A Letter to the Rev. William Maskell, A.M. / How far the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council commits the Church of England by its decision, even allowing it to have jurisdiction in points of doctr
Date: 2017-03-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Church and state -- Great Britain; Church and state -- Church of England; Baptism -- Church of England; Gorham; George Cornelius; Great Britain. Privy Council. Judicial Committee; Ecclesiastical law -- England -- History -- 19th century

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Title: A Letter to the Rev. William Maskell, A.M.

Author: Mayow Wynell Mayow

Other: William Maskell

Release date: March 2, 2017 [eBook #54269]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54269

Credits: Transcribed from the 1850 William Pickering edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASKELL, A.M. ***

Transcribed from the 1850 William Pickering edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

A LETTER
TO THE
REV. WILLIAM MASKELL, A.M.

BY

THE REV. MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW, A.M.
VICAR OF MARKET LAVINGTON, WILTS,
AND LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

HOW FAR THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL
COMMITS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BY ITS DECISION,
EVEN ALLOWING IT TO HAVE
JURISDICTION IN POINTS
OF DOCTRINE.

Second Edition.

LONDON:
WILLIAM PICKERING.
1850.

My Dear Maskell,

In these “last days,” in which “perilous times” have “come,” it seems a duty, to be somewhat less nice and scrupulous as to any charge of presumption or lack of modesty to which a man may lay himself open by making known his thoughts upon the great matters which now agitate us, than would be the case at another time.  One whose name will add no weight to any thing he may say, might well shrink under ordinary circumstances from commenting upon your recent letter, and appear, even to himself, over-bold in supposing he can add any thing to the views therein expounded.  But the very pain with which we approach these topics is some warrant to express our thoughts; inasmuch as it is, I think, something of a guarantee that whatever is said, will be, at any rate, not said lightly.  Most heartily do I desire to adopt and echo your words “that the enquiry on which we are all engaged is far too great to admit of any personal consideration; and our aim is not to win a victory, or to prove that we ourselves are in the right, but to discover the truth, and point it out to others.”

If then I imagine a line of argument tending to elucidate this truth, has been partially overlooked in the expression of your views, I trust I shall stand excused, both by yourself and any others who may read this letter, from the charge of a too great boldness in writing it.  The crisis and exigence of the time is, as it appears to me, too great to allow us to stand upon niceties, or permit any thing to be kept back which may even by possibility be found of service in indicating the line of duty.

Let me, however, here say in the very outset, I am not by any means about to attempt an answer to your letter; a task for which I am, in the first place, not qualified, and in the second place, not disposed.  I feel the difficulties you bring forward too much myself to be prepared to ignore them, though I will not say I go with you in the whole of the positions you are concerned to establish.  But it is became I feel the pressure of many of them so strongly; because, much as the names of Mr. Keble and of many who take the same line of argument with him, are to be revered, nevertheless, I am at a loss to make up my mind that they have established an unassailable position in denying the competency and authority of the court of the Committee of Privy Council, that I am the more anxious to say a few words upon one point which appears to me to have escaped your notice.

Let me come at once to this point: and to do so I cannot, perhaps, proceed more conveniently than by making a quotation from your letter.  At page 54, you say:—“No doubt this court,” (The Judicial Committee of Privy Council,) “nor any other court cannot make canons: but, as has been before said, this is a question, not of new canons and formularies, but of the right construction of old ones.  Now, in such a cause, either the court of the Judicial Committee has authority or it has not: . . .  If then the decision of the court is to be listened to at all, it is not easy to discover how one will be able to draw distinctions, and place limitations upon the extent to which it reaches.  There seems to be no middle way between accepting and acting upon it, and repudiating it altogether as if it had never existed.  I mean, repudiating it in every other respect than in the one point, comparatively unimportant and trivial, of the institution of a certain person to a certain benefice.”

You say, it is not easy to discover a middle way.  I would hope, though not easy, it may be not impossible.

Let me however here, and in the first place, clear myself from any suspicion, if you should be inclined to attach it to me, that I am about to seek a middle course by softening the amount of error contained in a denial of the exclusive doctrine of regeneration in baptism.  Let me not be deemed guilty, even in thought, of doubting that such denial is a denial of the “one baptism for the remission of sins,” and is absolute unmitigated heresy; being such as would have shut out any Church permitting its profession, from the communion of Christendom in the primitive ages; such as no Church can maintain, and remain a living branch of the one Body of Christ.  I cast to the winds and repudiate with all my soul, that spurious charity of our day, which would seek to “please men” at the expense of God’s truth; which would recommend the Gospel by denying the Faith; which would render it more popular or palatable, by explaining away the Creeds; and all, to be able to include the more within the Church’s pale, under the plea of an extended usefulness.  Such liberality (with what is not our own to give,) is, in my estimation, a giving away God’s honour, and so, mere and absolute treason against Him: therefore is a giving away our place in His Church, and a blotting out it’s name from the book of life.

Let me explain further: that in what I am about to write, I am going to admit, at any rate for the sake of argument, the authority and jurisdiction of the Committee of Council as a tribunal in this case.  I may, and indeed do think, that in your letter, you have allowed too little for the difficulty in which the Church has been placed as to making her voice heard: too little therefore to the circumstances which have hitherto trammelled her, as accounting for and excusing her silence, especially in later times: as for example in the changes made in 1832, and perhaps in other instances.  Still I am not concerned in what I am about to write to controvert your positions on this matter, because for the present purpose of my argument I am going to admit the competency, i.e. the authority as distinct of course from the fitness, of this tribunal to try the issue, between Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter.

Still, as it seems to me, both these points may be conceded: first that the court is sufficient: and secondly, that to deny unconditional regeneration in the case of infants, is heresy; and yet, it may be reasonably maintained, that whatever the decision in this trial shall be, The Church of England may not stand committed to heresy thereby.

No doubt, at first sight this will appear a paradox; and the interpreter the harder to be understood of the two, in thus imagining it not impossible to find a middle way between “accepting and acting upon this court’s decision, and repudiating it altogether as if it had never existed.”  But I mean, not impossible to find a point of view, regarding the tribunal from which, we may be able justly and reasonably to allow it’s competency for the present judgment on doctrine, and yet to repudiate, not exactly the decision itself, but the effect of it as committing the Church at large: repudiate it, in your own words, “in every other respect, but the one point comparatively unimportant and trivial of the institution of a certain person to a certain benefice.”

Now the only postulate I ask for this conclusion, is, that the Church shall not, and cannot, stand committed to heresy without proof that her crime is something not accidental, but wilful and deliberate; something more than a mistake, which she is ready and willing to clear up the moment opportunity is given her to do so.  In short that as a man is not a liar, without the intention to deceive; so a Church is not heretical, unless the animus of heresy be proved against her.

If you will concede me thus much, I think I may be able to shew that there is a middle course between denying the jurisdiction of the Court, and admitting the weight even if I allow the justness, of the sentence: that is to say, the sentence may be such as under the circumstances, the judges were bound to give, (I am not conceding but supposing this:) and it may therefore carry the conclusion that the Church’s formularies on the subject in question are indistinct; still without proving also that the Church ever intended them to be so; and therefore without affording ground to say that, though her words are ambiguous, her heart and mind have ever been heretical.  Of course upon the strength of the sentence, if thus given, Mr. Gorham would gain his institution; but I say again, I do not think the Church would be committed to his heresy.

Let us consider again, what it is precisely which the judicial Committee of Council are about to do. [8]  It cannot be stated more entirely according to my sense, than in your own words.  You say (page 7) “The question is one simply of interpretation of the Law of the Church of England . . .  It is not a question of what is in itself true or untrue, agreeable or not agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, but solely whether a certain doctrine has or has not been clearly defined to the exclusion of some other statement about the same doctrine, which would seem to deny it or explain it away.”  Again in the passage already quoted (p. 54) “This is a question not of new canons and formularies, but of the right construction of old ones.”

Then if this be so: though the Decision should affirm what shall be in its form, heresy, may there not still be a limitation as to its effect: rather perhaps I should say, a suspension of the actual heresy altogether until some further condition shall be fulfilled to give it life: that is to say, though the decision may affirm that the formularies of the Church of England do not so clearly define the faith on this point, as to preclude the words admitting an uncatholic, nay an heretical interpretation, does it follow that the animus of the Church is therefore even in the least degree shown to desire or intend to teach such error, nay even to allow it to be taught; and if there be no heretical animus, can She be pronounced herself to have incurred the guilt of heresy?  I answer, (and I hope safely) to both questions; No! because all that will be brought out, even in the event of the decision of the court of appeal being to reverse the judgment of the court below, will be merely that there is an ambiguity of language, in the documents on which that court had to found its judgment; and this, an ambiguity, it may be, unintentional on the part of the Church, though really inherent in the wording of her formularies, acting therefore imperatively on the judges in the case (if so,) and obliging them to give a decision such as shall leave the point at issue, an open question.  Let me be well understood.  If such ambiguity of language be intentional on the part of the Church; if she can be proved to have desired in drawing up her articles and services to admit two interpretations on baptismal regeneration: if it be her view and plan to include two such opposite parties within her as those represented by Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter, by such ambiguous, and therefore comprehensive language, I most fully admit she stands convicted of unpalliated heresy both in form and matter.  But if it be lawful without violence to reason or conscience to believe she had no such view, but meant to assert the undoubted ancient catholic faith on baptism, I do not think we are bound to make her answerable, as if she had knowingly and wilfully assented to uncatholic doctrine, though as it turns out (if so it be) the wording of her formularies is inadvertently insufficient to protect the one truth.  I cannot but think that though the misfortune of such inadvertence is not to be denied, its guiltiness is not lightly to be admitted; and that we are bound in all reason, (and I am sure if so, in conscience and loyalty) not to consider her chained by such ambiguous language to the denial of God’s truth, and the catholic faith.

With regard then to the animus in question.  Surely in the first place we may say this; that it is not settled adversely to sound doctrine, because not involved in, this decision itself, whatever it may be.  The Judges in the present trial would I imagine, even though using to guide them in their judgment contemporary documents, and even contemporary opinions to elucidate the language of the formularies, yet themselves admit, that to decide the animus with which those formularies were originally drawn up, is beside the point they have had to try: that it suffices for them to declare the ambiguity if they find it in the words; but that it is foreign to the matter in hand to settle whether such ambiguity be accidental or intentional.  Of course I am not saying they would deny the intention of comprehensiveness.  On the contrary they would probably appear as a matter of course to infer it; and may even make mention of what they suppose the intention of the Church to have been: but still they will not rule the animus, as a part of their judgment.  As to mere legal consequences indeed, I presume they will necessarily so far imply the intention to have been according to the judgment they deliver, as fully to give the benefit of their construction to the appellant in the cause: but yet this intention is to be distinguished, as a different point from any which they have had to try, which has surely been merely what is in the words of the formularies, not how it came to be there.

But even should the court proceed so far as to say it gives its judgment on the latitudinarian side, expressly on the ground that it believes the Church in drawing up her formularies intended such comprehension, even that declaration would have no judicial authority to impose itself on any man as the truth.  The grounds of a judge’s sentence are a different thing from the sentence itself; and, I think all those “learned in the law” will bear me out in saying, form no part of it.  It is not an impossible nor an unheard of case for a judge to give a right judgment, yet upon wrong grounds.  The grounds are merely his opinion which challenge no authority beyond their intrinsic weight, and which any man may canvas; the judgement is authoritative, and of course in a court from which there is no appeal, is assumed ex necessitate rei, to be sound.

Let us then next proceed with one or two considerations which may be of service in determining for ourselves what animus we shall attribute to the Church in drawing up those of her formularies which bear upon the doctrine of baptism.

A point of great weight surely is this:—that they are (even if really ambiguous when subjected to the searching eyes and acute minds of the most subtle lawyers: I use the word in no ill sense; yet) to all ordinary men, and ordinary unbiassed minds, so clearly on the catholic side, and so plainly to such minds convey nothing but the ancient doctrine of regeneration in baptism, that it is much more easy and natural to believe the Church never contemplated the ambiguity than that she did.  Let it be remembered too that if now on the present appeal, the six eminent law officers who have heard the case do decide for the ambiguity, yet, so indistinctly is this ambiguity itself discernible, that not merely ordinary men, but one of the ablest and perhaps the most practised ecclesiastical lawyer of our day, had no doubt or hesitation on his mind when the case was argued before him as the Archbishop’s judge of doctrine in the court of Arches, that it did not exist; that there was no such approach even to ambiguous language as to make him have recourse to extraneous comment to guide him, or cause him to give in the very slightest degree a doubtful judgment; but on the contrary, thought there was no sense to be put upon the Church’s statements on this subject but the one catholic doctrine, which, a priori, we should suppose she would enunciate.

Take with these general considerations the particular circumstance that if we assert the ambiguous animus, we must suppose the Church, not only in fact to have inadvertently qualified words naturally carrying the catholic meaning; but so to have intended to qualify them, that when she says “seeing this child is regenerate,” she meant “seeing he is not regenerate,” or, at the least, “seeing I have no reason to believe he is regenerate,” and shall we not have a sufficient case to prevent our feeling compelled to “think” that “evil,” that the Church had a double mind.  To me, at least these thoughts bring home a satisfactory conviction that it is much more likely the Church herself has been ignorant of ambiguity, and did not mean to be indefinite, than that she purposely drew up her articles and services, with merely such a subtle and almost imperceptible residuum of doubtful words that it appears a mere chance, under a peculiar combination of circumstances that it ever comes to the light at all: that she so speciously concealed her own desire to include a second meaning, that taken “in her own craftiness” she deceived Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, so that even when her words were most elaborately sifted by him, this hidden sense escaped his observation; and is only now at last made manifest upon the most laboured and minute investigation in another court, where it is not too much to say there has been every inducement to the learned judges composing it to split hairs, and find an ambiguity if by possibility they could.  I say this not as impeaching the impartiality of the tribunal, but yet as worthy of note by any, who knowing what human nature is, would rightly weigh the circumstances of this decision before drawing further inferences from it.  If I am at all correct in the argument I have attempted to draw out, that decision, if in Mr. Gorham’s favour, will decide the ambiguous language of the formularies, and nothing more.  Abstract then your mind from the present judgment, and what will you say is the animus of the Church?  Will it not be the same as heretofore; and that our estimation of our Church’s soundness in the faith is as yet unshaken?  For should we, I boldly ask, judge that any friend of ours intended an indirectness or double dealing by us upon no better evidence?  Should you so judge me, or I you, in any circumstances bearing even a distant analogy to these? and if not, how thus judge our mother, who has borne us unto Christ?

An illustration from secular affairs may perhaps make my meaning in all this clearer, and, as it happens, there is one made ready to our hand.

We all remember the act of Lord Ashley and the late Mr. Fielden, to prohibit the labour of young persons in factories, for more than ten hours a day.  It was drawn up, no doubt, to the best of their ability to attain this object: to give persons under a specified age, rest and cessation from labour after ten hours at the mill.  But as we well know likewise, an interpretation of the act grew into use among the mill-owners, by which they worked their factories twelve or fifteen hours a day, using the labours of the younger persons employed by relays; so that though no one of them was actually at work more than the ten hours, the object of the bill was frustrated, if it were to secure their being dismissed to their homes after so many hours at the mill.  The resting them an hour, or two hours, in the middle of the day, whilst others took their place, to be also rested for the same time, at another period, did not secure to those young persons what was at any rate supposed to be the humane object of the framers of the bill, and the legislature which passed it; a return to their homes at such a reasonably early hour as might afford some time for relaxation, and some opportunity for mental cultivation.  This usage however of the mill-owners did not pass unquestioned, and a case involving the principle of it, was first heard before an inferior tribunal, and, the decision being given there I think, against the legality of the system of relays, was brought afterwards by appeal before the Barons of the Exchequer.  The jurisdiction, observe, of this court was beyond all question, and it applied itself to the decision of the case.  Of course, (exactly as in the Gorham cause before the Privy Council,) the matter in hand was simply a question of the interpretation of the act of parliament.  The judges had nothing to do with which arrangement might be most humane, nor even with which they imagined to be most accordant with the mind of parliament in passing the act, if the act itself were clear to their understanding.  They most properly confined themselves to the terms of the act, and to the determination of this point, whether it excluded the working by relays or not.  It might be, (as has been strongly asserted,) perfectly true, that to permit that system, frustrated in great measure, if not wholly, the attempt to better the condition of those young persons; but however true, it was nothing to the purpose.  And those judges, as the event shewed did come to the conclusion that the terms in which the act was couched were not sufficient to make the system which had been used, illegal: and therefore judgment went in favour of the mill-owners.

Now let it be granted that this, in its effect, destroys the bill as a measure of humanity: that so to legislate is in fact cruelty, whatever the intention of the act may have been.

But shall we on this account blame the judges in the case?  Assuredly not; they have but done their necessary duty in interpretation.  Shall we say the court was not competent, or the decision not binding, or in any way attempt to resist its legal effect?  Assuredly not; or we overthrow all principles of law and order.  Nevertheless shall we say that this judgment convicts of cruelty or double dealing the framers of the measure, or the parliament which passed it?  Assuredly not; because it is much easier; much more accordant with common sense and experience; much more agreeable to charity and reason, to believe that the subtleties of language introduced an unintentional ambiguity, which the judge’s eye was obliged to search out and judicially recognize, than to believe that Mr. Fielden, or Lord Ashley, or even parliament at large, when they professed to relieve young persons working in factories, intended to “palter with them in a double sense and keep the word of promise to the ear but break it to the hope.”

Does any one then, I ask again, now feel justified in charging those parties with cruelty, whose bill is nevertheless found capable of a cruel working.  Do we charge them with the intention of such ambiguity, and such consequences, though they are found both to exist in the act of parliament?  Do we infer the animus from the wording, and say that such as the bill is practically, such must have been the intention of its framers?

The application is so obvious, I fear to be tedious in drawing it out ever so briefly.  But, for Parliament read, Church; for The Ten Hour Factory Bill, read The Formularies bearing upon Baptism; for Doubledealing and Cruelty read False Doctrine and Heresy: and if in both cases, there be an ambiguity, and yet we charge no such double-dealing or cruelty on the one, as believing no such animus existed, or need be suspected in the parties who framed the one document, may we not equally acquit of false doctrine or heresy those who drew up the others because, though these may perchance be latent in the wording of them, no such animus is shown, or need be suspected in their authors: i.e. the Church which has sanctioned and used them.

There is another point in this analogy which will carry us a step further, and in a most practical direction.

If the legislature now, knowing all these circumstances, and having the power to correct the error, if so it regard that to which the ambiguous or careless wording of the Act of Parliament has led, yet take no measure for correcting it, and for re-asserting the humane principle which we are told it was intended to embody, this conduct will surely commit parliament now to the adoption of the bill as last interpreted.  It would be too much to say even so, that it would convict the framers of the measure some four or five years ago, or the then parliament of either fraud or cruelty: but it might well fasten those charges upon the present parliament if they believe the act was intended to work otherwise but will not restore it to its efficiency.  And so now, in our parallel case.  If the Church of this our day, knowing all the circumstances of such an interpretation as we have been supposing in the matter of baptismal regeneration, do not use the powers she may have to correct the ambiguity which permits heresy to be lodged within her, she will acquiesce in and adopt that heresy as her own.  It would indeed here again be too much to say that such conduct now would prove there had been a double-mind; an intended ambiguity for an heretical purpose in those who drew up our formularies; for they might still have no more intended heresy, than Lord Ashley and the late Mr. Fielden cruelty to the factory children.  But this, however it might clear the respective characters of men of another day, would be nothing at all as to establishing a claim to soundness now, or preserving the Church of England as a living branch of the Church of Christ.  If we now adopt the heretical interpretation: if we now knowingly and wilfully continue the ambiguity; if we do not strive to remove the blot on the face of the Spouse of Christ; we shall be answerable as a body for the heresy, and must take the consequences both here and hereafter.

What then is the practical thing to be done in this exigence, supposing the decision now about to be given to be one admitting heresy?

No doubt there is much difference between our case here, and that in the analogy we have been using.  The State can, beyond all question, take up its doubtful matter, and re-word it, in another meaning, too plain to be denied.  The Church (among us) alas! has no freedom of speech: no direct power of action; no immediate method by which to correct the ambiguity.

But nevertheless she must do all she can, according to the means she has, or she will not be clear in this matter; and the most evident of all the steps for her to take is at once, and in earnest, and with her whole heart, to petition the throne to be permitted to meet in convocation to take these points into practical consideration.  If she do all she can, she will not be to be judged, that she can do no more; but at any rate, I think any one of us may, nay every one of us should, suspend our judgment as to her being committed to heresy until we see what it is she will do.

Having gone thus far in considering our position and duties, I will venture a little further, (I trust without presumption offering it merely as a suggestion,) to state what appears to me, the first actual step to be taken.

Though as a Church we cannot meet in synod until called together by the Crown, yet as Englishmen, as mere subjects of the empire we may meet and petition the throne that convocation may be licensed to deliberate upon the momentous questions which now affect the Church.  As soon then as conveniently may be after the decision of the Privy Council shall be given, (and I may as well say here, that it appears to me to make very little practical difference as to the necessity of such a step, whatever that decision may be:) as soon then as conveniently may be after, a meeting should be called in London of all persons clerical and lay alike, who desire to see a freer action of the Church, for this one specific purpose to address the throne praying her Majesty graciously to concede to the troubled hearts and perplexed consciences of so many of her subjects, that convocation may be summoned for dispatch of business.  The day should be carefully chosen: that it be not too soon nor too late: not too soon for it to be thoroughly and widely known, and for all who may be anxious to be present to make their arrangements accordingly; not too late, so as to beget any suspicion of lukewarmness.  The Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, should unquestionably with all duty and reverence be asked to preside; and all our Right Reverend Fathers in God, be requested to give us their help and blessing in this endeavour.  All Churchmen who feel in these dangerous days it would be a great comfort and advantage to hear the Church’s voice distinctly indicating the course to be pursued, within any reasonable reach of that gathering, ay, and beyond it, would, it is to be hoped, attend.  No extraneous matter should be gone into, and if possible the speaking, (at least so it appears to me,) should be but brief, allowing, if it may be, several hours afterwards for the sole purpose of those actually present to sign the address before leaving the room.  I cannot doubt myself that the largest room in London would be insufficient for the numbers who would make a point of coming, and each man as he went away might say, with a heart of thankfulness, “Liberavi animam meam,” and “God defend the Right.”

Do not think in saying these things I am vain enough to suppose this must needs be the best plan to follow.  I do but mention my own thought as a suggestion for others to consider, and I speak in some detail, because at any rate, by this means a practical character is given to what I say.  What is best will be determined by others much more competent to decide, and I shall I trust be found ready to follow, wherever the path of duty shall be found to lead.

He would be a bold man who should venture to say what the events of a few years, nay even of one, may bring: but I think those certainly are not mistaken who deem that we are in a great crisis of our Church’s lot, and that very much depends upon our faithfulness, our wisdom, and our courage now.  I have therefore been anxious to lay before you and any others whose hearts are burdened with our present troubles some of the thoughts which have occurred to my mind.  I have been more particularly anxious to ask whether I am wholly beside the mark of reason and sound sense, in thinking it possible to see a middle way “between accepting and acting upon the decision” of the Privy Council, “and repudiating it altogether as if it had never existed.”  In a persuasion that such a middle course there is, I have endeavoured to show how far the Judicial Committee commits the Church of England by its decision, even allowing it to have jurisdiction in points of doctrine, and my conclusion has been that we may admit both the authority of the tribunal, and also the formal heresy involved in the judgment it may feel bound to deliver in its duty of interpretation, and yet allow no stigma of actual heresy to lie upon the Church, unless she acquiesce in, and adopt that judgment as her own: that is, no further stigma, no further evil than, (to use again your words) “in the one point comparatively unimportant and trivial of the institution of a certain person to a certain benefice.”  I am glad to think I recognize in this sentence an admission, that if the Church can be freed from any further participation in the doctrine involved, and if she do her best to repudiate any implication with heresy which that judgment may seem to throw upon her, she may well wait the time (I do not say for ever, but at any rate for the present,) till she may be enabled to clear up all ambiguity by restoring the full catholic sense to her formularies, through the legitimate channel of her own assembly and convocation.

In conclusion, I will but express how much consolation it affords my mind to think that the “burden and heat” of this trial, fall upon one so eminently fitted, as I believe, to bear them.  In spite of all the sorrow which one cannot but feel that at his time of life when there should be the rest and repose which in less trying times, and to less true soldiers “should accompany old age,” he should be called upon still to stand in the battle’s front, and bear its fiercest shock; in spite I say of this sorrow, there yet comes over me a lightening of heart and soul when I think this trial has not fallen upon one less equal to the emergency; less clear-sighted to see the line of duty; less bold to do it.  If the burden indeed be heavy to any one of us; Oh! how much more, to him!  And yet it is not merely a pleasure and a comfort, but a source of the most heartfelt thankfulness that the present Bishop of Exeter is what he is.  If we are in doubt, yet he may have no cloud upon his mind.  If we almost fail and faint, yet he is one to rally us.  If we know not how to take or interpret the signs of the times, and question what is the path of duty, yet is he one most able to enlighten and to guide us: most fitted (who in our time so much?) to “render a reason” for what he does, or advises should be done, and so render it, as to attach the faithful; confirm the wavering; and confound the gainsayers.  I could almost weep for grief to think of the harassings and care of heart which he must undergo all these days; but for joy also that I believe they fall in God’s providence, upon a prelate, than whom the English Church has had none, since Laud, of a greater heart, to do or suffer all that may be needful in her cause.  Whilst then in these days of rebuke and blasphemy we pray for all, let it be doubly for him, that he may see his way clearly in order to guide us also; that a double portion of that great Archbishop’s Spirit may rest upon him, both for his own comfort, and the benefit of God’s people; and that even if his very mantle should descend upon him, (there are other martyrdoms than those of the scaffold or the stake;) he may “be strengthened continually with might in the inner man,” and we may have grace, to endure to see him wear it.

Believe me, my dear Maskell,
Always affectionately yours,
MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW.

Market Lavington, Wilts.
March 5th, 1850.

C. WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.

FOOTNOTES.

[8]  I say here and in the whole of this letter, “about to do;” and “expected Decision,” because even if the judgement be now given, at the Time I am writing, I have not seen it or heard what it is.

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Table of Contents

- A LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASKELL, A.M.

- FOOTNOTES.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE