Catholicity and the Vincentian rule


ft

FOND DV LAC TRACTS.

No. 3.

Catholicity and the

Vincentian Rule.

BY THE

BISHOP OF FOND DU LAC.

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FOND DV LAC TRACTS.

No. 3.

Catholicity and the

Vincentian Rule.

BY THE

BISHOP OF FOND DU LAC.

Milwaukee, wis.:

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO.



By the Same Author.

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PREFACE.

C
HIS little treatise begins with giving an applica-

tion of the Rule of St. Vincent to some theological

questions concerning faith and practice. St. Vincent’s

name is a household one in our Communion, especially

since the Reformation. He was often quoted by the

Reformers and Anglican divines in their controversy

with Rome. In his disputation at Oxford, Ridley said,

when doubts arose in the Church, “I use the wise coun-

sel of Vincentius Lirinensis, whom I am sure you will
allow; who, giving precepts how the Catholic Church

may be, in all schisms and heresies, known, writeth on

this manner: “When, saith he, one part is corrupted

with heresies then prefer the whole world before the

one part : but if the greatest part be infected then pre-

fer antiquity.”

On the southern coast of France, there is an island

called St. Honorat. It had in Vincent’s time the

name of Lerins. A quite famous monastery flourished
there. Under the discipline of its holy religious rule

and the Church’s sacramental system, St. Vincent’s

mind and character were developed.



4 CATHOLICITY AND THE

It was about the year 434 that his short treatise

appeared. The controversies which had been raging

in the Church led him to put forth his little book as a

practical guide for a Churchman in times of trouble.

He must, through Divine assistance, fortify his faith
in a two-fold manner : by authority of the Divine Law,

and by the tradition of the Church. “Catholics,” he

said, “and true sons of the Church will make it their

special care to interpret the Divine Canon by the tra-

dition of the universal Church and according to the

rules of Catholic theology. Wherein it is also neces-

sary to follow the universality, antiquity, and consent

of the Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

This rule which was so applauded by our Reformers

as a guide for Catholics, is sometimes misunderstood

and misapplied. It is sometimes taken as if it so com-

mended private judgment as to make the individual,

an independent judge of what is true. Vincent sought

to help those who were Catholics, and who believed in

the Church as the organ through which Christ and the

Holy Spirit spoke, to know what the Church had said.

If there were seemingly conflicting voices, then by an

appeal to universality, antiquity, and consent, to dis-

cern which was the authoritative and true one.

Whether he was always in the application of his

rule, in all details, logically consistent with himself

is no detriment to the value of his general principle.

Our treatise is not an exposition of his commonitory,

but a use of his recognized principle in reference to

some matters of faith and practice.

As we have stated in the text the Vincentian rule

is an aid for those within the Body of Christ. It does



VINCENTIAN RULE. 5

not tell us how to reach those without. The appeal in

that blessed work must be first to the needs of man.

The better desires and aspirations of his nature must

be appealed to. He must be brought to realize his own

weakness and sins and the need of an aid other than

his own. He must be led to see that it is not by reason

alone that anything of a concrete nature is properly

understood or known. He that seeks to walk by reason

alone in such matters, is like a man trying to walk on

one leg. Our inherent desires, affections, conscience,

moral nature, have all a part in the composite act
of

belief. It is so in all matters save abstract
science.

It is the whole man that knows. If man's whole na-

ture is trusted and exercised he can then see
that

Christianity presents the most satisfactory and most

rational solution concerning man, his needs and
his

destiny.

And then, if accepting the Church's teaching, he

enters within her portals and lives the life she
teaches

and uses her sacraments, he will find the once
probable

hypothesis demonstrated by a witness within
himself.

He will come to know God and Christ with whom

he is united, and in whom he lives as a child of God.





r
I.

i

Catholicity and the Vincentian Rule.

I
N DETERMINING what is Catholic doctrine
and practice, two principles in the application

of the famous rule, “Quod ubique, quod semper,

quod ab omnibus,” must ever be kept in mind.

The first is that the appeal made by the

Church to “universality, antiquity, and consent,”

as made by the Church to her own children (we

do not here consider how she reaches those with-

out) is in confirmation of her teaching. The word

to he remembered is “confirmation.” Let us con-

sider this proposition.

We all know that Jesus Christ is the sum and

substance and completion of God’s revelation to

man. He dwells in His Church as the Sun in the

heavens dwells in the centre of our planetary sys-



8 CATHOLICITY AND THE

tem. The Holy Ghost fills the Church as its at-
mosphere, and so is the instrumentality by which

Christ’s Life and Light are brought effectively to

us. The Church is thus a spiritual organism in
which the Light and Life of the Incarnate God
are communicated to its members. It communi-

cates these gifts to those who, being brought by

Baptism within the sphere of the divine illumina-

tion, are thus made capable of receiving them in
their fulness and power. The children of the
Church thus listen to the Voice that resounds

throughout the Church, and they believe what it

says, because it is the Voice of God. Although

outward communion between the several parts of
the Church has been interrupted, the Catholic

Church is yet one by a union which cannot be
broken; and so in what the Eastern and Western

divisions practically agree, as stated in their creeds

and liturgies, is to be accepted by the Church’s

devout and humble-minded children as the Cath-

olic Faith.

As showing her faithfulness to her trust and in
corroboration of her teaching, the Church points
her children to three corroborative witnesses, viz.,

Holy Scripture, Church History, and Christian
Experience.

Bearing in mind the difference between cumu-



VINCENTIAN RULE. 9

lative and corroborative testimony, and proof

properly so-called by way of demonstration, we see

the difference between the way a Catholic and a

Protestant treats these witnesses.

The Church, for instance, throughout the

world, teaches her children to believe in the

Blessed Trinity, in the Episcopal government of

the Church, in the Beal, Objective Presence of

Christ in the Holy Eucharist. She tells those

children of hers who are living within the sphere

of her divine illumination, and who by use of all

the sacraments are making it their own, that if

under her guidance they will read the Holy Scrip-

tures, they will find, that the Scriptures will

bear such an interpretation as will be in conform-

ity with her teaching, and so corroborate it. On

the other hand, rejecting the Church’s teaching,

the Protestant starts in the other way, and says

that every proposed doctrine must be proved, i.e.,

demonstrated, by Holy Writ. You must, for ex-

ample, show not only that the Catholic doctrine

of the Holy Trinity is a reasonable interpretation,

but that no other interpretation—for instance Sa-
bellianism—is possible to be maintained on Scrip-
tural grounds. You must show not only that

there is a great deal in favor of Christ’s absolute

Deity, but you must prove that Scripture is ca-



10 CATHOLICITY AND THE

pable of no other interpretation, like high Arian-

ism. You must show explicitly from Holy Scrip-
ture that the chief government of the Church was

placed in an order of local Bishops, apostolically

established, and endowed with the sole power of

Ordination, and that this office did not develop

later out of that of an elder presiding over his

brother presbyters. If you cannot prove out of

Holy Scripture that the latter was not the case, the

Protestant says : I reject Episcopacy.

So, too, in the appeal to Church history. The

non-Catholic mind says, You must prove your
Church doctrine by the Vincentian Buie, as he un-

derstands it. It must have been explicitly stated

from the earliest times, must be proved to have

been proclaimed everywhere throughout the

Church’s world, and must have been universally

accepted. As there have been schisms and her-

esies in the Church from the time of Peter and

Paui, a Pi otestant, under a strict application of

such a rule, might deny almost any accepted doc-

trine of the living Church. The Unitarian makes

the same appeal to the fathers of the first three

centuries to prove Christ was not consubstantial

with God the Father, that other Protestants do
against the commonly believed doctrines and prac-

tices of the Catholic Church of to-day.



VINCENTIAN RULE. 11

The fallacy of the position lies in this. It is

a perfectly sound proposition that if you can show

that any doctrine has been explicitly stated from

the beginning, has been everywhere promulgated

and universally received, it must be true; but it

does not follow that because a doctrine cannot be

so demonstrated it must be false.

Mother Church appeals to history just as she

does to her Holy Scriptures, not to demonstrate,

but to corroborate her teaching. In doing this,

she bids us observe that the remains of writings

of the earliest or sub-apostolic age are very scanty.

Also, that later, as Professor Salmon remarks,

Church history passes through a tunnel. It

is light at one end and at the other, but obscure

in the middle! Again, on some other matters,

less testimony can be found than others, because

they were matters of common acceptance, or not

brought by heretical attacks into the field of con-

troversy. Moreover, before the Church had

guarded her doctrine by conciliar definitions, loose

language might be found used by orthodox fathers.

It is therefore an easy matter for those who reject

the Church’s teaching on any point or doctrine to

say it cannot be proved by the earliest age, or by

the ante-Nicene fathers. If you cannot prove,

positively and negatively by a number of explicit



12 CATHOLICITY AND THE

dogmatic statements that such was the form and

no other in which a given doctrine was held, then

the Protestant rejects it. He then triumphantly
says you have not got the “Quod Semper

’

on your

side. But the Church does not expect her chil-

dren will demand that kind of proof. It is un-

reasonable. When proper allowances, such as we

have above noted, are made for antiquity, the

teaching of antiquity will be found to be in agree-

ment with that of the Catholic Church as the Holy

Spirit speaks through her to-day.

Consider in this light the doctrine of the Real,

Objective Presence of Christ in the Eucharist by

virtue of the act of consecration. It is declared

by the whole Church, East and West, Russian,

Greek, Roman, and Anglican, in their respective

Liturgies. The outward and inward parts of the

sacrament are connected by the consecrating act.

One proof of this is the different way our Church

bids us treat the remaining unconsecrated bread

and that which has been consecrated. The uncon-

secrated, the English rubric says, the curate may

have to his own use. But the consecrated must be

in church with reverence consumed. It were akin

to idolatry to show It any reverence after the com-

munion is done unless the Inward and Outward

parts were still connected.



VINCENTIAN BULE. 13

In the Anglican Catechism, the unseen, inward

part of the Sacrament is stated to he the Body and

Blood of Christ. In her Articles she says that

Christ is not only “received” by the faithful, but

“given and taken” in the Sacrament. In order

to be “given” as the inward part of the Sacrament,

Christ must be present in the Sacrament to be so

given. But however defined, the whole Catholic

Church to-day agrees in teaching the fact of the

Beal Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist as

effected by the priest’s consecration and the power

of the Holy Ghost. And what the Church so

teaches, Holy Scripture and antiquity confirm.

We cannot here dwell on the testimony of Holy

Scripture, but would refer our readers to our tract,

The Holy Eucharist in the New Testament. Con-

cerning Antiquity, “the doctrine of the Real Pres-

ence,” wrote Dr. Pusey (see his sermon
“This

is My Body”), “all who know so little of the an-

cient fathers and Councils know it to have been

taught from the first.” “Minds the most
simple

or the most philosophical, the female
martyrs of

Persia or the philosophic fathers; minds
wholly

practical as Tertullian or St. Cyprian, St.
Firmil-

ian, St. Pacian, St. Julius, or those
boldly imag-

inative, as Origen; poetic minds, as St.
Ephrem

or St. Isaac or St. Paulinus; fathers
who most



14 CATHOLICITY AND THE

use a figurative interpretation of the Old Testa-

ment as St. Ambrose, or such as, like St. Chrysos-

tom, confined themselves most scrupulously to the

letter; mystical writers, as St. Macarius; ascetics

as Mark the Hermit or the Abbot Esaias ; writers

opposed to each other; the friends of Origen, as

St. Didymus, or his opponents, as Theophilus of

Alexandria; or again, St. Cyril of Alexandria,

and Theodoret
;
heretics even, as the Arian Euse-

bius, or the defenders of the faith as St. Athan-

asius
;
Apollinarius or St. Chrysostom, who wrote

against him; Nestorius, or St. Cyril of Alexan-

dria—all agree with one consentient explanation
of our Lord’s words, “This is My Body,” “This
is My Blood.”

“Taking Bread,” says St. Ireneus, “of this cre-

ation, He confessed that it was His Own Body an
He affirmed that the mingled drink of the Cup
was His Own Blood.” “The hand,” says St.
Cyprian, “receives the Lord’s Body,” “The

Word,” says St. Athanasius, “descends into that

Bread and that Cup and it becomes His Body.”

“Thy living Body and Thine atoning Blood,” St.

Ephrem, “which I have received from the hands

of the priests—through these, O Lord, may I be
forgiven.” “Eat, drink, having Jesus Christ the

Son of God, the Saviour in thy hands” (Inscrip-



VINCENTIAN RULE. 15

tion at Autun, beg. of 3d century). “The bread

of the Eucharist/’ says St. Cyril, “after the invo-

cation of the Holy Ghost, is mere bread no longer,

but the Body of Christ.” “The bread is up to a

certain time common bread,” St. Gregory Ny.,

“but when the mystery shall consecrate it, it is

called and becomes the Body of Christ.” “It is

not man,” St. Chrysostom, “who maketh what

hath then to become the Body and Blood of Christ,

but Christ Himself who was crucified for us.”

“The bread which ye see on the altar,” says St.

Augustine, “sanctified by the Word of God is the

Body of Christ. That Cup, rather what the Cup

holds, sanctified by the Word of God is the Blood

of Christ.” “The Spirit, on the Mystic Table,”

declares St. Isidore, “rendereth the common bread

to be the proper Body of the Incarnation of our

God and Saviour.” This doctrine of the Beal

Presence was attested by canons of the ancient

Councils. Deacons who had no power to offer

were not to give to those who offer “the Body of

Christ.”

In like manner we may consider the subject

of Eucharistic Adoration. It was a practise based

upon the doctrine of the Beal Presence. The

modes by which this act shows itself have been

regulated by the Church. The laity were not to



16 CATHOLICITY AXD THE

remain in their seats. The Blessed Sacrament

was not to he passed around as if it were a mere

commemoration. The laity were to draw nigh

unto the altar. They were to receive kneeling

and in a position of worship. They were taught

also to make acts of adoration. The object of

their adoration was not the elements but Jesus

Christ. No one worships the elements. But as
when visible the acts of adoration made in the

presence and directed to His Humanity had for

their terminus His Divine Person, so the acts of

homage before His veiled sacramental Presence

are offered to Him. St. Cyril of Jerusalem,

St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and Theodoret

are witnesses of this fact. They declare it, not

as if it was their opinion only, but give it as the

common teaching and usage of the Church. A
Protestant might say only a few fathers were thus

cited, and not one of them of the second and third

centuries. But as they bear witness to the cus-

tom of the Church and the inherited belief of early

times, the Catholic sees that the Voice of God di-

recting the Church to-day, has confirmation in the

teaching and practice of the past. Whether we

consider Christ as being on earth and so with us,

or He, being in heaven and we with Him, He is

present in His Spiritual Body, the Church, and



VINCENTIAN RULE. 17

sacramentally manifests Himself to ns as an Ob-

ject of Love and worship in the Blessed Sacrament.

The second grave error, often made, in the test

of Catholicity, is to apply the Vincentian Rule to

practices. It was not so applied by St. Vincent

himself, as seen in the twenty-eighth chapter of

his first volume. The reason the Vincentian Rule

does not apply to practice is this : The Church is

a living Body. She has a corporate life. As the

Bride of Christ, she repeats in her life the differ-

ent phases of her Lord’s Life. She has her hidden

life, her missionary and public life, her disunited,

rent, and crucified life when all her bones are out

of joint. She has her glorified life. She is

drawn consequently in special degrees in her de-

votions, sometimes to one Mystery of her dear

Lord and sometimes to another. In the early

Church we find no such intense devotion to the

passion as we do when Christendom has become

sore rent and the Church is torn asunder. The

invocation of the Holy Spirit came as the Church

felt more, amidst conflicting heresies, the need of

divine enlightenment and the aid of the Com-

forter. Again we see how the subjective side of

religion as manifested in our hymns and sermons,

is peculiar to these later times, and so is the devo-

tion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Here



18 CATHOLICITY AND THE

perhaps our own Church takes the lead, reserving

the Sacrament after the Communion of the people

and singing the Gloria in Excelsis as an act of

Worship in Christ’s Presence.

The Church has also met the different phases

of the world’s attack by adaptations in her dis-

cipline, in changes in her worship, and by forging

new spiritual weapons of her own. Under the

Guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church adopted

the custom of fasting communion, and it became

a universal one. She changed her public peniten-

tial discipline and substituted for it private sacer-

dotal confession. She made use of Eucharistic

Vestments and of Eucharistic Lights. She no

longer in the Liturgy bade the unbaptized and

others to depart before the consecration of the

sacred elements, but allowed the faithful, though

not always receiving, to be present at the Holy

Sacrifice. Although not on the same plane with

these, she introduced incense as an adjunct of her

worship and it became universally adopted. The

use of unleavened wafer bread on the other hand,

which is used among us only as a matter of con-

venience and has no doctrinal significance, is not

a Catholic custom. As the oneness of the whole

Church in heaven and earth became more widely

realized and its worship felt to he one, the saints



VINCENTIAN RULE. 19

were invoked, just as we call on all, even inani-

mate things, in the Benedicite, to praise the Lord.

When evils were developed from the practice, our

own Church, acting within her rights, omitted

these invocations from her public services.

Thus the test of Catholicity of Church prac-

tices is not "Quod Semper, Quod ubique,” but

—

what has become the commonly accepted usage of

the Church throughout Christendom. All the

practices above mentioned have obtained in all

parts of the Church, and have only fallen some-

what into disuse in the Anglican Church in evil times.

While thankful for the benefits which we have

received from those lights of orthodoxy, the great

post-Reformation Anglican divines, we ought as

Catholics no more to follow English theology ex-

clusively than Alexandrian, though Alexandria

produced a Dionysius, an Athanasius, and a Cyril.

Our loyalty, if we would be true to Christ, must

not be narrowed into following these Anglican di-

vines alone, while we honor all of them as theo-

logians and venerate some as saints. As true

Catholics we must primarily be loyal to that One,

Holy, Catholic Church which Christ founded,

rather than to any one of those divisions, be it

Greek, or Roman, or Anglican, which the sins of

man has made.



II.

What is Catholic ?

1T0D speaks to us through His Church. We all
XM need two conversions. We need to be con-
verted from sin and take Christ for our Saviour,

and to be converted to the Church and have her

for our Mother. If a person has only experienced

one of these operations he is only a half converted

man.

Mother Church, like any other mother, expects

her young children whom she gathers about her
knees and teaches them her Catechism, to believe

what she says, because she sits in the seat of

authority and is wiser than they. But with true

solicitude for their welfare, she desires them not

to remain in the infant class, and believe merely

because she says so, but to exercise their own pow-



VINCENTIAN RULE. 21

ers of reason and understanding and come to see

that her teaching is true for themselves. So in

corroboration of her teaching she points them to

the Holy Scriptures and Tradition. “If any one

wishes,” says St. Vincent, “to fortify himself with

the Catholic faith” (notice he does not say dem-

onstrate the truth of it), “he must do so by the

authority of the Divine Law and the tradition of

the Catholic Church.”

In the Holy Scriptures or Divine Law he will

find confirmation that the Church’s teaching is

true, and in Tradition how the Holy Spirit has

guided the Church in understanding them.

Scripture and Tradition are to go together. For

it is not every doctrine that can be proved from

Holy Writ without the aid of Tradition, and so

St. Vincent tells us to apply Tradition to Scrip-

ture. We must, he says, “receive the Holy Scrip-
ture in the Catholic sense.”

Trained up in the Church we must read Scrip-

ture with our inherited presuppositions. Here

St. Vincent is at one with our best modern philo-

sophical thought. It is not by reason alone we

know anything. It is the whole Man that knows.
And he knows according to his presupposition.

He must feel his need of a Saviour before he can
become a Christian. He must be converted from



22 CATHOLICITY AND THE

Protestantism and become Catholic minded before

he can understand the Catholic religion.

Construed together, and in the light which the

Church gives her children, both Scripture and

Tradition will be found capable of such interpre-

tations as will be in accord with her living utter-

ance, and so confirmatory of it.

Tradition is usually divided into three heads,

called universality, antiquity, and consent. This

is the way in which St. Vincent of Lerins divided

it, and it has been commonly accepted. The faith

as delivered to the Church’s children must be

capable of bearing the three tests, of
"Quod

ubique, quod semper, quod ub omnibus. This

rule requires some discrimination and care in the

application of its several parts.

First, that which is propounded as of faith

must be the utterance of the whole Church. It is

what the living Church everywhere to-day pro-

claims as the faith. These two points, the living

utterance and the universal promulgation St. Vin-

cent recognizes. He says “we follow universality

by confessing that to be the true faith which the

whole Church throughout the world professes.”

He does not say what the Church has professed,

but what the Church professes to-day. Here he

recognizes the voice of the living Church. And



VINCENTIAN RULE. 23

it is what she says, not in one nationality or branch

of the Church, hut that which she proclaims every-

where. Here is universality. The reason for

this is that the Church is a solidarity and that

apart from the utterances of the solidarity no local

Church or teacher has authority to bind in matters

of faith.

But it may be asked, may not some new doc-

trine have crept in and so temporarily the Church

of any one age be misled ? To guard against this

danger we must apply St. Vincent’s next test, viz.,

the appeal to antiquity. The appeal to antiquity

is to guard against novelty. In proof or dis-

proof of novelty two points are to be noticed.

One is that the appeal to antiquity does not neces-

sarily mean an appeal to the first age. Thus in

St. Vincent’s account of the Council of Ephesus

he mentions eleven fathers who were quoted. But

of these, eight belonged to the fourth and fifth

centuries, three to the third, and none earlier.

This Council was held early in the fifth century

and St. Vincent wrote his treatise three years

afterward. Antiquity then, according to his prac-

tice, does not mean necessarily the first age. Thus

a doctrine is not proved to be novel because in the

scanty records of the first age, it may not be found.

The second point relates to the number of



24 CATHOLICITY AND THE

authorities by which novelty is proved or dis-
proved. If a doctrine can be proved to have been

generally used in ancient times then it is seen not

to be novel. “We follow antiquity/
5

says St.

Vincent, “by in no wise receding from those
senses that the holy Elders and Fathers (cel-
ebrasse

) set forth or commonly held .
55

If a doc-

trine is found to be absolutely unknown, then on
the other hand, it is to be rejected as being novel.

But it is not to be rejected as novel because it is
not to be found in all or the majority of the

Fathers. The test of novelty is satisfied as we
have seen in St. Vincent’s appeal to Ephesus.

The existence of the doctrine is sufficiently cer-
tified by the reference to it by some of the accred-
ited Fathers bearing witness to it as the Church’s

received teaching.

And now we come to the third test. The pro-
claimed doctrine must not only be free from the
charge of novelty, but it must have been an ac-
cepted one. By whom must it have been ac-
cepted? St. Vincent says, “ab omnibus

”
But

he does not mean by “all,” all who called them-
selves Christians. He appeals to the “Holy
Elders” and “the Holy Fathers.” We must ex-
clude then the heretics and schismatics, those who
have been cast out or left the Church. Also all



VINCENTIAN RULE. 25

those who, abiding in her, do not acknowledge her

authority and are not walking by her rule of faith.

Nor does he mean all the faithful in every age

and clime, for this it would be impossible to prove

;

and also there would have been no sense in his say-

ing, “Quod ubique, quod semper
”

for these tests

would have been included in this one.

A doctrine to be believed must, he says, be
proclaimed by the living Church, seen to be no

novel doctrine, and one which has throughout the

Church become accepted. It took time for the

whole Church to adopt the definition of Nicea con-

cerning our Lord’s consubstantiality with the

Father. The doctrine of our Lord’s deity was

part of the true faith from the beginning. But

until defined and accepted by all, this further prac-

tical test, that St. Vincent gave to aid perplexed

Christians in his day, could not be applied to it.

If we would know the faith, first listen to what

the living Church everywhere throughout the

world, East and West, declares. Next, see by

appeal to antiquity that it is not a novelty. Fi-

nally note if it has the imprimatur of acceptance.

For this last note is not only a corroborating wit-

ness, but the seal of authority. So St. Vincent

speaks of it as “the authority of ecclesiastical tra-

dition.”



26 CATHOLICITY AHD THE

The Church’s appeal to “antiquity” proves her

faithfulness to her trust; the appeal to “consent”

confirms her teaching. The reason is this : it is

because the Holy Ghost speaks through the whole

body, in the utterance of the Ecclesia Docens,

that gives it its completed authorization.

Apply these tests to our Anglican position.

We reject the Church of Rome, differing from
her, in Church government, the Rule of Faith,,

in doctrine, discipline, and worship. We reject
the papal supremacy as overthrowing the Apostolic

government of the Church. We reject her doc-
trines of the Immaculate Conception and Papal

Infallibility, as thereby she cuts herself off from

the communion of the universal Faith. Also be-

cause these dogmas have no support in Scripture

and Tradition. Because she interprets the texts

of Scripture she alleges in their defense a sense

unused by the Fathers. There are many other

reasons, but we rej ect these new definitions of hers

as being what St. Vincent calls “a new contagion

which is trying to spread its foulness over the

whole Church.”

It has been asked whether St. Vincent’s rule

applies to Practice as well as Doctrine? It is

applicable only to doctrine and to such practices

as involve doctrine. St. Vincent says, “which



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26 CATHOLICITY AND THE

The Church's appeal to ''antiquity" proves her

faithfulness to her trust ; the appeal to "consent

confirms her teaching. The reason is this : it is

because the Holy Ghost speaks through the whole

body, in the utterance of the Ecclesia Docens

,

that gives it its completed authorization.

Apply these tests to our Anglican position.

We reject the Church of Rome, differing from

her, in Church government, the Rule of Faith^

in doctrine, discipline, and worship. We reject

the papal supremacy as overthrowing the Apostolic

government of the Church. We reject her doc-

trines of the Immaculate Conception and Papal

Infallibility, as thereby she cuts herself off from

the communion of the universal Faith. Also be*

cause these dogmas have no support in Scripture

and Tradition. Because she interprets the texts

of Scripture she alleges in their defense a sense

unused by the Fathers. There are many other

reasons, but we reject these new definitions of hers

as being what St. Vincent calls "a new contagion

which is trying to spread its foulness over the

whole Church."

It has been asked whether St. Vincent's rule

applies to Practice as well as Doctrine? It is

applicable only to doctrine and to such practices

as involve doctrine. St. Vincent says, "which



Keeping Cent.

On Wednesday of this week, called Ash Wednesday, the Holy
Church calls her children apart from the World, to begin the forty

days of Lent.

Lent is a season of special retirement from the pleasures of the

World, for more careful, devout, and frequent prayer, for abstinence

in matters of food, so far as is consistent with health, and, in general,

it is a season calling us to works of holiness and devotion, and for help-

ing us to live honest and Christian lives and to prepare us for the life

after death.

Life is too real to be trifled with; death too sure to be forgotten.

It is to fit us for both, that God calls us to this special season of fasting

and prayer.

We ask each member of the congregation to make an earnest reso-
lution, with the help of God, on each of the following matters

:

I. To offer private prayer to God, on your knees, even though very
briefly, every morning and evening.

II. To attend church regularly at every service; not to be absent
except for some cause which you would feel to be sufficient excuse to
make if summoned before God Himself; and to be in your place in
church before the service begins.

III. To deny yourself some stated luxury, either in food or in some
other form of enjoyment on every day (except Sunday) from Ash
Wednesday until Easter. Decide in advance on some one, and then
keep to your resolution. Be honest with God, and don’t resolve to give
up something you would not have any way.

IV. Keep for God the money saved by your Lenten self-denial,
and give it to Him, with any other you may have been able to earn for
Him, through the offertory on Easter morning.

V. Keep from all places of public amusement during Lent.

And remember, please, that all of this will be of no use unless you
are really in earnest in your intention to follow Jesus when He leads
into hard places, as well as into easy ones. Is the Christian life too

hard? Think of what your Saviour endured for you. Think more of
Jesus and less of yourself.

Please observe this Lent, therefore, as a time of holiness ; that when

Easter shall come, it may find you nearer to the Divine Pattern whose
life you are following, than you are to-day; and that when God may
be ready to call you out of this world of pain and hardship, you may
be ready to live with those pure and holy ones who, “having finished

their course in faith, do now rest from their labors.”

LIVING CHURCH SERIES, No. SI.—This Leaflet is sold at the rate of SO cents
per hundred, postpaid. The Young Chubchman Co.,cMilwaukee, Wis.



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LIVING

CHURCH

SERIES,

No-

51.—

This

Leaflet

is

sold

at

the

rate

of

50

cents

per

hundred,

postpaid.

The

Young

Churchman

Co.,cMilwaukee,

Wis.



VINCENTIAN RULE. 27

ancient consent of the holy Fathers is with great

care to be investigated and followed by us, not in

all the lesser questions of the Divine Law, but

only or at any rate principally in the Rule of

Faith.” In the case of rebaptizing of heretics,

which was a case of a practice connected with a

doctrine, St. Vincent applied his rule to it and

condemned it. Other practices, like confession,

express the Catholic doctrine of the power of the

Keys; Fasting Communion, non-communicating

attendance, and Eucharistic adoration are expres-

sive of the doctrine of the Heal Objective Pres-

ence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The

power of the Keys is stated in Holy Scripture and

fully evidenced by antiquity. The mode of their

application is a matter of adjustment. To-day

and for many years it has been by private adminis-

tration. The doctrine of the Beal Presence is

stated by Christ in the Holy Scriptures and by the

consentient witness of Antiquity and the living

voice of the Church to-day. Fasting Communion

as an act of reverent devotion and the allowance of

non-communicating attendance as a concession in

the Church’s missionary wisdom, are practices

which have grown out of this belief. For acts of

Eucharistic adoration we have the testimony of

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechetical lectures.



28 CATHOLICITY AND THE

Theodoret bears witness to the custom of the East,

St. Chrysostom for the Greek Church, St. Am-

brose for the West, St. Augustine for Africa. All

these Fathers speak of the custom as a matter of

course and there is no record of any protest against

the practice. It is therefore a practice which can

stand the test of the Vincentian Canon. No one
adores the elements. But beneath the outward

manifestation, in a way unknown to science or

philosophy, there is the unseen Christ, and to Him
our worship is due.

Such things as clerical vestments for the dif-

ferent Church functions and her ministers, the

sign of the cross in Baptism and at other times,

lights with their beautiful symbolical meaning

as St. Jerome says of joy and of Christ as the

Light of the World, incense so full of Scriptural

meaning and significant of prayer and our accept-

ance only through the merits of Christ, are usages

which by their general adoption by the Church are

Catholic ones. It does not matter exactly when

or how they began. They are the devotional ex-

pressions of the Church’s increasing love of her

Lord in rebuke to the coldness of the doubting and

the denials of heretics. The use of wafer bread is

not a Catholic custom, but is only a matter allowed

by our Church as a matter of convenience. The



VINCENTIAN RULE. 29

name Protestant Episcopal, we may add in this
connection, has not the hall mark of Catholic

upon it, though doubtless some will contend for its

retention with all the heat of orthodox heroes con-

tending for an article of the Faith. No Catholic
but acknowledges the right of a national Church

to regulate the use of these things. No one of
common sanity desires to revive the discipline or

practices of primitive or mediaeval times. Our

American Church has repealed the rubric that

binds the English Church to the ceremonial of the

time of King Edward the VI. She has wisely left

her children free, subordinately to her express

legislation and with the consent of their Ordin-

aries, to make what is Catholic their own.

We will delay our readers with but one further
question. It has been said that the doctrines of

such loyal and holy men as Pusey and Keble and

Carter and Liddon and all the host of learned

Tractarians were innovations and unknown before

their time in the Anglican Communion. In refu-

tation of this erroneous opinion we will quote a

few utterances of some few of our recognized great

Anglican writers.

Thus Bishop Jeremy Taylor says of Confes-

sion : “It is a very pious preparation to the Holy

Sacrament that we confess our sins to the minister



30 CATHOLICITY AND THE

of religion.” And again, “But the priest’s proper
power of absolving, that is of pardoning (which

is in no wise commmunicable to any man who is
not consecrated for the ministry), is a giving to

the penitent the means of eternal pardon, the ad-

mitting him to the sacraments of the Church and

the peace and communion of the faithful, because

that is the only way really to obtain the pardon of

God.”

Of Eucharistic adoration, Archbishop Bram-

hall wrote : “The Sacrament is to be adored, said

the Council of Trent, that is formally the Body

and Blood of Christ, say some of your authors,

we say the same. The Sacrament is to be adored,

say others, that is the species of bread and wine.

That we deny and esteem it idolatry. Should

we therefore charge the whole Church (of Rome)

with idolatry ?”

Non-communicating attendance. The very

fact that at the Coronation service, although only

half a dozen receive, yet the whole congregation

remains and that none of our great divines ever

protested against this, but, on the other hand, took

part in various coronations, is a sufficient answer

as to its introduction being till lately unknown.

Of Unleavened Bread, Bishop Cosin says that

the present rubric in the English Prayer Book



VINCENTIAN RULE. 31

permits the use of either leavened or unleavened

bread, and so do many others.

Incense. Incense was used in Bishop An-

drewe’s Chapel and in Ely Cathedral almost down

to our own times, and Archbishop Sancroft pro-

vided a form for the benediction of a censer. In-

deed the Ornaments Rubric in the English Prayer

Book calls for its use.

The number of the Sacraments. Bishop Tay-

lor says: “It is none of the doctrine of the

Church of England that there are two Sacraments

only, but that two only are necessary to salvation.”

Invocation of Saints. Bishop Eorbes of Scot-

land, in his Considerationes said: “Let not the

very ancient practice received by the universal

Church as well Greek as Latin, of addressing the

Angels and Saints after the manner we have men-

tioned be condemned or rejected as impious or

even as vain or foolish.”

Purgatory. What the Anglican Church ob-

jects to about Purgatory is that Christ has
not

made a full satisfaction for sin, that there remains

a debt due to God’s justice, which can only
be

satisfied by punishment hereafter, which punish-

ment is like hell, only not eternal, and from
this

persons are released by the Pope on prayers,

money payments, and good deeds. But prayers



32 CATHOLICITY AND THE

for the dead is in the opinion of our Church far

different. Jeremy Taylor says that our Lord

found this practice in use and that He must tacitly
have approved of it, which could not be the case

if the practice were not innocent, pious, and full

of charity.

Of course we are not saying that each of these
divines approved of all these practices. In their

struggles with papist and protestant they some^

times apparently seem to condemn in one place

what they approve of in another.

For instance, while Bishop Taylor says as

against the papists that we must not adore the
Sacrament, he says against the Puritans, “If

Christ be not present, whom or whose Body do we
receive, but if Christ be present . . . why do
we not worship ?”

This much we know, that there would be no
difference between Pusey and Andrewes on the

Real Presence, between Bramhall and Keble on

the Eucharistic Adoration, between Thorndyke

and Mortimer on the Ploly Sacrifice, between

Percival and Forbes on the Invocation of the

Saints, between Carter and Jeremy Taylor on

Confession. The greatest ingenuity cannot place

in contrast the Consideration.es of Bishop Forbes



VINCENTIAN RULE. 33

of Edinburgh and The Explanations of the Thirty-
Nine Articles by Bishop Eorbes of Brechin.

Bishop Cosin was persecuted as a ritualist in

his day, and Mackonochie in ours. The Caroline
Divines were spoken against as papists in their

time, and the Tractarians in these.

These venerable Fathers fought the battle of

Faith in their age and bequeathed their heritage

of Orthodoxy to us. They are our masters in

Theology, our models in piety, and we trust our
advocates before the Throne of God.



III.

What is Catholic ?

$
T. VINCENT advised the Christian perplexed
by the contrariety of opinions in his day to

test any proposed doctrine. He was not to believe

just because he was so told. He was not to shirk

his responsibility by saying it was the Church’s

business to teach and he as an individual had noth-

ing to do in the matter. It was his duty as a mem-

ber of the Body of Christ to test any proposed doc-

trine by Sripture and Tradition. He was to

search the Scriptures and be able by his own study

to give a “reason for the hope that was in him.”

We may be rightly impatient with that view of
private judgment which makes every man judging

apart from the Church and Tradition his own

guide and an infallible pope to himself. On the



VINCENTIAN RULE. 35

other hand, we are not to accept the view that once

having found there is a Church to teach us, we

have nothing more to do, but to kick the ladder

by which we have ascended to this pontoon from

under our feet. This lesson St. Vincent teaches

may well be laid to heart by all who call them-

selves Catholics, whether Roman or Anglican.

“Search and see.
7 ’

“Tolle Lege

”

Take and

read. The Scriptures and Tradition all, St. Vin-

cent says, should read and study.

By Tradition, St. Vincent meant, as we have

seen, three things. Did the whole living Church

propose the doctrine, was it free from the charge

of novelty, had it been concurred in by the faith-

ful ?

We have ventured to add to Vincent’s rule one
further test: the practical one of Christian Ex-

perience. What, we may ask ourselves, does the

Christian Experience or Christian Consciousness

bear witness to in any matter ?

It is certainly a very useful test, to some minds

more powerful than any other, and it may by

God’s blessing help to draw all schools of Church-

men closer together. This, we may remark if our

Church is to fulfil its noble mission, is the thing

preeminently to be labored for by us all to-day.

Now there are those whose natural conserva-



36 CATHOLICITY AND THE

tive tendency of mind leads them with St. Vincent

to make their appeal to Holy Scripture and the

Authority of the Church. There are others who

naturally turn more to the practical results of

Christianity as seen in conduct and character, and

rest their belief on the approval of Reason and

Conscience and the certification of truth by the

Voice within. Then there are our Evangelical

brethren who, while loyal to the Prayer Book, make

the Word the lantern to their feet, and the indwell-

ing Holy Spirit its interpreter. But I trust we may

see that these three modes are not exclusive of one

another, but may walk as friends peacefully to-

gether lending to each other a mutual support.

May they make a threefold cord, the less easily

broken because the strands somewhat differ.

But before saying how this may be, let us make

reply to an objection that is brought against us

by our Roman brethren. “You Anglicans, or

some of you, pretend to believe in the authority

of the Living Voice of the Church; how can a

Church, which you say is divided into three parts

and out of communion with one another, have a

Living Voice ? To have a Living Voice, the Body

must have a living Mouth, and your conception

does not provide for one.”

We make reply that by the Holy Spirit’s in-



VmCENTIAN RULE. 37

dwelling in the Body of Christ, the Church is

enabled to fulfil her prophetical office in declaring

the faith of the Gospel. He enables her to pre-

serve the faith in two ways. First, by guiding

the Church in council assembled to protect the

faith agains rising heresies by suitable definitions.

But when the conditions are such that a council

may be overborne by the world’s power, or de-

ceived by forged documents, or so involved in

human frailty that it will decide amiss, then God

by His Providence allows of divisions and takes

away temporarily from the Church the power of

making an authoritative utterance. In the first

way He inspires the Church to speak, in the second

He lays PXis Hand on her mouth and keeps her

silent. Thus the divisions of Christendom have

been the very means which Christ has used to

prevent the Church from committing herself

formally to error. But as each portion of the

Church, East and West, proclaims what the whole

undivided Church has set forth in its councils

and sealed with its authority and what is held in

common by them all, each portion speaks with the

authority of the whole and declares the faith. In

this way Christ dwelling in His Church speaks

in each branch, saying “this is the way walk ye

in it.” The difference here between us and Rome



38 CATHOLICITY AND THE

is not that we have no living voice and she has

;

that she has authority and we have not, but for

what we each have authority. While for some of

her doctrines Rome has only that part of the

Church which is under the Pope
;
for all we teach

as of faith we have the united utterance of the

whole of Christendom.

And now to return to St. Vincent and his rule.

An objection from an opposite quarter is some-
times brought against it that it ties us too much to

the past. The world is whirling onward with gi-

gantic energy. Discovery is daily opening gates

with enchanting vistas. The darkness of ignor-

ance and superstition is passing before the new

dawn. “The past—it belongs to libraries and
bookworms

;
it belongs to graves and sextons ; it

belongs to ruins and antiquaries. It has no claim

on the living, working, thinking men, who are

moving the world.” Let us in religion break with

authority as we have in science. Let us break

with Tradition and old dogmas and this antiquated

reverence for Scripture. Let us be men of the

twentieth century, not of mediaeval or primitive

times. Let us, in a word, be progressive.

Our answer to this line of thought is the com-

mon sense one that it is impossible for us to break

with the past. We are very largely what the past



VINCENTIAN RUEE. 39

has made us. To break with Tradition and dogma

and Holy Scripture is to cease being Christian.

But if we cease to be Christians we go back to

paganism and so cease to be men of progress. For

with Christianity as in no other religion is the

idea of progress inextricably interwoven. It is

its very life. In this it differs from the religions

of the East and all others. For Christianity is

built upon a gradual and progressive revelation

of God to man made according to His tender

consideration of His children’s needs. This un-

folding of the Mind of God, throughout the ages

at last culminates in Christ. And Christ the

embodiment of the Eternal Light and Life—is

Progress Itself. He is not only progress, but the

element of progress is manifest in His method.

He teaches progressively. He leads the Apostles

slowly on from one stage of discernment to a

higher respecting Himself. Yet He has not even

at the close of His ministry announced to them

all that it is essential they should know. “I

have many things to say unto you but ye cannot

bear them now.” The Holy Spirit when He came

was to unfold Christ’s seed truths into their

ripened fruit. See how this was done. Christ

had spoken of His Blood, as the Blood of the Yew

Covenant, and the Apostles expanded it into the



40 CATHOLICITY AND THE

doctrine of the Atonement. He had suggested
another mode of God’s dealing with man in the
parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, and out

from it and others like it there comes to us the

blessed doctrine of Salvation through the grace

of Christ. The Eastern Magi came to Bethle-

hem; the Syro-phoenecian woman gains by faith
her petition; the Master speaks of sheep other

than of His fold who must hear His Voice, and

the truth subsequently dawns upon the Apostles

of the breaking down of the old barriers and of a

wider covenant, which should take in the whole

Gentile world. Christ had said nothing about the

forms of worship, but had Himself worshipped in

the Synagogue and the Temple. And so under
the Spirit’s guidance the Church developed her

two-fold forms of worship of Synagogue and Tem-

ple. The Recitation of the Divine Office as seen

in Morning and Evening Prayer being one, and

the spiritual sacrifice of the Eucharist being the

other. The latter summing up the meaning of the
old sacrifices, and setting forth the spiritual sacri-

fice of the Hew Covenant with all the glory that
art and music and ceremonial can give it. For

if the ministration “written and engraven in

stones was glorious . . . how shall not the
ministration of the Spirit” . . . “exceed in

glory ?”



VINCENTIAN RULE. 41

So, too, the Church, acting under the Divine

Guidance, was led on by outward circumstances as

well as interior prompting to the unfolding of the

Apostolic College into three orders of the sacred

Ministry; and the constraint of fierce heretical

controversy led her to see with illuminated exact-

ness the union of our Lord’s dual natures in the

one Person of the Eternal Son. Again, they real-

ized that Christ as the Good Shepherd, had led

His sheep out from the old fold of Judaism, not

that they might remain unsheltered and roam at

will, but that He might gather all into the one

larger Fold, where they were to be under-shep-

herds to Him. They received their power when

the Spirit came and the Hew Fold of the Cath-

olic Church came into organized being.

Men objecting to the Church’s Conciliar defini-

tions forget that like the stone rim of an Eastern

well, they only define the limits within which the

living waters of the mind may rise, they do not re-

press active thought.

There is a distinction to be observed be-

tween those dogmatic definitions which protect

the Faith and those speculative systems of

theology which are the product of theologians.

What we need is a more vivd realization that the

Church is indwelt by a Living Present Christ, and



42 CATHOLICITY AND THE

His Presence and that of the Spirit makes her a

Living Organism and a Living Church. Adopt-

ing the words of Liddon, we may say, “Christ is
movement, and yet He is identity: He is to us
what He was to our forefathers, and yet He is
ever displaying to each successive generation new

aspects of His power and His perfections, to those

at least who hold a true communion with Him.

He is at one and the same time stability and
progress, here preserving the unalterable lines

of Llis one perfect revelation of Himself—there
leading us on to new and enriched perceptions of

its range and significance.”

Is it not well then to add the test of Christian

Experience to St. Vincent’s Rule ? In addressing

those without, her appeal takes on a somewhat

different character. The need of religion must

be first felt as a want before it can become a saving

grace. But as to those without so to those within

the Church appeals to men’s understanding and

conscience. Illuminated by the Spirit they must

bear their witness to the truth of the Gospel and

its transforming Power. The Church first teaches

her children on the strength of her office and

authority to receive the creed; and next having

appealed to their illuminated intelligence and con-

science, enables them to understand it
;
lastly, she



VINCENTIAN RULE. 43

leads and trains them by acting it out and living

it to make it a part of themselves. So they pass

from childlike acceptance, and matured belief to

the final and higher stage of knowledge. The

soul comes not to believe only but to know God

and Christ, for they dwell in Him, and He in

them. “I do not deny,” said Liddon, “that the

language of the written Word and the grace of the

Sacraments can alone reach the soul through the

organs of sense, so that if all the copies of the

Bible could be destroyed and the administration

of the Sacraments prevented, the ordinary means

of grace would be cut off ; but, when it is driven

to bay and in the last resort, the soul falls back

upon a certificated presence which is independent

of sense. The world in the first ages could pro-

scribe the Christian worship. It could destroy the

Scriptures. But its legislation was just as power-

less against the Presence of the Divine Kedeemer

in the inmost sanctuary of the soul as they would

have been against the clouds and the sunlight.

Our first fathers knew they had within their hearts

One who would not desert them, One who would

be a light to them when all else was darkness, One

who when all outward aids were denied, was of

Himself ‘a well of water springing up to everlast-

ing life.’
”



44 CATHOLICITY AND THE

Having this progressive character of the indi-

vidual Christian life in mind we can more easily

bear with those who differ from us. It was a

wise remark of Archbishop Whately when asked

what he thought of a Unitarian : “It depends/’ he

said, “in which way he is travelling.” So now it

is with all Churchmen. Whither tendest thou?

God’s immanence in nature and so our natural

union with Him is recognized by us all. It was
so earnestly taught by Pusey and the early Trac-

tarians that some called them Pantheists.

When Churchmen come to realize the fur-

ther truth that what God is to the natural

universe, that Christ the God-Man is to the

new creation, and that it is by as actual a

participation and union with Plis Nature as with

that of a First Adam, we can attain the gift

of Eternal Life, the theological differences be-

tween the different schools in the Church will

melt away. Just also as the sects see the value

of the appeal to the general consciousness of

Christians they will look toward the Church. For

then thev will see for themselves that we have

something they have not. For if one thing is

clear it is this : that in every part of the Catholic

Church, East and West, its members as tested by

their professions, devotional writings, hymns, and



VINCENTIAN RULE. 45

prayers bear witness to having in the Blessed

Sacrament a Beal Presence and a Gift that, save

in a few individual cases, the Protestants do not

claim to have.



IV.

Catholicity—The Testimony of Experience.

771 HAT has the experience of Churchmen to tell
us of these doctrines—of the Real Presence,

of Adoration, of Sacredotal Confession, of Rit-

ualism ? Let us begin with the first of these.

Contrast the belief and devotion which is to be

found in the Orthodox Russian and Greek and

Latin Churches and wherever the Catholic

faith has been recovered in our own, with the or-

dinary belief found in the sects respecting their

communion. Their worship expresses what their

religious experience tells them they do and receive.

Catholic Worship testifies to a sacrifice that is

offered, and to the Real Presence of Christ’s Body

and Blood. Why should not the consciousness of
three-fourths of Christendom be accepted to a fact



VINCENTIAN RULE. 47

which they have experienced? Where there are

Orders and a Catholic Liturgy, the worshippers

bear witness to doing and receiving something dif-

ferent from that which the sects claim. We admit
the latter have what they claim to have. We be-
lieve the testimony their worship gives to their

belief. Is it illiberal to say they have what their

experience tells them they have : preachers of

Christ and a memorial communion service, and

to deny to them a priesthood and sacrificial Offer-

ing and Presence which they repudiate ? But if

we trust their experience, why should not they

trust ours ?

If they say most forcibly to the unbeliever and

sinner, “Believe and trust in Christ and you will

experience the peace of acceptance we Christians

have,” why may not Catholics ask them to trust

the experience of so many millions of their fellow

Christians in all lands and from the earliest times,

and of the most saintly men, declaring that where

there are orders and a Catholic Liturgy, there is a

Real Presence and Gift which by their mode of

worship and ordinary statements they acknowledge

they do not possess ?

Adoration goes along with the belief in the

Real Objective Presence of Christ in the Eucha-

rist. We do not define the mode of union between



48 CATHOLICITY AISTD THE

the two parts of the Sacrament. It is by no meth-

od known to science. It is by no physical change.
But believing in Christ’s own words, He there
makes Himself present to ns. Any one who be-
lieves this even in the most nntechnical way, who
merely acknowledges that in some nnnsnal manner

Christ is present, must feel that an act of Adora-

tion is due to Him. It comes from the law of

courtesy, to say nothing more, that every act of

condescension on the part of a superior, demands

an act of acknowledgment. If the King draws
nigh and salutes us, we must salute Him in re-
turn. And our salute to Jesus our King is an act
of homage. Wherever He is, as the saintly Bishop
Andrewes said, Christ is to be adored. Thus the

Christian who believes that His Lord is present
under the veils by which He mercifully hides the
glory of His Person from us, can but cast himself

at His Feet in adoration. And so while it is true
that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered to the

Eternal Father and the prayers in general are

made to Him, yet the Church must in her Gloria
in Excelsis address himself to Jesus present after

“the communion is done,” and say “Thou only art

holy; Thou only art the Lord; Thou that takest
away the Sins of the World have mercy upon us.”

The faithful believer in Christ as present can but



VINCENTIAN RULE. 49

worship Him along with the whole Company of
Heaven, as the adorable, true, and only Son.

Belief in the Sacramental Presence of Christ

seems to be, in our day, the touch stone of faith,

and adoration is its natural manifestation. Go
where you will in Christendom, belief in the one

is ordinarily accompanied by the other. To those
few who hold back from any mistaken fear, the
assurance comes from millions of Catholics : “We
have worshipped Him and He has by the Blessings
bestowed accepted our homage.” The Roman
Communion may have its errors, but its devotion
to Jesus in the Sacrament, makes it dear to God.

Not till our communion realizes the Treasure she
possesses and her faith and love centers about her

Lord and honors Him so condescendingly present
with her, will she be able to accomplish her great

mission. Money and intellect will never over-
throw the walls of Jericho, but Christ’s presence

will. Such is the testimony borne by Christian

experience.

What has it to say about fasting communion ?
It is an act of love and devotion to our Blessed

Lord.

It began in very early times, became an eccle-

siastical custom, was made a Church law, one
which has never been formally repealed by our



50 CATHOLICITY AND THE

Church, though it has fallen into abeyance. No

canonist would say it was a mortal sin for us not

to come fasting, and no theologian would assert it

to be any dishonor to our Lord’s Body and Blood

to take food before receiving, any more than it is

to take food, which is allowed to be done, after it.

Basting is, however, an act of love. This raises

the whole question of asceticism. The Indian

Brahmins and the Manicheans regarded the body

or matter, as something evil from which they

ought by macerations to deliver themselves. The

Catholic knows that all that God has created is

good. Philosophers and Christians admit the need

of self-discipline and self-denial. The Catholic

does not disregard this duty. But the Church as

a whole and the saints in particular have found a

delight and joy in sharing in the life of their Mas-

ter. How miserably petty is the argument that we

are not bound to fast, because no rubric or canon

obliges us to do so ! What an ungenerous spirit is

shown in the objection that it is not of obligation,

because it cannot be proved to have existed in the

days of the martyrs. Perhaps not, O, twentieth

century Churchmen, living in ease and often in

luxury! Where do you show and bear in your

bodv “the marks of the Lord Jesus?” If Christ-

endom were asked why she fasts to-day ere she re-



VINCENTIA5T KULE. 51

ceives the heavenly Food, she would say it came

to her out of a pierced Hand, and she fasted be-

cause she loved Him.

What has Christian Experience to say about

Sacerdotal Confession '? It is of no account to

say of it as of some other good things, that it may

be abused. The Bible has suffered more than any

other book in this way. It is of no force to say

some surgeons and physicians are unskilful and

so we ought not to use any of them. In giving

the power to His priests to absolve, Christ foresaw

the future, and knew what was best. The objec-

tions against confession are made mostly by those

who have had no experience of its benefits. The

world and Satan hate it, but the Church rejoices

in it. It is the tribunal of mercy. It is Jesus

as the Good Shepherd among His flock. It re-

stores the sinner, develops a manly character, helps

to make saints.

It has two sides, man’s side and Christ’s. It

gives to man an opportunity, by making a confes-

sion to God in the presence of His priest, to make

an act of reparation such as otherwise he cannot

make. For since the Incarnation our sins have

been committed, not against the Invisible God but

against the person of Jesus Christ. As honor

always prompts that an apology or reparation



52 CATHOLICITY AHD THE

should be made according to the nature of the

offense, so having wronged the Man Christ Jesus,
it is the way of honor to make the acknowledgment
in the presence of the man who represents Him.

We are apt to forget Christ’s side in absolu-
tion. He loves to exercise it. He bought the
right by His Cross and Passion. It cost Him
much. But nothing more delights Him than,
through His priests, as they exercise the ministry

of reconciliation, to apply the pardoning, cleans-

ing power of His Precious Blood.

And what is the result on the Church and
Christian character? We may admit that Prot-
estant countries are more prosperous, more civ-

ilized, more advanced than Catholic ones. In all

that pertains to this world, Protestantism is su-

perior to Catholicity. But so far as faith and

spirituality are concerned, it is otherwise. Con-

trast the villages of northern Hew England with
those of the French Canadians. It is, however,

rather by its highest results that the value of any

religious system is to be tested. Let us note

herein three things.

First: Wherever we find a lack of the

Church’s means of grace or of appreciation of

them, we find less spiritual insight. The Prot-

estant German writers are often great in intellect,



VINCENTIAN RULE. 53

but not living in the sphere of divine illumination,

their intellects only hinder their spiritual appre-

hension of the Gospel. Again, outside the Cath-

olic system there is less knowledge of prayer.

Indeed, of it as an art or of those higher stages

of it and those special communions with God
which enable us to understand how Apostles and

Prophets were inspired, by Protestants there is lit-

tle known. Again, for the highest ideals and

science of the Christian life we must go most fre-

quently to such Catholic books as Thomas a Kem-
pis and the Sancta Sophia

;
not to Protestant ones.

The ordinary spirit can see no difference between

the life of a saint like Pusey and the life of good

men like Charles Kingsley. It has often not the
spiritual capacity to discern a saint, for it does not

like them. But the Oxford movement, noted for

its learning, is yet more noted for the multitudes

of saintly lives it has produced.

Again, Protestantism, with its lack of the Beal

Presence and sacerdotal confession, does not give

us the consecrated lives of the Religious as Cath-

olicism does. “The Religious life,” said Lacor-

daire, “is the finest fruit of the Christian Church,

and Protestantism does not produce it.” Tears

ago the writer heard two sectarians speaking of a

certain hospital which was under the charge of

sisters.



54 CATHOLICITY AND THE

“Why,” one asked, “do not some of our people

consecrate their lives in this way as these High

Church Episcopalians seem to do ?”

“We can’t get them,” was the answer.
“Well then, they must have something we have

not got.”

It is objected against those who are trying

more closely to follow Christ, and who, in loyalty

to our own Church and Prayer Book, are seeking

to recover our inherited Catholic faith and prac-

tice, that they are Ritualists. They use incense,

and wafer bread, and vestments, and much cere-

monial. We can only reply that God is a Rit-
ualist. Americans have never found Ritualism

unmanly. Naught is ever done to attract, or for

show. It is, as testified by their Christian ex-

perience, the outcome of their homage and love.

It is a triviality to fry and confine love’s expres-

sions to those of any past age. Love puts aside

such pedantry, ever seeking to find new expres-

sions of her devotion to her Lord.

“And the glory of our Altars
Is the homage of our love.”

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” said

our Lord. “Why is it,” said Bishop Whipple to

an English prelate, “you can permit such things



VINCENTIAN RULE. 55

to be done by these men?” The English Bishop

replied with tears in his eyes: “Those are the

only men that seem to have found out that those

poor people have souls to be saved.”

“When I went to England,” said Bishop

Whipple, “I was much prejudiced against these

men, as any one of Puritan ancestry could be ; but

their self-denying devotion in giving up all

—

wealth, position in society, and life itself with-

out anything to reward them in this life, led me

to change my mind.”



V.

Two Great Providences.

e
VERY student of the history of the Anglican
Church realizes in what a wonderful way it

has been protected by Divine Providence. It has
been in a remarkable manner restrained and dis-
ciplined and guided like Israel of old. Doubtless
this has been in preparation for the greater,
grander mission of evangelization that is now
opening before her throughout the world. It is

somewhat startling to read that four hundred mil-
lions of people, or about one-fourth of the world’s

population are under British influence or rule.
It requires no prophet’s vision to see that the Latin
race has largely done its aggressive work, and that
apart from the Slavonic Mission for Asia and the
East the era of the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon has
come.



VINCENTIAN KULE. 57

It has come not only with its priceless gifts

of civil liberty and legislative government, but

with its fresh promulgation of God’s Fatherhood

and the Brotherhood of Man. It comes, bringing

the divine revelation of man’s duty to God and his
fellow, hand in hand with the demonstrations of

science with which it is in accord. It comes not

only with the glad assurance of a future life, but

enfolds us in the environment here on earth of

the blessings of a heavenly kingdom. It comes

with the power not only to save men from some
future punishment, but by its teaching and sacra-

mental gifts to deliver men here from doubt and
superstition and the thraldom of sin. It comes

in the power of the Spirit to bring Christ into

men’s lives and homes and so help humanity on

and upwards. It comes bringing to us, in a word,

Catholic Christianity, emancipated from the nar-

rowness of mediaeval scholasticism, the uncertain-

ties and barrenness of Protestantism and the novel

doctrines and worldliness and absolutism of the

Papacy.

Looking back we may see that one, and perhaps
the greatest providential blessing vouchsafed our

Church, was the early death of King Edward VI.

To be sure, he was followed by Queen Mary of
unhappy memory. But the evils wrought by!



58 CATHOLICITY AND THE

Mary were recoverable ones. Had, however,

King Edward lived, the Ecclesia Anglicana would

have lost its Catholic heritage. With all the

tyrannous spirit of a Tudor monarch and all the

narrowness and self-conceit of a reforming Calvin-

istic Protestant, the king would have made the

English Church like unto the deformity of the

continental Geneva reformers. We read in
Strype’s Memorials of Cranmer, that Edward had

determined to make further changes, and if the

Bishops refused, to make them himself by his own

authority. The continuity of the Church would

have been so broken, and her Catholic doctrines

so marred that she would have largely lost her her-

itage and become a withered branch of Christ’s

Church. She was preserved from this destruction

by the merciful removal of this conceited and

fierce “young tiger-cub,” as both Dean Stanley,

We believe, and Dr. Littledale called him. The
Reformation movement then passed through sev-

eral phases and lasted into the next century. The

Church went painfully through her double strug-

gle, first with Romanism and next with Puritan-

ism, and emerged from it in 1662, with our pres-

ent Prayer Book and Ordinal. The Prayer Book

as thus finally established embodies our Reforma-

tion principles, which preserves to us our Holy



VINCENTIAN RULE. 59

Orders and the Sacraments and the Catholic

Faith. As we think of what our Church is, and

the magnificent future before her, we can never

be too devoutly thankful to God for the great

Providence that removed by death and so early

from his place of influence, King Edward VI.

By it the Church was saved.
Another, and we deem it, the second great

Providential blessing vouchsafed the Anglican

Church and one which has occurred in our own

day, is the denial of the validity of our Orders

by the Pope. It, like the former Providence, has

wrought in a wonderful manner for the safety

and preservation of the Anglican Church. It

has helped to unite her members, has dissipated

dreams of corporate union with Rome, has pain-

fully revealed to us by a practical example the

worldly policy of the papacy, has destroyed the

possibility of any belief on our part in the papal

infallibility, has helped to fill the Anglican

Church with new courage and trust, and enabled

her to turn her eyes towards her true mission,

and discern the tremendous work of evangeliza-

tion, if she will but unite her forces, she may do

for God.

We may see this the better by asking ourselves
what would have been the result if the Pope had



60 CATHOLICITY AND THE

decided other than he did ? In the first place, the

hearts of many of onr High Church people would
have gone out to the Pope with unbalanced re-

straint. He would have been regarded as if he
were a very father indeed of all Christendom;

the protector of all who appealed to him; as the

wisely if not divinely appointed judge of contro-

versy
;
and who in the Apostolic See sat in the seat

of authority and wisdom. Nothing can express

the rejoicing that would have been felt and the

enthusiasm that would have been kindled for the

papacy and the trust that would have been created

in it. By this strong tide of popular feeling, the
former antagonisms of many would have been
swept away. The old scriptural and patristic

arguments against Rome would have melted like
ice in a summer’s sun. Emotion and kindly feel-

ing would have dominated both prejudice, reason,

and sound judgment. The past could have been

by many all forgotten and forgiven, and with an

enthusiasm like that with which the English wel-

comed back the Stuarts, men would have begun to

speak with exaggerated reverence of the decisions

of the Holy Apostolic See.

But the Pope did not so decide, and the result

was quite the contrary. Anglicans knew they pos-

sessed valid Orders. They knew this, not by mere



VINCENTIAN RULE. 61 .

argument, but by the assurance of God Himself
working in them—they knew that they received
Christ in the Sacraments. They could no more
doubt this than they could doubt the existence of

God or any essential fact of Christianity. Were I
to doubt my orders I should not go to Rome, but
give up Christianity

;
for there is no better proof

of God’s existence than there is for the truth of

our Sacraments. None were looking, as we were
skilfully misrepresented at Rome, to the Pope’s
decision to confirm their faith in what they knew
to be true, but to see if the Pope was what he
claimed to be. When he decided against what
Anglicans knew with divine certainty to be true,
then they knew with the same divine certainty that
he was not infallible. It was seen to be a decision
as contrary to the truth as if he had decided

against Galileo and the planetary system.

So for many the glamor of the papacy passed
away and the papal Curia looked in its nakedness
but as a piece of skilfully constructed political

machinery. The old man was, as we are told,
fooled by Cardinal Vaughan and English Romans,
whose pride and policy could not brook a contrary

decision. We cannot he too thankful that God
wrought our deliverance as He did of old that of
David when He turned Ahitophel’s counsel to



62 CATHOLICITY AND THE

naught. Had there been a decision given favor-

able to Anglican Orders, the great barrier which

has held so many back from joining Rome would

have been removed. A disruption of the Catholic
party would have taken place in England. Im-

patient of the Church’s union with the State, and

pained with the unrebuked heresies of rationaliz-

ing teachers, smarting under the malignant mis-

representations of their doctrines, tried by the per-

secutions of the Church Association and disheart-

ened by the decision of the Archbishops, many

would have sought peace in Rome. There would

have been a veritable landslide. It would have

been far worse than at the time of the Gorham

decision. And it was in the air that many of

the moderates and married priests would have

petitioned Rome for an English Uniat Church.

With such a secession the English Church would

have become more and more Erastian. She could

not have endured such another strain. The Ox-

ford Movement would have ended in disaster.

The Church’s spiritual life would have decayed

and it would have found itself like Samson with

its power gone. From this woeful calamity God

by this Providence saved us. The papal idol to

which some, not discerning its worldliness, had be-

gun to turn, went down like that of Dagon before



VINCENTIAN KULE. 63

the Ark of the Lord. The hopes and dreams
of Pusey and other kindly disposed unionists were
dissipated. Rome had during the century wid-
ened the breach by her additions to the faith, and
she has in this decision made reunion impossible.
It has done us an immense service. It has begun
to be realized that if God intended any outward
reunion of Christendom it was not by way of
union with Rome. Men began to see the truth,
that they had partially turned away from, that
Christ’s prayer that His Church should be one
as He and the Rather were one, had been an-
swered. We cannot doubt it. The unity of the
Church is indestructible through union of its
members with Christ. Corporate reunion of the
three branches may be impossible, but Christ-
ian union is not. The duty of the different
branches of the Church is to cultivate Church
recognition and Christian fellowship, to learn
from one another what each has of good
and avoid what has anywhere been found harm-
ful, and if possible, under certain conditions
and special circumstances to allow of inter-com-
munion. This would be a real union of Christ-
endom and is all that can be hoped for or wisely
desired. For it may be questioned whether cor-
porate reunion of the Anglican and Roman di-



64 CATHOLICITY AXD THE

visions would advance the cause of Christ. It is

doubtful, because no such union could take place

by any mere adjustment of creeds and theological

terms. It could only come by such a revolution

in the whole papal system, as would bring down

the papacy with a crash, and as would thus upset

the faith of half the Roman Catholics. On the

other hand, no union could take place with An-

glicans without the Church’s separation from the

State and complete disruption of the Anglican

Communion. The now cohering schools or parties

would then fly apart like released gases. Satan

could not do a better work for the destruction of

confidence in any Church teaching. More souls

in each communion would be lost to Christ than

any good that could possibly come. Corporate

reunion thus is neither desirable nor does it enter

into the sphere of sane speculation. If it is, as a

late writer has said, “impossible for Rome to

alter,” it is equally impossible for our Bishops,

now delivered from the papacy, ever to put them-

selves under the papal rule. It were as much as

to expect that the emancipated American slaves

would vote themselves back into the bondage of

slavery. It would be as sane as to expect the

British Parliament to burn up Magna Charta,

do away with legislative government and put the



VINCENTIAN RULE. 65

nation under an autocratic Czar. If any An-
glicans are still looking Komewards, the best thing
they can do for the cause of Christ is to give it
up; to do nothing in the way of initiating it in
the foolish idea that it would help reunion. Our
duty as Catholics is to seek to gain the confidence
of the Church in our loyalty and aim, and work
in the spirit of a large charity towards all the
members of our household, for holiness of life
and the Catholic Faith.