The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-30 00:00:00

lUST.

THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

(From the Brighton Observer.)
The following is a Supplemental Discourse, de-
livered at Christ Church, New Road, Brighton, by
the Rev. Robert Ainslie :
It s been said by many clergymen who do net agree
with the "Essays and Reviews," that their authors ought
no longer to be ministers in the Established Church. As
clergymen hold every variety of doctrine in the Church, I
think it necessary by a calm and candid examination,—and
as a supplement to the eight discourses I have delivered on
the Essays and Reviews, to ascertain "What is it that a
clergyman of the Church of England is required to believe ?"
My answer will occupy two or three Discourses, and we
shall learn, probably, who are the men so faithful to their
vows, as to be without tin; and qualified to cast stones at
the Essayists.
SUPPLEMENTARY DISCOURSE L
The text is from Paul's 2d Epistle to the Corinthians,
6th chapter, the 3d and part of the 4th verse :--,'Giving
no offence in any thing that the ministry be not blamed •
but in. all things approving ourselves as the ministers of
God
In a charge recently delivered by the Venerable Arch-
deacon Singleton, he is reported to have said, " Judge,
then, of my sorrow and surprise, and indignation, on seeing
within the last few years publications of various kinds in
which clergymen of our Church—men of learning holding
high positions—circulate without scruple, as pure English
coin, the basest neological counterfeits of Germany. Most
of the clergy are sufficiently acquainted with the works I
allude to. Ido not pause to enter upon the question how
far the several authors of one notorious volume were re-
sponsible for each other's pet formances, though I must
observe that those among them who object to the more ad-
vanced Infidelity of the rest, had in vain been called upon
to repudiate the Anti-Christian principles of their brethren."
The Rev. Henry Allen, minister of Union Chapel,
Islington, who for some time was held up as a heretic in
the columns of the British Standard, and who is said to be
the author, in part or entirely, of the article which appeared
in the British Quarterly, on the " Essays and Reviews,"
is reported to have used these words at the lath annual
breakfast of the Young Men's Christian Association:—
" He was not greatly alarmed at the publication of rationa-
listic books, and he thought it did not, say much for the
faith and trust of the Church that such a panic had lately
been exhibited." (If Mr. Allon be the author of the article
referred to he has done all in his power to increase the
panic.) Ho proceeded and said, "It was certainly very
scandalous that ministers of the Church of England should
have published the Essays and Reviews."
According to these divines there are infidels in the
Church of England, men who write and publish infidelity.
We have here the testimony of conformist and of non-con-
formist. Nothing, however, has transpired authoritatively
since the Committee of Convocation took the matter in
hand, except that in proroguing Convocation, last week, it
was steted that the report of the committee " was not quite
ready."
There is but little doubt that the whole subject will be
more complicated, and will have to be investigated more
thoroughly than was expected, or intended. If the
Essayists have tiangrossed in one direction, how many
have transgressed in every other direction. Religious
men lay claim to honesty on other grounds than those
of men who make no profession of religion. Clergymen
should be moral men : they should also be honest. With
them truth should be the bread of life to the mind—and
honesty the soul of peace to the conscience and the heart.
If a commercial man were to go to a clergyman, and ask his
advice as to questions of morals in trading, he would espe-
cially enjoin upon him truthfulness, justice, and honourable'
dealing. If he were to ask by what principles he should be
guided in signing a contract, he would urge upon hint the
necessity of thoroughly knowing and understanding what
he is about to sign ; and that he should faithfully abide by
the terms of the contract. It is well known that we have
morality under various phases, even in this country, whore
men call themselves Christians. We have the morality
among lawyers. No more honourable men exist in the com-
munity, than upright and conscientious lawyers. They
would scorn to fleece and to oppress a client. They could
as soon think of going on the highway to plunder as to take
advantage of the various means the law affords them to
plunder their clients. But there are men numbered by
hundreds in that profession who are utterly reckless and
wog thless. They have no principle, no conscience, they
give wrong advice ; for the sake of fees they introduce every
possible delay, and if the client be a man of property they
will not leave him until they have legally or illegally
plundered him of every shilling they can obtain, and then
they will throw him off when they can obtain no more plun-
der. Some of the worst of these men are avowedly religious
men, members of churches, high Calvinists, believing in

their personal election. Perhaps they are wise, in holding
this lie in their right hand, for if not saved by absolute
and unconditional election, irrespective of personal charac-

ter, it is morally certain they could lever be saved
at all. It is their only chance, but they will find it to
be a fearful delusion. We have also social and conven-
tional morality. We have also commercial morality—and
in a great country like this we ought to have, and to a large
extent we have realised it—truth, honesty, justice, honour-
able dealing—in one word, all that is comprehended in the
term "a man of honour" as the basis of our commercial
code. This exists in society with or without religion.
And then we have, or ought to have, the most elevated
morality among bishops, priests, and deacons, and ministers
of religion of all denominations. There is their personal
character for general uprightness, consistency, purity, and
piety; and then there is their Ecclesiastical morality. Of
this there are two branches : first, the truthful avowal, as
in the presence of God, of what they believe when entering
upon the office of the ministry ; and second, their sincerity
in truthfully holding and honestly teaching what they avow
therbelieve. All double meaning, false reserve, equivoca •
tion, dissembling, and the end justifying the means—(states
of mind which the honourable commercial man would spurn
from him)—ought especially to be discarded and renounced
by a cler,ayman. Truthfulness in the heart, and on the
lip, God requires of all men.
Clergymen of the Church of England, and all candidates
for holy orders, are, however, placed in peculiarly difficult
and trying positions. They seek to minister at the altar of
the Established Church, and to this perilous position they
have to wade through abstruse propositions, Runtish Church
offices, Calvinistic articles, contradictory creeds, and to de-
clare hat they believe them all. To everything within the
covers of the Prayer -book they have to give cx aiiiiito their
assent and consent. We shall now endeavour to answer
the question, " What is it that a clergyman of the Church
of England is required to believe ?" At the time of the
founding of the Established Church very different views of
religion, of liberty, of private judgment, and of individual
responsibility prevailed to those now generally ac-
cepted. Henry VIII., of blessed memory! was the
founder of the Episcopal Church of England—the Church
established by law. Macaulay says, 4, Henry VIII.
attempted to constitute an Anglican Church, differing from
the Roman Catholic Church, on the point of the supre-
macy, and on that point alone. His success in the attempt
was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singu •
larly favourable situation in which he stood with respect to
foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation
of the abbeys placed at his disposal, and the support of that
class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him
to hid defiance to both the extreme parties—to burn as
heretics those who avowed the tenets of Luther, and to
hang as traitors those who owned the authority of the
Pope." In referring to Cranmer, Macaulay says, " The
man who took the chief part in settling the conditions of
the alliance which produced the Anglican Church, was
Thomas Cranmer. He was the representative of both the
parties which at that time needed each other's assistance.
He was at once a divine and a statesman. * * * * * *
His temper and his understanding, eminently fitted him
to act as mediator. Saintly in his professions,
unscrupulous in his dealings—zealous for nothing—
bold in speculation—a coward and a time-server in
action—a placeable enemy, and a lukewarm friend,
he was in every way qualified to arrange the
terms of the coalition between the a ligious and the worldly
enemies of Popery." After these allusions to Henry VIII.
and Cranmer, Macaulay gives us his opinion of the
present state of the church. He says, "To this day the
constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the Church
retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she
sprang. She occupies a middle position between the
Churches of Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions
and discourses composed by Protestants set.forth princi-
ples of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have
found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her prayers and
thanksgivings, derived from the ancient liturgies, are very
generally such that Bishop Fisher or Cardinal Pole might
have heartily joinee in them. A Controversialist who puts
an Armenian sense on her articles and homilies will be pro-
nounced by candid men to be as unreasonable as aControvpre
oa
dnidfi tehde,
esiaanlibs
et
dwihaeoe dveenrieedsitntrtihiteudroegytr.,ilaTebbef
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yranhdadpotolitbiceaml,
fierce
the aspaencdt
ungovernable gaffovaierrns bothab
le ecclesiasticalwalofatant
and expressed by the English Parliament in the short reign
of his successor. In the fifth and sixth years of the reign of
Edward VI., there was passed "an Act for the Uniformity
of Common-prayer and Administration of the Sacraments"
but the early death of Edward soon introduced a very dif-
ferent state of things. Mary succumbed to the Pope, and
bishops, priests, and deacons—the Houses of Parliament
and the people went back to Popery. The following is
Bishop Burnet's account of the visit of Cardinal Pole to the
House of Parliament: " Their Majesties being seated under
a canopy, and the Lords and Commons being present, Gar-
diner, the Chancellor, introduced to them Cardinal Pole.
Pole produced his commission from the Pope and addressed
the house. " He had come to restore the nation, which had
strayed from the sacred enclosure, to its ancient and true
nobility." The two houses agreed to the offered reconcilia-
tion. On their knees they presented an address to the King
and Queen, beseeching their Majesties mho had not been
defiled by their schism, to intercede with the legate of the
Holy See that he would grant themand the kingdom abso-
lution from the sin ofschism and heresy, and receive them
again into the bosom of the Church.' On their beaded
knees the Leads and Commons received absolution from
Cardinal Pole, because they had been Protestants, and then
and there became Papists. Oh, England, and was this thy
humiliation by the Court of Rome On the death of Mary,
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, and in the first year of
her reign the Acts passed by Mary were repealed, and those
paised in the fifth and sixth of King Edward VI. were re-
enacted. The Houses of Parliament again became Pro-
testant, and the Act of Uniformity was revived. The
penalties for non-conformity were very severe. It does
not appear that at any time the Christianity of
the New Testament was referred to, or that truth
was the aim of any party, but simply which ecclesiastical
system should be dominant—the Romish or the Protestant.
Persecutions, the most wanton and cruel, prevailed under
both systems.
It was in the 14th year of Charles 11. that tile Act
_o_f
Uniformity now in force was passed, and it came into op
ration on the memorable St. Bartholomew day, a
in
ct
of our Lord 1662. The book of Common Prayer.anwas
pre
-
ministration of thd sacraments as we now hareit,
tries©
words as
sented to,Parliament by Charles
tadditions which
part of hii speech :—" I have transmitted the
Com-
mon Prayer with those alterationsandConviation of the House
have been presented to me by the
the Act of Uniformity
of Peers, with my thatapprobation.ume
it will shortly be de-
may relate to it, so that
ed assent and consent
force to this hour. Every
make the
_following declaration: "
tshpaetachppedointhteedreday
LhaenadctitaliTp.marsieinnPiasstseerd':tchaemhicbihoncutkorcofhofreeestoan_
clergyman in becoming_
Ab I sßh e.
,ddboyblearwe b
to all and every ng: ?:)
The Book of
hvasd etcol
a r en
tina rII ealrfAl prescribed in and by
the book intitaled, Common Prayer and the
administration of the sacraments and other rites and cere-
monies of the Church according to the use of the Church of
England,' together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David,
pointed as they are to be said or sung, and the form or
main of making, ordaining, and con • secrating of bishops,
priests, and deacons." I need
not point out to you the
solemnity and sacredness of this declaration.is avowedly
It
associated with the entrance upon a public ministry, marked
by truth and purity, and demanding • •
sincerity of heart,
truthfulness of speech, and d of enouncin every form
de-
ceit, equivocation, and by ooris g d consent
P y. The assent slid
are /14feignQdlY giVQ2l—t4at is, without any dieguiDo qr