ENGLAND CONTINUED: SURVEY OF CHURCH PARTIES.
The Church of England has always been proud of the outward form of unity. Her rigid view of the sin of schism has induced her to submit to great elasticity of opinion and teaching rather than incur the traditional disgrace of open division. But on this very account she has never been free from internal strife. In everything but in name she has been for centuries not one church, but several. Her entire history discloses two tendencies balancing each other, and for the most part reacting to great advantage. The Sacramentalist party represents Romanizing tendencies, and is thoroughly devoted to "the sacramental services and the offices of the church, especially as performed according to the rubric." The Evangelical party is less formal, is in harmony with the Articles, aims to keep up with the accumulating religious wants of society, and lays stress upon the practical evidences of Christian life. Under these two standards may be ranked all those schools within the pale of the Church which have been growing into prominence since the closing years of the eighteenth century. We will only speak of the most influential parties, remembering, however, that each of them is again subdivided into various sections.
The Low Church. Within a short time after the Church of England gave signs of religious awakening in consequence of the rise of the Wesleyan movement, the triumph of evangelical tendencies was complete. "In less than twenty years," says Conybeare, "the original battle-field was won, and the enemy may be said to have surrendered at discretion. Thenceforward, scarcely a clergyman was to be found in England who preached against the doctrines of the creed. The faith of the church was restored to the level of her formularies."[199] The revival was so thorough that it gave rise to a zealous class which was called by its friends the Evangelical Party, but by its enemies the Low Church.
The Low Church had its seat at Cambridge, and was conducted by vigorous theologians, who were encouraged and aided by highly-respected and leading laymen. Attaching new importance to the neglected doctrines, their principal themes were "the universal necessity of conversion," "justification by faith," and "the sole authority of Scripture as the rule of faith." They were worthy successors of the old Evangelical party, represented by Milner, Martyn, and Wilberforce. Through their agency there arose in the popular mind a dislike of ecclesiastical landmarks, the state church fell into disrepute, the broadest catholicity received hearty support, and personal piety was the acknowledged test of true religion. In 1828 Lord Russell, the leader of the Reform party, effected the abrogation of the Test Act,—a law which required all officers, civil and military, to receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Established church, and to take an oath against transubstantiation within six months after their entrance into office. The repeal immediately placed Dissenters and Catholics upon the same footing with members of the Established church, and was in itself sufficient to provoke opposition on the part of all who had not united in the evangelical movement. But the antagonism became still more decided when Parliament passed the Irish Church Property Act, in 1833, in spite of the determined remonstrances of the bishops. One half of the Irish bishoprics were thereby abrogated, Parliament assuming ecclesiastical authority. The people supported the Parliament, and in some instances public indignation was hurled at the bishops themselves.
The Low Church has always been on the side of popular reform. Not forgetful of its lineal descent from that evangelical spirit which animated Wilberforce, Stephen, Thornton, and Buxton, in their philanthropic labors, it has sought out the population of the factories and mines of England, and addressed itself to the relief of their cramped and stifled inmates. It has reorganized Ragged-Schools, and endeavored to reach all the suffering classes of the kingdom. Neither has it been found unmindful of the wants of the heathen world, for no sooner did the Low Church commence its public career than it founded the Church Missionary Society, which has established over one hundred and forty-eight missionary stations, sustains two hundred and sixty-six clergymen, and includes about twenty thousand members.[200] These labors have been abundantly successful, for besides the converted towns on the coast of Africa, "whole districts of Southern India have embraced the faith; and the native population of New Zealand (spread over a territory as large as England) has been reclaimed from cannibalism and added to the church." The same party was chiefly instrumental in establishing the British and Foreign Bible Society, which has translated the Scriptures into one hundred and fifty languages, and distributes over two millions of copies annually.
The Low Church party was the first to tell England that her population had far outgrown her places of worship, and it accordingly devised means to remedy the evil. Archbishop Sumner founded the first Diocesan Church Building Society, in 1828; and after becoming Bishop of Chester consecrated more than two hundred new churches. Mr. Simeon of Cambridge had previously set the example of caring for the unchurched population by his personal labors and the outlay of his large private fortune. His name is now like "ointment poured forth" among the inhabitants of Bath, Clifton, Bradford, and other places. The Pastoral Aid Society was founded in 1836, and by its lay and clerical employees, is now ministering to the spiritual wants of over three millions of souls. The Low Churchmen have also established, in needy localities, Sunday Schools, Infant Schools, Lending Libraries, Benefit Societies, Clothing Clubs, and Circles of Scripture Readers. From the ranks of this party have arisen devout and zealous preachers, who, without any great natural endowments, have given their hearts to the work of saving souls. Hamilton Forsyth, Spencer Thornton, and Henry Fox,—the follower of Henry Martyn to Southern India,—are names which will ever adorn the history of the Church of England.[201]
At the present time the Low Church is leading the van within the Establishment, in all those movements which have the stamp of true piety. It is seeking out the abandoned and homeless wretches in the darkest sinks of London, reading the Bible to them, clothing, finding work, and training them to self-respect. Some of its clergy are among the most gifted and influential in Great Britain, whether at the editor's table, in the pulpit, or on the platform. The lofty position they have lately taken against the inroads of Rationalism entitles them to the thanks and admiration of Christendom.
Within the Low Church there are two subdivisions. The first is the Recordite party, so called from its organ. It intensifies the doctrines of the Low Church; on justification by faith it builds its view of the worthlessness of morality; on conversion by grace its predestinarian fatalism; and on the supremacy of Scripture its dogma of verbal inspiration. It holds strong Biblical views on the sanctity of the Sabbath, and both by the pulpit and the press, opposes the secularization of the Lord's day. The other party is sneeringly called the "Low and Slow," and corresponds with a similar faction within the High Church which enjoys the sobriquet of the "High and Dry."
After the evangelical movement had fully taken root there arose an antagonistic tendency; it was the old Sacramentalist party re-asserting itself. Oxford arrayed itself against Cambridge. The views of Laud had always found favor in the former seat of learning, and their adherents felt that the time had now come for their vigorous revival. They directed their opposition equally against Parliamentary usurpation and evangelical liberalism. The centre of the counter-movement was Oriel College, which, under Whately, Hampden, and Thomas Arnold, was already celebrated for its new spirit of free scientific inquiry. Keble, Pusey, Froude, and J. H. Newman, were here associated either as fellows or students. Froude recognized the truth of the saying of Vicentius: "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est." He rose above his friends as leader of the whole movement.
The Conference which convened at Hadley, was the first organized demonstration against the evangelical portion of the Low Church. Its initiative act was the adoption of a catechism which contained the views of the High Churchmen, and was the first issue of the celebrated series of Tracts which gave to the new movement the name of Tractarianism. It was published in 1833, and the last of the series, the ninetieth, appeared seven years afterward. Newman and Pusey were the chief writers. Pusey preached a sermon in 1843 which avowed, with only slight modifications, the doctrine of transubstantiation; in consequence of which he was deposed from preaching to the university for the space of two years. The Romish church received flattering eulogy from all the High Churchmen or Tractarians. It was represented by them as the embodiment of all that was grand, imposing, and sound in art, poetry, or theology. When Newman went over to its fold, Pusey said of him: "He has been called to labor in another part of the Lord's vineyard." The High Church went so far in its opposition to the Low that many attached to the former felt more attracted to Roman Catholicism than to any form of Protestantism. Accordingly, at the close of 1846, one hundred and fifty clergymen and distinguished laymen had gone over to Popery.
The doctrines of the High Church may be divided into two classes: the material, or justification by sacraments; and the formal, or the authority of the church.
While it declares that we are justified by faith, it also holds that we are judged by works. Men are converted by grace, but Christians are regenerated by baptism. The Scriptures are supreme authority, but the "church hath authority in controversies of faith," by virtue of its apostolic descent. The watchwords of the High Church are, therefore, judgment by works; baptismal regeneration; church authority; and apostolical succession. Faith, it claims, does not justify us in and of itself, but simply brings us to God, who then justifies us by his free grace. Baptism is regeneration; in the New Testament the new birth is always connected with it; we are not born of faith, or of love, or of prayer, but by water and the Spirit. All Tractarians believe in the real presence of Christ, and only differ as to the mode in which he is present. The consecrated elements become really the body and blood of Christ by virtue of the consecrating word, though the change takes place in a spiritual and inexpressible way. Christ is a kind Saviour to those who partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper worthily, but a harsh judge to those who do it unworthily.
High Churchmen hold that the Church is a saving institution founded by Christ, and continued by apostolical succession. It is the only mediator of salvation in Christ in so far as it is the only dispenser of the means of grace, the only protectress and witness of the truth, and the highest authority in matters of faith and practice. There are three tests of the true Church: first, apostolicity, or the divine origin of the Church and its succession of apostles; second, catholicity, or the truth in matters of instruction and life communicated through the succession of the apostles, the truth in matters of faith and life as interpreted by Scripture and tradition; and, third, autonomy, or the absolute independence and supreme authority of the Church in faith and practice.
Apostolical succession was the first dogma in which all High Churchmen united. Connected with this opinion is the idea that the priesthood is the only mediatorial office between Christ and the congregation. The bishops are the spiritual sons of the apostles, and should be respected for their office' sake; Christ is the Mediator above, but his servant, the bishop, is his image on earth.[202] The Church has authority to forgive sins by the new birth, and to bring souls from hell to heaven.[203] Tradition must be respected not less than the Bible itself; the Old and New Testaments are the fountain of the doctrines, and the catholic fathers the channel through which they flow down to us.[204] The Bible must be explained, not by individual opinion, but by the church; for the Church is its rightful interpreter.
It must be said, in justice to the High Church, that while it attaches great weight to these views it does not discard those really important. It does not overlook the doctrines maintained by the majority of evangelical Christians. The moderate members of this party, especially, do not hold them as "the basis of their system, but only as secondary and ornamental details. Even against Dissenters they are not rigidly enforced. The hereditary non-conformist is not excluded from salvation. Foreign Protestants are even owned as brethren, though a mild regret is expressed that they lack the blessing of an authorized church government. Apostolical succession is not practically made essential to the being of a church, but rather cherished as a dignified and ancient pedigree, connecting our English episcopate with primitive antiquity, and binding the present to the past by a chain of filial piety. In the same hands, church authority is reduced to little more than a claim to that deference which is due from the ignorant to the learned, from the taught to the teacher."[205]
Of the general service rendered by the High Churchmen, the same writer says, "Their system gives freer scope to the feelings of reverence, awe, and beauty than that of their opponents. They endeavor, and often successfully, to enlist these feelings in the service of piety. Music, painting, and architecture, they consecrate as the handmaids of religion. Thus they attract an order of men chiefly found among the most cultivated classes, whose hearts must be reached through their imagination rather than their understanding.... In the same spirit the writers of this party have contributed to the religious literature of the day many admirable works which under the guise of fiction teach the purest Christianity, and exemplify its bearing in every detail of common life. To the training of childhood especially they have rendered most valuable aid, by thus embodying the precepts of the Gospel. But we need not do more than allude to works so universally known and valued as those of Miss Sewell, Mr. Adams, and Bishop Wilberforce. Again the revival of the High Church party has effected an important improvement among the clergy. Many of these were prejudiced by hereditary dislike against the doctrines and the persons of the Evangelicals, and by this prejudice, were repelled from religion. But under the name of orthodoxy and the banner of High Church, they have willingly received truth against which, had it come to them in another shape, they would have closed their ears and hearts. A better spirit has thus been breathed into hundreds who but for this new movement would have remained as their fathers were before them, mere Nimrods, Ramrods, or Fishing-rods."[206]
Of all the men engaged in the Tractarian enterprise there was no one in whose religious and personal history a deeper public interest concentrated than in John Henry Newman. His ardent espousal of the High Church cause collected many friends about him at the same time that it organized numerous enemies. But he did not inquire concerning the number of his friends or foes, for he valued sincerity higher than favor or opposition. His previous history was not without incident. Thirteen years before the Tracts for the Times were published, he had been engaged in a controversy concerning baptismal regeneration, in which he defended the evangelical side.[207] Subject to various inner conflicts, and greatly influenced by the party-spirit which ran high, he finally entered the communion of the Roman Catholic Church. His view of the development of Christian doctrine is very favorable to his adopted faith. Development can be applied to anything which has real vital power; it is the key that unlocks the mystery of all growth; any philosophy or policy, Christianity included, requires time for its comprehension and perfection. The highest truths of inspiration needed only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation, for perfection can be reached only by trials and sore conflicts. A philosophy or sect is purer and stronger when its channel has grown deep and broad by the flow of time. Its vital element needs disengagement from that which is foreign and temporary, and its beginning is no measure of its capabilities or scope. At first no one knows what it is or what it is worth, since it seems in suspense which way to go; but notwithstanding this, it strikes out and develops all its hidden world of force. Surrounding things change, but these changes only contribute to its development. Here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. This is all true of Christianity; the lapse of years, instead of injuring it, has only brought out its power.[208]
These hints furnish a specimen of the ideal robe in which Father Newman clothes Romanism. But it will take a stronger intellect than his to show any harmony between his theory of development and the history of the papacy. He has once more assumed the pen of the controversialist. In the January number of Macmillan's Magazine, 1864, Kingsley, in a review of Froude's History of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, said, "Truth for its own sake has never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not be, and, on the whole, ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute man's force of the wicked world, which marries and is given in marriage." The venerable Father being thus assailed has given vent to his indignation by a defense of his life, under the title of Apologia Pro Vita Sua. It abounds in rare touches of satire; while Kingsley, in his reply, indicates excitement and bitterness.
The younger brother, Francis William Newman, has led a sad and changeful life. It has many features in common with Blanco White, both of whom betray the destructive absence of a positive evangelical faith. In some skeptics there is a strength of will which gives a successful appearance to their cause in spite of all their doubts; but when the will is subjected to the domination of opinion; when religion, whether true or false, is not an appendage but the principle of life, the power of mere sentiment is fully manifested. The younger Newman is an illustration of the position in which one is left when he throws himself into the arms of a false creed.
He reveals his inner life in the Phases of Faith, one of the most touching pieces of biography in the realm of literature. While a student at Oxford, he became enamored with the "Oriel heresy about Sunday." One by one the views of the standard authorities of the Church lost their hold upon him, and he imbibed the opinion that the Old Testament is not really the rule of life, according to the Pauline idea; infant baptism is an excrescence of a post-apostolic age, and Wall's attempt to trace it to the Apostles a decided failure; Episcopacy has been so contemptibly represented by incumbents, some of whom opposed the Missionary and Bible Societies, that it is not entitled to respect; and the Church Fathers are greatly overrated, Clement alone being respectable.
Unable to find any theological resting-place, Newman went as a quasi-missionary to Bagdad. He returned to Oxford and gave himself up to his increasing doubts. Finally, becoming a Unitarian, the Scriptures present new difficulties; Christianity has been too highly praised and flattered; and has had the credit of doing a great deal which it has had no share in effecting. The Bible has not been found able to cope with fresh evils; and Romanism became corrupt and vicious with that book in the hands of the priesthood. But dissatisfied as Newman is with the present, he takes a cheerful look upon the future. "The age is ripe," he says, "for something better, for a religion which shall combine the tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness which are the glory of the present Christianity, with that activity of intellect, untiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence to impartial principle which the schools of modern science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and wrong by an inward power, proves all things, and holds fast that which is good, fears no truth, but rejoices in being corrected, intellectually as well as morally, it will not be liable to 'be carried to and fro' by shifting wind of doctrine. It will indeed have movement, namely, a steady onward one, as the schools of science have had since they left off to dogmatize, and approached God's world as learners; but it will lay aside disputes of words, eternal vacillations, mutual ill-will and dread of new light, and will be able, without hypocrisy, to proclaim 'peace on earth and good will toward men,' even toward those who reject its beliefs and sentiments concerning God and his glory."[209]
The First Broad Church. The division of the Broad Church into two parties has been produced by the recent discussion. The First Broad Church corresponds in the main with philosophical Rationalism. It commenced with Coleridge, was interpreted principally by Hare, was defended by the chaste and vigorous pen of Arnold, and is now represented by Maurice, Kingsley, and Stanley. It cannot be said to have a distinct creed. Its members being attached to the Established Church, they are distinguished peculiarly for their method of interpretation of the articles of faith. "The Broad Church teachers give us readings of each dogma of the Atonement and Future Punishment."[210] They avow the main doctrines of the Gospel, but in such a modified sense that, they say, the same were held virtually by all Christians in every age; by Loyola and Xavier, not less than by Latimer and Ridley. They conceive the essence of Popery to consist, not in points of metaphysical theology, but in the ascription of magic virtue to outward acts. All who believe the Scriptures are, in their opinion, members of the household of faith. Salvation does not depend upon the ritual but upon the life; the fruits of the Spirit are the sole criteria of the Spirit's presence. They give prominence to the idea of the visible Church when they hold the Church to be a Society divinely instituted for the purpose of manifesting God's presence, and bearing witness to his attributes, by their reflection in its ordinances and in its members. If its ideal were fully embodied in its actual constitution "it would remind us daily of God, and work upon the habits of our life as insensibly as the air we breathe."[211] For this end, it would revive "daily services, frequent communions, memorials of our Christian calling, presented to our notice in crosses and wayside oratories; commemorations to holy men of all times and countries; religious orders, especially of women, of different kinds and under different rules, delivered only from the snare and sin of perpetual vows."[212]
The special defender of these views of the visible Church, the late Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, was a man of great industry, profound erudition, and extraordinary power and tact in the management of youth. His sermons, delivered to his pupils at Rugby, were short, and usually written just before delivery in the school-chapel on Sabbath afternoons.[213] He interested himself in all questions of reform, education, politics, and literature. But he is best known as one of the leaders of the Broad Church, and in this light his theological opinions may be considered a fair sample of the theology adopted by that party in its earlier and purer days. With him, inspiration is not equivalent to a communication of the divine perfections. Paul expected the world would come to an end in the generation then existing. The Scripture narratives are not only about divine things, but are themselves divinely framed and superintended. Inspiration does not raise a man above his own time, nor make him, even in respect to that which he utters when inspired, perfect in goodness and wisdom; but it so overrules his language that it shall contain a meaning more than his own mind was conscious of, and thus give to it a character of divinity, and a power of perpetual application.[214]
According to Arnold, Christ was the sum of the Bible, and the centre of all truth. We cannot come to God directly; Christ is to us in place of God; and he is God, for to hold the contrary would be idolatry. Christ suffered for the Church, not only as a man may suffer for man by being involved in evils through the fault of another, and by his example awakening in others a spirit of like patience and self-devotion, but in a higher and more complete sense, as suffering for them, the just for the unjust, that they, for his sake, should be regarded by God as innocent. In a deep sense of moral evil, more, perhaps, than in anything else, a saving knowledge of God abides. Sin must not be lightly considered. Christ's death shows it to be an exceeding evil; and the actions of whole days and weeks, passed as they are by too many in utter carelessness, are nothing but one mass of sin; and no one thing in them has been sanctified by the thought of God or of Christ.
The penalty of sin, according to Arnold, is one of the revelations of Scripture which men are least inclined to hear. It will be true of every one of us, that, unless we turn to Christ, it had been better that we were never born. If we fail of the grace of God there is reserved for us an indescribable misery. Conversion is the development of Christian life. It is growth. We must be changed during the three score and ten years of our life, not in the twinkling of an eye, but through a long period of prayer and watchfulness, laboring slowly and with difficulty to get rid of our evil nature.[215] By constant repentance and faith we ripen for heaven. Justification by faith is a reliance on what God has done for us; faith in Christ is not only faith in his having died for us, but in him as our present Saviour by his life. It is throwing ourselves upon him in all things, as our Redeemer, Saviour, Head, of whom we are members, and desire our life only for Him. Our dependence in Christ is not once only, but perpetual.
Arnold attached paramount importance to a proper understanding of the Church and its relations to the State. He held that the work of a Christian Church and State is absolutely one and the same, and that the full development of the former in its perfect form as the Kingdom of God, will be an effectual means for the removal of all evil and the promotion of good. There can be no perfect Church or State without their blending into one.[216] The Church, during her imperfect state, is deficient in power; the State, in the like condition is deficient in knowledge; one judges amiss of man's highest happiness, the other discerns it truly, but has not the power on a large scale to attain it. But when blended into one, the power and knowledge become happily united; the Church has become sovereign, and the State has become Christian.[217] The Church has its living and redeemed members; it may have those who are craving to be admitted within its shelter, being convinced that God is in it of a truth; but beyond these, he who is not with it is against it.[218]
In intimate connection with Arnold stands the name of his friend and biographer, Arthur P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster, for some years a writer of celebrity in England. Two late volumes on the Eastern and Jewish Churches have given him a standing occupied by few theologians in the old or the new world. His style is gorgeous and enchanting, and his Rationalistic tendencies so subdued and covert that few would suspect him of sympathy with the Broad Church theology of the last ten years' growth. In his work on Sinai and Palestine he aimed to delineate the outward events of the Old and New Testament in such a way that they should come home with a new power to those who, by long familiarity, had almost ceased to regard them as historical truth; and so to bring out their inward spirit that the more complete realization of their outward form should not degrade but exalt the faith of which they are the vehicle. But in subsequent works, Dean Stanley has clearly departed from an evangelical position, and we now find him in open sympathy with the Broad Church. This tendency was foreshadowed in his History of the Jewish Church. He describes miracles as one who prefers to omit, rather than state, his real objections to their reception. He seems to believe in Israel as an inspired people, more than in the Old Testament as a plenarily inspired book. He allows searching criticism into the Hebrew text, and does not seem disturbed by evidences of errors, contradictions, and phantasy. He does not know whether the Israelites were in Egypt two hundred and fifteen, four hundred and thirty, or one thousand years,—thus leaving an important question unsettled. Neither does he decide, with or against Colenso, whether the number of armed Israelites who left Egypt was six hundred or six hundred thousand men. He implies that monotheism was unknown before Abraham, and that the name Jehovah was not known to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. He cannot tell how the Israelites were supported in their journeyings; and ascribes the priesthood to an Egyptian origin. If we only admit the above arithmetical errors, and give up the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, he thinks we should remove at one stroke some of the main difficulties of the Mosaic narrative.[219]
But Stanley has exposed his Broad Church sympathies more in a late review article than in any formal volume.[220] It is a discussion of the judicial proceedings in connection with two authors of the Essays and Reviews. His theme permits a wide range, and he therefore dwells at length upon the whole question of ministerial teaching. He considers the final acquittal of the essayists one of the most gratifying events of the day. According to him, the questions raised by the work are, with few exceptions, of a kind altogether beside and beyond the range over which the formularies of the Church extend. No passage in any of the five clerical essayists contradicts any of the formularies of the Church in a degree at all comparable to the direct collision which exists between the High Church party and the Articles, or the Low Church party and the Prayer-Book; on the points debated in the Essays and Reviews the Articles and Prayer-Book are alike silent. Stanley rejoices that of the thirty-two charges presented against Mr. Wilson and Dr. Williams all were dismissed but five, and that for these "there was no heavier penalty than a year's suspension." He is in ecstacy that the judgment in the case of these two men has established the legal position of those who have always claimed the right of free inquiry and latitude of opinion equally for themselves and for both the other sections of the Church. By the issue of the litigation, he claims that great victories have been won, that henceforth ample freedom is left to all detailed criticism of the Sacred Text, so long as the canonicity of no canonical book is denied, and that the questions whether there be "one Isaiah or two, two Zechariahs or three, who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, and who wrote the Pentateuch, whether Job and Josiah be historical or parabolical, whether the Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah or the Second Psalm be directly or indirectly prophetic, what are the precise limits of the natural and practical, what is the weight of internal and external evidence, whether the Apocalypse refers to the Emperor Nero or to the Pope of Rome; are to be settled according to the individual opinion of every clergyman of the Established Church." Stanley sneers at the Declaration of the Oxford Committee sent to every Clergyman of England and Ireland, "with an adjuration, for the love of God and out of duty to the souls of men, to sign it." That Declaration was a protest against the acquittal of the Essayists; and Stanley rejoices over the fact, that, though "every influence was used to get signatures to it, and was so concealed as to enlist the support of High and Low Church parties," the result was the signature of only one third of the London clergy, nine Professors at Oxford and one at Cambridge, eight out of the thirty English deans, two of the Head Masters of the Public Schools, and only six out of the fifty clerical contributors to Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; that more than one half of the rural clergy stood altogether aloof from the document; and that when it was presented at Lambeth only four of the twenty-eight Bishops loaned their countenance to its formal reception. Stanley looks into the future and sees permanent blessings bestowed upon the country by the "timely decision of the highest Court of Appeal" that it has "no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England, since its duty extends only to the consideration of that which is by law established to be the doctrine of the Church of England, upon the true and legal construction of her Articles and formularies." He is also pleased that the Supreme Court of Appeal has refused to pledge itself and the Church to any popular theory of the mode of justification or of the future punishment of the wicked; and that it now stands declared that it is no doctrine of the Church of England that "every part of the Bible is inspired, or is the word of God." The Dean also looks with complacency upon what he declares to be a fact, and which we are startled to hear; that "the belief in endless punishment is altogether fluctuating, or else expresses itself in forms wholly untenable ... that the doctrine of endless torments, if held, is not practically taught by the vast majority of the Clergymen of England."
The First Broad Church will not accept entirely the theology contained in the Essays and Reviews, and complains of them that they are "almost entirely negative; hinting at faults in the prevalent religious opinions of the day, but not investigating them; indicating dislike to certain obligations which are imposed upon clergymen, but not stating or considering what those obligations are; leaving an impression upon devout Christians that something in their faith is untenable when they want to find in it what is tenable; suggesting that earnest infidels in this day have much to urge in behalf of their doubts and difficulties; never fairly asking what they have to urge, what are their doubts and difficulties."[221]
On the other hand, the First Broad Church will not unite in the organized opposition to that work, because the denunciations and appeals "took an almost entirely negative form; they contradicted and slandered objections; they were not assertions of a belief; they led Christians away from the Bible, from the creeds which they confess to certain notions about the creeds, from practice to disputation. They met no real doubts in the minds of unbelievers; they only called for the suppression of all doubts. They confounded the opinions of the day with the faith once delivered to the saints. They tended to make anonymous journalists the law-givers of the Church. They tended to discourage clergymen from expressing manfully what is in their hearts, lest they should incur the charge of being unfaithful to their vows. They tended to hinder all serious and honest co-operation between men who are not bound together in a sectarian agreement, lest they should make themselves responsible for opinions different from their own."[222] Thus, while the First Broad Church occupies a neutral ground in the controversy now rending the whole structure of English theology, its moral force is all against Evangelical Christianity, and in favor of the usurpations of Rationalism.
But the theology maintained by the First Broad Church is little above that contained in the Essays and Reviews and similar Rationalistic publications. With them, the Scriptures are better than any other books of antiquity because they contain the most of God's will, not because they alone contain his will. "These books," says a writer, "have been filtered out, as it were, under his guidance, from many others which, in ages gone by, claimed a place beside them, and are now forgotten, while these have stood for thousands of years, and are not likely to be set aside now."[223] They are indifferent as to their date, authorship, or contents. "Men may satisfy themselves," the same writer continues, "perhaps if I have time to give to the study, they may satisfy me—that the Pentateuch was the work of twenty men; that Baruch wrote a part of Isaiah; that David did not write the Psalms, or the evangelists the gospels; that there are interpolations here and there in the original; that there are numerous and serious errors in our translation. What is all this to me? What do I care who wrote them, what is the date of them, what this or that passage ought to be? They have told me what I wanted to know. Burn every copy in the world to-morrow, you don't and can't take that knowledge from me, or any man."[224]
The Mosaic cosmogony is not a matter of great consequence, but on a par with other cosmogonies, none of which are of any intrinsic value. "If all cosmogonies were to disappear to-morrow," says Thomas Hughes, "I should be none the poorer." The various difficulties of Scripture are not of sufficient moment to occupy much time or pains. Let the people be made to understand the liberal interpretations of what the cultivated teachers have to say, and that will be enough to meet the world's wants. Perhaps it is with secret admiration of Bunsen's Bible Work, the greatest exegetical triumph of Rationalism, that Kingsley asks: "Who shall write us a people's commentary of the Bible?"
Redemption is accepted in the Coleridgean sense. It is a term which does not express a Scriptural fact, but is borrowed from earthly transactions. Christ's work in our behalf is of no special value in itself, its known effects being all that make it of moment to the human family.[225] We should look at the results and not at the cause. The sacrifice which Christ made was one of obedience to his Father's will; it does not free us and elevate us above the curse of a broken law, for, in a certain sense, the law has never been broken to the extent that the evangelicals claim, nor does eternal punishment harmonize with enlightened and liberal notions of Divine mercy. Miracles are in danger of being worshiped by the friends of revelation. They have the misfortune of an improper term; wonders would be a far better word. Why not accept them in the domain of faith, since we meet with them in science?[226] Miracles of this kind, "wonders," are willingly conceded, for they are not suspensions or violations of the order of nature, but natural phenomena, whose laws we may not understand. The miracles of the New Testament are purely natural; but the people did not comprehend the laws which gave them birth, and hence they magnified them. "Where the people believed," says Mr. Davies, "rightly or wrongly, in evil spirits and sorcery, in malignant and disorderly influences proceeding from the spiritual world, there the powers of the true kingdom, the powers of order and freedom and beneficence, were put forth in acts which appealed directly to the minds of the ignorant and superstitious, and which proclaimed an authority stronger than that of demons. The common multitudes of Judea were of the class which thus required to be treated like spoiled and frightened children."[227]
The Second Broad Church. This party maintains the avowed Rationalism of Jowett, the Essays and Reviews, and Colenso. Miss Cobbe, in defining the points of difference between it and the First Broad Church, says of the latter, "It holds that the doctrines of the Bible and the church can be perfectly harmonized with the results of modern thought by a new but legitimate exegesis of the Bible and interpretation of church formulæ. The Second Broad Church seems prepared to admit that in many cases they can only be harmonized by the sacrifice of biblical infallibility. The First Broad Church has recourse, to harmonize them, to various logical processes, but principally to the one described in the last chapter, of diverting the student, at all difficult points, from criticism to edification. The Second Broad Church uses no ambiguity, but frankly avows that when the Bible contradicts science, the Bible must be in error. The First Broad Church maintains that the inspiration of the Bible differs in kind as well as in degree from that of other books. The Second Broad Church appears to hold that it differs in degree but not in kind. This last is the crucial point of the differences of the two parties, and of one of the most important controversies of modern times."[228] The First Broad Church has made antagonism to the doctrine of endless punishment one of its great specialties, while the Second Broad Church has made its most violent assaults upon the evangelical view of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The position of the latter is not fully defined. We may suppose, however, that in due time its apologists will assume an organized form, and perhaps produce their systematic theology.
We regret that the general opposition on the part of the clergy to the theology of the Essays and Reviews, on the first appearance of that work, has not been sustained. The Broad Church has therefore acquired many new adherents within the last two years. It is impossible to classify all the parties according to their exact numerical strength, and their approximate proportions, in round numbers, must answer our purpose. The clergy of the Church of England, exclusive of the Irish, amount at present to about twenty thousand, at home and abroad.[229] Making allowance for two thousand peasant clergy in the mountain districts, and missionaries in foreign lands, the remaining eighteen thousand may be classified as follows:
| High Church. | { Normal Type,—Anglican, { Exaggerated Type,—Tractarian, { Stagnant Type,—High and Dry, | 3,600 1,000 2,500 |
| Low Church. | { Normal Type,—Evangelical, { Exaggerated Type,—Recordite, { Stagnant Type,—Low and Slow, | 3,500 2,600 700 |
| Broad Church. | { Normal Type,—Theoretical and Anti-Theoretical, { Exaggerated Type,—Extreme Rationalists, { Stagnant Type, | 3,100 300 700 |
Twelve years ago the twenty-eight Bishops and Archbishops of England stood thus: thirteen belonged to the High Church, ten to the Broad Church, and five to the Low Church. A distribution made at the present time would be much more favorable to the second party.[230]
It is a remarkable feature of the activity of theological opinion in England that the same division of parties which exists in the Established Church also obtains in other religious bodies. We do not speak of the Dissenting Churches, all of which have their shades of sentiment, but of the smaller and less influential organizations. The Jews, Roman Catholics, Quakers, and Unitarians have each their old and new schools,—the former adhering to the old and established standards, the latter striving to harmonize with modern science and free inquiry. The Jews have their Mosaic, Talmudic, and Phillipsohnic groups,—the last taking its name from its leader, and corresponding with the First Broad Church within the pale of Christianity.[231] The Rationalistic party in the Roman Catholic Church is now aiming to harmonize Popery and the philosophy of the nineteenth century. It has no distinctive name, but numbers many adherents. The Quakers, besides possessing a strongly conservative wing, have their advocates of the "Inner Light," who are pushing this destructive doctrine "to the full consequences developed by the Second Broad Church party in the National Church." The Unitarians are divided into the staid disciples of Priestley and Belsham, and the New School, who stand on the same ground with Theodore Parker in the United States. These are cordial admirers of the Essays and Reviews, and would rejoice to see the land overspread with radical Rationalism.
FOOTNOTES:
[199] Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, pp. 62-63.
[200] Christian Work, June, 1863.
[201] Conybeare, Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, pp. 65-71.
[202] Tract No. 10.
[203] Sewel.
[204] Pusey, Preface to 18th vol. Library of Church Fathers.
[205] Conybeare, Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, p. 106.
[206] Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, pp. 106-108.
[207] National Review, Oct., 1856.
[208] Development of Christian Doctrine. Second Edition. London, 1846.
[209] Phases of Faith, pp. 233, 234. American Edition.
[210] Miss Cobbe, Broken Lights, p. 63. London Edition.
[211] Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 307.
[212] Ibid. Introduction, p. 56.
[213] Bibliotheca Sacra. Jan. 1858. An excellent summary of the opinions of Dr. Arnold.
[214] Stanley, Life and Correspondence of Arnold. American Edition, p. 135.
[215] Interpretation of Scripture, p. 493.
[216] Stanley, Life and Correspondence, pp. 341, 367.
[217] Fragment on the Church, p. 226.
[218] Christian Life, its Course, &c., p. 358.
[219] American Theological Review, July, 1863.
[220] Edinburgh Review, July, 1864.
[221] Miss Cobbe, Broken Lights, p. 63. London Edition.
[222] Tracts for Priests and People. Preface, pp. 3-5. Am. Edition.
[223] Hughes, in Tracts for Priests and People, p. 28.
[224] Hughes, in Tracts for Priests and People, p. 37.
[225] Garden, Tracts for Priests and People, p. 133.
[226] Davies, Tracts for Priests and People, p. 167.
[227] Ibid. p. 167.
[228] Broken Lights, pp. 73-74.
[229] Appleton's American Cyclopædia. Art. Church of England. Though the writer of this article says nothing of the Irish clergy, he has not included them, of course; having no doubt used the Clergy List of England and the colonies alone.
[230] We have based our division of the English clergy upon the calculation of the late W. J. Conybeare, a Fellow in the University of Cambridge, and joint author with J. S. Howson, of Life and Epistles of St. Paul. (Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, pp. 157-158.) His figures applied to the year 1853, but we have included the subsequent increase of the clergy, and distributed the additional members according to the best information at command. If it be objected that we have classed too large a portion in the Broad Church, we reply, that if Dean Stanley's intimations concerning the absence of orthodox faith in the English clergy be well founded, we have fallen far short of attributing to that body a sufficient number of members. See his article in Edinburgh Review, July, 1864.
[231] Phillipsohn, Author of the Religious Idea in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Translated by Miss Ann Goldschmidt.