Ill SB SS MflE A LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, ON SOME CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH TIIK PRESENT CRISIfc IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. i UK REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. ?S PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, CANO v OF CHRIST CHUBCH, AND I, ATE KFLI.OW COLLEGE. SI:<;OM> EDITION. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER ; J. G. F. AND .1. RIVINGTON, LONDON. , 1842. A LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, ON SOME CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED , WITH THE PRESENT CRISIS IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. BY THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. ., PROFESSOR , K,B,WUo OH CHRIST CHURCH, LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLI.EOB. SECOND EDITION. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER ; J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON, 1842. BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. 1 Present Importance of Episcopal Charges. 3 I. Tendency to Romanism not produced by the Tracts for the Times ; its real causes. 8 II. Recent Charges of some of our Bishops. Their effects. Review of them, as far as relates to the " Tracts." 39 III. Bishopric of Jerusalem ; wherein an object of sympathy ; wherein of apprehension. Ill IV. Conclusion. Recent aggravation of our con- fusions. Need of peace, sympathy, guidance ; anxiety of present crisis. 136 Additional Notes. 163 709282 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE, IN times of less difficulty, it would be presump- tion in one in my inferior office to acfop^sis', your " Grace thus publicly, without any hiriCfrejm yourself^ ^ when the storm is upon the vessel; fh'e*y* to : who fri- : its guidance is committed, listen patiently to any voice, however humble, telling of some peril, which, from theiiv position, may not be equally obvious to themselves. The greatness t)f the emergency ex- cuses the boldness which it calls forth. " Sugges- tions, made even by the vulgar crowd, have been often profitable to the most perfect gladiators," is Tertullian's excuse for addressing those who were then occupying the fore-front of the battle, and soon to be enrolled in the " noble army of mar- tyrs." Yet even thus, I can assure your Grace that it is with deep reluctance, that I have again come forward at all ; much more, thus publicly to address your Grace and through you our other fathers, the Bishops of our Church. The natural repugnance which any one must feel at taking upon himself a task to which he has no apparent call, must be aggravated by the difficulties with which every thing is now encompassed. It is a far happier office to listen than to speak. It is painful to do what (notwithstanding all one may say) may seem like offering advice, when one had much rather simply obey, and where I do wish merely B to furnish materials whereon you may exercise your own judgment ; nor should I have done it, but for circumstances which I need not trouble your Grace by explaining. I quitted unwillingly occu- pations more congenial and more peaceful. Yet, though I have no title to address your Grace, your love of unity and peace, your anxiety for our Church, ever which, by the grace of God, you preside, will dispose you to listen kindly to any thing, which may have for its object her peace and well-being ; your condescending kindness, on different occasions, to myself makes it, I trust, less presumptuous in me to become the organ of offering it. The ground then, upon which I am anxious to address your Grace is, (I may say at once,) my anxiety lest evil befal our Church, through an in- adequate appreciation, on the part of those in authority, of the construction likely to be put upon what they do, and its effects. And in. any thing which I may offer, I would wish to be con- sidered rather as conveying information to your Grace as to those from whom your Grace's position necessarily separates you, than as venturing to offer suggestions as to the course which you may think it wise to pursue. In the same way would I wish any observations to be understood which, in the course of this appeal, I may venture to make as to any thing, which I might wish had been otherwise, in any Charges of your Grace's brethren. I do not for a moment wish to criticise what they have said, in itself: I wish only to remark upon some probable effects of things so said, which they probably do not anticipate. And this, in every relation and office of life, we wish to know. Things which it may be right to say, may tell upon persons of different temperaments and tones of mind very differently. A kind master wishes to elicit from his servant the effect of his words, when he has occasion to find fault ; else he may mistake silence for obstinacy or unconcern ; a loving parent watches the counte- nance of the child he is blaming, catches gladly at its half-uttered explanations, softens his rebuke and soothes, so soon as he is sure that the effect is attained ; all in secular authority, who have in any degree to guide by influence, wish to know how they are understood. Your Grace and your Grace's brethren are, according to your ancient title, our " Fathers in God ;" and you would as- suredly be not less anxious to know the feelings of those under your authority severally, and collectively under that of the body of which your Lordships are the chief; nay, rather the more, in that what is at stake is of so much more moment, the censure so much more solemn, every thing said or done affects indirectly the whole body of Christ ; all relates not to time but to eternity. Then, also, the circumstances of the times have given to the Charges of our Bishops a character so different from that which they had heretofore, that I may anticipate that the Bishops themselves would accept the more gladly any information as to the B2 of them, which any tnight be enabled to offer. In quiet, ooe may say stagnant, times, such as until of late ours have been, a Bishop's Charge was listened to, one may say perhaps mostly delivered, with little interest ; it was heard, perhaps read, in his particular Diocese ; yet, unless for some incidental expression, but little noticed out of it, and then perhaps criticised rather than heeded. The Bishops themselves did not seem to expect much weight to be attached to their words ; when they did rebuke, they expected to have persons of a refractory temper to deal with, and their words were sharp accordingly. Now, both within and without, things are widely dif- ferent. The change of feeling with regard to the office of every one's own Bishop, wrought by more reverent habits, and increased appreciation of the feelings of Antiquity, gives their words a weight, of which they themselves are not aware : the relation in which they stand makes, as one of us feelingly said, " the slightest word of censure from one's own Bishop a heavy thing ;" the very willingness to obey, the reverence and affection which we feel and would gladly testify, aggravate the weight of every thing which they pronounce against us, even as an af- fectionate child is more wounded by a look from its parent, than another by sharp rebuke or even blows. On the other hand, the intensity of the interest of the questions now at issue gives to every expression falling from your Lordships, weight and circulation among persons, who ordinarily would have thought too little either of your words or your office, at all events would have been out of the reach of theo- logical discussion, for which they are little prepared, and which they now often enter upon injuriously. It may be among the manifold workings of God's Providence for our Church, that He has thus ordered that the interest of all should, in one way or other, be absorbed into these mighty questions. They have penetrated into our villages ; they are the household talk of those who aforetime, alas ! never spoke or thought perhaps of the things of God : all expect something, are on the look-out for something ; that so the Truth of God may every where find its own ; the good seed be carried, and root it in the clefts of the rocks, which it had never found, had not they who knew it not, dropped it unconsciously ; all are somehow stirred and becoming alive to what is going on in the Church, that in every rank and sex and age they who may be won, may in this general preparation for His Coming take their allotted parts, await Him, live to Him. And thus it happens, that every word of your Lordships, in the high office assigned to you, is watched and has a degree of weight given to it, pro- portioned to men's interest in the whole subject; they who at other times would slightly regard your words, now watch every syllable ; they who would little regard them, if addressed to themselves, seize them eagerly as a weapon against others ; they give them, I have reason to know, oftentimes a force which in themselves they were not intended to have ; they who would take no other interest in them, use them now like moves in a mighty game, whereby they hope to obtain an advantageous position against those whom they oppose ; every word of censure or of warning is not taken as an insulated admonition in a particular case, but is made to bear upon the whole question ; it is a critical struggle for life or death ; and so, not a sound can be uttered, which penetrates not the whole frame ; every thing is strung up, and so every touch, sound, breath, motion, vibrates through the whole- This, I think, some of your Grace's brethren have not, and, in the nature of things could not beforehand realize ; I have reason to know that one was recently surprised at the weight attached to his own words ; this must be the case, in some measure, with all in authority ; and the more, by how much more that authority is of a delicate and spiritual nature ; our words, as indeed the very word of God Himself, Whose word rebuke also is, have weight according to the temper of mind of those they reach : but especially in a crisis like the present, in which the interest, month by month, becomes more extensive, pervading, intense, they who have passed most of their years in tranquil times, .may well not be able to appreciate before- hand, what can indeed be adequately calculated by none. We are indeed altogether so little able to realize what we are ; that there may be no chance word or slight action of ours but may have its influence ; that a half-unconscious look or un- weighed expression may leave a lasting impression on another's soul. And now every thing is new and on a new scale, and former measures will not apply to these times. If then I express a wish that some of the lan- guage concerning part of our teaching had been in any respect different, it is because I am convinced that could the Bishops have foreseen its effects, they would themselves have modified it ; nor yet do I write, as wishing that they should change what they have done, but rather in the hope that they who may hereafter speak, will speak, as in fuller possession of the manifold bearings of what they have to deliver. Recent circumstances present also a more immediate apology for thus venturing to allude to these Charges; for since others'* have founded upon them an appeal to your Grace to " take such measures as may seem most advisable, for the Episcopal Bench to declare their united disapprobation of the opinions of the writers of the Tracts," it is natural for me to desire to shew that those Charges furnish no ground for any such measures, and to express my regret that the Charges of Bishops, who wished to warn, not to condemn, should yet have given such encourage- ment to those who would fain exclude us from our Church herself. I. But before I enter upon the main subject to which I wish to entreat your Grace's attention, there is yet il Address of certain Lay Inhabitants of Cheltenham. The example, I understand, has been followed in other places. 8 another point upon which it seems a duty to speak distinctly, however reluctant I may be, lest harm inci- dentally result, or I seem undutiful. Yet unless we know the true nature of our evils, we cannot apply their remedies ; and so it seems to me very important that your Lordships should have a distinct view upon it, while yet I know that it is one upon which it is most difficult for those of elder years fully to under- stand the present state of things. That subject is the temptation to young or susceptible minds to forsake our own Communion for that of Rome. Your Grace will not think that in writing on this subject, I have forgotten what I have myself recently 11 said, as to the evils in the Roman Communion which should deter any from joining it, or the tokens of God's Providence which should bind us to our own Church, or the affection with which we should love her. But here I wish to speak on one subject only ; the real, actual, temptations, to which in the present state of things a certain class of minds is exposed: and in that I say, " the present state of things," I mean that they are not in- herent in our Church, but incidental only to her pre- sent condition ; in that I speak of " temptations," I imply that it would be sinful to yield to them. Yet all would wish to know the temptations to which their children were exposed, and so your Lordships, as to your " children in the faith." In this case it is the more necessary to speak, on account of the difficulty of appreciating temptations '' Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 159 sqq. and Appendix. 9 to which any have not been exposed, or to whose workings they have not been called upon to minister. Even those of my own age, who have been brought more into contact with Romanism as a living system than your Lordships, have not had the difficulties, which will beset many younger men; we have been brought on our way past middle life, and may the rather look to close it as we have begun ; we have grown up thus long in our Church, and have, in such points as from circumstances are less distinct in her, gradually filled up her teaching to ourselves, by the teaching of the Church Catholic, of which she is the representative to us, and to which she directs her members ; our insight into her teaching and Catholic truth grew together ; we became more fully acquainted with both at once, and so they the rather harmonized in our minds. Our immediate Mother was our guide to "the Mother of us all." Romanism, in our earlier days, was scarcely heard of among us, and so we learnt Catholicity, partly as it had been handed down to us, partly from the study of Primitive Antiquity, not in contact with a system in which one must mourn that tares are mingled with the good seed. Ro- manism was, in our early associations, an antagonist principle ; what is Catholic and true in it, we learnt, whence it is derived, from the primitive sources; of itself we thought, only for that which is peculiar to it, as distinct from Catholic Antiquity, the error mingled with the truth. It was apparently at a low ebb, and partook of the general listlessness 10 which crept over the Church during the last century; it seemed to present but the skeleton of the right practices which it retained, and helped by its neglect of their spirit to cast reproach upon them ; the writer of a work then popular 15 could even speak of it as extinct among us. It is not so now. The Roman Church also has, in some countries certainly, partaken of the same refreshing dew as ourselves ; the same Hand, which has touched us, and bid our sleeping Church, " Awake, arise," has reached her also ; our Lord seems to be awakening the several portions of His Church, and even those bodies which have not yet the organization of a Church, at once ; it may be, that we may all together learn humility, and none boast herself, amid her imperfections, or think unhumbly of them, when she sees the like grace given to others, whose im- perfections, as not being her own, she has no difficulty in descrying. However, whatever mo- mentary difficulties it may give rise to,, we must acknowledge thankfully that in England the Roman Communion has, amidst its sad errors from which it will not part, a degree of life and holiness which in our earlier days it had not. And this perhaps not least through an infusion of members of our /.-,'; */', '(n|o~w) who,, in better times, would have remained, blessed and a blessing within her. She has now for many years exhibited her peculiar system in a modified form, the most calculated' to win those who know not the treasures stored up for them in their own b Father Clement. 11 Church. She stands too often in advantageous contrast, not with our Church as she would be, did we realize her gifts and avail ourselves of the privileges lodged in her, but with her condition, such as, through our sins and negligences, she has mostly become ; and out of which she is beginning to be restored. The temptation comes not to those formed in the holy round of her daily devotions, and humbled by her tones of penitence, but to those, who through our carelessness have been unformed, untrained, uninstructed ; or at least, are un- acquainted with her true principles, the grounds of her jelaimjkJthe virtue imparted through her. And to these the Roman Communion, as at present seen in this country, does come in a fascinating and im- posing form c . She comes to us with our common ^ saints, which modern habits have led many wrongly to regard as hers exclusively ; with holy truths and practices, which in our recent carelessness are too often disregarded or neglected, or even spoken against amongst ourselves ; with unity on truths, whereon we are distracted, (although, alas ! upon doctrines and practices also which are not true nor holy ;) with discipline, which we should find useful for ourselves, and which has been neglected among us ; with fuller devotions '', works of practical wisdom or of purified c The following is not an ideal picture of what is calculated to influence; it is a statement of what I know to have influenced persons, and to be felt. I do not then suggest temptations, but state what exist. Temptations are to be remedied, not by denying their existence, but by a more vivid consciousness of duty. d " There is so much of excellence and beauty in the services of 12 and kindled love c ; a ritual, which (though with- drawn mostly from the laity,) still in itself at some holy seasons sets before the eyes more prominently than our own, our Saviour in His Life and Death for His Church, or which utters more distinctly some truths, which the sins of the Church caused to be more veiled among ourselves : or she points to a Communion of Saints, in which we profess our belief, but of which little is heard among us, now that even the prayer for the Church Militant for the most part, practically forms no part of our weekly service ; she has, in her Monastic institutions, a refuge from the weariness and vanities of the world and a means of higher perfection to individuals, which many sigh after, and which might be revived in a primitive form, but which as yet we have not ; in her small Communion in this country, she is not pressed on all sides by the spiritual wants of her children as we are, which hinder perhaps from noble enterprise in God's service, some who might otherwise have essayed it, still she does erect among us edifices to His glory, with which, notwithstanding the ample means at the command of the Breviary, that were it skilfully set before the Protestant by Roman controversialists as the book of devotions received in their communion, it would undoubtedly raise a prejudice in their favour, if he were ignorant of the circumstances of the case, and but ordinarily candid and unprejudiced. To meet this danger is one principal object of the following pages." Tract 75. init. The use of French Roman Catholic books, in which the un- Catholic portion is very subordinate, has been one very frequent way of enlisting the sympathies of members of our Church, espe- cially females. 13 our people, we have but a little, here and there, in this day to compare. Above all, she comes to us with her prayers ; and some of her members by remem- bering us at the Altar, and night and day in the Holy Week, have drawn men's hearts unto them and won our sympathy and gratitude, in any law- ful way wherein we may manifest it. In all this, it is cause of thankfulness to see that there is nothing which ought to shake the stedfastness of a well-balanced and humble mind. Our duty is " heartily to thank our Heavenly Father for the state of salvation into which He brought us," when by Baptism He made us at once members of His Son and our Church, became Himself our Father, and gave us our Church for our Mother. Our plain duty is, " wherein we have been called, there to abide with Him ;" it is not for us to imagine, (as is people's continued temptation in every line and part of life,) that we should have easier duties and greater privileges, under circumstances in which God has not placed us ; it is, to be thankful and live up to our own, and pray that through our neglect or misuse they turn not to our condemnation. Were it even true that the Roman Communion did possess greater advantages than our own, this would be no prac- tical question to us individually. It may be that one end which Almighty God has in exhibiting the Roman Church in this form among us, is to dis- pose us as a Church to more kindly feelings towards her, and to have a less overweening opinion of our- 14 selves than we have mostly been wont to cherish. But individually it cannot change our duties. Our duties are positive and unconditional ; they lie towards our Mother, the English Church, because God has assigned us our lot in her, and are irre- spective of any thing without her. The duties and blessings of " the first commandment with promise" are in obedience to our Parent as such. Our duties are to her, because through her we were reborn, within her have we been trained, cate- chized, instructed, guarded, guided, called, recalled; in her words and in her Courts we have worshipped from childhood until now; in her we have had all our " means of grace," in her we have whatever be our " hopes of glory ;" at her breasts our Heavenly Father " nourished and brought us up n ," as " chil- dren," and to forsake her would be to " rebel against" Him; through her He fed us, when young, with milk, in her He feeds us now with Angels' food, the Bread of Heaven ; in her He has given us what out of her we could not have had ; I need but allude to One precious Gift, whose value none can estimate, bestowed on us alone in the whole Western Church, and which I cannot understand how any Communicant who loves his Lord, could of his own act forego. One would not speak of persons in those Churches which re- fuse the Cup to their members ; sore as the loss is, God can make up to His own, any losses which they sustain where He has placed them ; but for a Isai. i. 15 one who has had that privilege bestowed upon him, voluntarily to forsake the Communion wherein God has given it him, it does seem such a wilful rejection of the gift of his Saviour's Blood, as, in any who knew what that Gift is, one should dread to think of. And even besides this sad forfeiture, for any one, who, placed within a Church, has experienced God's guidance and the operation of His Holy Spirit on his heart, to forsake the Church, wherein God dealt so graciously with him, and shewed His merciful care for his soul it does seem so ungrateful a disavowal of God's past mercies to him, such a cutting-off of all his past existence as a member of Christ's Church, as to make it very painful to think of those, who having been placed within our Church are being tempted to forsake, or have forsaken her who has the Apostolic Succession in this land. But beyond these positive obligations, even in those things which in the Roman Communion are at first sight so attractive, what is Catholic and un-Catholic are so strangely blended together, that to any well- instructed mind, they create the longing to " re- appropriate 10 ' what is Catholic, not to join a Com- munion, (itself, in this country, schismatic, and acting in a very unhumble and schismatic spirit,) where it is to be found only with what is un-Catholic. Throughout all she has of excellent, there is spread (to mention no more) that one corrupting leaven, the joining of the creature with the Creator, setting b Tract 75, p. 1. 16 forth another object of affection, " giving His glory to another, teaching both saint and sinner to rely upon the Blessed Virgin as on Him a . This one ad- dition, in itself, mars her books of devotion, her daily services, her Monastic institutions (which are in part instituted to promote it). One might add one error in practice, withdrawal of privileges from her people ; so that her Eucharists are to the majority mostly but to see the Heaven they partake not of, her daily devotions are no where given to the people, her most solemn service, that of the Holy Communion, seldom, but a modern service virtually substituted for it 1 '. They speak of our service as 3 To the sinner, as the refuge to whom he may most safely have recourse, as having the peculiar charge of " her goats," (all sinners who trust in her) as our Blessed Lord of the sheep, (Glories of Mary, p. 153, 4.) ; to the Saint, as obtaining for him that last crowning gift, perseverance to the end. The grace of perseverance is, in the received system, accounted to be specially obtained by S. Mary ; so that books, which have little else of the distinctive Romanist system, still teach to seek this at her hands. Thus this system proposes S. Mary as the immediate source of hope, from first to last, of conversion to the hardened sinner, who has no other grace but love for her, (Glories of Mary, p. 40, 54 7, 90. quoted Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 213. Man's only affair, p. 150 see Irish Eccl. Journal, No. 177.) and for the saint who needs no other grace but to persevere to the end. The evidence on both heads might be multiplied indefinitely. How different the teach- ing from that of the Catholic Church, as in S. Augustine de Dono Perseverantiae. '' The most frequent way of " hearing Mass," as it is called, is to substitute other prayers to be used by the laity, while those in Latin are being recited, unheard, by the Priest. These are provided in different authorized books of devotion, so that many distinct Liturgies (so to say) are being recited at the same time ; 17 diminished, (and in parts it is,) yet at least it is more than is given to their people. What we have (and it is very much) we have purely, and for all, for Christ's little ones, His lambs ; what we have not, is being daily restored to us, if we in patience wait for it ; and for the mean time, the humble-minded will feel that all which is withheld from us, is kept back in mercy to us, that what we have is best suited to us b . Such an Angel-life does daily Com- munion imply, that we may well think that it is too high a gift for the degenerate Church of these last days, as even the Roman Communion tacitly acknowledges, in that except for the Priesthood, she has herself disused it c ; would one could think that the modern mostly very inferior, and the ancient service virtually lost. b To develope this is the object of Tract 86, " On the super- intending Providence of God in the alteration of the English Liturgy." To some humble minds, who have ever enjoyed our beautiful and Catholic Liturgy, it will be painful even to hear it spoken of, as though we had lost any thing; yet we must " bear patiently each other's burdens;" and this Tract has been very chastening and sobering to many, who were inclined to mourn that foreign Reformers had been allowed an influence over it, and caused some things to be parted with, which we see to be in themselves a loss. c Prayers eve.n of the Missal are altered in the modern trans- lations, to adapt them to a state of things in which the holy Mysteries are " witnessed" not " partaken of." In some places grave change of doctrine is thus introduced ; as " May the mys- teries we have witnessed purify us ; and grant that this Sacra- ment [unreceived] may not increase our guilt, but be a means of obtaining pardon, &c. Let not the participation of Thy Body which I, though unworthy, presume (spiritually) to receive, turn to my condemnation." (Catholic Hours, p. 96, 113.) C 18 in different countries, it were a blessing even to them ! As we grow in holiness, our present privileges will deepen to us, and we shall be fitter to receive whatever besides the Primitive Church had. Our blessings are, day by day, being en- larged ; and He Who in mercy is teaching us to value and revive what we have, will, when it is good for us, restore what is yet " lacking c ." We may well be thankful that God has as- signed us our lot in a " goodly heritage/' wherein we are free from the temptation to substitute other objects of love or veneration for The Object Who is to fill the mind for eternity ; wherein we are taught to "come boldly to the throne of grace, " not seek another mediator, through whom to approach our Lord. We have or may obtain to ourselves when we will, every thing which is Catho- lic in the whole Church ; our Liturgy has deep devotion, and is free from every thing un-Catholic. We may well shrink from parting with " the in- heritance of our fathers," for its own sake, even if it could be done without sin. The path of duty is clear to humble and dutiful minds, who have ever been trained in the old ways ; there are marks enough, we doubt not, for all, in the end, who in patience and self-discipline wish to know God's will that they may c Bp. Andrews, Devotions, The second Day, " for the British, the supply of what is wanting in it, the strengthening of what remains in it." First Day, " Thou who walkest amid the golden candlesticks, remove not our candlestick out of its place. Supply what are wanting, strengthen what remains, which Thou art ready to cast away, which are ready to die." 19 do it. I am speaking only of temptation ; what upon certain frames of mind would act as a trial, though to be overcome ; but it is necessary to appreciate that there are temptations and trials; that the wish in individuals to be joined to the Roman Church,, does not necessarily arise in undutifulness to our own, although one may generally trace some -one wrong temper, at least, in those who have forsaken our Church for it. And while there are these real attractions towards the Roman Church, (however more than counterbalanced in well-disciplined and humble hearts,) we must admit that there are also real difficulties in the position of our Church, which must be felt more keenly, as people realize more the doctrine of the Unity of the Church ; what our Lord intended that it should be, what it for a long time was. Not of course that these difficulties should overwhelm us ; but they are hard trials to many, and must be accounted such, and borne patiently as trials. And in these again we our- selves have been exempt from the degree of trial to which a younger generation is exposed, through the very gradualness with which our conceptions of the Unity of the Church came upon us. There was in our younger days no visible Church, to which to attach ourselves, except our own. The Roman communion had in this country but her few scattered sheep, who had adhered to her since the times of Q. Elizabeth ; she was herself asleep, and scarcely c 2 20 maintained herself, much less was such as to attract others. We were not tempted then to look for any thing but that invisible Unity, which we trust all the now-severed Communions have in their One Head, in Whom they all live, from Whom, though torn among themselves, we trust they are not rent. We dwelt alone, our island-situation a type of our Church, and were content, because there seemed no opening for any thing beyond. We were scarcely aware that we were rejected by the Western Church, not formally acknowledged by the Eastern, because we were locally separated from both. Girt round in our home, and living among ourselves, we felt not that we were regarded as aliens by those we saw not. We felt that we had, as we have, the Unity of the Faith, confessing to our God the one Creed in our pious Bishop Ken's words, "the Faith of the Universal Church, before East and West were divided ;" that we have the Unity of common descent from the Church which was one ; we are one in one common parent, even if actual communion is suspended ; one in the Communion of saints with the Church in Paradise, far larger and holier than that below ; we have " one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all ;" through His Sacraments we " have been all made to drink into One Spirit," and so we the more acquiesced that we were one body, though some members of that body said to us, " We have no need of thee." But it is otherwise 21 now ; the Roman Communion is now every where among us, and we must feel that, if they could, they would cut us off; it is brought home to us that, from whatever causes, partly the sin of that first great schism of East and West, over which we had no control, partly through acts (whether they could be avoided or no) of our own Church, we are, as to actual Communion, separated from the rest of the Christian family ; we feel ourselves in a maimed condition ; our relation to other branches of the Church is different from any heretofore. There is no precedent in holier ages, either in favour of the larger branches of the Western Church, or of ourselves ; none for such occasion of a single Church reforming itself, without consent of the whole d , none for the larger Branch needing some such reformation and refusing it; rejecting one branch, and imposing un-Catholic conditions on its re-union. According as people contemplate the one side or d The line, however, pursued by the African Church, under the guidance both of S. Cyprian and S. Augustine, goes as far to establish such a precedent, as can be furnished by primitive times, when no general reformation was needed. The case of S. Cyprian and the African Synods in maintaining the invalidity of Schismatical Baptism against the Bishop of Rome, is the stronger, because their view was not confirmed by the Church subsequently; the Bishop of Rome rejected their Communion, as he has ours ; yet S. Augustine, while abandoning the practice of S. Cyprian, maintains against the Donatists, that he was not guilty of schism. In the case of Pelagius, the African Synods maintained their ground against Zosimus, Bishop of Rome, who acquitted him and severely censured them, and they obtained a con- firmation of their sentence from the Emperor, to which Zosimus yielded. 22 the other, they will feel most vividly the fact or its excuse, and blame Rome for obstinacy, or ourselves for precipitancy ; and since we have perhaps unduly held ourselves free from all blame, so the re-action is,, that some are inclined to look on that alone which in us was blameworthy. Yet, besides the plea of necessity, the very unhappiness of the Church is our excuse. We did no act opposed to the Universal Church. There is now no orbis terrarum, over against which we stand ; none which has rejected or condemned us. Since the Greek Church, and her ninety million, is severed from what claims to be the Catholic Church, and yet has life, so may we ; and by the mercy of our God, we feel that we have it. It is a fact, that entire visible unity is not vouchsafed to the Church of these last days, and so, until God be pleased to amend it, we may rest contented in our lot. Yet the very fact that we have to be contented, shews that we have trials ; our people go abroad, and find no home there ; they see Churches, some flourishing, though some decayed, which, at best, own us but doubt- ingly ; there is Christian life, from which we are excluded ; the Church, the common home of all, is, out of the space occupied by our sister or daughter Churches, no home for us ; they return to us, and feel that we are solitary. Then comes Rome among us, and, rejecting the Greek Church of whose extent, as not being brought into in- tercourse with it, people are not aware, and so acquiesce in the excision of nearly half the 23 Christian Name as a light thing, declares herself the Church 6 , and offers to relieve our difficulties, and give vent to our sympathies, by placing us in e This is the ground on which Mr. Sibthorp justifies his recent secession. He writes, as if unconscious of the existence of the Greek Church, as though the question were only between Pro- testants (with whom he has already learnt to identify the Church he has forsaken) and the Roman Church. In studying the types of the Old Testament he found the unity of the Church prominent, in a degree in which it is not in this day fulfilled, unless the Roman Communion be " the Church," and therefore he joined it. He unhappily overlooked that prophecy even more distinctly fore- tells " holiness" as a characteristic of the Church, in a degree in which it is still less fulfilled in the Church any where now. The same degeneracy of the Church forfeited both. Each is probably a condition of the other. Diminished holiness caused the misun- derstandings and strife and ambition, which ended in the schism of the East and West ; our schisms probably aid to perpetuate the unholiness which produced them. Life and desire of union are being reawakened together ; increasing life will be accompanied doubtless with increasing love. But until the Church of Rome fulfils the ideal of holiness, set forth in prophecy, it cannot claim our obedience, on the ground that the ideal of unity, also set forth in prophecy, is not fulfilled unless she exclusively be the Church. If the sins of the Church have forfeited the one, they may also the other. It is a sad, but admitted, fact, that the Church of these days does fall short of the descriptions of prophecy, (see Mr. New- man on Romanism and Popular Protestantism, Lect. 8. Indefecti- bility of the Church Catholic, p. 231 sqq. who quotes also Leslie, Works, iii. p. 25 28.) The argument on which Mr. Sibthorp justifies his secession to Romanism, is the same in principle, as that on which the Donatists and many modern sects justify their schisms. They urged the non-fulfilment of the note of Holiness, as Mr. S. that of Unity. If holiness, the very end of the dis- pensation of the Gospel, may be imperfect, and the word of Scripture not be broken, much more may Unity. If the claims of the Donatists are not valid, neither are those of Rome. 24 communion with herself, the largest portion of the Christian world. And, since the desire of union is a right one, it is, when thus presented, a tempta- tion, real, though to be resisted. We have, ever since we were thus severed, been feeling again after union ; and this longing after it, although we could not attain it, may be a proof the more that we are a living, though torn, member of the one body. What is cut off has no feeling. It is, while the wounded limb still hangs on to the body from which it is disjointed, that it has pain. Sects have none. They boast themselves in their separation. Mon- tanists or Donatists rejected the Church as carnal, and set themselves up as the one pure Church in its stead. We have ever missed more or less what we have lost, and have been yearning after the visible unity and intercommunion which we have not. Our very errors have been in part owing to it : we mixed ourselves up at the first with foreign reformations, and impaired our formularies, with a view to it ; since then, our negociations with the Gallican Church, with Prussia formerly, with the Eastern Church, bear witness to our longings ; at the beginning of this century, when wars kept us apart from other nations, and Church principles were less understood, this desire of union shewed itself in the very rejection of all true principles of union. Having no visible unity, people sub- stituted an invisible ; and not only so, which might have been right, but they sought to make a visible unity for themselves, by disparaging that of 25 the Church, by sympathizing and associating with those who had forsaken her, and becoming like them. The same longing which some years past brought very many to the verge of Dissent, and often carried them into it, is now setting in towards Churches, and is a sore temptation to many to forsake their Church for Rome. But, besides this, which is not our own fault but our unhappiness, over which we have no control, but for whose mitigation or removal we must in patience wait, it must be owned, my Lord, that we have other difficulties which are our fault, or rather that one difficulty, from which all others flow. Had we that holiness, which should mark us out visibly as a true living branch of " the Holy Church," all other difficulties would vanish. Now, we have, we trust, the rudiments of every thing, but nothing developed, so that it should at once be " manifest" to all, " that God is in us of a truth." " Whence come wars and fightings among you ?" may the Apostle well ask us. These manifold divisions among ourselves, contending upon points which they on one side at least state to be funda- mental, though we hope they believe better than they often speak ; this bandying about of the name of heresy, and that, applied to holy truth, even the gift of our Lord to us in Baptism ; this " casting out the names" of brethren " as evil ;" this impos- sibility of understanding each other or making ourselves understood ; alas ! it is more like the con- 26 fusion of Babel, when God hindered them from building the city, than that " city, which is at unity in itself," in which it was promised that there should be " one speech and one language." Our laity thus far have no living guide ; " the lips of the priest" do not, thus far, " teach knowledge," for them ; for persons, whom they alike respect, teach them differently, and one of the two great classes of teachers tells them often that the other is in fatal error. Those whom God endues with patience abide calmly, and in the Catholic teaching of the Prayer Book, wrought into their minds by habitual devotion, find that stay and guidance which the living Church should give ; yet can one be surprised that our poor frail nature is fretted often, instead of being humbled, by what is so unseemly ; that persons have difficulty in recognising a Church so disturbed, as the representative of her who is " the pillar and ground of the truth ;" that they should seek to escape this strife, by going over where they will find one who undertakes to guide them, allows them to surrender a judgment which they know not how to exercise, and to have peace ? And in the comparison, which those thus tempted institute, our Church has this disad- vantage, that our own evils are close at hand, open, plain to day. Those of the Roman Com- munion, in many cases, are veiled ; ours every where come to the surface ; the too sadly attested infidelity in southern Europe and France, might well more than 27 counterbalance our dissensions or the imperfect belief of many; the superstition, or undue reverence, substituting the love of the creature for the Creator, too often found in foreign sermons in France, Portugal, or at Rome, might well outweigh any defects in our own ; the violence whereby on the very Lord's Day, the passions of the people are in Ireland worked up by the Ministers of peace f , and the obnoxious denounced from the Altar, might make the sad language against brethren or Churches, heard from time to time in our pulpits 8 , seem a lesser evil ; but their evils are less felt, because unseen, at a distance, unrealized, ours gall us, because they are our own. Then, as to life. Our Church has indeed great difficulties, because it has an unruly, commercial, luxurious, unrefined, people to deal with. Antioch was, probably, of old in the most unfavourable f The political meetings, at which so much inflammatory lan- guage is used by the Priests, are held mostly on the Sunday Evening. e This has been a means of alienating people's minds to a degree in which they who use it, would themselves regret. If people are continually called Romanists, some will at length believe it of themselves. In a recent case, one, who would have been well contented to abide in the teaching of the Church, being told that she was a Romanist, and might as well join them openly, did so. To others, the question becomes very distressing, " How can I hold these high doctrines in my Church, who, they tell me, condemns them?" But, besides this, such language indisposes persons towards those who use it, frets them, and makes them sympathize even unduly with those against whom it is used. 28 position of all Churches, and we in many points too much resemble her. We must not visit upon our Church our national faults ; but self-love blinds us to our own, makes us acute in seeing those of others. And so our Church bears the blame, if during the week, our churches stand empty, while foreign churches in the Roman Communion are full ; and we her ministers are in part guilty, that fasts and festivals have been so entirely, and still are, neglected, that the daily service is but just struggling into use, that our Communions are so rare, our communicants so few, almsgiving so cold, luxury so rife, the very standard of our lower population as to one most debasing sin so miserably low, our sense of re- sponsibility so little acute, the Presence of God so little habitually realized. Alas ! my Lord, one need not go on with the sad catalogue ; while we thank- fully acknowledge that our Church has been an inesti- mable blessing to ourselves and to our people, and is capable of being far more so, did we carry out her provisions, and that the fault lies with us not with her, and that it will become otherwise when we in earnest wish it, we must confess that she does not in such degree possess the note of holiness, as at once and without all doubt to allay people's mis- givings about her Apostolic character. I have ventured to make this statement of some prominent difficulties, because, unless your Grace's brethren become more aware that there are real 29 difficulties, they cannot meet them ; one would rather fear that what they do, will be in a wrong direction. It is easy and not unnatural to ascribe the tendency to Romanism, which has of late burst upon us, to the influence of Tracts, which by those opposed to them have been accused of that leaning; but it would be a shallow and untrue account of the matter. We would not shrink from any blame which any of us may deserve ; but when there is a general stirring, as there now is, through the whole of Christendom, it would be a superficial view of it to trace the workings in any part of the Church to any particular set of men or writings ; we a did not set the tide in motion, by which we have been ourselves carried onward ; we have felt that there is a higher Hand than ours, which has raised the waters and ruleth them ; we are but one slight item in the vast sum, one link in the chain of causes and effects whereby He is working for His Church what He willeth. It is important to appreciate this, my Lord, because if this movement were the work of our hands or the effect of any writings of any man, it might seem a The use of this word having been misunderstood in my " Letter to the Bishop of Oxford," as though it recognised the existence of a party, it may be said, that here, as there, it is used simply as a compendious term for those who are attacked in common, for maintaining the principles of the Church. It is indeed not the least remarkable circumstance in the present restoration of our Church, how little of the character of a party attaches to those who have concurred in it. 30 capable of being stayed by the same means which produced it. It might suffice to warn against the tendency of writings which had called it forth. But now since even he who has been God's chief instrument has always insisted how little is his share ; since every thing, good or evil, has con- tributed to it ; poetry, arts, architecture, morals, Christian or Heathen, novels, music, painting, have either prepared for it, or, being subse- quently absorbed into it, have swelled its pro- gress ; our renewed intercourse with foreign Churches and still more the evils aimed at our own, the suppression of our Bishoprics, the assaults of dissent, the coldness of adherents, the anger of enemies, the lukewarmness or hostility of the state, strength or weakness, loss or gain, the traditionary system, existing in our Church, though too often a dead letter, or the religious earnestness and life, though most opposed to that system, and, in its defects, to the truth itself every thing deep, every thing real, every thing holy, deeds of charity, kindliness, severity, every temperament and habit of mind even the most unlikely, the most remote, or the most adverse, liberalism or sceptical tendencies, have alike min- istered to it, it is plain that He Alone can have set it in motion Who Alone has all things at His command, and maketh every thing work together to accomplish His will. The tendency to Romanism, itself but one phenomenon in the manifold workings 31 of this eventful day, is, as a whole, but a fruit of the deep yearning of the stirred Church to be again what her Saviour left her, One. Our severed members are being drawn to ourselves, as a Church, and knit into one in us ; as a Church, we are being drawn to other Churches, that, in God's good time, the whole body may be knit together under its One Head. Any deep view of the Church as one whole, must create a longing to realize what, as in vision, it beholds. Our severed state is a maimed and imperfect condition, checking, we must fear, the full flow of That Holy Spirit through our dis- jointed portions, Which, when perfectly present, makes what He pervades wholly one, even as He is the Unity of the Father and the Son. To feel what the Church should be, is to long that it be so. And if we come not with subdued hearts, settled to wait God's time for His gift, and anxious to take no step but just where He leads, there must be risk that persons will seek unity in unallowed ways of their own, and, as formerly with Dissent, so now in that communion which embraces the largest portion of Christendom, and which, in re- lationship as well as place, is nearest to us. This longing must be directed ; it cannot, ought not to, be quenched ; yet while it is active, (not to speak of other agents,) it were idle to think that any censure or silencing of men or books can stay what is the result of implanted sympathies, at the very centre of Christian life and love. 32 It may also be a relief to your Grace to know it has come as a great relief to my own mind, since of late I have known it that this confusion in which we now are, was not unforeseen. I mean not that it may not have been aggravated by any want of wisdom in myself or others ; still it was anticipated as the necessary consequence of the restoration of the doctrines, which we have been employed to restore, before any of us were thought of as likely to be the instruments, or we ourselves had begun to look forward to the work, which has since been laid upon us. It will doubtless be refreshing to your Grace to see the words of one f , whom in his inferior office, and as a Divine, you must have valued, how with the oracular prescience given to aged piety, when, as about to pass from this world, it receives, from time to time, a Divine insight into the things of that into which it is entering, he delineated in outline strangely faith- ful, the very form and order of things which were to be after his departure, but of which there were yet no signs. We may well be reconciled to troubles, which were thus marked out to us before- hand, as what we must necessarily pass through. And while we are thus content to bear them, and to be stigmatized as the causers of them and the {f troublers of Israel 8 ," they who are set f Rev. T. Sikes, of Guilsborough, author of " Parochial Com- munion." * 1 Kings xviii. 17. 33 over us may perhaps be the rather encouraged to bear their share cheerfully, and not be grieved at us, as if we alone by our errors caused, what, independently of us, it was foreseen would be. He, to whom the conversation was addressed, tells me, " I well remember the very countenance, gesture, attitude, and tone of good Mr. Sikes, and give you, as near as may be, what he said." " I seem to think, I can tell you something, which you who are young may probably live to see, but which I, who shall soon be called away off the stage, shall not. Wherever I go all about the country, I see amongst the Clergy a number of very amiable and estimable men, many of them much in earnest, and wishing to do good. But I have observed one universal want in their teaching : the uniform suppression of one great truth. There is no account given any where, so far as I see, of the one Holy Catholic Church. I think that the causes of this suppression have been mainly two. The Church has been kept out of sight, partly in consequence of the civil establishment of the branch of it which is in this country, and partly out of false charity to Dissent. Now this great truth is an article of the Creed ; and if so, to teach the rest of the Creed to its exclusion must be to destroy " the analogy or proportion of the faith," Tyv avaXoy/av ?% 7n