INTRODUCTION.

ANGLICAN PRINCIPLES.

By WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D., F.R.S.,

DEAN OF CHICHESTER.

B

CONTENTS OF INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.-ANGLICAN PRINCIPLES.

ALTHOUGH the writers of the following Essays may not, on all points, concur in their opinions, whether those opinions have reference to dogma, to ecclesiastical discipline, or even to fact, the result of their labours is not presented to the reader in the shape of unconnected disquisitions, for the authors are associated under the influence of a common principle.

It is important, in these days, to bear in mind that, by the recognition of a common principle, a diversity of opinion is not excluded; and we deny that any impediment is offered to freedom of inquiry, or to intellectual progress, by a refusal to examine each paradoxical speculation with which the public mind may from time to time be astonished or amused. We are not bound to tilt with every doughty champion who may summon us into the lists of controversy; and even if the paradox be propounded by a man of mark, it is not necessarily a sign of narrowness of mind on our part if we decline to investigate his lucubrations.

It is undoubtedly true, that through the progress of events and from personal experience, new ideas are often realised to the mind, and that these may lead to the modification of foregone conclusions, and sometimes to the entire renunciation of what we at one time resolutely maintained. Except when a suspicion arises of the intervention of some sordid or selfish motive, I am not aware that a severe censure is often pronounced on the man who admits that he has changed his opinions, provided that for the change he assigns a sufficient reason. No one is infallible. Nevertheless, a definite meaning must be attached to the apostolic injunction: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines ;" and we reiterate the exhortation, Principiis obsta.

Opinions may be divided into two great classes. The great majority of the opinions that direct our conduct and shape our walk in life are simply prejudices. The word prejudice is

unfortunately, in common parlance, used generally in a bad sense, to signify such an unreasonable prepossession against a person or thing as to blind our judgment. But if we advert to the etymology of the word, and to its use by some of our best writers, it may be employed, indifferently and according to circumstances, either in a good sense or a bad for it simply means a judgment that has been accepted without previous inquiry or examination. An opinion on any given subject may be to us a prejudice, that is to say, it may be accepted without examination; but it does not follow that, on this account, the opinion must be erroneous.

We may venture to surmise, that a belief in the Copernican system of the earth's revolution round the sun is, as regards the vast majority of those who have never entertained a doubt upon the subject, a prejudice, and nothing more. In the everyday concerns of life, if we declined to act upon our prejudices, we should abstain from action altogether.

It is not by Reason alone that we obtain our knowledge, in things secular; and why should we expect it to be otherwise in what pertains to religion and the wellbeing of our souls? If we were guided by reason alone, why should there be such differences, such antagonisms, not only between one man and another, but between whole communities of men? Why should one whole nation, with a few exceptions, be Protestant, while in another nation the errors denounced by the Protestant are cherished as truths, for the maintenance of which men would die themselves, and for denying which they would doom others to death? Before the separation of the British Plantations in North America from the mother country, a North American colonist was scarcely distinguishable from a British subject residing in England; between a native of Australia and a native of England, at the present time, there is not more difference than there is between an inhabitant of Yorkshire and one born within the sound of Bow Bells. But now, when the Plantations have been formed into the United States, the Americans have become foreigners to us and we foreigners to them. The reason of this is obvious. We are, to a considerable extent, what our national and domestic institutions make us; and when their institutions became different from those of the mother country, the citizens of the great Republic were

seen in successive generations to differ more and more from their European brethren in manners, in their habits of thought, and, if not in sentiment, yet in the taste by which it is uttered or expressed.

To an intuitive perception of the influence of prejudice we may trace many of the unhappy controversies by which our country is distracted; and this has especial reference to the controversies bearing upon the education of the people. The real objection to the system of education adopted by the National Society is, that it is designed to prejudice the minds of the young, and to train them as enlightened members of the Church of England; and it is not to be denied, that it is for this purpose-to prejudice the minds of the rising generation, and to instil what is believed to be the truth into their mindsthat the clergy of the Church of England feel it to be their duty, by many self-denials and much exertion-to erect national schools in parishes, where, except for those self-denials and exertions, no schools would exist. It is, at the same time, admitted by the Nonconformists that they are diligent in their Sunday schools under a similar impression, that it is their duty to prejudice as many minds as they can in favour of their respective sects. The very infidel, in eliminating religion from education, is, under evil influence, endeavouring to prejudice the national mind against all religion; for easy, almost imperceptible, is the descent from non-religion to irreligion; and of all persecutors the most intolerant is the infidel.

Even when not acknowledged, it is tacitly admitted, that we are really educated through the secret influence of the domestic and national institutions in the midst of which we have advanced from childhood to youth, and passed from youth to man's estate; by the example of associates and compatriots, and by habits actually formed before reason has dawned: in short, we need not deny that man is the creature of circumstances, provided we add, that this is only true to a certain point.

It is useless to say, that this ought not to be, or that a reasonable being should be guided by reason alone; for, whether it be right or wrong, the fact is as we have stated it, and we must make the best of it. Tradition is the raw material on which reason has to work. We receive our knowledge, secular and religious, in the first instance by tradition; and knowledge,