I have said what the higher tribunal is. I have said I think we ought to work even now with a view to its judgment. Suppose a general council were to be held;—say then, whether the determination of these questions, which now distract us, would not be a step towards a final resolution of them all by its authority. For, say first, the English Synod or Convocation boldly asserted the catholic verity on Baptism, would not this be a great step towards our being received openly and unhesitatingly into the bosom of Christendom, when her council shall meet, and say, as say it must, in what light the Anglican communion is to be regarded. Or suppose (let me be forgiven for the supposition in the way of argument, and here necessary to it,) that the result of her counsel were an ambiguous or heretical determination. Surely even this would not be without its use in limiting the points in issue, and help (no small consideration) all Catholic-minded men among us to acquiesce in any censure which Christendom might pass upon us. This, I cannot regard as an unimportant gain, since owing to our isolation, and I fear I must say, our national prejudices, there might be great danger, that even the decision of an œcumenical council upon our position and our duties, would hardly be received as it ought to be even by all those who are striving humbly after truth. But if then we must be condemned (I am not saying it would be so; again and again I must repeat it; but if it were so,) it would surely be something for the comfort and guidance of us all, that it should be on plain and undisputed grounds; that our Church had spoken, and spoken amiss; that she had tampered with the ancient faith, and changed the primæval creeds. Though I do not say any of these things will come upon us, yet I do think the position in which we stand without convocation, and the dangers of, what would be called in human affairs, a downward policy, are so great that they justify us in speaking out very plainly, and in looking to help from Christendom in case of need. I do believe never till we get to look out of ourselves to Christendom at large, never till we remember our due place in it, never till we are ready to accept its decrees better to define our position, and help us in the practical restoration of our teaching to what it ought to be, shall we be in that right mind and heart, which is waiting duly for the Bridegroom’s call.
I am quite prepared to have these remarks called visionary and unreal; and all dependence on, nay all reference to, the Universal Church, unpractical and absurd. But “none of these things move me,” and I am, though I trust, no fanatic, yet hopeful of the help of God for those who will try to help themselves. As I have said before, I cannot think the expectation of a general council is chimerical. I cannot believe if it come it will be useless. I agree with you in saying, “we have no right to expect an audible or visible interposition of Almighty God,” to direct us in our difficulties. “We must not wait to see his handwriting on the wall, or to hear his voice among us;” [131] but I have yet faith enough in miracles to believe, if that be one, that God may grant us the miracle of Christendom again in council, and make it the means to heal all our distempers, and bind up all our wounds. Of this hope and this faith, no man shall deprive me by the mere calculations of human policy, or by the perverseness of an un-Catholic despair.
And now, my dear Friend, if you have followed me through these pages, as I know with all kindness and attention you will have done, you will see, in some measure at any rate, why I must bitterly lament and utterly condemn the steps which you have taken. I cannot see that the Church of England has forfeited her trust. I cannot, therefore, believe God has forsaken her. I cannot think that He bids us leave her. I have not indeed concealed my opinion of the dangers which beset her. Humanly speaking, her safety lies in their being known and felt by her children; but I firmly believe there is yet a battle to be fought in her, and for her, which is worth all our energies and should engage all our hearts. No man knows better than you what is to be done: no man better how great is the stake: no man better how glorious the result, if God grant the battle to be won. Alas! that it should be bitter now to say it, no man has fought more nobly in the ranks of the English Church: no man more distinctly or with less hesitating lips has enunciated her dogmatic teaching: no man has contended more boldly on the side of God, and the creeds, and the Catholic faith than you have done in this our battle for life and death! Oh! that you might even now once more “cast in your lot among us;” confess you believe you have been blinded by care and grief, and so been at least over-hasty in your resolves; and throw yourself once more into the ranks of the chosen warriors among us, and into the battle with us. Believe me,—nay, rather judge it for yourself—great things are coming on apace: things which will make men’s course plain before their face, without their being over-forward to decide them in isolation for themselves by the mere act of their private judgment; and perchance if we may but be wisely guided, and have patience to endure, we may both come out ourselves “as silver purified seven times in the fire,” and be the means, though all unworthy, to unite Christendom again in one. Oh! what heart can exaggerate the beauty with which our Church shall again shine forth, if she can retain the good that is in her and discard the evil! How nobly will then appear the characteristic virtues of the English mind;—its love of honesty and truth;—its conscientiousness and repudiation of pious frauds;—its loathing disbelief in the avail of expiation of sin by mere formal observances, the sinner remaining unrepentant all the while! If these qualities may be fostered, and its characteristic vices;—its arrogancy and pride;—its unbounded reliance upon itself, and the miserably ignorant as well as utterly destructive habit and abuse of private judgment: therefore its refusal of Catholic teaching, and practical denial of sacramental grace; if these can be eradicated, how fairly indeed shall the Church of England shine forth once more, as “clothed in white raiment,” as able “to save alive the souls” committed to her, as “the ransomed” and “well-beloved” of the Lord! “as a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” But for this (though we know God needeth no man’s help, and can spare whom he pleaseth, and his work not the less be done, and his counsel stand,) yet we seem to be able to spare no man from our ranks who has ever fought upon our side. Oh! (with a breaking heart, one is almost tempted to exclaim:) Oh! that we could but have with us now, all those who in these last five or ten years have “lost patience” in our camp. What with them, could they be restored to us, might we not seem ready to attain, even against all the “principalities and powers” that latitudinarian indifference or infidel philosophy may array against us? But, I may not indulge in such longings. I may not ask, nor think of, nor hope, even your return. I do not ask it, for I know it is a thing you may not grant for asking. I will not think of it, for “vain are the thoughts of man!” I will not even hope it; for why should “the heart be made sick,” when so much work is to be done. But I may and will pray for it, if it be His gracious will, who is able to give more than we know how either to ask or to think, “whose way is in the sea, and whose paths in the great waters, and whose footsteps are not known.”
Believe me, my dear Maskell, yours, though in sorrow, still in affection,
MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW.
APPENDICES.
A. p. 15.
It should be observed, that as to the point of encouragement to “patient waiting,” I have in the text much understated the force of the argument to be drawn from the ecclesiastical history of the fourth century, inasmuch as even after the Council of Nicea, there were fresh troubles and disturbances upon the same doctrine, which were not settled for more than fifty years. To use Mr. Keble’s words (on July 23rd), “The Church waited till the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, under all sorts of interruptions and anomalies, charges of heresy, and breaking of communion.” My purpose, however, in referring to that period of history being chiefly to point to the Nicene Creed as an instance of a declaratory act, explanatory of the Apostles’, I did not think it necessary to pursue the matter further than A.D. 325.
B. p. 22.
“It is plain that the meaning of a mute document, if it be tied to follow the utterance of a living voice, which shall claim the supreme right of interpretation, must vary with its living expositor.”—Manning’s Rule of Faith, (1838). App. p. 85.
“But neither can it be admitted that if the justification of the reformers is to rest on such grounds as the foregoing, their reputation can owe thanks to those who would now persuade the Church to acquiesce in a disgraceful servitude, and to surrender to the organs of the secular power the solemn charge which she has received from Christ, to feed his sheep and his lambs: for the real feeder of those sheep, and those lambs, is the power that determines the doctrine with which they shall be fed. Whether that determination shall profess to be drawn straight from the depths of the mine of revealed truth, or whether it shall assume the more dangerous and seductive title of construction only; of a license of construction which disclaims the creation, the declaration, or the decision of doctrine, but which simultaneously with that disclaimer has marked out for itself a range of discretion which has already enabled it to cancel all binding power in one of the articles of the faith, and will hereafter as certainly enable it to cancel the binding power of all those which the first fell swoop has failed to touch.”—Letter to the Lord Bishop of London, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. p. 60.