COMPREHENSION AND ITS LIMITS.
[To rim EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR-1
Six„—I have but just seen the Spectator of July 8th. Will you allow me to take up the cudgels on behalf of the recent meeting whose proceedings you there criticise P You say that the resolutions to which the meeting is committed do not sufficiently recognise the duty and necessity of compre-
hension. But comprehension must have its limits. A society which is bound to believe nothing and to teach nothing can hardly be a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ. A line must therefore be drawn somewhere. The practical question before us is where that line shall be drawn. In the case of the clergy of the Church of England, the limits of compre- hension are clearly fixed by the contents of the Prayer-book. Not only is that book set forth by the combined authority of Churoh and State, but each clergyman, before admission to any office, makes a public declaration of his general agree- ment with its contents, and binds himself to use that book, and no other, in his public ministrations. He cannot, there- fore, be permitted publicly to contradict its teaching, nor can he have any right, by the use of any ceremonial which it does not prescribe, to commit his congrega- tion, or the Church at large, to doctrines which that Church has disowned. In his private capacity, of course, he has as much right to agitate for such reforms as he may think necessary, as the Reformers in the six- teenth century claimed and exercised in their day. But as long as the existing doctrine and discipline of the Church are in force, every clergyman is bound by them in the public discharge of his duties. If any clergyman cannot con- scientiously accept "the Prayer-book as it is," he is bound to retire into lay communion. This, and no more than this, I am convinced, is the meaning of those who met together to protest against certain irregularities which have crept in among us of late, and which seem to have been rather dangerously on the increase when this agitation arose. And whatever difficulties—and I am fully sensible of them—may attach to the interpretation of the word "Protestant," nothing more, lam sure, is meant by it in the document on which you comment than adherence to the principles of the English Reformation of the sixteenth century, as opposed to the medival errors and superstitions which it was the object of that Reformation to overthrow.
My name, I am given to understand, does not appear among the list of those who agree in the policy of the resolutions. If this be the case, may I ask you to allow me to explain why ? One of the resolutions expresses satisfaction with the present Judicial Committee of Privy Council as a Court of Appeal in causes eccle- siastical. I am unable to concur in that expression of satisfaction. It is absolutely necessary, in my opinion, that some concession should be made to the feelings of all High and many moderate Churchmen on the ques- tion. No one who has studied the history of the Tractarian movement can doubt for a moment that it had its rise in the conviction that the legislation of 1829 had completely altered the relations of Church and State, and that a further revision of those relations had become imperative in consequence of that legislation. It must not be forgotten that the Tractarian movement sprang into existence in 1833,—four years after the passing of the Roman Catholic Emancipation and the Test and Corporation Acts. However grave the differences which subsequently arose among the Tractarian leaders, on this point they were all at one, and their unanimous convictions are still shared by thousands of Churchmen whose sympathies are rather with Palmer and Hook than with Pusey and Seble. Such men—and they are very numerous among us—regard the recognition of the spiritual character of the Church as a sine qua'. non; and an obstinate refusal to concede anything to them must ultimately issue in (Reestablishment or disrup- tion, or both. The true policy, I must believe, is to aim at the establishment of a concordat between Church and State. And in regard to the Church herself, I must further believe that it will be found necessary to concede greater privileges to her laity than they have enjoyed since the Conquest, in- cluding a place on Church Courts. The problem to be solved is the establishment of a Court of Appeal in ecclesiastical causes which has the formal approval of Church as well as State. To establish such a Court, concessions will have to he made on both sides. Have we not a sufficient number of men of statesmanlike minds in Church as well as State to effect a solution of this problem, and so put an end to the conflict which has been raging for the last seventy years ?— I am, Sir, itc.,
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