THE " PROTESTANT UNION" AND THE CLERGY.
THE Finsbury Union appears to be an association,—as yet in some degree endeavouring after secrecy,—which is zealous to get up a Protestant cry, on the basis whereof Finsbury may be persuaded to return two Conservatives to Parliament pledged to sustain the Protestant faith and the Irish branch of the English and Irish Church. For this pur- pose communications marked "private and confidential" have been addressed to the clergy of Finsbury, urging them to take their part in an agitation which is now no longer one of party politics, to make all the converts they can amongst the young men of their congregations, and so aid in forming a combina- tion "for the promotion of our civil and religious liberties, the stability of the throne, and the greatness and prosperity of the nation." In this " private and confidential" circular any one may see the signs of that energetic sowing of tares in the field of politics by Mr. Disraeli, of which the Tomahawk, the other day, painted so striking and lurid a picture. The "private and confidential" circular insists on the " unnatural and unholy alliance" between " High-Church Ritualists and Broad Churchmen, Ultramon- tans Papists and Protestant Dissenters, avowed infidels and Republican Radicals, with no common purpose but the reck- less design of destroying our National Protestant Church, the country's only safeguard against the encroachments of the Apostate Church of Rome, the great enemy of God's truth, and the unrelenting persecutor of His .saints in every part of the world." And what this private and confi- dential' circular is trying to do in Finsbury, acting on Mr. Disraeli's many ostentatious hints, doubtless scores of other similar circulars are trying to do through similar clerical agencies in other boroughs and counties all over England, Scotland, and Ireland. Fortunately in this particular case the private and confidential circular has been sent to a clergy- man of the highest type,—not perhaps what we should all call a Broad Churchman, indeed the exact colour of his Churchmanship is hardly known to us,—but one who can see that a Church not founded on justice is not founded on God, and that an attempt to combine into a " Protestant Union " the various elements of anti-Catholic bigotry still fermenting among the residua of our populous boroughs, is one of the most dangerous, probably of the most evil in its original conception, which has recently occurred to unscru- pulous politicians. The clergyman to whom we refer is the Rev. John Oakley, of Hoxton, whose reply to the author of this circular.—apparently one of his own parishioners,—is as manly and noble a piece of true moral Protestantism as we have read for many a day. Mr. Oakley, declining to respect the very one-sided "privacy and confidentiality " of the com- munication, replies to the charge of the " unnatural and unholy affiance " against the Irish injustice with remarkable force :— " I observe again that you and your friends are shocked at the com- bination, in one unnatural and unholy alliance, of those whom you de- scribe as 'High-Church Ritualists and Broad Churchmen, Ultramontane Papists and Protestant Dissenters, avowed Infidels and Republican Radicals, in the one reckless design of destroying our National Pro- testant Church,' ex. If this is meant to include the Church of England, it is so far an obvious misstatement. There is no such combination. But on the undoubted fact of a coalition of otherwise discordant ele- ments of opinion upon the Irish question I have a remark to make. It is most significant, and, as I think, satisfactory. For surely, if the case be as I have stated it, we are warranted in inferring that it is possible to combine on elementary political principles and for practical purposes men of widely different views, both of truth and of duty. I had read in the fact an evidence of the common ground which is open to men who will really let principles govern their conduct, and who can be in- dependent of secondary motives. And satisfactory or unsatisfactory, this strange coalition of which you, complain is equally to be seen, though in a different shape, on your own side. Nothing is more striking (or more sad) than the almost unbroken unanimity of the clergy, and especially the Bishops—notoriously otherwise divided—on a subject of which the one common element is too plainly a supposed ecclesiastical interest, the one common motive the more generous one of coming to the rescue of brethren in distress."
—which on that head is surely adequate and admirable. But on a further criticism of Mr. Oakley's, directed against this revival of the old Protestant cry, we have something further to say. Mr. Oakley writes,—at the same time earnestly asserting for himself his hearty participation in the essence of the old Protestantism,- " The discordant elements which you perceive among your opponents are nothing to those which exist is the ranks which you are seeking thus to reunite. 'Protestantism as a phase of progress,' an ardent Protestant has lately observed, has done its work.' The doctrine of plenary inspiration,' which is the basis of Chillingworth's formula, ' has broken like pack-thread,' writes another enthusiastic vindicator of the Protestant name, before the rising gates of scientific discovery and historical research.' And many is the honest Protestant who is ready to confess his conviction, as one lately did to me, that much of the popular Protestant system is as dead as a door-nail.' All that the present desperate attempt to galvanize this moribund and already decaying mass of conflicting ideas and forces into activity on one side can possibly effect will be to stir up the lower levels of popular opinion and prejudice into unnatural and impracticable, if not dangerous, activity, and to produce an angry storm of mutual suspicions and recrimination sufficient to retard progress for a whole decade, and to discredit still further—if that be possible for man to do—the name of the Church and of the Christian religion, whether in its Protestant or Catholic form."
This is most true, and deserves a few words of expansion and comment. A Protestant Union at the present day, especially when got up, as this is, expressly to prevent that great concession to the Irish Catholics, which a large body of the nation, Church- men, Dissenters, and Catholics alike, believe to be demanded by the commonest political equity, can only be fed upon rekindled animosities, which are of the worst type because they have outlived the generous life of positive individual faith. The fire of the old Protestantism, the fire even of the hatred of Romanism which was another side of it, was not due to mere dislike and aversion, it drew all its force from the passionate desire and intention to break down the sacerdotal walls of separation between God and man which the Roman Church had set up. Now, is there, even conceivably, room for an out- burst of this noble passion now ? Does any one suppose for a moment that the fall of the Irish Church will be the signal for a great crusade against all men who abjure the sacerdotal principle ? Can Mr. Disraeli have persuaded any one, when he talked of the confederation which was to destroy the Church, and " dangerously touch even the tenure of the Throne," that England is now threatened with a Papal in- vasion, and another Mary Tudor for the Pope's instrument V There is no pretence of anything of the kind. It is not really in the defence of threatened spiritual liberty, but in defence of threatened national property, and of that alone, that the Protestant Union is to be conjured up
into new activity. The sleeping religious enmities of past generations are to be roused for no religious purpose at all, but to save perhaps a quarter of a million a year of national money to people who have had the use of it too long. Of course this is denied, and the friends of the Irish Church have a fair right to deny it. But let them
argue it on that ground. Let them prove their title to the property if they will, show that it is not national pro- perty if they can, or show that, being national property, the present appropriation of it is just, if they dare. What we maintain, with Mr. Oakley, that they have no right on earth to do,—what we believe that they would see to be no less wicked than foolish if they could appreciate the consequences of doing,—is, to divert this question out of the region of secu- lar justice into that of religious controversy. We do not believe that any man has ever yet used in defence of this movement against the Irish Church the argu- ment that it will give an impulse to Roman Catholicism ; or that it will weaken the force of Protestantism; or, in short, that it will produce any direct effect of any sort whatever on the controversial prospects of different religious bodies. What is more, we do not believe that any one has, even in his heart, wished to forward the movement on any such grounds. Nay, we believe that if it is resisted on these grounds, if the issue is to be diverted from one of moral equity into one of reli- gious jealousy, there will be such a display of the worst sort of spite as will seriously injure the whole religious tone of the country. Men cannot range themselves under religious banners for party purposes,—and we repeat that the religious issue in this case cannot be honestly believed in,—without lowering their religion to the lowest level of traditional spites and animosities. The passion displayed on behalf of a true religious conviction, such as both the Protestant and Romanist convictions of the noblest sufferers of the sixteenth century were, is as much nobler than the passion displayed on behalf of a sectarian jealousy,—such as the Protestants of Ulster now feel towards the Roman Catholic Church, and probably the Roman Catholic Church towards the Protestants of Ulster,— as was the wrath of Elijah against the priests of Baal than the fury of the Pharisees against the Sadducees. The sort of religious animosity which the Church Union can alone excite will be necessarily, nowadays, antipathy to Rome, antipathy to Dissent, antipathy to free-thinkers ; for no positive faith is in the least threatened by this question of the Church property of Ireland. The opponents of the Irish Establishment,— whether those who think, with Mr. Oakley, and as we, too, still might hold, that if the Roman Catholics would but accept their share of the property (which they, probably for noble reasons, decline) that would be the best solution, or those who, wish- ing to take one step towards disestablishment of all Churches, strike at the only case of glaring injustice first,—have at least one positive common ground. They say, It is just that the people of Ireland should be consulted about the dis- posal of Irish national property.' The friends of the Irish Church, if they would be content to fight on that issue solely, might have a common positive faith too,—theymight say, "This is not national property, it is in effect private-trust property, and it is only just that it should be disposed of as private-trust property would be." That is a question of fact and a fair issue. But if they leave this and fight on the religious ground, they can have nothing in common but antipathies to Roman Catholicism and other unestablished sects. They cannot say, This property should belong to the Protestant Church because it is true,'—such a plea, in the present condition of politics, is ridiculous. They can only say, This property shall not belong to the Roman Catholic Church because that is false and dangerous, and Rome is the Scarlet Woman, and Jezebel, and she tried to enslave us once, and we hate her, and hate also all the infidels and dissenters who cause divisions amongst us by which she profits.' And that is in effect what the
circular of the Finsbury Union tries to say. It takes its stand on a fierce and ancient antipathy which it hopes to find still lingering in force in the " residuum " of Finsbury, —very likely justly. Nothing can come of arousing passions of that sort, but such an ignoble outbreak of everything spiteful and uncharitable in man as will brand the Christian religion for years to come with a new burden of disgrace, and renew in full rigour the belief of so many among the working class that all the charities of life are banished from the Churches. We heartily thank Mr. Oakley for the noble stand he has taken, and only wish that all the fiery darts of irreli- gious animosity may be quenched by as pure a shield of faith as Mr. Oakley has presented to the Protestant schemers of his own parish.
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