The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-22 00:00:00

on which such stress is now laid, since it has been
discovered that there is no corporate unity, no
identity, • betvieen the Church of England and the
Colonial Churches ? What kind of unity is there
in the Church of England itself, rent in twain as
it is by so many sections holding, and allowed
by the Church itself to hold, doctrines di%ame-
trically opposed ; to believe or not to believe in
Infant Baptism, in the Eternity of Punishments, in
the Inspiration of Scripture ; not to speak of the
widely diverging opinions as to the character and
office of the Priesthood, the Sacrifice of the Mass,•
the Eucharist, the power of Absolution, and Sac-
ramental Grace? How is even such unity preserved,
but by the supremacy of the Crown, and the control
of the State ? But in the Colonial Churches,
created by, and composed of, Englishmen, with
like principles and prejudices to those in the Angli-
can Church at home, where there is no Royal
Supremacy, no union with the State, is it likely
that they will long keep up " full and complete
communion " among themselves, or with other
independent Colonial Churches, or far less with
the English Establishment ? Independent, as they
now are of the Anglican Establishment and of the
State, what bond of union exists in these Colonial
Churches, between the Armenian and the Calvinist,
the Ritualist and the Rationalist, of sufficient force
to resist the diverging and isolating tendencies
common to all Protestant sects ? In spite of, the
Bishop of Oxford's solemn self-assurance, and Mr.
Gladstone's fervid congratulations on the " sign
of life" exhibited in the Colonial Churches, and
on their attachment to—he does not, however, say
which section of—the Anglican Establishment, it
is evident that the isolating-- liberty practically
bestowed upon them by the recent decision of the
Privy Council, is the seed-time of dissension.
When opinions develope as time runs on, when
the radical differences which are now agitating so
violently the various sections of the Anglican
Church, when the principles of pure Rationalism
which are penetrating so deeply the educated society
of England, shall be transported—not penally,
but triumphantly—to our colonies, what will the
result be in Colonial society, what the effect on
the Colonial Churches ? If the Anglican Church,
with all its historic associations, its elastic for-
mularies, its wealth, its union with the State, has
already no small difficulty in holding together its
various conflicting sections with their antagonistic
beliefs, how shall the mushroom churches of the
Colonies, isolated and unestablished, unrecognized
by law and unendowed, be able to resist the dis-
solving action of that principle which is at work
in the Anglican Establishment? We might sooner
expect that the lion would lie down with the lamb
than that the Rationalist in the days to come would
quietly consort with the Ritualst, or the disbeliever
in Sacramental efficacy with the Sacramentalist in
unestablished and unendowed Colonial Churches.
Already the seed of disunion has shot above the
Colonial soil ; the plant cannot be sounder than
the germ. Protestantism, under whatever form,
contains in itself the principle of its own destruc-
tion. If the meeting for the Propagation of the,
Gospel congratulated itself on " the signs of life
in the Colonial Churches, the Earl of Carnarvon
reminded his hearers that there was another
picture besides the one which they had been so
fervently contemplating in Canada. " That is one
icture said the Earl of Carnarvon ; "on the
other hand, you have in Southern Africa the pic-
ture, I grieve to say, of discord, and strife, and
infidelity." But is Bishop Colenso an exceptional
man ? When those who share views in the Eng-
lish Establishment multiply as fast as they are
doing now, when Rationalism increases and in-
tensifies at home, will the Colonial Churches be
free from the plague ? If " the discord, strife,
and infidelity" invade the Colonial Churches as
they have done that of Natal or the Anglican
Church, our hope and trust is that, free from the
trammels, interests, and associations which en-
cumber the Established Church of England, thei
will sooner and more freely take refuge from their
own doctrinal dissensions in that Church whose
universality is always beside them, and to whose
unity they must ever bear witness.