AN EPISCOPAL FRACAS.
DOWN in Scotland there has arisen a new disturbance among the Bishops. Considering that the mass of the people there reject and contemn these venerable functionaries, it is rather marvellous how they contrive to raise such a stir as they somehow manage ever and anon to excite. The performance, no doubt, has its ludicrous side. It is generally of a sort that recalls the ancient saw about shallow brooks and empty barrels. On the present occasion, it exceeds in violence all recent experience. There has been nothing like it since the refusal of Bishop Wilson, the titular Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, to let his brother Bishop, the saintly and catholic-minded Ewing, of Argyle, preach in the University chapel at Glasgow. That presumptuous and most unworthy inhibition followed hard upon the fuss provoked by the display of arrogance and ignorance made by Bishop Eden, of Inverness, when he took it upon him to complain regarding the appearance in a Presbyterian pulpit away in the wilds of Glengarry of the Archbishop of York, and the late Bishop Wilberforce, as an insult offered to his authority, within what he calls his diocese, the fact turning out to be that he had mistaken the boundaries of that huge " cantle " of Scot- land, Glengarry being outside them. Then, for the sake of peace and the avoidance of scandal, Bishop Ewing meekly submitted, contenting himself with sending to the printer the fine sermon upon Christmas Day and its suggestions which he had intended to deliver to the students ; while the English prelates appeased their irate censor at the expense of their Scottish countrymen by pleading the ingenious subterfuge, which carries the Wilber- force brand, that they had been engaged in a "missionary service,"—as if, forsooth, the Highlanders to whom they had spoken had been utter heathens. Now, there is no such pacification possible. The offence given cuts deeper and wounds more grievously than aught that has gone before. It has been offered after the most careful deliberation. There is evidence that it will be continued with a firm persistency. It cannot be explained away to the satisfaction of those who are aggrieved and resentful. What remains save that they should lament and grumble at their loudest ? This they have done, so blatantly that their noise has awakened echoes both at York and Westminster, the Convocation of both the English provinces having passed sympathetic resolutions, not, as we conceive, very intelligently or wisely.
The matter is this. There are in Scotland nearly a dozen con- gregations, a few of them large and flourishing congregations, which reject the authority of the Scottish Bishops, and profess their attachment to the English Church. They style themselves dis- tinctively "English Episcopalians." Their origin dates back to nearly the time of the Revolution. That event found Scottish Episcopacy identified in principle and by interest with the Stuart cause. For a while the Presbyterianism of the Scottish Establishment was the only form of religion tolerated in Scotland. That William would have been glad to compose the religious differences of the country in any feasible mode is certain ; that he was not indisposed to the retention of the Episcopalian order of Church government is probable ; but the Jacobite and Nonjuring predilections of the Scottish Episcopalians themselves forbade. The favour they ardently cherished for "the king over the water" threw them outside the legal pale, and it was not till 1710, in the reign of Anne, that, to use the words of Burnet, "a toleration was pro- posed in Scotland for the Episcopal clergy who would use the Liturgy of the Church of England." Another condition was im- posed,—that they should take the oaths of allegiance and abjura- tion. To neither would the bulk of them consent, and because of their refusal they were subjected, in respect of their religious freedom, to successive disabling statutes, the severity of which, though they were never very ruthlessly enforced, cannot be justified, even on the score of necessity. Meanwhile, a considerable number of persons had been led to Scotland from England, by trade, or military service, or Government employ- ment, who eagerly embraced the toleration now put within their reach. Where they could not obtain pastors of Scottish ordina- tion, they invited the services of clergymen deriving orders from English or Irish Bishops. Thus arose the separate congre- gations over whom the present hubbub has arisen. For well-nigh a hundred years they, a little colony of English Churchmen located on foreign soil, beyond the jurisdic-
tion of their proper ecclesiastical authorities, were protected and countenanced by the State ; while the native Church, of like type, remained under ban and proscription. It was not till 1792, after the death of the last Pretender had removed the main cause of the disabilities enacted against its adherents, that these disabilities were annulled. Even then it was upon a condi- tion which provoked so much demur, that for a dozen years the Church refused compliance. That qualification was that the re- lief should proceed upon subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Till then, no authority was acknowledged in them, or in the other standards of the English Church ; though Laud's Service-book had been dropped, the use of the English Liturgy was pronounced a mere matter of convenience ; and in one case it was set aside on behalf of a Communion office framed, in conjunction with the English Nonjurors, in a style boasted of as more " primitive " than any English pattern, including not only that prepared at the instance of Laud, but those in the Liturgies compiled under Edward VI. In 1804, the English Episcopalians being then, in all probability, about equally numerous with the Scottish, a Synod of the Scottish Church was held "for the purpose of exhibiting such a public testimony of our agreement in doctrine and discip- line with the Church of England, as may satisfy the Clergy of that Church presently officiating in Scotland that they may safely and consistently join our communion." The steps taken included the subscription of the Articles in the form prescribed by the Act of 1782, and a resolution to make a similar subscription obligatory on all future candidates for Orders, but their own canons of government were retained, and the Scottish Communion office was declared to be of " primary authority." One-half the English congre- gations joined, the other remaining aloof. The gradual absorption of these last would, in ordinary circumstances, have been desirable. Various measures towards that end have been adopted from time to time, with no inconsiderable success. The canons have been revised. The Scottish office, though not abolished, has been dis- possessed from its position of supremacy. Scottish clergymen have been made eligible for English preferment. At one time it seemed that a complete fusion was about to ensue, but a formidable ob- struction intervened, the influence of which has been to repel, not to attract.
This consists in the development of a wantonly domineer- ing " High-Churchism." The old school of Scottish Church- men, though very high in doctrine, were extremely sober in prac- tice. In part as a growth from their root-principle, in part through sympathy with the Ritualistic revival, and very much as a consequence of coming to England for their Bishops, carrying back men who cherish the most exalted ideas of the Episcopal dignity and prerogatives, a great change has passed upon the attitude and bearing of their successors. It is not too much to say that of the three schools of thought which exist in the Anglican Church, each with a certain status and admitted claim for compre- hension, two, the Broad and the Low, are powerfully discouraged, where they are not rudely overborne. Bishop Ewing, than whom there could have been no more winning and gracious representa- tive of the one, was harassed and annoyed in a fashion we hope his forthcoming memoir will neither hide nor palliate. In every corporate utterance bearing on those doctrines which are styled " Evangelical " that the Church has ever made, they have been denounced, while though the stringency of some canons has been abated, the effect of the code is still to exclude or check a corre- sponding ritual, and painfully to fetter clergymen who incline to that side. The whole body of the separatist congregations are at one in choosing to be ministered unto by persons of that class. What marvel is it that they, as men who set truth above form, and refuse to deem agreement in polity and order equivalent to the true communion of saints, should be chary about voluntarily assuming what experience and probability concur in showing might be expected to prove a yoke of bondage? They take their stand on the legal recognition continued to them in all Council Orders for national prayers and thanksgivings, as the "communion protected and allowed" under the Act of Anne, and they occupy far stronger ground as the effective advocates of a genuine catholicity, though it may be that in this respect they do not intend nor understand the service they are rendering. Of late they have been sore beatead to maintain their position. Time was when prelates like Archbishop Sumner and Bishop Daly of Cashel cordially fraternised with them. Later on, the race of Palmers- tonian Bishops were found quite willing to confirm their children. Now, however, the whole Episcopate looks askance at them— even the Bishop of Durham, if we mistake not, advising a con- cordat with those from whom they dissent—while no stranger can officiate in any of their churches without being warned away
by the Scottish Bishops, the chances being that his own dio- cesan is also moved to expoatnlate with him. In these circumstances, especially by reason of the failure to get the rite of Confirmation administered, it seemed as if they were fated to be starved out. They have averted the danger by bar- gaining with a returned Bishop of Sierra Leone, who holds the vicarage of Bethnal Green, to spend his annual holiday in dis- charging episcopal functions among them. It is the advent of Bishop Beckles, despite a fire of dissuasives, remonstrances, and upbraidings which baffles description, that has incited to the pre- sent uproar, in which the epithets "intruder," "intriguer," "schismatic," and the like are shrieked at him with indecorous virulence. The propriety of these appellations has been sanc- tioned by both Convocations, though not without a sage and cautious warning from Archbishop Tait that very awkward ques- tions are involved, a timid and uninformed deprecation by the Bishop of St. Asaph, and a manly and rational protest by Canon Trevor at York.
The proceeding is objectionable on various grounds, some of which are extremely strong. There is force in Canon Trevor's inquiry,—why condemn Bishop Beckles for ministering to Episco- palians in Scotland, and let alone Dean Stanley, who is accustomed, despite the Glengarry incident, and in a very different style from that implied in the gloss put upon it, to minister to Presbyterians there ? There is force likewise in a very candid and temperate representation made to his colleagues in Scotland by Bishop Wordsworth, of Perth, by far the most accomplished man among them, who has been going through a liberalising process that has sent him adrift from his brother of Lincoln. He dislikes the action of Bishop Beckles, be dislikes the existence of the Eng- lish congregations, but he argues that it would be uncharitable to leave their children unconfirmed (attaching, no doubt, a mystic virtue to that performance) ; and he asks what worse is the English Bishop who confirms occasionally, than the English clergymen who minister regularly, and who are exempt from molestation ? These questions cannot be answered. They well expose the foolish and futile character of the proceedings that have prompted them. But deeper reasons for impugning their validity may be urged. The grievance about which the Scottish Episcopate make such an outcry turns upon the assumption that they are endowed with an exclusive and indefeasible right to the allegiance of all within certain geographical limits who profess and call themselves Christians. It rests upon a theory of diocesan jurisdiction, which is utterly baseless in their case, except under conditions which render it suicidal in them to put it forward. They confound it with what the Canonists term the "power of order." That power is, no doubt, conferred by consecration.
But authoritative jurisdiction can only emanate from the secular sovereignty. The Scottish Bishops have it not. When the present dioceses were parcelled out, their predecessors expressly renounced any intention of claiming it. The power they possess is conceded voluntarily, and its recognition may with equal right be withheld, in the exercise of reason and conscience. To say that a duly consecrated Bishop cannot exercise his office in favour of those who do withhold it, and who invite him for the purpose, without incurring the sin and perils of schism, were to invert the prin- ciples of ecclesiastical polity in a portentous manner, to sanction the loftiest claims of sacerdotal usurption, to commit the dire mistake of exalting them at the expense of conscientious assent and true spiritual unity. The squabble is unedifying and paltry, but for these reasons we shall not be sorry to hear more of it.
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