, training that accompanies it, being paralyzed; there is danger lest superstition and 'the divinity that doth hedge' a spiritual leader engender servility and degradation. But the best reply to all such alarms is, that all these dangers also environ a state; that it is the very part of science and courage not to be afraid of. them, but to make these things balance harmoniously and work together for good; and that, as a state does not commit the absurdity of going into small pieces— like Professor Forbes's suicidal starfish-in order to escape the dangers of a noble and effective existence by an ignoble and despairing self-disintegration, so neither should a church consent to a voluntary disintegration. Lastly, one word about the charge of 'intestine discord' which is repeatedly, and from the most unexpected quarters, laid at the door of the Church of England 18. It seems universally agreed among Dissenters, that men must needs differ about the details both of politics and of religion. This being granted, there are only three systems possible: (1) Despotism, which by main force crushes all differences into a dead or else a hypocritical silence; (2) Disintegration, such as e. g. would have paralyzed the American Union by reducing it into a multitude of independent states, or would paralyze England by bringing back the Heptarchy; (3) Liberty, i. e. a constitutional system, which allows free and even violent discussion, prefers noisy open-air debate to either sullen isolation or whispering conspiracy, and yet demands imperatively of the noisy disputants that they hold together, come at length to some tardy and imperfect sort of agreement, and meanwhile break not the unity of the society. Now which of these three methods do Englishmen believe to be the true and effective course for the state? and if for the civil, why not for the ecclesiastical polity? It is (we know) only a timid foreigner who 18 E.g. Westminster, Review, Oct. 1872, p. 474; Theological Review, Oct. 1872, p. 491; Christian World, Sept. 1872 (8th notice); Congregationalist, Sept. 1872, p. 556. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xxvii flies with terror from an English election scene, and forebodes the impending dissolution of society. What shall we say then of Englishmen, who seem able to understand 'liberty' in a state, but who cannot understand it, or cannot put up with its inevitable accompaniments in a church? And how is it less pardonable for men to shew earnestness about disputable matters and yet to refrain from rendering mutual reconciliation hopeless by a breach of organic unity, than it is to actually break away from each other for conscience. sake, and afterwards - every cause of disagreement remaining precisely what it was before-to organize a temporary and hollow alliance, to exchange pulpits, and mutual compliments, and to utter loud professions of brotherly and catholic sentiment? It would surely seem that the former course is the more honourable and more Christian of the two. How willingly, however, would one leave all these things unsaid! How gladly-if Dissenters would but cease their mischievous efforts to break up the National Church would she welcome the precious aid that such private Societies' of earnest Christians might afford to the life and energy of the whole Christian brotherhood! But it seems to have become impossible, owing to their separation, for Dissenters (with all sincerity of intention) to enter into the mind of the Church on the subject of schism; or to perceive that nine-tenths of their arguments against her proceed on the tacit assumption that their own axioms are indisputably right and hers indisputably wrong. This could be shewn, if necessary, by a hundred quotations. And an English Churchman, maintaining his position at the present day against the assaults of Dissenting Ministers in the House of Commons, and against the endless misstatements of hostile orators elsewhere, may well (with St. Paul) exclaim, 'I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me.' If, amid the gathering tempest of a deadly Atheism, engendered by the supposed discovery of a universal 'reign of law,' we are compelled to exhaust ourselves with trifling disputes about the divine right of pew rents or the urgent need of a chimerical 'equality’— we really must be allowed to plead that the fault does not rest with us. If, when the world is loudly demanding how, amid a hundred false religions and a score of legendary bibles, to defend the true Religion and the true Bible, we are dragged down into such miserable platitudes as the difference between tithes and taxes,—it is not surely we who are guilty of thus weakening the cause of God in this land. If, while half the nation is being degraded by ignorance and strong drink, and degenerated by sensuous impurity, and impoverished by the ever imminent danger of war and brutal violence, the Christian agencies of this country are distracted with mutual jealousies and with gratuitously inflicted anxieties about house and home and a place to teach and worship in,-again this misfortune is not attributable to the Church of England. She has, indeed, abundant faults to answer for, and must on many counts plead 'verily guilty concerning the brethren' committed to her charge. But I do not think any competent or candid judge would allow the Ministry of any other Communion in this land to aver that they were wholly without blame. And therefore the loyal sons of the Church of England may, surely, employ in her behalf the words of our allmerciful Lord: 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' CONTENTS. A sower went forth to sow: and as he sowed, some fell by the 34 |