The advice which I have given to myself, I should also be inclined to
give to others who are already ministers in the Church of England, and
who have scruples of conscience in consequence of some divergence from
orthodox views: “Stay where you are, as long as you feel that you can
sincerely worship Christ as the Eternal Son of God, and as long as you
can preach a gospel of faith and strength, not only from the pulpit but
also by the bedside of the dying. If you can do this, you may stay,
though you are obliged to interpret metaphorically some expressions in
the Creed. If you cannot do this, go at once, even though you can accept
every syllable in all the Creeds in the most literal sense.”
To young men who have not yet been ordained and who incline to
“rational” views of Christianity, I have been disposed hitherto to give
different advice: “Wait a while. The fashion of men’s opinion is rapidly
changing; the excessive fear of science on the part of the Clergy—many
of whom come from Public Schools where they have received no training in
the rudiments of science or mathematics—is, strange to say, predisposing
all but extreme High Churchmen to welcome the adhesion of any who are
firm believers in Christ, even though they may doubt or reject the
miracles. It would be a miserable thing to be ordained, and to undertake
the task of preaching a doctrine implying the highest conceivable
morality, and presently to find yourself condemned by those to whom you
should be an example as well as an instructor, for what appears to them
patent insincerity—condemned by others, and perhaps not wholly acquitted
by yourself. In a few years you may perhaps find it possible to be
ordained not upon tolerance but with a hearty reception, and then there
need be no concealment of your opinions.”
Such is the language that I have hitherto used on the very few occasions
when I have been consulted, generally advising delay. But now I am
inclined to think that the time has come when young men with these
opinions ought not to wait, but ought at least to set their case before
the Bishops, leaving it to them to accept or refuse them as candidates
for ordination. Schisms and prosecutions are very objectionable things,
but there are worse evils even than these. There is the danger of
hypocrisy, spreading, like an infection, from oneself to others. The
hour has perhaps come for authorizing or condemning the extreme freedom
of opinion which some of the Broad Churchmen have assumed. Proverbs and
texts might be quoted in equal abundance to justify action or inaction
in the abstract; but two important practical considerations appear to me
to dictate some kind of action without delay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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