A Means OF Effecting
The MORE Equal Distribution OF Episcopal Duties,
AS Contemplated BY His Majesty’s
RECENT Ecclesiastical Commission
1835
The Restoration of Suffragan Bishops
It has been the misfortune of the Established Church during the last several years, when, in common with our other institutions, its framework and actual operations have been freely discussed, that the plans recommended for the increase of its efficiency have taken the shape of reforms, and not of restorations of its ancient system. Nothing but the prevailing ignorance concerning ecclesiastical matters can adequately account for this mistake. Authors, not indisposed (to say the least) to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, have indulged in projects for its better adaptation to present circumstances, which, from their novelty and boldness, could only be justified by the absence of historical precedent and experience. They have not even taken the pains to ascertain its actual position relatively to the State and to the Nation; as if it had now, for the first time, made its appearance among us, and suddenly lighted upon our soil, based on no definite principles or engagements to which regard must necessarily be paid in all measures of alteration, however beneficial. Or, if they have seemed to understand the necessity of moving on the line of former ecclesiastical arrangements, they have not done more than catch at such acts of the Tudor sovereigns as are distinguished above the rest for their anomalous and extraordinary character; without attempting to enter into the genius, or accurately to settle the principles, of our religious institutions. Writers, thus regardless of the constitutional relation of the past towards the present, could not be expected to recognize the philosophical bond which connects one age with another, the correspondence of certain periods in the recurring cycles of human affairs, and the instruction thence derivable for our political conduct. Accordingly, far from feeling reverence for an institution which has, in one shape or other, existed in the country for at least 1200 years, they have not allowed it to avail itself of its antiquity even as a guide, but have considered it as a mere subject for external interference and for ingenious experiment.
2.
But, in truth, to such as turn their minds ever so little to its history and antiquities, it is evident that the Church is “like a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” It is no birth of a day, no creation of a political crisis, no tender and inexperienced offspring of kings’ courts or domestic retreats. It has from the first been thrown upon the world; and it knows the world well in all its artifices and all its wants. It has a store of weapons for all times and circumstances, (if it be allowed and keep in memory the use of them,) a vigorous principle of life, and an inherent self-renovating power. It has gone through all the periods of human society; from the state of luxury and decay, in which it originally found the world, to the age of revolutions which followed, thence to the night of barbarism, the second dawn of science, the growth of political freedom, and of the commercial spirit, and the ascendency of the law, down to the present day, when the over-civilization of its first period seems to have returned. It grew up against a military tyranny; it fearlessly threw itself upon the intelligence, and ruled the lawlessness of great cities; it extended itself over the broad country, into mountain recesses, and over boisterous seas. It had its persuasives for the feudal sovereign, as well as for the multitudes which were its first capture. It has since attached itself, among ourselves, to limited monarchy, and has been found to be the best bond and medium of intercourse between King and People. And all this it has often proved itself to be, by the mere instinct of its natural character, and when it was itself partially ignorant of its previous history and its true position. How is it possible that any juncture of affairs can occur, which it has not already met and overcome? Doubtless it is fully adequate to the gracious purpose for which it was founded, that of coping with human nature in all its forms; and has nothing to fear at the present time but from our ignorance of its resources, and the panic terrors, and loss of self-command, and credulous trust in empirics, thence resulting.
The chief problem, for example, before the Church at present, is how to supply the local wants of an overgrown and disaffected population; but this, serious as it is, is no novel one. No city can threaten religious truth more fiercely than Constantinople in the fourth and fifth centuries; a city created for the very purposes of imperial luxury, hallowed by no local antiquities, the home of no religious remembrances, the abode (in the historian’s words) of a “lazy and indolent populace,” 1 the port of commerce, and (by a fortune unparalleled perhaps in any other city) the very focus of a speculative misbelief, and of the almost fanatic party which upheld it. Yet even here Christianity triumphed; triumphed so far as to maintain itself in place and authority for ages, and to be able to extend that light of religion to such as would receive it. What need have we to do more now, than to master and apply that policy (to borrow a statesman’s word) which enabled the Church to achieve its early victories?