ARTICLES ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. PERSECUTING BISHOPS. (E. REVIEW, 1822.) 1. An Appeal to the Legislature and Public; or, the Legality of the Eighty-Seven Questions proposed by Dr. Herbert Marsh, the Bishop of Peterborough, to Candidates for Holy Orders, and for Licences, with in that Diocese, considered. 2nd Edition. London, Seeley, 1821. 2. A Speech, delivered in the House of Lords, on Friday, June 7, 1822, by Herbert, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, on the Presentation of a Petition against his Examination Questions; with Explanatory Notes, a Supplement, and a Copy of the Questions. London, Rivington, 1822. a naked circle about the object in dispute, so that there may be a clear view of it on every side. In pursuance of this disencumbering process, we shall first acquit the Bishop of all wrong intentions. He has a very bad opinion of the practical effects of high Calvinistic doctrines upon the common people; and he thinks it his duty to exclude those clergymen who profess them from his diocese. There is no moral wrong in this. He has accordingly devised no fewer than eighty-seven interrogatories, by which he thinks he can detect the smallest taint of Calvin 3. The Wrongs of the Clergy of the Diocese ism that may lurk in the creed of the of Peterborough stated and illustrated. By the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, M.A., candidate; and in this also, whatever Rector of Burton, Northamptonshire; we may think of his reasoning, we supand Vicar of Biddenham, Bedfordshire. pose his purpose to be blameless. He London, Seeley, 1822. believes, finally, that he has legally the 4. Episcopal Innovation; or, the Test of power so to interrogate and exclude; Modern Orthodoxy, in Eighty-Seven and in this, perhaps, he is not misQuestions, imposed, as Articles of Faith, taken. His intentions, then, are good, upon Candidates for Licences and for and his conduct, perhaps, not amenable Holy Orders, in the Diocese of Peter borough; with a Distinct Answer to each to the law. All this we admit in his Question, and General Reflections rela- favour: but against him we must tive to their Illegal Structure and Per- maintain, that his conduct upon the nicious Tendency. London, Seeley, 1820. 5. Official Correspondence between the Right Reverend Herbert, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, and the Rev. John Green, points in dispute has been singularlyinjudicious, extremely harsh, and, in its effects (though not in its intentions), very oppressive and vexatious to the Clergy. respecting his Nomination, to the Curacy of Blatherwycke, in the Diocese of PeterWe have no sort of intention to avail borough, and County of Northampton: Also, between His Grace Charles, Lord ourselves of an anonymous publication Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Rev. to say unkind, uncivil, or disrespectful Henry William Neville, M.A., Rector of things to a man of rank, learning, and Blatherwycke, and of Cottesmore in the character-we hope to be guilty of no County of Rutland. 1821. IT is a great point in any question to clear away encumbrances, and to make VOL. II. such impropriety; but we cannot believe we are doing wrong in ranging ourselves on the weaker side, in the B The Bishop who rejects a curate upon the Eighty-seven Questions is necessarily and inevitably opposed to the Bishop who ordained him. The Bishop of Gloucester ordains a young man of twenty-three years of age, not thinking it necessary to put to him these interrogatories, or putting them, perhaps, and approving of answers diametrically opposite to those that are required by the Bishop of Peterborough. The young clergyman then comes to the last-mentioned Bishop; and the Bishop, after putting him to the Question, says, "You are unfit for a clergyman," though, ten days before, the Bishop of Gloucester has made him one! It is bad enough for ladies to pull caps, but still worse for Bishops to pull mitres. Nothing can be more cause of propriety and justice. The tion from the common practice of the Mitre protects its wearer from indig- Church. nity; but it does not secure impunity. It is a strong presumption that a man is wrong, when all his friends, whose habits naturally lead them to coincide with him, think him wrong. If a man were to indulge in taking medicine till the apothecary, the druggist, and the physician, all called upon him to abandon his philocathartic propensities if he were to gratify his convivial habits till the landlord demurred, and the waiter shook his head -we should naturally imagine that advice so wholly disinterested was not given before it was wanted, and that it merited some little attention and respect. Now, though the Bench of Bishops certainly love power, and love the Church, as well as the Bishop of Peterborough, yet not one defended him not one rose to say, "I have mischievous or indecent than such done, or I would do, the same thing." scenes; and no man of common pruIt was impossible to be present at the dence, or knowledge of the world, but last debate on this question, without must see that they ought immediately perceiving that his Lordship stood alone to be put a stop to. If a man is a -and this in a very gregarious pro-captain in the army in one part of fession, that habitually combines and England, he is a captain in all. The butts against an opponent with a very general who commands north of the extended front. If a lawyer is wounded, Tweed does not say, You shall never the rest of the profession pursue him, appear in my district, or exercise the and put him to death. If a church-functions of an officer, if you do not man is hurt, the others gather round for his protection, stamp with their feet, push with their horns, and demolish the dissenter who did the mischief. answer eighty-seven questions on the art of war, according to my notions. The same officer who commands a ship of the line in the Mediterranean, is The Bishop has at least done a very considered as equal to the same office unusual thing in his Eighty-seven Ques- in the North Seas. The sixth comtions. The two Archbishops, and we mandment is suspended, by one medibelieve every other Bishop, and all the cal diploma, from the north of England Irish hierarchy, admit curates into their to the south. But, by this new system dioceses without any such precautions. of interrogation, a man may be adThe necessity of such severe and scru-mitted into orders at Barnet, rejected pulous inquisition, in short, has been at Stevenage, readmitted at Brogden, apparent to nobody but the Bishop of kicked out as a Calvinist at Witham Peterborough; and the authorities by Common, and hailed as an ardent which he seeks to justify it are any- Armenian on his arrival at York. thing but satisfactory. His Lordship states, that forty years ago he was himself examined by written interrogatories, and that he is not the only Bishop who has done it; but he mentions no names; and it was hardly worth while to state such extremely slight precedents for so strong a devia It matters nothing to say that sacred things must not be compared with profane. In their importance, we allow, they cannot; but in their order and discipline they may be so far compared as to say, that the discrepancy and contention which would be disgraceful and pernicious in worldly affairs, should, in common prudence be avoided in the as well as doctrine; that a tender reaffairs of religion. Mr. Greenough has gard to men's rights and feelings, a made a map of England, according to desire to avoid sacred squabbles, a fondits geological varieties; - blue for the ness for quiet, and an ardent wish to chalk, green for the clay, red for the make everybody happy, would be of far sand, and so forth. Under this system more value to the Church of England of Bishop Marsh, we must petition for than all his learning and vigilance of the assistance of the geologist in the inquisition. The Irish Tithes will profabrication of an ecclesiastical map. bably fall next session of Parliament; All the Arminian districts must be the common people are regularly repurple. Green for one theological ex- ceding from the Church of England tremity-sky-blue for another - -as-baptizing, burying, and confirming many colours as there are Bishops - for themselves. Under such circumas many shades of these colours as stances, what would the worst enemy of there are Archdeacons - a tailor's pat- the English Church require? - a bitter, tern card-the picture of vanity, bustling, theological Bishop, accused fashion, and caprice. by his clergy of tyranny and oppression-the cause of daily petitions and daily debates in the House of Commons The Bishop seems surprised at the resistance he meets with; and yet, to what purpose has he read ecclesiastical history, if he expect to meet with anything but the most determined opposition? Does he think that every sturdy supralapsarian bullock whom he tries to sacrifice to the Genius of Orthodoxy, will not kick, and push, and toss; that he will not, if he can, shake the axe from his neck, and hurl his mitred butcher into the air? His Lordship has undertaken a task of which he little knows the labour or the end. We know these men fully as well as the Bishop; he has not a chance of success against them. If one motion in Parliament will not do, they will have twenty. They will ravage, roar, and rush, till the very chaplains, and the Masters and Misses Peterborough request his Lordship to desist. He is raising up a storm in the English Church of which he has not the slightest conception; and which will end, as it ought to end, in his Lordship's disgrace and defeat. The longer we live, the more we are convinced of the justice of the old saying, that an ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy; that discretion, gentle manners, common sense, and good nature, are, in men of high ecclesiastical station, of far greater importance than the greatest skill in discriminating between sublapsarian and supralapsarian doctrines. Bishop Marsh should remember, that all men wearing the mitre work by character, It is in -the idoneous vehicle of abuse against the Establishment-a stalking-horse to bad men for the introduction of revolutionary opinions, mischievous ridicule, and irreligious feelings. Such will be the advantages which Bishop Marsh will secure for the English Establishment in the ensuing session. conceivable how such a prelate shakes all the upper works of the Church, and ripens it for dissolution and decay. Six such Bishops, multiplied by eightyseven, and working with five hundred and twenty-two questions, would fetch everything to the ground in less than six months. But what if it pleased Divine Providence to afflict every prelate with the spirit of putting eightyseven queries, and the two Archbishops with the spirit of putting twice as many, and the Bishop of Sodor and Man with the spirit of putting only fortythree queries?-there would then be a grand total of two thousand three hundred and thirty-five interrogations flying about the English Church; and sorely vexed would the land be with Question and Answer. We will suppose this learned Prelate, without meanness or undue regard to his worldly interests, to feel that fair desire of rising in his profession, which any man, in any profession, may feel without disgrace. Does he forget that his character in the ministerial circles will soon become that of a violent impracticable man - whom it is impos ― sible to place in the highest situations- ship's wishes, and to obey your Lordship's who has been trusted with too much directions in every particular; and I would already, and must be trusted with no therefore immediately have returned anmore? Ministers have something else swers, without any restrictions or modifications,' to the Questions which your Lordto do with their time, and with the time ship has thought fit to send me, if, in so of Parliament, than to waste them in de- doing, I could have discharged the obligabating squabbles between Bishops and tions of my conscience, by showing what their Clergy. They naturally wish, and, my opinions really are. But it appears to on the whole, reasonably expect, that me, that the Questions proposed to me by everything should go on silently and your Lordship are so constructed as to elicit quietly in the Church. They have no only two sets of opinions; and that, by objection to a learned Bishop; but they answering them in so concise a manner, I should be representing myself to your Lorddeprecate one atom more of learning ship as one who believes in either of two than is compatible with moderation, particular creeds, to neither of which I do good sense, and the soundest discre- really subscribe. For instance, to answer tion. It must be the grossest igno- Question I. chap. ii. in the manner your rance of the world to suppose that the Lordship desires, I am reduced to the alterCabinet has any pleasure in watching native of declaring, either that mankind Calvinists. are a mass of mere corruption,' which exThe Bishop not only puts the ques-room for the inference, that they are only presses more than I intend, or of leaving tions, but he actually assigns the limits partially corrupt, which is opposed to the within which they are to be answered. plainest declarations of the Homilies; such Spaces are left in the paper of interro as these, Man is altogether spotted and gations, to which limits the answer is defiled' (Hom. on Nat.), 'without a spark to be confined;-two inches to origi- of goodness in him' (Serm. on Mis. of Man, nal sin an inch and a half to justifica- &c.). 'Again, by answering the Questions comtion; three quarters to predestination; prised in the chapter on 'Free Will,' accordand to free will only a quarter of an ing to your Lordship's directions, I am inch. But if his Lordship gives them compelled to acknowledge, either that man an inch, they will take an ell. His has such a share in the work of his own Lordship is himself a theological writer, salvation as to exclude the sole agency of and by no means remarkable for his God, or that he has no share whatever; conciseness. To deny space to his bro- when the Homilies for Rogation Week and ther theologians, who are writing on Whitsunday positively declare, that God is the most difficult subjects, not from the only Worker,' or, in other words, sole choice, but necessity; not for fame, Agent; and at the same time assign to man but for bread; and to award rejection vation. In short, I could, with your Lordas the penalty of prolixity, does appear ship's permission, point out twenty Questo us no slight deviation from Chris- tions, involving doctrines of the utmost tian gentleness. The tyranny of call-importance, which I am unable to answer, ing for such short answers is very so as to convey my real sentiments, without strikingly pointed out in a letter from more room for explanation than the printed sheet affords. Mr. Thurtell to the Bishop of Peterborough; the style of which pleads, we think, very powerfully in favour of the writer. "Beccles, Suffolk, August 28th, 1821. "My Lord, "I ought, in the first place, to apologise for delaying so long to answer your Lordship's letter: but the difficulty in which I was involved, by receiving another copy of your Lordship's Questions, with positive directions to give short answers, may be sufficient to account for that delay. "It is my sincere desire to meet your Lord a certain share in the work of his own sal "In this view of the subject, therefore, and in the most deliberate exercise of my judgment, I deem it indispensable to my acting with that candour and truth with which it is my wish and duty to act, and with which I cannot but believe your Lordship desires I should act, to state my opinions in that language which expresses them most fully, plainly, and unreservedly. This I have endeavoured to do in the answers now in the possession of your Lordship. If any further explanation be required, I am most willing to give it, even to a minuteness of opinion beyond what the Articles require. At the same time, I would humbly and respectfully appeal to your Lordship's candour, whether it is not hard to demand my decided opinion upon points which have been the themes of volumes; upon which the most pious and learned men of the Church have conscientiously differed; and upon which the Articles, in the judgment of Bishop Burnet, have pronounced no definite sentence. To those Articles, my Lord, I have already subscribed; and I am willing again to subscribe to every one of them, 'in its literal and grammatical sense,' according to His Majesty's declaration prefixed to them. "I hope, therefore, in consideration of the above statement, that your Lordship will not compel me, by the conciseness of my answers, to assent to doctrines which I do not believe, or to expose myself to inferences which do not fairly and legitimately follow from my opinions. "I am, my Lord, &c. &c." Article and not for our own works?' "3. Does not therefore the eleventh Article exclude good works from all share in the office of Justifying? Or can we so construe the term 'Faith' in that Article, as to make it include good works? "4. Do not the twelfth and thirteenth Articles further exclude them, the one by asserting that good works follow after Justification, the other by maintaining that they cannot precede it? "5. Can that which never precedes an effect be reckoned among the causes of that effect? "6. Can we then, consistently with our Articles, reckon the performance of good works among the causes of Justification, whatever qualifying epithet be used with the term cause?" We entirely deny that the Calvinistical Clergy are bad members of their profession. We maintain that as many instances of good, serious, and pious men-of persons zealously interesting themselves in the temporal and spiritual welfare of their parishioners, are to be found among them, as among the clergy who put an opposite interpreta tion on the Articles. The Articles of Religion are older than Arminianism, eo nomine. The early Reformers leant to Calvinism; and would, to a man, have answered the Bishop's questions in a way which would have We are not much acquainted with the practices of courts of justice; but, if we remember right, when a man is going to be hanged, the judge lets him make his defence in his own way, without complaining of its length. We should think a Christian Bishop might be equally indulgent to a man who is going to be ruined. The answers are required to be clear, concise, and correct-short, plain, and positive. In other words, a poor curate, extremely agitated at the idea of losing his livelihood, is required to write with bre. vity and perspicuity on the following subjects: Redemption by Jesus Christ -Original Sin-Free Will-Justifica-induced him to refuse them ordination tion - Justification in reference to its Causes Justification in reference to the time when it takes place-Everlasting Salvation - Predestination Regeneration on the New Birth-Renovation, and the Holy Trinity. As a specimen of these questions, the answer to which is required to be so brief and clear, we shall insert the following quotation : 66 and curacies; and those who drew up the Thirty-nine Articles, if they had not prudently avoided all precise interpretation of their Creed on free will, necessity, absolute decrees, original sin, reprobation, and election, would have, in all probability, given an interpretation of them like that which the Bishop considers as a disqualification for Holy Orders. Laud's Lambeth Articles were illegal, mischievous, and are generally 'Section II.—Of Justification, in reference condemned. The Irish Clergy in 1641 to its cause. drew up one hundred and four articles They were approved and signed by |