The Bishops, in fact, are endeavouring to settle that which they have not the power to settle—the meaning of Subscription, the interpretation of the Articles, the true doctrine of the Church. And whoever in a public station attempts to exercise a greater power than his office assigns, exposes a weak point perhaps before unnoticed, and instead of gaining new authority, may lose a part of that long-established and deferential respect, which is the most valuable part of all authority. A country magistrate is discreetly silent when a case is brought before him which the law does not empower him to decide, and abstains from lowering his authority by an interference which may be disputed.
It is altogether unsound in theory, and utterly fruitless in practice, to expect that points relating to doctrine can be settled by Episcopal Charges dropping one by one from the press, and unconnected with each other. The interpretation of a Confession of Faith or of the terms of Subscription belongs to the Church, in some way represented and convened. An Episcopal Charge is pastoral advice. When there is in the Church a proper authority to legislate or interpret, that advice will be received with respect and thankfulness, and contribute much in directing the minds of men to a right decision, which is its proper office. But when it usurps the province of a judge or legislator, or from circumstances is improperly brought to stand in their place, it will only provoke the opposition we now witness, and ultimately lose a part of that just deference which it ought ever to receive. The recollection that there is no Convocation or other Ecclesiastical Body competent to settle the perplexing questions recently agitated, may have induced the Bishops charitably to venture upon a forlorn hope. Their Charges however are powerless in the attempt; and however thankful numbers are to receive their pastoral advice, yet when we observe the boundless liberty of reply, and the entire want of authority to enforce their conclusions, respect for the episcopal office almost suggests the wish that in these days they were not published.
Supposing, however, the case were otherwise; suppose a real and unbounded deference to the least word of a Bishop to prevail amongst the clergy and people; suppose that they had each authority in controversies of faith; what unfortunately should we reap in the present state of things but increased perplexity? The judges—so to term them—are divided in opinion; and, though this in the parallel case of legal judges is stripped of injury by an appeal to a superior court, the Church possesses no such appeal. In the meanwhile two-thirds of our Bishops, perhaps, are ranged on one side in the present controversy, and have spoken strongly. The remainder have spoken with a leaning more or less strong in the opposite direction, or are as yet silent. As to deciding then the true and proper interpretation of our Articles and Subscription nothing has been gained by Episcopal Charges. Only the unpleasing truth has been openly displayed that they may be treated like the pamphlet of any anonymous partizan. Thus the present state of the question as to Subscription operates in overthrowing respect to the office and authority of our Bishops, and this it cannot do without being discreditable to the Church.
9. They who have studied even cursorily the history of ecclesiastical affairs in England since the Reformation, may trace in Subscription another circumstance discreditable, if not disgraceful, to the English Church, and one which present times bring before our view. The most earnest and devoted section of the clergy, whatever their peculiar views in past or present times, have been frequently branded by the imputation of departing from the literal sense of the Articles, and of the Subscription required to them and the Book of Common Prayer. They have been censured also as disaffected to the Church, sometimes to its doctrines, sometimes to its rites and ceremonies. The next step has been to speak of them as unfit to remain in the ministry, and to desire their exclusion.
No candid man can doubt the piety, the ability, the zeal in their Master’s service, of the puritanical divines. Yet many of them were excluded at the Restoration, and thus the Church lost a large body of Christian men, and itself laid the foundation of a considerable portion of our present non-conformity. At the end of the seventeenth century, the eminent divines who attempted to repair by healing counsels the damage thus occasioned were branded as latitudinarians, and denounced as disaffected to the Church. In the last century no attempt was made to turn into a more regular channel the zeal of Wesley and Whitfield, and their associates. They were excluded as unsound in doctrine and dangerous to true religion. With difficulty for a long time did the evangelical clergy, who sprung from them, maintain their position as a proscribed race, condemned as disaffected to the Church.
Suppose in all these cases that the charge of objecting to some parts of the Articles and Liturgy, and to the Subscription required, were true; yet to what does it amount? With these assumed errors, did not these persons believe the Bible and love it? Did they not believe all the main Articles of the Christian Faith, as taught by the Church? Was it not the earnestness of their belief which made them what they were? Were they not the very men, who, by their faith and energy, were calculated to accomplish the object of the ministry, namely, to win souls to the Redeemer’s kingdom, and to form a peculiar people zealous of good works? What then was the ground of exclusion or objection? Subscription—assent to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, according to the strict and exact terms imposed by the Church. There was not an objection, nor even indifference, to the smallest portion of the Word of God; but in some non-essential points they wished for alteration or liberty. Subscription caused the difficulty.
Whatever opinion may be now entertained of the tractarian party, the praise of zeal, ability and piety cannot be denied to the leaders of it; yet they are censured as disaffected to the Church, and their exclusion not obscurely suggested. For some of their opinions the writer can be no advocate. He believes them to have fallen into errors equally lamentable and dangerous if persisted in: yet were the choice given him between such instructors and others who pass uncondemned in ruinous indolence and indifference, he would not hesitate in giving his preference to the former. Nor, when he remembers the want of earnest men, and the ever-varying forms of human opinion, can he hesitate in desiring their continuance as ministers in our Church.
“We are not only uncertain of finding out truths, in matters disputable, but we are certain that the best and ablest doctors of Christendom have been actually deceived in matters of great concernment; which thing is evident in all those instances of persons from whose doctrines all sorts of Christians, respectively, take liberty to dissent. The errors of Papias, Irenæus, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, in the millenary opinion; of St. Cyprian, Firmilian, the Asian and African fathers in the question of re-baptization; St. Austin in his decretory and uncharitable sentence against the unbaptized children of Christian parents; the Roman or the Greek doctors in the question of the procession of the Holy Ghost, and in the matter of images, are examples beyond exception. The errors that attach to the minds of men are numberless. Now if these great personages had been persecuted or destroyed for their opinions, who should have answered the invaluable loss the Church should have sustained in missing so excellent, so exemplary, and so great lights?”
“Since those opinions were open and manifest to the world, that the Church did not condemn them, it was either because those opinions were by the Church not thought to be errors, or if they were, yet she thought fit to tolerate the error and the erring person. And if she would do so still, it would, in most cases, be better than now it is.”—Bishop Jeremy Taylor.
In our own case, what would be gained by the exclusion of the persons just referred to? The past may teach us that this will not silence men earnest in their convictions, or promote the unity we desire. But, if their opinions are to be tolerated within the ministry of our Church, then, in common justice, and for the credit of that Church, the stigma ought to be removed which now attaches to them as insincere subscribers. It is this which makes the present controversy so bitter and disingenuous. Remove the irritation occasioned by this perpetual taunt, and is there not ground to hope that it would settle down into an unfettered inquiry after Scriptural truth, and that the result would be a more universal deference to the Word of God? Such is the trust which the writer cannot but entertain.
To wait charitably in patience and hope on the one hand; and on the other to concede all that can be conceded without compromise of truth, for union and unity, are Christian duties; but it is not the dictate of wisdom or charity to repel hastily from the ministry, zeal and piety which cannot be spared, and which the providence of God may eventually overrule and direct to the great good of the people. And if Subscription involves us in the danger of repeatedly excluding the most zealous portion of our clergy, it is a disgrace to the Church which continues to enforce it.