The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-07 00:00:00

THE PAN-ANGLICAN SYNOD.

If there be one subject which agitates to its
depths the religious mind in England, it is the
denial of the essential doctrine of Protestantism—
that the Bible is in all its parts and in all its
records the Word of God. Dr. Colenso has rudely
attacked this belief. Seventy-seven bishops of the
Protestant Church, speaking the English language
and reading the English Bible, have met in Synod
and have not ventured to condemn the doctrines of
Dr. Colenso, nor to vindicate the inspiration of the
Sacred Scriptures. Not to have come forward in
defence of the essential doctrines of Christianity,
not to have defined dogmas of faith which are
exposed to incessant attacks from the more edu-
cated portion of the nation, is a confession on the
part of the Pan-Anglican Synod of failure, is itself
a condemnation stronger than any which the in-
tellectual leaders of public opinion have already
pronounced on the Lambeth Conference. The
only points of doctrine which they touch upon
in a definite manner are the universal sovereignty
of the Holy See, and the place which Catholic
teaching assigns to the Mother of God in the Chris-
tian scheme. On these doctrines if on no other the
Protestant bishops can speak with a united voice,
and true to the origin of their creed they protest
once more, not against the Rationalism which is
making such ravages in the Church of England
and in the country, which is explaining away
creeds, dogmas, the very principle of faith itself,
but as of old against the Catholic Church. Seventy-
seven Protestant bishops can in these stirring and
dangerous times, do nothing more effective for the
preservation of Christianity than protest against
Rome. They have missed a great opportunity ;
there is still a deep innate reverence in the country
for at least certain of the great dogmas of revela-
tion ; and by defining in clear, intelligible, and
definite language truths now so openly attacked in
England, the Pan-Anglican Synod, had its bishops
in reality been animated by one faith, might have
moved the heart of the nation and regained some
of the vast influence which the Anglican Church
has lost in England. Misgivings, which are so
generally felt as to the stability of the old beliefs
of the Christian world, an instinctive shrinking
in many minds at the coming of what is feared to
be a crisis in religious faith seem never to have
entered the minds of the Anglican bishops ; or, if
the knowledge of such misgiving has occupied
their attention, the only visible effect it appears to
have exerted is to paralyze their utterance. In the
midst of deep divisions which are dividing the
minds of men, for the Anglican Church to take no
si l is to pronounce its own doom.
The assembly of 500 bishops in Rome was a
unanimous adhesion to the See of Peter, a declara-
tion of faith in the infallibility of the Church, and
a public profession of concurrence in the reproba-
tion of the errors of the day condemned in the
Encyclical and Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. The
Catholic Church has taken up the cause of Divine
truth with a distinctness which is made the more
marked by the contrast it presents to the prevailing
indecision and doubt.

The Pall Mull Gazctle, always keenly alive to
theological difficulties, was not slow in detecting
the impotent conclusion of the Pan-Anglican
Synod. Considering, our able contemporary argued,
how very much there is to be said on every point

in the creed which educated Englishmen are not

unwilling to accept, if it be supported by fair
argument and intelligible explanation, and how
much this reasonable and limited creed even
requires explanation, defence, and detailed ap-
plication to the present state of the world, con-
sidering all this, the conclusion arrived at by the
Synod appears to the Pall Mall Gazette, as it says,
" lamentable enough ; but it is something more, it
is ominous—and of what is it ominous ? Of nothing
less than the downfall and degradation of a body
which in its day has been—at least in its plan—
one of the most high-minded and magnificent
institutions in the world—the Church of England.
Neither institutions nor nations ever live up to their
ideal. It is not only possible but necessary to
pardon great shortcomings to all things human ;
but if we look at the general organization of the
Church of England and at the work which it still
might do if those who hold office in it were in
any moderate degree what they ought to be, it is
impossible not to feel, in all its force, that deep
mortification which falls upon those who see a good
cause to which they heartily wish success utterly
thrown away by the weakness of those who manage
it." While regretting its great shortcomings, the
Pall Mall Gazette sees in the Church of England
only a human institution—high-minded and mag-
nificent, indeed, but still only human. Indeed,
we are not surprised that the Pan-Anglican Synod
should have failed to impress upon the Pall Mall
Gazette the fact that the Church of England claims
to be a Divine institution—a branch of the Catho-
lic Church. If regarded as a mere human institu-
tion the Anglican Church and its Synod has failed
to see or to meet the spiritual darkness which is
overshadowing the national intellects what would
the Pall Mall Gazette say if it knew the Church of
England's claim to be considered a divine institu-
tion ? For ourselves, the commission on Ritualism
has left a far higher impression on our minds of
the aspirations of Anglicanism than the Pan-Angli-
can Synod.— Westminster Gazette.