cant, and for that purpose did cause all and singular of the Canons and Prebendaries of the same Church, and others having or pretending to have any right or interest in that behalf, to be cited to appear on this day of to give their consent and voices respectively: Which said day of being come, and Prayers to Almighty God before all things being humbly offered up, we the said Dean and Chapter capitularly assembled in the said Cathedral Church and making a full Chapter, did there, by virtue of his Majesty's Royal Licence, and according to the Statutes and ecclesiastical Laws of the famous kingdom of Great Britain, canonically proceed to the election aforesaid, in the manner and form following: (to wit)— First, after mature and serious consideration had between ourselves concerning A FIT PERSON in that behalf to be elected, (and saving to ourselves, &c.) we did at length agree to give our votes for you, being nominated and recommended to us by his Majesty's said Letter Recommendatory, as a person endued with virtue, learning, wisdom, and other good gifts, and by virtue of his Majesty's said Licence and Letter Recommendatory, with our whole assent and consent, no one contradicting, we did elect you Bishop and Pastor of the said Cathedral Church: which said election of you, so as aforesaid made, we immediately published to the clergy and people then and there present in the public and usual place, and all and singular other things of right or by custom in that behalf necessary, we have caused to be done and dispatched in the presence of a Registrar or Public Notary, and other credible witnesses, as by the Act or Public Instruments which upon the whole election aforesaid we have taken care to make more plainly appear, all and singular which things, according to the Statutes of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in that behalf made and provided, were duly had and made, as we have signified to our said Sovereign Lord the King by other Letters certificatory of the day of the date of these Presents, sealed with our Common Seal. The same like by these our Letters, sealed with our Common Seal, we do signify to you, and we earnestly desire you to give your assent and consent to such election so made of you as aforesaid. In testimony whereof, &c. Such are the processes gone through by every dean and chapter at every election: "prayers to Almighty God are before all things humbly offered up;" they then proceed "maturely and seriously to consider between themselves concerning a fit person to be elected," and, "at length," "according to the ecclesiastical laws," "canonically proceed to election." And yet, if they exercise any discretion in this most weighty matter, if they require time, i.e., exceeding twenty days, to inquire into the character and opinions of the person nominated, who may be wholly a stranger to them, or if they hesitate to accept one who is known to them, and that most unfavourably, they are forthwith outlawed, all their goods forfeited, and themselves imprisoned till they consent to violate their conscience. I shall not dwell on the enormity of this persecuting law-to state it most nakedly is to expose it most forcibly. Surely it is not unreasonable to call on our dissenting countrymen to join in effecting the speedy removal of a grievance such as this, so much severer than any which themselves have experienced. This is no question for party jealousy; it involves no doctrinal nicety, no principle of politics; it turns not on the peculiarities of sect or faction; Presbyterian, Quaker, Independent, Socinian, all must agree on it; all, in short, whose creed obliges them to uprightness and fair dealing, who profess to act on the broad principles of common sense and common honesty. F. WADDINGTON'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. MY DEAR SIR,-The want of a good ecclesiastical history in the English language has been so long felt and is so universally acknowledged, that the volume lately published in the "Library of Useful Knowledge" would be certain to meet with a ready reception from the public, even if the influence of the society under whose auspices it has been sent into the world, and the high character of its author for learning and talents, were not sufficient to secure for it an extensive circulation. I feel sure, therefore, that your readers will not consider me intrusive if I offer a few remarks on the character and tendency of the work. The method adopted by Mr. Waddington in this History of the Church shall be given in his own words: "In the first place, I have abandoned the method of division by centuries, which has too long perplexed ecclesiastical history, and have endeavoured to regulate the partition by the dependence of connected events, and the momentous revolutions which have arisen from it. It is one advantage of this plan, that it has frequently enabled me to collect under one head, to digest by a single effort, and present in one uninterrupted view, materials bearing in reality on the same point, but which, by the more usual method, are separated and distracted. It is impossible to ascertain the proportions, or to estimate the real weight of any single subject amidst the events which surround it; it is impossible to draw from it those sober and applicable conclusions which alone distinguish history from romance unless we bring the corresponding portions into contact, in spite of the interval which time may have thrown between them; for time has scattered his lessons over the records of humanity with a profuse but careless hand, and both the diligence and judgment of man must be exercised to collect and arrange them, so as to extract from their combined qualities the true odour of wisdom. It is another advantage in the method which I have adopted, that it affords greater facility to bring into relief, and to illustrate matters which are really important, and have had lasting effects; since it is chiefly by fixing attention and awakening reflection on those great phenomena, which have not only stamped a character on the age to which they belong, but have influenced the conduct and happiness of after ages, that history asserts her prerogative above a journal or an index, nor permitting thought to be dispersed nor memory wasted upon a minute narration of detached incidents and transient and unconsequential details. And in this matter, I admit that my judgment has been freely exercised in proportioning the degree of notice to the permanent weight and magnitude of events. As regards the treatment of particular branches of this subject, all readers are aware how zealously the facts of ecclesiastical history have been disputed, and how frequently those differences have been occasioned or widened by the peculiar opinions of the disputants. Respecting the former, it is sufficient to say, that the limits of this work obviously prevent the author from pursuing and unfolding all the intricate perplexities of critical controversy. I have, therefore, generally contented myself in questions of ordinary moment with following, sometimes even without comment, what has appeared to me to be the PROBABLE conclusion, and of signifying as probable only. Respecting the latter, I have found it the most difficult, as it is certainly among the weightiest of my duties, to trace the opinions which have divided the Christians of every age, regarding matters of high import both in doctrine and discipline. But it seems needless to say, that I have scarcely in any case entered into the arguments by which those opinions have been contested. It is no easy task through hostile misrepresentation and the more dangerous distortions of friendly enthusiasm, to penetrate their real character and delineate their true history. For the demonstration of their reasonableness or absurdity, I must refer to the voluminous writings consecrated to their explanation."- Introduction, pp. 1, 2. This whole passage I have transcribed, because it ought to be conned and learned by rote, and set in his note-book, by every one who reads this history. To the method itself as adopted by Mr. Waddington, no objection can be urged. It is a method which has generally been pursued by modern historians. But it is needful to bear in mind, that such is his method, since it is obviously a method liable to much abuse; for, although every fact may be stated, yet the historian, by the arrangement of his light and shade, may evidently convey to the mind of the reader an idea the reverse of the truth; or, again, what he states at one time as probable, he may afterwards, when reasoning upon the subject, assume as an established fact. Without any impeachment, therefore, of the integrity of an author who adopts this method, it becomes highly important to ascertain the bias of his mind. He may not purposely misrepresent, but his prejudices may, nevertheless, lead him astray. How often has his hostility to episcopacy blinded the eyes of Mosheim to the truth? How often has his devotion to the Calvinistic system had the like effect upon Milner? With respect to Mr. Waddington, it is easy to perceive that the bias of his mind is towards liberalism; and, like many other persons, he seems to imagine that liberalism implies impartiality. This, however, is an inference more easy for him to make than for us to admit. The Liberal is indeed opposed to the Partizan, and yet the no-principles of the former may incapacitate him for the investigation of truth, quite as much as the prejudices of the latter. Impartiality means that disposition of mind which leads the author to give the naked fact as it really appears, without regard to consequences. But the liberal, not less than the partizan, is always trembling lest other deductions may be drawn from the facts he relates than those he desires, and, consequently, when he cannot suppress, he will ever be explaining away unpalatable truths. The system of the liberal is to avoid all topics which may offend the prejudices of the age, or annoy any party of men, but especially that party to which, from circumstances, he may himself be thought to stand opposed; he will carefully insinuate that right may not, after all, be so very right, and undertake to shew that wrong is not so VERY wrong. His motto is: "There is some soul of goodness in things evil If, then, the partizan is ever on the look out for something to vindicate his own side of the question, the liberal will be equally careful to search for whatever may seem to palliate the conduct of those whose conduct would be condemned by the simple historical truth. If the partizan is inclined to suppress what may make against his cause, the liberal is inclined to suppress what may give offence. If the one sees too much the other sees too little. If the partizan seeks the triumph of his party, the liberal seeks to prove all parties to be wrong. If the partizan contends for what he honestly believes to be the truth, the liberal would have us infer that truth is nowhere to be found. If the partizan wishes to prove himself right, the liberal wishes to prove himself candid. They both commit the same fault-they both give the truth; but, blended by their prejudices, they do not give the whole truth. But the liberal is far more likely to lead the reader into error than the partizan; for the partizan is seen fighting manfully under his true colours, and, consequently, we are always on our guard; we see at once the bias of his mind. But the liberal while wearing our uniform will ever be parleying with the enemy. There is, indeed, a species of disingenuity on the part of the liberals much to be complained of, and of which Mr. Waddington is not entirely guiltless. When a liberal now-a-days wishes to attack the church, or to vindicate the cause of dissent, we find him carefully designating himself as a conscientious churchman, not perceiving that, by so doing, he concedes at least half an argument to the adversary, since the reader will naturally conclude "Surely this conscientious churchman would have supported the other side of the question if he could." So with respect to the "Prebendary of Ferring in the cathedral church of Chichester," when he acceded to the request of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and undertook to write a history of the church, without urging anything in favour of the doctrine and discipline of the church of England, he ought, in order to have been really and truly impartial, to have published his work anonymously. Let it then always be borne in mind, that Mr. Waddington is a liberal and a churchman. Of nothing, therefore, is he so afraid as of appearing to favour the church, or to imply censure on any class of modern dissenters. This may be very amiable, but it is indisputably no proof of his impartiality, or his love of truth. I say not that in any instance he has purposely misrepresented an historical fact, but I will present to the reader one instance, out of many which I could select, in which, unconsciously, he forgets the duty of an historian and assumes the character of an advocate, in which he gives his opinion as the probable fact, and then afterwards draws an important conclusion, as if the fact must positively have been as he opines. It is amusing to observe the shifts to which those ecclesiastical historians are put whose interests or prejudices lead them to reject the doctrine of episcopacy when describing the primitive churches. Thus are they challenged by the judicious Hooker: "he requires you to find out but one church that hath been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been ordered by ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the time that the blessed apostles were here conversant." If there was one apostolical church which was not episcopal, the inference dissenters would draw from it is, that episcopacy is not essentially necessary for the formation of a church. And this one church Mr. Waddington undertakes to give them by the following method. Alluding to the divisions which had taken place in the church of Corinth, and to the epistle written by the apostolical Father, St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, to appease them, our author remarks: "The dissensions of the Corinthians seem to have entirely regarded the discipline, not the doctrine of the church; they had dismissed from the ministry certain presbyters, as St. Clement asserts, undeservedly, and much confusion was thus introduced. For the purpose of composing it, five deputies were sent from Rome, the bearers of the epistle. We should here observe, that the epistle is written in the name of the Church sojourning at Rome,' not in that of the Roman Bishop; that its character is of exhortation, and not of authority; that it is an answer to a communication originally made by the church of Corinth. The episcopal government was clearly not yet here established; probably as being adverse to the republican spirit of Greece. spirit naturally extending from political to religious affairs, may have acted most strongly on the most numerous society; and to its influence, most dangerous to the concord of an infant community, we may, perhaps, attribute the evils of which we have spoken."-P. 12. This The latter part of this paragraph is intended to insinuate an argument confirmatory of the preceding statement. The statement is, that there was no Bishop of Corinth; and this, our author observes, is easily accounted for by the republican spirit which there prevailed. But surely the republican spirit was not less rife amid the fierce democracy of Athens, than it was at Corinth; yet our author admits that at Athens there was at this period a bishop, and that there had been a regular succession of bishops from the first establishment of the church in that city. The republican spirit of Greece was no more opposed to episcopacy in the primitive ages than the republican spirit of America is opposed to it at the present period. It may have led to insubordination-it may have rendered it difficult for an individual bishop, in certain places, to have maintained his authority-it may have excited the very dissension which Bishop Clement was endeavouring to appease; but the circumstance that Athens and the other Greek churches (omitting for the present the consideration of Corinth) were all governed by bishops, is sufficient to shew, that it was not opposed to the institution itself; or, if we admit that episcopacy and a republican spirit are incompatible, since Mr. Waddington concedes to us that all churches of which we have the history, except that of Corinth, were episcopal, it will follow that this otherwise inexplicable fact is to be accounted for only by the supposition of the divine institution of episcopacy. But this, even if we yield the point, is only accounting for the fact, supposing the fact to be as it is represented by our author. Let us now ask what authority can he adduce to support his position—that the church of Corinth thus essentially differed from all the surrounding churches, and even from its neighbour church of Athens? He tells us the "episcopal government was clearly not yet here established." Now I confess that this word clearly always appears to me to be a suspicious little word when flowing from the pen of an historian. It seems to say, I have no historical documents to guide me, but I am so 66 |
