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"form," and takes only the "substance;" in other words, he puts his own private meaning into the words, and understands them as he will. How far then does this liberty extend? May the subscriber go even so far as to put a negative to the words "went up," and read them, went not up" But, however this may be, it must be noted that the right of private interpretation thus exercised is arbitrarily assumed. The subscribing clergyman is nowhere authorised to take the words in any but the literal sense. And how indeed could "diversities of opinions" be avoided, and consent touching true religion" secured (the very ends for which the Articles were drawn up), if every man were to be free to put his own interpretation upon them

The question remains, Can a man truthfully assent to what he does not believe, in the case of distinct propositions such as the above? Yes, Mr. Haweis has told us, in his illustrations from the child's picture-book, and from the case of republicans living under a monarchy. These illustrations, it must be confessed, are singular, and perhaps a little below the dignity of the subject. Unfortunately, too, the cases are not very helpful to the purpose for which they are brought forward. A man "assents" to the use of pictures unnaturally coloured, because they please a child, and he does not believe in the colours. But then he does not repeatedly say that he believes in them. A republican also who lives under a monarchy, assents to it without believing in it. But does he even assent to it? And at all events again, if he be a sincere and straightforward man, he will refrain from saying that he believes in it. In this respect his case is surely quite a different one from that of the clergyman who virtually says very emphatically that he both assents to the Articles and believes in them.

See the "heading" of 1629, with "His Majesty's Declaration" attached. Interleaved Prayer-Book, p. 365.

And what is it that he says he believes about them? It is that their doctrine is "agreeable to the Word of God." But this surely is only another way of saying he believes that their doctrine is true; for is not "the Word of God" to be considered as the highest truth?

When, again, it is held, as by Mr. Voysey 2 and others, that the legal is the measure of the moral obligation as regards assent and belief, this may be admitted. But then it is to be remembered, the law when appealed to has held that the obvious sense of the formularies, qualified in due measure by the historical considerations which bear upon their interpretation, is the sense in which the clergy are bound to receive their statements. Surely this has been established in recent years by the case of Mr. Voysey himself, and of others who might be named. Was he not deprived because he was found to have departed from the obvious grammatical and historical sense? This, therefore, is clearly the legal sense in which the Articles should be assented to and the Creeds believed, and other formularies used; and there is no where any provision for relieving a subscriber from this sense, or allowing him to introduce a meaning which he finds more suitable to his own state of mind. If it be said that until the said that until the law has pronounced in each given case, no meaning is defined, and therefore it is allowable to take the Articles, &c., in a man's own, it may be nonnatural, sense: obviously, it may be replied, this is straining the right of private interpretation beyond its legal limit. The law, so far as it has pronounced at all, does not give an unlimited licence, but requires the plain (historical) sense to be put upon the documents. This fact cannot but be well known to all concerned, even from such cases as those of Mr. Voysey and Mr. Heath. One, therefore, who goes beyond this, that is, who interprets in some wider or 2 Modern Review, January, 1881.

private and artificial sense of his own, evidently does not allow the law to define for him the moral obligation, but is simply following the arbitrary devices and desires of his own judgment. He is over-riding or neglecting the law.

1

It is held, however, that some sort of enforced Subscription is necessary, and must continue to be so. Thus Mr. Sarson points out that "if we come together to worship God . . . it must be because we believe something about Him." And again, "if people believe anything definite, it must be well both for themselves and for the truth's sake that they should say what it is." Quite so. Let every man have liberty to say freely what he believes true; but do not let him be compelled to say as other people believe, or have believed, whether he personally believes it or not! And yet no doubt Mr. Sarson is right in holding that there must be some basis of common belief and sentiment on which the Church shall stand, by virtue of which its constituent members shall cohere together and form one worshipping body. But is it really necessary that the "something" to be thus admitted shall be so complicated and unmanageable, so fettering and ensnaring to private thought on many subjects, as the Creeds and Articles of the Church of England, or their equivalent, a chapel schedule of Calvinistic doctrines? If no person has, or ever had, or could have, the right to impose his own views of divine truths upon another, it would seem to be the wisest course to fall back upon something that is simpler, something which all religious men would be willing to accept, and which too it may be less difficult to find, than might at first sight appear. Christ has nowhere sought to impose dogmas upon his followers, but usually acted, in fact, in a very different spirit. Might we not seek to imitate

2

1 Modern Review, January, 1881.

2 See Matthew vii. 21; John xii. 34, 35; Mark xii. 28-34.

this example and go back to " something" which should express the same broad and just spirit as, for example, to those sentences from the two Testaments which form the introduction to Morning and Evening Prayer, which it can hardly be doubted that religious men of every name would accept, and heartily "assent to and even "believe"-would accept, I mean, in the sense of including them, whatever more each man might separately hold for himself and within his own private thought?

As the world grows older and wiser, it cannot be doubted, minute, historical, metaphysical definitions of doctrine will become more and more distasteful, not only to laymen, but also to the clergy; and it will only be on some broad basis of a simple and practical kind that thoughtful men will be willing to unite together in a common church. Indeed, may it not be held that the simple desire to worship-the simple desire to unite with fellow-men in the worship of the Divine Fatheris basis enough? This, too, implies a creed, though it be not definitely formulated-a creed of the most deep and searching importance. Why should we trouble ourselves to set up any other? Especially why call in Acts of Parliament or of Convocation, or Assemblies or Conferences, to devise for us elaborate and complicated forms of dogma, about which hardly any two persons are found to agree, and which have been and will be a constant source of disquiet and controversy within the churches?

Such a basis as that now suggested would naturally allow liberty of judgment in regard to theological doctrines and the interpretation of Scripture. It would thus encourage sincerity of thought and thoroughness of discussion; and these could only be favourable in the long run to the cause of truth. Men might, indeed, still differ from each other, and would therefore probably group themselves into congregations and churches, much as at present. This they would do even by

virtue of the freedom of movement, and of speech which ministers and people would possess. So, too, the present and the future would be largely released from all undue bondage to the past, which, it should surely be remembered, really knew less on almost every conceivable subject than is known in these later times. Why, then, should the men of our day be required to "assent" and "believe," to pledge themselves to assent and believe, just as people did in the sixteenth, or seventeenth, or even the eighteenth, or any other century? The proceeding seems absurd on the face of it, and could be tolerated in no possible subject of human knowledge, except theology. But in the field of theology such a course is especially unreasonable, for is not the Divine Spirit, even in this present age, revealing to us, year after year, more and more of the ways and wonders of His doings? Yet we, short-sighted mortals as we are, have shut ourselves up within our creeds, and articles, and trust deeds, and confessions of faith, in such a way that we cannot receive even the divinest message with free and open minds!

But this will come to an end in time. It will do so all the sconer, if the clergy and the Nonconformist ministers, who are now under the bondage of Subscription and chapel orthodoxy, would but work and speak aloud and openly, as indeed some few of them do, for this result. The nation would

respond to their call, if any considerable number of them would only hold it up faithfully as a great object to be aimed at by men who are free, honest, and devout. In this way they could not fail to bring about the muchneeded change from uncomfortable restraint to reasonable liberty. But such a change, it is safe to say, will not be reached by the course which is now so much pursued. Subscription, with its equivalents, will not be abolished by simply submitting to it and excusing it, and proving carefully how little it may mean; by going on, year after year, erecting new chapels with stringent schedules attached to them, and accepting these old relics of past belief, too often of past ignorance or intolerance, as if they were a direct revelation from Heaven itself.

It is much to be hoped that coming years will see a wiser and braver spirit more widely prevail, and a stand made at last, not by isolated individuals here and there, but by some considerable number of those concerned against the demand made upon them to assent and believe just as a past generation has been pleased to prescribe to them. For, disguise it as we may, this, and just this, is now the position; and the sooner it is put an end to the better-the better for the nation, for the cause of religion, and for the credit of our Christianity.

common

VANCE SMITH.

No. 260.-VOL. XLIV

RECENT events bring the social condition of the Russian people once more prominently before us, and in the present disorganised state of the empire it becomes a question of some importance, What is the influence of the Russian Church on public opinion? It suggests the larger question, What is the normal influence, under ordinary circumstances, of the clergy on the social life of the Russian people? What is it compared with the influence of the English clergy on English society?

The Church of England and the Church of Russia have much in common. Whatever may be the existing differences, doctrinal or formal, in the two ecclesiastical establishments, there are also many points of contact, among which may be mentioned the national character of the two Churches, their common protest against Rome, their conflicts with dissent, and their difficulties in relation to State interference, so as to steer clear of sacerdotalism on the one hand, and Erastianism on the other. As in this country, so in Russia, the early history of the nation is inseparably connected with the history of the Church; and the lives of the patriarchs of Moscow, like those of the archbishops of Canterbury, are closely bound up with the life of the nation. Russia has had its Henry VIII. in Ivan the Terrible, its Cardinal Wolsey in the patriarch Nicon.

So, too, the changes in the relations of Church and State introduced by Peter the Great, bear-mutatis mutandis-a striking resemblance to the ecclesiastical policy of Queen Elizabeth. The subordination of the spiritual to the secular power has been rendered comparatively easy in Russia because of the Byzantine origin and traditions

of the Russian Church, and, at a later period, its fear of the aggressions of Rome. Thus it has happened that the bishops and clergy of the Russian Church have been mainly the supporters, rarely the independent antagonists, of the State power. During the ages of chivalry in Russia, as in the rest of Europe, the country received invaluable aid from the Church at critical moments. The ancient monasteries were the fortresses whence issued the Monks of St. Basil, in a holy crusade both against the Tartar domination and the invasion of the Poles; wars of independence were waged by the "black clergy," rather than the Boyards.

In more modern times, again, it was religious fervour which repelled the invasion of the army of Napoleon, whilst at the present moment the Panslavonic enthusiasm of the people receives its chief impetus from religious mysticism and the patriotic zeal of the Russian clergy.

This intimate relationship of Church and State has, however, corresponding disadvantages. In securing perfect independence from the Rome on the Tiber and the Rome on the Bosphorus, by a too ready subserviency to the Imperial power, the Church lost her liberty. A century after her independence from Constantinople was secured, the Patriarchate of Moscow was abolished by Imperial authority. The creation of the Holy Synod in its place practically put the Czar at the head of the Church. Thus, when Peter the Great was asked to restore the office, he cried, "I am your patriarch;" and when he threw down his hunting-knife on the table with the words, "There is your patriarch!" he by a typical act ratified the subjection of the Church, and its

degradation to a department of the Imperial service. To this, in part, may be attributed the loss of dignity and social consideration suffered by the bulk of the Russian clergy. But Peter also lowered the position of "ecclesiastical persons," by preventing men of rank and station from entering the Church, to secure their services in other departments of the State; thus leaving parishes to be served by men of low extraction, mean attainments, and coarse habits. The clerical office

became hereditary to all intents and purposes, thus reducing the ministry to a caste system, and speedily producing a clerical proletariat, which has been falling ever since in public estimation, till it has lost what little social influence it once possessed. As in England, before the Danish and Norman invasions, the higher class of clergy were attracted by the monasteries, whilst the parochial priests formed an inferior order, so in Russia the "black clergy" have always monopolised the wealth and education of the Church, whilst the village priests have been dependent mainly on the offerings of the people, augmented by the exaction of fees for the performance of sacred functions. This in many cases has been little less than extortion, as when Christian burial has been withheld, until the exorbitant demands of the officiating priest were satisfied, or where a peasant, begging the parish priest to make haste to apply extreme unction to his dying child, is refused until the poor man promises to give him his best goose, or his only sucking-pig. Such traffic in sacred things has led to a popular saying, that "the priest takes from the living and the dead," whilst stories of folklore even contain allusions to the grasping spirit of the country clergy. One of these is given in full by Mr. Ralston in his Russian Folk tales.

Here we have a reverend father refusing to bury an old man's wife.

"Lend a hand, reverend father, to get my old woman buried."

"But have you got the money to pay for the funeral? pay up beforehand."

The money is not forthcoming, and the priest remains inexorable. In his despair the old man digs a grave, and lo and behold he finds a treasure deep down in the earth. Delighted, he runs to the pope with a ducat in his hand. "Here's gold for you. If you'll only bury my old woman, I'll never forget your kindness."

The pope takes the money. "Well now, old friend! Be of good cheer; everything shall be done," says he.

At the funeral feast he eat enough for three people, and "looked greedily

at what was not his."

After this, when all have departed, the pope worms out the secret of the poor man's lately discovered treasure, and fixes on the following stratagem to possess himself of it.