The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-25 00:00:00

THE BICENTENARY MOVEMENT.

Yesterday, the 200th anniversary of the secession
of 2,000 ministers from the Church of England was
commemorated in most of the metropolitan dissent-

ing chapels. Mr. Binney, who holds perhaps the
highest place amongst the Nonconformist ministers
of London, had an overwhelming congregation at

the Weigh House Chapel, Fish-street-hill, the first
pastor of which was one of the Bartholomew Con-
fessors ; indeed, large numbers of persons who were
anxious to hear him on the subject were unable to
obtain standing room. The rev. gentleman selected
for his text the 14th chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to
the Romans, verse 5, "Let every man be fully per.

suaded in his own mind." He said that 200 years
ago that day many pulpits in England were vacant,
many voices were hushed, and in many places there
were sheep without a shepherd. They might profit-
ably consider the significancy of that act, which
stood out in history as part of a memorable crisis.
There, were, however, at the outset some very for-
midable difficulties which presented themselves in
dealing with the subject. Ist. It might be said that
its consideration was out of keeping with their ordi-

nary Sabbath worship and meditation. 2d. It was
utterly impossible to do it justice in a single dis-
course, and he did not.intend to devote another to it.
3d. It was very difficult to make it clear and intelli-
gible to a popular assembly. 4th. It was impossible
to discuss the subject in any method or in any spirit

without laying oneself open to misconception, for the
right of Dissenters to mention the secession of 1662
in connection with themselves had been insultingly
denied. Of all those difficulties he was perfectly cog-
nisant, and he had no expectation that he should be
able satisfactorily to remove them. He proceeded to
say that the year 1662 took its character from the
times which preceded it. It belonged to a period
of inquiry, search, questioning, and discussion, and
it was a crisis at the close of a very stormy
period. In times behind the 14th century
there was in this country, on religious mat-
ters, a unanimity of ignorance, a state of
mental stagnation being encouraged. The souls of
men were dead, and dead people, it was well known,
were very quiet. That was the sort of tranquillity
enjoyed by our forefathers in these good old times
when the Church was above the State. But in this
condition of things a star appeared in the sky,
sleepers awoke, the dead arose, and inquiry was set
on foot. By the preaching of Wycliffe, the Morn-
ing Star of the Reformation, attention was excited,
inquiry was quickened, and the new doctrine, as his
message was called, was everywhere eagerly received.
Of course there could be no connection between
light and darkness, and violent fulminations there-
fore went out against them. There was disagree-
ment, agitation, controversy. It could not be helped,
and it was by no means to be lamented. Better, far
better, was it that there should have been life, ac-
tion, and progress, with confusion, and battle, and
war, than the stagnation of death and the peace of
the grave. This was the beginning of healthy ac-
tion, and was the prelude and the prophecy of the
coming day, for the people then began to clamour
for the truth, pure and simple. Confident with this
very first agitation and this cry for truth, there were
the utterances of secular ideas, which came to be
productive of controversy. Wycliffe had stated that
in the primitive Church there were only two orders
in the ministry, which was considered sufficient,
namely, presbyters and deacons, and that in the
time of St. Paul presbyter and bishop meant the
same thing. In the reign of Henry VIII. came a
contest of another kind—a contest for national in-
dependence. The King claimed for himself and
his people entire freedom from foreign interference
in ecoesiastical matters ; and he was right. But
at this time Papists and Protestants suffered alike,
and frequently at the same stake, the one as a here-
tic for denying the doctrine of Transubstantiation,
and the other as a traitor for denying the ecclesias-
tical supremacy of the King. Matters went on

under the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles,
until they culminated in that state of things with

which they were all familiar under the Common-
wealth. Then there came a battle for greater
simplicity in church rites, for an improvement in
clerical habits, and a more clear and decisive decla-

ration of Protestant creeds. It was a curious fact in

connection with this subject that in the convocation
held in 1562, just 300 years ago, in the reign of
Elizabeth, the Puritan element was so strong that
many members holding high ecclesiastical effices
were anxious for ritual reformation. A proposition
was made to abrogate all saints' days, to omit the
sign of the cross in baptism, to discontinue the use
of organs, to provide that the priest should not turn
his back upon the people at any portion of the ser-
vice, and to leave the practice of kneeling at the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper a matter of discre-
tion. This proposition was carried by a majority of
eight of those who were present at the discussion,
but proxies being admitted the decision was reversed
by a majority of one, so near was the Church in the
time of Elizabeth being reformed by the Puritan
element. The Puritans obtained the lead, and many
persons were admitted to the priesthood, if he might
use the term, who had only been ordained by the
laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. In the
middle of 1662, when the death struggle was at its
height, those who had been undermost for 100 years
became supreme, and so things continued until the
turn of the tide brought back to their old moorings
the representatives of the past. With the restoration
there might have been mutual concessions, but such
was not the temper of the times. On the part of the
bishops there was only one desire, viz., to get rid of
their adversaries, and on the part of those adversa-
ries there was too great a desire, under the circum-
stances, to introduce functional changes in the offices
of the Church, The State, influenced by the Church
then proposed terms which the clergy could not ac-
cept without dishonour, and the Act of Uuiformity
was the climax and the close of one eventful period
of our history. What was required was so monstrous
that to refuse could scarcely be considered an act of
heroism. To have accepted a half or quarter of what
was proposed would have been infamous. The Act
of Uniformity involved the denial of everything of
moment which had been struggled for ; large num-
bers of the clergy, therefore, gave up everything
they had, and many of them, in addition to these
privations, suffered severe penal consequences. A
wrong principle was common to both parties at that
time—namely, a desire that the secular arm should
be called in to enforce the provisions of a creed.
The lesson to be learnt from the nonconformists of
those days should riot be lost sight of, especially at
the present day, when the secret seemed to be
possessed by some how subscription might be har-
monised with a denial of almost everything sub-
scribed. The rev, gentleman concluded by saying
that there never could be unanimity of knowledge
on religious matters, that was in the sense of scien-
tific demonstrations, but there might be unanimity