The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-23 00:00:00

TUE RITUAL CONTROVERSY.

The London Review declares that Mr. Gladstone must
be firm in dealing with the Irish Church question, for
dangers lie ahead in the way of compromise, and he is by
no means bound by those terms which he made last year,
and which were spurned. The elections have well shuffled
the cards, and a new combination has been dealt to each
player in the great game of politics by the sure band of
public opinion. The hand of public opinicn is sure, not
always because public opinion is very distinct or unani-
mous, but because by common consent the voice of the
majority is accepted as final. No one at this moment
disputes the dictum of the constituencies. No one takes any
further thought of the Tory victories by which the general
defeat was softened. Mr. Disraeli set the example of
resignation in a double sense, and a general disposition to
make the best of it has set in amongst those whose policy
during the debates of last year and the general elections
was "no surrender." In fact, when "no surrender"
surrenders, the submission is apt to be characterised by
great alacrity and a keen eye to what may be saved. The
very arguments by which the overthrow of the Irish
Church was resisted render it obviously prudent for its
supporters to make friends of the mammon of Gladstone
unrighteousness. The more they staked the more they
have to hedge. The more absolute the fall they strove to
avert the greater their eagerness to break the fall which
they now see must come. And the danger is that
a bargain too favourable for them may be made.
What it is necessary, therefore, to make clear
to the conscience of the Liberal party is that they
and their leader are free to do absolute justice to the Irish
people by disestablishing the Irish Church, without refe-
rence to the pledges of partial provision for the future
which were given last year. Of course life-interests must
be protected. On the State-Church system a benefice is
necessarily a benefice, and the duty of ministering in
sacred things means the right of receiving so much money
by a yearly national provision. The State can no more
take this away from individuals than they can deprive
freeholders of their freeholds, although the fact that such
benefices will not be renewed condemns the present occu-
pation as unjust and indefensible. But beyond the life-
interests we need not go, and they ought to be satisfied by
a payment as unlike as possible to the manner in which
the stipends now accrue. The policy of last year, how-
eyer, was not thus conceived. Mr. Gladstone sedulously
devoted himself to the conquest of English prejudices by
proving how slight the change of disestablishment and
disendowment would be to those dependent on the Church.
He has now to effect the conquest of Irish discontent by
proving how absolute the change will be to those who are
offended by the Church. This is the duty of the present
year, in contradistinction to that which last year Mr.
Gladstone so ably performed. And he is entirely flee to
undertake it.
The John Bull makes some observations upon the con-
coct of the Ritualists, and declares that they are incon-
sistent themselves, and seek to compromise others to suit
their own purposes. Mr, Mackonochie's open declaration
of policy in favour of the Liberation Society has some-
what astounded the world, and enchanted the Dissenting
papers. But to those behind the scenes it is a matter of
no surprise, and his letters may well be quoted in triumph
by Mr. Disraeli as a justification of the one fatal mistake
he made when he allowed himself to be influenced by
ultra-Protestant fanatics, some of whose followers have
recently held a meeting at Islington, Where, professinr, to
advocate the union of Church and State, they pleaded for
a slavery which would be as great as that so-called liberty
of which Mr. Mackonochie dreams. Mr. Lowder, like
Mr. Mackonochie, living in a world of his own, talks very
dreamily of waiting for God's providence, but the Arch-
n Taunton ba:s conc!usively proved, to the
all who have not arrived at a
pi el,- fusion, and willoriot be convinced,
the utter inconsiscency of the position he has taken up.
IVe have always urged consideration and fair play for the
Ritualists, we have acknowledged their self-sacrifice and
devotion, but if they put themselves beyond the pa'e of
the law and are a law to themselves, it becomes impera-
tively necessary that we should now disclaim any sym-
pathy with those who set themselves against the law. Mr.
James Skinner, in one of those lengthy letters to tie
Guardian which are so characteristic of the writer, and in
which he splits hairs to perfection, says that he will obey
the law if his bishop tells him, but not otherwise. Ws
trust that the Bishop of Worcester will do nothing of the
kind unless Mr. Skinner should resort to him frr his
fatherly counsel in an open and bond fide manner, an" with
no desire to put his, lordship in a fix. The Ritualists are
willing, they tell us, for the bishops to carry out the
judgment, Yet, i,ff they do so, what an outcry thug

Eatis

cti.,n of
tceived coy

According to the Church Times, the Church Asso-
ciation.has determined to pay the costs of the pro-
moterm the recent suit of Martin v. Mackonochie.
In doing this the association will take a step that
will considerably improve its position in the public
estimation, and that, too, at the very time when
the ultra-Ritualists are damaging theirs by
a refusal to obey the ruling of a court
whose authority they had acknowledged by pleading
before it, and whose judgment they would have
obeyed had it been favourable to them. With
reference to this matter, Mr. Lowder sends his
answer to the second letter of Archdeacon Denison's
to him, which we noticed a few days ago. Mr.
Lowder does not deny the charge of clisobedirice,
but retorts it upon his correspondent, and asks him
if he obeys the judgment by wearing the eucharistic
vestments. Rather, has not the Archdeacon shewn
that it is impossible for any party to obey the judg-
ment? Mr.Lowder contends that he is reallymu ch nearer
obedience than those who cry out against him. This
is really a remarkable statement. The Privy Council
has ruled that certain specific practices are illegal
upon grounds which the persons who have resorted
to them affirm would render legal and obligatory
certain other practices. The inference is, at all
events, doubtful ; but even supposing it is justified,
it is a strange way of showing obedience to
adopt the practices which are only inferentially sanc-
tioned, and to maintain those which are expressly
prohibited. Probably, Mr. Lowder will say that he
does not recognise the tribunal at all : then why did
he and his friends appeal to it; why, too, have they
laid so much stress upon the fact that this decision is
at variance with others by the same court ? In con-
cluding his letter, Mr. Lowder says that each must
follow for himself the indications of God's will, and
" while we may best be serving the cause of the
Church by patient submission, anothar may be
called upon to suffer and witness
.for the truth."
Mr. Lowder does not seem to recognise that there is
athird course secession from a ChurchA Thich requires
him, as he supposes, to disobey either God or
man.
A correspondent of the Daily NM's mentions that
agents of the Church Association will, on the
approaching Sunday, visit various churches to see
that the Ritual judgment has been complied with
The Association mean to enforce the law now that it
has been declared in their favour.

TWO LETTERS.
The Times publishes a letter from Lord Ebury ; the
Daily Telegraph a letter from a far abler and more
noticeable man, Dr. Rowland Williams, one of the
seven -Essayists and Reviewers. Lord Ebury says
that so far from " desiring a new Prayer-book, which
shall make his doctrine the only one tenable within the
pale of the Church," as Mr. Prowett had asserted of
him, he wishes to have the broadest possible compre-
hension, and his hindrances have arisen quite as much
from the Low Church party, to which Mr. Prowett
assigns him, as from other parties. He would
make one exception from his inclusive policy.
He would exclude the Romanists. "We desire," he
says, "to see those who condemn the Reformation,
revile its confessors and martyrs, and desire to make
use of their influence in our Church to bring us back
from the Church of Rome, absolutely shut out from
our Church Establishment. In all other respects our
object is comprehensive, and our mode of effecting
this is by means strictly conservative and constitu-
tional—royal commissions." The Bible, he declares,
is, "so far from being conducive to minute
dogma, an untiring protest against it, and there-
fore against that mountain of human regulations
and shibboleths which the enemy of mankind
has persuaded us to adopt for the purpose
of dividing and conquering." He would have
Jeremy Taylor's " Liberty of Prophesying" trans-
lated into modern English and largely circulated.
He concludes by pointing out that the Church has
now, at the cost of a few concessions so
trifling that it seems astonishing that its rulers
in Church and State should hesitate to make them,
an opportunity of uniting and regulating the entire
Reformed Churches of the world. "If our Church
will not, it needs no prophet to predict her future
downward career, namely, that after fostering for a
while every species of controversial asperity, she will
separate into sects unusually embittered against each
other, and will sink into well-merited insignifi-
cance.—Absit omen."
Dr. Rowland Williams heads his letter " Are not
limits to ecclesiastical freedom its best preservatives?"
He begins by saying that he should never forgive
himself if he added to Mr. Mackonochie's difficulties
at the present time. But since that gentleman has
in.his recent letter to the papers, paraded his belief
in Scripture as stronger than his neighbour's, and
especially than his (Dr. Wil2iams's), he feels bound to
protest. He asks Mr.A.laclecnoehie to say, for instance,
where the New Testament has
Enjoined the use of incense in church, not to say the
worship of a bodily God or a material altar.
Or, how does A appear that candles were used
symbolically in that upper chamber of the Gospels,
when we know that for three centuries the heathens
ridiculed Chr,stians for not using such things ! Or, where
is it writtel scripturally that water was mixed with
wine at tle Last Supper. Does not the practical
difference netween Mr. Mackonochie's friends and myself
(to mention the less than the least of those whom he
abhors' amount to this, that while we hold fast
the relgion of Scripture, rightly interpreted, but claim a
freecbm of expansion, co-extensive with the
immarentsch
hof
human progress, for its accidental accompan, e
sad his school permit themselves to develope religion and
ritual licentiously, but forge out of Scripture weapons or
fetters, which may enable them to interfere with social
order, arrest scientific discovery, and perplex the human
mind ?
He will never admit that his own religious doctrine
is as little scriptural, or as little willing to be tested
by Scripture, as that of either our younger Ritualists,
or of their more cautious progenitors who stand be-
hind thein." He goes on to affirm that if the decision
in the " Essays and Reviews" case had been given
against him it would have operated more fatally as a
dcree of excision against Mr. Mackonochie and all
his generation than against himself or any friend of
his. Mr. Mackonochie complains that spiritual
things have been tried by purely secular tests.
Dr. Williams reminds him that he (Dr. Williams)
sanded Convocation to hear him beforg