The Church and the Census, by James Skinner

Transcribed from the 1860 Joseph Masters edition by David Price. Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.

THE CHURCH
AND
THE CENSUS.

p. 3THE CHURCH AND THE CENSUS.

I desire to say what follows, in all earnestness, to my fellow-countrymen who have been, through God’s goodness, baptized into the Church of England. I shall be thankful, also, if others will patiently consider what is here set down.

There can be no question that, in old times, God was pleased to set up a visible token, whereby the world might be convinced of His power and love. And this token was also a witness to God’s Truth. No one doubts that the Jewish Church and nation were the witnesses of God; and that they were His witnesses by His own express appointment. It is equally allowed, on all hands, that the Jewish Church and nation failed in their witness. They p. 4failed—not because the need of witnessing had been taken away; or their authority to witness had been loosened. But they failed, because, having the power of choice free—to stand by God or to desert Him, they chose to desert Him. They failed, because they chose to blind themselves to the need of witnessing. They failed, because they chose to set at nought that authority to witness with which they had been clothed. God’s law of always having His witness did not fail. The very failure of the Jewish Church and nation, in the place of witness, was a witness. The Jewish Church and nation could desert its place of witness. It could prefer its own will to God’s will. It could prefer the will of the people to the will of God. It could prefer the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of Heaven. And it did prefer its own will, and the will of the people, and the kingdom of this world.

Look at the prophecy of Hosea, and what is there said of all Israel in the name of Ephraim. Read the seventh chapter. The Prophet is reproving the sins of the princes, and the great men of Israel. “All their kings are fallen.” The flame of civil discord has spread, and dried p. 5up the sources of legitimate authority among them. An anarchy of eleven years, after the death of Jeroboam II., has terminated in the assassination of Zachariah and his successors Shallum and Pekahiah. “And yet there is none among them that calleth unto Me,” saith the Lord.

And then, he denounces judgment against the people in the mass, for their hypocrisy and unfaithfulness. Whereas, by God’s institution, they were a peculiar people,—witnesses for God, and separate from the world, “they have mixed themselves among the people,”—that is, among the idolaters of the land,—they are “as a cake not turned,” as a cake baked only on one side; serving God by halves, halting between two masters; worshipping God a little, and worshipping idols a little, and worshipping nothing much. And so, as a consequence, what must have followed, did follow. The Syrians, in the time of Jehoahaz, reduced them to great straits. They had but fifty horsemen and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen. [5] They were “made like the dust by threshing.” Shortly after, in the days of Menahem, they p. 6became tributaries to Pul, king of Assyria. [6] And at length they were carried away captive bodily by Shalmaneser.

Now, all this has a forcible application to a spiritual state of things, and sets forth the condition of the Church in the world, as at other times, so especially at this time in which we live.

Ephraim is the witness of God—testifying God’s Truth,—bearing God’s commission—appointed in the world to win and attract the people,—to draw them upward, far above worldly measures of things to the divine measure of things—to the things which shall be in the eternal Future, and to the fixed and unchangeable will of God, on which that eternal Future stands. But “Ephraim hath mixed himself” with the people,—he has “learned their inventions,”—he has adapted his witness to their demands,—he has lowered his standard of God’s appointment to the people’s standard of human construction. So that God’s teaching and man’s teaching have become confused and indifferently accepted, and they who have fallen into grave errors of faith are in no sense differently esteemed from those p. 7who have maintained the truth as revealed by God, and as witnessed by the Church in every land, in every age, by every tongue.

And so, the spiritual Ephraim, who was set up for a witness to the truth, has become “a cake not turned,” a half-equipped soldier in the fight, with but half a heart to his Master’s service.

What is the occasion which now presses? While many of us are praising God in grateful love for His unspeakable mercy in vouchsafing us His Truth—His determinate and fixed Truth—in which alone souls are saved—His Truth, as divinely committed to the Church “the pillar and ground of the Truth,”—and handed down from age to age in every land,—His Truth as mercifully retained and maintained in the Prayer Book of the Church of England,—set forth with categorical precision in the three Creeds of universal Christendom, and expanded and applied in the offices of Holy Baptism and the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ—while we are keeping solemn festival to the Glory of God, and the power of His Truth, the “religious world” is exciting itself with vexing hopes and fears about the decennial p. 8Census which the State is about to take of the religious condition of the country.

I do not believe that this question excites churchmen, or that they care, except as a matter of political justice, what becomes of it. For themselves they know what they are, and where they stand, and in Whom they trust. And they are “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them.” With no “uncertain sound,” or doubting heart, but with plainness and boldness, as Christian men and women, “standing fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel, and nothing terrified by their adversaries.” [8]

But it is a question full of importance, because of the evidence which it draws out of the condition of men’s minds among whom we live, and because of the lesson which that evidence reads to ourselves.

I do not enter upon the question whether it is right or wrong for the state to ask people about their religion. My own conviction is that, under the distracting circumstances of religion in this country, it would be better and p. 9wiser for the state to abstain. And yet in common sense the state may as well demand information as to my religious profession, as in respect of my age or worldly calling. But the question having been raised, what is this evidence which it has brought to light, and which I say is so grave in its results? There is a vehement, almost a passionate resistance of the proposition, that men should give an account of their faith.

It is true that Jesus Christ, the very Saviour and Redeemer of our souls, has said, “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven; and whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.” [9a] But people on all sides are saying, “not so—not before men,—religion is a private and secret matter between God and me.”

It is true that holy David declared that “he would speak even before kings and not be ashamed,” [9b] that S. John Baptist “confessed and denied not, but confessed;” [9c] that S. Paul, for himself, “continued witnessing to small and p. 10great,” [10a] and in the name of all Christians laid it down that “we believe and therefore speak,” [10b] and that “every tongue should confess.” [10c] But people on all sides are saying, “Not so—not confess, not witness, not speak,—any other test you please; number us as we sit here or stand there; but do not ask us to speak. We prefer to take our place with the ‘chief rulers who believed, but did not confess;’—we believe, but do not ask us to confess.”

And this resistance has two sides—one political, and the other quasi-religious.

Political men resist, because they say the Church of England holds them, and yet does not hold them. It holds them politically, gives them, if they demand it, baptism, or communion, or churching, or burial. Yet it does not hold them because they object to her services, and usages, and prefer preachers of their own, and other doctrines than hers. “We are Churchmen,” say these people, “in one sense, though not in another; and therefore we prefer not to define ourselves at all. We go to ‘meeting,’ but we have not parted final company with the Church. And as excommunication p. 11can alone sever the bond between us, we are glad that excommunication is now unknown.”

Such is one side of the opposition to the notion of defining their faith. How shall they define it? Once perhaps when the Catechism was fresh upon the soft and docile mind of their childhood they might have been able, but now that is a mere reminiscence. They know not to-day what they may believe to-morrow. Meantime they will hold on to the Church as to a secular institution, and do what they can to secularize it. It will become more useful and less mischievous in their opinion, just as men cease to regard it as a “witness” for the glory of God, and a training school for the salvation of souls.

The other side of the same opposition has more appearance of religious feeling about it. Men object to define their faith, because really and conscientiously they have no faith which they can define. “False shame,” “procrastination,” “self-distrust in honourable minds,” (as it has been mischievously called, [11]) “consciousness of imperfection,” such are the pleas with which p. 12they indulgently flatter themselves. They are not yet ripe for any “visible Church;” so they ignorantly and complacently express it; they mean to wait; they are not unchristian because they dare not make choice of a denomination yet. Surely not. By and by will be time enough. They will make a profession some day though not now.

When I hear on every side as I mix with my fellow men, and read in every newspaper, as I strive to note down the voice of the public press as it gains upon the popular mind, such sentiments as these, I am bound to say that if this be not spiritually the reproduction of the picture of Ephraim, as Hosea drew it in the days of Israel’s apostasy, and as such, if it be not the accomplishment among ourselves of a prophetic announcement which spiritually concerned the Church of Christ, I know not where to find a prophecy fulfilled. “Ephraim he hath mixed himself among the people: Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him; yet he knoweth not.” [12]

p. 13I will now presume to say something in the presence of this calamity which afflicts the Church of Christ in England.

I. First, I will say that as Truth is one and indivisible, so your faith as English Churchmen, with the Cross of Christ upon your foreheads,—and the bond of the “Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship” in your hearts,—and the Prayer Book with its Catholic witness in your hands, is fixed, and easily defined.

It is fixed, because otherwise it could not be the Truth. And you possess that which is fixed, because otherwise that which you possess could not be true. The Church of God is “the pillar and ground of the Truth;” [13] and you have the Truth from the Church of God.

The Church of God does not create the Truth. The Church of God does not even give force and power to the Truth. But the Church of God is the depositary of the Truth. The Church of God has the Truth to keep, and to maintain, and to hand down. The Church of God is the orb, out of which the glorious light of the Truth shines and overspreads the earth. The Church of God is the p. 14candlestick which holds the light. The Church of God is the pillar on which the proclamation of the Truth is written, and held up and heralded through the world. You learn truth from that pillar. And that pillar is the Church of God?

What Church of God? The one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God. The same which delivered the “decrees of the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem:” [14] the same which confounded Arius at Nicæa: the same which overwhelmed Nestorius at Ephesus: the same which silenced Macedonius at Constantinople: the same which vanquished Eutyches at Chalcedon:—the one Holy Church throughout the world.

2. Next, I desire to lay down this—that, contrary to what the advocates of a religious census seem to imply—truth and numbers have no relation one to the other, unless it be that truth is with the few. The greatest number of mankind is yet in darkness and error; as S. John says, “the world lieth in wickedness.”

All God’s Word testifies that, compared with the many who forsake the truth, or who never p. 15accept it, or who deny it and lose its fruits, those who receive it, and live by it, and enter into its reward, are few. Of all the world at the time of the Flood only eight persons were worthy to be rescued. Among all the guilty families in the cities of the plain, only Lot’s escaped destruction. Of all the six hundred thousand Hebrews delivered out of Egypt, though blessed with the same miracles, conducted by the same Guide, and nourished by the same Manna, two only entered the promised land. In the taking of Jericho, of all the houses in the city only the harlot Rahab’s was spared. Of all the thirty and two thousand soldiers of Gideon, but three hundred were found worthy to contend for the Lord. And so, of all those olive berries and clusters of grapes set forth by the Prophet to describe the called of God,—there shall be saved only “as the shaking of the olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes, when the vintage is done.” [15]

Therefore Religion is not for show, but for reality. God is for Truth, and not for numbers. And they who are truly wise must be content, as the Apostles of old were content, to have p. 16numbers against them, if so it be, and to pass in turn through good and evil report, in the honest and simple defence of what is true.

This facing of the Truth against numbers is a necessity. And if you seek to shun it, you are sure nevertheless to encounter it; and with all the more roughness, for your efforts to escape it. If you side with the multitude, you will probably be magnified by those who are in the wrong. But you will hardly escape being censured by those who are in the right. And their commendation, if it makes less noise, has more value.

You must not be dismayed, therefore, because the world is against you. You must not begin a course of action because it is popular; nor must you abandon a course of action because it is decried. Look to what pleases God, not to what will please the multitude. And then you will do what is right. You will be wise for God. And God is over all.

3. Once more. No earnest mind can entertain the thought of what is passing among us, without feeling that these are sifting times. Times of division, when errors abound, are always times of sifting; times in which God is p. 17trying what men are made of; whether they are corn or chaff, gold or dross, wheat or tares.

Ephraim is “a cake not turned.” But who are guilty? “I will sift the House of Israel,” saith the Lord, “as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” [17a] This is the one comfort in the midst of so much sorrow. Whosoever is true grain, shall not be lost. See to it, then, that each soul among you is true grain.

God is sifting your sincerity by the errors which He suffers to compass you about. “I hear there are divisions among you, and I believe it,” says the Apostle, “for there must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest.” [17b] And your stability He is sifting—whether or not you are as Reuben, “unstable as water,” weak, and soft, and yielding, and inconstant. And your zeal, and your knowledge, and your love,—He is sifting all these, in this your day of probation.

You have had great gifts at God’s Hand, unspeakable opportunities of knowing Him and His Truth—the Word of God, the witness of p. 18the Church, and the “Spirit leading you into all Truth” through the ordained means of grace—through Sacraments and Prayer. How is it with you? Are you yet “men” in knowledge, with the “full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” [18a] Or are you “children in understanding,” “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive?” [18b]

Now is the test of your weakness or of your strength. Now it will be seen who is possessed by that enervated and timid spirit which inspires so many faltering hearts, and directs so many enfeebled wills, in this day of conflict for the Church of God.

And, above all, your love is being sifted. Is your hold upon the Church and her teaching “rooted and grounded in love?” God is trying your love—your love to Himself, to Christ, to the Truth. The head is not a casket in which Truth can safely lie enshrined. It is p. 19soon stolen from thence. But, if you have lodged it in the heart, and embedded it there in folds of love, men may take out your heart, but out of your heart they cannot take the Truth.

It is for want of love that so many men among us are cowards,—that so much is sacrificed to the first appearance of danger,—that so much is offered up to expediency, to popularity, to success. The world is a worshipper of success. But the world has no love for the Truth. The world knows nothing of the blessed joy of undergoing persecution and danger, and making ventures, for the Truth’s sake. And so, as “Ephraim has mixed himself” with the world, he is as “a cake not turned,” and “strangers have devoured his strength,” in this age of concession and falling away.

But what says “He Who sitteth upon the throne?” “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” [19] But the “fearful” or cowardly, (the δειλοὶ,) and the unfaithful or “unbelieving” (the ἄπιστοι,) the deserters who fall off from want of faith and patience, what of them? “they shall have their part with murderers, and whore-mongers, p. 20and idolaters, and liars, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [20a]

And what says the Apostle? When love is perfect [20b] then we have “boldness in the crisis,” or judgment, or trial, of faith; and “love casts out fear.” And fear is the parent of all unlawful concessions.

We owe the Truth an external service as well as an internal devotion. And they have no love for the Truth who withhold an external service. The faith of the heart will no more avail without the confession of the mouth, than the confession of the mouth will avail without the faith of the heart.

If it be enough for Christ that you know Him, though you confess Him not before men, it will also be enough for you that He knows you, though, at the last, He confess you not before men. It is not enough to say, “I hold the Truth in my heart, but I am silent before the world.” And, therefore, Christ does not say, “he that confesseth Me in his heart;” but Christ says, “he that confesseth Me before men.” They are vital words, these words of p. 21Christ. Lay them up in your hearts, and live by them. Hear them at length. “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father Which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father Which is in Heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” [21]

p. 22POSTSCRIPT.

While these pages are passing through the press, the Government has yielded the point at issue. It has yielded, against its own convictions. It has yielded to pressure,—and to pressure from those whom it considers wrong-headed, and unreasonable, and unjust.

The Government believed and declared that it was fair, and right, and just, and necessary “for legislative purposes,” that the people of England should confess the religious profession which they make—each man his own. The Government still believes in the fairness, and justice, and necessity of such a declaration. But, because some persons object to it, on the ground that no man ought to be asked what his religion is, or whether he has any religion at all, and because those persons have political influence, the Government has yielded its convictions to those persons.

The Government loves its convictions a little. It loves political influence much. And so, this has come p. 23out clear—whatever is just, and fair, and right, and even necessary for “legislative purposes,” has no chance of prevailing in the counsels of Government, unless, first, the political influence of the Government shall be secured. If on the side of injustice, and unfairness, and the entanglement and perversion of legislation, there should be political influence, that will be the side of the Government. Evil consequences in the future are nothing. Present place and present power are everything.

I think this ought to be a lesson to Churchmen not to put faith in Governments. The Church can never lose by any measures which are just, and fair, and straightforward, and open. And, therefore, the Church had nothing to lose from the “religious profession” clause of the Census Bill. But as Governments do not bind themselves to keep their faith, and are always ready to sacrifice their convictions of justice to their lust of power, the Church must have no trust in Governments.

The object of this tract is not affected by the weak and pitiful conduct of the Government. It never was my object to defend the “religious profession” clause. I have said that, considering the religious distractions of this country, I think it would be wiser for the Government to leave the religious profession of the people alone. And I say so still. Never to have proposed a Census of religious opinions at all would have been wise. But, to have proposed it—to have stoutly maintained the justice of it—to have asserted the necessity of it for p. 24equitable legislation,—and then, to have withdrawn it to satisfy an unreasoning handful of Dissenters, who make themselves heard in the House of Commons, is not to be characterized by any negative form of judgment. This is not simply want of wisdom. It is more like that moral imbecility which, in men whom God has burdened with a high trust, is really a crime.

The object of this tract remains. And therefore, notwithstanding the course which the Government has taken, I send it forth to effect that object, as opportunity shall be found. I ask my countrymen and countrywomen—Christian men and women—simply to consider, as in the presence of God, these two appalling facts, which the discussion of the Census Bill has forced to the surface, in this day of Crisis for the Truth.

1. That thousands of baptized souls in England are content to believe nothing in particular.

2. That thousands more who protest that they do believe something in particular, protest also that they cannot “confess” that something “before men.”

FOOTNOTES.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Tract for the Times: The Church and the Census

THE CHURCH
AND
THE CENSUS.

p. 3THE CHURCH AND THE CENSUS.

p. 22POSTSCRIPT.

FOOTNOTES.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE