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first English Unitarian; even George Fox, the founder of the Friends, are comparatively insignificant personages by the side of some of their disciples; but John Wesley was incomparably greater than all those who have since borne his name; and alike in the judgment of the most clear-judging contemporaries, and of an impartial posterity, he must be considered one of the most lofty and venerable figures which English Christendom has ever produced; and his career, extending as it does along the whole course of the eighteenth century, is in itself sufficient to redeem that much-abused age from the indiscriminating charge of incredulity and indifference.

Such is the outline of institutions each of which has a history of its own, filled with incidents, some as interesting and instructive as many are 'stale, flat, and unprofitable.' These are the chief elements which it is the mission of the English Church to assimilate, to appropriate, to comprehend, and to conciliate. It has already been indicated that mere absorption, even were it possible, is not of itself the most desirable or the most certainly fruitful of great results. As we deprecate the intolerant aggression on the part of the Nonconformists, which, by levelling all that is peculiar in the English Church, would in fact remove the wholesome counteraction which they themselves need, so also would we deprecate any course of action on the part of the Church which should deprive it of the co-existence and co-operation of those valuable ingredients of religion which we have just enumerated. 'I am no visionary,' said the Primate in a recent charge, 'looking forward to a time when all the

Approaches to union.

various denominations throughout Britain are to come and desire admission into the Church of England.' Those who conscientiously prefer Presbyterianism or Independency will, of course, not accept Episcopacy or the parochial system. Those who object to endowments. and establishments will not attach themselves under any circumstances to an endowed or established institution. But, as the Primate adds, 'if we show in all things where we can, without any compromise of principle, a hearty spirit of Christian love, there is every hope that in Christ's good time the differences that keep us apart may disappear.'

When we are asked to name some practicable approaches which, without destroying the different peculiarities of the Church and its nonconforming branches, shall at the same time bridge over the gulfs which needlessly yawn between them, it is not difficult to indicate obvious measures, some of which at least have already received the attention of the Legislature.

There is the question of changes in the liturgical forms of the English Church, such as were in part proposed by the Royal Commission on Ritual, and in part have been already carried into action, and which, being thus acknowledged in principle, are capable of indefinite extension. Most of these changes are such as would be desirable, even were there not a single Dissenter in existence; but the argument in their behalf is immeasurably increased when it is felt that the evils which they propose to remedy are not only evils in themselves, but causes of wide-spread offence and estrangement.

It is here that the Non-juring spirit within the Church itself presents the most formidable obstacles. The ecclesiastical Puritans, like their Nonconformist Changes in Liturgy. allies, are determined to allow of no changes but these which run in one direction, and that direction the one most pleasing to themselves, even though it be the most offensive to all besides. It is in the Lower House of the Southern Convocation, as is well known, that this obstructive party has chiefly entrenched itself; and their position has become the more dangerous from the pretensions, put forward for the first time during the last few years, to a veto on all ecclesiastical legislation. Some of the most necessary changes were fortunately carried before these claims had reached their present preposterous height, or at least before they had received any encouragement from higher authority. Such was Abolition the removal of the political services for the 30th of Janu- vocation ary and the 29th of May, in which the Convocation of Services. the Restoration expressed the passions of the violent reaction of that time. They were happily abolished by Parliament without the slightest reference to the body which had drawn them up, and which, in its modern representatives, would never have originated the alteration. Such, again, was the relaxation of the terms of subscription, which Convocation had steadily opposed, of Subscription. and to which it consented at last only when it became evident that the change was itself embodied in a Bill which would become law whether they assented to it or not. Such, again, was the reformation of the Calendar of Lessons, which received an almost universal welcome Calendar of Lessons. in the country, but was carried through the Lower House

Relaxation

Reformed

of Rubric

of Convocation in defiance of the most strenuous opposition, and only by a doubtful vote. It is necessary to dwell for a moment on this cause of obstruction, both in order to vindicate the Church at large from a charge which applies only to an exceptional phase of its history, and also to show what would be the kind of government which the Church would have to expect if those of its members who wish for a separation from the State were to get the reins into their own hands.

This spasmodic kind of opposition, fortified by the apathy or the connivance of those Nonconformists who dread the improvement of an institution which they wish to destroy, will, it may be feared, be offered to all similar remedial measures, which yet, if carried, would meet with general assent. Such, for example, is that which is strongly pressed with all the weight of pasRelaxation toral experience-the relaxation of the rubric which on Spon- enjoins the use of sponsors in baptism even on those who are least willing to employ them, or least able to understand the complicated origin of the system. Such, Of Rubric again, is the relaxation of the rule which enforces the public recitation of the Athanasian Creed-the single example in which the Church of England has retained in its formularies the old anathematising and exclusive spirit of the Church of the middle ages—a relaxation

sors:

on Atha

nasian Creed.

On the subject of the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed may be mentioned four charges of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Manchester, the late Bishop Thirlwall, and the Bishop of Peterborough. The objections of practical common sense cannot be more clearly expressed than in the first two: the analysis of profound learning and subtle irony, the invective of eloquent indignation and searching logic, cannot go further than in the last two. To these add the

adopted by the Church of Ireland and by the Episcopal Church of America, demanded by both Primates, by the most learned, the most eloquent, the most active, the most popular of our prelates, and by 3,000 clergy, including nearly all those who have most interest in the education of the country, and by the repugnance or the contempt of an immense majority of the laity. It is still opposed by the party of obstruction; but even amongst these, very rarely from a belief in the denunciations which it contains, rather with a studied avowal of disbelief in them, combined with a desire to retain and repeat words from which all or almost all their sense has been carefully ejected.

Such, again, are relaxations in the general framework of the Prayer-book, so as to allow of greater variety. condensation, and freedom. Some of these have been passed into law; and with far more facility in fact than has been the case with those sections of the Church in the colonies which have been reconstructed, more or less, on the voluntary principle. All these alterations-and many more which might be named-whilst they would not of necessity draw any large body of Nonconformists within the pale, nevertheless would remove obstacles which stand in the way at least of their occasional conformity, and therefore of their occasional contact with renunciation of any meaning which the anathemas may contain, in the sermon preached by Dr. Pusey, at Oxford, on December 1, 1872. A formulary which has been exposed to such 'assaults both from its enemies and its friends may continue to exist, but it has ceased to live, or to possess any claim on our respect. The feeling towards it, on the part even of the 'Orthodox' Dissenters, may be inferred from the speech of one of their leaders, who in a conference a few years ago at Birmingham put it forward as one of the chief arguments for the destruction of the Church.

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