Movement must have Place in Divine Plan
Ecclesiastical Liberty the First Principle of Movement
Movement and Establishment Antagonists from the First
No Tendency for Movement and Establishment to Coalesce
Some Unreal Options
To Remain in Establishment is to Abandon Cause
Go where Truth Leads1
1.
It is scarcely possible to fancy that an event so distinctive in its character as the rise of the so-called Anglo-Catholic party in the course of the last twenty years, should have no scope in the designs of Divine Providence. From beginnings so small, from elements of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, that in its germ it was looked upon with contempt, if it was ever thought of at all, it suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind; rather they put forth views and principles for their own sake, because they were true, as if they were obliged to say them; and though their object certainly was to strengthen the establishment, yet it would have been very difficult for them to state precisely the intermediate process, or definite application, by which, in matter of fact, their preaching was to arrive at that result. And, as they might be themselves surprised at their earnestness in proclaiming, they had as great cause to be surprised at their success in propagating, the doctrines which have characterised their school. And, in fact, they had nothing else to say but that those doctrines were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part, was the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. I do not mean to say, that they did not use arguments on the one hand, nor attempt to associate themselves with things as they were on the other; but that, after all, their doctrine went forth rather than was delivered, and spoke rather than was spoken; that it was a message rather than an argument; that it was the master, not the creature of its proclaimers, and seemed to be said at random, because uttered with so indistinct an aim; and so, with no advantage except that of position, which of course is not to be undervalued, it spread and was taken up no one knew how. In a very few years a school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and progressive in their range; and it extended into every part of the country. If, turning from the contemplation of it from within, we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still more to raise our wonder; for not to mention the excitement it caused in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police of Italy and the back-woodsmen of America. So it proceeded, getting stronger and stronger every year, till it has come into collision with the Nation, and that Church of the Nation, which it began by professing especially to serve; and now its upholders and disciples have to look about, and ask themselves where they are, and which way they are to go, and whither they are bound.
Providence does nothing in vain; so much earnestness, zeal, toil, thought, religiousness, success, as has a place in the history of that movement, must surely have a place also in His scheme, and in His dealings towards His Church in this country, if we could discern what that place was. He has excited aspirations, matured good thoughts, and prospered pious undertakings arising out of them: not for nothing surely—then for what? Wherefore?
The movement certainly is one and the same to all who have been influenced by it; the principles and circumstances, which have made them what they are, are one and the same; the history of one of you, my brethren, is pretty much the history of another—the history of all. Is it meant that you should each of you end in his own way, if your beginnings have been the same? The duty of one of you, is it not the duty of another? Are you not to act together? In other words, may I not look at the movement as integrally one, and thus investigate what is its bearing and its legitimate issue? and may not, in consequence, that direction and scope of the movement, if such can be ascertained, be taken as a suggestion to you how you should act, distinct from, and in addition to, the intimations of God’s will, which come home to you personally and individually? The movement has affected us in a certain way: at one time we have felt urged perhaps, with some of those who took part in it, to go forward; at another, to remain where we are; then to retire into lay-communion, if we were in the Established ministry; then to collapse into a sect external to its pale. We have tried to have faith in the sacraments of the National Church; for a time we have succeeded, and then we have failed; we have felt ourselves drawn, we have felt ourselves repelled by the Catholic Church;—we have felt difficulties in her faith, counter-difficulties in rejecting it, complications of difficulty on difficulty, concurrent or antagonist, till we could ascertain neither their mutual relation nor their combined issue, and could neither change nor remain where we were without scruple.