urse they
plead their greater opportunities of usefulness, as if religion were
better served by dishonesty than by honesty,--as if the cause of God were
better advanced by falsehood than by truth,--as if position as regards
society were of more importance than the man's consciousness of
independence and honourable life. For the ritualist or the Broad
Churchman it is no difficult matter to remain in the church in company
with the Evangelical; but they, in accordance with his theory, are
teaching soul-destroying errors; yet he remains with them, and is,
according to his idea, a partaker in their sins.

The characteristic of our day is the Broad Churchmanship, which rejects
the common theology as a prejudice well fitted for certain times, but
unworthy of credence now. Of this party are the ablest men in the
Church; all who are disgusted with the childishness of ritualism--with
the narrowness of orthodox formulas, turn to them, and hail them as the
regenerators of Church and State. Such men as Dean Stanley and Mr.
Maurice are a power in the land. They walk hand in hand with the poets
and men of science of our time. In their teaching is gathered together
much that is best and truest in the wisdom of the past. The difficulty
of their position is that they are tied down as strongly as they can be
to orthodoxy, and half their strength is wasted in the effort to show
they have a right to be where they are. Nevertheless it is quite true
that there can be no honest faith without honest doubt; that we fight our
fears and gather strength; that as we know more, we feel how outworn is
the old creed of Christendom. Sir J. D. Coleridge tells us the Articles
are Articles of peace--that is, for the sake of uniformity a minister may
make statements which he cannot believe. But a man who cannot trifle
with words is denied all this liberty; he is tied hand and foot. The
State gives him moral prestige, supremacy, wealth, on certain conditions.
The Dissenter is free; the wildest ranter has a liberty which an
Archbishop may sigh for in vain. Such is the law. A State Church such
as is desired by Broad Churchmen is an impossibility. And yet in spite
of the rival and differing parties in the Church, and in spite of the
fact that Churchmen themselves are longing to be free of the fetters of
the State, I know not that the Church of England, as regards London, was
ever stronger than now. The layman has little sympathy with Church
squabb