THE THREE KINGDOMS.

THE judgment of the Privy Council in the case of Gorham and Exeter has spread consternation and dismay
throughout the Romanisers in the English Church. They are everywhere up in arms. They are
forming Church Unions into what their chief newspaper organ calls a "line of battle" against the State. They
are reading protests in their churches against the right of the Privy Council to deliver judgment in such a
matter. They are denouncing everybody in any manner connected with furthering and promulgating the
particular judgment, be they archbishops, judges, ministers, nay, even the supreme ecclesiastical Head and
Governor herself, as involved in heresy! Dr. Philpotts flatly refuses to obey the decision; and Dr. Blomfield
waits to see how far it will be safe to go, beyond the cautious admission that he "does not concur in it.'

It is for all who are sincerely attached to the principles and doctrines of the Reformation to understand
what is really meant by these movements on the part of men who style themselves Protestant Churchmen.
The judgment of the Privy Council against which all this abuse is directed, does no more than reiterate the
wise and tolerant principle on which the Protestant Establishment has always rested. But manifestly any such
principle does not now satisfy a large section of the men to whose keeping her interests and doctrines have
been committed. They are bent and resolved upon shutting up, as far as lies within their power, all the safety-
valves provided, at the Reformation for a reasonable latitude and difference within the Reformed Church. The
judgment against which they clamour declares nothing more, in effect, than that the subscription of certain
articles, and the adoption of certain formularies, should be held sufficient to cover a considerable latitude of
construction, and liberty for divergencies of opinion, in disputed points of dogmatic theology. To question
any proposition so moderate and reasonable, is to hanker after infallible claims. Indeed, if a question was to be
raised upon the judgment, it might have seemed to good and honest Protestants much more natural to object
to the license extended by it to such opinions as those of Doctor Philpotts, than to the liberty reserved
by it for such as those of Mr. Gorham. Supposing, for example, the fanatical high-church party to
succeed in their now declared object of overthrowing the practical supremacy of the Crown, the whole
Establishment would at once be put in peril. The church established by the nation cannot exist
independently of the nation: nor can it fall into these unseemly disputes without losing some part of the
authority by which it exists. Every fresh outbreak of such fanaticism has its effect upon the people,
however little perceptible at the time; for they are not ignorant that the brawling priests hold their bishoprics,
archdeaconries, and vicarages by the very power and tyranny they are constantly denouncing. They know
perfectly well that Protestantism, as it now exists with the support of the State, is the sole bulwark against
claims and authorities always clashing and claiming to be co-ordinate, which its removal would bring at once into
internecine conflict. They have hitherto been true to it, and been willing and wise to adhere to it, because
under it they have enjoyed the benefits of the most practically tolerant church system ever invented; but let
it once be settled by authority that Tractarianism is the true exponent of its spirit, and the question will not
be one of reform, but of removal. The English people will never again trouble themselves to reform an
establishment which they may happen to dislike.

There would thus appear to be much more reason to object to the Privy Council's tolerance of High Church
Philpotts, than to its tolerance of Low Church Gorham; and this is the feeling of a majority of true Protestants,
and honest members of the church. But the fanatics will not see it; and scarcely a week passes in
which the question of some fresh ecclesiastical outrage does not startle friends of the establishment into
alarmed question of what the next madness will be. One of the most recent specimens of high church
Christianity was a flat refusal to marry a young couple, on the plea that the man had not been confirmed, but
in reality because he had preferred giving notice out of church to having the banns published in church.
"As you have been asked by the guardians, let the guardians marry you," was the decent sneer of the
pattern divine; and the result was the birth of a bastard child, which, but for that un-Christian refusal of the
rites of the church, would have been born legitimate. What a comment on the spirit of a clergyman's teaching!
Two young persons who had erred, claim the service of a minister of the Gospel to aid them in their escape
from Sin; but so far from the helping hand being given, they are thrust back into its worst temptation and most
enduring shame. The reverend man had some decency, notwithstanding. He did not quote the Saviour's "Sin
no more," to support his own refusal to snatch them from further degradation. So much modesty is not common
to all his brethren. The cursing priest who figured in our last summary, for instance, has since defended
his imprecation with Scripture warrant; protesting that he had but quoted St. Paul's denunciation against
falsifiers of the Gospel. In other words, this tolerant and Christian minister would bring under the awful
curse of the Apostle, all who have sanctioned the plan of education adopted at a particular training school in
connection with the administration of the government system by the Committee of the Privy Council. That
is, he would curse the whole Government to begin with; then he would throw in the few good and pious
prelates who have assisted them in this matter; he would next offer up the entire liberal minority of the
church; and would complete the holocaust by bringing the sacred Head of the church herself within St.
Paul's imprecation. And all for what? Admitting to the extreme the error charged, it would be no more