· REAT EXHIBITION, 1851. Just published, size of the Engraving, 18 in. by 10, printed on paper, size 21 in, by 144, NEW PICTORIAL VIEW OF THE PALACE OF GLASS, FOR THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION, 1851, With several Hundred Scenic and Characteristic Figures, BEAUTIFULLY AND ACCURATELY DRAWN FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, BY JOSEPHI PAXTON, ESQ., F.R.S. WITH STATISTICAL DETAILS IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, SPANISH, AND ITALIAN. The exciting interest which the Exhibition will create throughout the world has prompted the production of this carefully-executed, large, and very beautiful Illustration of the Exhibition Building; it is got up in the very first-rate style, printed on the best paper, and published at the extraordinary low price of 6d.; or 1s. coloured. 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Foreign Orders will be executed by J. GILBERT on liberal terms; or they can be either sent to any who export to all parts of the world. It will be necessary, however, to order Gilbert's Editions, published at 49, Paternoster-row, London. ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S CHARGE, AT ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, NOV. 2, 1850; AND THE REV. DR. CUMMING'S LECTURE, AT HANOVER SQUARE-ROOMS, NO V. 7, 1850. THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S CHARGE. INTRODUCTORY. REVEREND BRETHREN,-On this, the sixth occasion of my calling you together to hear the words of pastoral admonition and advice, I feel an unwonted degree of anxiety and difficulty in addressing you. Events have recently occurred deeply affecting the character and well-being of that branch of the Universal Church in which it is our privilege to minister, of such a nature that, while it is impossible for me to pass them over without notice, it is difficult so to speak of them as not to give offence in some quarters where I would not willingly awaken any feeling of displeasu e. But looking to the present position of the Church, and to the uneasiness and disquietude which agitate the minds of many of its most attached and thoughtfu members, I feel that I should be wanting to my duty if I did not declare my opinions with great plainness of speech; but, at the same time, I desire to do this in a spirit of gentleness and forbearance. May that Holy Spirit, whose office it is to teach God's faithful people, grant us to have a right judgment in all things, and especially in those which concern the peace of His Church. I proceed at once to the most important of the questions upon which it will be my duty to touch; that which has arisen out of the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the case of Mr. Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter. I do not intend to enter at length into the history of those proceedings, nor into a minute examination of the judgment delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or, more properly speaking, the report made by them to her Majesty the Queen. But I feel myself bound to explain to the clergy of my diocese the reasons which induced me to withhold my approval of that report; and I am desirous of offering some suggestions as to the consequences likely to result from it, which I would hope may tend to quiet in some measure the minds of those who look upon it as in a high degree injurious, if not absolutely fatal, to the character of the Church, as the keeper and dispenser of God's truth. THE GORHAM CONTROVERSY. When, in obedience to her Majesty's commands, I attended the first meeting of the Judicial Committee, I had not read Mr. Gorham's published account of his examination by the Bishop of Exeter, nor was aware of the extreme opinions which he had avowed. I went into the inquiry with the expectation of finding that he had not transgressed the bounds of that latitude which has been allowed or tolerated ever since the Reformation. Had such proved to be the case, I could have acquiesced in a judgment which, while it recognised that latitude, should have distinctly asserted the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, in the proper sense of the words, to be the doctrine of our Church. But having read, with great attention, Mr. Gorham's publication, I found that it contained assertions wholly irreconcileable, as it appeared to me, with the plain teaching of the Church of England and of the Church Universal in all ages. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have stated that Mr. Gorham's doctrine appears to them to be as follows:-"That baptism is a sacrament generally necessary to salvation, but that the grace of regeneration does not so necessarily accompany the act of baptism that regeneration invariably takes place in baptism; that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism; that baptism is an effectual sign of grace by which God works invisibly in us, but only in such as worthily receive it, in them alone it has a wholesome effect, and that without reference to the qualification of the recipient it is not in itself an effectual sign of grace; that infants baptised, dying before actual sin, are certainly saved, but that in no case is regeneration in baptism une nditional." Had this been a full and accurate account of Mr. Gorham's opinions on this subject of baptism as set forth by himself, and had the reasoning, by which the judgment of the Judicial Committee is supported been omitted, in part at least, I might have felt less difficulty in assenting to the judgment. It certainly must be admitted that regeneration does not invariably take place in baptism, if such admission be limited to the case of unbelieving or impenitent adults, and that the grace is not so restrained to the rite, but that God may, if it so please Him, grant it separately from the rite, and that it is an effectual sign of grace to them ouly who worthily receive it; the question being whether all infants are worthy recipients; and lastly, that in no case is regeneration in baptism unconditional, the question being what are the conditions to be fulfilled. But Mr. Gorham's assertions are not fully or adequately represented by the foregoing statement. Ilis real errors, as I consider them to be, are of a more serious nature; being, as far as I can understand his language, not merely of a doubtful tendency with reference to the Church's doctrine, but precisely and dogmatically opposed to that doctrine. Those errors are passed over in silence by the Judicial Committee in their elaborate report to the Queen, a silence which is, in one point of view, satisfactory, inasmuch as, it it does not expressly condemn the errors in question, it certainly does not expressly vindicate nor in term sanction them. "Mr. Gorham," says the Judicial Committee, maintains that the grace of regeneration does not so uecessarily accompany the act of baptism, that regeneration invariably takes place in baptism; Second Series.-Price 1d., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] [James Gilbert. 49, Paternoster-row Of whom may be had "The Rorn Catholic Question," First Series, price 1d. that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism." It is true, that Mr. Gorham asserts this in some of his answers; but in others he goes much further, and advances positions from which it follows as a necessary inference, not only that there may be cases in which infants are not regenerated in and by baptis:n, but that they are in no case so regenerated; that infants, duly baptised, may be regenerated, but that, if they are, it is before baptism, by an act of prevenient grace; and that so they come to baptism already regenerated; that forgiveness of sins, the new nature, adoption into the family of God, the being made "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," are benefits conferred on "worthy recipients," "not in baptism, but by an act of prevenient grace given by God before baptism;" so making them worthy recipients of the rite, that baptism is so far an effectual sign of God's grace bestowed beforehand, implanting a new nature, and strengthening and confirming faith in him Thus, according to Mr. Gorham, the strengthening and confirming of faith is the whole of the spiritual grace betowed in baptism, even on worthy recipients; faith, forgiveness of sins, regeneration, the new nature, and adoption into the family of God, have been all bestowed upon such, if at all, before baptism. It did not appear to me possible to reconcile such statements as these with the plain and unequivocal teaching of the Church of England as to the nature of a sacrament. They seemed to me to be a plain denial of that which the Church asserts, that an infant is made in and by baptism (not before nor after it) a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. If there be any meaning in words, those statements are express contradictions of the truth that in a sacrament the outward and visible part, or sign, is a means whereby we receive the inward and spiritual grace, as well as a pledge to assure us thereof. If this theory of Mr. Gorham's be true, then is baptism no longer a sacrament according to the Church's definition, nor can we, with a safe conscience, continue to teach our children that Catechism which yet the Church declares is to be learned of every one of her members. It appeared to me, then, that these assertions of Mr. Gorham, which were passed over without notice by the Judicial Committee, but to which I could not shut my eyes, went to deprive holy baptism of its sacramental character, and utterly to evacuate its peculiar and distinctive grace. I am not now considering, nor was this the question before the Judicial Committee, whether Mr. Gorham's theory be defensible as being consistent with the language of Holy Scripture (which I am persuaded it is not), but whether it be agreeable to the dogmatical teaching of the Church of England; whether it can be reconciled with the deductions which she has drawn, in accordance with the primitive Church of Christ, from the word of God, the one infallible source of truth? Now, that baptismal regeneration, including in that term the remission of original sin in the implanting of a new principle of spiritual life, is indeed the doctrine of our Church, is, to my mind, so plain that I find it difficult to understand how any person can persuade himself of the contrary. I would repeat, with reference to this question, the observation contained in my charge delivered to the clergy of this diocese in 1812: "In the interpretation of the Articles which relate more immediately to doctrine, our surest guide is the Liturgy." It may safely be pronounced of any interpretation of an Article which cannot be reconciled with the plain language of the offices for public worship, that it is not the doctrine of the Church. The opinion, for instance, which denies baptismal regeneration might possibly, though not without great difficulty, be reconciled with the language of the 27th Article. By no stretch of ingenuity nor latitude of explanation can it be brought to agree with the plain, unqualified language of the offices for baptism and confirmation. A question may properly be raised as to the sense in which the term "regeneration" was used in the early Church and by our own Reformers; but that regeneration does actually take place in baptism, is most undoubtedly the doctrine of the English Church; and I do not understand how any clergyman who uses the office for baptism, which he has bound himself to use, and which he cannot alter nor mutilate without a breach of God's faith, can deny that, in some sense or other, baptism is indeed "the laver of regeneration." I cannot for a moment admit that the Articles contain the whole doctrine of the Church of England. 'The Book of Articles," says Bishop Pearson, "is not, nor is it pretended to be, a complete body of divinity, or a comprehension and explication of all Christian doctrines necessary to be taught, but an enumeration of some truths which, before and since the Reformation, have been denied by some persons who upon their denial are thought unfit to have any cure of souls in this Church or realm." It was argued by Mr. Gorham's counsel that the Book of Common Prayer is to be considered simply as a guide to devotion, not as defining any doctrine; but it appears to me to be a perfectly inadmissible supposition, that, in a solemn act of devotion, and especially in the celebration of a sacrament, any point of doctrine should be embodied as a certain and acknowledged truth, about which the Church entertains any doubt. This would surely be nothing short of addressing the Author of Truth in the language of falsehood. On the contrary, the assumption of a doctrine as true, in a prescribed form of prayer or thanksgiving to God, is, in fact, the most solemn and postive assertion of that doctrine which can possibly be made. Will any one maintain that if the articles of religion had contained no direct declaration of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it would not have been expressly and most solemnly asserted by the Church when she directed her members to pray to the "Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity, three persons and one God," or that because the special work of the Holy Ghost in the economy of man's salvation, that of renewing him in the inner man, is not in terms asserted in the Articles; it is, therefore, not asserted by the Church when she instructs us to pray, that having been regenerated and made the children of God, by adoption and grace, we may be duly renewed by His Holy Spirit ? I do not understand how any clergyman can doubt whether the Liturgy is binding upon him in respect of doctrine, when he remembers the solemn declaration which he has made in the face of the Church: "I do hereby declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in the book entitled 'The Book of Common Prayer."" Not only, you will observe, his consent to use it, but his assent to everything contained in it. Again, it is prescribed by the Act of Uniformity, that every lecturer shall openly declare his "assent unto and approbation of the said Book (of Common Prayer); and to the use of the Prayers, &c., therein contained and prescribed"-words which are quite incompatible with the notion that nothing more is required of the clergy than to declare their readiness to use the Book of Common Prayer. Dr. Waterland, speaking of the case of Arian subscription, says of Dr. Samuel Clarke: 'Ile was sensible that Articles, Creeds, and Liturgy, must all come into account, and all be reconciled (if possible) to his hypothesis. He made no distinction between the truth of this and the use only of that, well knowing that truth and use are coincident in a case of this high moment, and that he could not submit to the use of these prayers but in such a sense as he thought true." But all doubt as to the bearing of the Book of Common Prayer upon questions of doctrine, at least with regard to vne sacraments, is removed by the express language of the Canons. The 57th Canon tinctly and authoritatively refers to the Book of Common Prayer as declaring what the doctrine of the Church is with respect to the two sacraments. "The doctrine," it says, "both of Eaptism and the Lo Supper, is so sufficiently set down in the Book of Common Prayer to be used at administration of the said sacraments, as nothing can be added unto it that is material and necessary." This is a direct asserti that the baptismal and eucharistic offices are dogmatic, as well as devotional, and were this authoritaliva declaration wanting, we should protest against the notion that, in the most solemn act of prayer led thanksgiving to God, our Church should have permitted herself to employ the strongest and most wa qualified words, without intending them to be understood in their natural sense. This Canon, indeed, a no more than had been said by Bishop Ridley, in his "Last Farewell," written just before his martyrdom: "This Church of England had of late, the infinite goodness and abundant mercy of Almighty God, great substance, great riches of heavenly treasure, great plenty of God's true and sincere word, the true and wholesome administration of Christ's holy sacraments, the whole profession of Christ's religion truly and plainly set forth in baptism, the plain declaration and understanding of the same, taught in the holy Cutechism to have been learned of all true Christians." I need not consider the comparative authority of the Articles and the Book of Common Prayer in questions of doctrine. We are bound to admit the truth of both documents. If there be anything which wears the semblance of contradiction or diversity between the two, we may be sure that the framers of the Articles did not intend it; and, with respect to the two sacraments, the express declaration of the Canons put forth fifty years after the publication of the Articles, is decisive as to the point, that they are to be interpreted in accordance with the plain language of the offices in the Book of Common Prayer. If there be any ambiguity or want of precision in the Articles as to the effect of baptism, it is, I think, our obvious duty to have recourse to the office for the administration of that sacrament, for the purpose of ascertaining the Church's mind on so important a point of doctrine. THE CHURCH'S VIEW OF BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. It is not my intention to discuss at length the meaning and force of the 27th Article, nor would I deny that its language is less precise than that in which many other doctrinal questions are stated and determined; but I cannot believe that, if there be anything ambiguous in that language, such ambiguity was intentional, and studiously employed for the purpose of leaving the construction of that Article to the private persuasion of individuals, considering that the purpose for which the Articles were designed was stated to be "the avoiding of diversities," not merely in teaching, but of "opinions." Moreover, if there be some obscurity in the language of the 27th Article, when taken by itself (an obscurity which ceases to exist when that part of the article which relates to the baptism of adults is distinguished from that which concerns infant baptism), there is none when it is read in connexion with the 25th, which declares the sacraments to be "not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God's good-will to us, whereby he doth work invisibly in us." Therefore baptism is an effectual sign of grace, that is, a sign producing the effect which it represents, and by baptism God doth work invisibly in us. I could refer you also to another of the Articles, which seems to me very clearly to indicate the sense of those who framed them as to the spiritual effects of baptism: 1 mean the 16th Article, "Of sin after baptism." It says:-"Not every deadly sin willingly committed after baptism is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and therefore unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may rise again and amend our lives." It appears to me to be an unavoidable inference from the Article that its framers considered the recovery of the Holy Ghost to be uniformly an effect of baptism, where no bar existed on the part of the recipient; and this inference is rendered certain by the language held by Cranmer in 1538. "Because," he says, "infants are born with one original sin, they have need of the remisson of that sin; and that is so rem tted that its guilt is taken away, albeit the corruption of nature or concupiscence, remains in this life, although it begins to be healed, because the Holy Spirit is efficacious even in infants themselves, and cleanses them." The precise nature and extent of the spiritual change which then takes place, the Church has no further defined than by the general assertion that it is a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, and that every person rightly baptised is made thereby a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. This change is otherwise expressed by the single word "regeneration." I suppose that few amongst us will be found to deny that all who receive baptism worthily are, in some sense of the term, therein regenerated. The Church declares in very general and positive language, of all who, having been duly baptised, are afterwards brought to be confirmed, that Almighty God has vouchsafed to regenerate them by water and the Holy Ghost, and has given them forgiveness of all their sins. But this declaration, it is said, is to be restricted to such as have received baptism worthily; and this raises the question whether all infants may receive baptism worthily. What is the obex or bar which in any case disqualifies an infant from the worthy reception of that sacrament? Actual sin it cannot be, Original sin, or inherited sinfulness of nature, is the only bar which can be imagined. But to remedy the consequences of this original sin is the very object of baptism. It is therefore so far from being a bar to the receipt of that sacrament that it is the very reason for its administration. "Nothing," says Bishop Pearson, "in the whole compass of our religion, is more sure than the exceeding great and most certain efficacy of baptism to spiritual good; that it is an outward and visible sign indeed, but by it an invisible gruce is signified, and the sign itself was instituted for the very purpose that it should confer that grace." "One baptism for the remission of sins." If this credendum of the Universal Church be true, how can we admit the truth of an assertion that original sin must be remitted by a prevenient act of grace before an infant can be worthy to be baptised? The 9th Article, "Of original or birth sin," declares that in every person born into the world, this sin "deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerate; and although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptised (in the Latin it is renatis), yet the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin." Words cannot more clearly convey the notion that original sin is forgiven to them that are regenerate, that is, to them who believe and are baptised, although its infection still remains in the lust of the flesh. And this, let me remark, by the way, points out the great difference in point of doctrine between the Church of Rome and our own as to the effect of baptism. The one contends that not only the guilt, but the very essence and being of original sin, is removed by baptism; the other teaches that although the guilt is forgiven in baptism, the corruption of nature remains even in those who are so regenerate. This notion of the Church of Rome lies at the root of its grand error, that of justification by inherent righteousness. I am aware that a question has been raised whether that clause of the Nicene Creed, "One baptism for the remission of sins," has any reference to the forgiveness of original sin. But what other reference can it have in the case of infant baptism, which we know to have been the practice of the Universal Church when that creed was compiled? In truth, no question was raised about it till Pelagius denied the doctrine of original sin. The writings of his great opponent, St. Augustine, abound with passages which prove the belief of the Church Catholic to have been that original sin was remitted in baptism, not before or after it. That remission in baptism of the guilt of original sin, for the sake of the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ (Christ being the meritorious cause of their remission, baptism the instrument), is also the doctrine of our own Church, following in this, as in other respects, the teaching of the early Church, cannot reasonably be doubted. It is plainly asserted in the Catechism, prayed for in the office of baptism, and made a subject of special thanksgiving both in that and in the office of confirmation. Nor is it less distinctly set forth in the homilies, from which the following extracts may suffice:-"We must trust only in God's mercy, and that sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the son of God, once offered for us upon the cross, to obtain thereby God's grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism, as of all actual sin committed by us after baptism, if we truly repent, and unfeignedly turn to Him again." "Our office is not to pass the time of this present life unfruitfully or idly after that we are baptised or justified." "We be, therefore, washed in baptism from the filthiness of sin, that we should live afterwards in pureness of life." The same language was held by Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Becon, Hutchinson, Bradford, following the steps of Luther and Melancthon, all of whom taught that remission of sin and the gift of the Spirit were the effect of baptism. That this doctrine was held by our greatest divines is so notorious as almost to render citation unnecessary. "Baptism," says Hooker, "is a sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church to the end that they who receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ, and so through His most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul their first disposition:towards future newness of life." With this plain and comprehensive statement of the beneficial effects of baptism may be coupled another from the same great luminary of the Church, which, although it does not in terms specify the forgiveness of original sin, necessarily includes it. "We take not baptism nor the eucharist for bare resemblances or memorials of things absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before [which is Mr. Gorham's theory], but as they are in deed and verity, for means effectual whereby God, when we take the sacraments, delivereth into our hands the grace available unto eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify." And in a passage immediately following that which has been quoted to show that Hooker considered the Church to speak of infants baptised only as the rule of "piety alloweth us both to speak and to think," we find this statement, plainly showing that he believed all infants to receive regeneration by baptism, whether they be elect or not. Cartwright, whom Mr. Gorham follows, had spoken of a grace that makes a man a Christian before he comes to receive baptism in the Church; and Hooker says:-"When we know how Christ in general hath said that of such is the kingdom of heaven, which kingdom is the inheritance of God's elect, and do withal behold how His providence hath called them unto the first beginnings of eternal life, and presented them at the well-spring of new birth, wherein original sin is purged-besides which sin there is no hindrance of their salvation known to us, as themselves [Cartwright and his party] will grant-hard it were that, having so many fair inducements whereupon to ground, we should not be thought to utter, at the least, a truth as probable and allowable in terming any such particular infant an elect babe, as in presuming the like of others whose safety, nevertheless, we are not absolutely able to warrant." He then goes on to say that "baptism implieth a covenant or league between God and man, wherein as God doth bestow presently remission of sin, and the Holy Ghost, binding also himself to add, in process of time, what grace soever shall be further necessary for the attainment of everlasting life, so every baptised soul receiving the same grace at the hands of God, tieth likewise itself for ever to the observation of His laws." The question, you perceive, of which Hooker speaks, is not whether this or that infant is regenerated in baptism, but whether, being regenerated, it can also be certainly pronounced elect. The early Calvinistic divines, who held the doctrine of election, predestination, and perseverance, never doubted, on the one hand the certainty of baptismal grace, nor, on the other, its defectibility. "The ancient predestinarians," says the present Bishop of Bangor, "never questioned the certainty of regeneration in baptism, because this doctrine was consistent with their theory; for though they maintained that the elect, or predestinate, are endued with the gift of perseverance unto the end, and will finally be saved, yet they believe that God bestows at his pleasure every other kind and measure on those persons from whom He withholds this special grace of perseverance. They therefore held in common with the rest of the Church, that forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, are bestowed in baptism; nor did they imagine that there is any necessary or indissoluble connexion between regeneration and eternal salvation." Two names scarcely less illustrious than that of Hooker, are those of Barrow and Pearson. The former speaks of "each member of the Church singly being, in holy baptism, washed from his sins and made regenerate, or adopted into the number of God's children, and made partaker of Christ's death." The latter declares it to be "the most general and irrefragable assertion of all to whom we have reason to give credit, that all sins, whatsoever any person is guilty of, are remitted in the baptism of the same person." The settled opinions of the early Lutheran divines, as well as of Luther himself, are apparent from the "Loci Theologici" of Gerhard, a text-book of Lutheran theology. "Infants," he says (I quote Mr. Arnold's translation)," do not resist the Holy Ghost and His operation, and therefore faith and salvation are undoubtedly conferred upon them." Again: "They detract from the efficacy of the sacraments on the side of defect . . . who argue that the sacraments are only signs of grace either already conferred and received without the use of sacraments, or not to be conferred till some later time. Zuinglius, especially, had disseminated this error in his writings." But this is precisely the error of Mr. Gorham. With these testimonies before me, I could not bring myself to admit that Mr. Gorham's theory of the comparative, if not the absolute, inefficacy of baptism could be reconciled with the language of our authorelative formularies, according to any just rule of interpretation. It appeared to me that he went to much |