The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-05-09 00:00:00

Weymouth, 6th May, 1676.
THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ITS DEFENDERS

Ts Ms Maar.

Sir,-1 shall feel obliged if you will allow me space in the
Kept ese fors reply to the lecture delivered last Monday
evening in the 'Town Hall, Bridport, by Mr. Hicklin,
lecturer for the Church Defence Society, and reported in
the Dorset Chroatote„ of the., 27th April. As Mr. Heard, to
wham lecture Mr. Hicklin sWM a reply. visited Bridport
at my requert, and as engagements prevented the attendance
of either of us at the Church Defence meeting, it seems
all the more necessary that some reply should be given.
So far it is gratifying to remark that the controversy on
both aides -has been conducted with fairness and good
temper and, therefore, we may anticipate the best results
from it. No exception can be taken to the spirit of Mr.
who, judging from the report in your contempo-
rary. bore himself with good feeling and courtesy towards
his oppondta. This is the only spirit which is consistent
with the great and momentous question with which we
are dealing. As a general remelt en the lecture it strikes
me as a legitimate objection to very much of it, that it
failed to realise the exact question at issue. Much of the
time of the speaker was occupied in describing the position
which our Puritan ancestors Auld even later leading
Nonconformists, assumed to the question of Establish-
ments; but in his observations be forgot to notice the
great change which has come over the Establishment not
only since the period of the Puritans, but even since the
days of John Angel James Dr. Rufiles, and others of that
school. Whether our puritan ancestors were or were not
favourable to • State 'Establishment, it is quite clear that
the whole course of their thought and opinion was con-
trary to the Establishment such AA we see it to-day. If for
example the Establishment had conceded all that the
Puritans demanded as the condition of their re-entering
the church, every vestige of Romanism would have been
expelled and the Establishment would have been a
thoroughly reformed church. Baxter and the man who acted
with were deadly opposed to what they deemed the
Popish errors of the Book of Common Prayer, and strove,
in every possible way to rid the book of these errors, end
thus pave the way for • true Protestant religion in the
country. That they would have entered the church if
these evils had been removed there is little room to doubt;
but the failure of their schemes left them still without
the pale of the Establishment, and in the eyes of the law
simply schismatics. Is it too much to say that if these
node men were with us to-day and were able to look at
the Establishment as it is, and at the decisions by its chief
councils, during the last few years, including the "Bina/
and Review," judgment and worst of all the "Bennett
ludsrment ; they would be, if not ardent members of the
Liberation society,at least ardent supporters of • policy of
disestablishment t With their know opposition to Popish
doctrine and ritual, and with their love of a simple
protestant ritual and faith, it is not to be supposed furs
moment that these men would be otherwise than alarmed
at the actual position of the state church and would
manifest towards it much less sympathy and indifferenoe
than do many Nonconformists to speak nothing of Evan-
gelical clergymen and laymen. Clearly the position of the
lecturer on this point, in which, skilfully, he attempted to
disparage the present efforta of Noneonfonniste
fails in its point, and even re.acts with severity
on lir. Hicklin himself. If Mr. Hicklin is as sincere an
admirer of our Puritan forefathers as he protases to be,
and if he be as anxious for the purity and spiritu-
ality of the Church of Christ, let him act as did
these men, and let him cease to advocate the maintenance
of an institution which sustains by the force of public law,
men who are free to publish the worst doctrine* of the
Church of Rome. We claim our seceders OD our side as
against Hr. Hicklin, and if they were with us and able to
speak for themselves, we are confident that the Church id
England as she is te-day, and as she is according to the
verdicts of her civil rulers, would find the fiercest
opponents in the very men, who are claimed by the
lecturer as for her. As a general remark it may be said
that the Puritans did not fully comprehend the question
of religious freedom and equality. We believe in the
progress of truth, and therefore we have advanced from
their position.
These observations may be deemed • sufficient reply
to the distinction, which has been made so frequently,
and again repeated on this occasion, as between the pious
Dissented and the members of the liberation Society who
are seeking the Dieestablishment and Disendowment of
the State Church. Ido not know where the lecturer is to
find his " pious Dissenters" if he excludes from the list,
the members of the Liberation Society. I do not think
he will leave many for Dorset for example. I do not
know a Dissenter who is worthy of the name who is not
either • member of the Society or • sympathiser in its
objects. The truth is, there is no other course open to a
true Nonconformist, than, either to return to the
Establishment, or to strive for its Dimatabliahment.
There is no consistent middle course, and this conviction
is rapidly forcing itself on the whole body of Noncon-
formist throughout the country; and a similar conviction
is, we believe, growing in the minds of the members of the
Church herself • they see that it is either "ending or
mending," but as there is little reasonable prospect of the '
latter, there Is a growing faith in the. former. We hope
ther.lfm at no distant data, to DSO this movement largely
supported
on the Church side.
the general catastrophy with which the lecturer
identities the success of this movement, as involving the
overthrow of the whole constitution, we have bmome so
familiar with such vaticinations, that they have ceded to
frighten us. They are "bogies," whose shape and
dimensions we have long since taken the measure of.
and we encounter their constant re-appearance at the
instance of Church Defence lectures with equanimity.
But we may fairly complain that this audacious state-
ment is supported by no manner of attempted proof.
Where is the probable evidence that such results are
likely to flow from such a policy t Is it implied
in the statement that the Estaint is now and has
ever been the friend of liberty, of Constitutional eights,
of "haw progress ; the chief promoter of religious
truth andlife; the friend of education and of every
movement which can bless humanity. Is this so, or does
history teach the reverse t History, undoubtedly,
proclaims that the English Establishment has been the
real foe of Zeeland 's true progress • that in every great
onward movement for the people's rights and liberties the
itstabitahmont, through her Bishops and Clergy, has
resisted with determined opposition every such movement
which has found Its best allies in the Free Churches of
the land. And, while Mr. Hicklin admits with much
caution, and with niggard spirit, the place of Noncon-
formist bottom in the Progress of this nation, he seems to
claim no less a place for his own Church—a place, un-
fortunately for him, which history doss not ilve. The
following is but one of many gotations which is fitted
settle this question. It is from Mr. Lecky's "History
Rationalism in Europe." He says "It is difficult to
to over-rate the debt of gratitude that England owes both
to her own non Episcopal Churches and to those of
Scotland. In good report and in evil ; maid persecution,
ingratitaide, and horrible wrong; in ages when all virtue
seemed corroded, and when apostacy had ceased to be a
stain, they clung fearlessly and faithfully to the tanner
of freedom. Neither the persecution of Charles, nor the '
premised toleration of James caused them to swerve. It
is to Puritanism that we mainly ewe the fact that in
England religion and liberty were not dis-aevered.
Amid all the fluctuations of its fortune, it represented
the alliance of these two principles which the predominat-
ing Church invariably pronounced to be incompatible."
Let us then bear no more of flit. Hicklin's Jeremiads. ,
about "national disasters" through Diseetaldishment. If I
Lecky and other Motorbus are to be trusted these
national disasters would have been realised long ago if they
had not, in the face of persecution, suffering, and death,
been challenged and repelled by the action of the NOD.
conformists. And where, I ask, amid the deepening
difficulties and evils of the Establishment at this hour,
are we to look for deliverance for the country from
diameters which are confronting us through the listahligh- I
meet, but to the non-letabliged Churches, who rightly
discern that the way out of our oresent nadenal
ecclesiastical dlMculti.s is by the path of t I
and Diseadowinent As to the continuity of the Church,
of which Mr. Rleklln makes so much, it is strange
to ins that he did not perceive that the argument
works entirely againsehim, and not for him. For if he
bases the main strength of his argument in support of
the Establishment as he deems to do, in the supposed
I fed that this Church is theme founded by the
—a fact of such consequencs in the eyee of the cRI
' that if it were not true he would setae at once for I
Di.oestablishment—l hop to claim the Reedit of Bridport
on our aide before I dose this letter—clearly be must I
yield up the claim of the present Zetablislitheat to
represent the iuscient British Church. Whether it be
true or DO, and the matter is wmPt in hhterical
uncertainty, that the Apostle Paul founded the British I
Church, it Is quite clear that the present Establishment '
dates from the mission of Aneudins, the asubsseader of
Pops Gregory; and if there were then Bishops of the
indent British Church, dearly they were not Meet Wood
by the Saxon kings, and were driven into the fastnesses
of Wales mad Scotland, and became the cuseamenthed
party and the protesting sect, so that as matter off
the humbled pastors of the Petted Nondeforenid
chapels of Wales and Scotland, are the reel succemore and
representatives of that ancient British Church, wises
representatives aa the lecturer tells= still eideling,
and conducting the dfairs of the ch whoa hgustine
came over from Hoene to win our Saxes fondathere to the
faith. Nor has that Romish church from that day to thle
failed to exercise through its dards and DB ritual.
or toe ißillBoolll over the (orgasms of the Zndleit