About the middle of the last century, then, the Presbyterian congregation on the High Pavement adopted Socinian tenets; and many families thereupon left it and joined a small congregation of Calvinistic Independents in Castle-gate. Their meeting-house was immediately enlarged, and it has ever since been considered the leading Dissenting place of worship. In 1761, a second secession from High Pavement, this time of Sabellians, built themselves a new meeting-house in Halifax-place. In 1801, they erected themselves a new building in St. Mary’s-gate, which has long since been closed. In 1798, a third swarm, again Calvinistic Independents, left High Pavement, and settled in the Halifax-place meeting-house, vacated by their Sabellian predecessors. In 1819, they built themselves a new meeting-house, called “Zion Chapel,” in Fletcher-gate, the old one being now a school. In 1822, a secession from Castle-gate built a new meeting-house in St. James’s-street; and six years later a secession from St. James’s-street built a meeting-house in Friar-lane. In 1804, a secession from Zion Chapel erected “Hephzibah Chapel,” which being in debt, was sold to the Universalists in 1808, and was soon afterwards converted into a National School. In 1828, another secession from “Zion Chapel” erected a meeting called “Bethesda Chapel.”
The General Baptists at first met in a disused Wesleyan meeting-house, called “The Tabernacle,” which has long since been pulled down. In 1799 they built themselves a place in Stoney-street. In 1817 a quarrel arose between Mr. Smith, the senior pastor, and his junior, of whose pulpit talents he was said to be jealous. The congregation dismissed them both, and appointed a Mr. George. On Sunday, the 3rd of August, in the same year, there was a personal conflict after the Donnybrook manner, between the partisans of Smith and George. The friends of Smith being beaten drew off, and built themselves a meeting-house in Broad-street. In 1850 there was another secession from Stoney-street, who built themselves a meeting-house on the Mansfield-road.
The Particular Baptists originally occupied an ancient meeting-house in Park-street: but in 1815 they built themselves a larger place in George-street. In 1847 there was a secession of extra-Particulars. These met first in a room in Clinton-street, then in an old building which had been disused by the Quakers, and finally, in a splendid gothic edifice, which they built for themselves on Derby-road. The old meeting-house in Park-street fell into the hands of a congregation of the Scotch variety of the sect, whose peace has only been disturbed by the Bethesdians, who joined them in 1828, until they decided upon setting up for themselves.
Thus it will be seen that of the nine new congregations enumerated above, not one was originated without a quarrel—a quarrel, too, of the worst kind, a personal one. Nobody can study the history of religious polemics without perceiving that the root of all that bitterness which has made the odium theologicum a proverb, is to be found in the tendency there is in men to transfer the indignation they might reasonably feel against error, from the error itself to those who hold it. If people would only consent to forget history and would conduct the argument upon purely abstract principles, even the Roman controversy might be made instructive and edifying; but somehow, before long, the debate wanders away from the truth or falsehood of the creed under discussion to that most irrelevant of all issues, the virtues or failings of those by whom it is professed. What shall we say, then, of a system which gives rise to controversies which, from their commencement to their close, are purely personal? Lest it should be supposed that the case of Nottingham is an isolated instance, here is an extract on which the writer stumbled the other day in a tract written in praise of Congregationalism, and stated on the title page to be “commended by J. Bennett, D.D.” It appears to be quoted from a work called “The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge,” and the scene of the incident is stated to be “one of the principal cities of the United States:”—
A Baptist congregation, originally small, had increased so rapidly that an enlargement of the chapel became necessary. It was immediately effected. The congregation still continued to increase, and a second time it became necessary to enlarge. Everything still going on prosperously, a third enlargement, some time after, was proposed. The noble-minded pastor, however, thinking that he had already as much on his hands as any mere mortal could conscientiously discharge, with a generous contempt for his own interests, opposed this step, and suggested that they should exert themselves to raise a new interest, entirely independent of the old one. The people entered cheerfully into his design; nay, they made a nobler sacrifice than that of their money. For as soon as the new building was finished, one of the deacons, with a few of the most respectable members of the old church, voluntarily separated from it, and proceeded to form the infant colony that had branched off from the mother church. What is still more delightful, the two churches formed a common fund for the erection of a third chapel. This was soon accomplished. In a short time a large and flourishing church was the result; and, at the time our informant related this fact, all three churches were actually subscribing towards a fourth chapel. This is noble conduct. Who can tell how soon cities and towns might be evangelised, if this principle were sternly (!) acted upon? A somewhat similar fact has, we understand, been recently witnessed in a city of our own country, where some congregational churches have imitated their Baptist brethren of America. When will all ministers “go and do likewise?”
This is truly edifying and amusing. First of all, mark the habitat of this Nonconformist phœnix, a congregation which has actually given birth to another without a preliminary quarrel. We must actually cross the Atlantic, and seek the phenomenon in the land where the penny-a-liner places his sea-serpents, and his other choicer wonders. To increase without envy, hatred, and uncharitableness is, it seems, to a Dissenter, something inexpressibly “noble”—and brotherly love is something that must be “sternly” acted upon! We may be quite certain that it is something the congregational sects very rarely see, or it would not throw them into such lamentable, and yet, in some sense, ludicrous contortions of surprise.
Perhaps some Dissenter will be whispering, after the manner of Mr. Roebuck, the three words, Gorham, Liddell, Denison; but the tu quoque wholly fails. In the first place, it is the surprising peculiarity of the present Church controversies that the noisiest, if not the weightiest, disputants are not Churchmen at all. In the next place, those who are Churchmen, and enter with any bitterness into the strife, are remarkable neither for their number nor their influence. The great party in the Church of England is, after all, the middle party; and however fierce the cannonade which the extreme left, and its allies outside the pale, may direct against the extreme right, their missiles fly harmlessly over the vast body which lies between. The truth is, the recent outburst of controversy, so far as the Church herself is responsible for it, is nothing but the natural recoil of that conservative sentiment which must always be a powerful feeling in a religious community, from doctrines and usages which had become unfamiliar. As the unfamiliarity passes away, the controversy will also gradually cease. Already the doctrines and usages in question have been unconsciously adopted by many of those who fancy themselves most opposed to them; and, indeed, if our doughtiest combatants would only take pains to understand what it is their antagonists really hold, they would often find that they are fighting against mere shadows. The recent suits in the ecclesiastical courts cannot but open the eyes of Churchmen to the extreme tenuity of the points in dispute. Take the S. Barnabas case. Everybody will remember the language which was applied to the “practices” revived by Mr. Bennett. “Popish,” “histrionic,” “mummery,” were the mildest terms in the repertory of that gentleman’s assailants. Those “practices” remain to this day—if anything, they have been elaborated rather than subjected to any mitigating process. Messrs. Westerton and Beal bring the matter before the proper tribunal; but what are the only issues they can find to raise? Such notable questions as whether the cross, which glitters on the crown, the orb, and sceptre of the Sovereign, which glows on the national banner, which crowns almost every church gable in the land, with which every Churchman is marked at his baptism, which the very Socinians place upon their buildings, is, forsooth, a lawful ornament?—whether a table ceases to be a table by being made of stone?—whether the altar which has never been moved these two hundred years, and which nobody wants to move, must nevertheless be movable?—whether the altar vestments and the “fair linen cloths” used during Communion time, may have fringes, or must be plain-hemmed? Even if Dr. Lushington’s judgment should eventually be confirmed, if in this age of schools of design, Mr. Westerton’s crusade against art should prove successful, the alterations that would be made at S. Barnabas would be discernible by none out the keenest eyes—so little can there be found in matters ritual to fight about. Even in the Denison case the points of difference are almost as infinitesimal. It is true that under the revived act of Elizabeth—compared with which the laws of Draco seem a mild and considerate code—the Archdeacon has been sentenced to lose his preferments; but his doctrine on the Real Presence has, in sober fact, never been so much as challenged. His opponents, passing over all that was material in his propositions, have only attacked a quasi corollary which he has added to his main position, but which is, in reality, a complete non-sequitur. Whether Dr. Lushington is right or wrong, it is clear that a person holding the dogma of transubstantiation itself might, with perfect logical consistency, accept the ruling of the Court.
The differences between the highest and the lowest schools being so impalpable, it would seem absurd to suppose that the present controversies can have a much longer continuance. But whether that be so or not, there is a very important distinction (and one that is well worth the notice of statesmen) between the extension of the Church and the spread of Dissent. Church extension, as far as it goes, tends to compose differences. The consecration of a new church is almost invariably regarded as an occasion when party differences should be laid aside—the opening of a new meeting-house is too commonly the crowning act of an irreparable schism.
Another lesson which the report of Mr. Mann ought to teach Churchmen is the necessity there is for insisting upon the next religious census being made a complete and accurate one. The next religious census ought to include all such institutions as colleges, workhouses, hospitals, and the like—it ought to be enforced by the same penalties as the civil census; and it ought to be understood that all the returns would be printed in a blue book. With these precautions the Church need not fear the result. Even if the census of 1861 should prove no more trustworthy than that of 1851, it will remove a great deal of the misconceptions to which the latter has given rise. As far as one may judge, the work of church extension is progressing just as rapidly now as it was ten years ago; the number of the clergy is just as rapidly augmenting; [33] and as all additional clergymen have now to be supported on the voluntary principle, we may presume that they follow the ordinary laws of supply and demand. We may, therefore, confidently expect that the number of church sittings open on the census morning in 1861 will not be fewer than six millions; and if there be an average attendance (which there was not on the last occasion) the number of persons present will be about three millions and a half. That the Dissenters will be able to open any more sittings than in 1851, is doubtful; for it must be remembered that since 1841 the Church has been annually absorbing a population equal to the entire yearly increase. But allowing them the same increase as has been assigned to them for the decade 1841–51, they will not be able to open more than four million sittings, and they will not have more than two millions and a half of attendants. This estimate is formed on the supposition that the next census will be made on the voluntary principle like the last. If a more complete and accurate account is taken, the result may be very different. It is quite within the bounds of possibility that the number of church attendants may turn out to be near four millions, while that of the Dissenters may not much exceed two.
Looking at all the facts of the case, there is every reason why the Church should take courage. Never since the Reformation has she had so much real power for good—never has she been so free from abuses. Each year sees thousands returning to the fold from which they or their parents had strayed; each year sees her enemies more and more “dwindle, peak, and pine.” Everything, too, points to a daily acceleration of the process. At the very time that Convocation is resuming its functions, the Non-conformist Union is compelled by internal dissentions to abandon their yearly meeting. What Mr. Miall calls “the dissidence of dissent”—that is to say, all in it that is pre-eminently narrow-minded, ignorant, and infected with bigotry—is concentrating itself, and is thus getting free the more respectable elements of modern non-conformity. Meanwhile the better class of Dissenters are doing all in their power to cut the ground from under their own feet. They are building “steeple-houses,” inventing liturgies, and adopting even choral services; in other words they are expressing in the most emphatic manner their opinion that the whole theory of dissent is wrong. For a short time a Brummagem ecclesiology may satisfy them; but in the end they will no doubt rank themselves amongst the best sons of the Church. The truth is, there is no other religious community at the present day which can bid so high for the reverent attachment of Englishmen. Whatever the claims of Rome—her antiquity, her catholicity, her apostolicity—they are equally the Church of England’s. Her succession of bishops is the same, her regard for the primitive church greater, her conception of Christendom far more grand. The glories of the ancient rituals belong equally to the Book of Common Prayer. It contains nothing material which was not in them, there was nothing material in them (save only certain invocations and legends of the saints) which is not in it. The Prayer Book is, in fact, nothing but a translation (magnificently done) of the older offices, a little compressed and simplified. The structure is the same—the mode of using it the same; and if it has lost somewhat of the multiplied ceremonies which were anciently observed, it has gained far more in the majesty and breadth which it has acquired from its thoroughly congregational character. Besides, it is throughout a reality, whereas the office books of the Latin Communion have, to some extent at least, become a sham. Thus the Breviary has long since been practically abolished as a public form of prayer, and even as a manual of private devotions for the clergy, that which forms its staple, the Book of Psalms, has been virtually reduced to a fourth its bulk. In nearly a thousand churches belonging to the Anglican communion the whole Psalter is publicly recited every month, and in twenty times that number it is said through twice every year.
If Protestant Dissenters boast of their enlightenment or of their reverence for Scripture, the Church may meet them on that ground likewise with the utmost confidence. The Prayer-book scarcely recognises a person to be a Churchman if he cannot read; and she directs some forty psalms and some thirty chapters of the Bible to be gone through every week. In a word, approach the Church of England from the most opposite points, and she will be found to possess exactly that attribute which a person might think is most admirable. The man who reverences antiquity—who has a taste for art—who has a passion for ritual—who would have everything “understanded of the people,”—he who insists upon ranks and orders—and he who stands up for popular rights, will equally find in the Church of this country the very quality which he deems important. Never was there any institution so “many-sided;” never one that became with so much success “all things to all men.” How she could ever have lost her hold on the affections of Englishmen is indeed wonderful; but, in truth, until lately, she has never had a chance of making herself understood. Now, for the first time, her theory is beginning to be appreciated; and the success which has attended her, wonderful as it has been, is probably but the foretaste of a future more brilliant than anything of which we can now form an idea.