“The longer life, I wot, the greater sin;
The greater sin, the greater punishment:
All those great battles which thou boast’st to win,
Through strife and bloodshed and avengëment,
Now prais’d, hereafter dear thou shalt repent:
For life must life, and blood must blood repay.
Is not enough thy evil life forespent?
For he that once hath missed the right way,
The further he doth go, the further he doth stray!” [33]
God forbid, indeed, that we should say this of a man, because he “once hath missed the right way;” (nor is Spenser answerable as implying that doctrine, as the context will show:) but at least the thought is suggested which might have assisted the Committee of Council in considering whether there may not be a time when it will be lawful and reasonable to give thanks to God, if the removal of a man unprepared, has yet removed him from only fresh sins, and saved a soul from greater punishment. Neither, let it be observed, is it in the least necessary to this view to suppose that we are either called upon, or able, to determine who among the departed have so fallen past grace, that an immediate death was the only mercy left for them. It is sufficient that such an explanation can be given, if perplexity should appear to be involved in the fact that for every one for whom our burial service is used, thanks are given “that it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself,” or “to deliver, this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.” [34a]
Again: there is the treatment of the service for private baptism. In one or two respects this service is unquestionably stronger in its wording than the office for public baptism, as to regeneration being the gift of baptism, which made a careful examination of it very important. Let us therefore see how the Committee of Privy Council have dealt with it.
In the certificate of the due baptism of children privately baptized, when brought to be received into the Church, (and Sir H. J. Fust has very properly pointed out that “this is not the certificate of the minister,” (who had baptized the child,) “but the certificate of the Church” (to the congregation) “founded upon the answers given as to what had been done;” [34b] in this certificate,) it is stated that the child, having been “born in original sin, and in the wrath of God, is now, BY THE LAVER OF REGENERATION IN BAPTISM, received into the number of the children of God, and heirs of everlasting life; for our Lord Jesus Christ doth not deny his grace and mercy unto such infants, but most lovingly doth call them unto Him;” [34c] and in the further part of his office, where the priest is directed to declare what benefits that child hath received, and how received them, the words are, “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is by BAPTISM regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church;” [35a] where, in the corresponding place in the public office, the two words, “by baptism” do not occur. Mr. Badeley had drawn especial attention to this point; and had most aptly explained why they are introduced in the private office, and omitted in the public. “Omitted, (he says) not being necessary there, where the rite was being administered.” [35b] The Church does not seem to have contemplated any judicial-committee-hypothesis to separate the benefits mentioned, from the whole service in which their mention occurs; nor to have provided any safeguard against eyes prying curiously into the point, whether, though all these benefits are declared to be given in the very office for the ministration of public baptism, yet, perhaps, it might not be “by baptism” after all. But in the office for private baptism, the very words, “by baptism,” do occur; “important here, (as Mr. Badeley continued,) that the regeneration might be exclusively referred to the previous administration in private;” that no one might be under any possible doubt that it was by no rite or ceremony of admission into the congregation, by nothing else but by baptism itself, before administered, that the child became partaker of all the privileges of a Christian.
I wish to draw out this point a little further, because it seems to me to bear much upon the ability of the judgment. That judgment acknowledges (as it cannot help doing) that the office for private baptism provides for “a baptism which may have taken place without any prayer for grace, or any sponsors,” [36a] but it deals with it “as exceptional,” as “intended only for cases of emergency;” and seems to put by the argument to be drawn from it as nothing worth upon that ground. But is it intended by this that the benefits of baptism, whatever they be, are not given in cases of emergency, as well as in cases of leisure? Is it meant by the judicial committee that the effects are different, the blessings less full, the statements less to be relied upon, as to what is given the child and how given, in one case than in the other? It almost seems as if they thought so. “The private baptism of infants (they tell us) is an exceptional case provided for an emergency, and for which, if the emergency passes away, although there is to be no repetition of the baptism, a full service is provided.” [36b] I do believe, if the rubric had not been absolutely too strong for them, (“Let them not doubt but that the child so baptized is lawfully and sufficiently baptized, and ought not to be baptized again;”) that they would have wished well to the idea of some further baptism than this “exceptional” proceeding, and (I say, but for this rubric,) would have tried to make out there was some completion of the sacrament in the latter part of the office used when the child is brought into the Church, that the congregation may be certified respecting the baptism. Nay, one almost wonders they have not done so as it is: for surely there might have been found as much implication, that there is ground for doubt in the words, “Let them not doubt;” as there can be for the “amazing” assertion in another place, that the very earnestness of the prayers of the Church afford an argument “for thinking that they are not uniformly granted.” Why should we pray (is the argument of the judges, [37a]) “for that which God has promised to give unconditionally.” “Those who are strongly impressed with the earnest prayers which are offered for the divine blessing and the grace of God, may not unreasonably suppose that the grace is not necessarily tied to the rite, but that it ought to be earnestly and devoutly prayed for, in order that it may THEN, or when God pleases, be present to make the rite beneficial.” [37b] Such is absolutely a part of the actual judgment delivered by this court, sitting as a solemn court of appeal, to weigh and determine the force of words, and to draw necessary consequences from them. Surely they might equally have argued, “Those who need to be instructed ‘not to doubt,’ may not unreasonably suppose that there must be some ground for doubt, or else why should they be thus cautioned;” and so make a reason out of the very rubric in question for supposing a child baptized with this “exceptional” baptism, is not thereby “lawfully and sufficiently baptized.”
And in truth the Judicial Committee do seem to come very near to believing, if they do not actually believe, that something more is essential to baptism than the form appointed in the private office, provides, for they tell us, “Any other conclusion” (than that the promises of the sureties are implied,) “would be an argument to prove that none but the imperfect and incomplete ceremony allowed in the exceptional case would be necessary in any case” (sic.) This looks as if they had no notion of what are the essentials of baptism at all, and then it appears they use their ignorance as an argument, a fortiori, to establish their heretical conclusion. They are ignorant that “nothing more is necessary in any case,” and therefore they deem the benefits do not come to the child in and by baptism. I cannot call this able or acute; quite independently of all view as to the truth or falsehood of the conclusion they arrive at.
But still further on this very point; consider how sharp-sighted they have been to see that the words “by baptism,” do not occur in another place. “It is certain by God’s word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.” Yes! (says the Court) saved no doubt—Mr. Gorham does not deny it—by prevenient grace; (which their death, he thinks, proves them to have had; though this too seems rather a charitable construction than anything else; founded, so far as I see, “upon no sure warranty” of either “Scripture,” or the Church’s teaching;) saved, however, again says the Court, but not by baptism. “This Rubric does not, like the article of 1536, say that such children are saved by baptism.” [38] Thus sharp-sighted are they to see what makes for the side they advocate (no one can feel it to be too strong a word); whilst all notice of the very same words occurring where they might be difficult to construe in the same sense is entirely omitted. “Seeing, dearly beloved brethren” (says the office for private baptism), “that this child is by baptism regenerate.” Here there is surely a plain statement how, and when it is, the regeneration takes place. But the words do not occur in the public office; and so they are ignored apparently as being “exceptional,” as if they could mean nothing. Let us see, carefully, what this amounts to, if pursued and followed out. Instead of taking Mr. Badeley’s most reasonable argument into consideration, that the thing intended is exactly the same in each case, only it was too plain to require to be stated that the regeneration was by baptism in the public office, when the declaration “seeing this child is regenerate” is made in the very midst of the celebration, immediately upon the administration of the sacrament; but that it was stated in the other service to prevent all doubtfulness as to when, and by what means, the regeneration was given to the child;—instead, therefore, of interpreting the one office by the other; instead of saying we must suppose regeneration, and grafting into the body of Christ to be the same, and attained by the same means in each case, the Court appears to have said simply, we will ignore the office which is most express, as an “exceptional case,” and proceed upon the wording of the other only. But see, yet again, what this amounts to; it is declaring that there is a difference of the gift in these different baptisms. Take ten children baptized privately, who have lived to be brought to church, and ten baptized publicly, and of the first ten you will have it said by the Church that they are “by baptism regenerate:” of the others that they are regenerate—but, according to the Gorham phraseology—by prevenient grace, and not by baptism; or, by the Privy Council’s exposition of this (not exactly a correct one, however), “taking place either before, in, or after baptism.” Is any man in his senses expected to believe such a mode of interpretation to be sound and true; or the way to make the Church’s services agree together; or that it is a due application of the principle to let the services explain each other, as would be the case in any and all ordinary legal documents. Why! according to this rule, the right and blessed thing for parents to do, would be, not to bring their children to church to be baptized as soon as they can; not to give any heed to the exhortation of “the curate of every parish, often admonishing the people that they defer not the baptism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other holy-day falling between unless upon a great and reasonable cause;” [40] but in every possible case TO defer the baptism, till the children may be sick, and then procure them to be baptized privately. Then will they have the Church’s assurance that “their infants are by baptism regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ;”—then will they make the exception the rule, and take all advantage of the “exceptional case;”—then may they feel that knowing when the regeneration took place, they may be sure it has taken place;—but if they be obedient and faithful to the Church’s exhortation; and bring their infants soon to church to be baptised, then indeed, according to the Gorham theology, and the Privy Council’s judgment upon it, then will they have no knowledge whether “remission of their sins by spiritual regeneration” hath come to their babes at all, every thing being dependent upon the prevenient grace, which no one pretends is given to all infants; and though, (it is said,) to some, yet no one can pretend to say, to which!
The Privy Council, although this point of the force of the words “regenerate by baptism” in the office for private ministration, was pressed upon them by Mr. Badeley, take no notice at all of it I think in their judgment; merging all they had to say on the subject of that office in “its being exceptional,” and “intended for an emergency.” I cannot deem this clear-sighted and acute. If I thought it so, I could not by any compulsion think it honest. I do not impugn their honesty; but they must (and will find they must in time) take the world’s verdict as to the ability of such reasoning.
One other passage I must briefly notice: “The whole Catechism” (the court tells us) “requires a charitable construction, such as must be given to the expression, ‘God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.’” Thus it is evident the Judicial Committee have lived so out of all theological training and the commonest catechetical instruction, that it has never occurred to them this passage can have a literal meaning. They seem never to have heard or dreamed of such a thing as “the elect people of God” being, the baptized; never to have supposed that the words “God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth,” might be descriptive of the office of the Holy Spirit, and mean (surely an easy and natural sense enough) who is the Sanctifier of; never, consequently, to have considered the possibility that the intention of the whole passage might be (and be thus literally true), that it is God the Holy Ghost who is the Sanctifier of the baptized, at their baptism at any rate, although such persons may no doubt afterwards fall away, grieve or quench him, and drive him from them. [42] Again I say, they use their own ignorance on a point upon which any catechumen might have taught them better, as a cumulative argument to explain the whole Catechism in an hypothetical and unreal sense, such as they tell us must be given to these words. Truly, if, like the boy in the tale, the Court had expressed their thankfulness for their ignorance, (and it is, I fear, their best friend as to many parts of this decision’s merits,) one would be tempted to agree with the response there given, that they “have a great deal undoubtedly for which to be thankful.”
I do not think, then, I could call this document, put forth to the world after so long a preparation, and known by the court itself to be of so much importance, a clever paper, even if looked upon merely as the exercise of an advocate, desired to make up a judgment upon a “foregone conclusion.” But assuredly this is one thing; to be an able judicial document is another:—another and so different a thing, that I presume there will be little dispute, whether among lawyers, or any men of sense, that for a judicial document to be (if it be) but the subtil, ingenious effort of a partisan, is so far from even faint praise, that it is the most disastrous imputation which could rest upon a judge’s character, to have been a party in any such transaction as the framing it. I cannot either call it talent of any high character, to see all that makes for one view, and nothing that makes against it. I cannot praise that discrimination which is only great at finding a solution to one-sided difficulties. I cannot consider these as the marks of an able judge, however they may be the natural characteristics or proceedings of an advocate or partizan. Yet let me explain;—even so, I do not say a partizan is by any means necessarily a dishonest man. The habit of being biassed by what we much wish, is as natural as, in some cases, to forecast what we much fear. It works even unconsciously to ourselves, and is not inconsistent with the most upright intention, nay, sometimes, not with the most earnest endeavour after truth. But certainly he only is to be called a great judge who can master this habit; whose mental discipline is such, that he can abstract himself from these circumstances of his wishes, and in spite of all the promptings of his heart, preserve the coolness of his head; who can divest himself, when he takes his place on his judicial throne, almost of his personal existence, and pass judgment as if the world would end to-morrow. The calculation of consequences; the being guided by what shall make most for peace, or any other desiderated end, is one of the snares to be most carefully shunned by any man who would occupy a distinguished place in the temple of justice. He has no pretence to stand upon the roll of fame, as eminent in his calling as a judge, whose eyes wander into the future, whose mind is pondering the consequences which may ensue. Such an one shows manifestly that he is unable to separate his judgment from his advocacy; his judicial character from the wishes and bias of his mind; and therefore, though a very honest man it may be, still that he is deficient in the first of all the qualities necessary to form a great judicial character, or secure a lasting judicial name.