ART. X.-1. Report of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

1863.

2. Documents relative to the Erection and Endowment of additional Bishoprics in the Colonies, with an Historical Preface. By the Rev. ERNEST HAWKINS. Fourth Edition. 1855 3. Judgment of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the Appeal of the Rev. W. Long v. the Right Rev. Robert Gray, D.D., Bishop of Cape Town, from the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope. 1863.

WE E are anxious on the present occasion to deal with a subject of serious interest to members of the Church of England in a practical manner, and so as to excite as little as possible the various controversial feelings which its discussion is calculated to arouse. The present condition of that Church in our colonies, and in particular of the colonial episcopate, has furnished the occasion of a great deal of honest triumph to that class of devout minds which is satisfied with statistical results, detailed in religious publications; and it has been, on the other hand, a good deal misunderstood by that hostile party, diminishing but still numerous, which looks on the spread of Episcopacy as if it portended a return to the old days of ecclesiastical tyranny. Possibly a little quiet examination of the facts, and of the principles which govern them, may tend at once to damp the too triumphant aspirations of friends, and to abate the strong traditional enmity of opponents.

It is, however, a subject which cannot be discussed at all, with any prospect of a satisfactory issue, between persons who differ in opinion on the essential topics of the nature and necessity of episcopal government. The Church of England holds many adherents-and we speak of them with the sincerest respect to whom the government of bishops, priests, and deacons is matter of divine right. To such persons the expediency of constituting a bishopric in this or that locality must always be matter of secondary interest. The maxim of 'no church without a bishop' draws with it the necessary corollary, that the presumption is always in favour of the establishment of a see in every place of which the population is either so far separate from others, or so numerous, as to render ministration by a distant bishop in the slightest degree inconvenient. No evils, in the eyes of those who think thus, can be really so great as the absence or precariousness of episcopal control. We know that the excessive multiplication of colonial sees of later years

has in point of fact originated with this party, though supported by others of less decided views. And it is obvious that the employment with these of arguments and considerations derived from mere expediency is wholly out of place. To them, therefore, our observations are not addressed.

is

But with the vast majority of the laity of that Church, the question of Episcopacy is one of expediency only. They believe a church, governed without bishops, to be just as truly and essentially a church as one governed by them. They love Episcopacy, simply as most men love Monarchy; believing Dr. Candlish to have just as much divine right as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and President Lincoln as much as Queen Victoria, but greatly preferring the rule of the latter. Nor are they (for the most part) carried away even by the more modest argument, that Episcopacy, though not of absolute right, is nearest to the apostolical pattern. They know very well that Episcopacy, in this country and in most of the greater European countries whether of the Roman or Greek persuasion, very far indeed from the apostolical pattern in everything but mere name. They know that many a Reformed community, which has no regular episcopal government, is in externals a good deal nearer the kind of model which existed in the early churches of apostolic origin, than is an English or a French diocese; which proposition, indeed, only adapts to modern times an opinion which St. Jerome had expressed in the fourth century. But they do not believe that the apostles, or their Master, intended either to impose a model of government on the future Church, or even to leave a model for imitation. They believe that mankind were left free to adapt spiritual as well as civil government to the requirements of altered times and circumstances. Their preference for Episcopacy is, therefore, simply rationalistic, or, if stricter truth must be spoken, founded partly on reasonable argument, partly on traditional reverence and a deep dislike to innovation in sacred things.

With thinkers of this class the whole question of the expediency of establishing and maintaining colonial bishoprics, and the relation to the State under which it is advisable to place them, becomes arguable on the same grounds on which ordinary political topics may be discussed. But until the ground is cleared by a full admission of this principle, there is little advantage in controversies in which the real stand-point' is, at least on one side, not the avowed one. Extreme opinions (on any side of church questions) are not generally popular with the mass of educated thinkers in this country. Those, therefore, who have not the slightest hesitation in acting on them,

are apt nevertheless to feel a certain shyness in professing and maintaining them. Consequently such men are always tempted to shift the ground of discussion, and to put forward arguments of expediency in favour of measures which they are in reality resolved on supporting as prescribed by Divine command. There is, therefore, something hollow and unreal in their reasoning. They persuade themselves, no doubt (as it is very easy for human nature to do), that the argument from expediency is in conformity with the supernatural argument. But it is the latter of which they are really thinking, when they are putting forward the former. And the opponent, who fancies that he has accumulated irresistible proofs in favour of this or that view founded on mere policy, or what is called common sense, is disappointed to find that he has produced no effect at all-that the reply is always a mere repetition of the original assertion. The truth is, that a man thoroughly imbued with a theological principle could not be persuaded even by the mathematical refutation of any corollary which he thinks proper to draw from that principle.

To take an instance familiar to all of us. The Sunday' question is probably regarded as a very difficult one by all religious minds which approach it as one of expediency, not of Divine right. The advantages of a more genial and liberal mode of observance than that which Puritanism has left us are obvious. But, on the other hand, the danger of any laxity which should open the way to general desecration is quite as evident. On grounds of human wisdom, therefore, the opening for discussion is very great. To those who believe that the Puritan observance is of Divine command, there is of course no opening for discussion at all. But they do not like to face the enemy with a simple avowal of this broad principle, and meet the consequences, of derision or of hostility, to which they would be thus exposed. They are constantly, therefore, tempted to put forward arguments of policy or social interest which are not their real, or at least not their substantial reasons. These arguments (as is commonly the case with what is unreal) are exaggerated, loose, even puerile; constantly and easily refuted; but refuted in vain, because the Supernatural lies in the background.

To take another instance, and one which no less plainly illustrates our meaning. There may be some social or moral objections to the liberty of marriage with a deceased wife's sister; that is not a question which we are concerned with discussing. But one thing is perfectly certain-whatever those objections may be, they are not such as would in any country, or at any

time, have induced society to prohibit such marriages, had not religious considerations been involved. These unions cannot do anything like the amount of harm which is done by other classes of marriages, against which no one ever thought of legislating -marriages, for instance, between persons of very unequal ages. But, if this be so, then all the mass of arguments against such unions ab inconvenienti—all the efforts to turn it into a women of England question '-are, in reality, shams. It

does not at all follow that those who use them are conscious that they are shams. Their eyes are blinded by zeal for a favourite religious principle. They believe that the Church, as they understand it, has condemned these unions. Convinced of this, all other considerations with them are as nothing in the balance. But they know that the avowal of this simple rule of action is unpopular with the world. Consequently they are driven to use that almost inevitable artifice of which we have spokento put forward, as principal, arguments which are subsidiary at best, or rather illusory-the scriptural argument, which never persuaded any one except some zealous student in his closetthesocial' argument, which assuredly never persuaded any one except such as were determined to be persuaded; instead of boldly relying on their esoteric conviction, that the Church has spoken.'

If our illustrations be accepted, they will perhaps make more evident to the reader the difficulty which those who regard church government as a matter only of human authority have in dealing with the arguments and statements of those zealous men who, in the publications of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and elsewhere, have advocated the extension of the Colonial Episcopate to the extraordinary dimensions which it has of late attained. They propound, on the low ground of expediency, measures to which they have evidently themselves been led by the "high priori road' which abandons the bye-ways of expediency altogether. When the late excellent Bishop of London (a name never to be mentioned without honour, for whatever may be thought of his opinions or his judgment, his heart was in all he did, and his munificence was almost as unlimited as his industry), in that letter to Archbishop Howley (April 24, 1840) which laid the foundation of that scheme of extension, informs us that the Church of England in the colonies was at that date not enshrined in the sanctuary of ' a rightly constituted church;' and that 'an episcopal church " without a bishop is a contradiction in terms,' he (or those who inspired the language, for his own notions on such subjects were rather wavering) did in truth lay down dogmas, from which,

if you admit the premises, there is no manner of appeal. Why then did the Bishop proceed to argue the case on the special grounds of the utility of episcopal control over clergy, and similar common topics? Merely, we suppose, in that ordinary spirit of concession to the lower view which, as we have said, is so constantly adopted by those who are in reality actuated by the higher.

Adopting, however, as our basis of argument the lower view only, let us see what are the real purposes for which bishops are required in the distant dependencies of the British Crown. These are of two classes--functional (if we may use the term), and administrative.

There are (in the words of Bishop Blomfield) certain ordi'nances which can be received only at the hands of the highest 'order of the ministry.' We need not here specify the few ritual functions which by the law of our Church are purely episcopal. Suffice it to say, that there is only one of them in which the bishop performs, in sober reality, any other than a mere mechanical part- namely, ordination. Of the very high importance of that function, and the responsibility which it throws on a bishop, no question can be entertained. But its importance varies entirely according to the extent of the community administered and the multitude of candidates. A duty which is almost too serious to be intrusted to an individual in London or Winchester, is in truth quite inconsiderable in a colonial diocese with twenty or thirty clergy. Leaving therefore spiritual dogmas apart, what is wanted for the practical purposes of the churches of our scattered Empire is, not a bishop for every islet, but a modification of the law of the Church to enable these functional duties, in cases of necessity, to be executed by inferior officers. The fabric of the Church would not fall in ruin, if other than bishops were to confirm-presbyters did so in some old oriental churches, and even the cautious Hooker admits the precedent-or even to ordain, in extreme cases. We are quite aware of the practical difficulties which impede legislation for our Church; but we can only say, that to appoint a bishop for every nook over which the English flag floats, merely because none but bishops can ordain or confirm, does realise Lamb's famous parable of burning the house to roast the pig more than any other existing device of human ingenuity with which we are acquainted. And yet such is the power of form, that this is the main reason on which the foundation of colonial bishoprics was urged by Archbishop Secker a century ago; and urged in a letter to that eminent friend of the Church, Horace Walpole