III. The "Church of the Future" is a church of uniform and consistent faith.
It seems almost superfluous for us to argue in support of this proposition. That divine truth is one, that what God teaches is unchangeable and every way harmonious with itself, are axioms which even the unlearned can see to be infallible. And that the thoughtful, earnest, practical people who must by and by cover this great continent will ever acknowledge as God's representative and their spiritual teacher a church whose faith is variable and undefined, whose theologians are at issue concerning fundamental points of doctrine, and whose public preaching is in perpetual self-contradiction and uncertainty, is utterly impossible. The "Church of the Future" is a "Church of Truth," a church of divine origin and of divine authority, over whom is one Lord, and in whom is one spirit; a church whose voice is ever clear and certain, whose unity with herself is evidence of her unity with God, and who, in gathering the nations to her footstool, maketh them all "to be of one mind in the house," through "the faith once delivered to the saints."
Will the Episcopal Church justify this description? Has she that "pure and uncorrupted faith," that "word of the gospel," which is "always, and everywhere, and by all" invariably taught and held?
Everybody knows better. She herself denies it. Years ago one of her bishops described her as a church in which parties were "arrayed in bitter hostility to each other;" in which there was "so much difference of opinion upon important points of doctrine that the bishops and other ministers could not be brought to agree;" in which "one part denies all claim to an evangelical, that is, a gospel, character, to all who do not agree with them in every particular," while "the other party denies to the former any just right to the name of churchman." [Footnote 63]
[Footnote 63: Memorial Papers, p. 187.]
Years ago a venerable presbyter declared that the prime source of all her difficulties was that "the house" was "divided against itself" and that so long as men were "ordained to her ministry, clothed with her authority, and seated in her high places, who cannot conscientiously teach her Catechism for children, and whose work of love it is to revile her doctrines, her institutions, and her faithful people, her enemies" [Footnote 64] would rejoice, and the world repudiate her claims.
[Footnote 64: Ibid. p. 236.]
The church in the United States has not yet brought forth a Colenso, neither has a Pusey yet arisen in her midst; but the diversity between these leaders of the Anglican communion is hardly greater than obtains between the congregations on this side of the Atlantic. The rector of old Trinity with his confessional, the rector of St. George's with his prayer-meeting, are exponents of parties, the gulf of whose separation cleaves downward to the bottom of the great plan of man's salvation. "Father" Morrill at St. Alban's, and the younger Tyng beneath the missionary tent in the public square, represent creeds and principles as different as any that divide the world. Under the shelter of a liturgy which each interprets according to his personal views, they dwell together, and through its rigid formularies preserve external uniformity. But everywhere outside of it their unity is wanting. Pulpit is arrayed against pulpit, seminary against seminary, society against society. Her bishops are catalogued as "high" and "low," and looked to as the leaders of her hostile factions. Her general convention seeks safety in inaction. Her ecclesiastical existence hangs upon the thread of compromise.