„.— to be in his own mind " paramount "
for the formation of And his argument (if it can be called so) in refutation of some ecclesiastical tribunal of final appeal in matters of faith, the theological liberals is equally hollow. What have they to which may reconcile the principle of the Royal supremacy urge, he asks, except what has been urged by greater learning and the requirements of the State with " the conscience and greater skill in former centuries,—notably in the laat con- of the Church,"—the Bishop of Oxford and his followers tury by the greatest intellects of any age except those of the cannot wait to criticize the earnestness or the political Greek philosophy, namely the English freethinkers and The motives of their new ally, but shout their enthusiastic ap- French Encyclopedists ? If those attacks on the Christian faith planse at every theatrical obeisance to the Judgment, the failed, what can hope to succeed ? If Sinai and Calvary came Council, and Hell fire which the clever orator vouchsafes, out again above the subsiding waters of that flood of infidelity The leader of Opposition in the lower House has taken their what other doubts can have a chance of drowning faith ? Thus side against the Broad Church,—hinted that the principle of it is that Mr. Disraeli tries to attitudinize into the posture of Church authority will hold water, and that no principle of belief,—not going up to the faith he panegyrizes and show- free and earnest investigation will do so,—that he at all events ing its reality, but carefully coasting round it at a good dis- will go in for orthodoxy, and what matters anything else ? tance' starting back theatrically as he affects to discover how If he is a little profane in his handling of solemn topics, yet much it has survived, and trying to identify the two very differ- the end will sanctify the means. If it is difficult to suppose ent notions that credulity is natural to man and that the him guiltless of a " transaction " with the Church, —if he is objects of this particular faith are real and not imaginary. endeavouring to make to himself friends of the clergy by All Mr. Disraeli attempted to vouch for was the strength of diminishing their responsibility to the Crown and the nation, the authoritative principle, not its truth; and its strength would in order that he may hope to fall back upon them when his be of course only the more amazing—would he not himself old political supporters desert him,—yet is there not Scripture respect it more deeply ?—if it had imposed successfully and precedent for the steward who told his master's debtors to continuously on centuries of growing civilization without being take their bills and sit down quickly and falsify their true, than if it had the enormous advantage of foundation in accounts, even when the only gainers by the process were fact. The false idea that had been so well chosen and worldly men, whereas _Mr. Disraeli proposes to diminish the developed by the Hebrew race as to override the negative accountability of a sacred order to the secular tribunals ? genius of true scepticism for thousands of years would, On the whole, and however they may excuse themselves, it measured by Mr. Disraeli's own test, be far more marvellous seems certain that the Bishop of Oxford and his party were and wonderful because it was false. He prostrates himself eager to welcome Mr. Disraeli's support, and not fastidious to before the ingenious infidelity of the eighteenth century for criticize either its manner or its motive. The last people to its temporary victory over Christianity, on the hypothesis, we entertain scruples as to the means by which they hope to suppose, that it was founded on falsehood, and therefore at a compass their end are sacerdotalists bent on securing a sentence great disadvantage. Would he not then bow before the vitality against their foes. and might of the Hebrew thought with still deeper obeisance, Yet there is not a sentence of Mr. Disraeli's speech at if he thought that its victories had been won by mere Oxford against the new " party " in the Church, as he called imaginative power and without the aid of truth? There is it, — very untruly, for it consists of all varieties of faith something in the cautious externalism of his deference to the which agree in wishing to leave the clergy free to think for Church which forces these suggestions upon us. Mr. Disraeli, themselves within the limits of great central principles,— limits his inquiry concerning the new school lathe Church quite which ought not to have grated, and grated harshly, on any too anxiously to the question which he so often repeated, "Will Churchman who, to use Dr. Pusey's formula, "loves God and it succeed ?' to suggest in any degree the questions, "Does His truth" better than party triumphs. Mr. Disraeli cannot it deserve to succeed ?" "Is it true ?" succeed in really identifying himself with the faith he extols. No doubt it is on this cautious external view that M. His fluent criticism must have reminded any one who listened Disraeli prides himself. He supposes that he, as a politi- with any delicacy of discrimination, of the manner of M. cian, has nothing to do with the question of true or false,— de Persigny's criticisms of the English Constitution, or Mr. that he has only to deal with the question of power and effec- Disraeli's own views of the tonnage and poundage question five force. In the same spirit we suppose he has discussed which was the commencement of our Great Rebellion;— for himself the problem of the new spiritual tribunal of (Charles I., he said, was "the holocaust of direct taxation.") appeal. He does not care to ask whether it be good or bad. We once knew a man who used to explain that he did not object All he does care to ask is whether it will succeed or not,— to prayer, but he looked upon it entirely ab extra. Well, that is at least with the Conservative party,—and improve his p051' precisely the way that Mr. Disraeli, in spite of the glitter of tion as a party leader. He has decided apparently, with that his rhetorical reverence, must seem to thinking men to speak fatal externality of view which has proved more than an of the theological questions he handles with so much talent, equivalent for his dexterity of thought and his quickness of He deals in sounding abstractions and dogmatic generalities, in- expression, that the reconstitution of this tribunal soi as to side the hollow shell of which the withered and shrunken kernel satisfy Dr. Pusey and his friends will be regarded a a sound ,cTof faith rattles dismally. One suspects from beginning to end Conservative measure ; and in so deciding he has ded one that the secret reason why he wishes to hand these matters over more to the numberless pride he has given that no/amount of TOPICS O to i mere clerical tribunal, is that he thinks them of so little real F THE DiSX. significance, not so much. He is willing to satisfy the " con- science of the Church ” just as a man of the world is willing MR. DISRAELI ON THE CHITRCH. to satisfy the excessive scruples of a purist any way he best 11/fR. DISRAELI has devoted his long vacation addresses to can. He tells the Bishop, " My Lord, man is'a being born to 111_ outlying departments of politics—the farmers, and the believe, and if you do not come forward, if no Church comes ecclesiastics. He has made clever speeches both about forward with all its title-deeds of truth sustained by the " succplent roots " and superficial belief,—about new breeds tradition of sacred ages and the convictions of countless of sheep and new ecclesiastical sheepfolds, about " ewes with generations to guide him, he will found altars and idols in his black noses " and shepherds of false creeds. Into both sub- own heart and his own imagination,"—a sentence in which jects he entered of course like a clever actor, as he always the latent disbelief that any real distinction between truth and does, and on both subjects he made amusing and showy falsehood is apprehensible to the human spirit comes out with comments. But it is evident that Mr. Disraeli has better singular distinctness. Find for men,—he says virtually,—some satisfied the Bishop of Oxford by his showy faith than he sort of food sanctioned by long custom to satisfy this. appetite, satisfied Mr. Trumper by his showy farming. The ecclesias- or you will find them feeding themselves on food that has no tics have the less real feeling for their subject of the two. such usage in its favour ; you must predispose instinct in a When Mr. Disraeli declares himself on the Bishop's side as certain direction, for there is nothing in the instinctitself and against Professor Huxley with respect to the physiology of no higher guidance for it which shows it the way to its proper man and the monkey ; draws a clever caricature of the dif- element. The craving for the supernatural exists, but it is ferent leaders of liberal thought in the Church ; uses his defer- omnivorous ; one diet or another is to it alike ; if you place ence for the Church doctrine of everlasting punishments to it in good time under a traditional authority you may exclude feather the shaft of a weak literary witticism ; delicately insinu- some of the falsehoods on whichthe intellect of man would ates a sort of tone of belief with regard to the Noachian flood naturally feed, and satisfy it with something else that he under cover of a rhetorical metaphor concerning the subsiding cannot of course know to be any truer, but which is at least waters of eighteenth-century infidelity, in which Sinai and of older origin and more becoming to believe. That is the Calvary take the place of Ararat; intimates that the broad real impression produced by Mr. Disraeli's appeal to an theology is encouraging spirit-rapping and superstition ; and, authoritative principle,—that you want an external authority best of all, promises his aid to a movement which he declares to give even an advantage to one view over its contradictory. literary talent can make up for that radical want of sympathy with the English character for which he has always been conspicuous. Mr. Disraeli wants to decide most questions as he decides (to his own satisfaction) that of the success of the new school in the Church, without regard to the merits, by looking at the signs of the times. But no one can judge the latent forces of a nation,—which are always its greatest forces,—by mere observation of signs of the times. He hears and notes all the Churchmen's anger and disgust and craving for a spiritual tribunal, but he does not hear the silent inward conviction of English laymen, a conviction which,—as Mr. Maurice has ably shown in his review of the English history of this question in Macmillan's Magazine,—is not new, but has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength, that ecclesiastics always make bad judges, cannot be just in dealing with creeds their true relation to which is that of missionaries. They see, as they ought, their own life and their own strength in these creeds, not the life or strength, of any one else, and they cannot be expected to reject impartially their own dearest interpretations as not binding on any one else. The dislike to sacerdotal justice is so deeply rooted in England, that it is as much part of the Conservatives' faith as of,the_Liberals. Mr. Disraeli does not see it be_cause he does not share it. He has no deep sympathy with English justice at all, and no horror of priestly injustice. But for the twentieth time he has bitterly mistaken his party through the great disadvantage of not belonging to it. He knows ,it , is a Church party,—a party whose zeal for the Church as a great national institution has much rallied of late years,—and when he hears some of its leaders cry out for a Court of spiritual appeal in matters of faith he supposes that appeal will be as popular with the Conservatives as was the resistance to buryinc•e Dissenters in the churchyard with a disputing service, or the resistance to repealing the Act of Uniformity, or to any other innovation. This is a great mistake. Conservatives are as little likely to countenance an ecclesiasti- cal modification of the supreme Court of Appeal in Church matters as once more to place a bishop on the woolsack. No doubt they, are a dull party, and have no sympathy with criti- cism, or with fastidious scruples about subscription, or any wish for enlarged liberty. But then they have also no notion of interpreting dogmas too strictly and in a refined way. They would fire up directly at a proposal to let priests put their own meaning on the legal definitions of the Church. They are probably usually in favour of moderate relaxation and " no fuss." Mr. Disraeli cannot see this because he cannot appreciate the mental condition of those who feel thus. Ile knows the Bishop of Oxford and Dr. Pusey will support his party warmly at the next election, if he promises them an effort to get a spiritual tribunal. And he never counts the number of Conservatives who would silently desert him at once if he proposed to interfere with the right of statesmen and lawyers "to keep the parsons in order." Mr. Disraeli's Church speeches, like his speeches in general, are too ingenious, too smart, too showy, for his party. They may admire his wonderful diorama of the peaks of Sinai and Calvary re- appearing from the floods of French revolutionary infidelity, but they will never receive back Mr. Disraeli into the Con- servative Ark with a spiritual Court of Appeal in place of the olive branch in his mouth. That will be no symbol to them that the waters of doubt are subsiding, but rather an omen of new floods and bitterer storms.
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