away evil 
 spirits.^ 
 
 ' BELLARMINE. De Missa, Lib. II. Cap. IX. 
 Tertio probatur ex consuetudine veterum. Nam etiamsi 
 nusquam expresse legamus a veteribus oblatum sacrificium sine 
 communione alicuius, vel aliquorum, praeter ipsum sacerdotem : 
 tamen id possumus ex conjecturis facile colligere. Prima con- 
 jectura ex Concilio Nannetensi, Cap 30, quod citaturab Inone 
 in decret, par 3, Cap. 70, ubi jubentur presbyteri non celebrare 
 soli Missam, nisi habeant saltern unum secum, qui respondeat. 
 Ex quointelligimus quosdam plane solos celebrare solitos Missae 
 sacrificium : et proinde sine communicantibus. Item ex Concilio 
 TOLETANO XII. can. 5, ubi graviter reprehenduntur quidam sac- 
 erdotes, qui sacrificium offerentes non communicabant. Quale 
 ^/ inquit Concilium, illud sacrificium, cui nee ipse sacrificans 
 participasse diptoscitur ? Quae verba satis aperte indicant, in- 
 
214 The Chtirch iii the Nation. 
 
 Such is literally the best showing that can be 
 made by the ablest controversialist for the solita- 
 ry mass. 
 
 Much indulgence is conceded both theoreti- 
 
 eiuismodi sacrificio nullum omnino fuisse, qui communicaret ; et 
 tamen Concilium non rcquirit, nisi ut sacerdos ipse communicet 
 proinde admittit tanquam rata, et ut apparet, usitata sacrificia, 
 in quibus solus communicat sacerdos. Est autem hoc Concilium 
 ante annos circiter CM. celebratum. 
 
 Secunda conjectura. Quidam initiabantur sacris absq. ; ulla 
 certa procuratione animarum, qui proinde non poterant uUi Sac- 
 ramentum administrare, et tamen sine dubio Missas celebrabant. 
 Exemplum habemus in S.Paulino Nolano, qui presbyter ordinatus 
 fuit, ut ipse scribit Epist. 6 ad Severum, in Sacerdotium Domini, 
 sed nuUi certse Ecclesiae alligatus. 
 
 Tertia conjectura. Plurimi sacerdotes quotidie celebrabant, 
 ut supra ostendimus, et tamen populus in multis locis raro admo- 
 dum communicabat, ut vel ex ilia querimonia Chrysostomi 
 cognosci potest, quae habetur homil. 3. in epist. ad Ephes. Frus- 
 TRAjinquit, habetur quotidiana ablatio, cum nemo sit, qid simul 
 participet. Et homil. 17. in epist. ad Hebr. scribit, plurimos tan- 
 tum semel in anno ad Sacramenti Communionem accessisse. 
 Ambrosius etiam lib. 5 de Sacrament. Cap.4. dicit, Graecos post 
 annum communicare solere. 
 
 QuARTA conjectura. Multa sacra fiebant pro caussa ita par- 
 ticular!, ut non fit ullo modo verisimile, ministratam fuisse Com- 
 munionem in eiusmodi sacris ; ut exempli caussa, cum scribit Au- 
 gustinus lib. 9. Confess. Cap. 12, oblatum sacrificium pro matre 
 sua, cadavere juxta sepulchrum constitute : et cum scribit lib. 22. 
 Civit. cap. 8. unum e suis presbyteris sacrificium obtulisse in do- 
 mo rustica, ad eandem domum a malignorum spirituum vexa- 
 tione liberandam. Sed adversariorum argumenta soluamus. — 
 Finis, Cap. IX. 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy, 215 
 
 cally and practically, to theological explanation 
 and pastoral counsel. But if one without war- 
 rant of the National Church interposes between 
 God's child and God's altar, private absolution as 
 a spiritual necessity ; or imports into the liturgy 
 acts of adoration, defining the mode of the Real 
 Presence; or severs the sacrifice from the feeding 
 on the sacrifice ; let him not plead the inherent 
 rights of a Catholicity which antedates the Book 
 of Common Prayer, The overwhelming evi- 
 dence is against him. 
 
 And what about Prayers for the Dead ? 
 
 We cannot say the Lord's Prayer without 
 praying for the faithful dead. The kingdom of 
 God has come to us who live, replete with bless- 
 ing and with hope ; to those who are gone before, 
 with rest and consolation. But all on earth and 
 in Paradise, alike await the risen glory, the re- 
 demption of the body and the beatific vision. To 
 invoke the utmost coming of the Kingdom is to 
 invite a wealth of blessing yet in store for quick 
 and dead. 
 
 And in solemn offices we make mention of the 
 sainted dead, and according to the contrast em- 
 phasized between the "joy and felicity" that are 
 now, and the " perfect consummation and bliss" 
 
2i6 TJic CJiiircli ill the Nation. 
 
 that are yet to be : we ask of God to bless us and 
 them together. 
 
 Further than this, many of us hesitate to go. 
 We know so Uttle of the needs of a disembodied 
 spirit, we are so utterly in the dark as to the 
 transition from the imperfect sainthness of the 
 saintliest here, to the sinlessness of the creature 
 finally absolved by the Judge Himself in the 
 presence of the universe, that it suffices us, at 
 the grave of our dear ones, to thank God that 
 they are safe and resting, and to pray God that 
 none of His dear promises concerning them may 
 fail of their fulfilment. 
 
 We know how to carry with us to God's altar 
 a precious name and memory. But a mass with 
 a specified intention, is at variance with our con- 
 ception of the all-comprehensive intercession of 
 what we call a celebration. 
 
 Others there are, who look regretfully to the 
 loss of formulas once used by Englishmen : the 
 larger thanksgiving of King Edward's book for 
 " this thy servant, whom thou hast delivered 
 from the miseries of this wretched world, from 
 the body of death and all temptation. And, as 
 we trust, has brought his soul, which he commit- 
 ted into thy holy hands into sure consolation and 
 
The ChnrcJis Claim ttpon Her Clergy. 217 
 
 rest : " and the amplified intercession " that the 
 sins which he committed in this world be not im- 
 puted unto him: but that he, escaping the gates 
 of hell, and pains of eternal darkness, may ever 
 dwell in the region of light, with Abraham, Isaac 
 and Jacob, in the place where there is no weeping, 
 sorrow nor heaviness ; and when the dreadful day 
 of the general resurrection shall come, make him 
 to rise also with the Just and Righteous, and re- 
 ceive this body again to glory, then made pure 
 and incorruptible." 
 
 They cite large authority for such interces- 
 sions, drawn from the purest sources of antiquity, 
 before Purgatory was invented. 
 
 But it should be remembered that the Church 
 has large discretion in the varying of her liturgy. 
 It seems most reasonable, that devotions should 
 be adapted to the truest needs of the worshippers ; 
 that in matters not plainly delivered, not divinely 
 enjoined, the rule of devotion may vary. If it 
 shall seem that the religious imagination peering 
 into the land of spirit, has run wild and with- 
 drawn men's thoughts from the simpler and more 
 necessary truths and duties, the Church in each 
 age may discreetly narrow the outlets of devotion 
 in that direction. We have the right to expect 
 
2i8 TJic C /lurch in the Nation. 
 
 of the Church a Hturgy essentially Catholic. We 
 have no right to demand that it shall be invaria- 
 ble in the intensity of its statements and the am- 
 plification of its formulas. 
 
 VIII. I proceed to another class of objections, as 
 that the claim of Church authority is but the pre- 
 tence of InfallibiHty under disguise : that it con- 
 verts belief, the active search and the intelligent 
 acquiescence, into a dull, passive receptivity : 
 that it substitutes for assimilation of spiritualities 
 into the spiritual being, a sort of deglutition of the 
 husks of dogma. 
 
 Without entering fully into this wide field of 
 debate, I offer a few words of comment. 
 
 Authority, as used in this connection, and as 
 used in like connections in other sciences than 
 theology, has a well-defined, technical meaning. 
 Sometimes it serves the purpose of the work- 
 ing hypothesis of the scientist, supplying the 
 rule safest to be followed in the conduct of 
 independent investigation, and confirmed into 
 theory when we have tested its utterances. To 
 those who for lack of opportunity or culture, can- 
 not for themselves collect the data and work out 
 the argument, authority is in such matters, the 
 epitome of what has been collected and adjudged 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 219 
 
 by those to whose guidance it is safest to entrust 
 ourselves. 
 
 Following man into his social life, authority 
 becomes more precise. Without demanding the 
 submission of the private opinion, it erects a tri- 
 bunal where the right and the wrong of private 
 opinions shall be adjudicated for practical pur- 
 poses. There are elements in ecclesiastical au- 
 thority which I dare hot ignore, and which be- 
 long to no other authority. In its written code, 
 in its promise of spiritual illumination, in its des- 
 ignation of official teachers, Christianity is unique. 
 
 But confining ourselves to the analogies of so- 
 cial life, authority is seen to be a reahty and a ne- 
 cessity ; and that, while it disclaims infallibility. 
 Of the learned professions, theology alone has 
 been betrayed into speaking lightly of authority, 
 or into a dread of it, as destructive to a manly 
 individualism. 
 
 A mere " case-lawyer " can never grasp aright 
 a legal proposition : but the most brilliant legal 
 genius is an unsafe counsellor, unless he knows 
 the legal tradition and defers to it. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States is to 
 citizens what its name imports. It is not infalli- 
 ble. It is not always in accord with the like tri- 
 
TJie Chtirch in the Nation. 
 
 bunal in the place of eminence elsewhere. It has 
 in some instances reversed its own decisions. Yet 
 none the less is it the authority. Laymen con- 
 form their actions to its determinations. Com- 
 missioned officers of the government execute the 
 law under its advisement. 
 
 But advancing- beyond such analogies, instruct- 
 ive, although inadequate, let us ask what sort of 
 authority it is to which the National Church pre- 
 tends ? Nowhere does she say I am infallible: but 
 she does claim that she is Christ's accredited mes- 
 senger to you, and that she delivers His word 
 rightly. 
 
 To the great multitude she offers an asylum, 
 provided only that they accept as true, the facts 
 of the Gospel history, and the plain duties which 
 are consequent thereon. Those are noblest in 
 her esteem, whose adhesion is most intelligent 
 and thoughtful. And if any aspire to the digni- 
 ty of representing her to other men, she right- 
 ly demands that they shall be in full sympathy 
 with lier, If you are to be my messenger, she 
 says, you must carry my message. While the 
 commission is being inscribed, she herself spreads 
 wide open for him the sacred volume and the 
 ancient commentaries. She frowns not when the 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 221 
 
 student includes in his search, profane history and 
 modern philosophies. Her solitary demand is 
 that required of all missionaries, that the ambas- 
 sador shall express the mind of the sovereignty 
 which he undertakes to represent. 
 
 IX. One other objection has been suggested, 
 that the Book of Common Prayer is too small a 
 volume to be a complete directory of public wor- 
 ship, and yet too large to allow reasonable men 
 jtirare in verba, to accept its utmost syllable. 
 
 Touching the latter of these affirmations, while 
 there has been much discussion as to the criteria 
 of honest subscription, whether it is the animus 
 imponentis, or the literal and grammatical inter- 
 pretation, or the larger freedom of any sense 
 possible to be imposed ; the question is but a 
 special instance of a general problem which meets 
 us very often. In numerous cases, no jury 
 could agree upon a verdict, no court unite in an 
 opinion, no society formulate a compact, if every 
 individual were bound to assent to it in its terms, 
 as if he had drafted it to express his individual 
 mind. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the maxim prevails, De 
 minimis non curat lex. 
 
 I venture to suggest whether this question 
 
222 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 docs not belong to a class of questions, difficult 
 to solve in dialectics and best relegated to the 
 instincts of the honorable mind and the tender 
 conscience. For myself I may say, that I am 
 conscious of no disloyalty if I say to my own 
 heart, or if I suggest in my place as a legislator, 
 that another mode of expression would be a bet- 
 ter statement of the truth ; and on the other side, 
 if it should seem that the words which the Church 
 has put into my mouth were, in the impression 
 they must make on the minds of others, mislead- 
 ing or untrue, I could not utter them save at the 
 loss of self-respect. 
 
 Legally, no man can be indicted except for 
 distinct, unequivocal denial of a doctrinal state- 
 ment, distinct and unequivocal. This is as it ought 
 to be, however it may suffer to go free, a teacher 
 ingenious in suggesting doubts without affirm- 
 ing them, or in so dressing his denial in cloudy 
 robes of rhetoric that, while all recognize it, none 
 will identify it under oath. 
 
 But to a generous mind this very impunity is 
 not license, but restraint. Conscience, with its 
 silent reproach, is more to be feared than canon 
 law with its penalties. In the appeal to con- 
 
The Chitr ell's Claim upon Her Clergy. 223 
 
 science, consists the Church's surest guarantee 
 of the loyalty of her clergy. 
 
 We have heard it said, that it is the precisian on- 
 ly who troubles himself about rubrics and canons. 
 The latter are changeable, and occasionally con- 
 tradictory and of doubtful interpretation. And as 
 for the former, their directions are incomplete, 
 or else obsolete by reason of the change of con- 
 ditions. Common sense is not to be discarded 
 from our service, and literal ■ exactness is an ab- 
 surdity when necessity or high expediency 
 stands in its way. 
 
 Such representations are true, if they mean, as 
 Butler has taught us, that positive precepts yield 
 to moral duties. But if they mean that positive 
 precepts may be lightly disregarded, the mischief 
 that grows out of such indifference is difficult to 
 exaggerate. 
 
 The same voice which cited the example of 
 David and the shew-bread, as an illustration of 
 ritual ordinance set aside by necessity, did also 
 commend the tithing of mint, anise and cum- 
 min. 
 
 When Bishop Auer, husbanding the little 
 breath that remained to him, confirmed and con- 
 veyed orders, no doubt he abbreviated the servi- 
 
224 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 ces to the narrowest limits consistent with their 
 integrity. The Memphis clergy in the pestilence 
 reserved the consecrated elements. I have nev- 
 er heard that any censured these departures 
 from the written law. It was the case of the 
 shew-bread over again. 
 
 But the mind of the Priest should be to walk 
 in all the commandments and ordinances blame- 
 less ; to tithe the herbs of the garden. If rubrics 
 are vague, inadequate or inapplicable, it becomes 
 us to observe as best we can the analogies of the 
 case. If necessity, or expediency (such as arises 
 when to observe the rule would defeat its pur- 
 pose) demands the exercise of common-sense, 
 then have we justification for the use of sound 
 discretion. 
 
 But where no such pleas can be offered, where 
 there is nothing exceptional, where the Church 
 has made what she deems suitable provision, the 
 instincts of humility and of honor demand that 
 we should render punctilious obedience. 
 
 Concerning divines who affect to be indepen- 
 dent of restraint, Hooker exclaims," Why oppose 
 they the name of a minister unto the state of a 
 private man ? Doth their order exempt them 
 from obedience to laws ? That which tlieir office 
 
The ChtircKs Claim upon Her Clergy. 225 
 
 and place requireth is to shew themselves patterns 
 of reverend subjection, not authors and masters 
 of contempt towards ordinances, the strength 
 whereof, when they seek to weaken, they do but 
 in truth discover to the world their own imbecil- 
 ity, which a great deal wiselier they might con- 
 ceal."^ 
 
 X. I may be allowed without the charge of 
 personal censoriousness, to present disloyalty in 
 the concrete. Public utterances and ministrations 
 are not to be exempted from criticism, on the 
 ground that we impugn the good sense or hon- 
 esty of the speakers and actors. The great 
 thinkers who in our day are unsettling the founda- 
 tions of religion and morals and human accounta- 
 bility, do not protest, because they are not obnox- 
 ious to the charge of ribaldry or immorality. And 
 religious teachers must not piteously cry out,' You 
 are defaming men who excel you in learning and 
 in self-abnegation,' when we say plainly that they 
 promote that which is contrary to good morals, 
 and rely on pleadings ingenious but not ingenu- 
 ous. The personal goodness, even enhances the 
 mischief. The great Bishop Wilberforce speaks of 
 
 I Polity, V. Ixxii. 9. 
 
226 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 the " mischievous goodness " of one of his cotem- 
 poraries. 
 
 I present then, two illustrations of the working 
 of minds, disloyal, although we do not affirm 
 consciously disloyal, to lawful authority and to 
 plighted vows. One is authentic : the other an- 
 onymous, hypothetical if you will, but equally 
 verifiable. 
 
 The Bishop of Manchester refuses to appoint a 
 certain curate to a certain living upon the ground 
 that after examining his statements of doctrine, 
 written and printed, he could not consider them 
 the doctrines of the Church of England or of the 
 Nicene Creed, on the vital point of the divinity of 
 our Lord. The Priest thereupon appeals to the 
 sympathy of the people. A meeting of congre- 
 gation and parishioners is held. The Bishop's 
 letter is read amid laughter and cries of shame, 
 and a resolution is passed of sympathy with the 
 Curate under his wrongs. And what is that 
 Curate's account of himself ? He does not deny 
 the Incarnation, only he explains it thus : " In 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, we have a type of that 
 character of which the Christ is to be for ever 
 born. * * * The miracle of the Incarnation of a 
 true Son of God may take place continually : it 
 
The CJmrcKs Claim upon Her Clergy. 227 
 
 ought to take place each time a child is born into 
 the world. "^ * ^ I am not surprised that Mary so 
 carefully instilled into the mind of Jesus, ' My Son, 
 never forget God is thy Father !' I only grieve 
 that so many mothers fail to impress the same 
 saving truth upon the hearts of their children." 
 
 He does not deny the divinity of Christ : only 
 he claims to expound it modo suo. 
 
 " You charge me with making Him such a one 
 as yourself or myself. I ever try to teach my- 
 self and others that, on quite the other hand, we 
 must try to make ourselves such as He. There 
 are not two Gods, and whatever was of God in Je- 
 sus Christ was certainly * equal to the Father.' 
 Just as in you and me, if there be any of God in 
 us, it is most certainly ' God of God, Light of 
 Light, very God of very God, Begotten, not made. 
 Being of one substance with the Father,' Jesus 
 Christ is now, as He ever was, one with the Fath- 
 er, in the same sense that you and I are one with 
 the Father whenever we are good." ^ 
 
 To a judicial mind this is sheer nonsense, and 
 dishonest nonsense as well. It is worse than the 
 Probable Opinion which Pascal satirized. It 
 claims a right to hold and teach the Improbable 
 
 1 London Guardian, Jan. 14th, 1885. 
 
228 The Church in the Nation. 
 
 Opinion. It is emptying statements of fact and 
 history of all meaning, and substituting therefor 
 tropes and verbiage. Yet is he the martyr of 
 the hour, and the Bishop the obnoxious tyrant. 
 Cobnnbae ineidpanttir : dant veniam corvis. No 
 personal considerations may here be allowed to 
 intervene. All honest men, Christian and un- 
 christian, should repudiate with scorn and indig- 
 nation, a casuistry which robs of significance, all 
 the honorable pledges of man to his brother, by 
 which society is bound together. 
 
 Another illustration. In the days of Hobart 
 and Ravenscroft, and thereafter, those who were 
 deemed sound Churchmen, took no liberties with 
 the Prayer Book. They avowed themselves 
 Precisians, to the dotting of an i and the crossing 
 of a /. 
 
 Then came the assertion of conscience against 
 authority by more schools of thought than one. 
 Some said privately, and some openly and defi- 
 antly, that they would not use the word Regener- 
 ate in the Baptismal office. I know of no one 
 who now occupies this defiant attitude about that 
 office, but the precedent was very full of mischief 
 There came in also new ritual observances, ex- 
 cused on the ground of ancient custom, which 
 
TJie Chiu'cJis Claim upon Her Clergy. 229 
 
 have introduced confusion into our public offices. 
 But most serious of all, has been a paulatim 
 process, exaggerating this confusion almost to 
 anarchy. In that most laudable multiplication of 
 celebrations of the Holy Eucharist which has of 
 late years become familiar to us, the length of 
 the office has been felt to be an inconvenience. 
 One Clergyman omits the Prayer for the Church 
 Militant ; another the longer exhortation. Still 
 another, finding it hard to make room for his 
 very numerous services, at an early celebration, 
 omits all the introductory portion and proceeds 
 without delay to the celebration proper. And 
 yet another persuades himself and his people, not 
 that it is preferable merely, and more reverent 
 when choice is allowed, to receive fasting, but 
 that it is de rigiieur. Having created this ne- 
 cessity, he pleads it as an exemption from ob- 
 serving the prescribed sacramental order. ' I must 
 celebrate at midday : I have none to communi- 
 cate with me. I must not for forms' sake use 
 words that are inapplicable and meaningless.' 
 
 The defence is this. It has been permitted 
 without remonstrance to omit on occasion. Deca- 
 logue, Epistle, Gospel, Exhortation. In the ex- 
 ercise of like discretion, one who upholds Fast- 
 
230 TJie Church in the Nation. 
 
 ing Communion may eliminate at a service, when 
 it is to be presumed the people have broken their 
 fast, all that implies participation. And so he who 
 stands pledged to administer the Sacraments as 
 this Church hath received the same, converts and 
 perverts her " Order for the Administration of 
 the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion " into 
 something else, unknown to her, as it was to the 
 ancients. To state such argument is to refute it. 
 The possibility of seriously urging it, reminds us 
 that disobedience in things purely technical, may 
 in some sort lend the weight of example and influ- 
 ence to perversions the most mischievous — to 
 an equivocation with plighted vows, upon which 
 a good heathen might frown. 
 
 XI. In these Lectures I have had regard to the 
 audience before me. I have no assurance that 
 others will care to read or hear them. But 
 youth is docile and sympathetic, and impressible 
 by the living voice of one who speaks with affec- 
 tion. 
 
 I see among you my own candidates, on whom 
 I hope to lay my hands. In your upturned 
 countenances I recognize the face of a friend, or of 
 the son of a friend. In your entire array, I rec- 
 
The Church's Claim upon Her Clergy. 231 
 
 ognize the men, numerous enough and of culture 
 sufficient to make you a potential factor in the 
 Church of God. 
 
 I invoke for you all, a career alike honorable 
 and useful, a ministry respected of men and ap- 
 proved of God. 
 
 My young brother, take heed unto thyself and 
 unto the doctrine. No gift imparted by the lay- 
 ing on of hands can make men good and happy, 
 who do not keep their hearts with diligence. 
 And alas ! the best of gifts may be destructive to 
 others, if while carnal lusts be kept under, the 
 pride of intellect remains unsubdued. Take heed 
 to thy doctrine, that it be not of thine own in- 
 vention or of thine own election. Keep thyself 
 pure. Aye, and keep thine official conscience 
 clean. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 ATTEMPTED LEGISLATION IN REGARD TO EC- 
 CLESIASTICAL COMPREHENSION. 
 
 I OFFER no apology for endeavoring to bring to- 
 gether in a condensed form the scattered fragments 
 of this history. It belongs to a practical question 
 which cannot longer be avoided, and is made up of de- 
 tails not easily accessible to the majority of the Clergy 
 and of the Laity. 
 
 I. In the year 1872, when the House of Bishops was 
 in special session in New York, several German Evan- 
 gelical clergymen asked a hearing. Their story, more 
 pathetic for the imperfect English in which it was 
 uttered, was briefly this : They recognized among their 
 people a tendency to division into new sects, and also 
 to fall away from the historical faith and doctrine. 
 Could the Bishops help them ? Could any means be 
 devised by which, preserving their own organization 
 and German worship, they could be braced, against 
 these disintegrating influences, by the strong band 
 around them of Apostolic order and authority ? 
 
 Their Memorial, printed in full in the Journal of 
 
234 Appendix I. 
 
 Gen. Con. 1874, p. 382, deserved a better fate than to 
 be there buried. I extract a few sentences : 
 
 " We long to see a large body of Christians, speak- 
 ing the tongue of our fatherland, receiving the sac- 
 raments and ordinances through your hands, using a 
 Liturgy like yours, and submitting to your godly and 
 scriptural discipline." 
 
 " Especially we pray for the consecration of a Bishop 
 of our own countrymen, that he may know our 
 customs and peculiarities of education and thought. " 
 
 " We are far from desiring to establish a new Church. 
 We desire to be part of yours. We would not trespass 
 on any see or diocese, but would let our Bishops act un- 
 der the direction of those who already have authority 
 in our several regions." 
 
 In the same Journal of 1874, p. 325, is printed a re- 
 port presented to the House of Bishops, by order of 
 the Bishops in Council. 
 
 The Committee say that "If it were possible to es- 
 tablish a missionary Episcopate among the Germans, 
 and under it to collect and give unity to our {q^n scat- 
 tered clergy of German birth, there might be expected, 
 under God's blessing, a very rich result. " They do not 
 however propose any specific scheme for providing such 
 Episcopate, and conclude with a resolution expressive 
 of sympathy with the German population, and of a 
 desire to promote their religious and social interests. 
 
 All of which, being interpreted, means non-possiimus. 
 
Appendix I. 235 
 
 Nothing came of it. One cannot imagine anything 
 more reasonable, more heart-breaking than the petition 
 of those clergymen which we knew not how to enter- 
 tain, 
 
 II, In view of this discussion, the Bishop of Maryland 
 on behalf of the Committee on Amendments to the Con- 
 stitution, proposed a new article, to be numbered XI, 
 "Congregations of foreign race or worshipping in a 
 foreign tongue, may be admitted into union with this 
 Church, or organized by ministers of the Church, un- 
 der such provisions for the conduct of their public 
 worship as may from time to time be canonically made 
 by the General Convention." This resolution, adopt- 
 ed by the Bishops, was in the House of Deputies re- 
 ferred to a Committee, on the twenty-third day of the 
 Session. The Committee made no report, (journal, 
 1874, pp. 359 and 207 ) 
 
 III, At this same convention a memorial was present- 
 ed from the Diocese of Texas, in relation to the appoint- 
 ment of a Suffragan Bishop for the supervision of the 
 colored people in that Diocese. The Bishop of North 
 Carolina oifered a resolution on the same subject, and 
 presently the Bishop of Connecticut, from the Commit- 
 tee on Canons, reported an elaborate canon ' ' Of Suffra- 
 gan Bishops. " The Suffragan to perform such Episcopal 
 offices and within such district as the Diocesan may as- 
 sign him : not to be entitled to a seat in the House of 
 Bishops, but eligible for election as a Diocesan, 
 
 Bishop Whittingham proposed as a substitute, a can- 
 
236 Appendix I. 
 
 on in which the word Suffragan is not used. It provides 
 that "in dioceses containing in large numbers /^o/>/t?j 
 of foreign race or language," it shall be lawful to 
 appoint a "special Missionary Bishop," with "juris- 
 diction over the congregations of the particular 
 race or language for which his ministry shall be 
 required." 
 
 These very different schemes were then referred to a 
 select Committee, to report to the next Convention. 
 In the resolution of reference the things intended are 
 more plainly defined. It speaks of "the whole sub- 
 ject of providing Episcopal supervision for Freedmen 
 and Foreigners," and of the propositions " in reference 
 to Suffragan Bishops and Bishops for Tongues." (Jour- 
 nal 1874, pp. 255, 261, 283, 362, 363.) 
 
 IV. In 1877, a majority and a minority report were 
 presented from this Committee, and it was discharged, 
 the discussion being thus concluded. 
 
 The Majority, Bishops Atkinson, Williams and (with 
 a reservation) Gregg, presented an able and exhausiive 
 argument. A single paragraph may show its drift. 
 
 ' ' If Bishops be needed for congregations of persons 
 speaking different languages from the English, or belong- 
 ing to races distinct from the European, then those Bish- 
 ops should be Suffragans. Otherwise we should have di- 
 versity of Government in the same Diocese : diversity 
 of interests, intensifying in many cases, no doubt, to 
 antagonism * * * To have independent Bishops in one 
 Diocese is against the stream of Catholic teaching and 
 
Appendix L 237 
 
 practice, and would tend to generate divisions instead 
 of unity. " 
 
 In the judgment of the writer, this argument is un- 
 answered and unanswerable. 
 
 The Minority, Bishops Stevens and Vail, in an equal- 
 ly elaborate report, deny that Suffragans were known 
 to the early Church or that the Chorepiscopi were such. 
 They advert to the discussion which grew out of Dr. 
 Meade's election as Suffragan in Virginia, and the fixed 
 determination of the Church for fifty years not to conse- 
 crate Suffragans. The Minority also argue the ques- 
 tion upon its merits, especially because the allowance 
 of Suffragans would introduce ' ' a sort of Sub-Episco- 
 pate, inferior in power, in jurisdiction, and in privi- 
 leges and rights." Such Bishop would be excluded 
 from both houses of the General Convention, and 
 ' ' would be liable to be suspended from his office at 
 the mere will of his diocesan." 
 
 These reports are in the Appendix to the Journal 
 of 1877, pp. 524-533- 
 
 A feeling of utter discouragement as to measures of 
 comprehension, now succeeded. There was small al- 
 lusion to it in the Convention of 1880. The Council 
 of Virginia sent up a memorial " on the subject of giv- 
 ing to the Colored people of Virginia and the other 
 Southern States, when desired, a full and complete or- 
 ganization of their own," and the Deputies proposed a 
 Joint Committee to consider it and report to the next 
 Convention. But the Bishops returned answer that 
 
Afftn£x I. 
 
 \m. die Hone of De; _ 
 
 and tfass 
 of 1883, pp. 69, i»4, 2 
 4^^«*«i P^ 595- 
 
£ix I. 
 
 2-9 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 DISCIPLINAR YLEGISLA TION, A TTEMPTED AND 
 ACCOMPLISHED IN THE GENERAL CONVENTION, 
 ESPECIALLY IN THE LAST SIXTEEN YEARS. 
 
 I. The Discipline of Bishops. 
 
 A CANON, occupying four pages of the Journal of 
 1853, gave place in 1856 to the canon " Of the 
 trial of a Bishop, " which occupies fifteen pages of the 
 Digest, and at which the book seems to open of its own 
 accord. 
 
 I well remember the excitement attendant upon its 
 passage, being at that time a member of the House of 
 Deputies. 
 
 The Church had been greatly stirred by events to 
 which a more special allusion need not be made. It 
 was agreed that the canon needed to be re-cast. But 
 how.? Some were determined to "make the trial of a 
 Bishop hard," others, to make it "easy." It is due to 
 the wisdom and skill of Dr. Hawks, that a measure was 
 adopted which sufficiently reconciled opposing views. 
 The canon which he drafted and defended with singular 
 ability, makes a presentment easy, but it secures the 
 240 
 
Appendix II. 241 
 
 Bishop from prosecution, unless the /niwayan'/ evidence 
 has been sifted by a body, of the nature of a Grand Jury. 
 
 Presentment to the Presidmg Bishop has been made 
 under this canon, but no trial has been had. 
 
 The prominence in the Digest, of this elaborate ca- 
 non, seldom fails to attract the notice of the stranger 
 who opens the volume. It seems to suggest that the 
 Bishops, more than any other order in the Church, need 
 disciplinary restraint. Hence, at the suggestion of 
 the Bishop of Western New York, the Bishops pro- 
 posed, that leaving the law itself untouched, and pre- 
 serving it where it would be readily accessible when 
 needed, all this detail, the unpleasantly suggestive 
 minutiae of the canon, might be converted into ' ' Rules 
 of Procedure," and no longer be so offensively obtruded. 
 
 The House of Deputies non-concurred, the Commit- 
 tee on Canons assigning as a reason ' ' that they cannot 
 recommend the removal of any portion of the Church's 
 law from the volume which professes to contain it'' 
 
 See ^o«r«a/of 1883, pp. 35, 57, 220, 289. 
 
 The reason assigned above is purely technical. It 
 may not be doubted that the Bishops felt deeply, that a 
 proposition which appealed to the courtesy of the De- 
 puties was entitled to more deferential treatment. 
 
 The suggestion of courtesy leads me to mention in this 
 connection, theeflFort of the Bishops at two conventions 
 to allow the retirement of a Bishop at the age of seven- 
 ty, without surrendering his place in the House of 
 Bishops, thus "giving relief to the Church and to its 
 16 
 
242 Appendix II. 
 
 worn and weary servants, whose retirement from active 
 duty should be attended only by conditions of honor 
 and comfort." The consideration given by the Depu- 
 ties to this request did not seem to be such as was due 
 to an appeal for kind consideration towards its aged 
 pastors. 
 
 Journal, 1880, 212, 279, 145, 175, 194. 
 
 Journal, 1883, 215, 252, 295, 23, 46, 51. 
 
 II. The Trial of "Ministers." 
 
 The canons of Clerical Discipline, being the first 
 three of Title II, have not been materially altered of 
 late years. They define briefly the offences which ex- 
 pose a minister to punishment, and leave the constitu- 
 tion of the Court and the methods of procedure in the 
 power of the Diocese "until otherwise provided for by 
 the General Convention." 
 
 A Missionary Bishop selects the Constitution and 
 Canons of one of the Dioceses, and proceeds under 
 them in the administration of discipline. 
 
 In the dioceses the disciplinary code varies greatly, 
 and is often imperfect and unsatisfactory. Good cler- 
 gymen are not ex-officio good lawyers, and where there 
 is no provision for assistance to be rendered by assess- 
 ors learned in the law, they are singularly helpless. 
 There is no principle accepted in common for the des- 
 ignation of the members of the court. 
 
 As for the Missionary Jurisdiction {expcrto crede) dis- 
 
Appendix II. 243 
 
 cipline is simply impracticable. There is a well-known 
 case of mis-trial upon mis-trial, and of Episcopal sor- 
 rows, which is a warning to all Missionary Bishops not 
 to attempt the impossible. 
 
 The whole matter needs to be re-examined, and es- 
 pecially should there be lodged somewhere, the power, 
 commonly used in the Methodist bodies, of silencing a 
 a clergyman against whom grave charges are preferred, 
 until a trial can be had. The recommendations of 
 Bishops Atkinson, Williams, and others, to allow sus- 
 pension after presentment, failed in the House of Depu- 
 ties, as appears in the Journal of 1874, pp. 290, 298. 
 
 The canon of " Renunciation of the Ministry," is 
 among the very best in the Digest, It suffices, in nine 
 cases out often, to relieve the Church of the scandal of 
 unworthy ministers, without the publicity of a public 
 trial. 
 
 And the worst perhaps, is "Of differences between 
 Ministers and their Congregations," Tide ii. canon 4. 
 The old canon allowed all such differences to be adjus- 
 ted by the Bishop in camera. A more impartial arbiter, 
 one would think, it is hard to find. In 1871, such 
 cases were removed from the paternal decision of the 
 Bishop and remitted to a Board of Conciliation. 
 Journal of 1871, pp. 42, 205, 231, 244, 363, 383. 
 Reflection showed the exceeding impolicy of such a 
 Board. And thus, in 1874, see Journal /a55/w, the 
 subject was very thoroughly discussed without reaching 
 any result. In 1877, the canon was recast into its pres- 
 
244 Appendix II. 
 
 ent form. Journal, pp. 38, ']7„ 157, 180, 216, 308, 
 328. 
 
 Jn the earlier canon, the Bishop was empowered to 
 make informal enquiry and to decide between the par- 
 ties. Now, the Bishop, with the Standing Committee, 
 is the ultimate arbiter and judge. Thus a quasi-judi- 
 cial proceeding is required and a record must be kept 
 It is to -be noted, that this canon is not binding in any 
 diocese which makes a provision of its own. The Di- 
 ocese of Easton has elected the old canon of 1832, as 
 its law, and consents to trust the Bishop to settle such 
 disputes, just as the Rector is peace-maker between con- 
 tending parishioners. 
 
 III. Repression of Unauthorized Ritual. 
 
 Some twenty years ago, the Church in the United 
 States began to be greatly agitated by the introduction 
 of ceremonies, vestments and ornaments unknown be- 
 fore. These questions so largely occupied the Conven- 
 tions from 1868 to 1874 inclusive, that it is a weariness 
 to hunt out the references. 
 
 The result appears in so much of Title i. Canon 22, 
 as forbids unauthorized ceremonies, setting forth or 
 symbolizing erroneous or strange doctrines, regard be- 
 ing had especially to the Adorauon of the Elements in 
 the Holy Communion. 
 
 It is well known that this canon has been inopera- 
 tive. With those who are always glad to respect the old 
 Mother's intimation of her wishes in any matter, (and 
 
Appendix II. 245 
 
 there are some such " narrow Churchmen,") this sec- 
 tion has moral weight. But no presentment has been 
 made under it. 
 
 It was resisted at the time of its passage upon the 
 ground that while it repressed the extravagant, the er- 
 roneous and the unauthorized, it did not enforce the 
 punctilious observance of the ceremonial, by express ru- 
 bric, enjoined. As the phrase went, it rebuked" excess — 
 it had nothing to say ol defect. 
 
 A witty Bishop replied to such objection, that when a 
 boy he used to hear that a man could not kick with both 
 feet. But after we had paid him the well-deserved 
 tribute of a smile, we bethought ourselves, Is it the 
 purport of canon-making to kick anybody? Should 
 not a canon of ritual be the dignified and unimper- 
 sonal embodiment of the principles by which the Cler- 
 gy should be guided in the celebration of the Divine 
 service } 
 
 Some years before, Bishop Whittingham was re- 
 quested to frame a Canon of Vestments. The next 
 morning he presented to the House a draft prescribing 
 ' ' that every minister of this Church shall, in perform- 
 ing the divine service, wear the vestments appropriate to 
 his office," and none other. The vestments were speci- 
 fied. Rochet. Chimere. Broad Scarf. Gown. 
 Surplice and Scarf. 
 
 One of the Bishops enquired whether the use of the 
 Surplice would not thus be made obligatory. If so, 
 he could not accept the Canon. Bishop Whittmgham 
 
246 Appendix II. 
 
 thereupon remarked, that if it were desired to frame a 
 canon which should bind some of the Clergy and leave 
 others free to do as they pleased, they must seek an- 
 other draughtsman. He replaced the papers in his desk 
 and the matter dropped. 
 
 If the variation in ceremonial and liturgical observance 
 is not to be absolutely without limit, some prudent and 
 intelligible legislation has yet to be devised. It is inter- 
 esting to observe how many propositions, looking to- 
 wards a broader generalization, were voted down. 
 
 Thus one Bishop proposed {Journal, 1874 p. 307) to 
 forbid equally elevations, genuflections and like things, 
 complained of, and also such scandalous and well-known 
 improprieties as the refusal to say ' ' regenerate " in bap- 
 tizing, or to observe the just reverences enioined by ru- 
 bric in celebrating the Lord's Supper. 
 
 The Bishops once {Journal, 1871, p. 211) sent to the 
 other house a canon, recognizing the canon law of Eng- 
 land anterior to 1789 as binding in this Church, and 
 furthermore remitting all doubtful questions to the 
 Ordinary. 
 
 In 1877 {Journal, p. 285) the Bishops adopted a canon 
 in which the Deputies non-concurred, and which is of 
 more significance and importance than may appear at a 
 glance. It provides that in Collegiate and Private Chap- 
 els, the minister officiating shall, in the celebration of 
 the Lord's Supper, use no other form than that prescrib- 
 ed in the Prayer Book. 
 
Appendix IT. 247 
 
 IV. The Discipline of the Laity. 
 
 The original canon, Title ii. Can. 12, "Regula- 
 tions respecting the Laity," adds but litde to the fun- 
 damental law of Discipline set forth in the rubrics of 
 the Communion Office. 
 
 In view of the increasing scandal of Divorce without 
 adequate cause, the old canon was remitted by the 
 Bishops to a Committee, who after protracted and la- 
 borious iuquir}^ reported a Canon "Of Marriage and 
 Divorce*' substantially the same as Title ii. Canon 13, 
 adopted in 1877. I have noted already its three lead- 
 ing features. 
 
 It affirms the Christian law which governs Divorce. 
 
 It recognizes the original jurisdiction of the Bishop, 
 the Ordinary, in all disputed cases. It affirms the 
 Church's right to investigate for her own purposes, in 
 her own way, untrammelled by the decisions of civil 
 courts. 
 
 Returning to the general subject, at the Convention 
 of 1874 a Joint Committee was appointed "to consider 
 and report what action, if any, is desirable, in addition 
 to and in explanation of, the provisions already enacted 
 by this Church for the godly discipline of its communi- 
 cant members." 
 
 In a somewhat elaborate report, three years later, the 
 Committee declare, that it is the inevitable duty of the 
 Church to keep her children under discipline : a disci- 
 pline not capricious, minute or inquisitorial, which 
 
248 Appendix II. 
 
 shall respect the domain of individual conscience, and 
 be resorted to, only where persuasion and counsel 
 have failed to abate grievous and scandalous faults. 
 
 They affirm that discipline thus rightly exercised is a 
 kindness to the offender: that it prevents crime as well as 
 punishes it : that nothing hinders us from discharging 
 this dut)'. They urge, "We are free this day, as ever was 
 any National Church, in the purest days of our religion, 
 to establish and enforce by spiritual discipline such laws 
 as may best guard the puriiy of the Church." They pro- 
 ceed to enumerate six deficiencies in the present law of 
 Discipline : 
 
 1. Indefiniteness in the law, as illustrated by the un- 
 certainty of the language, "open and notorious evil- 
 living. " 
 
 2. Lack of Publication, no means being appointed 
 to instruct the laity of the regulations affecting them. 
 
 3 Vagueness of direction as to the manner in which 
 discipline should be exercised. 
 
 4. Uncertainty as to the effect of spiritual censures 
 and as to the mode of their remission. 
 
 5. The inadequacy of the Parochial Clergy to grap- 
 ple with questions, delicate and difficult, coming up but 
 rarely in the experience of a life-time. To this may be 
 added the consideration of the odium incurred by the 
 resident clerg}^'man in determining such questions. 
 
 6. The helplessness of the Bishop to enforce his 
 godly judgment. 
 
 This report was signed by all the members (one lay- 
 man excepted, who was not present) viz. , the Bishop of 
 
Appendix IT. 249 
 
 Eiston, Chairman, at the request of his colleagues, the 
 Bishop of Delaware, the Bishop ( Kerfoot) of Pittsburgh, 
 the Rev. Drs. Shipraan, Beers and Stearns, and Messrs. 
 McWhorter and Simpson, U. S. A. 
 
 The resolutions of the Committee, adopted by the 
 General Convention, were as follows : 
 
 '■'■Resolved, That it is expedient so to amend the law 
 of the Church, touching the godly discipline of its 
 members, as to make it more explicit in its provisions, 
 and more readily applicable to particular cases. 
 
 ''Resolved, That the Joint Committee, heretofore in 
 charge of this matter, be continued, and re-constituted 
 with reference to convenience of assembling; and that a 
 Committee of Conference be appointed by the two 
 Houses, to nominate the members of said Committee 
 on the Godly Discipline of the Laity. " 
 
 This report is printed in Journal 1877, pp. 263 to 266. 
 
 The Committee, now reconstituted, made their re- 
 port to the General Convention of 1880. 
 
 Bishop Kerfoot gave his hearty and unqualified ap- 
 proval, although hindered by sickness from assisting at 
 the last revision. This report, signed by the Bishops of 
 Delaware and Easton, Rev. Drs. Lewin and Goodwin, 
 and H. C. Potter, and Messrs. Coppee and Conover, 
 may be found on p. 71 of the Journal of 1880. 
 
 This Canon proposed to meet the several deficiencies, 
 all and singular, heretofore enumerated. The Com- 
 mittee said, ' ' in every case, we had regard to facts laid 
 
Appendix II. 
 
 before us, showing that Bishops and Clergy wcro at a 
 loss, and needed rules for their guidance in the subject 
 matter of such provision. " 
 
 The Canon was thoroughly discussed in the House 
 of Bishops, and after various modifications v.'as transmit- 
 ted to the House of Deputies. 
 
 In that body, the report was received with no small 
 opposition. It was held by some that ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline is an anachronism in the 19th century, and that 
 the free American citizen is not to be coerced, but per- 
 suaded, to keep out of mischief. 
 
 Certain clerical errors in the transmission of the 
 message from the House of Bishops still further compli- 
 cated the case. In the result, a Committee of Confer- 
 ence reported favorably of the Canon, but in view of the 
 lateness of the session, recommended its postponement 
 to the next Convention. 
 
 Thus died a scheme for formulating and simplifying 
 the law of lay-discipline. A glance at the composition 
 of the Committees suffices to show that the reports were 
 not made in the interest of any party in the Church. 
 
 V. Organized Societies. 
 
 The Journals from 1865 onwards are full of matter 
 relating to the regulation of Deaconesses, Brotherhoods 
 and Sisterhoods. 
 
 The Bishops held, one would think not without rea- 
 son, that they should have the right to inspect and su- 
 pervise all organized work within their respective dio- 
 
Appendix II. 251 
 
 ceses, and that they should have a voice as to the vows 
 to be assumed, and the devotions to be used. 
 
 On the other side it was argued, and by some who in 
 theory affirm the nil sine Episcopo doctrine, that such 
 regulations invade the liberty of the Christian citizen : 
 that the work and the devotion of a community under 
 voluntary rule, are as private and as exempt from offi- 
 cial intermeddling, as the devotions, discipline and 
 charities of the family, aihuc sub judice lis est. The 
 matter cannot always be left thus at loose ends. 
 ***** 
 From this outline and partial sketch of attempted legis- 
 lation, some consequences may be drawn. 
 
 1. Our Ecclesiastical Constitution and Canons are 
 neither homogeneous, articulated, nor adequate to our 
 needs. 
 
 No one is to blame. John Ross once showed me the 
 Cherokee Code. It began with a law to forbid the 
 cutting down of Pecan trees, by an Indian too lazy to 
 climb the branches In the first beginning, it was well 
 to enact brief laws, pro re nata, and not too many of 
 them. But the time comes when they should be sys- 
 tematized and expanded to meet the necessities of 
 growth and development. 
 
 On the motion of Bishop Coxe, in 1874, (Journal, p. 
 218, 250 and elsewhere) the Bishops proposed to create 
 a Joint Committee to revise the Constitution of the 
 Church. It was lost in the House of Deputies by a 
 vote of 48 to 45. 
 
252 Appendix II. 
 
 At the following Convention, Bishop Coxe renewed 
 his motion and was seconded by the Bishop of Nebras- 
 ka, but without success. In the House of Deputies, 
 the subject was renewed by a memorial from the dio- 
 cese of Wisconsin, and a resolution from the Rev. Dr. 
 Harris. Mr. Fish, on behalf of the Committee on the 
 Constitution, made an unfavorable report, and was sus- 
 tained by the House. Journal, 1877, p. 23, 39, 57. 
 96, 215, 220, 224. 
 
 At the last General Convention the Bishops proposed 
 the following resolutions : 
 
 1. That a Joint Commission be appointed by the two 
 Houses for the purpose of formulating and codifying 
 the Law of Discipline in this Church, in such wise as to 
 avoid uncertainties, and to insure a just restraint in all 
 matters of doctrine, ritual and morals. 
 
 2. That it be referred to this Joint Commission to 
 consider and report upon the expediency of providing 
 some other mode, not of the nature of criminal proced- 
 ure, than that which now exists, for the settlement of 
 vexed questions. 
 
 3. Also, the matter of Appellate Court of last resort. 
 The second of these resolutions touched the deep sensi- 
 bilities of many of the Bishops. 
 
 When gentlemen, especially Christian gentlemen, 
 differ about the boundaries of their farms, or the settle- 
 ment of a co-partnership, one does not present the oth- 
 er to the Grand Jury as a felon who seeks to defraud 
 
Appendix IL 253 
 
 him. There are processes of law, by which candid 
 men may adjust disputed questions, without in any 
 wise impeaching motive or affixing a stigma upon the 
 contestant. 
 
 Now a criminal presentment is our one only legal 
 remedy. To correct anythvig we must indict somebody. 
 
 The Bishops think it hard that they cannot redress a 
 grievance or maintain a just interpretation of law, with- 
 out prosecuting a clergj'man whose integrity of character 
 and purity of life is well known to them. 
 
 And then again, none of themselves is safe from this 
 blot on his record. Without mention of a name, an 
 eminent illustration presents itself of a most saintly Bish- 
 op presented for trial, because he did not think it right 
 to bring ceriam of his clergy to trial. The iron entered 
 into his soul. His presenters pursued this course be- 
 cause there was no other way open to them of arresting 
 that which they considered ought not to be tolerated. 
 
 Could they have sued out an hijunctioii to restrain the 
 clergyman from his ritual practices, or a mandamus to 
 oblige the Bishop to institute proceedings, the issue 
 would have been impersonal, and would have involved 
 the construction of law only. 
 
 The Bishop of Western New York has once, almost 
 carried his Constitutional Commission. A change of 
 mind in two Deputies would have secured it. Some are 
 looking for him to come to the front again. 
 
 2. Another consequence is manifest. The two Hou- 
 ses of the General Convention are not enough in accord. 
 
254 Appendix II. 
 
 Over and over again, measures which the Bishops have 
 studied most thoroughly and pass with singular unani- 
 mity : laws, in which they have embodied their united 
 experience of actual needs, come to nothing. 
 
 The complaint is not that the House of Deputies 
 non-concur, but that they do not consider. An un- 
 favorable report from their Committee on Canons, a 
 mere recommehdation to dissent, settles grave ques- 
 tions, and they are not heard upon their merits. For 
 instance, when the Sewanee propositions were under 
 discussion, how many of the Deputies knew anything 
 about the regret, I may almost say the remorse of some 
 Bishops, in the recollection of the German petitioners 
 who asked the lowest room in the Church, and received 
 friendly words only, in answer to their prayer. 
 
 The Deputies reply, that the Bishops should deliber- 
 ate in public and allow their speeches to be heard and 
 reported. If this must be, it will be a mournful neces- 
 sity. Sitting with closed doors, whatever measure is un- 
 der discussion, the Bishops are free to illustrate by act- 
 ual experiences. It is an invaluable safeguard against 
 doctrinaire legislation. With reporters in the gallery, 
 such confidences could not be interchanged. 
 
 But better to make this concession, if there be no 
 other means of remedying the evil, than to lack the in- 
 telligent co-operation of the Deputies, and to be ever 
 lamenting the failure of propositions^ which would not 
 have failed, had the grounds and reasons of them been 
 distinctly understood. 
 
Appendix II. 255 
 
 When admitted to the Sessions of the Upper House 
 of the Canadian Synod, I noted this incident. The 
 Bishops were at a loss as to the intent of some proposi- 
 tions of the Lower House. They sent down their Sec- 
 retary with an enquiry. He returned with three mem- 
 bers most famihar with the matter, designated by the 
 Prolocutor. Question and answer rapidly followed, 
 and in five minutes all difficulties were relieved, and it 
 appeared that the two Houses desired the same thing. 
 If, when an important question is pending, either House 
 of the General Convention were at liberty to ask or to 
 offer oral explanations, through those of its members 
 best able to make explanation, with the privilege of 
 courteous catechism (not of argumentation), the mu- 
 tual understanding and confidence of the Houses would 
 be enhanced. Committees of Conference are useful, 
 but not adequate for putting the members generally, in 
 full possession of the facts and reasonings. 
 
 A final suggestion is ventured. The Bishops and 
 Deputies now sit together in the Board of Missions. 
 There is no reason why, when measures of grave im- 
 portance are pending, they should not sit in Joint Com- 
 mittee of the Whole. 
 
 Finally, concerning all these matters. Church Com- 
 prehension, Codification in place of Digest, Exact 
 Discipline, one may adopt the language of a late writ- 
 er touching the problems which come to the front, in 
 the course of modern philosophical and moral specula- 
 tions. 
 
256 Appendix II. 
 
 ' ' We want a large body of clergy capable of bring- 
 ing out of their treasures things new and old, to help us 
 here. And how are we to get such a body ? / do not 
 know. I only know that one way not to get them is 
 * * * confine the epithet hard-working clergy, to that 
 very valuable body of men who are good organizers, 
 good men of business, good popular preachers, good 
 ecclesiastical musicians, good and industrious Ritual- 
 ists. All these are very valuable adjuncts and helps to us. 
 But do not let us assume that no clergy who cannot be 
 brought into this latter category of Church workers, 
 can do much hard work, work which will tdl in future 
 generations as well as in this, for the Master of the Vine- 
 yard and for the Church and Realm.''* 
 
 * Footman's Reassuring Hints, Paper II. Sect. iv. 
 
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 •r* 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 PRINTED 
 
 IN U. S. A.