Doubts at Beginning of Movement
Establishment Response to Movement
No Apostolical Life in National Church
Establishment Unapostolical from the First
Protestantism Congenial to National Church
Catholic Orthodoxy in Milan of St. Ambrose
Contrast with National Sentiment
Reaction to Surplices
Conclusion—Seek Catholic Principals in True Home1
1.
My object in these Lectures, my brethren, is not to construct any argument in favour of Catholicism, for there is no need. Arguments exist in abundance, and of the highest cogency, and of the most wonderful variety, provided severally by the merciful wisdom of its Divine Author, for distinct casts of mind and character;—so much so, that it is often a mistake in controversy to cumulate reasons for what is on many considerations so plain already, and the evidence of which is only weakened to the individual inquirer, when he is distracted by fresh proofs, consistent indeed with those which have brought conviction to him, but to him less convincing than his own, and at least strange and unfamiliar. Every inquirer may have enough of positive proof to convince him that the Catholic Religion is divine: it is owing to the force of counter-objections that his conviction remains in fact either defective or inoperative. I consider, then, that I shall be ministering in my measure to the cause of truth, if I do ever so little towards removing the difficulties, or any of them, which beset the mind, when it is urged to accept Catholicism as true. It is with this view that I have insisted on the real character of the Established Church, and its relation to the nation; for, if it be mainly as I have represented it, a department of government under the temporal sovereign, one at least is struck off from the catalogue of your objections. You fear to leave it lest you should, by your secession throw it into the hands of a latitudinarian party; but it never has been in your hands, nor ever under your influence. It is in the hands of the nation; it is mainly what the nation is: such is it, while you are in it; such would it be, if you left it. I do not deny you may by your presence somewhat retard its downward career, but you are not of the real importance to it, which you fancy.
Now, in the course of the argument I made a remark, which I shall today pursue. I spoke of the movement which began in the Establishment in 1833, or shortly before; and I dwelt on the remarkable fact, that in nearly twenty years that movement, though certainly it exerted great influence over the views of individuals, nevertheless has created a mere party in the National Church, having had the least possible influence over the National Church itself; and no wonder, if that Church be simply an organ or department of the State, for in that case, all ecclesiastical acts really proceeding from the supreme civil government, to influence the Establishment, is nothing else than to influence the State, or even the Constitution.
Now I shall pursue the argument. I shall, by means of one or two suggestions, try to bring home to you the extreme want of congeniality which has existed between the movement of 1833 and the nation at large; and then assuming that you, my brethren, owe your principles to that movement, and that your first duty is to your principles, I shall infer your own want of congeniality with the national religion, however you may wish it otherwise; I shall infer that you have no concern with that national religion, have no place in it, have no reason for belonging to it, and have no responsibilities towards it.
I am then to point out to you, that, what is sometimes called, or rather what calls itself, the Anglo-Catholic teaching, is not only a novelty in this age (for to prove a thing new to the age, is not enough in order to prove it uncongenial), but that, while it is a system adventitious and superadded to the national religion, it is, moreover, not supplemental, or complemental, or collateral, or correlative to it,—not implicitly involved in it, not developed from it,—nor combining with it,—nor capable of absorption into it; but, on the contrary, most uncongenial and heterogeneous, floating upon it, a foreign substance, like oil upon the water. And my proof shall consist, first, of what was augured of it when it commenced; secondly, what has been fulfilled concerning it during its course.
2.
As to the auguries with which it started, we need not go beyond the first agents of the movement, in order to have a tolerably sufficient proof that it had no lot, nor portion, nor parentage in the Established Church; for when those who first recommended to her its principles and doctrines are found themselves to have doubted how far these were congenial with her, when the very physicians were anxious as to what would come of their own medicines, who shall feel confidence in them? Such, however, was the case: its originators confessed that they were forcing upon the Establishment doctrines from which it revolted, doctrines with which it never had given signs of coalescing, doctrines which tended they knew not whither. This is what they felt, this is what with no uncertain sound they publicly proclaimed.