To maintain that your proposed alterations would insure anything like “Catholic assent,” promote union among Christians, and advance the growth of vital religion, is to contradict Catholic experience, derived from undoubted history. Do we not read of schisms in the Corinthian Church, even in the days of their Apostle, when the Confession of Faith must have been in the simplest form? And do we not find him sharply rebuking the Corinthian converts—“I hear there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it?” [28] Has not St. John left on record the extraordinary caution which he thought necessary, to guard the disciples against the errors of Gnosticism, which, in his time, were infesting the Church? Again, the history of the three Creeds is but an account of the rise and progress of the Gnostic, the Sabellian, the Arian, and the Socinian heresies, which successively sprung up, the former without, the three latter within the Church, and of the means devised and adopted to counteract them. Moreover, it is capable of proof, that every singular Article in the three Creeds, has application to some error at the time prevailing. [29] The history of the thirty-nine Articles is too well known to require more than the mention of them. They were drawn up designedly and expressly to exclude from the Reformed Church of England all those who still might adhere to the Romish faith.
Thus, then, we see, that when the Confession of faith was in the simplest form, the Church of Christ was not free from schism; and that Creeds and Articles of Faith were invariably the effects, and not the causes, of heresies.
But besides a retrospective glance at the past, it may not be altogether foreign from the consideration, to take a speculative view of the future results which would probably ensue, upon the Subscription being reduced to the three Creeds. It is often the best mode of trying a proposition, to suppose the thing done, and to follow it out into its obvious consequences. Suppose, then, Subscription reduced to the three Creeds. The first question which suggests itself is—How would this affect our two Universities, from which the nation has long derived “a supply of persons duly qualified to serve God, both in Church and State?” If this circumstance should open the door of admission to those eminent schools of education so wide, as almost to insure the resort of students essentially differing from the principles and doctrines of the Church of England as now constituted, and thus render probable a material change in the nature and mode of religious instruction there communicated—I think the conclusion would be inevitable, that the fabric of the Church of England, as at present founded on the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, would be greatly endangered; and consequently, that your proposition must be rejected as a rash and hazardous experiment.
Now, although the Romanists would not join your Communion in the altered form, it is certain that the Subscription to the three Creeds would present no obstacle to their entrance into the Universities, seeing that they do subscribe to them already, and something more. Then it is more than probable, that the mass of the dissenters would find the means of introduction and admission into those seats of learning—not even excepting the chairs of the Professors of Divinity. And thus the Orthodox youth of the Church of England would no longer enjoy the privilege of being educated exclusively and securely in their own principles and in their own Universities—a privilege, nay, a prerogative, asserted and exercised by nonconformists of different denominations, in their Academies founded for the tuition of youths of their own communion, in their own principles of religion, and in agreement with their own peculiar views; but they would soon have to encounter, in this new state of things, the conflict of discordant opinions, at all times unfavorable to the growth of true religion, but especially so in the ardent and restless period of youth.
In the year 1834, when the admission of persons into the Universities, without regard to their religious opinions, was urged with unprecedented zeal, Dr. Turton, now dean of Westminster, then Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, published some “Thoughts” on the subject, which were so convincing to my mind of the utter impracticability of that measure, that I must be permitted briefly to refer to them. To shew what would be the probable result of such a concession, he traced the operations of an Establishment, which had been tried on a plan very similar, on a scale sufficiently large, and for a time sufficiently long, through its various stages during sixty years, to its ultimate results. This Establishment was the well-known Academy which Dr. Doddridge instituted at Northampton, and which his successor removed to Daventry. The leading facts relating to this Institution, are, that its founder was a learned, talented, and in the main, orthodox divine, but a zealous non-conformist—that its “constitution was perfectly Catholic,” in other words, that students of any sect in religion were admissible—that the instruction was required to be taught according to the principles laid down in the Assembly’s Catechism—and that, after declining thirty-eight years under three successive tutors, after Dr. Doddridge, “holding the balance” (according to Mr. Robert Hall, a non-conformist,) “betwixt contending systems, without betraying the slightest emotion of antipathy to error, or predilection for truth,” it finally sank into Modern Unitarianism, under Mr. Belsham in 1789.
Upon an impartial view of the case, Dr. Turton attributes all the evil resulting from the system, to “laxness in the terms of Admission,” in the first instance, which afterwards led to a faulty mode of teaching Theology. And justly he remarks, “we have seen the effects of great diversity of belief at Daventry, and we may rely upon it that those effects were not accidental; they were such as will always be produced by the same cause.”
Here, then, we have an experiment before us, of a religious establishment, on a sufficiently large scale, commencing under an able, learned, and, in the main, Orthodox Divine, upon “Catholic principles,” and terminating within sixty years in the most disastrous consequences. The circumstances of the Academy at Daventry, and of the two Universities, under the new state of things, would obviously be so nearly similar, that the result which was produced in the former case, might with certainty be expected in the two latter. If a similar trial should be made by relaxing the present test, and thus enabling men of almost all shades of opinion to enter at our Universities, infidelity would, in like manner, be the result. And when the time shall arrive, that the youth who are destined to supply the Ministry of the Church, and to fill the Offices of State, shall no longer be grounded and built up in the principles of “that pure and reformed part of Christ’s Church, established in this kingdom,” but shall be taught some system of belief, composed and modified out of all the various and discordant elements of religion then existing in those ancient and peaceful Institutions of “sound learning and religious education,” the evil consequences will be such as it requires no ordinary nerves to contemplate.
Surely then the Church of England will pause ere she incline to adopt your proposition, and exchange a certain good for a certain evil.
Before I conclude, I have a few words to add in reference to the publication of your pamphlet:—and first I would observe, that if you have failed in the proof of your proposition—if your allegations in the main stand contradicted by facts—if there is every reason to believe that the Clergy, although varying somewhat in matters unimportant, do, with comparatively few exceptions, subscribe ex animo to the Articles and Liturgy—I then leave with you to determine, however you may “believe yourself engaged in the cause of truth,” in what manner your pamphlet is calculated to ascertain and promote it within the Church of England. Whatever may be your determination on this head, the judgment of the Clergy of this diocese, at least, is condemnatory of the course which you have taken. They feel that, for a period of years, from time to time, by your publications, you have vexed the Church in general, and this diocese in particular, troubled Israel, and given occasion to the enemies of the Church to exult. In this very pamphlet have you not described to us, in clear terms, what must be the value of a clergyman’s ministry among his flock, when his character for integrity—his honesty in his ordination vow—is suspected? Have you not put into the mouths of “some youthful profligates, led on by an ingenious sceptic,” questions relating to the Clergy, highly defamatory of their character as ministers of Christ, and injurious to the best interests of religion? Do you not suppose that your pamphlet has been perused by many who will rejoice in turning it to the worst of purposes—the purposes of infidelity—against the Clergy collectively, yourself individually, and the religion of Christ generally? Do you suppose that this publication has not been discussed in many dissenting assemblies of this diocese, and exultingly responded to—“Ah! so would we have it, so would we have it?” Too much reason have the Clergy to say, in sorrow and in sadness—“It is not an open enemy that has done us this dishonor;” it is a brother—one of our own order—a dignitary of our own Church, who is partaking of the same bread—
This, you may say, is hard language.—“But is there not a cause?” When I turn to the sentence, “While we thus perceive the variety of opinion prevailing amongst these several sections, we see also that from all of them, more or less, Subscription is requiring that which, in the ordinary affairs of life, high-minded men would abstain from, viz. the necessity for qualifying the plain and straight-forward use of language;” and when I find you finally concluding, “In this state of things, I can hardly imagine any diversity of opinion, with respect to the Thirty-nine Articles, which calls for the resignation of a Clergyman; indeed it appears to me, that it would be simply absurd in any one to resort to such a step, unless under a decided wish for communion with some other church or body of christians”—I own that I am still startled at this bold expression of opinion: and I confess that, after much reflection, I have been at a loss to couch in softer terms, my sense of this grave imputation, and of this deliberate avowal, thus placed on record.