h physical facts are true,
a tension between faith and reason cannot be avoided. And it is in this
literal sense that Bishop Gore requires all his clergy to assent to the
miracles in the Creeds.

The fact is that the Catholic party in the Church are in a hopeless
_impasse_ with regard to dogma. They cannot take any step which would
divide them from 'the whole Church,' and the whole Church no longer
exists except as an ideal--it has long ago been shivered into fragments.
The Roman Church is in a much better position. The Pope may at any time
'interpret' tradition in such a manner as to change it completely--there
is no appeal from his authoritative pronouncements; but for the High
Anglican there is no living authority, only the dead hand, and a Council
which can never meet. It is much as if no important legislation could be
passed in this country without a joint session of our Parliament and the
American Congress. It is difficult to see any way of escape, except by
accepting the principle of development in a sense which would repudiate
the time-honoured 'appeal to antiquity.'

We have next to consider Bishop Gore as a Church Reformer. We have seen
that he desires an autonomous Church, which can legislate for itself.
The dead hand, which weighs so lightly upon him when it forbids any
attempt to revise the formularies of the faith, seems to him intolerably
heavy when it obliges the Church to conform to 'the laws, canons, and
rubrics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which it cannot
alter or add to.'[43] The only remedy, he thinks, is a really
representative assembly, of bishops, presbyters, and laymen. In the
early Church, as he points out, the laity were always recognised as
constituent members of the government of the Church. In a democratic
age, the laity as a body should exercise the powers which in the Middle
Ages were delegated to, or usurped by, 'emperors, kings, chiefs and
lords.' The parish ought to have the real control of the Church
buildings, except the chancel; the Church servants ought to be appointed
and removed by the parish meeting. It would be a step forward if these
parish councils could be organised under diocesan regulation, and
invested with the control of the parish finances, except the vicar's
stipend; the right to object to the appointment of an unfit pastor; and
some power of determining the ceremonial at the Church services. The
diocesan synod should become a reality; there should also