ration of their
difficulties. But reason, not less than Christian loyalty and charity,
expects that, having accepted the responsibilities of the Episcopate,
they should not withdraw from them when they arrive; and that there
should be neither shrinking nor rest nor compromise till the creed and
the rights of the Church entrusted to their fidelity be placed, as far
as depends on them, beyond danger.

II

JOYCE ON COURTS OF SPIRITUAL APPEAL[3]

[3]
_Ecclesia Vindicata; a Treatise on Appeals in Matters Spiritual_.
By James Wayland Joyce. _Saturday Review_, 22nd October 1864.

Nothing can be more natural than the extreme dissatisfaction felt by a
large body of persons in the Church of England at the present Court of
Final Appeal in matters of doctrine. The grievance, and its effect, may
have been exaggerated; and the expressions of feeling about it
certainly have not always been the wisest and most becoming. But as the
Church of England is acknowledged to hold certain doctrines on matters
of the highest importance, and, in common with all other religious
bodies, claims the right of saying what are her own doctrines, it is
not surprising that an arrangement which seems likely to end in handing
over to indifferent or unfriendly judges the power of saying what those
doctrines are, or even whether she has any doctrines at all, should
create irritation and impatience. There is nothing peculiar to the
English Church in the assumption, either that outsiders should not
meddle with and govern what she professes to believe and teach, or
that the proper and natural persons to deal with theological questions
are the class set apart to teach and maintain her characteristic
belief. Whatever may ultimately become of these assumptions, they
unquestionably represent the ideas which have been derived from the
earliest and the uniform practice of the Christian Church, and are held
by most even of the sects which have separated from it. To any one who
does not look upon the English Church as simply a legally constituted
department of the State, like the army or navy or the department of
revenue, and believes it to have a basis and authority of its own,
antecedent to its rights by statute, there cannot but be a great
anomaly in an arrangement which, when doctrinal questions are pushed to
their final issues, seems to deprive her of any voice or control in the
matters in which she is most interested, and commits them to the
de