THE

SCOTTISH GUARDIAN.

FEBRUARY 1865.

BISHOP WORDSWORTH IN BERWICK.

"ON December 22nd, in the King's Arms Assembly Room, the inaugural address to the members of the Church of England Institute, recently established in this town, was delivered by the Right Rev. Bishop Wordsworth of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane. The Rev. the Vicar, President of the Institute, was in the chair, and there was a large and fashionable audience present." So far we copy from the Berwick Journal; but we are glad to be enabled to give a more complete report of the Bishop's address, than appeared in that paper, or in any other. Considerable space was given to it in the Courant, Scotsman, and other Journals, but in all, important portions were omitted. The Bishop said :—

Invited, most unexpectedly, to address you on this occasion, and personally unacquainted alike with your local circumstances, and with the members of your Committee, whom I have now the pleasure of meeting for the first time, I naturally looked for information and for guidance to the printed rules of your new Institute. There I found stated as the first among the objects for which your Society has been formed "the promotion of kindly intercourse among Churchmen;" and it struck me at once that the first object of your Society should in all reason be chosen to form the subject of the Address with which, as I understand, it is to be now inaugurated. But it also struck me as a further reason for this choice, that of all places within the dominions of our gracious Queen, Berwick-upon-Tweed is the place most suitable for

VOL. II.-NO. XIII.

the consideration of such a subject; the place from which a voice might be expected to go forth in favour of the cessation of hostilities among Fellow Christians, and especially among Christians breathing the same air, speaking the same tongue, subject to the same sway, girt around by the same seas-in a word, the place from which with more than ordinary propriety, religious disputants of every denomination, but more particularly those who represent the Established Churches of England and of Scotland, might be invited mutually, if I may so express it, to shake hands. Your town no longer suffers from the civil dissentions to which as the key of the border land it was formerly exposed; your river no longer witnesses the frays which so often caused its waters to be stained with blood. And the happiness which you enjoy, in comparison with your distant forefathers, in these respects, must lead you to look forward and anticipate the day when the removal of discordant elements which still exist in the ecclesiastical relations of the two countries between which you lie, may lead to similar and still more happy results; when the mouldering wall of unhallowed separation between Episcopalian and Presbyterian shall be broken down; and when your noble river—your Tweed-which a poet sings of as

"Best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,"

shall flow more joyously, more melodiously, when it has seen obliterated, drowned (so to speak) and swept away into the sea, the last remains of that unhappy division which forbids England and Scotland, though one in Cæsar, to be one in Christ. Do I seem to suggest too bold an anticipation, too bright a vision? Consider, then, what you have yourselves witnessed. Look to the viaduct, the chain bridge, the railway— all constructed within your own memory-all calculated to remove obstructions, to facilitate intercourse, to cement the union between the two countries. Having had occasion myself to pass this way, more or less frequently during the last seventeen years, I know the beneficial changes which your town and neighbourhood has undergone in these and such-like respects. And shall it be that the hand of man is able easily to span our rivers, to thread our hills, to level what is uneven, and to smoothen what is rough; but that the mind of man, nay more, the faith of the Christian (that faith which has the promise of being able to remove mountains) is powerless, within its own proper sphere of operation, to do likewise? When so much has been accomplished to improve our mutual relations in material comfort, shall nothing be attempted to draw us closer to each other in religious intercourse? When the political causes of disunion have been removed, and political union, successfully established, has brought with it a vast accession of prosperity to both countries, how long shall a worse disunion, be

queathed in great measure by those political causes, and attended by many social and civil disadvantages, be suffered to remain? How long shall you be doomed to see a more melancholy sight than when opposing armies were drawn up upon your opposite banks-Churches on the North marshalled as it were against Churches on the South, or if no longer standing in hostile attitude towards each other, yet not united, not allied, but gathering the population of their respective parishes into camps which hold no religious fellowship, no sacred communion with each other. The descendants of the Scotch and English who fought against each other with such deadly rage at Halidon Hill, or upon Flodden Field, now fight, if at all, by each other's side against a common foe. Alas! They have not yet learnt to pray beside each other— to partake beside each other of the Food of Life-to wage beside each other a combined warfare against the worst enemy of us all! Nay, I could imagine within your own walls that members of the Scotch and members of the English Church Establishments might be tempted mutually to taunt each other as Dissenters, except that I believe, in point of fact, though locally you belong rather to the North, your lot. has been cast in with the Southern Church. As it is, for all that I can tell, there may be in your good Town another Institute such as this confined to members of the Church of Scotland, as yours is confined, I observe, to members of the Church of England. But though your Institute, doubtless for good and sufficient reasons, confines itself to members of the Church of England, and though your Committee are all required to be communicants of that Church; yet your primary object being, as I have already noticed, "to promote kindly intercourse among Churchmen," I hope I shall offer no violence to your feelings or intentions, if I venture to interpret these words as applicable to all who by baptism have been admitted, though less regularly than we could wish, yet still admitted into the Church of Christ. Your position, as lying between two Established Churches, neither of which is, or rightly can be, as they now stand, in communion with the other, though composed of fellow subjects in the same kingdom, is already painful enough; let it not be made more painful than need be by putting too harsh and exclusive an interpretation upon the name of "Churchmen ;" however much we may desire, as indeed we pray, that one, and that, as we believe, the most sound interpretation might equally comprehend and embrace the members of both Establishments. I have said we pray for this good and greatly to be desired result. We do so daily, we do so weekly, we do so yearly. Daily, nay twice a day, when both in our Morning and Evening Service, we offer the petition that "all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in right

eousness of life." Weekly, when in our Communion Office, we beseech the Divine Majesty "to inspire continually the Universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord"; and to grant "that all they who confess His Holy Name may agree in the truth of His Holy Word, and live in unity and godly love." Yearly, when in "the Office of Prayer with Thanksgiving to Almighty God to be used in all Churches and Chapels within this Realm upon the Day of the Queen's Accession, we offer up that most solemn and most beautiful form of words, the Prayer for Unity, which runs thus:

"O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace, give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in through our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred, and prejudice, and whatsover else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one Hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy Bond of Truth and Peace, of Faith and Charity; and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Thus we have all of us been taught to pray yearly, weekly, daily. And what does this imply? Does it not imply that we ought not to acquiesce idly and unconcernedly in a state which is utterly inconsistent with the things for which we pray? Does it not imply that we are bound, in the face of God and man, to do, each of us, what in him lies, to dissipate misunderstandings, and to cultivate good will, in order that God may give us in His own good time these blessings which we seek for at His Hands-peace, and unity, and brotherly love.

It is therefore with this view and upon the grounds which have now been briefly explained, that I propose to offer some remarks which I trust may tend "to promote kindly intercourse," and, what is far more, the restoration of religious communion among all who by Baptism in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, and therefore in the Name of our common Saviour, have been made members of the Christian Church, and thereby fellow-heirs with us of the same blessed hope.

First, then, I am persuaded that many Christians, estimable in their character and sincerely anxious to do their duty both to God and man, have been led to think that more liberty is allowed to us in this matter of separation than, as I believe, we can rightly claim. The misunderstanding has arisen mainly from two causes, one of which is to be removed by the right interpretation of Holy Scripture; the other by the right reading of the History of the Church. Let us examine these causes each in turn, beginning with the former.

I. All men know that the Scriptures teach and require us to be

"at one," as in other respects, so most especially in our religious profession.* Not a few persons however, so far as they can be said to think at all upon the subject, are of opinion that this union is not required to be of a formal, visible character; but that it is sufficient if in spirit we are not uncharitably disposed towards each other, however widely we may keep apart from each others fellowship as brother Christians. "Our holy Religion," they will argue, "is a Religion of the heart. It lays little or no stress upon matters of mere outward appearance. Surely it may suffice if we accept the Bible as the Word of God, and worship Him in the way which we think best, according to the dictates of our own conscience." Or sometimes the argument will be put more simply, thus-" If (as it is expressed) we hold the Head, it signifies little to what Body we belong." Upon this point happily the accepted standards of our two National Church Establishments are agreed. They both require not only spiritual, but visible Unity. They neither of them contemplate the existence of any but one true Catholic and Apostolic Church. And with good reason; for not only is the notion of inward harmony and brotherly love between persons who are not united in the same outward communion found by experience for the most part to be an unreal one; but the plain requirements of Holy Scripture are not satisfied with this, nor, in truth, with anything short of that practical intercourse in things sacred, that joint participation in the same public acts of religion on the part of all collectively, which our various religious bodies maintain severally among their own members. As we read, there is not only "One Spirit," but " one Body" (Eph. iv. 4), and as by that "one Spirit we" (i.e., Christians in general) "are all baptised into that one Body" (1 Cor. xii. 13), so we are taught "to receive one another" (Rom. xv. 7) to the same communion, the same place and ordinances of public worship (see Heb. x. 25); all which moreover we are told, for our imitation, the first believers did (Acts ii. 42.) And as to the notion of “holding the Head," this can only be by living in obedience to Christ's commands,‡ and to the Revelation which He has made to us, and which plainly shews that the Society of which He is the One and only Head is not like some unnatural monster with many bodies, but of “ one Body" only, and that Christians, though many, are not only one Body in Him but "every one members one of another." (Rom. xii. 5; Gal. iii. 28.) If further argument be needed to place this matter beyond all doubt, it

* See Eph. i. 10. iv. 1-6 1 Cor. i. 10; 16; xv. 5—7; xvi. 17;

John xvii. 11-23; x. 15, 16; xiii. 35. Col. iii. 15. Eph. iii, 3, 4; xii. 13, 24, 25. Phil. i. 27; ii. 1—3. Rom xii. 5, Gal. iii. 28; 2 Thess. iii. 14—16; 1 Pet. iii. 8; Heb. x. 25. † See Confession of Faith c. xxv. sec. 2; Larger Catechism ii. 62. See John xv. 10.