What then could we say is the teaching of our Church upon the inspiration of Scripture, if we had no appeal to ancient law, usage, or belief? The whole, which it was thought necessary to declare upon this matter at the reformation, is contained in the sixth Article, and that deals not with the inspiration of Scripture at all, a point not in dispute, but with its sufficiency, as containing all things necessary to salvation, as opposed to a particular view of tradition. That article also enumerates the canonical books, and speaks of their “authority;” (the Church also, we may remember, is said to have “authority,” in another article, but many who assent to that would scruple perhaps to say they believe in her inspiration); and I do not think any man can say that there is in the article in question any declaration either that those books which are canonical are inspired, or those which are uncanonical are uninspired; not of course, in the least, that it was intended to throw a doubt upon the inspiration of the Scriptures, but that the articles, and even the formularies of the Church of England were not drawn up to declare all points of belief, because the Church unhesitatingly threw herself upon all previous doctrine, except where in any particular case she saw cause to alter, correct, or repeal. Just in the same way consider many other points. What strict belief should we have, upon the other hypothesis, as to the existence and power of evil spirits; or the eternity of punishment; or what rule for the observance of the Lord’s Day (save just as any other holy-day); or what mode of ascertaining the Church’s mind upon very many other subjects which have arisen or may arise, especially with regard to the pantheistic tendencies and theories of modern times, not treated of because utterly unknown and uncontemplated in the sixteenth century, if we were tied down to the mere wording of the reformation documents, but which are all of them capable of refutation in the broad expanse of doctrine preserved from the beginning! It will, I think, be plain to any one who will pursue this subject into its details, that the connexion of our Church with the Church previous to the reformation, is a fact necessarily to be assumed by us all, unless we would bring the whole question of her doctrine into a manifestly false position. To suppose this connexion to be wholly dissolved, is in truth such an evident reductio ad absurdum, as amounts to a full proof that no party of men, I do not say of great ability, but of an ordinary reason, could have intended to adopt that theory. Therefore it is impossible to believe that our reformers, in drawing up articles of religion, “to avoid diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true religion,” and which treated of course of the diversities which then prevailed; and in putting forth practical offices of devotion, could, I say, have designed to ignore all that previous body of doctrine, which happened not to come into direct mention in those documents. If they had not purposed to retain the provincial ordinances of their own country, they might be expected plainly to have said so; but even if they had done this, they must have cast themselves upon the general teaching of the Church Universal, in a manner from which after all we should have nothing to fear, or, they would have left the Church they were reforming in such a bareness and nakedness of doctrine altogether, as no opponent of the Catholic character of our Church has ever pretended to imagine or assert. On this ground therefore, once more, I cannot but believe that the conclusion which you held and so lucidly expressed in 1848 is tenable and sound; and therefore that what we are still bound to teach, is the exclusive doctrine of the Church Catholic, unless the further explications on any matter at the reformation render it not merely ambiguous, as far as the documents of the reformation are themselves concerned, (this is insufficient to harm us, and nothing to the purpose,) but positively heretical, and absolutely contrariant to “the faith once delivered to the saints.”
You will see what I mean by saying that mere ambiguity in our reformation documents will not harm us, is this, that we have a prior and superior rule to appeal to, (if the preceding argument be sound,) by which such ambiguity will be corrected. No one pretends there can be any hurtful ambiguity or insufficiency in the connected teaching of the Church Catholic; and therefore wheresoever we may take refuge in that to cover any omissions or defects, if such there be, on essential doctrine in our later rule, we shall take no damage. The only thing which would really harm us, would be absolute contradiction of the truth, or positive assertion that such or such essential points were intended to be left vague and ambiguous. But this would be harmful, because in fact such declarations would not be merely declarations of vagueness or ambiguity, but would be heresy; would not be to assert, of two conflicting doctrines, that the Church teaches both, but, in fact, to rule that she teaches neither. No one however will, I think, pretend to say that the Church of England has said any where, in so many words, that she means to leave open such or such a doctrine, which the Church Catholic has closed. Perhaps you will say, “Not in so many words:—but by inference she does it; by her undecided manner where she has dealt with the topic, by the laxity which her words too evidently permit, by the known bias and opinions of many of those who framed them.” This, however, is just what I have been saying amounts to nothing against the previous unrepealed doctrine to which she is to be referred, and the consent of Catholic antiquity, by which she is really bound. I do assert such a repeal, if it be no more, is no repeal at all. No statute law can be so set aside, and assuredly not this, the law of Christ and his Church. If, indeed, we had only what the Reformation left us; if we were constrained to think all needful doctrine was there treated, and fully treated of; if any document of authority of that period had declared that no previous doctrine was admissible, unless then repeated and specially recognized; that nothing was important as a matter of faith beyond what the writings of that time included in their summaries, or embraced in their definitions; if the reformation had thus pronounced itself aὐτάpχης, and thus separated its Church and doctrine from primitive antiquity and the faith of Christendom, then indeed should we see that we were “in evil case,” to be required “to make bricks,” and yet to have “no straw given us.” But, since there is no such document, and no plausible evidence of even any such design, we trust we may put aside all fear that we are in this dilemma, and still build up our doctrine upon the sure foundation of “that which hath been from the beginning.”
Will you say? “I allow you have the old teaching upon points not mentioned at the reformation, but on no others: where any thing is treated of at all, it is definitely settled by whatever is set down; and thereupon no regard must be paid to any complement of doctrine derived from earlier teaching.” I answer, on what authority are we to receive this arbitrary distinction? Surely not upon the shewing of any direct evidence: if so, produce it. Not on the implied injunction or animus of the Church at the reformation, for she is full of appeals to precedent teaching on all points. Not on that of the state, for, as I have been shewing, at the very least, and if it do not enjoin the direct contrary, it enforces no such prohibition. And if the reformers of the ecclesiastical polity of that day intended any such restriction in their appeals to earlier times, (which I do not think they did) yet in that case, as it appears to me, God has overruled their intention, and brought to nought their counsel, by their having left no record to bind any man’s conscience in the Church of England to such a denial of Catholic theology. And who shall say, if they “intended to include” but “did not include”, the latitudinarian rule; [87] if these things be so indeed, it was not for this very purpose they have fallen out after such a fashion; that even after so many practical abuses as we know have crept in among us, after so many years when the ancient landmarks have been well nigh removed from sight, after so much deadness of heart among mere formal religionists, and so much running after novelties among the more earnest, enthusiastic, or self-willed, after all these things, and after so long a period of darkness on the land, yet now when there has been again a brightening, an awakening, “a zeal” more “according to knowledge,” a regard to antiquity, and a longing for the religion of apostles and apostolic men of old time, that now we might indeed have that to fall back upon which should prove our safety: might find the landmarks were only buried, not removed: might experience indeed and in truth that “heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and might in that morning’s light be able to clear the path again which leadeth “into all truth,” and so walk onward into the “bright shining of the perfect day.”
Here too you will perceive why I said in the early part of this letter that it was important to state plainly what it was to which I had committed myself with respect to the animus of the reformers, and that this matter of intention being clearly understood, would be found to have a necessary bearing upon our present subject as we proceeded. If I had asserted the authority of the animus of the reformers to explain the meaning of the documents they put forth, interminable questions might be raised as to the subjects on which there could or could not be considered enough of ambiguity to allow the appeal to the previous Church. But, as I have before explained, not any where intending to assert that the sense of those documents was to be determined by the intentions or opinions of their framers, I trust I am in no dilemma here when I cannot admit the animus of the reformers, even if it were proved to have been to exclude such appeals, to be a reason for their exclusion. Even if the animus of ever so large a body of them could be absolutely shewn to have been to conciliate all parties by leaving open questions on essential doctrines in the formularies they put forth; if even they believed of themselves they had attained this end, yet as they forgot (if we may use the term) to break asunder the bond which connected the Church of England at that date with herself in the preceding ages, and with the Church Catholic, they left us all we want, to maintain the one faith once delivered, the faith of Christ our Lord, and of his Church from the beginning. If this result came by inadvertence, (as perhaps they might say) but of God’s great mercy, and the stretching forth of his arm over us, (as I should affirm) i.e. not by the oversight of man, but by the overseeing of God, still, any way, the rule of a Catholic theology has been retained, and their counsel has been brought to nought, so as merely to give us, as perhaps I may allow, from one point of view the semblance, but in no wise the reality of a lax rule of faith.
There is one argument indeed which, if it could be supported, might prove the rule to be really lax. I mean if it might be maintained with truth, that there are declarations in our articles, or doctrines in our formularies not merely ambiguous, or less clearly defined on the Catholic side than we might wish, but actually repugnant to the faith and contradictory to it. Of course this would be a fatal objection to the whole line of argument I have been using; for it would show, so far at any rate, a repeal of the previous doctrine, and preclude our gaining that reference to it on which I have been insisting. But I shall need take no great time or toil to show that this is not the case. You grant me the point yourself, not merely in your treatise on absolution, in 1848, but in the very letter to which I am now replying. Thus you concede it in the passage already quoted, and even in the very charge you make—“I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and teaches, &c.;’ but—that the Church of England now suffers and permits to be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the Prayer Book, not ‘must be understood,’ but ‘may be understood,’ to mean all that was meant before the year 1540.” [89] Your charge against the present state of the Church, you will observe is no more than that questions are left open; it is not that heresy is exclusively maintained or enforced. Again, to the same purport are the following passages: “Remember, I am in no degree withdrawing from the full extent of the assertion, repeated more than once, that the Church of England leaves ‘open’ so many deep and important questions.” [90a] So, in another passage, where you speak of the Eucharistic sacrifice—“Again I remind you that I am very far from saying now that the Catholic doctrine is denied and repudiated . . . for I have for many years taught (and as you know, have lately published in a sermon) that in the blessed Eucharist the body and the blood of our Lord are truly offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.” [90b] It is plain you do not think this denied by the English Church; but your complaint is, that the articles and liturgy do not peremptorily enforce it.
Again, in commenting upon the “real presence,” and the words of the Catechism, that the body and blood are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful, you say, “At the risk of weary repetition, let me once more say, that of course this place of the Catechism does not assert that the body and blood of Christ are not verily and indeed taken by all; and if there were in other places of our formularies anything even approaching to a statement of the reality of the presence of our blessed Lord in the consecrated bread and wine, independently of any qualifications or dispositions in the soul of the receiver, we might be able to show at once and distinctly that these passages in the liturgy and catechism cannot justly mean what they are generally brought forward to prove.” [91] I need not multiply quotations on this head, though I believe I have not nearly exhausted the passages I might cite. In short, your whole letter merely charges the heresy of “open questions” upon our Church, not the heresy of our being forbidden on any point to teach the catholic truth. And I say again, if this be all, we fall back at once upon your own former principle, though now by you abandoned and forsaken. We say, that we are not left to these the documents of the reformation alone, and therefore, if there are in them deficiencies merely negative, which is all your charge, we can supply the necessary teaching from those deeper wells of truth from which, whether intentionally or otherwise, the promoters and managers of the reformation have not debarred us. Neither the Church nor State enactments hinder, as I contend, this appeal; and observe, if we MAY make it, we MUST. We are not at liberty to use it if we please, and discard it if we please, for it is “the voice of the Church of England,”—a voice, as I firmly believe, which, if duly listened for, and scrupulously obeyed, will clear up every open question which the Church Catholic demands should be cleared up, and will answer every charge which a shallow observation of only the later documents, of the reformation, might bring against us. So fair and strong from these considerations do the grounds of hope and confidence appear, that I am tempted to paraphrase, though in a contradictory sense, one of the most despairing pages of your letter. You argue, “It is not necessary to pretend to know the dealings of Almighty God with men and nations so accurately, as to attempt to lay one’s finger upon the one, two, or three special acts which may avail to cut off any portion of the one holy Catholic Church;” [92a] and then you further bid us think whether with us the actual cutting off may not have been at the reformation, although a certain life may have been found for a time even in the severed limb. I am not concerned indeed to deny that there may have been much in the reformation to wound the branch; but I also maintain that its connection with the parent stem never having been severed, the life remains, and the wound may be wholly healed. [92b] ‘As regards the Church of England in particular, it may be that the so-called reformation contained—perhaps unknown to the original promoters of it’—precious ‘seeds’ of good ‘to bring in a certain though slow’ revival of all vital powers weakened by so great a shock; ‘and that then either’ old principles were secretly preserved, which in their after development would most surely avail to the restoration of all essential truths, or new principles were, unintentionally perhaps, so guarded and circumscribed that ‘the gradual course of time,’ as they came to be applied, would show them to be harmless. ‘Or, once more, it may be with portions of the Church Catholic as with the vine her mysterious type. “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” were the words of our blessed Lord, speaking of his body the Church, of which he is himself the Head. And we may well conceive how a branch,’ partially injured by some disease or canker, may suffer from the pruning-knife which endeavours to eradicate it; and yet in a period,—longer or shorter, as the case may be,—never having been severed from the stem, but deriving from IT the fulness of its life and sap, may wholly recover from the wound which the knife has made, and after a time flourish again in its pristine vigour, even as in its days of early youth, before any corruption had laid hold upon it, and bring forth fruit again an hundredfold for its master’s use; though requiring time to heal its wound, yet certain to be restored, if no fresh accident befall it, because of its union with the parent tree.’
I know well, analogies and similitudes may be made on all sides, and in support of almost anything. I know also, however useful as illustrations to clear our meaning, and to answer objections taken in limine, yet how little they can be relied upon as proofs: but I venture upon this antagonistic paraphrase of your illustration, that I may ask the question, whether perchance the view sustained by mine may not as probably be the truth as that sustained by your’s; and that I may express my trust we shall none of us be led astray from doing all that duty bids us do, in the tendance of our branch of the vine, by any such similitudes as those you have advanced, if the principle of your letter may be supposed to have found an answer; if, upon the grounds I have endeavoured to draw out, we may claim our union with the parent tree; in short, if the fact of the severance of the reformed Church of England from the Church Catholic be not made out beyond question or dispute. Until it be so proved, I at any rate feel it to be my duty stedfastly to cleave to her; not being blind to practical shortcomings, not refusing to acknowledge the dangers which beset her, even to the extent that she may so bend to the spirit of the world, and recognize the erastian liberalism of this day and age, that she may, instead of rising up again, be wofully and entirely cast down, but certainly not seeing that God hath so cast her down as yet. I do not, and I cannot take this as proved, or as done already, and therefore cannot accept the statements of your letter, nor the conclusions to which they lead. For you ought to have proved in detail, not that our Church’s articles or formularies since the middle of the sixteenth century, taken by themselves, or interpreted by cotemporary opinions, admit a double meaning, but that they actually exclude the sense and meaning of the Church previous to 1540; because if they do less than this, the admission in themselves of open questions (if it be so) is qualified and overruled by the earlier unexcluded dogmatic teaching; and I say it boldly, in spite of the scorn and contumely with which the liberalism of the day will greet such a sentiment, the present Church of England must thereby be understood to require all those ancient dogmas to be enforced, as the ONE ONLY TRUE SENSE of documents, themselves perhaps, by themselves, capable of a doubtful interpretation. Nothing less than the having “plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary” will annul this obligation, and herein, as I believe, and as I have endeavoured now to show, will be found, in God’s providence, the safeguard and shield which He has thrown over this branch of his Church,—a safeguard and a shield, under the which we may rest a little while, “until this tyranny be overpast,” until she shall be able not merely to claim, but again to use, “the whole armour of God,” and convince the world practically of her teaching as well as holding “the Catholic faith whole and undefiled.” I do not, I dare not, shrink from the thought that further proof, shall I say trial, on this point awaits us. In God’s time and in God’s way I expect it. Humbly and reverently I trust I may add, “Let it come.” Perhaps it may be nearer than we think; for it is evident those who agree with me at all in the defence I have here set up against the charge of want of dogmatic teaching, must, in these days, as the assault upon catholic truth grows fiercer, be even more and more distinct, earnest, and plain-spoken in its assertion. As we claim, so will we, if it please God, more and more use the ancient faith, whether men “will hear, or whether they will forbear.” Not indeed as a process of tentation upon the Church, but as a simple matter of duty, and as a safeguard to our people, lest unawares, and step by step, they “forfeit all their creed.” But this, one way or another, is likely to bring us to a trial, and to a very practical solution of the questions raised, perhaps I may say somewhat speculatively, in your letter. If the Church of England then “will not endure sound doctrine,” let her say so. It may be we shall have immediately to distinguish between the voice of the Church and the voice of the establishment; but at any rate, let the Church speak out. Our perils are too great and too pressing on the side of acquiescence in heresy, to give us any option now as to speaking or keeping silence. Will you tell me that the bishops of our Church neither hold nor will tolerate these ancient doctrines; that they will soon settle this matter, “make a short work,” speak out, and show us the true Anglican faith; and drive from the Church of England those whose walk and whose heart are with a faith older than three hundred years? God forbid that I should sin against them by believing you. God forbid that I should believe any such thing, unless I live to see it. But if it should be so indeed; if the erastianism and latitudinarianism of the day should so have eaten, or should ever so eat their way into the heart of our episcopate, that such assertion of our Church’s catholicity, such clinging to ancient doctrine, such walking with the Church of the Apostles, and the religion derived in uninterrupted succession from them, shall be no longer endured among us, then let them know assuredly that they who bring this to pass,—they who drive the matter to such a point,—they who take the aggressive against sound doctrine, and ancient faith, will be responsible for that which shall follow, and will excite and evoke a spirit, with the which they and all their’s will in vain contend. They will do that which will provoke, not dribbling secessions, here a few and there a few, but that which, setting up the mark of Jeroboam in the land, as the symbol and banner of the establishment, will drive from it and them all the true priesthood and really Church feeling of the country. Then will there be, either a return to the Roman communion such as “neither their fathers nor they” have ever dreamed of, or a free Episcopacy, which shall cast aside the establishment as an “accursed thing,” throw itself upon Christendom for communion, and appeal to a general council of Christendom for approval, and, shaking to the very centre the whole religion of this country, shall gather into its own bosom, I will not say all that is good and holy, but all that is good and holy, and has with this goodness and this holiness any distinctive Church knowledge or Church feeling. Men who calculate consequences, if there be such, may well ponder these things, before they tremble “at the fear of man,” or think any way safer than the old paths, and the ancient faith. Let no man say I threaten wrongly, or threaten vainly. I desire not to threaten at all; but I know what I write; and truly, “is there not a cause?” Let all, friends and foes alike, know and well weigh on what a sea they are now embarked. Let them be prepared for what must come, if there be anything like faint-heartedness or cowardice among us, anything like treason to the Catholic faith in those in high place. Let it be known well that we, who are firmest and plainest in declaring the duty of cleaving to the Church of England now, and so are fighting her battle against you, and those like you, who take the easier perhaps, at any rate the shorter, road to escape from her embarrassments, that we do not pretend if the difficulty should arise that we cannot remain members of the English Church, and members of the Church catholic at the same time, we can hesitate as to our duty. Neither can we unlearn all that we have learned from the ancient fountain-heads of doctrine, and believe the catholic faith to be a thing of yesterday, or square it by the liberal theories of modern schools. We have drunk too deeply from the well-heads of antiquity for this to be possible. We can no more go back and believe the catholic truths we have imbibed to be no more than superstitious inventions and human figments, than we could return to the system of Ptolemy, and believe this earth to be the centre round which the sun and the stars revolve. These things we cannot do; but certainly we can, in mind and theory, and we do in fact, separate the ideas of the Church and the establishment, and can contemplate the possible arrival of a time and circumstance when the one must be kept to at the expense of the total abnegation of the other. And here foreseeing, we also count the cost. We compute whether we be able, “with ten thousand, to meet him that cometh against us with twenty thousand,” and in His name, and with His presence, who has promised to be “with His Church always,” we are not fearful, and shall not be careful if we must let the establishment go. We sit down to “build our tower,” not without considering whether we have “sufficient to finish;” and again, in the riches of His grace, we deem we have. We would make it “after the pattern which has been showed us,” and know then full well it will be a building which shall be able to shelter, and an ark which shall be able to save, all that are committed to us, all who will take refuge in it. To attain this, we are ready to sacrifice all but truth, to fight against all but God!
But I say once more, our perils are too great at the present time to allow of silence in the Church, to admit of any compromise or uncertainty, when inquisition is made as to what we hold, or teach our people. Let the Church of England speak, and speak unequivocally, and we shall know what to think. Let her courts, duly constituted, and especially her synods if they may meet, pronounce what she will bear, and what she will not bear; what she will recognize as her own with a mother’s love; what she will repudiate and put from her with a step-mother’s aversion. Then shall we know our duties, and see our way. Then perchance will it be found the State has reckoned unwarily, and counted upon too much. Then, if it try to bind her with the chains of the spirit of the day, may it be seen of all men that they are but as “green withs,” or “as threads of tow touched by the fire,” to bind the mighty. Even should the State prevail in mere numbers, who shall say but there shall be found some high in authority, and endowed with the powers of the Apostolate, who will stand “valiantly for the truth,” and “be of good courage, and behave themselves valiantly for their people, and for the cities of their God,” and use their powers, and the authority received from Christ, to shake, as I have said, the establishment to its fall, if there be any effort, by means of it, to take from us “one jot or tittle” of the faith? If they do this, even but six, or three, or two, or one among them, with the Creeds and Christendom to back them, surely we shall know what to do also. If they do not, we shall again know both what to think and what to do! Surely then God will “make a way under us for to go,” and at his word alone, we shall go forth; not certainly, as I should go forth now, were I to follow your steps, and remove from the place where He has cast my lot, with no light upon my path, no assurance, no conviction, no belief that I was proceeding under his guidance, or doing that which is according to his will. Rather, I cannot but adopt, and with it I will conclude this part of my present subject, the noble profession of thankful confidence made by yourself at the close of your treatise on absolution, where, acknowledging the singular preservation to us of a very minute particular, (involving, as you considered, important doctrine,) even a single letter in one of our rubrics, you thus expressed yourself:—
“The more I consider this circumstance, with the more heartfelt thankfulness and confidence do I look upon it as a token among many hardly to be unseen of the care and guiding with which the Almighty Head of the Universal Church ceaselessly has guarded, to his own wise ends and purposes, this our Church of England. These considerations, and such as these, bring their especial comfort. Some men, perhaps, may be indifferent about them. For myself, at one time in one thing, and at another in another, light and trivial as alone or singly they may or might have been together in their accumulation they supply—not arguments merely, for that in comparison would be a poor result, but—patience, in days of dispute and difficulty, in days of trial and obloquy and reproach; motives, again, to exertion and untiring labour in our Church’s cause; constant confirmation of the sacred truths which I believe she holds; and above all, with God’s most gracious help, an undoubting determination to endeavour by all means, and in every possible way, under her own holy shadow and protection, still and for ever to defend her against avowed enemies from without, and against mistaken friends within.” [101]
Although these remarks have extended far beyond the length which I contemplated when I began them, I am unwilling to bring my letter to a close without adverting to one or two points further, connected with the whole subject of which I have been treating, and the prospects which are before us. I have said, “I think we have the time, and I trust we have the means, effectually, though it may be gradually, to vindicate our Church.” [102] You may ask, perhaps, “What are these means?” You may say, “Deeply as many may feel the present crisis; earnest as they are to disclaim the decision of the Judicial Committee, that Mr. Gorham is fit to hold a benefice with cure of souls in the Church of England; determined as they may be to leave nothing undone which may be done to shake off the grasp of state interference with her spiritual rights and jurisdiction; yet what can they do more than uselessly agitate, or hopelessly complain? I know well,” you may say, “you are looking to the revival of the Church’s synodical functions; to the restoration of her convocation, to set all these matters right; to clear her doctrine, and consolidate her freedom. But these things are too uncertain and too distant to be accounted of. If you have nothing nearer and more direct than these, or such hopes as these for remedies, I can but reckon them ‘as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’ You will sooner be committed to the denial of the whole faith, than regain from the ingrained superstitious erastianism of this day and this people, the slightest approach to ‘the churchmen’ being permitted in their convocation to ‘do the work which is proper unto them.’” Now, I do not think this, yet I will not argue it:—but will rather come to something nearer and more direct as, at any rate, the beginning of a remedy. This, then I say, is nearer:—direct to clear ourselves individually from blame, and, it may be, competent in time to work for us an efficient cure either with or without the consent of the State, as God in his providence shall order. This I say:—to break communion with the Archbishop, and with those who uphold him in upholding the judgment of the Privy Council. This is a course open to us all; and is a direct course towards one part, at any rate, of our objects—the freeing ourselves from blame. Perilous, however, as our position is, I do not say the time has come for this to be done as yet; much less that I am competent to decide when such time shall have arrived. But I mention the thought, that you may perceive men’s minds are not without the suggestion of something immediate, practical, and real. However fearful the thought of such a course; however loth we may be to contemplate it; however startling it may sound in many ears to hear a priest in the Church of England speak such words, as of cutting himself off from communion with the primate of his Church; yet it is so far more fearful to think of that Church coming to deny an article of the creed, falling into such a condition that no Christian Church in ancient times would have communicated with her; (and this, I will plainly say, is what I think we are in danger of coming to, and shall come to if we acquiesce in the present state of things; and) this is so much more fearful than the alternative I have suggested, that I feel it is only right to call attention to that alternative, as a means by which we may escape being “partaker of other men’s sins.” Your difficulty is, whether a man may lawfully remain a member of the Church of England and trust his soul to her keeping. Mine would be to justify myself in leaving her whilst such a remedy remained in my hand unused. Surely if we are able to separate ourselves from all responsibility in the latitudinarian guilt, it will be sufficient for us, for the time at any rate, and may besides result in further good. If our archbishops or archbishop should bring things to that pass that no early Church would have communicated with them, then, no doubt, if we cannot escape from implication with what they have done, we shall be ourselves involved in the desert of excommunication; but if we can do what those very Churches would have done, we may hope this will avail to show we should not have been cast out of the communion of Christendom. If we can so separate ourselves from their deed, and the erastian influences which admit heresy, that we should have been received by all early Churches as “the orthodox,” or “the Catholics” of the English Church—then I do not think we shall have any excuse for deserting our spiritual mother for the blandishments of another communion, for anything that has been done as yet. Thoughts of this method of proceeding, and musings whether the time has not come openly to disclaim communion with all those who support the Judgment of the Privy Council in the recent case, have been now for many months in the minds of some. Thus I may cite the very passage quoted by yourself, at the close of your first letter, from Mr. Keble’s first number of “Church matters in 1850.” “If the decision be adverse, it needs to be distinctly proved that a bishop or archbishop acting on that decision would not involve in heresy both himself and all in communion with him.” p. 26. Again, the same author has said: “In old time, such a step” viz. as the archbishops have taken, “would have been met by the Christian people withdrawing from their communion for a time.” [105a] It is true the writer did not appear then to contemplate such a measure as possible for us; and added some explanations at a later date on this point, showing what were our peculiar difficulties in reference to it: yet he added, at the same time, “I do not say that such interruption of communion may not even now be an orthodox bishop’s duty; although, as yet, by God’s good providence, the contingency which we have been told would make it so has not occurred.” (I presume this means the Archbishop’s institution of Mr. Gorham.) “I do not say that it may not ere long be a priest’s, or even a layman’s, duty; I only say that it is not the step for priests or laymen to take just now.” [105b] Again, let it be remembered, that as might be expected, he who has borne the brunt of this battle, who has waged the Church’s war after the pattern of a soldier and bishop of ancient time, was among the very first to suggest this remedy; nay, more, to encourage and cheer us by openly saying he should in a certain contingency, himself adopt it. Even so far back as last March, immediately upon the delivery of the judgment, the bishop of Exeter thus sounded the note of warning:—