But whilst so many explanations have since been given of the meaning in which this observation was made by the Bishop of Norwich, and so many insinuations levelled at the Bishop of London for not choosing to see it, I am disposed to think that his Lordship did not feel himself called upon to dive into the thoughts of the Bishop of Norwich, but intending to give a direct negative to an unqualified affirmative, meant to re-repudiate the notion that “the church of England, was founded on liberty of conscience, and the right of private judgment,” and to assert with reference to the well-known fruits of such a principle, that the Church was founded on “truth.” But the Bishop of Norwich contends that the expression is an “incorrect” one, and that had he been speaking of “the only true foundation of the true Catholic Church itself,” he should have said that it was “founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” [24a] The Bishop of London could scarcely have thought the periphrasis necessary, considering before whom he was speaking, he would probably reply to the imputed incorrectness of the expression, that he always considered the foundation of which the Bishop of Norwich here speaks, to be “truth,” and that the Church was the interpreter of the Apostles, and Prophets, and Jesus Christ, or in other words of the Gospel of Christ. He meant also I should suppose, to repudiate the notion, that the Reformation of the Church proceeded on such a principle, and in effect to affirm that from the days of Archbishop Cranmer to these of Archbishop Howley, no such principle had ever been recognized by the Church, as that of admitting “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” to have any directive influence in Church affairs; a fact, which if not sufficiently proved by the mandate of Edward the Sixth, enforcing under the penalties of “sequestration, suspension, excommunication, and such other coercion, as to ordinaries or others having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, shall seem convenient, straitly charging and commanding his loving subjects to observe the injunctions of 1547,” [24b]—would be amply established by your own observations respecting Bishop Hooper, for the sending of the good old man to prison in the matter of the vestments, and that by the Reformers themselves, would seem but little to favour the notion that our reformed Church was founded on “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.”
But that I may not also be accused of misapprehending his Lordship’s meaning, I will here quote his explanation of the sense in which the observation was made—
“It is of course plain that I was neither speaking of the Catholic Church at all, nor even of the Church of England, except in its character of a Reformed Church, founded as such on the principles of the Reformation, which I again deliberately assert to be liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment, in opposition to that Church from whence it separated, in which the authority of Popes, Councils, and Priests, superseded all appeal to the scriptures themselves, and by which of course freedom of judgment was strictly prohibited.” [25a]
Not that it bears upon his Lordship’s argument, still I would respectfully submit whether our alleged separation here from the Church of Rome be strictly correct; we threw off our allegiance to the usurped authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Pope; we reformed the abuses of our own Church, but we separated from no mother Church. The episcopal Church in England existed long before the Pope cast his eye upon it.—“In the acts of the Council of Arles, which was held A.D. 314, we find the Subscriptions of three British Bishops.” [25b]
But I would further question whether in his Lordship’s qualified sense of the observation it can with any strictness be said, that our reformed Church was founded on the principle he contends for.
It will, I think, be admitted that whatever was done with reference to the Church by that “Postilion of the Reformation,” as Burnet calls him, the Papist Henry, was done by him more with a view “to cudgel the Pope into a compliance with what he desired,” [26a] than from any desire to reform our religion. At all events, we must give up any attempt to reconcile his “six acts” with “liberty of conscience.”
The reformation of our religion had its commencement in the reign of his successor. Here, if any where, we must look for the principle in question. But can it be said that our religion was reformed “in opposition to the authority of Popes and Councils,” when it is so well known, that “the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction was of most just causes taken away and abolished,” [26b] in the preceding reign? Neither can it, I think, in strictness be said, of that time, that the Priests superseded all appeal to the scriptures, seeing that it was by the Bishops themselves that the scriptures were chiefly caused to be circulated. I am speaking not of the German Protestant Church, but that of which his Lordship speaks, “the Church of England, in its character of a reformed Church.” And I have before shewn on your own authority in the matter of Hooper, that she recognised nothing so little as the principle of “liberty of conscience.” That sectarism or separation from the Church is founded on this principle, will be admitted.
It has always appeared to me, that the hacknied phrase, “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” applied to an associated body, is a pure fallacy, I had almost said, a cobweb to catch the fly popularity, quite as valuable as an appeal, “ad captandum vulgus,” as the cry—“Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari,” to which “catch-word,” his Lordship attributes the defeat of the attempt to revise the Liturgy in 1689. You also attribute this defeat to “the violence of party;” but there are those, and the late pious and excellent Bishop Jebb amongst the number, who ascribe it to the “special interference of Providence.” “But the special interference of Providence did not terminate with the first establishment of our Liturgy . . . Even within the Church itself, some were found whose integrity cannot be impeached, who were on the point of introducing alterations which could not have failed to prove equally injurious to the cause of truth and piety.” [27a] Even Bishop Burnet, one of the Commissioners, with reference to the probable result of those contemplated alterations of 1689, imputes the failure of the attempt to a “very happy direction of the providence of God observed in the matter.” [27b]
The Church, however, coerces the conscience of no man, every one is at liberty to take his own religious course, and I confess I cannot see why that which is conceded to all other societies should be denied to the Church—the right of being governed by her own constitutions, and the right also of judging what constitutions are most conducive to the welfare and good order of her community.
If I could not conscientiously conform to the doctrines and discipline of the Baptist or the Independent, I question if they would allow me to give my conscience the liberty to act amongst them according to its dictates. They would no more deny than we do ourselves, the abstract principle, neither would they “fine,” nor put me in “the pillory,” but I suspect they would “exclude” me, and with very good reason, from their ministry. To talk of conceding the abstract right of private judgment, has always appeared to me a good deal like talking of conceding to a person with sound lungs the privilege of breathing. But to contend for the principle and talk of certain latitudes and limits, seems to me to involve a contradiction—once assign any limits to the “right,” and you destroy the principle. But although his Lordship pleads for the principle being, as he contends, that on which our Church is founded, and ought to be acted upon, he would circumscribe it within “a certain latitude of opinion.” He would not have it trench upon “the distinguishing features and essential doctrines of the Christian Church.” But who is to be the judge of these doctrines? Two of the petitioners, the Messrs. Hull, repudiate the very idea of the Church being the authorized interpreter of the truth. “If,” say these brothers, in allusion to a remark by the Bishop of London, “the word ‘authorised’ bear its usual signification, such a remark would indeed be inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.” [28a]