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freer condition of one whom we would gladly cease to consider as a rival, and for whose spiritual weal we have the most sincere desire.

The appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the failure of the Act of Uniformity, to secure the unanimous consent of the Church to its injunctions, and to report upon the Rubrics, Orders, and Directions' contained in the Prayer Book, and also any other laws or customs' relating to the matter of Church worship; and 'with power to suggest any alterations, improvements, or amendments with respect to such ' matters;' and further, 'to inquire into and consider the proper 'lessons appointed to be read," with a view of suggesting and ' reporting whether any, and what alterations and amend'ments may be advantageously made,' is in itself very significant. To us Nonconformists it is not very surprising that an Act of Parliament for the regulation of the action of human souls in the matter of Divine Worship, should have proved a failure. Still less can we feel surprised that such an Act as that of 1662, passed as it was in a time of intense religious strife, and by an intolerant majority over a sturdy and conscientious minority, should in the course of two centuries have proved itself to have been a mistake. The wonder is that it has lived so long. Indeed, it is now nothing but an Act of Parliament by courtesy. The passing of the Toleration Act expunged its penalty for all who did not choose to obey it: at present it is binding upon nobody but upon the members of the Episcopalian sect; and even within that pale it has been a palpable failure. It has not prevented the most diametric opposition that it was possible for a perverse ingenuity to devise, in the outward forms that have accompanied the use of the legally prescribed words. It has been powerless to hinder the growth of opposite doctrines in the Church-doctrines so directly contrary to each other, that both cannot possibly be true; and yet it was as clever a device for the purpose as could be framed in any times. Coming from an extremely high-church quarter, from men who were scarcely divided in doctrine from Rome, it contains a very strong flavouring of Sacramentarianism; but being designed for a nation the half of which at that time was strongly Protestant and Puritan in its tendencies, the Sacramentarianism was wrapped up in forms that almost hid it, and thus its concession was more apparent than real. Now, after two centuries, during the whole of which time it has been most convincingly proving its own inefficiency, those who believe in the connection of Acts of Parliament and Religion are going to try and remedy its defects! Under

what circumstances? Are these more favourable times for constructing a more perfect piece of such machinery, which may be expected not to fail? Have the outlines of theological party, so very marked and distinct in the seventeenth century, become so happily blended together in the nineteenth, that we can now hope for a consentaneous judgment on Church doctrines and forms? The extreme difficulty with which the members of the Royal Commission were got together, and the extreme jealousy with which its composition and anticipated action were regarded by one section of the Church, significantly indicate that, if the verdict of the Commission could by any possibility be made to suit all parties, it would be one that ought to suit none, and must leave all things just as they were. Such, in point of fact, is the precise character of the first part of the Commissioners' report. They very wisely directed their earliest inquiries to the most prominent and important matters, viz., the use of sacramental vestments by the Ritualistic party in the Church. According to the confession of the Ritualists themselves, these things are regarded as not 'essen'tial, but of great importance, for the edification of the people, and for the setting forth of the truths taught by the services more plainly and clearly.'* When questioned by Mr. John Abel Smith, in the Jerusalem Chamber, as to what doctrine or meaning the Ritualist attached to the vestments, the Rev. C. J. Le Geyt, M.A., Incumbent of St. Matthias, Stoke Newington, replied:

'The vestments I take to mean a distinctive dress for the priest, at the time of celebrating the Holy Communion. The use of the chasuble would imply the belief in the doctrine of Sacrifice-Eucharistic Sacrifice that being the object of a distinctive dress. It has been thought that the priest offering this sacrifice at the Holy Communion should have a distinctive dress to mark him off from the rest of the ministers, as being the principal priest in office, offering the sacrifice at the time.'†

Here were modern innovations, or if it be preferred, returns to ancient, obsolete, discarded usages, which were adopted as significant of an approach to Romish doctrine, from which the Church was purged at the Reformation, and from which until recent times she has remained for the most part free. Neither the bishops nor the lawyers of the Church were able to say with any certainty how far these things were accordant with

.

Report of Royal Commission, Evidence of Rev. C. J. Le Geyt., M.A., Page 13, qq. 381, 383. Ibid, page 16, qq. 496-9.

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the law of the Church or transgressions of it. The Ritualists pleaded that they were in perfect harmony with the doctrine of the Prayer Book and the practices of the earlier Church. The Rubrics were so vague on these points, that their opponents could not bring them to book; and so there was no course left but either to let things go on as they were, and settle themselves as best they might, or to institute a searching inquiry, and prepare for some alteration in the law. Now that the Commissioners have completed this important part of their task, what is the result? Just exactly what might have been expected. In substance, they find that some people regard the vestments as symbolical, and therefore important; and that many others find in them a 'grave offence;' that therefore aggrieved parishioners' should be provided with 'an easy and effectual process for complaint and redress:' but they are not prepared to say what that easy and effectual process should be.

There is probably no one who is disappointed at this miserably meagre deliverance from twenty-nine men of position and character, upon one of the gravest ecclesiastical and religious matters that could be referred to them. From the composition of the Commission, nobody expected anything but a temporizing compromise. The object of their appointment was to try the possibility of restoring uniformity to a terribly distracted Church. In the judgment of a large portion of the nation, a very considerable section of the Church is doing its best to Romanize it. Indeed, this section openly avows that its ground for the adoption of the practices which are objected to is the usage of the Western Church'-that is to say, the Roman Catholic Church. They who have followed this usage, say that their opponents have grievously and injuriously departed from ancient Christian usage; that they have robbed the service of the Church of its beauty and its power; that they have obscured or even perverted her doctrine of the blessed Sacrament;' abdicated their priestly functions as sacrificers; and thereby deprived the people of England of their heritage of Christian blessing, and so have lost their hold of a large proportion of the nation. This Commission was to inquire into the matter; to decide if possible on what side the right lay; and to suggest what alterations in the Act of Uniformity would meet the necessities of the case. As everybody expected, they have miserably trifled with the matter, and left things precisely as they were. as they were. They have asked four thousand and two questions, and have had, them answered. They have elicited in the course of their inquiry that indubitably some of

those whose proceedings had provoked it were endeavouring to assimilate both the doctrine and practice of the English Church to that of Rome; that they held in some form the doctrine of the Real Presence;' that their whole treatment of the Communion Service was consistent only with that, and not at all with the Protestant doctrine. And yet they have nothing whatever to say as to whether or not this is covered by the formularies of the Church; or whether it is to be encouraged or to be feared; or whether there be any ‘via media,' which it would be desirable to attempt for the sake of peace; or whether the Evangelical party should be brought up to the standard of the Western Church. There is nothing but a silly statement of what everybody has known for years, and a recommendation to give aggrieved parishioners' some easier way of dealing with what they do not like, than going to the Ecclesiastical Courts. In short, the Commissioners simply remit to Parliament what they were appointed by Parliament to do, knowing full well that it will be long ere Parliament can be induced to undertake the business.

are.

The report has given satisfaction in certain quarters. The Ritualists are quite content to be questioned and let alone. The Times, representing the party which desires to have a national Church, and does not much care what sort of a Church it is, thinks it a most satisfactory solution of a grave difficulty. All those persons in the Church who see the impossibility of absolute uniformity, and therefore profess to desire compre'hension,' are quite content with it. But the Church is only half the nation in fact; and that other half of the nation which is not the Church cannot suffer things to go on as they The question for it to consider is, whether it will tamely allow a Church which calls itself national, and enjoys emoluments and privileges which are national, openly to avow its desire to upset the Protestantism which the nation believed itself to have established, and to restore the errors and superstitions of Rome. As long as these Romanizers continue within the Church of England, they are wielding a power and using a position of great influence, of which they would be deprived if they might no longer call themselves the National Church. And the Protestantism of the country, Nonconforming as well as Conforming, must continue to cry out against the movement, until it shall be put in its right place.

There is another aspect in which the Report demands to be regarded. Its recommendation is virtually this-that the Church shall continue to be the National Church, using all the property which the nation appropriates to Church purposes, in

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virtue of a supposed and professed compliance with the Act of Uniformity, and yet be allowed the utmost liberty both with regard to doctrine and practice, as if there were no law whatever for its guidance. Mr. Phillimore, Mr. Beresford Hope and Mr. Perry, in their Appendix to the Report,* coolly propose that each separate congregation, or in some cases the parishioners, with the consent of the bishop, shall decide whether the church of any particular place shall be Romanist or Protestant;-that is to say, they would give to each parish or congregation, as the case may be, precisely the same liberty which is enjoyed by the Free Congregational Churches; which is equivalent to a demand that the State shall endow the Episcopalian sect in this country, and give it a number of exclusive privileges and monopolies, but exercise no control whatever over its teaching and forms. Now, however willing the existing members of the Established Church may be to tolerate such an anomaly, they may depend upon it that the nation at large will not, and that they will be allowed no rest until they either conform or set themselves free.

But which of these alternatives will be the chosen one? We can see only one possible course for the matter to take. That a new Act of Uniformity can be framed, not to say passed, which will harmonize the dissonant doctrinal elements, and which all sections of the Church will agree to accept, is a simple and sheer impossibility. The Ritualists will not abate a jot of their Sacramentarianism. The Evangelicals cannot take a single step to meet the Ritualists; indeed, their very pressing need just now is, to get rid of all those passages in the offices of the Church which seem to imply the Ritualist doctrine. It is agreed now by all Church writers of any note,† that any attempt to alter the doctrinal standards of the Church must be futile; that the thing is a simple impossibility; that it would be the dissolution and destruction of the national Church; and yet the present glaring anomaly of the existence of such directly antagonist doctrinal schools in the one Church cannot be tolerated much longer. The offence will increase every day. The house divided against itself cannot stand.' The only solution that is possible is the rupture of the bond that now holds these contending parties together in a mock unity, and the final cessation of the foolish attempt to settle the religion of a nation by law. There must be an end of the Established Church.

We pass now to the consideration of the second great event

P. viii.

† See Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1867.