(A Reply to the Rev. Hely Smith of the Church Association)
By the Rev. Richard W. Enraght M.A.
 |
| Derby Mercury 6 March 1882 |
There was a large gathering of Churchmen in the St. James’s Hall, Derby, on Tuesday evening last week, to hear a lecture from the Rev. R. W. Enraght. M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, Birmingham, on “The Reformation principle for which Mr. Green is suffering.”
It will be remembered that Mr. Enraght was himself imprisoned in Warwick Gaol, about a year ago for similar offence to that committed by Mr. Green, but was released upon giving certain undertakings. Mr Joseph Paget, J.P., of Stuffynwood Hall, Mansfield, presided, and amongst others present were the Revs. F. Utterson, and A. Preedy, St. Anne’s, Derby ; Rev. F.E.W. Wilmot, Chaddesden ; Rev. E.B. Lavies, St Luke’s, Derby ; Rev. J. O’Brien, Long Lane ; Rev. – Armstrong. Messrs. C. Bowring, J.P., Arthur Cox, F.W. Cox, W. Butler, J.B. Coulson, F. Borough, T.H. Pakeman, G.B. Holoran, J. Bulman, &c.
The Chairman, in introducing the lecturer to the meeting said Mr Enraght had been announced to speak on “The Reformation principles for which Mr. Green is suffering” and he might have added, if his modesty had allowed him to do so, “and for which I myself have suffered” (Applause).
The Rev. R. W. Enraght, who was received with applause, said since his lecture had been announced under the title given above, meeting of the Church Association had been held in the town, at which a lecturer was delivered by the Rev. Hely Smith, vicar of Market Rasen.
He had seen reports of the lecture, and he would to a certain extent change his subject in order to answer the statements made by Mr. Smith (Cheers).
He rather wished that his audience was made up of Church Associationists, if only they would treat him with reasonable fairness, and not as such persons generally tried to do, and seize the platform, although, as far as he should not be afraid of them even in that predicament (Laughter).
The lecturer delivered by the Rev. Hely Smith was given before the Derby Working Men’s Branch of the Church Association. He was not familiar with that body further than that, having followed the practice of similar associations pretty closely, he knew that if they were like the Birmingham Working Men’s Branch of the Church Association, they consisted mostly of clergymen (Laughter).
One of the members at Birmingham was the principal person who was at the bottom of his being prosecuted, and, he was sorry to add, was one of the patrons of the benefice which he (the lecturer) at present held, and was trying with others to get him out, in order, as the secretary of the Church Association had said, that “the Gospel might be preached at Holy Trinity, in Birmingham” (Applause).
As regarded the Rev. Hely Smith himself, he (Mr. Enraght) never liked to exaggerate or speak evil of anyone, but he would leave his opinion about Mr. Smith’s statements to the judgement of the meeting at the end of his remarks (Hear, hear.)
The subject of Mr Smith’s lecture was “The Church Association a Defensive Association,” and Mr. Smith declared that it was an association not for the prosecution of clergy but for the protection of the laity.
Those persons who had followed the different cases in which prosecutions had been promoted by the Church Association would see that instead of that association being good for the protection of the Church laity, it was good simply to upset parishes where good work was being done, and was annoying not only the faithful clergy, but their faithful parishioners (Cheers).
To instance his own case, about which he had published a pamphlet, he could only say that from the time the parishioners were appealed to, they had given their opinions pretty clearly as to what they thought of the Church Association (Applause).
The persecution commenced in his case in 1878 in connection with the election of a people’s churchwarden. Up to that time there had never been more than four or five persons present at Easter vestries, but on Easter Tuesday, 1878, about fifty men, with their teeth set, came into church exactly as the clock was striking ten. He saw at once what they were up to, and they passed the celebrated Mr. Perkins as churchwarden. They passed a vote of thanks to him (Mr. Enraght) for his kindness and urbanity, and of course when he could not bite he never barked (laughter), but as soon as they were gone he requested the Church side not to go on with the poll which had been demanded, as he did not want any disturbance in the parish.
He made the same request when the next Easter came round, and he did the same in 1880, until notice was given of an election. He then said to the Church Committee. “Now, gentleman, have him out if you think proper ; and the result was, according to the Birmingham Daily Post, that out of upwards of a thousand men in the church, Mr. Perkins received twelve votes, immediately followed by howls of the assembly (Applause).
A poll was demanded on his behalf, and until its close two hours afterwards, when Mr Perkins withdrew, he obtained a very small proportion of votes – 24 as against 213 for the successful candidate. Last Easter there was a walk-over, and this year, notwithstanding the efforts of the Church Association, he should not be surprised if it was a walk-over again. The parishioners were dead against the action of the Association in his parish, as it was everywhere where the work of the Church and the clergy was really understood (Applause).
So much for the “protection of the laity,” who, it seemed, in his parish at all events, were quite capable of taking care of themselves (Laughter and Applause).
As for the Church Association not being for the persecution of the clergy, that was answered by the circumstances of his own case, as well of others. It was his solemn conviction that the Association killed Mr. Purchas, of Brighton, and Dr Dykes, of Durham, and he asked if they had not persecuted Mr. Mackonochie and almost worried him to death. Was worrying a man for 15 years persecution or not ?
He believed they would have killed Mr Mackonochie as they had others if he had not fortunately, in addition to being a godly man, been a hard headed Scotsman, with very few nerves about him (Laughter).
Speaking further of his own case, the lecturer said he did everything but sell his conscience to stop the prosecution, as he knew what misery it would entail, not only for himself, but upon the parish. The Wise Man said “The beginning of strife is as the letting out of water,” and an ever wiser and greater authority said “If it be possible as much as in you lies, live peaceably with all men” (Hear, hear).
He did his best to maintain peace, but it was of no use ; they wanted their pound of flesh (Hear, hear).
The Bishop of Worcester divided the charges brought against him into three parts, and as regarded one-third of them the Bishop told the accusers that they were false (Applause).
[Some disturbance here arose in consequence of someone at the back of the hall stating that he had come to hear a lecture on the Reformation principles. He was prepared to support the chair, in accordance with the terms of his ticket of admission, but he wished the lecturer to stick to his subject. The interruption was greeted with loud cries of “Turn him out” but after some time order was restored.]
The lecturer proceeded to say that the Bishop believed with respect to another one-third of the charges, that if properly represented – that was the technical term – they were thoroughly in accordance with the law as he understood it ; and as regarded the other third, the Bishop told him to drop it. He told his lordship that if the Convocation of Canterbury would give him a loophole whereby he could obey the command, he would do so. Some time after that, most unexpectedly to him – and he must say, to his surprise and grief – the Convocation passed the celebrated rider to the Ornaments Rubrics, which gave an implied sanction to the full Eucharistic vestments “unless a monition to the contrary was received from the Bishop of the Diocese.”
He felt that he was caught, and that he would rather resign than have given up the vestments up ; but inasmuch as his patrons and the Church Associationist were anxious that he should resign, he said he would give up all that the Bishop required he should. He did exactly that what the Protestant Bishop of Worcester told him ; and he presumed the Bishop would not be offended at being called Protestant (Hear, hear).
His Lordship expressed himself as thoroughly satisfied, and wrote one of his kind letters earnestly requesting that the prosecution should be stopped. The reply from the Association was that he must give up everything or they would not desists (Hear, hear), and the result was now a matter of notoriety. After this don’t let Mr. Hely Smith say that the Church Association was not for the prosecution and hounding down of the clergy, for it was (Loud applause).
He could give endless further revelations of his own case similar to that, but he would pass on. Mr. Smith further said that such persons as himself (Mr. Enraght) – clergy and laity – were a body of men within the Church whose strenuous effort it was to “obliterate the principles and work of the Reformation, and to bring back the dark, dirty, sooty age of medievalism” and that they regarded the Reformation as a great blot. There was a certain amount of ground for those changes, but he believed he spoke for nineteen-twentieths of sound Church clergy, and for an enormous body of the sound Church laity, when he said that he had the greatest possible dislike to anything being said against the Reformation (Cheers).
He could not bear to hear Cramer, Ridley, and Latimer called all sorts of names, and run down either in speech or writing. He knew that they did many queer things (Laughter).
He knew that many strange things might be laid to their charge. He knew that Cranmer went backwards and forwards over and over again ; and he knew that there were sundry queer charges to be brought against the men who lived at that time and had to do with the reformation. But he said they were neither better nor worse than men of the present day. It was enough for him that these men went to the stake with the Prayer Book in their hands when they could have got off by giving up the Reformation (Cheers).
He could not bear to read charges – and very serious, grave, and bitter charges – brought against men who went to the stake for their principles in the 16th century. They were really martyrs, and ought to be regarded as such ; and so far as writers and others on his (the lecturer’s) side had dealt in a contrary manner with the English reformers they might be open to the objections raised against them by the Rev. Hely Smith ; but if Mr. Smith knew anything about Church movements in those days he would know that 300 changes were made in the Prayer Book, and not one of them looked in the direction of what was now termed popular Protestantism.
He asked any reasonable well-minded persons who had read through the Prayer Book to go to a Low Church where the services were carried on, say, by Mr. Smith (laughter), and then to a High Church, and judge between the two as to which carried out fairly the Prayer Book, and which did not. He had never met any one who dare stand up and say that the clergy of his (the lecturer’s) was of thinking really broke through the Prayer Book and that the others kept to it, but all when brought to book, said that those of his way of thinking did truly carry out the Prayer Book, and that the others did not (Applause).
Dissenters did not like the Church, the Prayer Book, and Church practices, but what was their verdict ? Mr. Spurgeon said that “the High Church clergy, (so called), are teaching superstition, but in strict conformity with the English Prayer Book, and the Church Association clergy are not.”
It was a Reformation principle for which Mr. Green was suffering. He was suffering for the principles of the Reformers, especially for the principles of the last Reformers – the last revisers in 1662, who were pre-eminently the Reformers of the Church – (applause) – insomuch as the present Prayer Book was their Prayer Book far more than the Prayer Book of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. Mr. Smith said that people said the Reformation was “a great blot.” It would be much more correct to say that there were great blots. If any of the clergy or laity were really advocating in the present day a return to things peculiar to Rome, and which had not been found in any part of Christendom – especially in the finest and best days – then he admitted and affirmed that that would be a blot on the Reformation (Applause).
But he could only say that he, and he believed the vast majority of sound clergy and laity of his way of thinking, were in no way whatever open to that charge. Mr Smith had borne false witness and broken the 9th Commandment, if he charged the whole body of so-called Ritualists, as he did in his lecture, with holding certain doctrines, practices, and principles, which if held at all in the Church of England were held by only a very small section of the clergy and laity. If real Romanising clergy were found, and the Church Association followed its usual practice, he would undertake to say that, although they might stand out up to a certain point they would not go to goal, nor remain in gaol a whole year for Church of England principles (Applause).
In proportion as the principles of the Catholic party in the Church were in the ascendant, secessions to Rome would be prevented, but the prevalence of Puritanism would have a precisely opposite effect. Mr. Smith was a Puritan, and Puritanism was a blot on the Reformation principles of the Church of England ; Puritanism was Nonconformity in the Church of England. The Church Association were the veriest Dissenters, similar to the old Puritan Party, except that they had gone ever so much further. He did not say that the Reformation was a blot ; it was nothing of the kind, but its good work had been immensely obliterated by blots such as Puritanism, which had come upon it. He opposed Romanising the Church of England, and he opposed Puritanism – one the same as the other, with this exception, and he commended it to the Puritan party.
Almighty God in several books of the Bible, more especially Deuteronomy, and again in Revelation, and sundry times between, had warned them against adding to His Word of taking from it. Those who added to it – and he believed the Romanists did – would be “fearfully punished,” but it was said to those who took away from the words written in the Book – which he solemnly maintained Puritanism and Church Associationism did – that God would take away their names altogether out of the Book of Life – blot them out entirely (Applause).
He denied Mr. Smith’s assertion that the English Church Union began the strife, for it had been going on ever since the Reformation (Hear, hear).
No doubt the English Church Union started in name six years before the Church Association, but there were Church Associationists at heart long before. They got up the riots at St Barnabas’ Pimlico, and St George’s in the East which he was sorry to say were fostered by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Bishop of London, and by the Home Secretary of that day. They went on for weeks, till at last Churchmen resolved to stand it no longer and they started the English Church Union, which had to a great extent put an end to such things (Applause).
Mr.
Smith accused them of repudiating the Queen’s supremacy, but they
did not repudiate the supremacy as set fourth in all the Reformation
documents in every single article and canon – whether emanating
from the Crown and Parliament or from the Church of England. The
supremacy of the Crown was declared in all those documents to be no
new-fangled supremacy set up at the Reformation, but the old
supremacy due to the Crown “of ancient date.”
What was the
supremacy then ? Was it a supremacy pretending to order Churchmen
about and tell them what they should believe and do in matters of
doctrine and worship, of discipline or practice ? Such an exercise of
the Royal supremacy was never heard of (Applause.)
Such a thing as anyone daring to set up a court to lay down the law upon such matters never existed and was never heard of. They acknowledged the rights of Parliament and the law courts when they kept within their proper limits. Mr. Smith said the English Church Union was planning the downfall of the Church, but he replied that it was such men as Mr. Smith who were doing that, for turning her into a Puritan Church would be her downfall as the Church of God. Mr. Smith further said that Mr. Green should be prosecuted for obtaining money by false pretences, as he was paid for one thing and was doing another – that he was a Dissenter and should set up a Dissenting Chapel of his own – but he thought that was really true of Mr Smith and all who agreed with him (Hear, hear).
Mr. Green, instead of being Dissenter and a malefactor, was suffering witness to the true principle of the Reformation. He was in prison for affirming that the Gospel of Christ was from Christ and not from the Privy Council (Cheers).
The religion they professed was that which the Catholic Church had held in all ages, and its tenets were those of Christ, their Devine Head, and not those of the Privy Council. They might as well try to move back the sea with Dame Partington’s mop as to stop this movement in the Church of England. He was positive that a great many members of the Church Association were Dissenters. It was they who were conspirators against the Church (Cheers).
He did not think that the Reformation principles for which Mr. Green was nobly suffering in gaol, and for which he was willing to suffer for the rest of his life, would receive much disproof at the hands of Mr. Smith, or any other Church Associationists, if there was only someone at hand to answer their statements (Applause).
Mr. GOODYEAR asked the lecturer whether the Prayer Book was to be found in the Bible, and if, in truth, as well as in spirit, Ritualistic clergymen carried it out. He said that in spirit of the letter of the Prayer Book they did but in the spirit of truth they failed (Hear, hear, and a voice ; “All humbug”). There were young men and women in Derby who worshipped the Prayer Book instead of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit (Hisses and groans).
Mr. ENRAGHT admitted the Prayer Book was not in the Bible – and was not very likely to be for obvious reasons (Applause).
But he asserted that the Bible was in the Prayer Book from cover to cover (Applause).
There was not so scriptural a Prayer Book in Christendom (Applause).
If there were any people – young or old – in Derby professing to be Church people – whether so-called Ritualists, or not – attending Church to worship God in spirit and in truth, who did not believe in the Incarnation, the Atonement, and everything that was a fundamental principle, he should deeply deplore it, as all spiritually-minded Church people in that meeting would (Applause).
Mr. F. W. WATSON asked Mr. Goodyear to give the names of some of the young people he had referred to, but received no reply.
Mr. JOHN STOKES asked if clergy did not “teach the children lies” but the question was greeted with a tempest of hisses and other signs of disapproval. He then asked if godfathers and godmothers were mentioned in the Bible, to which The LECTURER replied that though they were not mentioned by name, the principle was clearly indicated.
Mr ARTHUR COX then moved “That this meeting tenders its best thanks to the Rev. R. W. Enraght for his able vindication of the Reformation principles for which the Rev. S. F. Green is suffering, and expresses a sincere hope that the grave scandal occasioned to the Church by Mr. Green’s imprisonment may be speedily terminated by his unconditional release from Lancaster Castle.”
Mr. Cox reminded the audience that Sunday next, the 19th March, was the anniversary of Mr. Green’s imprisonment, and asked those who sympathised with him to remember him in their prayers on that day (Hear, hear).
The Rev. F. E. W. WILMOT seconded the motion, remarking that he thought all must agree that Mr. Enraght had very effectually answered Mr. Smith’s lecture (Applause).
The CHAIRMAN, in putting the resolution to the meeting, stated that Sir Percival Heywood, the patron of Mr. Green’s living at Miles Platting, in his anxiety to get Mr. Green released, went to the Home Secretary to ask him to use his best efforts for that purpose. The answer he received was that Mr. Green could only got out of prison by his telling Lord Penzance that he acknowledged he had done wrong, and promising not to do again (Hisses).
In other words, to tell a deliberate lie. He hoped they would all remember that at the next election (Applause and interruption).
The resolution was carried with one dissentient, and the proceedings then ended by a vote of thanks being accorded the chairman, on the motion of Mr. BOWRING, seconded by the Rev. F. UTTERSON.
A collection to defray expenses realised the sum of £8 14s.
*******
Text from the Derby Mercury 15 March 1882
Transcription by D. Sharp 2025
*******
*N.B. because of his active opposition to the Conservative Government's Public Worship Regulation Act., and a year after his Bradford Lecture, the Revd Richard Enraght, his wife Dorothea, and their six young children were evicted at Easter 1883, from their Bordesley Vicarage by order of the Lord Bishop of Worcester.
The Enraght Family with the help of the Church Union, moved to Brighton in Sussex, where Fr Enraght could continue his ministry helping his former vicar, Fr Wagner of St Paul's Brighton.
See the 'My Ordinations Oaths' page, written by Revd Richard Enraght while in Warwick Prison in December 1880.
*******