The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 20,1858. 1128 charged with the maintenance of Maynooth—or, to take a more appropriate case, in the great Episcopalian landowners of Scotland being bound to maintatn the estab lished Presbyterian worship. Men, however, have irritated themselves into the belief that they have a grievance in church-rates, and it is politic, it is Christian, fully to con sider their feelings. Moreover, I suppose it is granted that, whatever may te said of the justice of the present church-rate, it has great inconveniences, and therefore we are quite ready for any good alteration of it which i-an be suggested ; and we wish this alteration to be made iu the most conciliatory spirit towards those who are not members of our Church. How far these alterations may with safety be carried, the Government, we are led to believe, is now considering. Even supposing that the alterations were to go very far, I should feel no fear myself that the churches of this great and wealthy metropolis would be allowed to fall in ruins, or the seemly dignity of their services be cur tailed, because we were thrown more unreservedly on the hearty loyalty of that great mass of persons who love the time-honoured institutions of our Church, because they feel it has brought many blessings on their own and their fathers' souls. I cannot sr.'', however, that I should be equally free from alarm in remote or very poor places. Indeed, as I have already stated, I cannot look upon this otherwise than as a poor men's question. The parish church ought to be everywhere, and, thank God, still is in many parishes, and always in the country, the inheritance of the poor. It is their right to have it maintained for their use, not merely by the voluntary exertions of those who are charitably disposed to aid them, but by some pro vision of the law. And T do most earnestly trust that whatever settlement is devised, nothing will be done to sacrifice the rights and feelings of the great majority of the people, both rich and poor, in order to satisfy the un reasonable demands of a politically influential few. I must say unreasonable demands, for I cannot allow any man's objections to church-rates to be reasonable, who, when a compromise is proposed, not contented with an immunity being secured to himself and his fellow-dissenters, protests against the impost being levied by authority of law, even on those who are actual members of the Established Church, and feel no hardship in the payment. The present state of this question is, I grant, a very anxious one ; but still, my reverend brethren, let us not exaggerate the difficulties before us. To my mind, the one great lesson which all these inquiries into secular matters con nected with our Church forces upon us is this—that the days are gone by when the Church of England can look to be propped up by the adventitious aid of secular authority, if it be not true to itself, and to its heavenly Master, and to the souls He has committed to it; and yet that it is not therefore less prosperous and strong. It we, the clergy, are true to our vows, the temporal aid which the laity can give, both privately and by law, in their national corporate capacity, will not, I feel confident, ho refused to us. But, above all things, it is important for us to understand that our true strength is not temporal. The Church, as a spiritual institution, the Church of Christ, can never perish ; and this our own national development of the Church of Christ, with its own peculiar institutions, dear to true-hearted Englishmen from the historical associations of the centuries of England's most real greatness ; which has been bound up with so many crises of the nation's history in times pa4t; which men love because it maintains the faith in which their fathers lived and died, and in which they desire to rear their children, to which all the Protestant nations of the earth look as the great bulwark of that at once reasonable and loving Christianity which commends itself only the more to right-minded men, the mere they love freedom, and the more they are educated— I say this, our great national development of the Church of Christ is in no danger if we, its ministers, are what we ought to be. love of the externals of worship to an extreme. It is in my judgment carried to an extreme in all cases in which men's minds are led to dwell on such things rather than on those spiritual affections, those revealed theological truths and sound practical principles which are the essence of the Gospel, while these things are at the best but its helps. Why should any clergyman wish to make his church such that a common man, placed suddenly within it, would not be able to say whether he was in a Church of England, or a Romish place of worship? I believe there is danger to our souls in encouraging these tastes, which insensibly break down the barriers by which the wisdom of older times has separated us from a corrupt form of faith. RITUALISTIC OBSERVANCES IN CHURCHES. It would be foolish as well as useless to attempt to conceal or overlook the fact that there are churches in this, as in other dioceses, in which ritual observance is carried to an unwise extreme. None, indeed, but those who are afflicted with a morose Puritani.m will deny that architecture and music, and the decorative arts, may well be used in the cause of the Gospel. Our worship will also be none the less spiritual because that part of it which is necessarily ceremonial is clothed with the grave comeliness which recommends itself to persons of refined minds. When our Church purified itself from the corrup• thins of Romanism, it raised no protest, such as some other Reformed Churches have raised, ag dust the system which had come down from remote antiquit‘, of enlisting on the side of Christ the majestic or luvely beauty of the arts—if by any means the eye, as well as the ear and the intellect, might become a help to the soul's spiritual emotions. Witness our great cathedrals, with their majestic services, which our Reformers, instead of demo lishimr that they might build conventicles in their place, purified of the dross, the hay, and the stubble, and the tawdry decorations of a sensuous worship, that the fine gold of the Gospel might hereafter be encased in such a chastely simp;e but beautiful setting as well accorded with its purity. Who has not felt, in rigid Presbyterian countries, that a mistake has been made in this respect? Indeed the most rigid Puritans have now learned that there is no connection between want of taste and the pure Gospel; and those who wish a national Church to be really national, will always be very cautious that there shall be as little as possible in its forms or in its teaching harshly to check those aspirations of the heart and intel lect which, as they have nothing in theta that is sinful, will ( many not unnaturally expect) receive their highest development at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when all creation is made fit to welcome Him its King. I shall not, then, be misunderstood, as if I were saying anything to depreciate that attention to the outward • of our worship which is a good thing in its way, or as if I were ungrateful to those who have been the revivers of a better ecclesiastical taste in this age, when I point oul that some amongst us do barm by carrying their THE RIGHTS AND CLAIMS OF THE MINISTRY. On this matter I must he explicit. First, then, let us not forget, in approaching such questions, that nothing can exceed the solemnity of the words in which it has been thought proper in the Church of England to confer the full rights of the office of the Presbyter. Also let us not forget that these words of ordination have always in our Church been interpreted by a large and influen tial body—by many, indeed, of our most honoured divines —as conferring the right derived from Christ himself, not only to administer his holy sacraments and preach his holy word in the congregation, but also to speak of pardon with authority in Christ's name in the Church's service in a way in which other men cannot speak for the comfort of distressed souls. We have no right, my reverend brethren, to forget that such has been the language of some of our best divines, whether we ourselves—wing, as we are fully entitled, our individual liberty—assent to it or not. Ido not say that the statements which we meet with in these divines on this subject of the Presbyter's office applied, for example, especially to absolution, ate very definite or cl ar. I do not wean that from the very first you will not find powerful objections made in our Church to such state ments as tending, when scrutinized by the right of a rigid logic, to foster notions of priestly power which are u.tten. able and untrue. The learned and pious men who have advanced these high claims for the ministerial office, pleading that their views are the natural and obvious ex planation of certain expressions in our formularies, have, it is certain, been satisfied to leave the matter in some degree of vagueness, contending perhaps, after all—when we sift their statements—only for this undoubted truth, — that as Christ has appointed the ministry of his Church, so it is in all its offices, not merely in its preaching and in its sacraments, a ministry of consolation, capable of dis tilling the balm of comfort in Christ's name into repentant souls through every reverent word it speaks while fulfilling its pastoral mission. Now, the claim of such authority as attaching to the Presbyter's office—though, as I say, good men in the Church have often thought that it was exagge rated by those who put it forward, and though there have accordingly always been tvo schools amongst us, one up• holding it, the other pointing out that there is danger in making much of it—the claim, I say, of such authority for Presbyters of the Church of England has hitherto been usually expressed with guarded moderation, even by those who thought most highly of it. Isolated passages may be adduced frow cur great divines upholding the priest's absolving power, but any dangerous application of such passages is guarded against by the whole tenor of those most moderate sentiments which we find breathing through the works quoted whe.i we take them as a whole. 7,ONFESSION. I feel myself justillee', then, in asserting that as our formularies give no authority for a systematic private confession, so a fsir•minied student of the great Church of England divines would not rise from a careful perusal of their writings with a ck nviction that our Church has put forth for its presbyters those arrogant claims of priestly authority which Protestant justly regard as the reproach of the Church of Rome. Bit we now live in an age give.' to restless extremes. And I do not hesitate to say that there is great danger lest some of our young clergy especially—and some alas w,io are old enough to know better, often led away by their juniors—claim for them- selves priestly rights which are both alien to the whole spirit of our Church's teaching, and have no warrant whatsoever in the Word of God. My reverend brethren, it is my firm belief that there is d inger amongst us lest a mole rf teaching may gain ground which, as it would so exalt the sacraments administered by the clergy as to turn then into superstitious charms, 'you'd make the clergy themselves spiritual despots over tie laity. You know that, at this moment, a deep slant pervades the country lest the habitual establishment of the Confessional, as a means of priestly influence, may be employed to give men who thus unduly magnify ther office an influence subversive of the legitimate exercise 1•f individuals of the duties of the Christian conscience, aid dangerous to the peace of families. I believe that this alarm is exaggerated. Comparatively very few persons wild. to introduce the Confessional into our system ; and the authorities of the Church, I am persuaded, are quite alive to the danger. THE CASE OF MR. POOL;. The Bishop, having adverted to the letter of Mr. Poole explanatory of his views, expressed his opinion that those who indulged in these exaggerated notions as to the Confessional were unfaithful to the spirit of the Church of which they were ministers; and added, that if what they deemed a dangerous Fyste matio invitation and admission of their people to confession was endeavoured to be maintained by any clergyman in this diocese, he should feel bound to watch his proceedings very carefully, and should hold him most deeply responsible for any evils that ensue, considering carefully in each particular case what power the law gave him to correct what was amiss. THE EXETER FULL SERVICES. The Bishop recommended the newly.forrned Dio. cesan Home Mission as a satisfactory mea ns o r pro. pagating the Gospel amongst the poor. He re. gretted that the incurr.bent of the parish in which Exeter-hall was situated, taking, as he conceived, a very mistaken view of his responsibilities, though acting, he could not doubt, from thoroughly e on . scientious motives, should have thought it his duty to oppose what at first, on the Bishop's request, he sanctioned. He regretted this opposition the more, because in none but the most technical sense could a great building, erected for the UPI 3 of the whole of London, he regarded as belonging to that parish in which it was accidentally placed. The opposition on the part of the incumbent to the services there held was, in his estimation, not only unfortunate front its exhibiting a clergyman as resisting his Srother clergy of his own Church who, under the sanction of their Bishop, sought by those special ministrations to win souls hitherto neglected, but also because it seemed to advance a claim on the part of town incumbents of a right to exercise a control over public building.; in their parishes, to which he thought. they could him no moral, even if they had a technical legal right. THE EVENING SERVICES AT ST. PAUL'S will soon be commenced, the arrangements being very nearly brought to a close. A temporary organ, of consider able compass, has been erected in the nave, and a pulpit l•as been taken in, but the precise spot in which it is to be placed appears to be a matter of doubt. Temporary stalls have been erected for the accommodation of the minor canons, choristers, and singing boys. The first sermon in connection with the new evening services will be preached by the Bishop, in all probability, on AAvent Sunday. The list of preachers for the subsequent services has not but been completed. THE " GOURRIER " PARIS CHURCH FUND, having for its object the purchase of the chapel in Rue d'Aguesseau under the Consular Act, and the en dowment of a service in the Ft emit language for the use of Church of England Anglo• French residents in that city, has been the subject of a preliminary in terview between the Rev. William Goode and Mr. Thomas Wiukworth, two of the trustees, and Mr. G. A. Hawilton, Secretary to the Treasury. THE EXEMPTION OF CLERGYMEN FROM TOLL was raised in the case of Temple, appellant, v. Damson, respondent, which was heard in the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday. It was a case stated by magis trates for the opinion of the court, and which raised a question whether toll could be exacted from a clergyman under these circumstances. It appeared the Vicar of Steignton, in the county of Devon, died, and during the vacancy the Rev. Mr. Dickenson was appointed by the churchwardens, and with the sanction of the bishop, signified by letter from the bishop's secretary, to officiate in the parish. The clergyman lived at Teignmoutli, and iu going to the parish of Steignton, on the 14th of February last, to do duty there, he had to pass through a toll-bar in the adjoining parish of Broadmeadow. The tollgate keeper demanded of him Sd. for a toll, which the clergyman paid under protest. He then summoned the toll collector before the magistrates, and claimed exception under the 32nd section of the Turnpike Act, the 3rd George IV., cap. 120, which, among other exemptions, enacted that no toll should be taken "from any rector, vicar, or curate, going or returning from visiting any sick parishioner, or on other of his parochial duty within his parish." T he justices decided that the clergyman was entitledto the exemption, and convicted the toll collector, who now appealed against the decision. Lord Campbell said he had no doubt that the clergyman was a curate within the meaning of the statute, for he had the licence of the bisbon, though not under his hand and seal. His lordship thought the respondent was entitled to the exemption when going to and re turning from the performance of his sacre d du t ies, though the turnpike might be in another parish. The other judges were of the same opinion. Con' viction affirmed. Baba! 10 Silitarg nteiligenct. THE Gus, with harness and complete equipment ror the field, given by the Emperor of the French to her Majesty, was received by the Queen at Windsor on Tut sday from Marshal the Duke of Malakoff. The gun, which is a twelve. pounder, b e autifully finished, had been sent over to England under the e charge of Major Melchior, of the Artillery of French Imperial Guard, who explai ned to her Majesty the particulars of the gun, w hi c h was after wards marched and trotted past her Majesty in the A MONUMENT to the memory of the officers quadrangle. Royal Artillery who fell in action during the Crimean war will shortly be oommeacea on Woolwioh•comeleu of the (renting the Royal artillery Wrecks. ) ) ) ) • • ) ) ) 3