Page:The Irish Church and its Formularies.djvu/27

 chastisement will be involved in the change of formularies, and the world will then hear, to its astonishment, that every practice hit or checked by that change can by the fact of alteration claim to have been up to that time legal and justifiable, however repugnant to the tastes and convictions of brother Churchmen.

It is very painful to me to have to borrow the phraseology, and to appeal to the motives of political or military strategy, in dealing with the affairs of a spiritual commonwealth. But the necessity has been put upon me to handle the question under lights which I never should voluntarily turn upon it. The Church of England must either be tolerant or intolerant. If intolerant it must find some Popedom either personal or in commission, or some substitute for an Œcumenical Council not liable to interruption by the regiments of any neighbouring state. If it is to continue tolerant without becoming indifferentist and definite without shrivelling into bigotry, it cannot do better under existing circumstances than go on with the actual formularies; not because they might not in some way be made better—just as they might in some other way be made worse—but because, being there, they are undoubtedly good, and, being undoubtedly good, are likewise in possession. This condition of matters, evacuating as it does for the present time the difficulties of controversy, would leave the Church of Ireland free to follow its spiritual instincts and its missionary duties, with the Prayer Book, as a practical and generally accepted body of devotion, ready to hand to guide and stimulate its worship. But the Prayer Book recast—whether for the abstract better or the abstract worse—in a special direction may indeed be made the special spiritual guide of those who symbolize with the changes; but, to all who do not, it assumes for the immediate emergency the character of a cartel of controversial defiance. Such cartel may sometimes be necessary, and such defiance