Though the incident was trifling in itself, and not likely to lead to any shining results, the principle involved was important, being no less than the question whether Protestant communions, such as the Scottish Presbyterian Church, the English nonconformist congregations, and the evangelical Churches of the Continent, are or are not excluded from the Catholic Church because they have not adhered to the apostolical or episcopal succession. Frederick Maurice's Maurice did not like the term 'the Protestant view. Church'; but the idea of a central unity independent of diversities of Christian worship according to languages and nations' had his sympathy. His view was that nations may be Protestant, but the Church is Catholic; and that 'the two are not contradictory, but complementary truths'; and he welcomed a step towards union which accepted the order of bishops, an institution which he himself believed to be primitive.

1842.

Julius Hare dwelt at length on the subject in his archidiaconal charge of 1842. He spoke with approval of the wish of the King of Prussia 'to obtain a centre for all Julius Hare, the national churches of the evangelical confession, that might be willing to join in the scheme either now or hereafter.' 'The present aspect of Turkish affairs . . and especially the political relation of England and Prussia with Turkey, has for the first time afforded a possibility for evangelical Christendom to demand a position in the birthplace of Christianity, by the side of the ancient Churches of the East, and over against that of Rome, as a co-ordinate member of the Universal Church of Christ. . . To all the members of our Church the name of Protestant was for centuries a matter of glory. . . . Both politically and ecclesiastically the English nation and Church regarded themselves as intimately united to every Protestant body, and as the appointed champions of the Protestant cause. Our brotherhood with the Protestant Churches on the Continent was affectionately recognised, not by Low Churchmen and Puritans, but by the very persons whom our modern Romanisers used to hold up as the exemplars of English Churchmen, by Archbishop Sancroft and by the Lower House of Convocation in 1689 and in 1705. . . . So alien is

XIII

BISHOP GOBAT

269

the mind of the English Church from that new-fangled upstart heresy which disclaims the name of Protestant, and audaciously denies the name of Church to the German Lutherans.'

Samuel Gobat

1846.

On the death of Bishop Alexander in November 1845, the appointment fell to the King of Prussia, who nominated Samuel Gobat, the son of a Swiss pastor, a linguist and orientalist, who had spent some time in Abys-nominated sinia and was a zealous missionary and a man of to succeed Bishop vigorous intellect and strong character. Gobat had Alexander, been trained at Islington College, and was already in Anglican deacon's orders. But in dealing with the monophysite clergy of Abyssinia he had used language which, as Pusey thought, seemed to suggest unsound opinions. He had certainly, whilst blaming Nestorius, refused to anathematise either him or Eutyches; 'we only anathematise those who love not our Lord Jesus Christ'; he also said that 'the Bible speaks of neither one nor two natures in Christ; it only says that He is God over all.' On Baptism Bishop Gobat held the current evangelical view, that Baptism is rather a seal and symbol of grace than an effectual means of grace.

Pusey had in 1841 'tried to make the best of the experiment.' But he had seen the effect upon others, especially upon Newman, of this attempt to bring the English and the German churches nearer to each other, and now it was to him 'like a sword in his bones.' 'What a misery,' he wrote, 'it would be if the ultimate object of the Prussian Government were obtained, and they were to receive episcopacy from us, and we were to become the authors Pusey of a heretical Succession.' Such a doctrine as this changes his ignores the history of the English Reformation and 'unchurches half Europe'; and how material is the conception of episcopacy as a kind of spiritual possession conferred ex opere operato upon a church which, nevertheless, being heretical, could not derive benefit from it.

mind.

It would have been a breach of faith to refuse to consecrate on the King of Prussia's nomination, whether or not it had been good policy in the first instance to enter into the agreement; and Pusey's proposal to protest against the Archbishop's act in conferring Priest's Orders upon Gobat without his 'publicly recanting heresy publicly put forth'

Bishop Gobat

would seem to be merely impertinent. The Bishop of Exeter came forward with a protest founded on general considerations, not on Gobat's religious views; and consecrated, Gobat having, to avoid scandal, explained certain 1846. remarks in his Journals, and subscribed to the Creeds and Articles, was ordained priest and consecrated Bishop on July 3, 1846.

This 'fancy Church,' as Gladstone called it, languished, and indeed hardly came into effective existence. Three bishops on the Anglo-Prussian foundation were successively consecrated; then the joint arrangement was abandoned. From the via media point of view the experiment was a dangerous tampering with heresy: to Roman Catholics it was little if at all more visionary and amateur than the via media itself. Newman's words are memorable: 'As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never heard of any good or harm it has ever done, except what it has done for me.' The memory of the controversy was only revived by the mention of it in his Apologia. There is a bishopric of Jerusalem at this day, but it is an Anglican bishopric like others, not a compromise between an episcopalian and a non-episcopalian community. The Anglo-Prussian Jerusalem Bishopric was an ill-devised scheme, perhaps little more than a Royal whim; but it embodied a noble idea, and one in harmony with the early Stuart times, to which Tractarians looked back as the palmy days of the English Church.

AUTHORITIES.-Cf. Chapters XI. and XII. For the Hampden Controversy, R. D. Hampden, Bampton Lectures, 1832; Observations on Religious Dissent; H. Christmas, Concise History of the Hampden Controversy; J. H. Newman, Elucidations, etc.; The Hampden Controversy, 1847; E. B. Pusey, Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements, etc., 1836. For the Jerusalem Bishopric; J. H. Newman, Apologia; Liddon's Life of Pusey; Life and Work of Samuel Gobat; J. C. Hare, Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, 1842.

CHAPTER XIV

TRACT NINETY AND THE SECESSION

THE Tracts continued to appear, but excited less public interest, as they demanded more studious attention and appealed less to questions of the moment. Oxford was interested in such questions as the abolition of subscription at matriculation in 1835, the Hampden controversy in 1836, Newman's lectures in Adam de Brome's chapel and his sermons at St. Mary's, the Martyrs' Memorial in 1838, and the Jerusalem Bishopric and the Poetry Professorship in 1841. Meanwhile the progress of the Movement followed unconsciously the progress of Newman's mind; and, as he wrote in 1835, 'the controversy with the Romanists has overtaken us like a summer cloud.'

One of the most remarkable of the Tracts was No. 85, written by Newman in 1838. Though it did not receive much general notice, it made a deep impression upon thinkers, such as Ward of Balliol. It is composed in the form of lectures, and deals with difficulties in the Scripture proof of the doctrine of the Church; difficulties of latitudinarianism, which holds to Scripture but does not find a definite creed in Scripture; difficulties of the Christian and Catholic record contained in the history of the Church, and of the Canon of Scripture, from the incredibility or improbability of events recorded in Scripture and accepted by the Church,an argument drawn out later by Newman in the Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles; difficulties involved in the reception by Protestants of the Canon of Scripture as settled in the fourth and fifth centuries, unless the doctrines also which

were held by the Church at the same time are accepted on the same authority. The conclusion is that neither the doctrines, nor the history of the Church, nor the Canon of Scripture can be maintained without the supernatural assurance of inspired Church authority behind all. God 'has given us doctrines which are but obscurely gathered from Scripture, and a Scripture which is but obscurely gathered from history.' The writer employs with consummate skill the artifice of unimpassioned rhetoric, removing stone by stone the foundations of belief for the Latitudinarian and the Protestant, till the climax suddenly comes in an appeal to the heart; if this is so, the only answer to these reasonable doubts is the answer of St. Peter, 'Lord, to whom shall we

go?' Somewhither he must go. Love is the parent of faith. Why should not the Church be divine? 'I love her Bible, her doctrine, and her rites, and therefore I believe.' The argument is that of universal scepticism, but scepticism is barred by faith and love.

Isaac

The Tracts which were most discussed and roused most opposition were Nos. 80 and 87, published in 1838, which were written by Isaac Williams, by no means an incendiary, Williams's but a quiet retired poet. His works, The Cathedral, Tracts, Nos. 80 and 87, on The Baptistery, Thoughts in Past Years, had merit 'Religious Reserve, as poetry, and counted for something in spreading 1838. High Church doctrine, and sentiment of the type represented by Herbert, Ken, and Keble. But in theology Williams was one of the most uncompromising of the party, 'of the straitest sect,' as Newman told him; never completely under the spell of Newman; notably of that section of the party which could go very near to Rome yet remain untempted.

The subject chosen by Williams in Tract No. 80, and its sequel, No. 87, was 'Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge.' The writer's intention, as he tells us himself, was to maintain the argument 'that religious truth cannot be known without serious attention.' It follows from this that the emotional and unintellectual methods of conversion, the display and, as it were, advertising of the Atonement to minds unprepared by discipline, the stress laid by some religionists upon promiscuous preaching, general religious education