Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4: With a Memoir and IndexMacaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4: With a Memoir and Index
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
Do we make this diversity a topic of reproach to the Church of England?
Far from it. We would oppose with all our power every attempt to
narrow her basis! Would to God that, a hundred and fifty years ago, a
good king and a good primate had possessed the power as well as the
will to widen it! It was a noble enterprise, worthy of William and of
Tillotson. But what becomes of all Mr. Gladstone’s eloquent exhortations
to unity? Is it not mere mockery to attach so much importance to unity
in form and name, where there is {179}so little in substance, to shudder
at the thought of two churches in alliance with one state, and to endure
with patience the spectacle of a hundred sects battling within one
church? And is it not clear that Mr. Gladstone is bound, on all his own
principles, to abandon the defence of a church in which unity is not
found? Is it not clear that he is bound to divide the House of Commons
against every grant of money which may be proposed for the clergy of the
Established Church in the colonies? He objects to the vote for Maynooth,
because it is monstrous to pay one man to teach truth, and another to
denounce that truth as falsehood. But it is a mere chance whether any
sum which he votes for the English Church in any colony will go to the
maintenance of an Arminian or a Calvinist, of a man like Mr. Froude,
or of a man like Dr. Arnold. It is a mere chance, therefore, whether
it will go to support a teacher of truth, or one who will denounce that
truth as falsehood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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