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DR. M'NEILE AND THE DEAN OF BRISTOL.

porizing character of their resistance to all thoughts of revision. And we cannot for a moment entertain the

validity of the short-sighted pleas they urge against any movement in the pursuit of what they are pleased to term, so hazardous an experiment.

Never, do we firmly believe, was a more urgent necessity shewn for such a step, and never was there a more favourable opportunity presented for the step being taken. We have one whole diocese under the baneful influence of a bishop who having taken his stand upon what we cannot but confess to be the literal doctrine of the Formularies, is doing what may be irreparable mischief, not only to that diocese, but to every other into which his clergy may ever be scattered.

It were useless to recapitulate other mischiefs which are working up and down through the country, in consequence of the teaching of those who build upon the words of the formularies, and who refuse to allow any explanations which we assert are to be gathered from the correlative authority of the Articles. It needs not also that we assert, or attempt to prove what is perfectly patent, that the evils which are now afflicting and dividing the Church, have ever been, and ever will be, the fruitful source of discord and controversy, so long as there are distinct statements in the ritual, upon which these Sacramentarians can fasten, as supporting their opinions.

We regard as perfectly beside the question, the arguments of those who consider that the turmoil raised upon the baptismal question will die with the death of the present agitating party, and that we are to look for quiet and peaceable days, when certain episcopal favourers of the party shall have been replaced by men of more liberal and tolerant spirit.

All this we consider as perfectly visionary ;-the Church is never safe from the appointment and rule of men who choose to take and make the very words of the Prayer-book the standard and exponent of the Church's faith. Our candidates for holy orders are, and ever will be, open to the

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searching investigation of prelates, who may accept or reject them as they shall be found willing to receive all and every word of the Prayerbook in the literal sense of its language, as unconnected with any other authority whatever.

It has been permitted us already in these columns, to state frequently, and in sufficient detail, the principal points which require a careful revision both in the ritual and in the external matters of the Church; and we should hardly recur to these so soon, had not two recently published letters forcibly recalled our attention to the subject.

1st. The Rev. Dr. M'Neile has addressed the Bishop of Exeter in an admirable letter, in which he has placed the question of the whole teaching of the Prayer-book, and his lordship's private judgment and public action thereon, upon its right footing. Dr. M'Neile candidly admits, pp. 10, 11, that upon the subject of baptism, three or four sentences do tell in favour of the bishop; but he as strongly brings the fact to bear that "the great bulk of the Prayer-book is clearly and powerfully on the side of his metropolitan's private judgment." It is by no means necessary to break afresh into the baptismal controversy, by following Dr. M'Neile through the argument by which he proves that whatever may be asserted of the Prayerbook doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, as a positive dogma, the Bible teaches quite a different view. We are concerned here to deal with what we are glad to find Dr. M'Neile does not shrink from avowing will become necessary, if the Bishop of Exeter, and the party who act with him, are suffered to molest the Church. We think, however, that were this Romanizing party to be silenced now, that it would only produce a lull, possibly of some years, but that there would again arise perhaps still sterner necessities, when,

"Instead of remaining patiently and quietly on the defensive against such an agitation carried on from such a vantage ground, it will soon become the duty of

all sound churchmen to raise a counter agitation; and, if a change must take

place in our comprehensive polity, to have it effected avowedly and above board, by authority, in the words of the Prayer-book; and not indirectly, by the one sided practical operation of an unscrupulous private judgment.

"The issue of such a struggle is not, 1 think, to be dreaded, however painful

the process.

Much that for a season was little more in the ears of our great community than the unintelligible jargon of a middle and dark age, has of late acquired a definite meaning. The defections from our clergy and aristocracy to the ranks of the ever aggressive and intolerant Papacy, have made manifest the Romeward tendencies, to say no more, of the Sacramental system,' and awakened the serious apprehensions of good men, both among clergy and laity. To my

eye the prospect brightens; and it is more than possible we may have to thank your lordship as the instrument, however undesignedly, of helping forward a reformation in that church, which, though vastly superior to any thing else of the kind in Christendom, is not yet so absolutely faultless as to be incapable of improvement."

There is a preface to the third edition of this letter, which we cannot but consider as most valuable to the cause of liturgical revision; the exact status of the Prayer-book, its human origin, consequent fallibility, and actual need of amendment, are dealt with in a concise, but sufficiently definite, manner, to make us hope that those clergymen and laymen, who really feel that some steps ought immediately to be taken, will put themselves in communication with the Rev. Dr. M'Neile.

The speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he rather vigorously opposed any revival of convocation, on the very ground of the one question, which would probably come before that body--the Revision of the Liturgy-cannot, with all deference to his Grace's character or wisdom, be accepted as affording any true ground of opposition. His Grace imagines that the smothered fire, which, with all submission, we cannot call 66 nageable," inasmuch as it is wasting a very large and wide-spread portion of one diocese, and far too many parishes in others,-" would be raised into a conflagration which it would

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require her Majesty's prerogative to extinguish."

There might possibly ensue a great commotion amongst those narrowminded members of the Church who are bigoted enough to try and comfished Church, to believe and hold, pel their brethren in the same Estabwith equal faith as Divine truth, the language with which uninspired menthemselves only escaped from Romehave clothed the services for the administration of a rite, on which, as in the case of infants, Scripture is wholly silent.

A conflagration amongst such elements might possibly occur, and lamentable as all division and schism undoubtedly is, we are sure that the Church of England would feel no loss in the secession of such a body; while the real gain of spiritual and scriptural members that would hail the extinction of objections which had hitherto conscientiously forbade their union with us, would be incomparably the greater. We perfectly agree with Dr. M'Neile, that no comprehensive peace" can be looked for so long as the whole Church is expected, on pain of the brand of heresy,-and where the

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power is present, persecution also, -to yield "implicit submission to the private interpretation of the Bishop of Exeter, and those who agree with him :" moreover, we can strongly testify that "there exists a growing determination in the country to get rid of all equivocation in things sacred, and to make the national Church speak in plain terms, such as shall not require, on either side, laborious and farfetched explanations."

Only one other sentence shall we extract from this preface, and which is itself a quotation from Dr. M'Neile's able work, "the Church and the Churches,'

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"Dread of alteration is as intense as all our ritual, in its most minute details, it could be and as it ought to be-if were of express Divine appointment. While, for the sake of details of human origin, we are involved in a continued violation, towards many Christian brethren, of that loving forbearance which is indeed of Divine appointment."

In Dr. M'Neile's letter, we find reflected the image of his well known

DR. M'NEILE AND THE DEAN OF BRISTOL.

and valued character: real spirituality of mind, dauntless valour for the truth, and, what we are truly delighted to hail, an evident wish, not only to preserve the liberty which we Churchmen have undoubtedly a right to enjoy, but a growing anxiety to extend our own freedom, and to make our Church a more comprehensive system for good, by the removal of those objections which vex and impede those within, while they are stumbling-blocks and barriers to those without its pale.

Let us now, secondly, turn to a letter which has been sent by Dr. Elliot, the Dean of Bristol, to Mr. Bennett, a layman of Plymouth. As it is published, we presume that we may, without danger, regard it as also intended for the laity generally.

As we feel very little doubt that the Dean of Bristol may reasonably be expected to fill a far more important post than he does at present, we are the more anxious that his mind should be perfectly informed as to the true position of Church matters. There are questions which demand the most serious consideration from Churchmen three centuries removed from the Reformation. First among these, is the mode by which we can most safely attempt the alteration of our Services, so as to procure for the Church the largest measure of truth, with a more harmonious and affectionate co-operation on the part of the greatest possible number of members, who may differ perhaps in shades of opinion, but are yet anxious to agree in expressing in the same language, the grand truths of Christianity.

The Dean is a man who is not very careful to mince his words, when dealing with what in his conscience he believes to be prejudicial to the best interests of the Church, and we are glad to find him fully and courteously replying to Mr. Bennett's inquiry respecting the position in which the clergy are ecclesiastically placed. We have always felt that they were so much tied by their subscriptions ex animo to the Prayer-book, that whatever may have been their after convictions of truth and real christian expediency, they feel themselves pre

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England claimed from me assent to its "If I had thought that the Church of Prayer-book and Formularies, as something so fully and infallibly declaratory of the truth, and so perfect as the channel of grace or the vehicle of worship, as not to admit of change, or to permit even the question of change, I had never accepted the ministry at its hands. If it could be proved to me now, that such was the sense in which the assent was demanded, I should at once cease to be a minister in its communion."

Now this language is just what we want our brother Churchmen not only to hold with the lip, but to act upon, when judging of those who differ; and to allow the assertion of liberty therein boldly expressed to have full and practical effect.

Dr.

The Dean, we perceive, does not require for himself, or for his own conscience' sake, any alteration in the Liturgy. He refers any difficulties that may be found in the Formularies to the clearer and more explicit interpretation of the Articles; and he defends, or rather explains, the certain latitude allowed in the expression of certain points, by referring to the whole history of the Church of England since the Reformation. Elliot is evidently adverse to the Liturgy being touched, and he would prefer that there should be "such an expression by the people of England, as to what is the meaning of the language of their Church, in all its Formularies, as shall make it impossible that the disbelief in God's word and rejection of His grace, which Tractarianism is, shall find place or advocacy in our pulpits." The declaration which Dr. Elliot is greatly desirous should be powerfully made is, that the Church of England does abhor and does protest, not less now than at the time of the Reformation, against the doctrine of a priesthood as a divine institution, to stand between God and man, as the channel through which

God conveys authoritative interpretation of His word, or the benefit of Christ's passion, or the gifts of His grace or blessing to our worship, or pardon to our penitence.

This declaration, however satisfactory in itself, as a strong protest against man's usurpation of Christ's priesthood, has been repeatedly and clearly made, but it falls far short of a remedy for that and other evils which are no less perplexing to the Church. The Dean of Bristol must not allow himself to think and speak, as if the Tractarian heresy, of which we believe him to be so sincere a hater, were the only thing to be got rid of, in order to render the Church of England what it ought to be, and even might be, as a human institution. We must take away from our Church those vestiges of Rome, upon which Tractarians build their scheme; we must avoid the very appearance of ambiguity in passages which they are so ready to catch at, as supporting their views of priestly power; we must expunge from the language of our Baptismal Services, just those expressions upon which they fasten, as conveying by their hands sacramental grace, and the mysterious gift of the new birth; we must entirely take away the term, Priest, however it may have crept into the rubric; and with it must be swept away that startling form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick. We must so alter certain expressions in that most sublime composition, the Service for the Burial of the Dead, that, with the American Episcopal Church, we may be able thankfully to commit to the grave, those of whom we have good hope that they sleep in Jesus, without that constant violation of conscience, and delusion of by-standers, which must and does result from the use of language too individually applicable to the departed, be it of a person who, when living and dying, might have had no hope for eternity, and who might have too clearly shewed that lamentable want.

To get peace, "comprehensive peace, we must first be pure, or no declaration wrung from an indignant people by the treachery of a Romish

party within the Church, can be a lasting protection, even against the recurrence of such an attempt to undermine our Protestantism. To obtain peace, comprehensive and durable peace, we must sooner or later consent to revise that work which, though a marvellously pure production, when we consider the position of its framers, the character of the times, and the mass-book it superseded, yet contains just so much of a doubtful and hurtful character, as to engender disputation and strife, besides being daily found to give a false colouring to the dread realities of eternity.*

Doubtless there were giants in the days of the Reformation, but they were human after all, and partook of human frailty; they did much that was admirably adapted for their own times, and our times also; but their judgment, and their vision into the future wants and circumstances of the Church, were limited after all. Had they lived, or had their immediate successors been permitted to proceed, most probably we should not now have had to write about these matters.

Doubtless great and good men have been accustomed to accept and to use these Services, some with a secret wish that they might be amended; others, again, are satisfied with them as they are but both these classes are but men, and furnish strong proofs how the best and most enlightened err, or tolerate error, from various causes; whether from being blind to the objections, from long-acquired prejudices, or prevented, by a timid distrust of God's government of His Church, from seeking their removal.

Luther, with all the enlightenment of his mind, and amid all his great achievements for truth, never ceased to hold the doctrine of consubstantiation,-a dogma very nearly allied to transubstantiation itself. Should we, therefore, advise the Lutheran Church to continue holding such an error, or should we look coldly upon any attempt on their part to reject it, merely because so great and good a

* The reader is here referred to a letter which will be found in the present number, on the point alluded to by the writer of this article.-ED.

ON THE WORDS "SACRAMENT

man as Luther held it to the end of his life?

Giants in faith, in knowledge, and in the active exercise of the gifts and graces of God's Spirit, as were our Reformers, what hinders our own age from being blessed with men of equal spiritual might and mental vigour?

We should do well to put the inquiry, whether we do not limit the Spirit of God by shrinking back from a work in which, when His truth is concerned, we have a right to ask and to expect His mighty aid?

The Dean of Bristol hopes to see the attempt made "this very autumn" to rivet the attention of the people of England upon the "Tractarian treachery to our Church, and to God our Saviour." This will be well, but we must suggest to Dr. Elliot, that if he desires the permanent good and enlarged utility of the Church of England, he will throw his weight, influence, and anxious efforts, into the furtherance of some comprehensive scheme of reform. We trust we need hardly express a hope that no fears of being considered an unsafe man for promotion, will deter him from giving our suggestions a candid reception. What we now want is some wise prac

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tical movement. The wish,—we may
almost say the demand,-for thorough
reform, is greater than many imagine,
and we know that there wants but
some feasible plan of action, and the
appearance of some known and trust-
worthy leaders, to make the expres-
sion of this wish assume an impor-
tant aspect. Let Dr. M'Neile try
to get his Evangelical brethren to
come to the consideration of the ques-
tion, with a sincere desire for the glory
of God, the real welfare of the univer-
sal Church, and with that candour and
enlightened judgment which are used
on other subjects. We invite him to
see whether, in "this very autumn,"
before the meeting of Parliament, he
cannot call upon the clergy and laity
to agree in some proposition which
might be laid before the Queen and
the Government of the country.
we had occasion to remark, in a pre-
vious paper, much, if not everything,
depends, under God, upon the men
who shall take these matters in hand,
and the means they employ. Let us see
that the cause is righteous, and then
we may not only safely embark in it,
but we may confidently look for a suc-
cessful issue.

C. A.

As

ON THE WORDS "SACRAMENT" AND "MYSTERY." THE more we study the theological writings of former days, and the more we analyse the expressions of our Book of Common Prayer, the more evident it becomes that much of the painful controversy that has arisen in our own time is to be traced to the confusion of ideas arising from the mutability of language.

The manner in which the word Sacrament has been used, is a remarkable instance of this mutability. It is not a scriptural expression, but it appears to have been introduced into the early Church by Tertullian, in a very scriptural sense, and nothing could be more simple and natural than the manner in which he first employed it.

St. Paul had compared the christian warfare to the life of a soldier,

and Tertullian carries on the idea, and compares the solemn engagement made by the believer at the celebration of the Divine ordinances, in which he pledges himself to serve under the Great Captain of his salvation, to the sacramentum or military cath of the Roman soldier when he enlisted in the service of the emperor.

The transition from the solemn engagement to the ordinance at which it was made was easy and natural, and the words Ordinance and Sacrament became synonymous.

That this is the simple sense in which the Church of England uses the word Sacrament may be clearly seen, by substituting the word Ordinance, in the question to the catechumen, for the word Sacrament, now

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