[British Critic, vol. 19, Oct. 1836.]
We are no friends to Popery, as our readers will bear us witness; yet, we confess, we were not displeased at the publication of Dr. Wiseman’s Lectures. In truth, the foundation of the English Church lies very deep, while the views and principles of a number of her children are very shallow; so there is no inconsistency in welcoming a controversy which will be an advantage to them, yet no harm to her. Much as we sympathize, as we ought, with those of our own body, and strong as our party feelings necessarily are when they enter into the lists, yet we have brought ourselves to believe, that in the present case defeat and perplexity are for their good. Reverses in argument may humble and sober them, may make them see they have something to add to their present stock of theological knowledge, and teach them somewhat more clearly what it is they are defending, and on what principles the English Church stands; and on this account we can bear to contemplate what in itself will be a pain to all who are connected with them, and a triumph to the enemy. We conceive the controversy with Rome will have the effect of recalling them to those good and true views of divinity which numbers of them have nearly abandoned. Moreover (if it may be said) our very devotion to the Church herself inspires us with somewhat of a serious feeling against such of her champions as are not able to defend without degrading her;—who maintain her, as if she were a mere establishment, and as they would support the new system for administering the poor laws or the London police. Let us be candid; there is still another reason which somewhat increases our satisfaction at Dr. Wiseman’s and similar publications. The line of argument against Romanism adopted by our great divines has not been deemed good enough by many of us moderns; it has been judged severe and uncharitable to Dissenters of various denominations to walk in the steps of Hammond and Beveridge; and if some isolated individuals have ventured to do so, they have been promptly and unscrupulously ranked as confederates with the corrupt system which they professed to oppose. Well, then, let us see whether these more clear-sighted religionists (as they think themselves), these pure Protestants and rigid Scripturists, will make a better and more satisfactory fight when they come into close contact with their foe, that crafty foe which shelters its errors under the truths which such adversaries wantonly, unreluctantly surrender to it as its own. Hitherto they have either skirmished with the enemy, or have engaged at an advantage which they can never expect again. It is a very different thing to attack Romanism on ultra-Protestant principles in an open field, or to have the law and the multitude on our side. The latter has been the condition of things during the last 150 years; Protestantism was the sovereign religion of the state, and the great object of policy was to repress and keep under Romanism. The English Church has been upheld, not on its own merits, but as a useful antagonist to the church of Rome, and a substitute for it. Irreligious statesmen thought it a stopgap, and they confronted it to the Romanists, as much as to say, “we have our Church as well as you; we can make a church for the occasion.” They used it (we speak in sober sadness, and with shame) as if it were an abbot of Unreason in mock controversy with the abbot of Kennaquhair. We could enlarge upon this fact were it decorous to do so. Another principal use of the English Church in the eyes of politicians has been its suppressal of enthusiasm and extravagance in religion. And to these must be added the more obvious national blessings which it dispenses, and which are so fully understood and so eloquently stated at conservative meetings and dinners. All these circumstances have invested the cause of the English Church hitherto with a popularity external for the most part to its own principles; and Romanism has had to contend since the Revolution rather with the power of the civil sword than the arguments of divines. Arguments indeed have been used, but they have been drawn from any quarter without weighing whether they had too much or too little in them for the purpose of the English Church, rather as if to comply with a rule of the game, than as if the words used were intended to have any particular meaning. But now that the English Church has been bereft of its civil defences, it has but an alternative of defending itself, or retreating backward into the lines of that mixed multitude of denominations, which alone the state seems to recognize and cherish. Its defenders must either reform their arguments, or modify their conclusions; must either reason as true Catholics, or profess themselves mere Latitudinarians.
And there is danger certainly, and (as some persons think) a very considerable one, of the English Church, at this era of her history, acquiescing in the latter alternative. There is certainly a strong party in the Church, who would be pleased to obliterate her distinctive marks, in order to increase her political security. We are not accusing such men of what is commonly called worldly-mindedness. They think the religious advantages of an establishment such, that it is tanti to make, what seems to them, but a little alteration in its doctrines, for the sake of preserving it. The government says to them, “you must reform, (to use the fashionable word), or others will reform for you;” so to prevent evil men from altering the political relations of the Church, they consent to alter its principles. And certainly our Church has before now been betrayed in this manner by those who are her consecrated defenders; which throws an additional shade over the prospect of the future. Yet, whatever be her present weakness, whatever treachery there be within the camp, we conceive that her controversy with Rome will advantage her rather than otherwise. Many men, doubtless, will run from fear of Popery into the opposite extreme, and thus fulfil Horace’s remark. Such of the laity, especially, as lightly employ themselves in the controversy, being bound by no obligations to the principles of our Church, will, it is to be feared, take refuge in ultra-Protestantism. With the Clergy we should hope it would be otherwise; they are tutored in the words and services of the Church, even when they do not understand her spirit; and the collision with Rome must in consequence rather bring them nearer to Rome (in those points in which Rome has preserved neglected truths) than drive them further off. An untaught layman, for instance, who never read the Ordination Service, may scoff at the doctrine of the ministerial commission when brought forward by the Romanist; but one who has had the awful words pronounced over him, in which it is conveyed in our ritual, cannot deny the doctrine, and at the very utmost will but keep silence—cannot go further than doubt—when it is urged upon him. He may have forgotten, he cannot oppose it. The clergy, in fact, are bound to true Catholicism by firm, though (of late) neglected ties; and the controversy with Rome will but remind them of them, and lead them to use them. At the same time that this will lead to a still wider separation between the views of Churchmen and those of our civil governors it is impossible to deny.