The posthumous letters of Rev. Rabshakeh Gathercoal

Contents

LETTER PAGE

I.— The Rev. Rabshakeh Gatheicoal to L. S. K.—

describes the State of his Parish . . 1 II. — Rab. to the Rev. JuUus Scrope — ijives au Account of his Conversion ... 6

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the shambles ; but now our enemies are covered with confusion, " they are driven back and put to shame," and we who were already tied to the horns of the altar, rear once more our sacred heads, and claim that mastership which the Gospel has given us, and the laws of our country have piously conceded.

We see every day how the venders of quack medicines are compelled to fortify their genuine drugs by threats against imitators, and fac-similes of authentic autographs : this is the case with the " Anti-Schism Pills of L. S. E.," which are already claimed by I know not what insignificant mimics of his name and abilities. A person styling himself " Michael Augustus Gathercole, Curate of Myton, near Boroughbridge," has in the provincial newspapers declared that he is the author of the Letters signed L. S. E. ; but as Editor of this volume, and as a friend of the true family, I hereby declare that I know nothing of that person, and that he is no relation of the genuine Gathercoals, whose name is spelt in a different way. Common report says of the curate of Myton, that he was, in his emliryo-state, a bookseller^s haicker, commonly called " a number man," going about the country with works pubUshed in cheap numbers j but whether there is any tiiith in that report I know not, nor care to know, for my only business

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vii here is with the fame of my friend, whose efforts for the supremacy of his Order are here recorded. The Letters of the Vicar of Tuddington make it pretty clear who the " vrai Amphitryon " is ; so that the epistles of L. S. E. will not be handed down to posterity with the mysterious motto stat nominis umbra ; nor will future generations have to inquire who that great man was that Bishops loved, and Archbishops admired.

The true Gathercoal has an A in the coal ; no spurious coal, but genuine bituminous inflammable matter, brought into day-light out of tlie nether regions, and used in purposes of combustion and smoke.

The elder brother of the Vicar of Tuddington was baptized with the names Lucifer, Sandeman, Euroclydon ; and the following account is given of these somewhat eccentric titles by friends of the family : — " Lucifer " is the niorninc/ star ; which it was determined should be the first name of the first born, to gratify the wishes of a rich old lady, a distant relation, who was an admirer of Moore's Almanac, and addicted to astrology. The family were a long time in doubt whether they should call the lad Lucifer, Phosphorus, or Morning Star, but amongst these synonymes, they at last decided for Lucifer, which gives us the first initial, L .

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The second name, " Sandeman," was added to gratify Mrs. G., who not liking the sound of Lucifer, insisted on giving another name of her own choice : she fixed on Sandeman, her favourite divine-— and hence the second initial, S .

" Euroclydon," the third name, is " the tempestuous wind," mentioned in the tw enty-seventh chapter of Acts, which blew upon the ship when they came near the isle of Crete, — Crete that island renowned for liars ; — for it so happened that Mr. G. was reading the verse in which mention is made of this wind, when news was brought him that Mrs. pi. had presented him with a son. As the north-east w ind — Euroclydon — was blowing a hurricane at that very time, Mr. G. determined by giving this name, to fix on his memory the exact time and circumstances of the birth of his first born : and hence the third letter E.

Here then your Lordship sees the mystery of L. S. E's. initials, which ought to be set in brilliants, in a love-knot, with three other letters, C. J. B., not less dear to the Church of England ; for it is to your Lordship that we must attribute the success of those celebrated epistles which have both restored the fainting strength of our venerable mother, and inflicted nausea on her malignant enemies.

And tlie thanks and gratitude due to yoiu: lord-

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IX ship must by no means be withheld, seeing that a suspicion was imjustly entertained in some quarters that your Lordship was not thorough, but was disposed to lean to a liberal policy, which in these days is another word for revolution. It is said that your brother Prelates have by no means felt or expressed a cordial approbation of your tactics, especially during Lord Grey's administration ; but all doubts must now be removed, and the whole body of the Clergy must confess that you are a staunch advocate of that system which Archbishop Laud significantly termed thorouuh.

I know not well how to account fo^ these illgrounded doubts to which I have alluded, for in truth my slight observation would have led me to a different conclusion : only this seems certain, that some persons have entertained doubts of the soundness of your theology, which, they say, cannot be reconciled with the doctrines contained in the Articles, Liturgy and Homilies : and if it should turn out that your Lordship is not a churchman in doctrine, how can you, it is asked, be so in any other respect ? Now on this topic I will not undertake to decide anything, for I know by experience how impossible it is to get at the meaning of words when churchmen are resolved to interpret a document according to their own system ; and I have observed that a Bishop can take a

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chapter of the Bible, or an Article, and by means of some secret alchemy, turn it out in so new a form, and -w ith such a different aspect, that no man could have imagined he was in the presence of an old friend ; — therefore, I say, I will myself pronounce nothing, but simply state what people assert. Now these doubters declare that the founders and first Bishops of the Established Church were notorious Calvinists ; that the Articles are Calvinistic, and that for a century nothing but pure Calvinism was tolerated in the Church of England. In proof of this assertion they quote the famous seventeenth Article, which for nearly two centuries has been a slough of despond for Bishops and Prebendaries, a soft place for dignified feet — and which never yet has been filled up, though no man can calculate the cart-loads of Arminian rubbish in the shape of books and sermons, Avhich have been thrown in here to make the road to Lambeth and York more pleasant, but without the slightest visible amendment.

Thus speaketh the Article : — " Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as

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vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endowed with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season — they through grace obey the calling — they be justified freely ; they be made sons of God by adoption ; they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ ; they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting salvation." Parallel with this article they place your Lordship's published sentiments : —

" St. John called our Saviour the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world : not of the chosen few, the predestinated, but of the whole world, whose sins being thus taken away, they are justified, and may be saved if they please*.

" When the Apostle tells them to give diligence to make their calling and election sure, he does in effect tell them that it may be forfeited, and lost for want of diligence : and that, therefore, none of them can have been for a surety chosen beforehand of God to be saved. All the other passages in the writings of the Apostles where election is mentioned, are to be explained in like manner ;

* " Sermon on Predestination, intended for the use of country congregations; by Charles James Blomfield, D.D., Rector of St. Botolph's ; 1820."

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SO that the term elect is never used to distinguish some Christians from others, but to distinguish all Christians in general from those who had not taken up the Christian profession ; all who are baptized into the name of Christ and profess his sa\dng faith are elect, and yet may forfeit their election by unchristian conduct. All who disown that holy name, or dishonour it by their practise, are reprobate, and yet by God's grace they ma}' be brought back into the truth, and rooted in the faith, and by dihgence make their calling and election sure.

" There are no doubt some expressions in the writings of St. Paul, which seem at first sight to give some countenance to the doctrine of predestination to life ; but St. Peter has told us that in the writings of that great Apostle there are some things hard to be understood, amongst which we may safely* reckon those which I refer — i. e. Rom. viii. 29."

The question then seems to be this, is the seventeeth Article the language of Calvin, and is your Lordship's doctrine that of Arminius ? Does your lordship sing the same song with the Article ? or is your lordship out of tune ? I have heard a cockatoo and a bulfinch sing together, but they seemed to me rather out of tune.

* Compare this with Bradwardine's words in the next note.

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There was a time, my Lord, when tlie House of Commons resented with high wrath any the smallest deviation from Calvinism, because tliey saw clearly, first, that the Church of England \\ as Calvinistic, and secondly, that Arminian tenets were embraced by all the enemies of the country, and that Papists, semi-Papists, and Bishops, are always taking refuge in those doctrines which the Reformation confuted and confounded. And there are persons even now who say, that if the majority of the House of Commons consisted, at this present time, of true Calvinists, it would be much better for the nation, and that we could depend upon the principles of such men much more than we can on that mighty sect of Free-thinkers which now prevails there — but this is merely an opinion : I am now about matters of fact, and your Jjordship must remember how smart the Commons used to be upon the Arminians. For instance, in the reign of Charles I., they laid hold of one Montague, a High-Church clergyman, who had published a sermon containing theology, very like your Lordship's, and, on review of this sermon, they resolved, that "Whereas the Seventeenth Article had declared, «S:c. (quoting the article at length), he, the said Richard Montague, in the said book, doth affirm and maintain that men justified may fall away fiom that state xiv

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which they once had, thereby laying a most mali cious scandal upon the Church of England, as if she did differ herein from the Reformed Churches in England, and from the Reformed Churches beyond the sea, and did consent unto those pernicious errors commonly called Arminianisra, which the late famous Queen Elizabeth and King James, of happy memory, did so piously and religiously labour to suppress," &c. &c. And on another occasion they came to the following resolution, " Whoever shall bring in innovation of religion, or by favour or countenance seek to extend Popery and Arminianism, or other opinion disagreeing from the truth, or orthodox church, shall be reputed a capital enemy to the kingdom and commomvealih ;" by which grave decree it seems highly probable, that had your Lordship lived in those times your Lordship would have got into a scrape, from which it would have been no easy matter to extricate your Lordship.

Now, persons who attentively consider these things, and who have noticed the zeal of the Prelates in introducing Arminian and Pelagian tenets into the Church of England, compare these dignitaries to fish, which being captivated with the appearance of a fat worm, as it hangs on the fisherman's hook, find that there is some--" thing more in the worm than they can comfort-

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XV ah\y digest ; for, though the Bishops find tlie bait of the mitre infinitely dehghtful, they also discover that the hook of the article is infinitely disagreealtle, and in their efforts to disgorge that which they have swallowed, they only vomit up floods of Pelagian* bile in the shape of " Charges to the Clergy," " Sermons for Country Congregations," and " Elements of Christian Tlieology." And I do not wonder that Calvinism should be extremely indigestible to the Bishops, for with it there always is acting a movement sjririt, if I may so term it — a discordance with the " wisdom of ancestors," which is the very oxygen in the atmosphere of Priests, and without which they cannot exist. I take it to be an axiom in the priestly mysteries, that the " wisdom of ancestors" is the breath of their nostrils ; for there never was yet a priesthood, nor ever will be to the end of time, which did not refer to the ancestral wisdom as the truest and the best. In the religion of the clergy there is a noble maxim, " Si mundus vult

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vadere sicut vult, mundus debet vadere sicut vult," tliat is, " If the world likes to jog on in the old way, in the old way the world ought to jog on," which also is expressed sometimes in these words, " Let well alone* for why should anything be changed ? Were not our ancestors wiser men than we? Which of living animals, excepting man, seeks to deviate from the parental path ? Does the bee buzz for reform ? or does the spider alter the old orthodox interstices and intersections of its web ? Man, and man only, is clamouring for change, and seeking out many inventions. " Be not followers of them which are given to change," is, therefore, the sweetest text in the Bible, and has been preached on more than any other ; for when we consider the Cardinals who have preached on it against the Huguenots, the Abbots against the Lutherans, and the English Bishops against the Reformers — when we think how the Albigenses and the Vaudois, the French Calvinists and the Lollards, the Puritans and the Brownists, have all

* There is an old adage, .that " Trutli lies hid in the bottom of a well," and from this adage 1 imagine that other saying has arisen, " Let well alone," for if truth is at the bottom of the well, it is very natural for the clergy fo request the people "to let the well alone:" drawing water from the well, or any way disturbing it, might be the means of bringing truth into day-light ; therefore, " Let well alone by all means."

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xvii smarted under this text, we must needs acknowledge that there is none Uke it in Scripture. If Reformers and Independents would let the world jog on in the old wa}', we should have Bishops and Priests, Cardinals and Brahmins, Bonzes and Grand Lamas, to the end of the chapter — for in the eye of a philosopher there is no difference ; they all hold the same office, with a variation of costume, but a philosopher sees throiigh robes of ceremony, and he classifies under one genus the Brahminical thread of a Guru, the triple crown of a Pope, the yellow apron of a Lama, and the lawn sleeves of an English Bishop.

Nov/, as the tendency of mankind, in all ages, is to priestly government, how comes it that any antagonist power has risen up to oppose the natural nuirch of the human mind, and what is this power ? The Dissenters tell us it is the Gospel, your Lordship will say it is Beelzebub; and here your Lordship and the Dissenters are at issue. This, however, is certain, that, if the Gospel is not this antagonist power, it rests with those who have misinterpreted the Gospel; for there is not a spot on the face of the earth where priests are opposed, excepting where the Bible is in popular use. It is clear, therefore, that if the Bible does not condemn a priesthood, those b xviii

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people only who read the Bible are the opponents of a priesthood.

The question, then, in tliis momentous crisis is, "What is to be done?" To seal up the Bible in these days I consider hoi-eless. The Bishops did their worst to crush the Bible Societies, but without effect ; and I should suppose that Sir Robert Peel would hardly turn liis thoughts to a suppression of the Scriptures,' in order to save the Church of England. But if the light cannot be extinguished, can it not be darkened ? Let us consider the cpiestion more attentively.

Now, it seems to me, (an attentive observer of mankind,) that as the strength of the clergy consists chiefly in cherishing that bias of the mind and affections, which, in theologic language, is called the " natural man j" so I should recommend the friends of the Establishment to study those things which the natural man doth ujost covet, and to feed him to the full accordingly. The natural man, then, being a superstitious animal, and the secret of all superstition resting iu the dominion which the senses may be brought to obtain over the mind in religious notions, I know nothing better for the Church of England, as matters now stand, than to increase ln-r Riiual,

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which may be easily done in the projected Reform of the Prayer Book. " The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies," says the Twentieth Article. Why, then, doth not the Church exercise this power ? We have had nothing new since the Restoration of the Stuarts ; and, as for tlie paltry ceremonies which we now possess, such as bow ing to the East, making the sign of the cross in baptism, dressing in lawn-sleeves, surplices, hoods, and square caps; walking into choirs preceded by beadles, singing prayers in cathedral fashion, and some score more of such amusements— they are not worth naming. We want a good dish-full of ceremonies, a complete newedition of processions, set to new tunes, with new machinery, scenery, dresses, and decorations — and, indeed, it is a shame that more is not done in this way, seeing the ample space of the cathedrals and great churches, which were built for exhibitions of this sort, and are never crowded with large congregations, according to the vulgar practice of conventicles. There is room enough, and to spare, for the clergy, to perform all sorts of ceremonies, if they choose it ; therefore, I say, let the Church exercise that prerogative which the Tenth Article has asserted, and let the Dissenters be ashamed out of their puritanical plainness.

b 2

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Next to ceremonies, I find traditions a most excellent recipe. Traditions have been much used by the Church, and have, within the last two or three years, come greatly into fashion again ; so that Ignatius, Barnabas, Clement, Hermes, and Irenseus, the Apostolical constitutions, and the Councils are now rescued from Bodleian dust, and sent forth in dainty extracts by Oxford tracts and clerical pamphlets ; and this, my Lord, is as it should be, for it is a sad oversight to allow the Pope a monojioly of Fathers and Councils ; they are wanted at Lam-- beth full as much as at the Vatican. And the advantage of appealing to the Fathers, Councils, Decretals,* Canons, or, in one word, to tradition, is this, that there is no imaginable desideratum which may not be found in that quarter. Whatever your Lordship may think useful or agreeable I will undertake to furnish out of that storehouse — tithes. Bishops, Archbishops, images, Archdeacons, processions. Deans, fine dresses, ceremonies of every description; quick march round the altar, slow march, bowing, kneeling, sitting down, standing up, knocking the

* In tr.e Decretals, Causa XII. Can. Dileclissimis, Sfc, that decree of Clement is set down at large, where Plafo is praised and called the wisest of the Grecians for leaching that women sliouUl be common.

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XXI head and the hreast ; fasts, feasts, empty bellies and full bellies ; holy water, bells, wax-candles, anthems, solos, incense, saints, martyrs, mediators, intercessors, union of Church and State, anointing Kings and Queens, confirmation, comminations, catechisms, creeds, salt and spittle, prebends, transubstantiation, consubstantiation, church-wardens, painted windows, clerical titles, rubrics, college caps, Lent, lawn sleeves, and what not. Only in appealing to tradition, and in quoting the Fathers, it should be done judiciously ; we must omit the story of the Phoenix in Clemens Romanus, and keep in the back ground some strange fables preserved by Irenoeus ; for it would be a sad blunder to republish in the Oxford tracts the story of Lot's wife, told by that ancient Father, who says she was in his time existing as a pillar of salt, and known to be the Patriarch's wife by infallible indications. Neither must we record that other tradition of his, which he declares he received from some Presbyters who heard it from

St. John the Evangelist — that said " the

time should come when vine-trees would grow, each having ten thousand branches, and on each branch ten thousand stalks, and on each stalk ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, and every grape should yield twenty-five measures xxn

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of wine; and when some of the Saints should essay to gather one of the hunches, another bunch should cry out, ' Gather me, I am a finer bunch ; bless the Lord through me,' " &c.

Keeping traditions of this sort out of sight, we may, my Lord, with much advantage, make use of Fathers and Councils, to prove the three orders, and such other points as are fundamental in the Church of England.

With these hints for things to be done, a word may be added as to what should not be done; for the natural man must be considered in his dislikes as well as in his likings. Now it may be taken as an axiom that the natural man dislikes to be robbed and murdered ; and therefore with all humility I recommend that the Clergy of our scriptural Church should cease to exact tithes at the point of the bayonet, and that, for the present at least, such battles as those fought at Skibbereen and Rathcormac should be rather avoided than sought after ; for though the affair of Rathcormac Avas a splendid victory, and though the fourth Irish Dragoons did on that day commit a great slaughter of the enemy, yet no one can tell where violence of this sort may end ; we have the three days of Paris before us ; we see there how an attack on the people has terminated ; and that which has been done in one country may be done

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in another. I therefore recommend to your Lordship and the whole bench of Bishops a more mild use of the shepherd's crook as the best policy to be adopted by the constituted Pastors ; and, ■whenever it shall be requisite to terrify the sheep, to substitute the charges of Bishops for the charges of Dragoons ; for if ever the people should be exasperated into open defiance, and if ever the Reformers should be the masters of the Church, •we may surmise that the mitre would not be the least protection to its wearer, but rather show a broader mark to the missiles of the enemy — it would be as the lantern hung on the waistcoat of the Due d'Enghein when he fell at the night time in the castle fosse of Vincennes.*

After all, my Lord, I do not pretend to predict that the system can be certainly perpetuated by anything we can do. There is an ugly look about the spirit of this generation which frightens me. The march of intellect is worse to the Clergy than the march of a hundred thousand men with fixed bayonets. Litellect is a great, grim, striding giant, with a huge besom that no man can measure, and with this he sweepeth away the wisdom of ancestors as if it was only a spider's web in his path ; a cathedral and a Bishop he can shovel up

* Decus el liilamcii, by the Reverend J. Riland.

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in a trice, and tithes are nothing but the dust beneath his feet. He has already swept away half a dozen Bishops in Ireland, what will he not do when he steps over the channel?

And here, my Lord, I pause to express my astonishment at the conservatives, who now praise Lord Stanley as the great prop of the Church — Lord Stanley, who has abolished bishoprics — he a friend of the Church !

The liistorian Collier, a high Church clergyman, has spoken pertinently to the point. " As to the parallel between the Princess Elizabeth and her sister Queen ISIary, may it not be affirmed that one made martyrs in the Church and the other beggars ; the one executed the men, and the other the estates ? And therefore reserving the honour of the Reformation to Queen Elizabeth, the question -n iW be whether the retaining the first fruits and tenths, putting many of the vicarages in this deplorable situation, and settling a perpetuity of poverty upon the Church, was not much more prejudicial than fire and faggot — ■s\hether destroying BISHOPRICS is not a much greater hardship than destroying Bishops? because this severity affects succession, and reaches down to future ages ; and lastly, whether, as the world goes, it is not more easy to recruit Bishops than the revenues to support them?"

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XXV

In other words, the hanging a Bishop is onl}' hanging a John or a Thomas, but the extinction of a l)ishopric is a large massacre, the wliole breed of Bishops in that diocese extirpated for ever; a crime of huge iniquity — an act of most blood-thirsty and barbarous cruelty. But if crimes like these are perpetrated by the friends of the Establishment, what will its enemies do? If the lovers of " time-hallowed" institutions give us this deadly hug in the way of affection, what will the great Boa-constrictor, Radical Reform, effect, when it comes to squeeze the Church in its voluminous embrace ?

My Lord, these thoughts are somewhat of a melancholy strain, and indeed what Churchman in these days can be very jocund when he looks at the prospect before the Church ? Tliat pernicious method of arguing with Churchmen on first principles is now so common, and so universal is the cry to try the prelacy by the Gospel, that we are already condemned in every town and village, and held up as deceivers in every parish. They compare the Church and the clergy with the Church and the clergy of the New Testament, and will hearken to none of our exceptions, allegories, and metaphors. They declare that our ghostly authority is all a trick ; they laugh at tlie white sheet, the turnip, and the tallow candle.

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and are come to that point which Strabo* never anticipated — to ridicule all contrivances of superstition, and yet to adhere more than ever to solid piety.

Against this spirit it is most difficult to contend ; if the quarrel were in the old style about a heresy, a point in metaphysics, a vowel, or a diphthong — if it were about the precedence of metropolitans, the proper days to keep a festival, or the orthodox way of breaking an egg, one might have some hope of getting out of the difficultj-j but when. they attack the very foundation, and boldly assert that the Gospel doth not allow such a thing as a Priest, it shows that the old Quaker leaven hath leavened the whole lump, and that the candle of priesthood is in danger of being ovenvhelmed with a broad-brim extinguisher.

My Lord, I finish these remarks, by earnestly requesting your Lordship to bestir yourself ; for the voluntary system is at the door, loudly knocking for admittance. If ever that monster should pass

* " Women," says Strabo, " and the promiscuous crowd cannot be actuated by the lessons of philosophy, nor by these be led to religion, sanctity, and faith. They must be urged by superstitions, and this cannot be done without legends and miracles. The thunder, the iegis, the trident, the torches, and the serpents ; the ivy- circled spears and the fabled arms of the Gods, were used by the founders of politics as hobgoblins for infantile minds."

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xxvii the threshold, we are all undone — ruined horse and foot, root and branch. A Gospel Reformation will be inexpressibly horrible ; it will be like the entrance of the Medes into Babylon to sweep all clean " with the besom of destruction." The Bishops will have to leave their palaces, the chapters must quit the cathedrals, the clergy their pluralities ; no more tithes great or small ; no agistment, valuation, dilapidations, fines, or fees ; no sale of livings ; no knocking down of immortal souls by the auctioneer's hammer ; no translations ; no letters demissory, licenses, or certificates : farewell glebes and parsonage houses ! farewell •warrants, policemen, and soldiers ! farewell mitres and titles ! farewell grants of Parliament ! We shall be left to our own resources, our corks will be taken away from us, and we must either sink or swim ; and then indeed shall we at last be compelled " to watch in all things, to endure afflictions, to do the work of Evangelists, and to give full proof of our ministry."