THE IMMOBILITY OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH.
IT is pitiful and impressive to watch our National Church in the agony of a terrible doubt whether or not it may not be desirable for her just at present to make a few alterations in the purely ceremonial directions of her services. To note the vast pressure brought into play to bring about such a change, and then observe the travail of soul which oppresses the Church, in the endeavour to make it,—to watch the labour- ing of the masts, the creaking of the timbers, the apparent shuddering of every particle of the vessel in preparation for a great impulse, and yet to find everything left as before, nothing moved by any appreciable distance from its old bearings, while with a great sigh everything falls back again into its old tran- quillity,—this is really a sight which more than anything im- presses one with the vast inertia of the Church's constitution. It reminds one of the preparations for launching the 'Great • Eastern.' Day after day the huge hydraulic presses applied all their force ; day after day crowds assembled to see the mighty vessel descend into the water ; but day after day the result was reported as nil, or at most as the gain of half an inch of movement. Other Churches, including one which boasts of its immutability, make great strides in one direction or the other. The Irish Church is casting overboard all the paraphernalia of a priesthood, shelving the anathemas of the pseudo-Athanasius, and openly parading its almost super- stitious dread not only of pageant, but even of ornament ; while the Church of Rome has announced the official infalli- bility of the Pope, and the consequent divine authority of the Syllabus. But our National Church, though submitted to the most urgent pressure, can hardly screw out of herself, by the most painful and conscientious effort, the recommendation to alter a few syllables in an insignificant rubric. Only last year the Legislature passed a measure which gave both lay- men and clergymen a summary remedy against any infring- ment of the Church's legal rubrics. It was then said on all sides, and said very justly, that the rubrical law of the Church was an involved and partially obsolete system, and that nothing could be more unstatesmanlike or more dangerous, in a time of high controversial bitterness, than to cheapen and accelerate the legal processes for punishing the violation of a law which was un- settled, obscure, complex, and more or less obsolete. To this the reply made by the advocates of the "short method" with the Ritualists' was to offer a delay in the execution of the Act, during which the Houses of Convocation of York and Canterbury were to reconsider the whole body of Rubrics and offer suggestions to Parliament for their simplification and reform. One would sup- pose that no more urgent motive for compromise and simplifica- tion could by any possibility have been applied. All parties in the Church were more or less in danger. The High Churchmen are at present acting illegally whenever the celebrants fate the East in the prayer of consecration,—though no doubt the declaration of the highest Court of law on this head was made under circumstances which render it not impossible that the decision may be reconsidered and modified. Many Low. Churchmen chafe under the burden of the Ornaments' Rubric, and there is one Evangelical Dean at least whose life may be the sacrifice if he should be compelled, as seems likely under the present law, to wear a cope. And the Broad Churchmen are much exercised in their minds by the unquestionable corn- pulsoriness of the Athanasian Creed, damnatory clauses and all. Moreover, it is not a time in which laymen are indifferent to the details of either creed or ceremonial. As we recently saw in that Bristol case where a layman insisted on obtaining ecclesiastical justice against a clergyman who had refused to grant him communion on theological grounds, they are in a highly sensitive condition as to any extraordinary claim of clerical rights. The present writer knows a church in which the clergyman's procedure in relation to the Rubrics is closely watched by half-a-dozen lynx-eyed lay theologians, and if the incumbent or curate omits any of the sentences in any of the offices of the Church, or preaches doctrine which may be interpreted as conflicting with any of the Creeds or Articles, there are certain to be busy consultations, remon- strances, and complaints. In such a condition of things, it is hard to imagine any change more dangerous than the introduc- tion of easier and cheaper processes of litigation in relation to the whole ceremonial of the Church. It is hardly possible that, as soon as these processes are understood, there should not be first in one diocese and then in another a clashing of arms between the different parties in the Chuch, and it is quite certain that if this should be so, then the success, if any, in enforcing a penalty, is sure to be followed by sharp reprisals.
Such is the situation. And yet after long and deep de- liberation of the Clergy of the Church in both Provinces, the general upshot of the discussion is --4 Compromise im- possible; it is dangerous to touch anything; we must let things be at all events, peril or no peril, till the highest Court of Appeal decides on the two most vexed questions of all,— the precise drift of the Ornaments' Rubrics, and the already decided, but not the less, as it is thought, unsettled question of the Eastward position of the celebrant. We must limit our suggestions of change to matters on which there is little or no danger that the new Act would be applied,—to recommenda- tions as to the sponsors for children, and as to a Burial Service which may be read when the Burial Service of the Church cannot be used.' Such is the attitude of the various clerical authorities of our Church after grave deliberation. The out- come of all their anxiety is the suggestion that parents may be sponsors for their own children if necessary, and that an un- official Burial Service may be improvised for the use of those in whose cases the Canons of the Church deny the use of the regular Burial Service, such as unbaptised children.
And what is the motive for this new "non-possuntus," this new admission of inability to provide against a real danger ? Certainly not the unreality of the danger. But we are told that no party is ready to compromise anything till it is quite satisfied that the judicial tribunals of this country are not already on its own side. "The union of the extreme parties," says Bishop Magee, "in deprecating an alteration of this rubric" [the rubric as to the vestments of the celebrant in the Communion Service] "will last until we have a decision of the Courts as to its meaning, and not till the day after. My belief is that as soon as you have a final decision of the Courts of the Church of England on one side or the other, you will have the defeated party pressing as strongly and earnestly for an alteration of these rubrics as they do now to keep them intact. We feel the danger of dealing with them ; the danger of not doing anything is still in the future ; and I feel with your Lordships that the wisest course at the present moment is not to meddle with these rubrics." That is the most remarkable expression of despair we have read for a long time. It applies, of course, quite as much to the rubric as to the Eastward position of the celebrant as it does to the rubric about his vestments. The Bishop admits that the moment the existing law is made definite the defeated party will clamour for a change, while the victorious party, of course, will clamour against change. And yet the peacemakers see nothing for it but to put off the evil day. The danger of "revision" is immediate, the danger of doing nothing is in the future. No doubt. But the danger which is still in the future is as certain a danger, and indeed, the very same danger as that which attaches to the danger of immediate revision, with one most seriously aggravating circumstance for the future peril,—the circumstance, namely, that the victorious party will then have no motive for concession, whereas now, when its victory is still doubtful, it might see the wisdom of giving Alp a doubtful advantage of a graver kind for a certain one of a more moderate kind. If compromise is absolutely impossible lidten both parties have something to fear as well as something to hope, what possibility of compromise will there be when one party has nothing to hope and the other party nothing to fear ? It seems to us that the authorities of the Church never so plainly admitted their want of authority, and their inability even to attempt to persuade the divided clergy over whom they pre- side, as at this moment. The Rubrics are to remain as they are, without explanation and without revision, until it is seen which party has gained the victory, and then it will be too late to propose an alteration with the smallest chance of success.
The Bishop of London, indeed, suggested another difficulty. One, at least, of the changes needed, he said, was a change, not of rubric, but of the substance of the document to which the rubric refers. The only advisable change in the Athanasian Creed was not one in the directions for reading it, but in the substance of the creed itself. He wished the Damnatory Clauses to be simply struck out, and not any change made in the directions as to the times when the doctrinal part of the creed ought to be recited. We are exceedingly glad to hear Such an avowal as this from a prelate who is usually con- sidered so irreproachably orthodox as the Bishop of London. And of course he is right in saying that Convocation could not recommend a change as to the substance of the Prayer-book under letters of business which only permit it to discuss changes in the Rubrics. But we feel very little hope that the two Provinces of Convocation, even when empowered to recommend substantial changes in the Prayer- book, will go so far as this. The laity have as yet no influence in Convocation, and the clergy of Convocation are, for the most part, bigoted partisans of the creed; and though they have many of them recommended an explanatory rubric which whittles away the meaning of the anathemas of the creed, they have hitherto stood loyal to the words of the anathema, much as English gunners stick to their guns when they are attacked. In Houses of Convocation which have not the courage to recom- mend a compromise as to the existing rubrics, while there is yet some reason to hope that both parties might be found amenable to reason, it would be a very bad look-out, we fear, to propose that the words to which so many laymen object in the Athanasian Creed, should be struck out. Apart from the Superstitious reverence felt for the very words of the Prayer- book as it now stands, even the most amiable clergymen seem to us to find a fascination in the clauses about everlasting punish- ment and perishing everlastingly, which is not in the least affected by the fact that they so explain them as to prove that the words do not mean what they say. The charm of the words them- selves, as words, is, perhaps, a testimony to the inherited character of clerical instincts. Or perhaps the reverberation of the words delights the clergy as the "blessed word, Mesopotamia," delighted the old woman. But whatever the reason, the recent discussions in Convocation would hold out hope to no reasonable men that if the "letters of business" empowered Convocation to recom- Mend reforms of the services themselves, a majority could be got in the Lower House for so great a change as the elimi- nation of the damnatory clauses of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed. Assemblies which shrink from proposing a compromise even in forms, while there is still a strong motive for agreeing to a compromise as to those forms, will hardly agree to a com- promise as to things, where there is no motive at all except the reasonings of political sagacity,—to which Convocation is almost dead,—for agreeing to that compromise. The present state of the clerical bodies called Convocation seems to us to be
one of paralysis, as regards the power of motion. They can feel the danger, but they cannot stir so as to avoid it.
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