THE BRITISH MAGAZINE. JANUARY 1, 1833. ORIGINAL PAPERS. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH WITH REGARD TO THE EXERCISE OF FREE INQUIRY AND THE RIGHTS OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. I PROCEED to use the privilege which I claimed in a former number, of not being considered as engaged in a systematic dissertation on the well-known and oft-debated subjects to which I now think it necessary to direct the attention of churchmen. My object is, rather to detect fallacies, and to disclose the manœuvres of our opponents, than to give a regular treatise. I wish the questions at issue to be put upon their fair merits, and argued without any juggle or mystification. And the subjects which I have mentioned in the title to this paper are among those on which sophistry and manoeuvre have been played off with no small success, and which have induced many well-meaning friends to take most erroneous views both of the Established Church, and of the pretensions of her enemies. One prominent charge which I find insinuated by the assailants of the Church is, that she is hostile to freedom of inquiry and the right of private judgment; and that for the enjoyment of these privileges this nation is principally, if not entirely, indebted to the dissenters. I say that this is insinuated, for the charge is frequently not put forth all at once and broadly. A publication levelled at the Church commences with a dissertation upon the use and the rights of free inquiry and of private judgment. These rights are very pompously maintained, as though there were some powerful and venomous foe always plotting or struggling against them, and as though it were a matter of notoriety that the Church of England denied them, in both theory and practice. A great deal of argument is expended in proving the natural title of man to these privileges, with occasional wise saws and reflections upon the tyranny of refusing men the enjoyment of them. The reader is gravely asked, whether "we VOL. III.-Jan. 1833. B are to adopt the religion of our country, because it is so" (as though there were no other reasons); or "whether we are to embrace the religion of Jesus Christ in its pure simplicity of doctrine and discipline (who disputes it?) whether it may happen to be the religion of our country or not?"-whether we ought to receive our religion from our ancestors, or to impose it "upon posterity by legal enactments?"-whether "the Bible is to be our text book;" whether every man has "the right by nature of private judgment;" and whether "religion is a matter of personal, individual, and exclusive concern between him and his Maker?" Then the use of reason is mentioned-the example of the Bereans duly commended as a weighty proof, and the reader is cleverly led away from the real point at issue to the desired inferences-to a state of prejudice against the Church, and prepossession in favour of the Dissenters. He is quite satisfied, after weighing the important catechism of truisms which has been brought before him, that he really has the right of private judgment, and may actually use his senses and his bible in free inquiry. The Dissenters have, by arguments, not certainly very recondite, however advantageously displayed, quite convinced him of what he knew perfectly well before. He jumps then to the conclusion to which he was to be brought,-that the Church, which denies him the privileges of free inquiry, and of using his own judgment, is oppressive, and not founded on truth; and that the Dissenters, the champions of these privileges, who have taken such pains, and have used such cogent arguments, to convince him that he is entitled to them, must be every thing that Dissenters wish to be thought. This is all in the very best style, and according to the most approved rules: the sellers do not alarm the customer, and excite his suspicions of interested motives, by direct invitation to purchase, but allure his attention and engage his favour by the display of a marvellous solicitude for his interest and privileges, and at the same time indirectly raise the value of their commodity, and intimate that no other persons can possess it but themselves by a grave caution, "Beware of counterfeits!" The good honest man thus eagerly and thankfully receives from them, under a new name, and perhaps mixed up with pernicious ingredients, that which he already possessed in a plainer and better form. The reader of the above-mentioned dissertations in favour of the privilege of private judgment and free inquiry is in like manner deluded. While he is so well satisfied that his rights are clearly proved, he has overlooked the important fact that the Established Church does not attempt to deprive her members, or any other persons, of those rights; and that the Dissenters are neither the sole dispensers nor vindicators of them, nor the best practical guardians to whose care they may be committed. Let the Churchman be carefully reminded to keep his eye fixed on these points. I shall now examine them a little, and take leave to suggest a few hints upon them. The Dissenters, and particularly the Independents, claim to be the offspring of the old Puritans, and the often-cited authority of Hume is brought forward to establish the title of the Puritans to be considered as the founders and assertors of civil and religious liberty. "Mr. Hume," (observes a writer of a Dissenting Society, combined for the purpose of depreciating the Established Church in the estimation of the country)" whom no one will accuse of partiality to the sentiments of these reformers, has remarked, that 'the precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone; and it was to this sect that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution."" Now, it is expected that the reader of this passage is to receive as indisputable inferences that the principles of the modern Dissenters are congenial with those of the ancient Puritans; and that, as Mr. Hume affirms that the Puritans have been the founders and assertors of our religious liberties, therefore the Dissenters are the offspring of Puritanism, and are entitled to their proportion of the honour and gratitude of the nation. I am, however, rather a perverse pupil in these matters. I shall take upon myself first to doubt Mr. Hume's authority as to the effect of Puritanism upon civil and religious freedom; secondly, to remark, that if civil and religious freedom were really a part of their plan, they certainly regarded them in a very different point of view from that in which the Dissenters represent them now; and, thirdly, to question whether they or the Dissenters, whenever power has fallen into their hands, were disposed to form their practice according to any such principles. That the spirit of free inquiry and of claiming the right of judgment originated with the Puritans, is contrary to the known facts of history. Luther surely preceded them, and even Luther's efforts and success were effects as well as instruments of that power which had been set in motion, and urged on by a variety of causes, gradually operating before Luther's time. Those causes had impelled the spirit of inquiry, and the exercise of freedom of judgment, with an impetus which was steadily and irresistibly increasing, and which, humanly speaking, could never have been arrested, though it might have been retarded, had Puritanism never have been heard of. To what extent the Puritans may have promoted or have impeded the cause of civil or religious liberty, cannot easily be determined. We see but one side of the picture: what would have taken place if the captious and vexatious squabbles about garments had never occurred, or if the atrocities of the successful rebellion had never been acted, can be only the subject of conjecture. Whe ther also, in the events which are now supposed to have had such a beneficial influence on the liberties of the nation, the real Puritans were any thing more than tools of ambitious partizans, artful politicians, or reckless evellers, with widely different views, may be also doubted. We know, that amongst them were disguised Jesuits-the most reckless panders of slavery and tyranny; and even among some of their own leaders evidences of most arbitrary principles, and the blindest fanaticism, may be detected. I do not advert to these blots to detract from the real sincerity and piety of the Puritans, but simply to place them in their proper position, and to shew, that however their schism from the Church may be justified, their motives and measures were mingled with at least as much alloy of human passions, prejudices, and follies, as those of the men who remained attached to the Establishment. But however this might be, one thing is clear that at first they had no idea of civil or religious liberty, such as the Dissenters now profess to claim. The first Puritans-the most learned and pious-would have recoiled from the disuniting, unsocial, and levelling principles laid down by the modern Dissenters. Far from denying the authority of the Established Church, or wishing to have it contemned, they would have died to preserve it. Even latterly they desired not the abolition of the Established Church, and professed both to deplore and deprecate any schism by which its unity was disturbed. They required only at first that certain amendments should be adopted they desired to take away some things and alter others, so that their consciences might not be offended, or find a stumbling-block in joining its communion. How far concession in these cases could have been consistently made, or how far they would have had the effect of preventing more violent demands, (as it is always said that concessions would have done when they have not been made, and as they have never been found to do when they have been made,) it is foreign from my present purpose to consider; but I contend, that the original Puritans had no affinity whatever with the present race of Dissenters their views of church authority and communion were altogether different. : However, from one step of opposition they proceeded to another, and at length came, certainly, in the reign of Charles the First, to the assertion of something like those rights of free inquiry and private judgment, which are now recommended by a portion of the Dissenters, namely, hostility to the Established Church, and a free licence for all the dictates of fanaticism, or any other spring of action by which the multitude might be moved to rule the ministers of religion, instead of being directed by them. No church authority, it was pretended, was to exist,-all were to be indulged in what were represented as the unshackled privileges of free inquiry and private judgment. It so happened, however, that these supposed discoverers of this El Dorado of human freedom and true religious liberty, were presented with an opportunity of fully developing in practice the working of their grand principles, and this right of private judgment, &c. They were armed with full power, and fortunately the results of the experiment are on record for our instruction. Weak and infatuated indeed will this nation be if it loses the benefit of such an example. Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy" is a book still in existence,—a folio, full of the most tyrannical, inquisitorial, unmerciful persecution,-full of the most arbitrary and overbearing contempt and oppression of the rights of private judgment and conscience,-full of the wildest freaks of fanaticism, hypocrisy, folly, injustice, and robbery, that ever were exhibited in the annals of mankind. Hudibras, too, has in his witty pages immortalized the days— "When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves, Gave chace to rockets and white sleeves, These, in truth, were the works of the vindicators of the rights of private judgment and free inquiry. By "their fruits ye shall know them." May we know them in time, before we be compelled to buy our own experience, when we can profit by that of others; may we never have to pass through such an ordeal of licentious misrule, as to be compelled to seek refuge in despotism from the capricious and intolerable evils of anarchy. I regret to take this line of argument; and I even now restrict my observations to those Dissenters who combine to charge the Church with denying the right of free inquiry and private judgment; and to arrogate to themselves the merit of being the special protectors and champions of this right. That many Dissenters are too upright and liberal to take such a course, I am aware, and am only sorry that any members of their body should compel me to take this mode of defence, in justice to the Established Church. I shall now close this paper with a few remarks upon the principles of the Established Church in regard to the right of private judgment, and free inquiry. The church does not, according to her principles, nor in her recent practice, deny that right*. On the contrary, she has from the reformation generally inculcated and maintained it. That occasional practices inconsistent with such a principle may have prevailed--that the There is probably no subject on which more has been said, and to less purpose, than this right of private judgment. What is the practical rule which will satisfy a man's own conscience, and give him security that he is taking the best road to truth and salvation, when he has done disputing and asserting his real or fancied rights?— ED. |