THE FAITHS: Varieties of Christian Expression Edited by L. P. JACKS THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Rev. Canon T. A. LACEY, M.A. BX LOOM ML 2 SeLbLoe 6 Lacey 3 169A. 1853-12352 The Anglo-Catholic faith RCN, ‘ . in THE’ FAITHS VARIETIES OF CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION- Edited by L. P..JACKS, M A., LL.D. THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH rd BY T. A..LACEY, D.D. Canon of Worcester LONDON: METHUEN & CO. LTD. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY “ ic Valin uae Po AIEN APICTEYEIN VNIVERSITATIS ANDREAEPOLITANAE SENATVI ACADEMICO HONORIBVS GRATISSIMIS AVCTVS OPVSCVLVM ALIENIGENVM AVCTOR INSCRIBIT EDITOR’S PREFACE WORD of explanation seems to be needed in regard to the title and the sub-title which have been chosen for this series. There is one faith, says St. Paul; but the title of the series indicates more than one. A difficulty unquestionably exists at that point. It has not been overlooked. Had the promoters of this series adopted the former point of view and called it “the Faith” instead of “the Faiths,’’ they would have answered in advance an important question which the series itself should be left to answer. But, equally, by calling the series “the Faiths,” instead of “the Faith,” have they not prejudged the question in another way ? Of the two positions the latter seemed the less dogmatic. Let us take the world as we find it, in which the Faiths show themselves as a plurality, and then, if they are really one, or many varieties of the same, or if only one is true and the rest false, let the fact appear from the accounts they give of them- selves. On no other terms could full liberty have been accorded to the writers who contribute to the series ; on no other terms could the task of editing the series be fairly carried out. It would have been obviously vill THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC. FAITH unfair to demand of each of the contributors that he © should exhibit the faith that is in him as ultimately identical with the faith that is in each of his fellow contributors. It would have been obviously unfair to deny to any contributor the right to exhibit his own faith as the only true faith and all the rest as false. It would have been obviously unfair to assume that faith is necessarily singular because St. Paul so describes it. For the degree of authority to be attributed to the words of St. Paul is precisely one of the points on which the contributors to the series must be allowed to differ and to speak for themselves. The same considerations apply to the sub-title of the series—‘‘ Varieties of Christian Expression.” It may be that Christianity has only ove mode of expres- sion, and that it ceases to be Christianity when expressed in any other way. But to take that for granted would ill become the editor of such a series as this, and it would become him still worse if he deliberately planned the series so as to lead up to that conclusion. Again we must take the world as we find it. Among those who claim to be Christians many varieties of expression unquestionably exist which may or may not be only different ways of expressing the same original truth. So far as the editor is concerned this must be left an open question. If to some writers in the series it should seem good to deny the name of Christian to those whose modes of expression differ from their own, they must not be precluded from doing so, and the reader will judge for himself between the claim and the counter-claim. EDITOR’S PREFACE ix Certainly the hope is entertained that from the pre- sentation of differences in this series there may emerge some unities hitherto unsuspected or dimly seen ; but that will be as it may. The issue is not to be forced. To present a complete logical justification of our title and sub-title is perhaps not possible, and such justification as we have here offered will probably commend itself only to the pragmatic mind. But objections taken to these titles will be found on examination to be objections to the series itself. How, we might ask, can any earnest and eminent Christian, believing his own variety of Christian expression to be better than the rest, logically justify his co-operation, in such a series as this, with other earnest and eminent Christians whose beliefs in that matter run counter to his own? None the less they are here co-operating. That such co-operation has been found possible may be reckoned one of the signs of the times. The explanation of it les, not in logic, but in charity. L. P. JACKS AUTHOR’S PREFACE | ie it be asked by what right I undertake the task of speaking for Anglo-Catholics, I shall plead a close intimacy, extending over more than fifty years, with those who have recently assumed that denomination —a style, it seems, generally conceded—and their immediate predecessors. When I was asked, four years ago, to join the Anglo-Catholic Congress Con- tinuation Committee, my benevolent reply was that a new departure should be conducted by younger men; but when the invitation was repeated, with a courteous intimation that my age was negligible, I could no longer refuse. The name itself I have never liked, but current language is not entirely subject to the taste of those who use it, and singularity in such a matter is to be deprecated. Therefore the hyphen, which I was at first inclined to resent, must be accepted. This being done, it may be conferred also on those of a previous generation who prepared the way for present developments. This I offer as an excuse for what is anachronistic in my use of the word. But I have tried to be sparing in that offence against purity of diction. It has often interested me to observe by what various paths men have been gathered into this movement from the heterogeneous mass of English x1 xii THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Christianity, and perhaps some readers may welcome a brief account of my own way of approach. During a summer holiday of the year 1862, when I was eight years old, at a village church in Notting- hamshire I for the first time saw a preacher enter the pulpit wearing a surplice, and heard a shocked whisper from an aunt, ‘‘ Puseyite!’’ The strange word had perhaps never reached my ears before, and I did not ask the meaning of it, but my memory held it fast, though I did not see that sectarian symbol again for many years. My next link is in a class-room. | was thirteen years old; we were reading Macaulay’s history, or hearing it read, and the word Transub- stantiation naturally occurred. The master asked one of the boys what it meant, and he gave the blundering reply which might be expected. ‘“‘No! No!” ex- claimed the master, “‘ that is not right. The meaning is that the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the Body of Christ,’ and he added a simple explanation of the Categories. He may have taken it for nothing but a curious theological specu- lation, but it seemed to me a reasonable belief; as soon as possible I hunted for it in my Prayer-book, and was pleased to find it there. Not long afterwards I stumbled in some forgotten way upon the hymn Lauda Sion Salvatorem, and was elated by the dis- covery that I could make out the Latin. From that time I had no doubt at all about the doctrine, and was much too fond of explaining it to recalcitrant | friends. -I was prepared for Confirmation by an aged priest AUTHOR’S PREFACE xilt who in his time had been a notable Evangelical preacher, but had notoriously sunk into slothful and self-indulgent habits; he still had a fine eloquence, and I held him in great respect. He gave me some sound teaching on the Doctrine of God, but I do not remember that he ever mentioned the Catechism, and I am sure that he taught me nothing about the Sacraments. Left to myself, I had no doubt at all that it was a sacrament which I received by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands. My mother pre- pared me for my first Communion, and did it well in simple piety, without particularity of doctrine. By this time I was aware of being a Catholic, and used to press that fact upon my Protestant acquaint- ance, probably making myself very offensive. I occasionally attended Roman Catholic worship with much contentment, but without any inclination to change my allegiance; the English Prayer-book seemed to give me all that was necessary. I knew nothing, either by contact or otherwise, about that form of religion which was then beginning to be called Ritualism, and so complete was my ignorance of current affairs in the Church that when I went to Oxford in 1871 I was amazed to find Pusey a living man. He had been to me a legendary figure. Imme- diately before going up I heard a speaker at the Church Congress, whom I now know as the Dean of Chichester, howled down for stigmatizing the Purchas. Judgment as biassed; and did not so much as know what he was talking about. On the way to Oxford I found myself in a railway carriage with Edward XIV THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH King, then Principal of Cuddesdon, and was rather edified than informed by his conversation with a senior undergraduate in whose company I was travelling. At Balliol I soon picked up the information which I lacked, in good part from an impressive fellow- freshman named Gore, and I was also infected with the sentimental medievalism of the time, from which I did not shake myself free for many years. I had, however, been sufficiently well grounded in Natural Science to correlate this antique interest with the new theory of Evolution, which I was already using as a master-key to all the riddles of the Universe, and not least to those riddles of the Old Testament which agitated my contemporaries. They did not agitate me, partly because I was inclined to think there was no real history in the Old Testament prior to the Babylonian Captivity. The doctrine of the Fall I adjusted with complete satisfaction to the facts, as I supposed them to be, of biological evolution. Looking back, I can see that so far my religion, though quite sincere, was entirely external and super- ficial ; but during my second year at Oxford I passed through a severe moral crisis, and had a definite experience of conversion, as immediate as any that I have heard of, Some days later I made my first confession, with deep abasement and streaming tears. Absolved, and sent away with the single evangelic _ message, ‘“ My grace is sufficient for thee,’ I returned to my rooms as if walking on air, singing and making melody in my heart to Him who had brought me out AUTHOR’S PREFACE XV of the mire and clay, and set my feet upon the rock, and ordered my goings. In that ordering I have con- tinued, with too much weakness and stumbling to be in any danger of self-satisfaction, but with no turning back. Dadtent, June 1926 POSTSCRIPT THE book was already in the press when I received a copy of the Report of the Archbishops’ Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. If this had been issued some weeks earlier, it would have suggested important modifications in the argument of my fifth chapter. For many years I have been persuaded that no effective reform of the ecclesiastical courts was possible except as a consequence of disestablishment, but the recommendations of the Report weaken that persuasion. They are based on a definite recognition of the separation of Church and State; and, if carried. out in legislation, they would make the establishment of the Church by law mean very nearly what it means - in Scotland. The Report clearly distinguishes between Ecclesiastical Courts and Courts of the Crown, saying explicitly that “‘the highest spiritual court is the Court of the Province.’”’ It recognizes the propriety of an appeal from the spiritual courts to the Crown, and carefully explains the nature of such appeal; “it is Xvi THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH an appeal to the Crown for remedy, based on the con- tention that justice in the Ecclesiastical Courts has not been done, or that these courts have improperly exercised their authority.’’ To this no exception can be taken. The Crown is, by ordinance of God, the natural guardian of justice. Such an appeal as the Report contemplates is strictly analogous to the appel comme d’abus established in the old French juris- prudence, and fully acknowledged by the Church. It is almost as closely analogous to an appeal carried from the diocesan court of Illinois to the Supreme Court of that State in the year 1872, when a reasoned judg- ment was given which is recognized as one of the classic authorities on the relation of Church and State. I demur only to three recommendations about the constitution of the “ Court of Appeal to the Crown.”’ 1. It is suggested that each member of the Court should be required to “ sign a declaration that he is a member of the Church as by law established.” This might induce an erroneous impression of the Court’s being in some sort an ecclesiastical tribunal. It also runs counter to the well-grounded principle that servants of the Crown must not, as such, be subject to any religious test. 2. It is suggested that the constitution of the Court “should receive in the most formal manner the con- sent and approval of the Church.’”’ This seems to me both superfluous and confusing. It is for the King in Parliament, and for none else, to constitute a Court exercising the authority of the Crown. 3. I gravely doubt the wisdom of setting up any AUTHOR’S PREFACE XVil special court for the purpose intended. The High Court of Justice exists for the fulfilment of this pur- pose; and to that Court, as it seems to me, such an appeal should go for hearing. There could then be no ambiguity about the nature of the appeal. CONTENTS EDITOR’S PREFACE. : : ‘ : 3 Cha WER AUTHOR’S PREFACE , . : : 3 2 . xi CHAPTER I, INTRODUCTORY . : : ‘ : , - ; I ll, THE HISTORIC BASIS . : ; ; 2 : é 13 III, THE TRACTARIANS : ; : : . : ‘ 26 IV, DEVELOPMENT . > : ; : ; ; eae V. CHURCH AND STATE ., : ; i : ; ee RO VI. THE ORGANIC CHURCH ; : 2 ; : Pare a ty VII. THE ROMAN QUESTION : P ‘ ; : ; 89 VIII, THE GOSPEL - ; : ; ; : : a. < 99 IX. THE SACRAMENTS 2 ; : : : ; ee te. X, THE PRIESTHOOD : : : , : . «130 XI, PUBLIC WORSHIP ‘ ‘ . ; ; : - 140 XII, SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES ; , 5 Oe SY EPILOGUE. : : - ‘ ‘ ‘ ; Sot 7 y, INDEX . ; ; ‘ ‘ ‘ ; : ein kad xix THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY T has been said that within the Church of England there are two religions. To say that there are four or five might be nearer the mark, if divers kinds of Christianity may reasonably be regarded as different religions ; and this is at least a permissible use of language. A Franciscan has been known to speak of “ our religion,’’ meaning the rule and practice of St. Francis. But it might be more in accordance with English usage to speak in this connexion of different sects. A sect is the following of a leader, of a tradition, or of a system. The Latin secta was the proper rendering of the Greek haeresis, and was used in distinguishing the different schools of Hellenic philosophy. It was taken over for this purpose into the nervous English of Dryden and his contemporaries. The philosophers of the ancient world were divided, says South, into “ many - sects and denominations, as Stoicks, Peripateticks, Epi- _ cureans, and the like.’’ Allow for the preacher’s intended note of scorn, and the word is still respectable. In exactly the same way Dryden himself speaks of “* the sects of old philosophers.”’ But half a century earlier Bacon had. already set the word in the connexion with which we are concerned, speaking of “‘ the vicissitude of sects and B 1 2 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH religions,’ yet with a distinction that may be found con- venient: ‘‘ The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time.’’ His contem- poraries, the translators of the Bible, hung in doubt between the Greek word and the Latin, speaking sometimes of a sect, sometimes of a heresy. In this they followed their predecessors, observing a certain discrimination. Heresy was become a note of condemnation, and could not be mentioned without a savour of disapproval; a sect was still harmless, and might be honoured. Thus in the English version of the Acts of the Apostles the Sect of the Pharisees and the Sect of the Sadducees are legitimate | variations of Judaism, and St. Paul declares with conscious pride his adhesion to the former, “the straitest sect of our religion.”’ On the other hand, when he is speaking to Felix about the complaint laid against him by the Jews, he is made to describe himself as a follower of “ the way which they call heresy.’’ Nevertheless the accuser Tertullus is allowed to call that way less provocatively “the Sect of the Nazarenes,’’ and the leading Jews who gave the Apostle a cold reception at Rome know that “this sect’ is everywhere spoken against. The attempt to indicate a shade of meaning in the Greek word, if it was consciously made, does not extend to the Epistles, perhaps because it was taken then as definitely con- demnatory. The “damnable heresies’’ of Second Peter do indeed speak for themselves, and when St. Paul instructs Titus to reject ‘‘ a man that is an heretic,’’ he almost seems to be using the language of a later age. When the Gala- tians are warned against “‘ heresies ’’ as works of the flesh, linked with the most abominable sins, it may appear that in the Christian Church there is no room for sects as in Judaism; but then we are confronted with St. Paul’s admission to the Corinthians that “there must be also INTRODUCTORY 3 heresies among you.’ His meaning here should be closely scrutinized. He has heard that when they assemble for worship there are divisions among them. What are these schismata which he deplores? He will presently be urging the analogy of a living body, in which the members have been so related by the ordering of the Creator that there should be no breach of continuity, no jealousy of one against another, no schisma, in the body; then he passes at once to the bold metaphor, soon to become more than metaphor, ‘‘ Ye are Christ’s body, and members each in his part.’’ The divisions which he deprecates in the meetings of the Church are of this kind: self-assertion, personal display, jealousies and envyings, which make it impossible to recognize the communal meal as a “ Lord’s Supper.’ But before proceeding to deal with these troubles he interjects, with characteristic disjointedness, a remark not strictly to the purpose: ‘“ For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”’ I retain the Greek word ; one might render it as sects, or factions, or parties, without in the slightest degree affecting the sense. And why “‘must”’ these things be? Clearly they are not enjoined, for the emphasis of the interjected sentence makes these sects even worse than the divisions which are deplored. Therefore, if they must be, it is only because in the nature of things it is impossible entirely to avoid them ; they are regrettable but inevitable ; more dangerous even than those deplorable schismata, but less easily repressed. They are inevitable because of some quality in the Christian Church, and therefore become a test of the Christian character. One can imagine a sequence in St. Paul’s thoughts. Divisions, separations, affectations of superiority—ah ! we Pharisees hold ourselves aloof like that ; there must be nothing of the sort in Christ. And 4 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH yet, the sect of the Pharisees has done some good; has guarded us against the danger of gradual sinking down to the level of the Gentiles and losing the promise of the Fathers. Such sects are pretty sure to appear in the Church ; it will be a pity ; we ought to be all on the same level—the stature of Christ. But if we fail of that, a sect that aims higher than the average may be useful, a mutual support, a means of recognition for the more ardent or the more constant souls. The sects of Judaism had not destroyed the religious unity of the nation, though there had been a sharp cleavage in the remote past, and more recently the rigid separation of the Samaritans. Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots shared the worship of the Temple and the common prayers of the Synagogue. The distinction of Hebraist and Hellen- ist was perhaps more dangerous, and before the Maccabaean rising Hellenism had threatened the very life of the com- munity. Christianity, the Sect of the Nazarenes, began on the same footing, and even St. Paul cherished for many years the hope that it would so continue, until it absorbed all the other elements of the Jewish race. Success in that direction might have been disastrous, ruining the wider hope of a religion for the whole of mankind. Discovering this, he fell back on the prophetic idea of the Remnant. Those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah were not a mere sect, they were the whole of the true Israel, the people of God. Therefore, with a bold archaism, they took, in Greek,t the name of Ecclesia, one of the characteristic titles of the people of God in the Old Testament. To this Remnant were to be gathered, according to many pro- phetic indications, men of every nation or race; and it t But not in the Palestinian Aramaic; for which see a note by Professor Burkitt in my book The One Body and the One Spirit, p. 230. : INTRODUCTORY 5 soon became clear to St. Paul that in the providence of God the rest of the Jews, the apostates, would not be corporately recovered “until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” How he understood this completion is not clear, but he must have meant at least that the Church would have to be established broadly out of elements apart from the Jewish race. It was to carry on the old Jewish tradition with a wider and fuller content; it was to exhibit the concentrated religious unity of the Jewish Dispersion ; but, so far from being a sect of Judaism, it was not even to be predominantly Jewish in constitution. Within the unity of this renewed and enlarged Israel, the Church of God, there would be room for sects, as within the Jewish polity. It would be preferable not to have them; human nature being what it is, they were sure to arise, and God would even find some use for them. But in this wider Church they might be far more dangerous than in the compact order of the Synagogue. A sect within a community is always a possible source of dis- ruptive movements, to be energized by the intolerance either of its own adherents or of their fellows in the larger unit. In the nascent Church at Corinth, small as it was, St. Paul had to contemplate sects not only as possible but as actual. He heard at Ephesus, apparently by messengers from an interested lady named Chloe, that they were actively engaged in quarrelling. They dis- tinguished themselves, as usual, by the names of favoured teachers ; there were Paulists and Petrists and Apollonians, and perhaps some who carried their sectarianism so far as to claim the exclusive title of Christians. There is no reason to suppose that Peter himself had ever been at Corinth, like Paul or Apollos, and the fact that his devotees preferred to call him Kephas may show that they were Hebraists unpleasantly conscious of their Hellenistic 6 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH surroundings. St. Paul sternly rebuked those who were making unauthorized use of his own name, with charac- teristic courtesy chiding more lightly those who made Apollos their figure-head. The Petrists he let alone; he was not now to be drawn into a backwash of former con- troversy. But of all alike he entreated abstinence from disputes which might lead to rupture, ‘‘ that there be no schisms among you.’’ He does not seem to have feared apostasy, though he must have known from experience elsewhere that intransigents calling themselves Petrists would be in danger even of that catastrophe. The schisms of which he speaks are divisions within the Church, sectaries declaring that they could not get on with each other and standing sullenly apart. In a word, he feared the misery of party spirit, marring the union of souls in charity. Such discord is worse than the schismata springing from personal differences which he sharply rebukes in a later chapter of the Epistle. They began with unseemly be- haviour in assemblies for worship; this may end, if it be not corrected, in the disruption of the common worship of the Church, or even in apostasy from the community. In short, sectarian schism is the worst kind of schism. The difference is abundantly illustrated in the history of Christendom. There have been many schisms caused by personal, local, or national rivalries. Some are obstinate and inveterate, but most of them have been healed by a reviving exercise of good will; the sundered parties, differing but little or not at all in faith and practice, come together in effective union without any straining of their respective traditions. They have ‘been borne on together like the waters of a strongly flowing river, in which whirls and eddies of distinctive form appear for a while, to be merged at last in the general and perennial current. Other schisms there have been of a definitely sectarian INTRODUCTORY 7 character, and such are especially those which sprang from the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Nothing could be more remote from the original intention of the leaders in that great movement. They set out to reform the whole Church in head and members; they ended by founding sects, to some of which they bequeathed their names, and these rapidly passed—by whose fault we need not at present enquire—into a state of confirmed separa- tion. Differences of belief and practice, of religious habit and outlook, of order and administration, germinating from the beginning of the movement or even implicit in the first projects of reform, became stabilized when separation was complete. The German princes and cities at the Diet of Speier, handing in their Protest against the reactionary counsels of the Emperor, little thought that they were providing a name for a new conception of the Christian religion, the Protestantism which was to domi- nate a third part of Christendom, and spread to the ends of the earth. Their Western friends and rivals of a later date, who called themselves the Reformed, were more schematic in their procedure, but they also had no sec- tarian ambitions, and regarded themselves as the spear-head of an attacking force which would soon be dissolved in general victory. Luther, the ice once broken, would per- haps enjoy in burly fashion the reputation of an heresiarch ; but Calvin, distilling into his Institutes, as he supposed, the essence of accepted Augustinianism, would probably have been aggrieved to know himself belauded or execrated “in future ages as the founder of a sectarian theology. Whatever the intention may have been, the result of the Reformation—not without much help from the Counter- reformation—has been to fasten upon the Western Church, and upon the whole of Christendom influenced by it, a determined state of sectarian schism. 8 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Yet there is nothing in the nature of a sect, or of sec- tarian controversy, to make schism inevitable. To the Church of England has been reserved the distinction of demonstrating this in practice. Not only such differences of opinion as presumably harassed the nascent Church of Corinth, not only such a controversy as that of Gallicans and Ultramontanes in the Church of France, but the greater antagonisms which have sprung from the Refor- mation, exist for the most part side by side within the institutional unity of the Church of England. The ques- tions which men debated with faggot and halter in the sixteenth century, questions underlying the hatreds of devastating Wars of Religion, are here discussed by men acknowledging the same pastoral authority, and living in full communion with each other. Nothing comparable has been seen since the days of the fourth and fifth centuries when great Christological questions were still unsolved and acrimoniously disputed. But the questions of to-day, though much less fundamental, touch the lives of ordinary men more nearly than those historic controversies. They affect the daily practice of religion, forms of worship and habits of devotion. A superficial explanation of this unwonted state of things attributes it to the external pressure of a legal establishment, or more meanly to satis- faction with the enjoyment of considerable endowments. The former explanation, as we shall presently see, has some ground in history, the latter will be indignantly rejected by all concerned, and both are more adequately refuted by the fact that the same state of things exists in those Churches of the British Dominions and the United States of America, in communion with the Church of England, where the supposed safeguards of union are lacking. This union of sects is not a mere chance medley, a con- dition endured with indifference or with aversion. There INTRODUCTORY 9 are some who dislike it intensely, but are resolute in maintaining it. In every generation there are some who flee from it, seeking a spiritual home in which there is less apparent discord. That the work of the Church is extremely difficult in such circumstances, none will deny. There are voices which declare that these conditions cannot abide, and even call for a disruption that shall end them. But far more general is the conviction that here is some strange working of the providence of God, and that upon the Church of England is laid the task of finding in these burdensome conditions a way of peace for the conflicting sects of Christendom. Both from within the Church of England and from without have been heard exhortations to the courageous undertaking of that task. It has recently been observed that ‘‘ the Church of England is the nearest thing there is to a microcosm of the Christian world, and displays to that world the extra- ordinary spectacle of what is possible in the way of unity between men whose beliefs and temperaments are as different as ours.’’! The microcosm is certainly incom- plete. It does not include, for example, the more extreme forms of ultramontane Catholicism. But of the sectarian elements into which Western Christendom has been dis- integrated since the Reformation it certainly includes enough to be a remarkable example of diversity in unity. For this reason it has seemed to many observers that the Church of England may have a special function to perform in abating or ending the trouble of Christian disunion. What De Maistre noted more than a hundred years ago was only that the Church of England touched on either hand the extremes of Catholicism and Protestantism ; what is to be noted now is that within that Church there are sects, existing in mutual communion if not in perfect t K. D. Mackenzie, The Confusion of the Churches, p. 237. 10 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH amity, which are hardly distinguishable from those extremes. It is not surprising that one who lives in this spiritual home should conceive that the ‘‘two vaguely defined methods of treating historical Christianity, for which the much-abused terms Catholic and Protestant are still the best names available,” may be combined in synthesis.1_ Such a synthesis, however, is not my subject. I am concerned with only one of its elements, the Anglo- Catholic sect. I am responsible for calling it a sect, but not for the name by which it is designated. My reasons for calling it a sect I have sufficiently disclosed; I call it Anglo- Catholic merely because it is so named in common parlance. The name stands in need of apology, because it involves a certain denigration of a great and almost sacred word. But there is nothing new in this, for the word has long since descended from its original splendour. The Church has been called catholic in baptismal creeds from some indeterminate period very near the days of the Apostles. The Epistles of St. Ignatius mark the first appearance of the term in Christian literature, but it is evidently used there as current and perfectly familiar. Nor is there any doubt as to its meaning. The Church was called catholic for reasons which are fully illustrated in the writings of St. Paul. Unlike the Synagogue, it was not confined to persons born or adopted into a single nation, nor yet to the freemen of a civic community ; it was for ‘‘ Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman.” It was to know neither racial nor geographical bounds. There was a current Greek word adequately describing this universality. The Church was — naturally called catholic. This being the fundamental meaning of the term, it t Quick, Catholic and Protestant Elements in Christianity, p. 17. INTRODUCTORY 11 seems perverse to use it in the designation of what is particular. A purist in language may object to hearing of a catholic party within the Catholic Church. To call a particular Church catholic is equally perverse. But both perversions have long since been received into the currency of language, and to reject them would be mere pedantry. We cannot so dispose of the “‘ sancta ecclesia romana catholica.”” It is more profitable to ask why the particular Church of Rome elected to be so called, and why other particularist uses of the word have been tolerated. They are almost as ancient as the original use. In the contemporary account of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp is mentioned ‘the catholic Church of Smyrna.’’! Two or three explanations of the term are possible, but we need not here discuss them. The catholicity of the Church being due to a fundamental quality of the Christian religion, it is obvious that all the faithful partaking of that quality may in a secondary sense be described as catholic. A particular Church, or even individual Christians, may therefore be so designated. This use of the word is con- stant in the writings of St. Cyprian. It is not, as some have said, that for him “catholic’’ was equivalent to “‘ orthodox,”’ for that is a later development ; but rather, seeing clearly that the unity of the Catholic Church depended practically on the intercommunion of bishops, he reckoned that anyone who was separated from the communion of his own bishop, or who allowed himself to be set up as a “‘ pseudoepiscopus,” was thereby cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church, and so lost the character of catholicity. Such an outcast Cyprian called a heretic, not doubting that he was precisely the kind of heretic whom St. Paul would have rejected. t Mart. Polyc. 16. Lightfoot read dylag for KabodKijs, but Funk seems to have established the more usual reading. 12 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Conspicuous among heretics was Novatian, whose ortho- — doxy was unimpeachable; Cyprian unhesitatingly put him in the same class with Marcion or Valentinus. Not until the fourth and fifth centuries, when definitions of faith were settled by the authority of the universal Church, did catholicity in the secondary sense become firmly identified with orthodoxy. Bearing in mind this secondary sense, we can see that to speak of a catholic sect or party is not so absurd as it seems at first sight.1 Catholicity is the religious quality or temper which makes Christianity universal. Any group of Christians, local or diffused, who are led by circum- stances to exhibit that temper in a marked degree may reasonably be distinguished as catholic in contrast with others in whom it is less evident. There are some in the Church of England who claim that distinction, and by general consent they are courteously known as Anglo- Catholics. The word has a brief history. In the year 1841 the Tractarians began to collect, in a “‘ Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology,’ the writings of distinguished or commonplace English divines. Eight years later Charlotte Bronté found it convenient material for a gibe. James Anthony Froude claimed it for history as a desig- nation of the men who travelled the path of Reform as tar as Henry VIII and no farther. After passing almost entirely out of use, it has recently acquired a new vogue, with a slightly varied connotation. What it stands for we shall have to enquire ; we can use it for the moment as in the current language of the time. My subject is Anglo-Catholicism. * In my Catholicity, p. 44, I mistakenly cited Euseb. H.E. x.5 as a precedent. The secta catholica, %} alpeotc 1} KxaboAtK?, men- tioned in Constantine’s letter there quoted does not mean the party of Caecilian at Carthage, but the Christian Church as a whole. CHAPTER II THE HISTORIC BASIS T is a mistake to suppose that when you have described the way in which a thing has come to be you have described the thing as it is. Dominant theories of evolu- tion and honest regard for the historic method encourage that mistake. I hope to guard myself against it; but I am fully aware that I cannot explain Anglo-Catholicism without surveying, however briefly, the historic develop- ment of which it is a present result. For this purpose we need not go back beyond the arrival of Theodore as Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 669. The pitiful failure of Augustine and the disappointment of the high hopes of St. Gregory the Great, the sour aloof- ness of the British Church which Gildas the Wise had previously depicted in very dark colours, the preaching of the Gospel by Scots from Jona and by the dimly seen Fursey from Ireland, the ardent Romanism of St. Wilfrid and the feminine dominance of St. Hilda, are fragmentary materials of a missionary period, out of which Theodore patiently built up an organized Church. He had the abundant authority of the Roman See behind him, and to that authority the Churches of the English were for centuries more steadily submissive than any others north of the Alps. The False Decretals were not yet, but the system for which they stood was beginning here, and 18 14 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Canterbury was the first metropolis to exhibit that relation to the papacy which was afterwards antedated to sub- apostolic times. The terrible scandals of the tenth and eleventh centuries, which sunk the papacy into local infamy, were unknown or disregarded at this distance. When the Norman Conqueror came with a papal blessing to close the schism of an intruded archbishop, the links uniting Canterbury and Rome were rather put in order than strengthened. What there might be of incipient nationalism in the Church was suppressed when all the native bishops, except Wulstan of Worcester, were sum- marily superseded. Italy sent Lanfranc and Anselm to Bec, and from Bec to Canterbury. England shared the culture of the continent, and in a milder fashion its con- flicts. The question of the investitures was settled here without war by a characteristically English compromise, which saved at once the principle of spiritual jurisdiction and the practice of royal control. The Church of England, definitely so named, makes its first appearance in history during the negotiations pre- ceding the issue of Magna Carta. There had hitherto been no occasion to speak or even to think of such an institution, for the two provinces and the twenty-one dioceses of the country had been integral parts of the whole Western Church, bowing to the apostolic dignity of Rome; national boundaries were shifting or ignored. After the metropolitical rights of York were settled, no corporate action of the Church throughout England was possible except in a council under the presidency of a Roman Legate, and the convocation of such a council “in partibus Angliae’’ was held to cover Scotland and Ireland, this being expressly stated in the commentary of John de Athon on the Legate Otho’s ‘‘ Concilium Pan- anglicum ”’ of 1236, and in the title of Ottobuoni’s Council THE HISTORIC BASIS 15 of 1269. The Popes of the Middle Ages were instinctively or consciously on their guard against the emergence of a spirit of nationality in religion, as dangerous to the catholicity of the Church. But resistance to the tyranny of John, and his loss of Normandy and Anjou, brought this spirit to the fore in secular affairs, and the distinction of Church and State was unknown to medieval thought. Stephen Langton, leading the opposition to the King, took care that ecclesiastical affairs should have precedence. Matthew Paris notes that in the year 1214 the Archbishop produced before the Barons in London, and again at St. Edmundsbury, a charter of Henry I, containing “quasdam libertates et leges regis Eadwardi, sanctae ecclesiae Anglicanae pariter et magnatibus regni concessas.”” There is no ground for supposing this document to have been genuine, and the phrasing belongs to the time of its production. It was not the less effective ; in the following January Letters Patent were issued by the King annulling any contrary custom which “ hactenus in ecclesia Angli- cana fuerit observata,’’ and assuring freedom of election by royal licence to all bishoprics and abbeys. The advan- tage was pressed, and in the Great Charter of the same year the first provision was ‘‘ quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit et habeat iura sua integra, suas et libertates illaesas.”’ The meaning of the phrase should not be distorted by the intrusion of more ancient or more modern con- ceptions. The liberty here assured is not what we mean by the freedom of the Church from control by the State, for that antithesis was not yet born. In the Charter the Church means the Clergy, and them chiefly as constituting what was afterwards called an Estate of the Realm. This was Clearly indicated in the Papal confirmation of the Charter, where it is hailed as a settlement of long-standing 16 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH disputes ‘‘inter regnum et sacerdotium Anglicanum.” So the word continued to be used. When Lyndwood says that the Church of England is ‘“‘ quaedam universitas,’”’ he means that the clerical estate has some of the properties of a corporation. The tradition is continued in Henry the Eighth’s Statute of Appeals, which describes the realm as a Body Politic, ‘‘ divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty,” and refers to the Spirit- ualty as “now being usually called the English Church.” This fashion of speech has died a lingering death, and has hardly yet disappeared; a belated father may still be heard saying that his son is going into the Church. But to speak of the Church of England even in this limited sense was both effect and cause of a nationalist temper. John’s commendation of his kingdom as vassal to the Holy See was deeply resented. The Pope, who had more than once been a protector against regal tyranny, now supported the King as his own man, and he was never again all that he had been. During the reign of Henry IIT the constant interference of the Roman Court in the affairs of the kingdom was on the whole a benefit, but it was paid for by heavy taxation, levied on a very slight pretence of right, or on a plea only of deserts. The pro- ceeds were expended on the Pope’s wars against the Emperor; in smaller proportion on the Crusade. Lay- men were refractory; the clergy were angrily submissive. The latest historian of the Popes can but praise “ the diplomatic skill or artfulness of the Legate and his agents ”’ by which the opposition to these demands was overcome. ‘Unfortunately,”’ adds Monsignor Mann, “the unpopu- larity of the levies of 1229 and 1240 was not lessened by the conduct of those who were concerned with raising them.’?! Robert Grosseteste, the admirable Bishop of 1 Mann, Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, vol. xiii, p. 357+ THE HISTORIC BASIS 17 Lincoln, used very plain speaking on the subject. The strong hand of Edward I restrained these exactions, and now the clergy were glad to have the support of the Pope in resisting taxation for the King without their consent. After his death, the old troubles were renewed, and there were now added vast appropriations of English benefices for creatures of the Papal Court. When a French Pope reigned at Avignon, all but dependent on the French King who was at war with England, the situation became intolerable, and successive Acts of Parliament put some check on the drain of treasure from the kingdom. A remarkable feature of this legislation was a definite reversal of John’s homage to the Pope, with emphatic assertion of the political independence of the Crown. But there was no thought of breaking away from the - Pope as the supreme Father of Christendom, and the whole pontifical legislation of the Decretals was treated as law in England, subject only to minor exceptions due to a recognized contrary custom of the realm. Yet all this time the Province of Canterbury at least, if not the attenuated Province of York, was finding its feet. From 1222 to 1415, from Langton to Chicheley, was the period of the great Provincial Councils, in which the Archbishops legislated with considerable freedom for the local needs of the Church, by Constitutions which Lynd- wood ultimately digested into a body of law supplementary to the Roman Corpus Iuris Canonicv. A larger indepen- dence seemed to be imminent in 1416, when three rival Popes had been for some years disputing possession of the Holy See, and England, following the example of France, had finally refused obedience to all three alike. There were vacant dioceses, Norwich, Hereford, and Salisbury, waiting to be filled, and there was no Pope available for expediting the usual Bulls. The Council of Cc 18 ‘ae ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Constance was labouring in the task of closing the schism, but patience was exhausted, and Henry V, fortified by a special Act of Parliament, directed Chicheley to proceed on his own authority as metropolitan with the consecra- tion of the bishops-elect. It was done in one case ; before the others were reached, Martin V had been unanimously elected Pope at the Council, and Bulls were received from him. There was no further attempt at independent action; an undisputed Pope was welcomed as a gift of God, and during the century that followed, while the Papal Court sank into an abyss of moral infamy, it exer- cised a spiritual authority in England more intimate and more extensive than had ever been known before. The precedent of 1416 was suddenly revived in 1531 by a suspensory Act of Parliament purporting to regulate payments made to the Court of Rome for expediting Bulls concerning the consecration of bishops; if Bulls were refused or delayed in consequence, the procedure of 1416 was to be followed. The Court of Rome objecting, two years later this exceptional procedure was made ordinary, by the Act 25 Henry VIII, c. 20, and any application for Bulls was forbidden. The complete break with Rome which ensued does not much concern me. To make Henry VIII the author of the present schism between Rome and Canterbury, which has endured for some three hundred and sixty years, is palpably absurd, for his own schism was of brief duration, being finally closed in the year 1554. It was like others of the same kind before and since, which had no lasting effect. The acts of his schism did, however, have some lasting effect; for, with his demonic energy, within a _ brief space he made things which were never unmade, and destroyed things which could not be restored. His foundations of new dioceses were accepted and confirmed THE HISTORIC BASIS 19 after the reconciliation with Rome; his destruction of the monasteries was accepted as an accomplished fact, and very feeble attempts were made to renew the insti- tution. His ingenious device of tying up the flexible Canon Law in the strait-waistcoat of Statute Law has also survived, but his projected revision of the whole Corpus came to nothing. One comment, however, must be made. Anglo-Catholics have been accused of desiring a return to the conditions prevailing during the earlier years of that brief schism. Froude began it, in his ingenious use of the style “‘ Anglo- Catholic’ for the King’s own party with their occasional “leaning towards the Romanists,’’ and his description of “the Anglicans, strictly orthodox in the speculative system of the faith, content to separate from Rome, but only that they might bear Italian fruit more profusely and luxuriantly when rooted in their own soil.” The phrasing and the innuendo smack rather of 1858 than of 1540, and were certainly designed for contemporary effect. One can but say that Anglo-Catholics, apart from the futility of supposing it possible to reproduce the conditions of a past epoch, regard Henry and his doings with peculiar abhorrence, subject to the just tribute of an acknowledg- ment that he was intellectually and morally superior to most of the Princes and all the Popes of his unhappy time. I am still less concerned with the anarchic reign of Edward VI. The subsequent closing of the schism, though interesting in itself, was in detail too unlike anything that can be anticipated in the future to be of any value for my purpose. Nor need I dwell on the crimes and blunders of the reaction. The year 1559 is critical. The personality of Elizabeth, by turns repellent and attractive, tempts to prolixity, but t History, vol. iii, pp. 361, 517. 20 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH I must resist. What she did is important ; her motives need not delay us. Having probably no personal religion at all but traditional beliefs of the commonest kind, and not being like her father interested in theology, she could treat the Church from the standpoint only of her own interest. It would be wise to keep on terms with Rome, if she could secure the reversal of her bastardy; but this was doubtful, and the existing Pope, Paul IV, was become an impossible person to get on with. The other way there was danger, but also adventure. The best thing in her, a genuine regard for her country, moved her to desire internal religious peace; and her lack of religious con- victions blinded her to the difficulty of securing it. She essayed a middle course. But this involved ignoring the Pope, and the bishops, with two or three exceptions, withdrew their support. This drove the Queen, with her hesitating Council, to more active steps ; most of Henry’s statutes which had been repealed by Mary’s first Parlia- ment, including his Act for the promotion of bishops, were revived, and the see of Canterbury vacant by Pole’s death was filled by the election of Matthew Parker. Meanwhile ardent Reformers who had fled from the reaction returned from exile and were demanding a reversion to the state of things prevailing at the end of Edward’s reign. The recalcitrant bishops were forcibly expelled from their sees by the same kind of arbitrary action as in the two pre- ceding reigns, and the sees were then treated as vacant, according to a practice painfully common in the worst days of the fourth and fifth centuries. Many also were vacant by death. Within fifteen months all were in the possession of men who were willing to go all lengths with the Queen, or to outstrip her in the way of reform. I remit for consideration elsewhere changes going nearer to the heart of religion which were effected with THE HISTORIC BASIS 21 equal rapidity, concerning myself here only with matters of ecclesiastical polity. In regard to both alike two comments are necessary. The first is concerned with the astounding success of the Queen’s policy, and the apparent ease with which it was achieved; the second will be concerned with its permanence. It was the Queen’s policy: Elizabeth had able coun- sellors, but the work was her own. Had she perished at any time during the first ten years of her reign, all would probably have been undone. There is no ground for supposing any general desire for the changes which she enforced. A small and active minority was with her; a rather larger minority, perhaps, was hostile; the bulk of the nation was indifferent but conservative. Mary Stewart would have been the inevitable successor, pos- sessed of the will and the power to reverse all that was done. The domination of the Crown in matters touching religion, so strange in our eyes, was then everywhere in evidence, though the failure of Henry of Navarre in France thirty years later shows that it had limits; but in Elizabeth’s position there were serious weaknesses. Her right to the throne was challengeable. A young woman of brilliant parts, but of dubious birth and questionable character, she embarked on a course of action which in the hands of strong and unscrupulous men, under cover of the unquestionable title of her brother, had only six years earlier come to an ignominious collapse. But she did it with a difference; with an affectation, at least, of compromise, and of a desire to retain men of various religious beliefs in the Church, regarded as national. She was perhaps sincere in this, her own indifference prompting it; at all events, it was her policy. As a consequence, she carried through an ecclesiastical revolu- tion with an extraordinary lack of violence, contrasting 22 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH strangely with the tumults of other countries at the time. It is to her credit that England had no internal Wars of Religion. The extruded bishops were kept in fairly agreeable durance, chiefly as guests of trustworthy persons. Such violence as occurred was the work of the returned exiles whom she employed as tools, and she kept a fairly tight hold on them. The futile rising of the northern Earls in 1569 was put down, as usual, with ruthless slaughter; but though the Earl of Sussex warned her that he could not find ten gentlemen in Yorkshire who approved her acts in regard to religion, punishment was meted out only to active rebels. Her savagery against Popish Recusants and Calvinistic Nonconformists was of later growth, consequent on events which had supervened. In earlier days the worst that recusants had to fear was the infliction of a fine for absence from the parish church, or of imprisonment for celebrating Mass according to a rite forbidden by law, This comparative lenity had, no doubt, much to do with the acquiescence of the whole people and an over- whelming majority of the clergy; but there were other causes more germane to our subject. The very pre- cariousness of the situation was a defence to Elizabeth. Those who desired the reversal of her acts were content to wait. At Rome there was a remarkable exhibition of patience, partly due to the influence of Philip of Spain, who was unwilling to let slip the English alliance. But this will not explain the silence of Paul IV. Once the friend of Pole and an ardent Catholic reformer, he had fallen under the influence of worthless nephews, and after repenting of that mistake he sank into a lethargy, varied by bouts of drinking and furious rages against Pole and Philip and Philip’s uncle the Emperor. Elizabeth’s THE HISTORIC BASIS 23 accession was announced; the French Court protested in favour of the claim of Mary Stewart, but the Pope gave no sign. He died in the following August, and there was a vacancy of four months before the election of his suc- cessor. Thus for a whole critical year the Roman Court was paralysed. Pius IV was a man of very different character. His ambition was to live praceably with all men and to renew the sittings of the Council of Trent. He sent as nuncio Pole’s old servant Parpaglia, who was not received, though known to be the bearer of a letter addressed in the most kindly terms to the Queen. Shortly afterwards came another envoy, Martinengo, with a far more important communication, formally asking Elizabeth to send representatives to the Council. The bearer was detained in Flanders, but the letter was received and carefully considered. Philip’s Ambassador in London urged acceptance of the invitation. Elizabeth played her usual double game ; declared she was as good a Catholic as any, and was willing to take part in the Council, but insisted that the English bishops, having been canonically appointed, must be seated there with the rest of the episcopate.t The negotiations seem to have broken down on this point. It was rumoured about the same time that the Pope was prepared to tolerate the use of the English Prayer-book, and the Cardinal of Lorraine was said to have stated as much to the English Ambassador in France. But the Cardinal of Lorraine was an intriguer whose statements are not evidence. The most ardent Romanist could not make head against Elizabeth in these circum- stances. Three years had elapsed since her accession, and she had consolidated her position. It seemed that she t See the diplomatic correspondence in the Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas, vol. i, Elizabeth. 24 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH might succeed in making Catholics and Reformed live together in the Church of England. My second comment looks far ahead. Much has been said about the “ Elizabethan Settlement,” as if it were a sort of immutable constitution. Yet it was hurriedly patched up, and seemed at the time to be a merely pro- visional arrangement. Its permanence is one of the marvels of history, and a pious judgment may reasonably find in a thing so unexpected the working of God’s provi- dence. It stood in face of the sentence of excommuni- cation delivered at Rome against Elizabeth and her fautors with deliberate solemnity after eleven patient years. It held the people of England together in resisting the power of Spain. With all its incoherence and inconsistency, it beat down once and again the logical precision and the grim determination of Calvinism. It survived a devas- tating civil war in which its enemies triumphed. It continued through the prosperous apathy of the eighteenth century in a weak current of religion, which suddenly broke into the rapids of the Tractarian movement. There are still some whom it moves to admiration; others tolerate it pending reform. Perhaps there are none who can honestly aver that the offspring of such a welter of religious strife as was the sixteenth century seems to them a proper ordering of Christianity. There is a way of talking about continuity in this con- nexion which is truly absurd, suggesting a denial that there was any religious revolution. This provokes an abundance of merited derision. But in the work of Elizabeth there were elements of continuity no less real than those of revolutionary change. She herself insisted on this. That was the meaning of her claim to be as good a Catholicas any. She was not like those theologians who in her own day and since have sought a Catholic THE HISTORIC BASIS 25 ancestry only in the first six Christian centuries. Neither was Matthew Parker, her one trusted ecclesiastic. He took a modest pride in all his predecessors whose lives he collected or wrote, plumed himself on being the first Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated without supersti- tious ceremonies, but avowed himself with particularity the legitimate successor of the late Cardinal Pole. The hierarchy was continued, not without a violent jerk, on the express understanding ‘‘ that from the Apostles’ time there hath been these orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church ’’; learned canonists have laboriously shown that irregularities due to the intrusion of bishops into sees already occupied were eliminated in the course of time by opportune deaths, and their argument is strengthened by the neglect of the Popes to provide for the vacant sees. Cathedral Chapters continued to function, and parish priests went on with their pastoral duties, through two or even three revolutions. The new modes of worship, as we shall see later, were mangled and truncated continuations of the old model, patiently accepted by the majority of those who could not approve the change. Even more conspicuous was the retention of the system of ecclesias- tical courts, the worst abuse of the Middle Ages, and the gravest cause of peril to the Church in the new age. The decisive witness to the real measure of continuity is found in the nonconformity of the more ardent Reformed, and their consistent protest against the whole Elizabethan settlement as dregs of Popery. CHAPTER III THE TRACTARIANS EVER was the Protestant element in the Church of England, as we have distinguished it, more domi- nant than when, on 9 September, 1833, the first three of the Oxford Tracts were issued. We must define our terms. In the proper historic sense, a Protestant is a Lutheran adhering to the Protest of Speier, and on England Lutheranism never made any great impression. The English Reformers were almost all of the school of Zurich, looked to the divines of that city as their guides, and to the Helvetic Confession as enouncing their principles. They sat loosely to forms of ecclesiastical polity, were interested in theological doctrine, especially the sacra- mentarianism of Carlstadt, in the utmost possible simpli- fication of worship, and in genuine pastoral activity. Their Swiss counsellors advised them to put up with episcopacy, as a thing indifferent, and for practical reasons to accept bishoprics themselves ; the same severe teachers reluctantly allowed that the forms of the Prayer- book, and most of the vestures enjoined, might be tolerated for a time, with a view to further reform. They were therefore able to take part in the settlement of 15509, though irritating Elizabeth and vexing the soul of Parker. Lutheranism they detested, and accused their more moderate colleagues, without much reason, of inclining 26 THE TRACTARIANS 27 to its errors. Calvinism came later, Thomas Cartwright being its chief exponent. Again, we must attempt exact- ness of terms. Calvinism is not the austere Augustinianism, mainly traditional, of Calvin’s / nstitutes, or the unbalanced insistence on some of its features which has often been so called ; it is rather the system of the Ordonnances framed for the Church of Geneva, which were supposed to be so entirely taken out of Holy Scripture as to be of indefectible divine authority. These established Presbyterianism and forbade any toleration of diocesan episcopacy. Calvinists in England were therefore necessarily nonconformist, though some of them were lax enough in conscience to enter the frame of the established Church for the purpose of wrecking it. These were the Puritans, properly so called, who denounced the retention of Popish dregs in the imperfectly reformed Church, and demanded a com- plete reformation, as some of them put it, “ without waiting for any.” At that extreme they were forced into separation, becoming Brownists or Independents, and were assailed with acrimony by the laggards. The situation has been obscured by the fact that many opponents of Calvinism were admirers of Calvin’s theology. Whitgift was in complete agreement on the Five Points with the nonconformists whom he harried. Hooker cited Calvin as theologian with a respect which did not prevent him from smiting Calvinism in ecclesiastical polity. At the end of the sixteenth century there were therefore in the Church of England traditional conservatives whom we may reasonably call Catholic, of unknown numbers because undistinguished, a dominant party of Reformed, and a growing company of Calvinists. All were opposed in act or intention to the considerable minority of Catho- lics who adhered to the papacy and were therefore dis- tinguished as Papists or Popish Recusants. For this 28 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH reason the title of Protestant, which originally stood precisely for opposition to the papacy, could appropriately comprehend them all. Andall used it. Andrewes, Cosin, Laud and Hammond, at whose “ Popish ” practice and teaching Puritans raged, called themselves Protestants. So far the distinction between “Catholic and Protestant elements ”’ in the Church, which we have assumed,! would involve a misnomer. Laud had dreams of reconciliation with Rome; though his conference with Fisher came to nothing, suggestions of possible agreement came from the other side, as in Sancta Clara’s examination of the Thirty-nine Articles, and there is no doubt that tantalizing visions of a Cardinal’s Hat were dangled before the Arch- bishop’s eyes. Yet on the scaffold he claimed that the King, his intimate friend and ally, was “as sound a Pro- testant, according to the religion by law established, as any man in this Kingdom.” John Evelyn, himself a sound Protestant, lived in amity with ecclesiastics at Rome, and stood as sponsor at the baptism of a converted Musulman.2 Such approximations were possible; a common sentiment of Catholicity drew men to intercourse across the gulf of schism. But a growing hatred of Rome, partly religious, partly political, had its effect, especially after the frenzy caused by the inventions of the Popish Plot. So late as the year 1718, when William Wake, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was in negotiation with the French Gallicans, the distinction between the Church of Rome and the Churches subject to Rome was not alto- gether lost sight of ; but it was rapidly disappearing from view, and English Protestantism became an habitual temper of rooted hostility and contempt for every opinion t Supra, p. 10. * Diary, 25 February, 1644-5. Shorthouse made use of this incident in John Inglesant. THE TRACTARIANS 29 and practice supposed to be characteristic of those Churches. Transubstantiation and the veneration of saints and images were, no doubt, the most prominent heads of offence ; but unfamiliarity could make even the most innocent things suspect. Joseph Butler was openly accused of an inclination to Popery because at Bristol he “ put up a cross, a plain piece of marble inlaid, in the chapel of his episcopal house,’’ and because in his charge to the clergy of Durham he showed that it was of some importance to have some external observance of religion. Of the former indiscretion an episcopal apologist opined that “‘it were to be wished, in prudence, it had not been done.” ! When we speak with respect of “‘ Protestant elements in the Church,’ we must not be supposed to mean these puerilities. But these puerilities did colour the practice and thought of nobly beautiful lives. The English Evangelicals, whether on the side of the Wesleys or among those who leaned to Calvinian theology, were oppressed by this mass of negative prejudice, alienated from some of the finest products of Catholicism, and starved in their outward expression of the truth that was in them. Those of the High-Church tradition suffered, perhaps, even more, being little inclined to supply what was lacking by the graces of personal fervour. Many words have been needed for putting into a true perspective what I have said about the predominance of the Protestant element in the Church at the time when the Tractarian movement began. A great part of the nation and almost the whole of the clergy had been angered by the removal of the political disabilities of the Papists. Then had come the suppression of Irish bishoprics by Act of Parliament, which seemed to some a triumph of t The Bishop of Gloucester’s Preface to The Analogy of Religion etc., p. ix, ed. 1828. 30 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the enfranchised Romanists justifying their worst fears, and to others a monstrous invasion of the spiritual functions of the clergy. There were probably not very many who took offence in this latter way, but among them were two young men at Oxford who proved to have an extra- ordinary gift for stating their grievance. The first three Tracts were written by Newman, but in a great measure inspired by Hurrell Froude, and they expressed with remarkable clarity what had been fer- menting in the minds of the two friends during their recent visit to Rome. Froude had been brought up as an old- fashioned High Churchman, his father being an antedated embodiment of Trollope’s Archdeacon Grantley. Newman had been brought up in rigid Evangelicalism, but his inter- course with the “* Noetics ’’ of Orielinfluenced him, perhaps, more than he knew; he had never read Kant, and we know on his own testimony that he did not read Coleridge until the year 1835; but he imbibed from Blanco White enough of Kant to make him what he became long after- wards, the true precursor of that Catholic Modernism which he would have deplored, had it appeared in his time. His remarkable statement, made in his later years, that from the age of fifteen he had relied on the two dominant intuitions of God and his own Self, certainly owed its form to these influences, but it must be accepted as auto- biographically true, and it shows the root of his Evangeli- calism. From Froude, and to some extent from Keble, he derived the beginnings of his Catholicity; entirely his own was the dialectic which conveyed to coarser minds an impression of insincerity. This was not displayed in the first three Tracts. They are rather crude, in everything but style. Yet reading them now, when every thought in them has been developed and refined in the work of ninety years, one catches echoes 4 THE TRACTARIANS 31 of the trumpet note which they sent crashing through the parsonages of England. Four packed pages in each of the first two, eight in the third, gave material enough for tumult. They put forward two main thoughts, one expressly, the other by implication; and this other was the newer and the more pregnant of consequences. What the writer insisted on was the apostolic character of “the ministerial commission.” Addressing himself explicitly ad clerum, he called attention, with emphasis of capitals, to “‘ the doctrine of APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ” and to “OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT.” We are now well aware, thanks to the labours of recent scholars, that he mismanaged this appeal, confusing the two ideas of suc- cession and tvansmission, a confusion which was to becloud English theology for many years. He seems to have overlooked the fact that a bishop does not consecrate his own successor, and transmits nothing at all to him. He passed in silence the supposition, fundamentally presbyterian, that the priests to whom a bishop transmits by ordination some powers of the ministerial commission receive by succession or “ descent ’’ the whole of those powers. Indeed he may seem to support that supposi- tion when he writes of a bishop ordaining priests, ‘‘ He could not give what he had never received. It is plain then that he but ¢vansmits, and that the Christian Ministry is a succession.’’ Apostolic Succession, properly understood, has the more restricted meaning of the succession of bishops in their respective sees. Newman himself probably knew this, and he called the bishops—those Georgian bishops of his day—once more with the emphasis of capitals, ‘the SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES”’; but he certainly conveyed to the minds of many of the priests whom his message reached an impression that they also were suc- cessors of the Apostles. It is no wonder that those who 32 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH accepted the message were at first called, seriously or in derision, ‘‘ apostolicals.”” Neither is it any wonder that results followed resembling those which Clarendon noted, at the end of his Character of Laud, as observed by the squires and noblemen of his day: “‘ They did observe the Inferior Clergy took more upon them than they were wont, and did not live towards their Neighbours of Quality, or their Patrons themselves, with that Civility and Con- descension they had used to do; which disposed Them likewise to a withdrawing their good Countenance and good Neighbourhood from them.’’ Whence much trouble. The apostolic origin of the sacred ministry had always been more or less accepted, and the effect of the Tracts was but to rouse a passionate interest in the subject ; but the other leading thought, rather implicit than ex- pressed in them, was revolutionary. It challenged a conception of Christian society which took form in the time of Theodosius to baffle the mind of St. Augustine, grew into a common habit of thought in the Middle Ages, and was broken by the disorders of the Reformation but — rehabilitated for Englishmen by the majestic restatement of Richard Hooker ; the conception of an unitary society in which spiritual and temporal powers, civil and eccle- siastical administration, were regarded as co-ordinate, with limits never quite accurately determined, but fixed in principle by the ordinance of God. An invasion of one province by the forces of the other was not to be allowed, but could on occasion be tolerated, and might even be salutary; the consequent disorder could be remedied with patience, and the proper relation of the two powers would be restored. I will take out of Hooker himself the briefest possible statement of this conception. Contending against the Calvinists who “‘ make a necessary separation perpetual and personal between the Church THE TRACTARIANS 33 and the commonwealth,” he sums up a succinct account of his own position in these words: “ With us therefore the name of a church importeth only a society of men, first united into some public form of regiment, and secondly distinguished from other societies by the exercise of Christian religion.” Looking at the matter historically, he pictures to himself a community already existing which receives and adopts the Christian faith, and thereupon becomes a Church. As he puts it elsewhere, ‘‘If the commonwealth be Christian, if the people which are of it do publicly embrace the true religion, this very thing doth make it the Church.” This priority of time is then con- verted into a priority of nature, and every human society settled in the profession of Christianity is primarily Commonwealth, secondarily Church. On the foundation of that priority he bases the Royal Supremacy. The actual state of things in England he sets out in the most positive terms: ‘‘ There is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the Common- wealth ; nor any man a member of the Commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England.” From this, with a curious reference to the sides and base of a triangle, he deduces the consequence: “‘ Albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a Commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name of a, Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the self- Same multitude may in such sort be both, and is so with us, that no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the other.’ I am not concerned here with criticism of Hooker’s arguments or of the conception which he was justifying, and have only to observe how the Tractarians reacted to them. It is obvious that the conception, broadly t Eccl, Pol., VIII, i. 2; and vi. 6, D 34 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH considered, is not incompatible with Catholicism, for the Catholic Church sustained it during many centuries ; but the Tractarians had to consider it in relation to con- ditions existing in England at the time of their movement. The unitary conception of a Commonwealth-Church was retained here when it was breaking down elsewhere under the impact of the Calvinistic separation of Church and State, which became also a principle of the Counter- reformation : a separation, we must remember, which did not preclude, but rather demanded, a close alliance of the two independent societies. What might elsewhere be thought expedient was here a matter of course. Ina Commonwealth-Church it is evident that excommunication must carry with it a loss of civil rights, for a man cannot be excluded from one factor of the whole combination without being excluded also from the other. Until the year 1813 this was effected in England by the close im- prisonment of persons excommunicate, and even then the Act of that year (53 Geo. III, c. 127), which abolished the writ de excommunicato captendo, substituted another. writ for the imprisonment of any person contumaciously defying an order of a Spiritual Court, until he should be purged of his contumacy. The principle of the Common- wealth-Church was thus maintained, though a breach had been made in it long before by the Toleration Act, and it was more effectively supported by the Test Act, until this was repealed in 1828, after which the “‘ Roman Catholic Relief Act’? removed also other civil disabilities based on religious differences. The Commonwealth-Church now lay in ruins, but the consequence was hardly noticed until the Tracts called attention to it. Administration and legislation went on much as before, and the suppression of ten Irish sees by Act of Parliament in 1833, however detestable to Churchmen, would have been a not unnatural THE TRACTARIANS 35 proceeding if the old order had continued. Other pro- jects were in the air, including a drastic revision of the Prayer-book by the same authority. The first reformed Parliament seemed to be capable of anything. In 1832 Keble had written, as if the Commonwealth-Church sur- vived but ought to be broken up: ‘‘ Anything, humanly speaking, will be better than for the Church to go on in union with such a State.’’! Hurrell Froude, ‘‘ not afraid of inferences,’ saw things more clearly, and he seems to have opened Newman’s eyes. The second Tract dealt with the attack on the Irish Church. Newman did not hesitate to make use of the anger which it evoked, but he tried to give ita new turn. Irish dioceses were forcibly united, so as to reduce the total number; he asked his readers to consider whether St. Paul would have allowed the civil power of Rome to annex the Church of Miletus to Timothy’s charge at Ephesus, and whether Timothy would have submitted: ‘‘Is not the notion of such an order, such an obedience, absurd? Yet has it not been realized in what has lately happened? For in what is the English State at present different from the Roman formerly ? Neither can be accounted members of the Church of Christ. No one can say the British Legislature is in our communion, or that its members are necessarily even Christians. What pretence then has it for, not merely advising, but superseding the Ecclesiastical Power?” That is a frank declaration that the Common- wealth-Church does not exist, framed in such a way as to show that the conditions postulated by Hooker himself are lacking; the English State was officially no more Christian than the empire of Claudius or Nero. Two months earlier Keble had, in a memorable sermon, sounded an alarm about the peril of National Apostasy ; Newman t Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, vol. i, p. 266. 86 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH now declared that the apostasy was complete. Froude alone had the daring to start that inference. He alone could follow it without flinching. The Church was still united to the State, said some; “ united,’’ his answer flashed forth, “as Israel to Egypt.’’ When his memory was attacked, his friends seemed to be fired with his spirit. For this dreadful comparison, found in his Remains, a critic substituted the figure of a Christian woman married to an apostatizing husband, and clinging to him lest he should fall into the sin of divorce. A not unedifying picture, which St. Paul might have praised. But Keble, who was just then reviewing in the British Critic Gladstone’s book on the State in its relations with the Church, almost surpassed his friendin protest. ‘“‘ He had thought,” he exclaimed, ‘‘ that the Spouse of the Church was a very different Person from any and all States.’”’ Such an alliance, he declared, was not only fatal but monstrous. It was a marriage of the living and the dead: Mortua quinetiam iungebat corpora vivis, Componens manibusque manus, atque oribus ora: Tormenti genus ! Yet he shrank, as Froude did not, from acknowledging that Mezentian alliance as a fact, tried to think of the Commonwealth-Church as still in being, and two years later, editing the works of Hooker, did not go beyond stating a hypothetic case of disunion: “In these large concessions to the civil power,’’ he wrote in his preface, ““ Hooker always implies, not only that those who exercise it are Christians, but also that they are sound and orthodox churchmen, in complete communion with the Church which they claim to govern. Where that condition fails, on his own principles the identity or union of Church and state is at an end; and the Church, as a distinct body, — THE TRACTARIANS 87 is free without breach of loyalty to elect officers, make laws, and decide causes for herself, no reference at all being had to the civil power.” But though the declara- tion of independence, flung broadcast in the Tract, was premature in the sense that no action taken upon it was feasible at the time, it took root in the minds of all whom the Tractarians influenced, and was destined to produce in later years remarkable manifestations of passive resist- ance. I reckon this one of the chief contributions of the Tractarians to the Anglo-Catholicism of to-day. Its most striking effect in their own day was the hostility of Thomas Arnold. That great and passionate man dreamt of restoring, with whatever inconsistencies might be neces- sary, the reality of the Commonwealth-Church, and in Tractarianism he recognized the outstanding obstacle. CHAPTER IV DEVELOPMENT iT HAVE not to tell the story of the Tractarians, their success, their disappointments and their disasters. It has been written. I am concerned with later develop- ments, clearly traceable to them, but gathering also full streams from other sources. William Collins used to insist that the Oxford Movement came to an abrupt end in the year 1845, and that to speak of it as continuing was a falsification of history. He was right in the letter. Newman’s withdrawal—I must use the word—to sulk at Littlemore left his comrades and followers in the Uni- versity bewildered and leaderless. Pusey, “the Great ”’ as Newman called him in the Oxford dialect of Greek, was a tower of strength, but he never had the gifts of leadership. Ward of Balliol, the most brilliant and daring of them all after the death of Froude, got out of hand, seeming to think of nothing but irritating and shocking Protestants. His Ideal of a Christian Church, which for my present purpose I have taken down from a repose of fifty years on my shelves, was not so much a statement of an ideal as a merciless and scornful judgment passed on all and sundry in the Church of England, in- cluding some of his most intimate associates, who did not adopt practices discovered in a mental perambulation of other Churches. The upshot of it was, to quote a more 38 DEVELOPMENT 39 famous literary voyager, that “they order this matter better in France,” a statement perhaps true, but not altogether relevant to his theme. The negative indict- ment was terrific, but not much more severe than others which might be laid against many parts of Christendom or many an age of the Church. This, however, was laid against men whose great. fault was complacency, and exaggeration might therefore be excused. Yet the indict- ment was true in the main. Ward’s constant frivolity was but superficial. The depths of his soul were revealed in the opening pages of his book, where he proclaimed the achievement of holiness and the succour of the oppressed as the obligatory work of the Christian Church. I can the better understand the effect which it produced because when I first read it fifty years ago I was filled with dismay. Relief came from the reflection that in thirty years there had been much improvement, so that the Church of England could not have been moribund when he wrote its epitaph. His associates had not that evidence to stay them. The effect on them, in their already shaken temper, was one of profound depression. What secured the condemnation of Ward by the Uni- versity was his claim to hold ‘‘ the whole cycle of Roman doctrine.’””’ Whether the proposed condemnation of Newman would have been carried is doubtful, for the proceedings were then stopped by the non placet of the Proctors, Guillemard and Church. This was of small importance. It was clear that the Tractarians, who eight or nine years earlier were dominating the Uni- versity, had suffered an overwhelming defeat. As Stanley said, it was the closing scene of the Oxford Movement. It is significant that Jowett and Stanley were among the members of the University who publicly thanked the Proctors for their intervention. The reason for this 40 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH action of young Liberals was that the victory lay with the old Protestants, to whose particular kind of orthodoxy they were even more opposed than to the fluid Catholicism of the Tracts. A digression seems here to be inevitable. The Tract- arians, though shy of the word, never ceased to call them- selves Protestant. They could hardly do so when they were producing that Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, the writers of which constantly adopted that designation. They were opposed to the Church of Rome, and said hard things of Romanists; they were opposed no less to men whose hatred of Rome swept them away from Catholic traditions, and these they called Ultra-protestants; a Middle Way, presumably the safest, was their own chosen path. It might have been well to retain this nomencla- ture, well grounded in history as I have shown it to be. But the combination of old Protestants and Ultra- protestants in the proceedings at Oxford, which had a repercussion throughout the country, made this impossible. The later Tractarians and those who followed them could not call themselves Protestant without some taint of insincerity. The word had taken on a new meaning, and stood precisely for antagonism to them. It was deeply degraded when vulgar brawls were substituted for con- troversy, and when a prominent statesman could speak with contempt of “‘ the bray of Exeter Hall.”” For George Borrow it seemed to mean a kind of pugilism. It made a partial return to its old sense in the frenzy aroused by Pius IX’s erection of a hierarchy in England, but a curious chapter in the history of words was opened when Protestants of the Liverpool type learnt to protest that they had no quarrel with Roman Catholics, but would not tolerate Puseyites or Ritualists. It then almost ceased to have any religious significance, and went increasingly DEVELOPMENT 41 out of use among reasonable men. Strangely enough, this very disuse has enabled it to recover some of its old repute, and we can now speak with respect of ‘‘ Protestant elements in Christianity.” : The stream of secessions to Rome from all parts of the country, which followed the condemnation of Ward, seemed to show that the hopes of the Tractarians were extinguished. In October Newman departed, Pusey alone having nursed hopes of him to the last. Six years earlier he had suffered much from the “‘ stomach-ache,”’ as he called it, given him by Wiseman’s use of a curtailed phrase from St. Augustine, for which an inaccurate refer- ence was given, and which could not be traced in the index of the Benedictine edition. I have seen no evidence that he ever looked it out. What St. Augustine said was that the whole world confidently condemned the Donatists for separating themselves from the rest of the world. That could hardly be said of the English Church, and a better parallel might be found elsewhere. Newman had already been worried in his own reading by a much more specious resemblance to the position of the Monophysites ; now he took, apparently on trust, a suggestion that he was in the same case as the Donatists. It was “ the first real hit from Romanism.”’ Thereafter he was much battered in the same sense, not by Wiseman, but from his own side by Wail and Oakeley. The wonder is that he held out so long, and the resistance is witness to his sin- cerity. Departing, he left behind with his old associates a priceless treasure—his writings. To these were pre- sently added the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, finished as he was leaving Littlemore, which Wiseman persuaded him to publish. To this we must pay some special attention. But first * Supra, p. 10. 4 Letters and Correspondence, vol. ii, pp. 284-6. 42 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH it will be well to observe the rapid extinction of the Tractarians as a force in the University. Some passed away to a new activity in parishes; some settled down to obscure work in their colleges; others, unanchored, drifted into the Liberalism which they had been com- bating, and became distinguished therein. When I went to Oxford in 1871, Pusey stood on his lone eminence, respected by almost all, disliked by most; he had no weight in the counsels of the University, and few knew anything of the work that he was doing for souls in his corner at Christ Church. Of those who had beaten him down, and tried to keep him under, four or five old men survived in dignified seclusion as Heads of Houses, and they were the only other living links with the stormy days that had been. Of the next generation, Bright was returned from Scotland to lecture on Eusebius, and Father Benson was understood to be attempting a queer adventure in the mean streets beyond Magdalen Bridge. Liddon, another generation down, belonged to a new class, within our own’ world; he could still be found by those who sought him, but was already giving his best to St. Paul’s. The Liberals who had tried, not without some thought of their own future, to disable the acrid conserva- tism marshalled against Newman and Ward, soon pushed themselves to the front on their own account, and the Royal Commission of 1855,gave them a firm foothold. In our time they were dominant. The Tests had just been abolished ; candidates for a degree were still examined in the Thirty-nine Articles, and I acquired a respect for their Latinity, but already it seemed like an old wife’s tale when one read of a Graduate degraded or a Fellow expelled for taking liberties with their supposed meaning. So completely had a quarter of a century dissevered us — from the Oxford Movement. DEVELOPMENT 43 Newman’s Essay on Development was written for the purpose of enabling him to enter the Roman Communion. Drawn that way ten years before, doubting for half the time whether anything of Catholic and Apostolic character could be found elsewhere, he could not yield himself to the attraction until he had satisfied his sensitive con- science about those “‘ Roman corruptions ”’ which he had habitually denounced. It is probably true that he de- nounced them more fiercely than Pusey precisely because of the barrier which they interposed, a barrier which did not trouble Pusey until thirty years later, and then in a different fashion. It would be unjust to suppose that Newman tried to justify by sophistical argument a change of attitude already determined. Both his intellect and his conscience were subtle, but not in that way. If his desires inevitably made him open to conviction, he none the less required conyiction. Had it been otherwise, he would have completed the transit much sooner, and with the same facility as some whose desires were a sufficient impulse to action. It should be remembered also that, unlike Keble and Pusey, he had grown up from boyhood in an atmosphere thick with horror of the “‘ soul-destroying errors of Rome.” By sheer study and honest reasoning he convinced himself that the impugned doctrines and practices, so far from being ruinous to religion, were ~ sufficiently in the line of normal development from the fundamental truths of Christianity to be at least tolerable. It is known that some of the practices in question re- mained extremely distasteful to him, and years after- wards he told Pusey that the description of them was like a bad dream ; but it did not follow that he was either bound or entitled to refuse communion with those who allowed them. The interposed barrier was down, and he could enjoy his heart’s desire. That which had seemed 44 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH unattainable, both to him and to Froude, when they were at Rome in 1833, was now within his reach. | The argument was for himself alone. Nobody else seems to have felt any need of it; indeed, most of those who follow the path to Rome appear to be rather attracted than repelled by the very things which he had to justify. Wiseman, persuading him to publish it, doubtless thought it would prove useful to others in the same way; but Wiseman never understood Englishmen. It has proved useful to others, but in a quite different way. It was a detailed exposition of that ‘‘ profectus religionis’”’ with which Vincent of Lerin modified the rigidity of his de- scription of the depositum: ‘‘ quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.’’ The Tractarians, taking up that appeal to antiquity which they reckoned the characteristic mark of the English Church, had set great store by the Vincentian canon, and they absorbed no small measure of its rigidity. The appeal to antiquity meant for them an appeal to the Ancient Fathers of the Church ; and living, as Newman said, with the Fathers, they read them uncritically and under the control of certain prejudices. In this respect they were inferior to some men of whom they had a poor opinion. Jewel— a much greater man than any of his contemporaries and disciples, Richard Hooker alone excepted—started an’ appeal to the First Six Centuries. But in what sense ? For a closely restricted purpose. The Church of England had abandoned certain practices previously observed, and was charged on that account with departing from Catholicity. Jewel challenged all comers to prove that any one of these practices had been established in the Catholic Church during the first six centuries. If that _ could be proved, he was willing to allow that the Church of England had rashly and presumptuously innovated. DEVELOPMENT 45 If it could not be proved, he contended that the Church of England was not to be condemned for abandoning something which had presumably been unknown during a long period of Christian history. He did not argue that the abandoned practice was wrong, or that all who retained it were to be condemned ; he argued only that it was per- missible to abandon it. He was probably conscious of yielding more than was necessary for his purpose, for he must have known that many practices well established within his chosen period had been abandoned by the common consent of Christendom; but as a wary dis- putant he would not try to prove too much, and confined himself to particulars alleged by opponents. The rather cheap victory which he thus achieved over so muddle- headed a controversialist as Thomas Harding gave the appeal to antiquity a vogue extending far beyond the scope of its astute author. In conjunction with the unmodified Vincentian canon it produced in the English divines of the seventeenth century a conception of Christ- lanity as a system stationary in all ages, the source of Bull’s determination to find the full Nicene doctrine veiled in writers of the second or third century. The reliance of the Tractarians on those divines, partly politic but not insincere, gave an equally rigid form to their theology. I have spoken of its fluidity, but only in the sense of a rapid passage from one convention to another. The convention from which they had departed was based in great measure on the Thirty-nine Articles. It seems strange that a document, provisional in its origin and adopted in a period of violent flux, should have become an instrument of stability; but that was in complete accordance with the general character of English religion. The convention thus established included a traditional interpretation of the Articles, professedly based on nothing 46 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH but their grammatical sense. With this the Tractarians had to wrestle, for it did not support their contentions. They could not ignore the Articles, since they not only had to accept them as a convention, but were also required to declare their personal adhesion to them in decisive terms. Reinterpretation was therefore necessary; but the consequent fluidity of their teaching was distasteful to them, and they required a settlement. This was sought in Tract 90, which may be called an essay in the new con- vention towards which they were moving. The general acceptance of this by all whom they were influencing, which seems to have been expected, would have so far restored stability, and the movement would probably have come to a standstill on that convention. But on the contrary the effect was explosive. The. party of the Tractarians, both in the University and in the country, was shattered, and that wild unrest ensued which cul- minated in Ward’s adventure and his condemnation. Those who attacked him were bent on restoring the old convention. But they attempted too much. They pro- posed a new test for members of the University, who were to subscribe the Articles, one and all, “‘in that sense in which I believe them to be proposed to me by the Uni- versity.”’! This would have defeated their aim, for the sense proposed would have been variable with the fluctu- ating mind of the University, and would be determined in effect, for each case that might arise, by a vote of Con- vocation. Stability would therefore be destroyed. But at the time it would have meant the imposition of the old convention, and it was this that drew the young Liberals into opposition. Tait, now Head Master of 1 “ Ko sensu... im quo eos ex animo credo et primitus editos esse et nunc mihi ab Universitate propositos’’ (Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, vol. ii, p. 416). DEVELOPMENT 47 Rugby, uttered their objections ; others were raised from various quarters, and the authors of the proposed test did not venture to move its adoption. The “literal and grammatical sense ’’ was left in posses- sion. But Newman had shown that this did not necessarily involve the interpretation of the Articles according to the old convention, and his interpretation proposed in Tract go, though furiously assailed, was not formally condemned. The remnant of the Tractarians, and all who followed them, adhered to this, and it became their own convention. In 1867 it was restated, with greater wealth of learning and illustration, in the Bishop of Brechin’s Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles. By that time, however, the stringency of subscription had been relaxed, and the clergy were required only to make in general terms a “ Declara- tion of Assent’ to the Articles, and a profession of belief in the doctrine of the Church of England “as therein set forth.” This change was brought in at the instance of the triumphant Liberals, who had already made the old form of subscription ridiculous. A story once current about Jowett, whether true or invented, illustrates their attitude. He was summoned before the Vice-Chancellor of the University, and asked in solemn form whether he could renew his subscription to the Articles ; his contemp- tuous reply, “‘If you have a pen,” which could not be challenged, showed the absurdity of the procedure. The change did not reduce the absurdity of making this six- teenth-century document a standard of orthodoxy ; but it did relieve the declarant of the absurdity of apparently committing himself to every statement contained in the Articles, including the statement that a volume which he has never examined “ doth contain a godly and whole- some doctrine,” the obviously untrue assertion that “ the t The Clerical Subscription Act, 1865, § 1. 48 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England,” and the rash affirmation that St. Augustine said something which is not to be found in any of his authentic works. At the present day Anglo-Catholics make no difficulty about the Declaration of Assent, though they are at all times inclined to protest against the continued use of so obsolete a document. They accept, as settled, the inter- pretations of Newman and the Bishop of Brechin, but without much concern, making little or no use of the Articles as authoritative texts. They are more interested in Newman’s other legacy. His former associates looked askance at the Essay on Development, partly because it was published after he had left them, partly because it was written for a purpose which was not theirs and in defence of particular developments to which they were not inclined. But they had to read it, and it slowly per- meated their minds. The value of it lay in its method, and the effect of this was to quicken movements already perceptible. I borrow from Liddon’s Life of Pusey! a sentence referring to other circumstances of the time: “Those in authority were beginning to recognize that the revival of true Anglican principles, with its appeal to the Primitive Church, really involved logical consequences far beyond what had been contemplated by the old High Churchism with which they had originally identified — it.” The recognition was either hostile or friendly; its appearance on both sides argues accuracy of observation. But friendly recognition, like some other apperceptions which we shall have to notice, came slowly to its fullness. The habit of thinking in terms of absolute stability could not be dropped without anxiety and fear of aimless drifting. The weakness of spiritual authority in the Church of t Vol. ii, p. 362. DEVELOPMENT 49 England, to which we must next address ourselves, sug- gested that profectus religionis might be distorted into a betrayal of the Deposit of Faith. Where Liberal Pro- testantism was a danger, liberation did not seem altogether safe. It is only in recent years that Anglo-Catholics have come to happy terms with critical theology, with Biblical Criticism, and with a fearless treatment of history. Not all of us are even now courageous, CHAPTER V CHURCH AND STATE 7E have seen that in the first of the Oxford Tracts the separation of Church and State was clearly faced, with an assertion of the purely secular character of the English Parliament. But we have seen also that eight years afterwards Keble could speak of this separa- tion only as a possibility. Thomas Arnold, passionately adhering to the medieval conception as expounded by Hooker, observed the inevitable drift and laboured to stem the current, but those in the stream were slow to see whither they were going. It is easy to account for this. The fears aroused by the activities of the Reform Parlia- ment were abated by the proof of its incapacity, and by the heavy losses of the Whigs in the general election of 1835. But hopes of a better correlation were dashed in 1841, when it was found that the Tories under the leader- ship of Peel had no intention of leaving the Church alone. The Ecclesiastical Commission was much more friendly, but not less interfering, than the Parliament which had suppressed the Irish sees. Yet mutterings of discontent hardly rose to a growl, and they came from a new quarter. It was men like Sydney Smith who sneered at Peel for ‘‘ putting the Church into a Commission,’ and denounced the spoiling of prebendaries. The Tractarians were now otherwise occupied. They had their domestic troubles ; 50 CHURCH AND STATE 51 they could no longer speak confidently as interpreting even the hidden mind of the Church ; their right to claim any- thing for the Church was challenged by loud assertions that they were at best an alien element with a questionable domicile. Moreover they and their successors were to be hampered for many years to come by a consciousness that political restraints on ecclesiastical authority were for them a temporary protection. These inducements to caution were strengthened by some effects of the romantic reaction which contributed: to the victory of Sir Robert Peel. The Tories of the “ Young England ”’ school looked back, partly to a glamour of medieval feudalism, partly to Cavalier sentiment. The Tractarians had encouraged the latter retrospect ; some new allies of theirs, whose work we must presently consider, were in line with the former. Both influences induced a new respect for those relations of the Spiritualty and the Temporalty which had been a reality in the favoured periods. It could now be no more than a shadow, but the young Gladstone had essayed a compromise, setting the connexion of the two Powers on a basis of alliance, which was effectively riddled by Macaulay but not on that account abandoned ; and Gladstone was the “‘ rising hope,”’ not only of the Tories who distrusted Peel, but also of his Tractarian friends at Oxford. The time was un- propitious for agitation against the intrusions of the State. The intrusions became more frequent, and were on a larger scale. Between the accession of William IV and the year 1875 more than forty Acts of Parliament testified to the interest of statesmen in ecclesiastical affairs. An imposing array of volumes contains the Orders in Council issued during the same period under powers conferred by one or another of those Acts. These intrusions were not 52 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the less intrusive because bishops had a hand in them as members, either of the House of Lords or of the Eccle- siastical Commission. In the one they sat only as magnates of the commonwealth, in the other they acted on a com- mission from the Crown. The greater part of this mass of legislation was benevolent and _ beneficent. Much of it dealt, chiefly or even exclusively, with the temporal endowments of the clergy. Melancholy blunders occurred, but scandalous abuses were abated. Some of the Acts have been unfairly criticized. The transfer of the appellate jurisdiction of the Crown from the Court of Delegates to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was not the portent which later events made it seem to angry dis- putants; the new Court of Appeal had exactly the same authority as that which it superseded, an authority con- ferred by statute, and it was a weightier tribunal. The Church Discipline Act of 1841 did not, as some have ~ alleged, set up a new jurisdiction without spiritual authority ; its intention and its potential effect were to- liberate a bishop from certain shackles of customary law, so that he might personally exercise some of his apostolic powers in judgment on evil doers; so faras the effect was not secured, the sloth or cowardice of prelates was the cause of failure. There were mutterings of sounder criticism: The original warning of the Tracts was not entirely forgotten. A radical fault of all this legislation lay in the fact that Crown and Parliament were continuing to perform functions which had not been altogether incongruous under the old constitution, but were become indefensible now that Church and State were no longer conterminous. But what else could be done? Legislation was needed. The existing laws respecting the Church, whatever their origin, — had been absorbed into the Common Law or the Statute CHURCH AND STATE 53 Law of the Realm, and as so established they could not be amended in any way except by Act of Parliament. In that precise sense Religion or the Church is said to be “established by law.’ If Englishmen were in the habit of legislating logically, the repeal of the Test Act would have been followed at once by an Act of “‘ disestablishment.”’ But that was not suggested, except perhaps by the fears of the dignified clergy, and so legislation needed for the practical welfare of the Church was effected by the organs of a State now logically and practically distinct from the Church. Protests against this unreasonable condition of things were made, but usually on wrong lines. The reactionary sentiments to which I have referred produced impossible demands for the restoration of the clergy to their old position as an Estate of the Realm, whose con- sent would be required for the validity of legislation affect- ing sacred things. This demand was doubly mistaken. When the clergy really were an Estate of the Realm, their consent was required, theoretically if not practically, for legislation of any kind, and that consent was given pro forma by proctors who attended Parliament at the end of each session, when the Royal Assent was given to the Bills that had been passed. Harrison’s Description of England contains an account of this formality as observed towards the end of the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the one effective work of the clergy, as an Estate of the Realm, had been the taxation of their goods for the service of the Crown, which they insisted on granting in convocations of the provincial synods, and not in Parliament. When in the reign of Charles II they tacitly surrendered this function, and consented to taxa- tion by Parliament, they ceased to exist as a separate estate and were merged in the Commons, voting with other freeholders in elections to the Lower House of 54 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Parliament. It is impossible, therefore, to contend that the clergy are now entitled to have any voice in the legislation of the Realm, except as represented in Parliament. Dissatisfaction found more reasonable expression in a demand for the revival of the activities of Convocation, which had not been allowed to meet for the despatch of business since the year 1717. Some prominent laymen, chief among whom was the banker, Mr. Henry Hoare, supported the demand, which was ardently pressed by Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford. An active agitation began in 1848, and was continued without remission for seven years. By a curious survival of old custom the Convocation of each province held a formal meeting about the time of the opening of each session of Parliament, but was immediately prorogued by the Archbishop. Better counsels than were at first in evi- dence led to the suppression of wild talk about an Estate of the Realm, and the meeting was treated as a session only of the sacred synod of the province. Examination of precedents showed that such a synod, though for- bidden by the Act for the Submission of the Clergy to enact or promulgate any canon without licence from the Crown, was not debarred from discussion or the adoption of resolutions. In 1855 the Convocation of Canterbury took this liberty and retained it. But legisla- tion by canon or constitution was impracticable, and would not, even if possible, have any effect on the Common Law or Statute Law of the Realm by which the Church was increasingly controlled. The revival of Convocation seemed to be a fruitless victory. Another function of the Provincial Synod was mooted. It was by ancient custom the supreme tribunal in cases of heresy, and so late as the year 1712 its competence was affirmed by the removal of a charge of Arianism against William Whiston from the CHURCH AND STATE 55 Court of Delegates. But here again recent Statute Law intervened. The Church Discipline Act forbade any pro- ceedings against a clerk in holy orders, otherwise than as therein provided, and no provision was made for an appeal to the Synod. If the Convocations were no longer silenced, they were still fettered. The struggle for the liberty of the Church was diverted elsewhere, and it happily became much more the affair of the laity. Dreams of political privilege for the clergy faded into their proper insignificance, and attention was concentrated on the appellate jurisdiction of the Crown, now gathered into the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The new tribunal began well, reforming some abuses in the practice of the ecclesiastical courts which had become inveterate in the close atmosphere of Doctors Commons. Little notice was taken of it, until the Gorham case brought on a crisis. This is not the place for considering the theological implications of that famous dispute ; I am concerned at present only with the action of the Judicial Committee, and chiefly with one aspect of that action. Mr. Gorham was vicar of St. Just-in-Penwith, a parish of the diocese of Exeter, and in 1847 he was presented to the vicarage of Brampford-Speke, in the same diocese. The bishop, after a lengthy examination, refused to institute him on the ground that he held erroneous views on the nature of baptismal regeneration. The bishop did not formally charge him with heresy, for he would have been bound, had he done so, to open proceedings for his removal from the benefice which he already held. The refusal was rather administrative than judicial. Mr. Gorham moved the Provincial Court of Arches, on a plea of Duplex Querela, to make an order requiring the bishop to institute. The Dean of Arches decided on 2 August, 56 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH 1849, that the bishop was justified in refusing. Mr. Gorham appealed to the Crown, and in the following December his case came before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Judgment was given in March 1850. The Judicial Committee disclaimed any right or power to determine what was the true doctrine of the Church, but found on the facts presented that Mr. Gorham’s answers to the bishop’s questions did not contradict any- thing contained in the Thirty-nine Articles or other for- mularies of the Church, as construed in their literal and grammatical sense ; it therefore reversed the judgment of the Court of Arches, which was directed to order the institution of the appellant. The bishop refused com- pliance, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as metro- politan, thereupon instituted Mr. Gorham. The bishop denounced this act of the metropolitan, with a rather futile threat that he would refuse to have any communion with him thereafter. Great excitement ensued. In spite of the disclaimer of the tribunal, the case was treated as if it were a process of heresy, and as if a denial of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration had been ruled to be no heresy. By some the result was loudly welcomed as meaning no less, and their triumphant cries added to the general consternation. General, I say, for it was not only the surviving Tractarians who stood by the doctrine which they had so assiduously preached. They found themselves once more in the posi- tion of leaders, and some who were not of their school went beyond them in excitement. They themselves knew where they stood; they recalled their early teaching about the separation of Church and State; they declared that the Crown, of which the Judicial Committee was merely an instrument, was no judge of heresy ; the Royal Supremacy, whatever it might mean in the past or in the present, CHURCH AND STATE 57 did not involve anything so monstrous. They recognized the practical gravity of the crisis. Keble said that if they did not destroy the Judicial Committee, the Judicial Committee would destroy the Church. For those who had not faced the idea of separation the prospect was even more alarming: the Church was already ruined. Manning, who had severed himself from the Tractarians eight years earlier, found the Church of England, as he thought, robbed by its own act of an essential article of the faith, and therefore no longer Catholic. He was homeless, and could find a refuge only in that Roman Church which he had violently denounced. Many flocked after him, and there was a secession even larger than that which accompanied Newman’s departure. Others kept their heads. Pusey, as usual, stood like a rock. Keble had happily, before the judgment was given, published anonymously a weighty pamphlet on Ivial of Doctrine, showing that the Judicial Committee was an “alien” court, which could commit the Church to nothing, and that Convocation alone was competent to decide questions of doctrine. This was followed, after the judgment, by A Call to Speak Out,t in which he urged the importance of ending the alien interference, finding in the circumstances “‘a providential call to examine at large the present relations of the Church to the State in England, and see whether it be possible for us to acquiesce in them any longer without very grievous sin.” At the same time he showed that there was no obligation to decline communion with anyone who was not formally con- demned as heretical, and warned his readers not to let themselves be forced into a “nonjuring movement.” But not even Keble, Clear-sighted and temperate, seized * Both are reprinted in Occasional Papers and Reviews, 1877, pp. 201-37, 58 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the real point at issue, though he glanced at it in his second pamphlet. Occupied with proofs of the incompetence of the tribunal to exercise a power which it expressly dis- claimed, men overlooked what it had actually done. It had overruled the judgment of a bishop and of the metro- politan’s court about the admission of a priest to the cure of souls, and by an order emanating from the Crown had compelled institution. This was to invade one of the most sacred functions of the Church, the grant of spiritual mission. If the metropolitan court obeyed and issued a mandate, if the archbishop ousted the bishop and exe- cuted the mandate, that might give the clerk so instituted what was technically necessary for the exercise of his sacred office, but he was none the less forced into it by the secular power of the Crown. Such outrages have been patiently endured by the Church in all ages, but can they be accepted as normal ? The excitement died down, and nothing was done. The Bishop of London brought into the House of Lords a Bill for establishing a more suitable Court of Appeal, apparently not perceiving that this would be merely to substitute a new “alien” for the old. The House threw it out with contempt. The Church seemed to be handed over, bound, to an extern power. Judgment after judgment was delivered by the Judicial Committee, some dealing more explicitly with points of doctrine, some with divine worship ; some of them models of juristic learning, others betraying a careless ignorance of the matter in debate or motives rather of policy than of law. It was even thought that some were conceived in terms of studied insolence. No remedy was in sight. The Church was not unpopular enough to be despoiled by disestablish- ment, and was too unpopular to be released from fetters. The judgments given either condemned practices which CHURCH AND STATE 59 were widely disliked, or allowed a freedom of opinion which suited the temper of the time. Yet there was a widening conviction, vague and uncertain, that the tribunal was not suitable for such functions, which might have spread more rapidly if some of those who condemned it on principle had not pleaded before it in their own defence, or even appealed to it for the correction of others. The English habit of compromise and of politic adjustment weakened their attack. The first overt resistance came from a Colonial Church. Nowhere did theories of the Royal Supremacy run to more extravagant lengths than in the oversea dominions of the Crown. The existing constitution of the Church of England was supposed to extend to all of them, and spiritual ministrations were provided either by Acts of Parliament or by virtue of the Royal Prerogative. The amazing provisions actually made may be studied in the collection of instruments published by the late Archbishop of Melbourne under the title Constitutional Church Govern- ment. Here may be read a Dispatch from the Secretary of State to the Governor of New South Wales, dated 21 December, 1824, informing him that His Majesty had been pleased to erect an Archdeaconry in that Colony, and setting out in considerable detail the duties of the Archdeacon. Two may be noted. He is to recommend to the Governor chaplains for particular stations, and the Governor is to appoint them. Should any clergyman behave in such a way as to deserve, in his opinion, “ sus- pension from his clerical functions,” he is to certify the Governor, and the Governor “ will be authorized to act upon the Archdeacon’s recommendation and responsi- bility, and to suspend any such clergyman accordingly.” Thus spiritual mission is to be given and withdrawn by the Civil and Military Authority. In 1836 the whole of 60 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Australia was erected into a Diocese by Letters Patent, which confer on the bishop “full power and authority to” admit into the holy orders of deacon and priest respectively any person whom he shall, upon examination, deem duly qualified,” and also “ full power and authority to confirm those that are baptized, and come to years of discretion.” When George Augustus Selwyn was appointed Bishop of New Zealand in 1841, he demanded the omission of these and other preposterous phrases from his Letters Patent ; but, says his biographer, ‘“‘ the Crown lawyers were in- exorable, and the Letters Patent, which have since been declared to be utterly valueless, were issued with the offensive clause in the full force of its impotent assump- tion.” Selwyn had to content himself with a protest addressed to the Secretary of State, in which he declared that whatever the document might say or mean, he himself regarded all spiritual functions as “conveyed to the bishop by the act of consecration alone.” In 1863 a clergyman of the diocese of Capetown chal- lenged in the Colonial courts the jurisdiction conferred on the bishop by such Letters Patent, and the case came by appeal before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It should be clearly understood that this was not an appeal from an ecclesiastical court, nor was it con- cerned with anytning but the legal effect of the Letters Patent. The members of the tribunal were therefore on this occasion neither more nor less than eminent jurists deciding a cause within their proper field of civil jurisprudence. They decided that the Letters Patent were void of all legal effect, because granted by a pure act of prerogative for operation within a colony having a parliamentary constitution, by which the prerogative t Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn, 1879, vol. i, p. 72. CHURCH AND STATE 61 was limited. It followed that the Church in South Africa had no legal establishment, and was a purely voluntary association. This was expressly asserted in 1866 by Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls, in an interpretative judgment on a civil suit arising out of this state of things; but that very competent judge added that if the members of such a voluntary institution associated themselves defi- nitely as “members of the Church of England” they would be held legally bound by all laws and ordinances of that Church; on the other hand, if they associated themselves as the Church of South Africa in communion with the Church of England, they would not be so bound. Between these two cases came the deposition of Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal. The Bishop of Capetown, as Metropolitan, deposed him for heresy, basing his authority not on the discredited Letters Patent, but on the oath of canonical obedience taken by him at his consecration, which was treated as setting up a ‘“‘ consensual ’”’ juris- diction. I am not concerned with the merits of the case, but only with its constitutional implications. Dr. Colenso petitioned the Crown for redress of justice, and the ques- tion, as arising in a colony, was in the usual course referred to the Judicial Committee, which was therefore again sitting, not as an ecclesiastical Court of Appeal, but as a purely civil tribunal. This may account for the curious fact that the judges thrice described the Queen as ‘‘ Head of the Church,” a title unknown to ecclesiastical law. In a long and confused judgment, afterwards elucidated by Lord Romilly in the case mentioned above, the Judicial Committee repeated its former ruling about the nullity of the Letters Patent, and found in addition that the oath of canonical obedience did not, and could not, with any legal effect confer on the Bishop of Capetown the metro- political authority which he claimed; the reason, as 62 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH explained by Lord Romilly, was that “as a bishop of the Church of England” Dr. Colenso was debarred from doing this. The deposition was, therefore, “‘ null and void in law.” It is needless to add that the ‘‘ Church of South Africa ” was subsequently organized on a consensual basis, not as a part of the Church of England, but as a province of the Catholic Church, and it was definitely recognized as such by the Provincial Synod of Canterbury. | The effect of this prolonged litigation was to destroy the basis of the Commonwealth-Church theory. If it did not apply to the dominions of the Crown overseas, neither did it apply to England; the establishment of the Church by law, with the Royal Supremacy as an incident of that establishment, was shown to be due exclusively to specific legislation. It is true that the judgment given on Dr. Colenso’s petition to the Crown was based on a right or duty, inherent in the sovereignty of the Crown, to see that justice was done personally to a subject; but this was the exercise of a benevolent power alien to the Church, and it was expressly said to extend to the redress of a wrong done by any voluntary Church or religious association ; it was strictly analogous to the appel comme d’abus of the old French law, recognized in more than one concordat with the Roman Church. Reflection makes this clear. But the effect was not immediately apparent. Strong passions were roused. Those who should have been most ready to welcome it saw in the proceedings another attack by the Judicial Committee on the liberties and the doctrines of the Church; on the other hand, the Latitudinarians, whose favourite contention it destroyed, rejoiced in the practical immunity secured for Colenso. In spite of this double misreading of events, the true effect remained, and it is CHURCH AND STATE 68 not too fanciful to suppose that it bore fruit within four years in the disestablishment of the Irish Church. At the time it seemed likely that disestablishment in England would follow after no long interval, but the sheer conserva- tism of the English people prevailed. The specific laws for the establishment of the Church remained in force, though their logical basis was destroyed, and their acci- dental character made manifest. It was not a case of quieta non movere, for things were far from being quiet. Between 1866 and 1877, at least ten judgments touching doctrine, worship or spiritual authority were delivered by the Judicial Committee. In some cases the particulars gave no offence; in others they were fiercely resented. But the agitation for the most part missed the mark ; objection was taken, not to the competence of the tribunal, but to particulars of its ruling, or more deplorably to the personal character of the judges. There was an improvement when in 1871 two most respected canons of St. Paul’s publicly announced that they would not obey a ruling of that year, for this could not be justified except on the ground of a complete lack of authority in the tribunal, Their example was widely followed; and previous judg- ments, to which deference had been shown, were now similarly ignored. How could the law be enforced ? Sporadic prosecutions of two or three thousand priests, by the dilatory methods of the ecclesiastical courts, were not to be thought of. Dr. Tait, whom we have already seen as Head Master of Rugby taking a hand against the Tractarians, was now Archbishop of Canterbury. A masterful man of deep religious convictions, a conscientious upholder of the existing establishment, he was persuaded that something more expeditious, if not more drastic, must be tried. Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, was supposed to 64 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH have some sympathy with the recalcitrant clergy, and in January 1874 he warned the Queen, who is now known from her published correspondence to have been eagerly — encouraging the Archbishop, that if legislation were attempted, “‘the probable, indeed the almost certain, end would be the total banishment of the subject from the Parliamentary arena by the disestablishment of the Church itself.”2! Within a month he was out of office ; a big Conservative majority in the House of Commons removed the peril, or hope, at which he had hinted, and Mr. Disraeli was a compliant Minister. The Public Worship Regulation Act was carried against a perfunctory oppo- sition. It altered nothing except procedure, and its provisions need not concern us. But though it did not make any change in the relations of Church and State, it threw a fierce light on those relations, and many who had hitherto been befogged by familiar custom now saw them clearly. A law to “put down ritualism,’’ as the Prime Minister said with refreshing candour, was enacted by the naked authority of the State, and by the same authority new machinery was fitted into an older framework of discipline. Resistance was prepared ; active resistance was impossible, and many would have conscientiously shrunk from it if it had been possible ; but passive resist- ance could hurt no conscience. In the stress of that resistance Anglo-Catholicism, as we now know it, may be said to have been born. A bad beginning was made. The first priest assailed by the new procedure was ill-advised enough to plead, and even to appeal to the Judicial Committee; having done this, he felt bound in honour to submit. But that mistake was not repeated. Proceedings were begun t Correspondence on Church and Religion of William Ewart Gladstone, vol. i, p. 384. CHURCH AND STATE 65 against four other priests, who refused to plead, or in any way to acknowledge the existence of the Court before which they were cited. After some delays and hesitations they were imprisoned for contumacy. In three cases a comedy ensued. There had been some carelessness, and by writ of Habeas Corpus the Judges of the Queen’s Bench discharged the prisoners on the ground of flaws in the procedure. The fourth committal to prison, in spite of ingenious attempts to nullify it, held good, and Mr. Sidney F. Green was confined for nineteen months in Lancaster Castle. By that time it was known that hundreds of priests desired nothing better than the same lot. One other attempt was made a year or two later, with the former result of abortive imprisonment. Then the cam- paign ceased. The passive resisters, who looked for a long period of trouble, had won a complete victory in less than six years. In 1882 the Archbishop, by a gesture from his death-bed, sought peace and ensued it. He was a great prelate, a great man, incapable of a mean thing; the few survivors of those who fought him hardest on principle look back to him with unstinted respect, and praise God for his virtues. There was peace, and it was needed; by none more than by those who were conscious of victory. Forty years of strife had engendered a temper, hard, com- bative, but undisciplined. My own part in the closing years of strife had been that of a young man growing up in an.atmosphere of disorder, and I carried the consequences to middle life, or beyond. We were Catholic, as we rather truculently asserted, but the ordered spirit of Catholicism was not conspicuous in us. I shall have occasion to criticize elsewhere our manner of living in peace. The peace was without security of continuance. The institu- tions which we had been combating still existed, though F 66 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH they were hardly functioning. There were no more appeals to the Crown of any importance, and the ecclesiastical courts themselves rested. It was understood that we. denied their competence, because they were subservient to an alien authority, and nothing was done to rehabilitate them or to substitute something to which obedience would be rendered. A Royal Commission had reported — on them in 1883 in terms which supported most of the principles for which we stood, but the actual recommenda- tions for reform were so entangled with the vices of the existing system that any attempt to carry them into effect would have had no result but a renewal of strife. Most of us were convinced that nothing but a drastic measure of disestablishment would cut the knots, and many of us were prepared to go all lengths in promoting it. But for this there was no popular support, except in Wales. The ecclesiastical legislation which had been so frequent and so disturbing suddenly ceased, and the House of Commons showed a refreshing disinclination to undertake it. From 1874 to 1892 nothing of the kind was carried through except some small administrative measures promoted by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In 1892 and again in 1898 the Archbishop of Canterbury succeeded in carrying measures more or less on the lines of the Report of the Royal Commission, which continued the characteristic faults of previous legislation, and would have been fiercely opposed, had they not been carefully restricted to the correction of faults and abuses which nobody wished to defend. : Half-way through this time of peace the demise of the Judicial Committee as a court of ecclesiastical appeal was publicly revealed. A faint recrudescence of prosecuting zeal, directed against the Bishop of Lincoln, gave the Archbishop an opportunity. Expressing some doubt as CHURCH AND STATE 67 to legal restraints on his acting as judge, he let the pro- moters appeal to the Judicial Committee, which could find no such restraints. He then delivered a judgment traversing some of the most disputed rulings of the Judicial Committee. The promoters once more appealed, and the Judicial Committee declined to interfere with his ruling. The forms of the old practice were observed, but they were empty of result. Peace lacking order ended in an outbreak of very vulgar disorder. The grotesque efforts of certain agitators called attention to the fact, with which everyone was quietly acquainted, that practices condemned by the authority of the Crown were being adopted in a rapidly increasing measure. Harassed statesmen fell back once more on a Royal Commission, which reported in 31906 that the ecclesiastical courts were unable to correct certain grave disorders. Their ineffectiveness was strangely attri- buted to “the archaic character of the practice,” which had been thrice overhauled in the nineteenth century, and more reasonably to “‘ the constitution of the Court of Final Appeal.” Its failure is put on the right moral ground: “A court dealing with matters of conscience and religion must, above all others, rest on moral authority if its judgments are to be effective. As thousands of clergy, with strong lay support, refuse to recognize the juris- diction of the Judicial Committee, its judgments cannot practically be enforced.” And this is not the only result. It is added: “ The failure of the Court of Final Appeal to command the obedience of the clergy is a source of inevitable weakness in the Provincial and Diocesan Courts. It is objected that these courts are bound to adopt the rulings of the Crown Court which hears appeals from them.” The Commission apparently failed to observe that the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Bishop of Lincoln’s 68 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH case did not act as if he were strictly so bound, but the remark is probably true of the ordinary courts. The Anglo-Catholic position is here accurately stated, and seems to be justified. But the true reason for our refusal to recognize the jurisdiction was not accurately seized, and consequently the reforms in the ecclesiastical judicature recommended by the Commission did not go to the root of the matter. They retained the final appeal to the Judicial Committee, requiring only the reference of “‘ any question touching the doctrine or use of the Church of England” to “an assembly of the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces,”’ excepting, however, the case of a question “‘in the opinion of the court governed by the plain language of documents having the force of Acts of Parliarrent.’’ But the objections to this tribunal are not based on any personal incompetence of its members ; they are based on its fundamental lack of spiritual or ecclesiastical character. The recommendation is vitiated more conspicuously still by the exception, which attributes ultimate authority, even on questions of doctrine, to Acts of Parliament. The proposed reforms would clearly be no remedy for the existing confusion. They would perpetuate its causes. It is not surprising that they have been allowed to slumber. Other reforms are now being mooted in the Church Assembly, and without any prevision of their character we may here conveniently examine the nature of that institution. Most Anglo-Catholics take only a_ tepid interest in it, an attitude which seems to me intelligible but regrettable ; some of them ban it altogether, and will take no part in it, an attitude which seems to me deplorable. They object that it is one more creation of Parliament for meddling with the Church. That is untrue. The Assembly was not created by Parliament. It was created CHURCH AND STATE 69 and completely constituted by the Church without refer- ence to the State. Parliament was then asked to confer upon it certain powers, which was done by the Enabling Act, commonly so called, of 1919. These powers are precisely defined, and they enable the Assembly to prepare Measures which, when laid before Parliament and accepted by a single resolution of each House, may receive the Royal Assent, and will then have exactly the same force as an Act of Parliament. It is an admirable device for expediting legislation concerning the Church, which the Houses of Parliament have for a long time refused to consider. It is nothing more. It is merely a new method of parliamentary legislation. Those who wish to have no more parliamentary legislation touching the Church, and who certainly have grounds for distrusting it, inevitably dislike the Assembly. But, as I have repeatedly shown, we have been caught for long years in such a tangle of mistakes that legislation of this kind is sometimes really needed, and will be needed until the Church recovers entire freedom of action. Our care should be to see that it is harmless. The advantage of the new method is that the Church can prepare legislative measures, though it cannot give them legal effect, and Parliament can give them legal effect, but has no opportunity for amending them. Those who wish to make an end of parliamentary legisla- tion concerning the Church may observe with hope that the Assembly has power to prepare a Measure of Dis- establishment. It is probable that it will soon be doing this on behalf of the Indian Church, which is now absurdly tied to the Church of England as by law established. A Measure of Disestablishment for the Church of England itself is no impossibility. I cannot close this chapter without referring to a com- parison drawn by Professor Laski and others between 70 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the conflicts which I have been describing and the events in Scotland which led to the Disruption of 1843 and the formation of the Free Church. Almost simultaneous in origin with the beginning of the Oxford Tracts, the Scottish agitation turned on the point which I have shown to be crucial in the Gorham case. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was established on the basis of the Calvinistic doctrine of the complete separation of Church and State, curtly expressed by Andrew Melville in the famous aphorism, ‘‘ There are two kingdoms in Scotland, the Kingdom of James Stewart, and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which James Stewart is a seely vassal.”’ After much tossing to and fro, this principle was acknow- — ledged by the Scots Parliament and incorporated in the Revolution Settlement of 1690. After the Union of the two Kingdoms, the Parliament of Great Britain in 1712 restored the rights of patrons in parish churches, which the General Assembly of the Scottish Church had abolished. In Scotland this was regarded as an infraction of the Treaty of Union, but it was resented still more as an invasion of the fundamental rights of the Church. Con- stant trouble and repeated protests ensued. In 1834 the General Assembly adopted a declaration, known as the Veto Law, asserting a “‘ fundamental law of the Church that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people.”” The institution of a pastor rested with the Presbytery, consisting of the Ministers of neighbouring parishes. Six months later the parish of Auchterarder fell vacant, and the patron pre- sented a candidate, who was rejected by the congrega- tion. The Presbytery, obeying the General Assembly, refused institution. The patron moved the Court of t Harold J. Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty, 1917, Pp. 27-119. CHURCH AND STATE 71 Session to order institution; the Presbytery once more refused, and was cast in damages; finally the Court of Session ruled that a minority of the Presbytery, willing to institute, had power to do so. These matters went by appeal to the House of Lords, which upheld the Court. Meanwhile, at Strathbogie another Presbytery instituted a presentee in disregard of the veto of the congregation, and was suspended from its functions by the General Assembly, but restored by a decree of the Court of Session. In 1842 the General Assembly presented a formal Claim of Right, which was rejected. When the Assembly met in the following year the Moderator announced that in consequence of its inability any further to resist this in- vasion two hundred and three of its members were resolved to sever their connexion with it. He then left the hall, followed by a large number of the members, who walked through weeping and applauding crowds to an adjoining place, where they declared themselves the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, electing Chalmers to be their Moderator. Few scenes in history are as impressive. More than four hundred Ministers, many of them old men, abandoned home and livelihood at the call of conscience. A contrast has been drawn—but not by Professor Laski—between them and the Anglo-Catholics who, professing the same regard for the liberty of the Church and the sovereign rights of Christ therein, have clung to endowments and prestige at the cost of consistency. I would not abate anything of the admiration due to Chalmers and his companions, but in judgment of ways and means I think they were wrong and we have been right. They made the mistake against which Keble warned us in 1850, when he bade us refuse to be driven into a nonjuring schism. They abandoned not only their 72 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH own possessions, but also their Church, leaving it to the control of the minority of Moderates who had opposed them ; they could not claim after the disruption to be the whole Church of Scotland, for they did not carry with them even a majority, much less the whole, either of Ministers or of the people. We stood in with our Church, where the majority was against us, enduring hardness and contumely. They, standing in, would have commanded | a majority ; Presbytery after Presbytery might have met the invasion with passive resistance and patient suffering, until they won a victory both real and ostensible. By passive resistance and readiness to suffer we won a victory, real though not ostensible. Professor Laski marks our practical nullification of the Public Worship Regulation Act as a striking example of restraint put on the pretended omnipotence of the State. They had an incalculable advantage over us, for the theory of the Commonwealth- Church had long before been openly abandoned in Scotland, while we had to wrestle with a lingering adhesion to it in thought and an overwhelming mass of legislation founded on its assumptions. We had the harder task, and we laid a sure foundation for its completion. We have taught successfully that the Church is one society, the Commonwealth another; that both are alike divinely ordered, since the powers that be are ordained of God; that their fields of operation can be distinguished ; that neither should dictate to the other or attempt domina- tion; that they ought to do the work of God side by side with mutual helpfulness. CHAPTER VI THE ORGANIC CHURCH HAT is this Church of England, this separate Society, capable of dealing with the State, either in hostility or in mutual benevolence, on terms of complete equality ? The Commonwealth-Church of the past was intelligible, defined by the tangible boundaries of the Kingdom and its inhabitants. Equally intelligible is the Church as it seems to be understood by some, a depart- ment of State dealing with religious affairs, of which the King is ultimate chief, as of other departments. But what is this separate Church, potential or actual? Is it a cor- poration? If so, where is its Charter, or what are its Articles of Association? If not, what is it but a casual multitude, loosely organized in a form of which the law has no cognisance? Is it like a Trade Union, which is sometimes able to paralyse the law by more or less passive resistance ? Professor Laski has suggested the comparison without pressing it home. Is it a club, claiming the acknowledged right of all such associations to manage its own affairs with due respect for the law? English manners are fruitful of such creations; is this one of the fruits ? We reply, of course, that it is not a creation of English- men, or of any other men; that it is not a casual aggre- gation of individuals; that, in so far as it reflects English manners, it does so only because it consists normally of 73 74 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH commonplace Englishmen ; in fine, that it is nothing else but a distinct part of the whole Catholic Church of Christ, God’s new creation. This being so, though independent of the State, it is certainly not independent of that whole whereof it is but a part. The part must reasonably conform to the pattern of the whole. So answering, we raise other questions. Here again, anyone can understand a Catholic Church dispersed throughout the world, consisting of all those, and only those, who in purpose and in act bow to the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. But Anglo-Catholics are evidently not of this number. What do they mean when they speak of the Catholic Church, to which the Church of England must conform? They are frequently accused of appealing to an authority which they are unable or unwilling to identify ; in this way they confuse the simple-minded by using words which indicate no reality, and anger the perspicuous by something very like a fraud ; it is broadly hinted that they take shelter in this obscurity for the exercise of mere self-will. It must be allowed that there is some excuse for these diatribes. We are apt to speak glibly of the authority of the Catholic Church without definition. But it is not because we do not know what we mean, or because we wish to keep our real meaning a convenient secret. It is partly because we are Englishmen, and as such dislike the labour of definition ; partly because the reality of which we speak is recalcitrant to that process. An abstraction formed in the human mind easily submits to definition. You can define a triangle. A real triangle may occasionally happen to exist im rerum natura, but it will at once dis- appear in the ceaseless flux of moving things; and it is not the real triangle that you define, but the abstraction. The more real a thing is, the greater the difficulty. God THE ORGANIC CHURCH 75 is the supreme reality, and who can define God? It is possible to describe God, though more easily, as Augustine saw, by negatives than by affirmatives ; but no description covers more than aspects or attributes. Yet the simplest theist, Christian or other, knows what he means when he speaks of God. If he tries to explain verbally what he means, his explanation will be inadequate, and perhaps grotesque, but the reality is not the less present to his mind; a profound theologian may do better, but will still fail. To have a direct experience of God, such as Newman claimed to have, is to know much; but proper words are not available in which to express the experience, for our words are formed from experience of visible and tangible things, and they can be used of this other experi- ence only by imagery or analogy, which may be misleading. Is not that St. Paul’s meaning when he says that he saw in heavenly rapture things unspeakable, which it is not lawful for man to utter? They were not the less real on that account, though a critical mind may doubt the reality, and call it illusion. I have sometimes thought that Matthew Arnold came near the mark with his ‘‘ Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness”’; but then I reflect that the same Power makes for other things which cannot without fanciful interpretation be identified with righteousness ; the variation of the compass, for example, or the forms of crystals. If it be impossible to define and hard to describe God, it is not strange that some works of God should be equally elusive. The difficulty extends to things which we pro- duce in part ourselves as fellow-workers with God, realities to which we make contribution. We may define our own part without being able even to describe the whole. A French theologian—a Frenchman, and therefore a lover of definition—-once found it the chief fault of Scholastics 76 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH that they frame definitions and then argue from them as if they were the realities defined. Perhaps some Natural Philosophers of to-day unconsciously imitate them. It was a conspicuous fault in Herbert Spencer, and is one that besets all systematizers. Many works of God are not perspicuous enough to be safely treated in that way. We no longer feel quite safe in applying the method even to the stars in their courses. The Catholic Church is one of the works of God in which we collaborate. In the inception and growth of it men were, as St. Paul insisted, fellow-workers with God. Some- times the human element seems to predominate, and such are times of danger. Some attempted definitions seem to look no further, and they are worthless. Thirty years ago I had occasion to examine a considerable number of definitions'; none satisfied me, and my discontent has increased. All seem to leave out of count some element of reality. The human elements can be defined ; in part also those which are of God; but there remains something immeasurable, without which the reality is not complete. Itisareality. It is even a reality of ordinary human experience, like many quite incomprehensible things; and it is far less incomprehensible than some others. No special spiritual enlightenment is required for discerning it. Even Gibbon could do that, though his account of it shows how incomprehensible it was to him. The Catholic Church is especially a reality of history, much more easily discerned in some periods than in others, but never fading entirely out of sight. Many of the simple sort, who profess their belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, do discern it as real, however dimly; Anglo- Catholics are politely so called because they are supposed t Collected in The Unity of the Church as treated by English Theologians. §.P.C.K., 1898. THE ORGANIC CHURCH iY) to discern it more clearly than some others. But to dis- cern is not to define ; it does not even carry with it the power to describe. Perhaps those who complain of us for not defining it do so honestly because they believe it to be not reality but an abstraction. But we know it as reality, and if unable to define it we should at least be able to give some account of our knowledge. My dear colleague at Worcester, Dr. J. M. Wilson, has taught me to say that the Church is not an organization but an organism. He may be surprised to find himself called as witness in my present argument, but gratitude must be avowed. Since the Church, whatever else it may be, is a society of men, some sort of organization is in- evitable ; but the organization is not the Church. It is superimposed on the Church, unessential and variable. It is needless at present to ask how it is imposed ; whether by the operation of the Holy Spirit, or by an act of the Church itself, or by the working of events which is commonly called providential. All these are variable, and the last is specially characterized by variation. One illus- tration will suffice. In the sixth century a very complete organization existed, ascending hierarchically from a diocese through a province to a patriarchate. But this was not universal. In the patriarchate of Alexandria, and probably in the true patriarchate of Rome, there were no provinces, each bishop being in immediate dependence on the patriarch ; in the rest of the Western Church there were no patriarchates, and even provinces were imperfectly organized. Evidently, therefore, the organization was not identical with the Church; if the Eastern Orthodox have seemed at times to make the identification, the rapid growth of autocephalous Churches in recent years has corrected that mistake. The development and decay of organization can be traced in history. Harnack has said 78 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH that the Church started with an “ abundant and elaborate equipment.’’! That is an exaggerated statement, made in polemic against Rudolf Sohm, who wished to exhibit the whole organization of Catholicism as a deplorable afterthought, corrupting the purity of the Gospel. But organization did begin very soon. St. Luke’s story is, no doubt, a reasoned retrospect rather than a contemporary account of what was done; but there is no reason for supposing him to have falsified the events. What, then, was behind the incipient organization? Was there, as Sohm would have it, an indiscriminate multitude of be- lievers, individually actuated by the Spirit? There is no evidence of any such state of things, unless it be in the fickle crowds of Galilee and Jerusalem, or in the inactive waiting group before Pentecost. St. Paul could hardly be ignorant of the facts, and he represents them other- wise. His bold metaphor of the Body of Christ, which soon became for him much more than metaphor, may have been a sudden inspiration, the access of which we can watch as he is writing his first Epistle to the Corinthians,2 but he throws back the implications of it to the beginning, and his knowledge of the beginning supplies the material for the metaphor. The Body is articulate, and all the members have not the same office. More than once he enumerates some, in a way that indicates a very fluid organization, all the functions being given and distributed as chavismata of the Spirit. There are here affinities, real or apparent, with Sohm’s theory of origins, but this account of the facts is incomplete. There is a bare suggestion of hierarchical order: ‘‘ First apostles, then prophets,” and 1 The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries, Engl. Trs., p. 20. * I ask leave to refer to my own book, The One Body and the One Spirit, pp. 55 seqq. THE ORGANIC CHURCH 79 others in gradation. But in the Epistle to the Ephesians he suddenly changes the metaphor, substituting for the Body a building, a temple, and complicating this with the figure of a political community. The faithful are “ fellow- citizens of the saints,” and are “ built upon the founda- tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone.’’ There is now something which appears to underlie organization, immovable and unchange- able, because linked with Christ. The superstructure may be a more or less variable organization adapted to changing circumstances of time or place, but the foundation must evidently be durable, and laid from the beginning. It is never safe to argue from a metaphor, and the rich con- fusion of figures here employed promises unusual peril, but St. Paul’s thought emerges. The Church began with Christ and the Apostles. Prophets are linked with the Apostles, as sharing their functions; they are men “elected into the company of the eleven Apostles,’’! like Matthias, Barnabas and Paul himself, but not necessarily bearing that particular title. It is probable that the ‘‘ Evangelists ” occasionally mentioned were of the same class, since St. Paul makes it his special function as an apostle to ‘“‘ evangelize.” 2 We had better not call these men successors of the Apostles ; they are rather successively added to the number of those engaged in the continuing function of apostleship. That _ function is described by the figure of the foundation. The sense is not that the Eleven were once for all well and truly laid in conjunction with the Corner Stone, so that the * Acts i. 26 ovyKateydicbn. No other explanation of the word seems possible. Paul insisted on his own original and inde- pendent call, but the “right hand of communion ’”’ extended to him by James, Peter and John was a seal of his apostleship, though he did not always care to insist on it (Gal. i. 1, ii. 9). 24 Cor Li ry, 80 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Church might afterwards be erected upon them, for in that case the added Apostles and Prophets would be excluded from the foundation; we must rather understand that apostleship is a permanent function in the Church, serving as the basis on which the whole fabric permanently rests. The title of those serving the function may vary, but the function remains the same. With this interpretation of the figure of the building, St, Luke’s retrospect closely agrees. The Eleven, who had been chosen to be Apostles, are promised an endow- ment of power by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them ; they then add Matthias to their number, partly by their own choice, partly by some casting of lots taken, it seems, | as an indication of divine approval. On the Day of Pentecost they are all assembled. Who are they? It is often assumed that the whole expectant group of believers— about a hundred and twenty—is meant, and that the illapse of the Spirit comes upon them all. But there is nothing to indicate this. The exclamation from the crowd, “ Are not all these which speak Galileans!’’ rather suggests that it is the Twelve, known as Galileans, who speak with “ other tongues.”” The answer to the clamour comes only from “ Peter standing with the eleven.” His quotation from Joel does not militate against this, for his point is not that some persons, men and women, young and old, have already received the outpouring of the Spirit, but that it is intended for all God’s people, the whole House of Israel ; a promise which he afterwards extends to “ all that are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call.’” Those who accept the assurance are at once baptized and formed into a community, adhering to ‘‘the teaching of the Apostles,” who have now received their endowment of power. The first stones of the Foundation are laid and the © Church is being built thereon. And the gift of the Spirit THE ORGANIC CHURCH 81 to the Church is “ first Apostles.’ Prophets and the rest are to follow. St. Luke has to mention one other illapse of the Spirit, exactly similar, in the house of Cornelius, and St. Paul certainly claimed as much for himself, but these were clearly exceptional; in all other cases the gift of the Spirit is within the Church, consequent on baptism. We must not overlook that other retrospect in the Gospel according to St. Matthew: “ Upon this rock I will build my Church.” I shall not enter on the thorny subject of the identification of the rock, except to observe that it is at least associated with the name of Peter, with the gift of the keys, and with the commission to bind and loose. The keys indicate the stewardship of the House of God; binding and loosing is the technical term in the Jewish polity for the power of authoritative moral teach- ing. We may dismiss Cyprian’s fanciful notion that the commission was first given to Peter alone for the purpose of emphasizing its unity, but his assertion that exactly _ the same commission was afterwards extended to all the Apostles may stand, though based on a mistaken identi- fication of binding and loosing with the retaining and remitting of sin‘; he might more wisely have kept to St. Matthew, and quoted, ‘“‘ Make disciples of all nations.” For binding and loosing is that teaching of the Apostles to which the community of the first disciples adhered. So the Apostles are first in time and first in place, the Foundation ; and as the superstructure is to be extended beyond the narrow confines of the Churches in Judea, so the Foundation must be extended both in time and in place. Their work was not done when they had borne witness to the Resurrection among their contemporaries, nor when they had sealed that witness with their blood. t De Vnitate, c. 4, quoting John xx. 23. G 82 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Extension to the uttermost parts of the earth, the appointed limit of the witness, was not for their labours or for their time. The apostolic Foundation is permanent. Here we learn more from the other figure, the metaphor or truth of the Body of Christ. A building, finished or unfinished, stands immovable on its buried foundation. But a living body is compact of motion, alive in every part and in all parts contemporaneous. If the gift of the Spirit to the Church is “‘ first apostles,’’ it must be apostles to the end. The Church is in figure and in truth a living organism. As such it has an extensive power of self-adjust- ment; it can vary its organization. But there is some- thing which it cannot vary, or it will lose its identity. If it were legitimate to interpret St. Paul’s thought by modern physiology, one might have something to say about origin from a single nucleated cell. But that temptation must be resisted, nor is it likely that we can get much illumination from the knowledge of the subject that may have been open to him. Indeed, his confused imagery of the relation of the head to the rest of the body forbids any hopeful exploration. But he did know that the body grows from a beginning, with continuous life, that its great functions are not interchangeable, and that there is no new beginning. When he said that the first gift of the Spirit to the Body of Christ was the Apostolate, and reso- lutely magnified that office, he cannot have supposed that it was to be eliminated, or that tis functions were to be transferred to men of another order. The apostolate which was first will also be last ; it is permanent. Then where do we find it now? We answer without hesitation that it is identical with the episcopate. I think there is no other serious claimant. The name disguises the identity, for the episcopus whom we meet in St. Paul’s Epistles, and once in the Acts of the Apostles, © THE ORGANIC CHURCH 83 was a definitely subordinate officer. It is doubtful, indeed, whether the word, as applied to the presbyters of Miletus, was a title of office at all, or only a description of their functions ; and the same doubt besets the casual appear- ance of the word, perhaps twenty years later, in the Epistle of Clement. At Philippi, however, St. Paul does address “bishops ”’ as office-holders, and in the Pastoral Epistles presbyter and episcopus seem to be alternative titles. Twenty years again after Clement a great change is apparent. Ignatius is Bishop of Antioch, or more largely of Syria, and his style is apostolic. Each of the Churches in Asia to which his epistles are addressed has a similar bishop, though he does not mention any at Rome, and in writing to Philadelphia he lays emphasis on the oneness of this chief. The word has acquired a new meaning. The only tolerable explanation is that it had been rapidly appropriated to those apostolic assistants of whom we hear much from St. Paul, and who linger as Prophets in the Didache, but that one such had now been appointed to supervise the Church, as a rule, in each city or larger circumscription. How and when this was effected we cannot ascertain; the result is in evidence. The only alternative explanation appears to be a supposed aggrandise- ment of the president of a group of presbyters. But no trace of such a president can be found, and the supposition implies the complete extinction of the apostolate, which we have found to be inadmissible. Not many years after the martyrdom of St. Ignatius this new episcopate, which is the old apostolate, appears everywhere in possession, and the industrious traveller Hegesippus has in many places verified a list of bishops from the time of the Apostles themselves. It is permitted to doubt the completeness of his verification, but the lists are evidence of local tradi- tions not to be contemned. On the other hand there is no 84 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH evidence at all of such a disturbing revolution as the aggran- disement of a president into a monarch. I repeat a former warning that this kind of succession must not be confused with the transmission of powers by ordination. Transmission is definitely recognized in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul, and doubtfully in the Epistle of St. Clement. After this little or nothing is heard of it until a later age, though it was probably taken for granted. The peculiar theories of St. Cyprian were unkind to the idea, for he dwelt on the direct appointment of bishops, as of the original apostles, by the Lord, though through the mediation of the Church. The consensto of existing bishops completes this mediation, and may be compared with the recognition of St. Paul by the elder Apostles. On the other hand, when he speaks of a pseudo- - episcopus being “‘ co-opted” by his fellow schismatics, he evidently draws out this technical term from his Roman habit of regarding the whole episcopate as a collegium, and may be using it to exclude the idea of divine action in the case of such irregular appointment.: In spite of his personal eccentricities, his exaggeration of the effect of schism, his rigid insistence on the equality and independence of all several bishops, Cyprian so accu- rately stated the true nature of the episcopate that it is needless for my present purpose to examine further developments. It has been his curious fate to be cited in support of that eminence of the Roman see, the growing proofs of which in his own day he hotly resented.2 But his famous sentence, “‘ Episcopatus unus est, cuius a singulis t Ed., lv. 8; lix. ro. * I have given elsewhere, more than once, the grounds of my conviction that the words ‘‘ ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam principalem unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est,’’ are not his, but are cited by him (£p., lix. 14) from the Carthaginian schismatics’ letter of appeal to Cornelius. THE ORGANIC CHURCH 85 in solidum pars tenetur,”! though couched in technical terms of Roman jurisprudence, is the final description of that essential constitution of the Church which was organized, as we have seen, on lines unlike his in the fifth and sixth centuries. This one episcopate is the apostolic foundation of the Catholic Church. There are fissures in the foundation, which would be fatal if it were laid on sand, but it stands firm on the Rock. It is also the ruling element in the organism which is the Church, the Body of Christ. That function is not atrophied, though certainly weakened by the refusal of many members of the Body to accept its ruling. The Catholic Church is at once a multitude of believers and a single organism. In the multitude each bishop is one, and no more; in the organism the bishops jointly are preponderant. The multitude is not negligible; the life of the Body circulates through each one of its components, sometimes in a thin trickle, sometimes in a rich strong flood ; its influence, its value, its strength, is incalculable ; incidentally it supplies material for the episcopate. But it cannot act, except as organized; and, as we have seen, all organization is in the proper sense of the word accidental. It can be organized, if at all, only in sections, sometimes fairly large, but for the most part very small; we may call them parochial. As a whole, it is visible and audible only to God. The episcopate also is organized by sections, but it has an organic unity independent of organization, substantial, perdurable. It is not the less one because some of its organized sections unhappily disagree. The organization of the episcopate exhibits much variety. The system of the sixth century lies in ruins throughout the East, though the patriarchal thrones t De Vnitate, 5. 86 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH retain their traditional eminence ; but new combinations, as I have observed, are taking its place. The ancient formation of city-churches, each with its own bishop, prevails on the whole in the Mediterranean lands; the vast dioceses of Northern Europe have for many centuries presented a remarkably contrasting character, which is generally imitated in regions of missionary enterprise. The diocese of Cologne once extended for two hundred miles, the diocese of Lincoln covered more than eight counties, from the Humber to the Thames, the diocese of York stretched from the south of Nottinghamshire to the neigh~- bourhood of Whitehaven. The bishops of such Churches would obviously have a pastorate like that of the original apostles, to be worked with much travelling and the em- ployment of many delegates. Of another possible extreme an illustration is at hand.~-The organization of Presby- terianism in Scotland closely resembles that of the African Church in the fourth century, with the added complication of a schism, now in process of healing, not unlike that of the Donatists ; if there could be assurance that the parish ministers of Scotland are the true bishops which some at least of them claim to be, the resemblance would be com- plete, and there would be a very numerous addition to the universal episcopate. Even more remarkable varia- tions are in existence. Under the strong centralized administration of Rome the old rule of one city one bishop has been allowed to lapse, and Uniat Churches show two or more bishops in full communion with each other ruling separate flocks within the same circumscription, the nexus of pastor and flock being not territorial but personal. This seems to open out startling possibilities of bishops in charge of orthodox sects in communion with each other and with the Great Church. A recent Anglo-Catholic writer appears to contemplate something of the kind in THE ORGANIC CHURCH 87 a remote prospect of reunion.t In all these actual and possible diversities of organization, the organic episcopate remains one. We may apply St. Paul’s words, ‘ All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.” When Anglo-Catholics say that the Church of England must conform to the faith and practice of the whole Catholic Church, they are referring to this one episcopate of the organic Church. The appeal is not to something vague and elusive and indeterminate; there can hardly be anything more definite and concrete. One thing more, perhaps, should be said about this. The bishop of whom we are treating is a pastor with a flock. An episcopus vagus may have all the powers conferred by ordination and consecration, but having no flock he is no pastor, and therefore no bishop in the sense required. Another terse saying of St. Cyprian is to the point: “‘ episcopum in ecclesia esse et ecclesiam in episcopo.”2 A bishop acting as pastor, and recognized as such by other bishops, can be identified. The sectional divisions of the one episcopate sometimes make it difficult to ascertain what is the faith and practice of the whole, but the task is not impossible. It will be important to distinguish between what is sectional and what is universal. Difficulties will occur here also, and indeed we have no reason to suppose that God intends the government of his Church to be an easy task. It is not for anyone in a private station to suggest decisions, but some principles of judgment seem fairly obvious. However serious the interruption of communications may be, there is nothing to prevent the various sections of the episcopate from agreeing, and their agreement can be * Mackenzie, The Confusion of the Churches, p. 251. 2 Ep., Ixvi. 8. 88 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH ascertained as completely, perhaps as easily, as if they were all assembled in an Ecumenical Council. It must always be allowed that some fragments may be negligible. These being put aside if necessary, what all have agreed to receive as revealed truth will be the Catholic Faith. We need not hanker after further definitions, for the Church as a whole has always been wisely reluctant to define, unless driven to it by a persistent teaching of dangerous error. A dangerous error, however, can still be condemned by a collected judgment of the whole Church. Even a section may provisionally condemn an error affect- ing it; but it might be unwise to intervene against an error supposed to be affecting another section ; rash and presumptuous, an offence against charity, to condemn what another section tolerates. It is doubtful whether in any circumstances a section has a right to impose new conditions of communion; for communion—I use the word in its widest sense—is the communion of the whole Body of Christ ; there can be no such thing as sectional communion, and an attempt to establish this will clearly be an act of schism. No mere practice of piety stands on the same footing as a definition of the Faith, but there are practices approved by the whole Church which no section would be justified in touching. It is inconceivable that any section could abrogate the observance of the Lord’s Day or of the great annual Feasts, alter the Canon of Scripture, change the essential matter or form of a Sacra- ment, condemn all use of sacred images, or forbid vows of chastity in the monastic state. These things, widely as they differ in importance, are alike in being determined in the main by the concurrent practice of all sections of the organic Church, CHAPTER VII THE ROMAN QUESTION E have three or four times skirted a subject on which I would prefer to say nothing, for I do not wish to write polemically ; but it can hardly be avoided. The title under which I write contains a challenge. Anglo- Catholicism: why the hyphenation? For many years large numbers of us were content to call ourselves Catholic, without specification. We are still content to do so, but pressure from without has induced us to adopt the entirely respectable style which has been generally awarded us. There is a reason for it. Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie has not less ingeniously than truly remarked that English Catho- licism ‘‘ bifurcated ”’ in the sixteenth century. From the year 1559 most of the good Christian people of England, who were unquestionably Catholic, accepted or endured the revolutionary changes forced on the Church by Elizabeth and her Council. A small minority refused, and came to be known as Recusants. As holding by the Pope, they were legally described also as Popish Recusants or Papists. But on reflection it seems absurd to say that they ceased to be Catholic merely because they adhered to the faith and practice of religion in which they had been brought up as such. It has therefore become cus- tomary to call them Roman Catholics; a style which t The Confusion of the Churches, p. 91 89 90 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH lacks something of accuracy, since they are certainly not Romans, but which they apparently accept. We on the other line of the bifurcation are correspondingly distin- guished as Anglo-Catholics. Etymologically it is a bad distinction, for those on the other line are just as English as we are. But etymology does not govern all the uses of words ; it may with advantage be called in aid to correct a flagrant misuse, but it would be sheer pedantry to object to a convenient and intelligible phrase merely because it is etymologically imperfect. So we call ourselves Anglo- Catholics ; and, accepting the distinction, we acknowledge that we have, indirectly at least, some question at issue with the Church of Rome. Another explanation may be suggested. Between the Church of Rome and the Church of England there is a condition of schism. How far the fissure extends may be debated, but it certainly is there. It may therefore be supposed that an Anglo-Catholic is a Catholic Christian anywhere in the world from China to Peru, who sides with the Church of England on all the points at issue between the two Churches. But that will not do; for Anglo- Catholics do not in fact take that side quite so completely. It is certain that on some of the issues many of them believe the Church of England to be wrong and the Church of Rome to be right. We must fall back on the first explanation. The Anglo-Catholic name is not, indeed, confined to England; it is used elsewhere and conspicu- ously m the United States of America; but it springs out of historic conditions peculiar to England, and elsewhere it has been either transplanted from this country, or adopted in sympathy with those who have borne it here. For modern Anglo-Catholics the Roman question is not a question of the divergences of religious belief and prac- tice which agitated Newman ninety years ago. These are THE ROMAN QUESTION 91 become insignificant. Pusey still harped on some of them in his Eirenicon of 1865, which Newman gently derided as an olive branch discharged from a catapult; but his examples were extravagances which Newman _ himself could not justify by the laws of development, and the line between sanity and superstition is not geographical. More serious matters engage our attention. They are serious because not only the organization of the Catholic Church is in question, but also its fundamental constitution. It was not always so. As long as Galli canism was tolerated at Rome, it was possible to represent the Papacy as a detail of organization, like patriarchates and provinces ; and on that showing the relation of various parts of Christendom to the Papacy would be certainly of great but not of vital importance. So long it was possible also to nurse hopes of accommodation, and the Association for Promoting the Union of Christendom for a time drew recruits from either side of the schism. This was stopped by orders from Rome, and the Vatican Council of 1870 seemed to quench all such hopes. Pusey was so advised, and sorrowfully abandoned his overtures for reunion. But half a century of reflection has not borne out this pessimism. The effect of the Constitution Pastor aetervrus was at first greatly exaggerated. Mr. Gladstone sounded a note of alarm about its bearing on Civil Allegi- ance, being in this matter not much more than a mouth- piece of Acton, behind whom was Déllinger. He was answered almost simultaneously by Newman and by Manning. Neither of them had any love for the old form of Temporal Power, the ghost of which Gladstone raised in saying that Rome had “‘ refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused.” Newman's reply was a masterpiece of irony, ridiculing the notion that the Pope had been making trouble for Mr. 92 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Gladstone’s government in Ireland, and minimizing the definitions which he deplored as inopportune. Manning, who had no dangerous gift of irony, contented himself with proving the obvious fact that the Council did not claim for the Pope any power of interference in secular politics. He showed, indeed, that it rather limited than extended the previously vague authority and infallibility claimed for the Roman Pontiff, by confining them strictly to spiritual matters under the denominations of faith and morals and ecclesiastical discipline. Perhaps the limita- ‘tion was not quite as effective as that protagonist of the Council intended; nor did either respondent show how civil allegiance could be excluded from the category of morals. But whatever else the Constitution may have effected, it did certainly annihilate Gallicanism, which had no meaning apart from the Papacy, and has no mean- ing at all in face of this definition of the papal authority. It is useless therefore to look back to the earlier treatment of the Roman question. There was nothing said or done then which can govern anything that may be done or said now. It is a new question. | The first definition is that “‘a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church of God was promised and granted immediately and directly to the blessed Apostle Peter by Christ the Lord.”’! Then the Gallican theory is explicitly condemned; the affirmation, namely, that “‘the said primacy was not given to blessed Peter himself imme- diately and directly, but to the Church, and was by the Church conveyed to him as servant of the Church.’ 2 1 Cap.i. ‘‘ Primatum iurisdictionis in universam Dei Ecclesiam immediate et directe beato Petro Apostolo promissum atque col- latum a Christo Domino fuisse.”’ 2 Ibid. ‘“‘Eundem primatum non immediate directeque ipsi_ beato Petro, sed Ecclesiae, et per hanc illi ut ipsius Ecclesiae ministro delatum fuisse.”’ THE ROMAN QUESTION 93 The second chapter sets out the succession to the pre- rogative of Peter in the Roman See, adding: ‘‘ Wherefore whosoever succeeds to Peter in this See, by the institution of Christ himself he holds the primacy of Peter in relation to the whole Church.” ! The third chapter asserts the immediate jurisdiction of the Roman Church and the Roman Pontiff over all other Churches ; to which jurisdiction “all the pastors and the faithful, of whatever rite or dignity, are severally and jointly subject by the duty of hierarchic subordina- tion and true obedience, not only in things pertaining to faith and morals, but also in matters which pertain to the discipline and ordering of the Church diffused throughout the whole world.’’ At the end of the chapter the affirma- tion that it is lawful to appeal from judgments of the Roman Pontiff to an Ecumenical Council is gently con- demned.? The fourth chapter, after carefully noting that the successors of Peter have no promise of any fresh revelation of truth, asserts their infallibility in guarding the original revelation given to the Church: ‘‘The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex Cathedra, that is, when he, serving as Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by his supreme apostolic authority defines a doctrine concerning faith or t Cap. ii. ‘‘ Unde quicunque in hac Cathedra Petro succedit, is secundum Christi ipsius institutionem primatum Petri in uni- versam Ecclesiam obtinet.”’ 4 Cap. iii. ‘“‘ Erga quam cuiuscunque ritus et dignitatis pastores atque fideles, tam seorsim singuli quam simul omnes, officio hierarchicae subordinationis veraeque obedientiae obstringuntur, non solum in rebus quae ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in eis quae ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiae per totum orbem diffusae pertinent.” “A recto veritatis tramite aberrant, qui affirmant cicere ab iudiciis Romanorum Pontificum ad oecumenicum Concilium tam- quam ad auctoritatem Romano Pontifice superiorem appellare.”’ 94 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH morals to be held by the whole Church, is endowed through the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter with that infallibility by which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be sustained in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not in conse- quence of the consent of the Church.” ? This laboured and guarded definition reflects the doubts and hesitations expressed by the minority in the Council. In face of their historical arguments about Liberius and Honorius, in face of an ancient lection of the Roman Breviary saying that Liberius consented to Arian pravities —a statement repeated by Newman after the Council 2— it was impossible to contend that a Roman Pontiff was by divine power preserved from the danger of falling into heresy. The promise of infallibility being assumed, it was therefore necessary to limit the fruition of it to some special occasions. But these occasions were defined only in the most general terms. Anyone therefore may, with- out contravening the definition of the Council, conclude of any papal utterance that it was not made on one of the privileged occasions, and therefore is perhaps heretical. Such infallibility seems to be singularly ineffective. The grounds alleged for defining it, moreover, do not seem to 1 Cap.iv. ‘‘ Docemus et divinitus revelatum dogma esse defi- nimus: Romanum Pontificem, cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium Christianorum Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens pro suprema sua apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab universa Ecclesia tenendam definit, per assistentiam divinam ipsi in beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate pollere qua divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit ; ideoque eiusmodi Romani Ponti- ficis definitiones ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae, irreform- abiles esse.”’ 2 The Arians of the Fourth Century, ed. 1876, p. 426. See also p. 322, “ this miserable apostasy.”’ THE ROMAN QUESTION 95 Square exactly with the conclusion. Two are prominent. The first is a declaration of the Fourth Council of Con- stantinople that ‘‘ in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept immaculate.” : But this temperate statement, extracted from the voluminous records of the Council of the year 869 in which Photius was condemned, says only—with some charitable blindness to the unhappy weakness of Liberius and Honorius—that the Roman See had in fact preserved the faith inviolate until that year, and adds nothing about any promise of perpetuity. The second is the gracious saying of the Lord to Peter, ‘‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” But this, if construed as a promise to the successors of Peter, proves too much; not a limited infallibility on some particular Occasions, but a personal indefectibility at all times. Perhaps it is not surprising that theologians have failed to agree in recognizing any exercise of the endowment of infallibility during the fifty-six years that have elapsed since the sessions of the Council. The hopes or fears of those who looked for much activity in definition have been disappointed. . The other dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council are far more important. They are concerned with the working power of the Papacy in the administration of the Church, which is unsleeping. It is not found only in occasional outbursts of activity, as in some former ages ; improve- ment of communications and the perfecting of organization have made a vast change in that respect, and it now operates as a constant pressure, almost imperceptible except when rare attempts at resistance occur. Bishops and Religious Orders consciously do their work under the watchful eyes of the Roman Congregations, which t “In Sede Apostolica immaculata est semper catholica reservata religio, et sancta celebrata religio.”’ 96 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH have even been known to complain that trivial matters are needlessly referred to them. Many details of daily ministration are entrusted to bishops only by quinquennial faculties granted at the discretion of the Roman Court. But the universal pastorate of the Holy See is not exer- cised only through these agents. All is comprised in the term ‘‘ jurisdiction,” and the Petrine jurisdiction of the Pope is said to extend immediately to every member of the Church. The old conception of the Apostolic See as a great tribunal of appeal is thus submerged ; it becomes at once the final Court of Appeal and a court of first instance accessible to every one of the faithful, and com- petent to draw any cause to its direct cognizance. _To- close the last avenue of escape the Gallican assertion of appeal to an Ecumenical Council is expressly reprobated, though not, we may observe, under anathema. I think the Roman question, in our sense, has never been more clearly stated than by Creighton, who wrote to me thirty yearsago: “ All Roman arguments resolve themselves into the assertion of the necessity of submission to papal juris- diction. Itis not primacy, or recognition, but it is absolute submission to papal jurisdiction which is the one necessity for Catholicity according to the modern Roman view... . Arguments about outlying things have really little weight : they are merely outposts to defend the central position.” ? It is obvious that Anglo-Catholics refuse that sub- mission. There can be no half measures, and here I might leave the whole matter. But there are different possi- bilities of attitude even towards a closed question, and it must not be pretended that all are of one mind. I think there is general agreement on the reasons for refusal. Divines and scholars and historians seem to have tested all evidence and exhausted all argument in an endless t Life and Letters, vol. ii, p. 183. THE ROMAN QUESTION 97 controversy which has led to no definite result. But one fact stands out indisputable. Given two possible forms of a continuing apostolate, the episcopal and the papal, the former has received the all but unanimous suffrages of the Christian Church during its first fifteen hundred years, the latter has been continuously in dispute. How could this be, if the papacy had the same solid foundation as the episcopate? We are sure of this; we cannot be sure of that. We can acknowledge, with one of our best, that the papacy was born and has grown under the provi- dential guidance of God; we can allow that it functions ture divino, since the powers that be, Roman emperor or Roman pontiff, Nero or Pius, are ordained of God; but we cannot confess that Christian men at large are bound by any ordinance of God to submit themselves to either of those powers. But then there are divergences. Some are content ; deploring the consequent schism, but not at all deploring their freedom from a distasteful yoke, and trusting to the guidance of God for ultimate reunion. Others are fretted by the schism, as some of the Tractarians were fretted long ago; like them, they endure with grief, and with a sense of weakness, their separation from the premier See of Christendom, setting in contrast familiar defects of the Church of England and the efficiency which they perhaps exaggerate in viewing it from a distance. There is a tendency, perhaps diminishing but well in evidence, to imitate superficial aspects of that efficiency. With these goes in many cases an inclination to brood over possi- bilities of personal reconciliation. Most Anglo-Catholics are well aware that they would be happier on the other _ side of the very visible frontier, which could be crossed with little difficulty. This is more obviously true of laymen than of priests, who would be called upon to lay H 98 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH aside their sacred calling. It is well known that such transfers of allegiance are constantly being made, though the conspicuous examples of sixty or seventy years ago are a thing of the past, and some weak souls appear to live in a perpetual state of trepidation, which may become profoundly irreligious. These are among the miserable effects of schism, which have to be endured until the grace of God brings healing. More absurd, but equally demoral- izing, are the self-deceptions by which some few eccentrics persuade themselves that they are observing the laws of the Holy See. These crudities must be admitted. In contrast with them one may refer to the serious endeavours of those who believe that the circumstances of the © inveterate schism, always deplorable, have been made worse by mutual recrimination, and that a combined study of differences conducted in a spirit of charity and humility may at once diminish sectarian bitterness, and in the long run Jead to the desired reconciliation. That is the meaning of those recent Conferences at Malines, blessed by the highest authorities on both sides, which have been taken by the misinformed for a sort of paltering with the truth. CHAPTER VIII THE GOSPEL ““FDAULLO maiora canamus.”’ St. Paul declared that his main task as an Apostle was evangelizing, preaching the Gospel, and this must clearly be the main work of the Apostolic Church. Preaching is not discoursing at large on sacred subjects ; it is definitely the proclama- tion of the Gospel, as by heralds of God, and this will not be done only, perhaps not even principally, by public discourse, but in every possible way of “‘ commending ourselves,’ as St. Paul again said, ‘‘ to every man’s con- science in the sight of God.” And the Gospel is first a revelation of God supplementing what may be known by natural religion, secondly the promise of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ, and thirdly the revelation of God’s will regarding the way in which that salvation is to be appropriated. It may seem that we have been dealing so far only with the externals of religion. That is not my judgment. Organization is a matter of externals, and I have said as little as possible about it; but the organic constitution of the Church of Christ is no accident imposed upon the religion of the Gospel. It is an integral part of the Gospel, affecting that appeal to the human conscience which is the preaching of the Gospel. For the life which we live by the faith of the Son of God is not lived in isolation, 99 100 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH but in the Body of Christ, as members one of another. Babes in Christ may know nothing of the organism or of © their own relation to it; the full-grown in Christ may have but a faint perception of it; but in their happy ignorance they nevertheless live within it and by it, a life which cannot be lived apart. What the Redeemer of the world does for those that are without is not our concern; we can leave them to the all-embracing love of the Creator. But it is our concern to make our own standing sure, as we are able. Knowledge is needed for this; the doctrine of the Church is not less religious than the doctrine of redemption. Yet there are greater and less even among the necessary elements of Christian doc- trine, and the relation of the Church to the State or the interrelation of parts of the Church are of less moment than the doctrine of God or of the Christ, of Redemption or of the Sacraments. The limitation of my main subject imposes limits, however, on my treatment of these greater doctrines. I am writing only of Anglo-Catholicism, and therefore only of the way in which they are treated by a certain sect within the Church of England. Some of them the whole Church of England treats with no kind of particularity. It has no doctrine of God other than that of the whole Catholic Church. It is possible, indeed, to criticize the way in which that doctrine is stated, for example, in the Thirty- nine Articles; to suggest that the doctrine of the divine Impassibility, a truth expressed rather in the terms of Greek speculation than in the language of Old Testa- ment prophecy or of Christian revelation, is put too crudely and without desirable qualifications; but that is not to say that the First Article departs in any degree from the normal teaching of the whole Church. It is only to say that the statement needs careful explanation, which THE GOSPEL 101 is not given, I believe, more or less adequately by one sect within the Church than by another. There may be unguarded or exaggerated language used by individuals, who make themselves suspect of Patripassian tendencies ; and among those with whom I am specially conversant I have noted some whose desire to emphasize the love of the Creator for suffering humanity brings them within this peril; but they have to answer for themselves alone. Within this circle I know none who can be suspected of running to the other extreme of representing the Almighty Father as aloof or indifferent. It is possible, again, to criticize the language of the English Catechism as suggest- ing, unless very carefully taught, a tritheistic rendering of the operation of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier; but that is a difficulty which has to be faced in all Christian teaching, and Anglo-Catholics certainly cannot be accused of undervaluing the strong affirmation of the Unity of God which Quicunque vult supplies. In teaching the Incarnation, on the other hand, some most respected Anglo-Catholics have been openly accused of affirming the true Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ in such a way as to stumble into Apollinarianism. It is a danger that beset the first opponents of Arianism, and it is never far distant when errors of the same kind have to be controverted ; but I do not think that a candid critic will suppose anything worse to be involved than some lack of care in the choice of words. Defence of the truth in this department of the Faith is a constant need of our time, and the work cannot be effectively done by the mere use of the technical terms of theology. There is even less ground for a charge of Monothelitism in setting before an uninstructed people the non posse peccare of the Incarnate, though this also is notoriously difficult. The conception of Kenosis, which was much in evidence five 102 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH and thirty years ago, led to sharp debate among Anglo- Catholics. A real divergence between Liddon’s Bampton Lectures and the limitation of our Lord’s human know- ledge admitted by the writers of Lux Mundi was made the ground of attacks on the orthodoxy of the latter, though their statements were fortified by the authority of St. Athanasius, and it was only after the lapse of some years that mutual confidence was restored. It is possible that some doubts are still entertained, but they seem to be reduced to silence. The Christological definitions of Ephesus and Chalcedon are obscured by inevitable changes in the accepted meaning of words which have passed from a technical to a popular use; Person and Nature do not mean in the current speech of to-day what they meant for the Fathers of the fifth century. The sense, always to some extent artificial, then put upon these words, and retained in theology, is so generally forgotten that they are become positively misleading, and the teaching of the Church is distorted. The word Person, especially, may in this connexion convey a definitely heretical mean- ing. It is no small part of the work of Anglo-Catholics at once to defend the traditional use of terms which could not be abandoned without serious confusion, and to find intelligible expression of their true meaning. I think their responsibility for this task is understood and accepted. Of the doctrine of Redemption it is needless to say much. Nowhere, I would claim, is the evangelical preach- ing of the Cross more earnest and constant than among the Anglo-Catholics of to-day. If at one time it was thought to be tainted with sentimentalism, that prejudice has disappeared. Of the many theories of Atonement which theologians have invented, rejected, and retained, I think that is most acceptable which dwells on the persuasiveness of Crucified Love; so, or otherwise, the THE GOSPEL 103 Ransom of souls at the cost of the Precious Blood is in- creasingly proclaimed, and on this high ground there is a gladdening contact with some who at lower levels are acutely estranged. I am avoiding personal references, even to the departed, but by exception I place here the name of Knox Little, whose stall in Worcester Cathedral I inadequately. fill. It is a truism to say that practice in religion is more important than preaching ; and of practice the first aspect is Conversion. It is no unfair criticism of certain kinds of preaching to say that conversion is put forward with very little moral content ; amendment of life, and as far as possible the undoing of wrong, are supposed to follow as a necessary consequence, but in the act of conversion this appears rather as a hope than as intention ; salvation, the healing of the soul, is embraced as a free gift ; emotion is more prominent than purpose. The early Tractarians thought, rightly or wrongly, that they were in the presence of a dangerous emotionalism, and seem to have shrunk from speaking of conversion, as if the word were tainted by association with that error, preferring to speak of Repent- ance. They emphasized, perhaps excessively, the ethical aspect of religion, with some consequent severity amount- ing to hardness. The element of joy was not conspicuous either in their teaching or in their lives. It should be noted that the Greek word in the New Testament which is rendered in English as repentance, really means conversion. It does not contain any refer- ence to the idea of self-punishment, which enters into the Latin word used for translating it, and slightly affects « Metdvowa, which is etymologically either after-thought or change of intention. With this compare the Latin paenitentia, etymo- logically connected with punive, to punish. In Acts ili. 19, xxvi. 20, petavosty is joined with émiotpépety, which signifies conversion in the sense of a change of conviction or of allegiance. 104 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the meaning of the English word thence derived. Yet that some thought of this lay behind the use of the Greek — word may be gathered from the phrase “repent in sack- cloth and ashes,’ and from St. Paul’s mention of the accusing conscience. The Tractarians, saturated with knowledge of the Greek text of the New Testament, pro- bably thought it unnecessary to elucidate the meaning of repentance. Their leaning to the subsidiary notion of punishment is illustrated by a use of the word which was peculiar to them. In view of the abuses prevalent in the Church of England, complacently tolerated by their con- temporaries, they were slow to attempt improvements in the customary modes of worship, saying that garments of mourning were suitable for a “‘ penitent Church.’”’ But these strictures were not confined to their immediate surroundings. Inthe year 1840 Newman wrote to Bowden : “‘T do not think anything great of the Continental Churches, as you seem to think, or of the Roman Catholics at home. Were there ‘sanctity ’ among the Roman Catholics, they would indeed be formidable.’’ t The remedy which they sought, more tardily than might be expected, was a revival of the practice of auricular confession, never entirely abandoned, but for many years almost unheard of in the Church of England. It soon began to spread, at first very privately, but within ten years in a way to provoke violent demonstrations of hostility. These were repeated at intervals, until in the year 1873 more than four hundred priests, ‘‘in view of the widespread and increasing use of sacramental con- fession,’”’ petitioned Convocation to regulate it by the appointment of ‘‘ duly qualified confessors.”” Their object undoubtedly was to obtain a distinct recognition of the practice with which to confront attacks; but, as all the t Letiervs and Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 315. THE GOSPEL 105 signatories were probably in the habit of hearing con- fessions, it is difficult to understand what further qualifi- cation they required. The bishops answered the petition, objecting to the term ‘‘ sacramental confession,’’ showing that a special confession is recommended in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick and offered as a provision for troubled consciences at all times, but charging the clergy not to “enjoin or even encourage any practice of habitual confession to a priest.” The petitioners probably obtained as much as they expected, or indeed desired. The cir- cumstances of the Church of England make it impossible to enjoin and needless to encourage the practice. It is an awakened conscience, and nothing else, that drives sinners to confession. As one of the Tractarians said in his old age, ‘‘ We did not talk to people about confession ; we talked about the burden of sin, and they came to us.” Some years after the above response of the bishops, the most evangelical of them told one of his clergy that he must not recommend confession as spiritual food but as medicine for sick souls. ‘‘ That is just what I do,” was the reply, “and I have learnt by experience that almost all souls are sick; ‘from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness, but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores.’”” That may be considered broadly the Anglo-Catholic position. But it is not taken up asa new discovery, a sectarian opinion. In this, as in other respects, Anglo-Catholicism is fundamentally and con- sciously historical. Here again we must therefore look back to the past, whence the present has come by the high road of Development.: It is possible to detect in the apostolic writings two differing strains of thought. On the one hand there is an 1 The following paragraphs are reproduced with little alteration from a paper read to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in the year 1923. 106 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH exultation of spirit which sees the reconciled as saints, the regenerate as perfect; the culminating expression of it is in the Epistle of St. John: ‘‘ Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him ; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.’’ On the other hand there is a clear recognition of the possibility of such lapse, and definite provision for dealing with it. There may be terrible sternness, as in the case of the incestuous Corinthian: ‘‘ Put away from among your- selves that wicked person’”’; but in a later epistle there is tender forgiveness and complete restoration for a penitent offender, whether the same or another is not known, and to the Galatians St. Paul writes, as of an established practice: ‘‘ Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” The former of these two habits of thought may lead to strange conclusions. Apply those words of St. John rigidly, and a Christian has no sin, there is no place for repentance in the Christian life, no need of any further | absolution after baptism. But then we come face to face with facts. We see a Christian sinning grievously. Shall we callit illusion? Shall we invent some monstrous theory to empty his conduct of sinfulness? It is possible; it has been done. Or shall we evade the difficulty by saying that his fall proves him to have been no Christian ? There are words which look that way in this same Epistle of St. John: ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have con- tinued with us.” If, then, there is no place for penitence in the Christian life, these lapsed Christians are incapable. of restoration; and there is a similar suggestion in the Epistle to the Hebrews. But these inferences from his THE GOSPEL 107 enthusiastic words St. John cuts off peremptorily with a trenchant assertion: ‘“‘ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”’ Yet the habit of thought out of which the false inferences are drawn is there; and it has continued, with its effects, all through the history of Christendom. At the close of the apostolic age it seems to have been dominant. In spite of the practice of St. Paul, in spite of the plain assertion of the Johannine Epistle, there was evidently a widespread unwillingness to admit any erring Christian to penance and restoration. In the second century we find Hermas earnestly pleading for this mercy, and sup- porting his contention by a Vision, without which he would seem to have been doubtful of success. Later writers, upholding the practice, are still more or less on the defensive. And so far it is allowed only once. Penance is 1 some sort a renewal of baptism, a plank for the ship- wrecked, and no more to be repeated than is baptism. Not until the fourth century was this severity relaxed. It should not be misunderstood. The possibility of salvation was not denied by anyone to those who fell into sin after baptism, or after the one penance allowed ; but they were left to the uncovenanted mercy of God, and it was held that the Church had no right to use for their benefit the ministry of reconciliation. This could be done once in Baptism, a second time in penance, but no more. The severity of the practice had inevitable consequences. The Johannine Epistle definitely established the distinc- tion between a sin that is unto death and a sin that is not unto death. For the lighter kind of sin, prayer is sufficient remedy : ‘‘ If any man see his brother sin a sin not unto 108 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH death, he shall ask, and give him life.’’ Penance was the remedy for a sin which was unto death. But ifaman was to be admitted to penance only once, as a most excep- tional event, the deadly sins, peccata capitalia, would inevitably be reckoned exceptional and few. In point of fact they were usually restricted to the three heads of murder, adultery, and idolatry; and adultery was usually understood in a very narrow sense. St. Basil the Great refused, on the ground of a prevailing custom of the Church, to require a husband sinning with an unmarried woman to do penance as an adulterer.? Deadly sin being thus narrowly defined, all other sins were venial, peccata cotidiana, the everyday faults of Christians, which are remitted, says St. Aguustine, at the daily prayer, ‘ Forgive us our trespasses.”” This hard and fast distinction could not make for a high standard of morality, and in the Epistles of St. Cyprian there is abundant evidence to show that with a severe discipline for the three capital sins there went great laxity of manners in the ordinary Christian household. St. Cyprian was distressed by this, and other bishops, no doubt, were equally perturbed. What was to be the remedy ? ; One point must first be made clear. It has been sug- gested that the penitential discipline of the early Church was a matter of police, a control of public scandals, a safeguard for the character of the community. It was not so regarded. Perhaps the Cathari, who denied the power of the Church to give absolution after baptism, and confined membership in the Church to those who were presumed to be free from all deadly sin, may have treated their discipline as no more than the casting out of the 1 IT render the text literally, not forgetting the possible sense. adopted in R.V. 2 Ad Amphilochium, Can. 21. THE GOSPEL 109 unfit. But the Catholic writers against them argue that refusal of absolution was an injury done to souls; it was the duty of the Church, not only to condemn sinners, but also to restore them by the ministry of reconciliation. Penance was exactly analogous to baptism; it was a ministry of grace; in a word, it was a true sacrament. It seems strange that men who so argued should themselves have adhered to the practice of refusing a second access to penance. Indeed that refusal could not be maintained. It was giving way in the fourth century. The laxity of Nectarius at Constantinople was local and peculiar. He abolished in effect the whole public exercise of penance, except in relation to the most open and notorious sins, a secret sinner being left to the control of his conscience. The historian Socrates thought this dangerous; but he was even more concerned when the successor of Nectarius, no less a person than St. John Chrysostom, flung to the winds the established discipline, and declared from the pulpit that a sinner might be admitted to penance a thousand times. Such penance would certainly not be public; we may infer that these two bishops, the man of the world and the most unworldly of saints, by a strange combination gave a new direction to the penitential prac- tice of the Church. Almost contemporaneously we find in a sermon of St. Augustine mention of a private exercise of penance, allowed to sinners whose lives might be _ endangered by publicity; and in the East St. Basil the Great had already made the same concession to a wife confessing adultery. It is, I think, the first definite mention of what was afterwards called auricular confession. These modifications of the sterner discipline are not to be regarded as declension. They are the removal of intolerable restrictions which hindered the free working of divine grace. Incidentally they made room for a more 110 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH wholesome severity in the classification of sins. As long as the rigour of public penance continued, the three capital sins remained in a category apart, and the rest were venial. It held its ground here and there for a long time, but after the ninth century it rapidly disappeared. What remained of it became that system, rather of police than of penance, which was administered by ecclesiastical courts. Confession to a priest alone, and absolution given by him in strictest privacy, was now the only recognized ministration of sacramental penance. Simultaneously the last vestiges of restriction to a single act_of penance dis- appeared. A new measure of the sinfulness of sin became — possible ; it was no longer external circumstances that marked a sin as being deadly, but rather the evidence of conscience bearing on the elements of malice underlying it. Moral theology, and the science of casuistry which is the application of its principles to particular cases, were still in their infancy ; but the line of their future develop- ment was marked out. In the year 1215 the canon Omnis utriusque sexus of the Fourth Lateran Council required all the faithful without exception, after reaching years of discretion, to confess all their sins and to do penance at least once a year. Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of this rule, or of the risk of a merely perfunctory penance attaching to it, one unquestionable result was a definite exclusion of the idea that membership in the Church carries with it a guarantee of sinlessness. The solemn admission of the Epistle of St. James, “In many things we offend all,” was recognized as normal; the warning of St. John, ‘‘ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,’ was accepted for all Christians; all perilous exaggeration of the evangelic consciousness of | liberation from sin was condemned ; and with the univer- sality of penance, the universality also of pardon was ~ THE GOSPEL ? 111 proclaimed. There was no sin from which the ministry of reconciliation would not absolve the sinner. The broad moral effect was immense. It was made plain that the Christian life is normally a life of penitence. The perversion of the evangelic doctrine of sin and forgive- ness, in the direction either of antinomianism or of ruthless puritanism, might still flourish in fanatical sects, but there was no longer any loophole by which it could effect a lodgment in the Catholic Church. Those who value a sane ethical Christianity, while disparaging institutional religion, owe more than they willingly acknowledge to the auto- cratic Innocent III and this most institutional of Councils. The words of the Council are “ Confiteatur proprio sacerdoti, et iniunctam sibi paenitentiam pro viribus studeat adimplere.” The “‘ proprius sacerdos’”’ is a priest who stands in a pastoral relation to the penitent; that is to say, one on whom the pastoral office has been devolved by the bishop, who from the first was the true minister, and for some time the only ordinary minister, of recon- ciliation. The conditions of absolution are confession and an undertaking to do as far as possible some prescribed act of penance. Confession as such a condition is apos- tolic: “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” God’s forgiveness is not an act merely of mercy, as if the divine attributes were separable ; it is an act of justice and fidelity. In one word, there is a covenant. There is a Sacrament of Penance. So the confession which forms part of it is an outward act. Wherever the word occurs in the writings of the New Testament, with all its various meanings, there is always this sense of openness, of publicity. It is never used of a secret disposition of the heart. So the homologesis of Christian penitence has always been open, with the spoken word, whether in full publicity before the congregation of 112 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the faithful, or more privately before an accredited minister. It is a confession to God, and to God’s Church. Only when that is done can the pastoral office be exercised in the absolution of the sinner. But the condition required is not confession alone. A bare confession might be an act of brazen effrontery. Penitence also is required. Evidence of this must be given, and the humble acceptance of an. imposed penance is allowed as indicating a change of heart. It must be so allowed; for, according to the teaching of the Gospel, human forgiving is an image of the divine forgiving, and the rule is, ‘If thy brother sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive him.” In every penance imposed there is also an element of satisfaction. Exaggerated, perhaps, in the earlier dis- cipline, and lending itself to an abuse of indulgences, in modern practice it is reduced to a just proportion. The penitent soul desires to achieve the impossible task of paying the uttermost farthing. Something symbolic is not unmeet. But penance or satisfaction is not allowed ~ to assume the guise of a price paid for absolution. It is a condition, but a condition regarding the recipient, and not the bestower of pardon. It is by this condition that a sinner can appropriate the free grace of forgiveness. The Church of England retains this full development of the apostolic teaching and practice, except only the rule enjoining confession once a year at least, which has been allowed to fall into abeyance. It is perhaps the chief distinction of Anglo-Catholics in the department of per- sonal religion to have made the teaching effective and the practice something more than a refuge in extremity of. need. But they do not, and cannot, claim any monopoly of that good work, CHAPTER IX THE SACRAMENTS : om what I have last written some mention of the Sacra- ments in general was unavoidable, but I have reserved this important subject for separate treatment. Its special importance in my present task turns on the fact that the official teaching of the Church of England is not here in complete agreement with that of other parts of the Catholic Church. Moreover, those other parts adhere closely to the traditional teaching of the whole Church which was accepted also in England until the beginning of the schism between Rome and Canterbury. Anglo-Catholics therefore have matter for grave consideration. They cannot, as we have seen, accept any doctrinal definition of the Church of England alone as an ultimate standard of orthodoxy ; they must relate it to the controlling authority of the Catholic Church as a whole. And this may involve them personally in a practical question of serious moment. Should the Church of England formally contradict any formal teaching of the whole Church, it is hard to see how they could remain in communion with the bishops of the Church of England. I have carefully chosen the correct word. Heresy, in the condemnatory sense, is not divergence from the teach- ing of the Catholic Church, but a contradiction of it. The distinction applies to the errors alike of individuals and of I 113 114 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH organized groups. Both cases present difficulties in the way of judgment, which are much greater in the latter case than in the former. The Church is properly slow and reluctant to condemn opinions as heretical, and St. Augus- tine was the author of a grave warning against the rash condemnation of a multitude; it is wise, he said, to tolerate much evil rather than provoke a widespread schism.! If this warning was needed when the Great Church was newly consolidated after the controversies and schisms of the fourth century, it is much more applic- able to the present divided state of Christendom. Even now it is not impossible to condemn a whole group, even of bishops; a province or a group of provinces. If all other groups agree in the condemnation, there is at least a provisional judgment, approximately of the whole Church; but the warning has weight against any action which would either create a schism or hinder the healing of a schism already made. Nor will it be at once the obvious duty of the faithful to withdraw from the com- munion of bishops so condemned. In the history of the many schisms which have vexed the Church from the beginning there are good precedents for the exercise of patience in such distressing circumstances. But there will be need for grave consideration. I feel bound to enter on these generalities, lest I should seem to be shirking important implications ; but they do not actually apply to the question before us. It is not possible to adduce any such combined judgment of the rest of the Church against the teaching of the Church of England about the Sacraments. But the faithful of the Church of England are not thereby discharged from respon- sibility. What if they discover of themselves the contra- diction which is heresy ? What is then their duty ? 1 Contva Epistulam Parmeniant, iil, 2~3. THE SACRAMENTS 115 It may be said that their only duty is patiently to endure ; at the worst, to put up a passive resistance if they are required to teach or profess what is false ; they are not in a position to judge their superiors ; a single bishop must not actively oppose the corporate action of his compro- vincials, and the clergy or laity of a diocese must not actively oppose their own bishop. That seems reasonable, but the practice of the Catholic Church has not always been so simple. St. Cyprian, who taught that separation from one’s own lawful bishop meant separation from the Body of Christ, and exaggerated the independence of each several bishop to the point of making him amenable only -to the judgment of God, by whom alone he was appointed, nevertheless directed the faithful on certain occasions to withdraw from the communion of an unfaithful bishop, and to take steps for providing themselves with a faithful pastor. This direction was confirmed by a Council in Africa which had to consider the lapse of the two Spanish bishops, Basilides and Martial.: It is, perhaps, the only incoherence perceptible in Cyprian’s hard and _ logical systematizing of the Church, and may be taken as illus- trating the truth that a living organism can never be as completely explained as a mere organization. His teaching was not forgotten. Sixty years later, when a faction at Carthage rejected their bishop Caecilian on the deplorably _ common charge of lapse in the great persecution, choosing Maiorinus in his room, this action was not condemned by 1 Sentent: Episcop., Martel, p. 436. ‘‘ Expectemus uniuersi iudicium Domini nostri lesu Christi qui unus et solus habet potes- tatem et praeponendi nos in ecclesiae suae gubernatione et de actu nostro iudicandi.” Ep. Ixvii. 3. ‘‘ Plebs ‘obsequens praeceptis dominicis et Deum metuens a peccatore praeposito separare se debet, nec se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis sacrificia miscere, quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatem uel eligendi dignos sacerdotes uel indignos recusandi.”’ 116 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the Council of Arles until Caecilian’s innocence had been established after searching enquiry. Exactly similar would have been the “‘nonjuring movement” against which Keble warned his friends, as we have seen, at the time of the Gorham controversy. He did not say that such a movement could never be justified. The troubles at Antioch in the year 362 further illustrate the difficulty of such questions ; the authority of St. Athanasius and his Council at Alexandria could not induce the Eustathian party to enter into communion with Meletius, and the rash interference of Lucifer of Cagliari for the purpose of pro- viding them with a bishop. of their own was approved by | the Church of Rome. The closer organization of the Church in the following century made such spontaneous , action almost impossible, but it was renewed in principle by the “‘ withdrawal of obedience” from the riva] popes in the last stages of the Great Schism of the West in the fifteenth century. The present divided state of Christen- dom makes it more feasible, and with the approval of Rome it was in fact the origin of some Uniat Churches in the East. It is curious to reflect that the English Non- jurors of the eighteenth century tried to extract a similar approval from the Eastern Orthodox Church of their day. We cannot, therefore, dismiss the possibility of such a movement, and there is reason to fear that some Anglo- Catholics may again be unwise enough to think of attempting it. I shall therefore be at some pains to ascertain what was the general teaching of the whole Church on the Sacraments, down to the middle of the sixteenth century, and to show that the official teaching of the Church of England since that date, though certainly diverging from it, does not involve a contradiction. The word sacrament came into Christian theology as a translation of the Greek word mystery, especially as used THE SACRAMENTS 117 by St. Paul. In the old Latin version of the Scriptures this word was represented by sacramentum, the word mysterium not being used before the revision of St. Jerome. The meaning of sacramentum must therefore be determined by that of the original, all other current meanings of the Latin word being put aside. What, then, did St. Paul mean by a mystery? The word was current in his day with a definite religious sense. It meant a private religious rite, more personal than the observances of public worship, and open only to those expressly initiated. Hence a notion of secrecy passed into the word, but a mystery was by no means a secret; on the contrary it purported to carry with it the revelation of something unknown to the world at large. St. Paul’s use of the word is in strict accordance with this; a mystery is for him a revealed truth “‘ which has been hid from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to the saints.’”? The new know- ledge is broadcast; the preaching of the Gospel is ‘“‘ to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God.’’ Here also the revelation was to the initiated ; in one of his extant writings St. Paul describes his own knowledge by the technical term for initiation,? and he occasionally speaks of the “‘ perfect’ in the usual sense of those who have attained to the full measure of illumination ;? but they are not to keep the revelation jealously guarded as their peculiar treasure; they are to make all men see. The disciplina arcant which afterwards 1 Phil. iv. 12, wewdnuat. 4 1 Cor. 11.6; Eph. iv. 13; Col. i. 28; Phil. ili, 15; perhaps also, ironically, Gal. iii. 3. 118 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH crept into the Church seems to have been imitated from pagan mysteries. Itis a fantastic notion that St. Paul invented the Christian sacraments by a similar imitation. He evidently regarded the pagan mysteries as the worship of demons; he may possibly have anticipated the thought of Justin Martyr that they were profane parodies of divine truths, unless indeed he thought of them rather as being, like the Greek philosophies, a purblind groping after God, an outgrowth of natural religion. He certainly saw the likeness, for in speaking of the chief Christian sacrament he could compare ‘‘ the Lord’s Table”’ with “the table of demons.” The Mysteries could at least supply him with a vocabulary. His use of it was the more remarkable since the Mysteries were specially abhorred by Jews. Philo railed at them, alike for the exclusion of all but the initiated and for the ready initiation of worthless neophytes, putting in contrast the publicity of the Jewish worship and the exclusion of the profane or unclean.t But the Christian mysteries were open; St. Paul’s reference to the unlearned or un- © believers present at the celebration is sufficient proof, and the Latin word sacramentum bears this out. Had the idea of secrecy been involved, some other word such as arcanum would probably have been chosen. The choice otf sacra- mentum is not explained by any other known use of the word. The two meanings that are known, the soldier’s oath to his commander and the pledge deposited in a temple on occasion of a lawsuit, led to some enrichment or obscuration of Latin theology by figures derived there- from, but were quite alien to the conception of a mystery. It seems probable that there was a popular use of the word, - 1 ITepi Ovdvtwrv, Op., ed. 1691, p. 856. Compare Wisdom, xiv. 15 and 23. a tit tit THE SACRAMENTS 119 unknown to literature, in the general sense of a sacred rite or observance. The Greek word, rooted in the vernacular, continued in use with the same breadth of meaning as in St. Paul. It meant, and means to this day, any revealed truth, and especially one which is exhibited in action by a sacred rite. But at some period not easily determined, seven eminent mysteries were set in a class apart, and are so treated in the Orthodox Catechisms: Baptism, Confirmation or the Holy Chrism, the Eucharist, Holy Order, Confession, Marriage, and the Unction of the Sick. All alike are treated as integral parts of the Orthodox tradition. In the Western Church sacramental doctrine has run a more devious course, the turnings of which are mainly due to St. Augustine. Tertullian had led the way in illus- trating or obscuring the Christian mysteries by suggestions drawn from irrelevant meanings of the word sacramentum as used in current speech. A comparison of baptism with the Roman legionary’s sacramentum was almost inevitable, and this, taken in connexion with St. Paul’s reference to the “‘ good soldier of Jesus Christ,’’ has added a picturesque touch to Christian rituals. But he did not lose sight of the wider meaning; ‘‘ Fiusdem sacramenti una traditio ”’ meant for him the union of believers in the whole Christian dispensation, and by insisting on the likeness of the Christian sacraments to the Mithraic and other mysteries he showed his consciousness of the larger, and perhaps, newer, significance of the word.2 St. Cyprian was pro- bably borrowing in like manner when he linked together sacramentum and signum in his favourite imagery of the t In the next five paragraphs I have briefly digested the relevant matter contained in an article contributed by me to Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. x, pp, 903-8, where a complete citation of authorities will be found. 2 De Praescy, 20, and 40. De Bapt. 5. 120 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH seamless robe.t A pleader and a magistrate before his conversion, he would be familiar with the sacramentwm of a Roman lawsuit. This was a deposit, of real or symbolic value, placed in sacred custody to represent the matter actually in dispute, and to serve the purpose of a security for costs. It was at once a symbol and a pledge. The former sense is germane to a mystery-religion, the rites of which are eminently symbolic; the latter sense is more remote, but it hung about the sacraments of the Church and ultimately found a place in the English Catechism. So far there is no formal definition, but this began with St. Augustine, who was a master of the art. It may be thought that St. Jerome’s introduction of the word mystertum into some passages of the New Testament indicates a narrowing of the sense of sacramentum, which would make it less applicable to all mysteries alike; but an examination of the passages rebuts this inference, for Jerome evidently used the two words without discrimina- tion. A sacrament was still any kind of sacred mystery, and Augustine so used the word; but his approach to a definition in the words ‘‘Sacramentum, id est sacrum signum,’’ began the narrowing process. Sacraments are so called, he says elsewhere, because in them one thing is seen, another is understood.? Here is the starting-point of the definition, ‘‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us,”’ Augustine added the distinction between signwm and res, the sign and the thing signified ; and among signs he distinguished those that are natural, as smoke showing where there is fire, and those which are data, or settled by an arbitrary * De Vnitate, 7. Sacramento uestis et signo declarauit ecclesiae unitatem. 2 Distinct from this, but sometimes confused with it, is the use of signum in the sense of odpayic, a seal. The proper word here is rather signaculum, as in Vulg., Rom. iv. 11, 1 Cor, ix. 2, THE SACRAMENTS | 121 convention. Sacraments are of the latter kind; but he argued on one occasion that there should be some likeness between the sign and the reality, that they may reasonably be identified. This he presses in the case of the Eucharist, so that the sacrament of the Body of Christ is in some sort the Body of Christ, and the sacrament of the Blood is the Blood of Christ; and so too Christ may be truly said to be immolated in the sacrament. There is there- fore much more than a typical or figurative relation between the sign and the thing signified. The meaning of sacra- mentum was thus narrowed to include only a ritual act in which there is a sensible sign of an intelligible reality. But there was a further narrowing, also due to the teaching of St. Augustine. He observed that the sacraments of the Old Testament promised a Saviour, but the sacraments of the New Testament gave salvation. His conception of the working of grace made it impossible for him to tie this gift absolutely to particular rites or ordinances, but he maintained that certain sacraments were the ordinary vehicles for the conveyance of grace to the soul. His later followers improved on this by saying that only such vehicles were properly called sacraments, thus departing far from the language of St. Paul. This limitation, however, was not formulated until the twelfth century. Hugh of St. Victor, with something of _ the older generality, enumerated thirty sacraments, but distinguished seven which he called “ principalia sacra- menta,”’ agreeing exactly with the classification adopted, as I have remarked above, by the Eastern Churches. Two of his contemporaries allowed only those seven, and shortly afterwards Peter Lombard adopted the septenary scheme in his Libri Sententiarum, which speedily became the chief text-book of the Schools of Theology. In spite of the great authority of St. Bernard, who insisted that 122 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH our Lord’s washing of the disciples’ feet was not merely an example to be tollowed but the institution of a sacra- ment, the doctrine of the Seven Sacraments became fixed, was asserted by the Councils of Constance and of Florence, and finally ratified under anathema at Trent. The special institution of the Seven Sacraments by our Lord himself remained in doubt, it being held by some doctors that a general power of sacramental action was conferred on the Church, and used under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This attractive theory, which agrees very well with the apostolic records, was supported by St. John Bonaventura, who argued that confirmation and the unction of the sick were instituted by the Apostles ; Alexander of Hales found the origin of confirmation in a Council of the ninth century. However instituted, a sacrament involved a ritual action, and to avoid ambiguity it was argued that some explicit words must accompany the action; a rather slavish adherence to the language of Aristotle induced theologians, in spite of almost insuperable difficulties, to find in these two elements the matter and form of each sacrament; and as a convenient statement of fact those terms have held their ground. Moreover, the action to be done and the words to be spoken required a doer and speaker, known as the Minister of the Sacra- ment: and for each sacrament a proper minister was found, the only criterion being the actual practice of the Church, which thus acquired a new rigidity ; any departure from it would at least throw a doubt on the validity of the sacrament. And as the ministration of a sacrament was the work of a rational being, it was found that he must have a definite intention, which was defined after much controversy as no more than the intention of doing what the Church does. He may not understand what the effect of the sacrament is, or intend that effect, but he THE SACRAMENTS 123 must at least intend to do the prescribed action as a sacred rite, not as a jest or for an entirely alien purpose. There is required therefore, in the institution of a sacrament, an appointed matter and form, a minister, and the minister’s intention. It remains to consider the effect of a sacrament. Broadly it is the conveyance of grace to the receiver. But there is a question about the mode of conveyance. The answer of Latin theology, as developed in the thirteenth century, is that grace is conveyed ex opere operato; that is to say, by what is done according to the institution of the sacrament. The phrase first appears in a treatise of Innocent III, where it is directed against the teaching of the Waldensians, revived in the fourteenth century by Wicklif and the Hussites, that the effect depends on the holiness of the minister and the good disposition of the recipient, being therefore ex opere operantis. The new phrase was coined to summarize the argument of St. Augustine about the sacraments of the Donatists. St. Cyprian had insisted that heretics or schismatics could not be dispensers of grace, since they stood apart from the charity which is the bond of peace in the Christian Church, and therefore could not minister any valid sacra- ments. Augustine argued, on the contrary, that the effect of a sacrament depends entirely on the operation of God, and is achieved when the appointed rite is carried out ; he therefore upheld the validity of baptisms and ordina- tions administered by the Donatists in their state of schism. This argument was at once approved as regards baptism by the whole of Latin Christendom, with the exception of the Donatists themselves, but has been accepted only with considerable reserve by the Eastern Churches ; in regard to ordination, the conclusion was not definitely settled even in the West until the eleventh 124 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH century. It was afterwards extended to all sacraments in the form of this doctrine of grace ex opere operato. There is here an obvious risk of taking the rite itself as effective for all purposes by a sort of mechanical process, a notion which to St. Augustine’s conception of grace was entirely abhorrent; he met the danger by his doctrine of the obex, or bar, which evil dispositions in the recipient can interpose. Where there is such a bar, the gift of God is received, but the recipient reaps no benefit from it, unless by subsequent repentance he removes the bar and revives the working of the grace given. This idea of the obex became an integral part of the doctrine of grace ex opere operato. It is distasteful, and even distressing, to set out in this dry fashion the working of the love of God for our salvation ; but no part of the teaching which I have here described is entirely worthless as a safeguard against errors which may poison the life of grace. It has never been at every point supported by the concurrence of the whole Catholic Church, to such effect that contradiction would be heresy ; much of it may be safely neglected when no special need is in sight, but it would be perilous to reject even this. What I have to consider is the treatment of the whole body of sacramental doctrine found in the official formularies of the Church of England. The specific doctrine of the Seven Sacraments does seem to have been supported by the concurrence of the whole Church. The English formularies do depart from it ; but not, as I have said, to the point of contradiction. In the Catechism it is said that only two sacraments have been ordained by Christ, but this limitation is qualified by the important addition, ‘‘as generally necessary for salva- tion.” This phrase is not without obscurity, but it seems to leave an open door for the suggestion that other sacra- ments may be equally necessary for particular persons THE SACRAMENTS 125 or in particular circumstances. Turning to the Thirty- nine Articles, we find the other “ five commonly called sacraments ’’ enumerated under their traditional names. The words ‘‘ commonly called ’”’ cannot be taken as a note of disparagement, for three of the five are expressly or by implication called sacraments in the Homilies elsewhere recommended for public reading in churches.t But they certainly are disparaged in the words which follow, where it is said that they ‘“‘ are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures ; but yet have not like nature of sacraments with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.” This confused sentence has sorely exercised commentators, and is perhaps hardly worth the pains bestowed upon it. The authors have the air of saying the worst they can or dare of the five sacraments: if we put the worst possible construction upon it, we shall find a grudging admission that all five may have some “‘ nature of sacraments,” declining only in part from the standard of apostolic sincerity. The doctrine of opus operatum was vigorously assailed by many of the Reformers, who based the efficacy of sacraments on the faith of the recipient, or on the sub- jective state induced in him by participation. Cranmer’s abortive Thirteen Articles of 1538 condemned the scholastic doctrine on the ground that it implied the colla- tion of grace ‘‘sine bono motu utentis.’”’2 The F orty-two t Marriage in the Sermon on Swearing. In the Homily on Com- mon Prayer and Sacraments, it is said that neither ordination nor “any other sacrament else, be such sacraments as Baptism and the Communion are.” Some lines below, matrimony and confir- mation are brought into this class. * Hardwick, History of the Articles of Rehgion, p. 270. 126 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Articles of 1553, evidently drawing upon the previous document, repeated the condemnation without the reason alleged, for which was substituted the objection that the phrase ex opere operato, ‘as it is strange and unknown to. holy Scripture, so it engendereth no godly but a very superstitious sense.’’ This was happily struck out in the revision which produced the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563 and 1570. The objection of a “ superstitious sense ’’ has been revived in the form of a complaint that the opus operatum theory turns a sacramental rite into a magical incantation. This is to ignore the point that the opus in question is regarded definitely as the work of God, and the complaint can be excused only on the score of simple ignorance. For our present purpose it is enough to say that the doctrine is not even criticized in any formulary of the Church of England; but it is inter- esting to observe that very decided Protestants have now begun to acknowledge that St. Paul’s own teaching appears to involve an ex opere operato theory of baptism.* One very sharp criticism of Latin theology is found in the Thirty-nine Articles; “ Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.”’ Here is indeed no heresy, for there is no doctrine of Transubstantiation taught by the whole Catholic Church ; but it is, verbally at least, a direct contradiction of the doctrine previously received by the Church of England in common with the whole Western Church. This makes a t Forsyth, The Church and the Sacraments, ch. viii, p. 156. This chapter was contributed to the book by the author’s colleague, Professor Andrews, of New College, London. Cf. Kirsopp Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, p. 385. THE SACRAMENTS 127 difficulty for Anglo-Catholics, especially as most of them have a decided leaning to the doctrine so received. I have treason to believe that some are prevented on this account from making even the modified declaration of assent to the Articles which is now required as a condition of ordina- tion, and they are thus shut out from the sacred ministry. Itis mainly on their account that I discuss the matter. The first thing to observe is that we have to consider not one doctrine, but many doctrines of Transubstantia- tion. Cardinal Franzelin’s tractate De SS. Eucharistiae Sacramento et Sacrificio shows how many he had to discuss and reject as still current sixty years ago, and others had been disposed of before his time. It would be indecent to suggest that a formulary of the Church of England condemns merely a word, and therefore one or more of these doctrines, current in the middle of the sixteenth century, must be intended. There is no difficulty in finding among these some which may have given occasion to superstition. Indeed, it is improbable that any sacra- mental doctrine could be immune from such abuse. That some of them overthrew the nature of a sacrament by suggesting that the visible sign remaining after transub- stantiation was an unreality, a deception of the senses, can hardly be contested; Franzelin’s earnest argument tor the continuing reality of the species shows what might be required in confutation of such error. It is much more difficult to find ‘‘ plain words of Scripture ” to which any doctrine of Transubstantiation is repugnant. If there were such words, it is hard to see how the doctrine could have found a footing among men who were at least familiar with the text of the New Testament. On the other hand, it may be freely conceded that no doctrine of Transub- stantiation can be absolutely ‘“ proved by holy Writ.”’ But Transubstantiation as taught by the greatest Scholastics, 128 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH before the aberrations of Scotism, was a simple re- duction of the words “‘ This is my Body” to the terms of the Aristotelian logic, and it seemed to be the only form of statement by which grave errors could be excluded. For without this definition the choice of an interpretation would lie anywhere between a statement nakedly figurative and one which might imply a local, dimensional and sensible presence of our Lord’s Body. By the use of the Aristotelian Categories, which are merely a common-sense analysis of perception, the Real Presence was restricted to the category of pure being, or substantia, the categories of place and time and extension and the like being ruled out. The result, as Franzelin put it, is that the sacra- mental Body of Christ is purely noumenal. If anyone desires a definition ofspiritual presence, here it is, and it would be hard to find one better suited for the purpose. It may be more to the purpose to say that no other doctrine of the Eucharist is less open to the allegations which we are considering. Construing the Article, therefore, in a reasonably benevolent way, we must assume that the ‘‘ transubstantiation ’’ condemned by it is not that which was taught by the great Scholastics and retained in the best tradition of Latin theology. The positive teaching of the English formularies, indeed, is strongly tinged with Latinism. No less was to be expected in the work of men who had been bred in the Latin tradition, and could not even quarrel with it except in its own terms. For the Thirty-nine Articles, Sacra- ments are “ efficacia signa gratiae,’ by which God “in nos operatur.” The doctrine of opus operatum, in spite of the inclination to be rid of it, is plainly taught where the sacraments are said to be ‘‘ effectual because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.” The warning that wicked and faithless com- THE SACRAMENTS 129 municants “in no wise are partakers of Christ ”’ is right Augustinian, though based on a quotation erroneously attributed to St. Augustine. Elsewhere than in the Articles, the teaching of the formularies about Baptism, Confirmation and Marriage, leaves little to be desired by the most ardent Latinist ; and the declaration publicly Tepeated twice a day that God “ hath given power and commandment to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins,” puts forward the sacrament of Penance with singular emphasis. The Holy Orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, conferred “‘ by public Prayer with Imposition of Hands,” are said to have been in the Church from the Apostles’ time; if some Latin ceremonies of comparatively recent origin are omitted in the rites of ordination, what remains is augmented by the application to priests of the words in which our Lord conveyed his Own power of mediation to the Apostles. The Unction of the Sick, called by the Bishop of Brechin, sixty years ago, “the lost pleiad of the Anglican firmament,” has long since swum once more into our ken, is undisputed, and is slowly but steadily advancing in pious use. Anglo-Catholics, then, rarely find it too difficult to adjust themselves to their circumstances. In their sacra- mental teaching and practice they do no doubt Latinize €ven more than the formularies, and cling perhaps to some Latin elements which might well be discarded ; but even in their divagations they seldom have to complain of intolerant treatment. At the same time it is much to be desired that an obligatory declaration of assent to disputable propositions of the sixteenth century, which has no effect but the exclusion of some men of tender conscience from the service of the Church, might be relegated to the lumber-room of history. K CHAPTER X THE PRIESTHOOD NGLO-CATHOLICS are sometimes called Sacer- dotalists. Since they are all either ordained to minister as priests or subject to the ministration of priests, and priest is the English rendering of sacerdos, the descrip- tion may seem otiose, unless there is some hidden mean- ing in it which does not appear on the surface. I will not waste time in hunting for such a meaning, but will try to show briefly in what sense the description is true. In the first Epistle of St. Peter the Christian Church is called ‘“‘ an holy priesthood,” and immediately below the members of the Church are addressed accordingly: ‘ Ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” The phrases are all borrowed from the Old Testament, and illustrate the apostolic doctrine that the Christian Church is the true Israel, a living con- tinuation of the Church of God sprung from Abraham, and organized under the Mosaic dispensation. It may be noted also that they are found in two stages of that dispensation, an earlier stage to which they seem more precisely applicable, and a later stage of complete develop- ment in which priestly functions were concentrated, and confined to the family of Aaron acting in a representative character. Israel, that is to say, did not cease to be a “ royal priesthood” when kingly functions were reserved 130 THE PRIESTHOOD | 131 to the house of David, and priestly functions to the house of Aaron. It is therefore difficult to conclude with Lightfoot that the quotations in the first Epistle of Peter mark the Christian dispensation as a return to the earlier stage.! But, says Lightfoot, the ideal Christian Church “ has no sacerdotal system.”” That is a hard saying. How can a sacerdotal society exist without a sacerdotal system ? It certainly has “no sacrificial tribe,’”’ for nothing resem- bling the Aaronic commission has survived in the New Testament. But has it no sacerdotal system? Light- foot hastens to add that “‘ the broad statement, if allowed to stand alone, would suggest a false impression, or at least would convey only a half truth.” Then, within five pages, he is discussing “‘ the Christian priesthood ” as constituted in ‘‘special officers,” who are required for orderly administration. He insists, however, that ‘‘ the priestly functions and privileges of the Christian people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated to these officers.” Delegated, certainly not; St. Paul Says emphatically that all these officers are given to the Church and set in the Church by God. Transferred ? Hardly; for neither in the Old Testament were they transferred to Aaron so as to be forfeited by the rest. There really appears to be a close resemblance between the appointment of Aaron and the appointment of these apostles, prophets, and the rest, these ‘‘stewards or messengers of God, servants or ministers of the Church,” as Lightfoot designates them.2 But in the apostolic writings they are never given the particular title assigned to the Aaronic priests, as also to priests of pagan cults, in the current Greek vocabulary. As long as the Church was predominantly Jewish, that would have been mis- t The Christian Ministry, ed. 1901, p. 3. + Jbid., p. 6; 132 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH leading. Intolerable confusion would have been caused if Barnabas, known to be a Levite, had assumed the style of the jealous priestly families. That title was given to our Lord by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but with careful explanation, and for the express purpose of marking the end of the Aaronic commission. What the Christian apostles, prophets, evangelists, overseers, elders, ministers, were called matters very little; the important question is what they were. And the answer is that as they were members and officers of an essentially sacerdotal Church, they must have been priests ; priests as members, and priests also as officers, appointed “‘ to offer up spiritual sacrifices.’’ Accordingly, when the risk of confusion was past, the appropriate word came into use, Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus still avoid it, but then it becomes general. In Greek and Latin alike it is first used of bishops; for Tertullian and Cyprian, sacerdos is almost a synonym of episcopus. A little later it was used also of presbyters. Here an etymological curiosity becomes interesting. The Christian presbyter was so well known — as the familiar sacerdos that in almost all the languages of Western Europe a word derived from his ecclesiastical title became appropriated to the more general idea, and in English we have to give Aaron a style originally used to distinguish its bearer from him; we call him Priest. So Milton’s gibe at his presbyterian contemporaries, ‘‘New presbyter is but old priest writ large,’ inverts the historic process ; priest is rather presbyter writ small, as Milton no doubt knew quite well. Words are mere counters; it is their current meaning that must be weighed. But etymologies may help us to t In Ignat., Phil. 9, oi iepeig are the priests of the O.T., with whom Christ is contrasted as dpytepevs. THE PRIESTHOOD 138 follow the course of human thought, and the word priest, with its congeners in other languages, stands to prove the universal acceptance of the sacerdotal character of the Christian ministry. It adds something more. One might have expected the episcopus to give his title to this new use, since he was the chief, and the first to be acknow- ledged as sacerdos, but the instinctive choice of the other word shows that in the formative period of modern languages the presbyter was the more familiar executant of the sacred ministry. The exceptional Welsh word offeiriad, again, shows how completely the priest was understood to be one who, in the phrase of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘has somewhat to offer.”” Apostle and Prophet, Bishop and Presbyter, may not have been called priests, but they transmitted to those who came after them an incontestable conviction that they were just that —appointed to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Here I might leave the matter, but a reasoned objection calls for reasonable consideration. It js said that the Gospel postulates so direct and immediate a relation between God and the human soul as to exclude the action of any intermeddler. The objection is sometimes trucu- lently expressed : ‘I will not have any man come between me and my God.” What is most commonly asserted is the right of direct access to God in worship or in prayer ; but in the teaching of the Quakers an equally direct approach of God to man is postulated, the ‘‘ immediate revelation’’ of Robert Barclay’s Second Proposition. The objection is that a priest is essentially such an inter- meddler ; he is supposed to open a way for worshippers by offering a sacrifice, and also to convey the gifts of grace to believers. This relation is thought intolerable. There is indeed a ministry in the Christian Church, but not of this kind. The objector is sometimes hard pressed 184 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH to find a function for the minister, as witness Robert Barclay’s laboured argument on the subject,! and some are content to subside on vague generalities. The description of the supposed function of a priest is crudely put, but may be accepted for our present pur- pose, and therein lies all that is on the surface in complaints against sacerdotalism. They are perfectly intelligible, though often alleged with conspicuous inconsistency by those who enjoy the services of a ministry ostensibly exercising at least one of the two functions which are challenged. | The objection provokes two enquiries. What is the Gospel which excludes the activities of the priest? Is the effect of those activities correctly estimated ? In one of its most familiar aspects the Gospel is con- cerned with mediation. As St. Paul understood it, there is ‘‘ one mediator between God and man,” and the mediator is ‘“‘the man Christ Jesus.’”’ He was taken from among men, it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to offer sacri- fices for sins. He is able, being thus constituted priest, — to save them that come unto God by him. Access to God, therefore, is opened by a priestly mediator. Access, moreover, is limited. The Mediator himself is reported to have said, ‘‘ No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’’ He is in his own person, but particularly in his human body, the mediating sacrifice, giving his life a ransom for many. And the Church is, in a sense which need not here detain us, the Body of Christ, identified with his humanity. Therefore it is a priestly body; the mediation of the one Mediator is again mediated by the Church. He bade his disciples: ‘“‘ Freely ye have received, - freely give.”” He told them: “‘ As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.’”’ The Apostles are for that very t Apology for the True Christian Divinity, pp. 231-295. THE PRIESTHOOD 135 reason so called: they are ambassadors of Christ. They are also stewards of the mysteries of God, dispensers of God’s revealed grace to the people of God. It is needless to pile up evidence; the text of the New Testament is throughout saturated with the thought of mediation; of access to God mediated by human agents, and of gifts from God mediated by human instruments, The man who says that he will not have anyone come between him and his God must renounce the Gospel. And what of the effect of this mediation? Does it close the door of communication with God to all who do not avail themselves of it? Is there no access to God but by the intervention of a priest? Is there no outpouring of grace but by his ministry? Scattered in the text of the New Testament there are sayings which may seem to imply as much. “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” is a peremptory assertion. “ Apart from me ye can do nothing,” is not less exclusive. “ Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,” seems to rule out all ways of receiving the supreme gift of grace except that of a ritual observance. With this we may compare the stern warning of the Epistle to the Hebrews addressed to defaulting Christians: if they fall away from their initiation, including baptism and the imposition of hands, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance. For the same principle of exclu- siveness appears to be extended to the secondary mediation of the Church; when St. Paul says that God “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation,” he leaves no room for a difference in respect of extension between the two mediatorial functions. If there is nothing to set against these explicit statements except the prospect of free access to God held out in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we must 136 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH inevitably observe that the parable is open to another interpretation, and that no single parable can do more than exhibit one facet of the manifold grace of God. It is not surprising, therefore, that some have rigidly applied the maxim ‘‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus,” and that the Church of the second century, as we have seen, was inclined to press the warning of the Epistle to the Hebrews so far as to abstain from offering relapsed Christ- ians any hope of restoration. But the Catholic Church, in the development of its teaching under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has abandoned these extreme positions, leaving | them to heretics who cling to an imperfect appreciation of divine truth. There have been evasions of no great value except for their practical effect, like that which recognizes some men as being of the “ soul ”’ of the Church, though not of the body. There have been bolder with- drawals from untenable interpretations of the Gospel which challenged the goodness of the Creator; a final, if hesitating, acknowledgment that the most tremendous assertions of an obligation binding men to walk in the ordered way of the Gospel do not close other avenues by which the grace of God may have free course. There has been a glad recognition of the truth, obvious when stated, that God is not shackled by his own provision for our salvation, or tied to his own ordinances. When this position has been reached it becomes clear that not the lack of those ordinances but an obstinate and wilful refusal of them is damnatory, and that even for refusal there may be a valid plea of ignorance or misunderstanding, the guilt of which may rest only on the stewards of divine mysteries who have failed to commend their charge to the conscience of men. Anglo-Catholics have inherited these developments, There are shades of difference among us, a narrower THE PRIESTHOOD 187 interpretation here, a wider there; but in the main we are all at one. If it be Sacerdotalism to Say that the priesthood of Christ, operating in the priesthood of the Church, is the appointed means of salvation, we are sacer- dotalists. If sacerdotalism means a denial of any other divine operation, sacerdotalists we are not. Another question remains. Is the operative priesthood of the Church confined to those who are ordained to the sacred ministry? If there is not a sacerdotal caste like that of Aaron, is there an equally exclusive sacerdotal order? Itis denied, and on the denial is based a contrast between the Old Testament and the New. But for the purpose of the contrast the exclusiveness of the Aaronic system is often exaggerated. It was not complete. Light- foot, who was here no minimizer, says that the immediate and direct relation of Israel to God “ was partly suspended but not abolished by the appointment of a sacerdotal tribe.” t The study of origins, which has made some advance since Lightfoot’s day, shows the suspension as a politic device for maintaining the unity of the nation and an uncontaminated worship of Yahveh; not the less divinely ordered on that account, but ordered for practical reasons and not as an abiding principle. Had it been otherwise, the religion of Israel could hardly have survived the destruction of the Temple. As things are, the pious Israelite enjoys a consciousness of direct and immediate access to God which is nowhere excelled ; psalmist and prophet exhibited a like freedom while the Aaronic priest- hood was vigorously in function ; the special function is discerned as less a barrier than a security. On the other hand too much is made of the silence of apostolic writers about a sacerdotal order in the Christian Church. The silence is complete; but the nature of * The Christian Ministry, p, 4. 138 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the writings prevents it from being conclusive. A small number of occasional letters surviving from a vast corre- spondence cannot be expected to contain references to everything that existed, and the most familiar institutions might escape mention. That there were diversities of function within the Church is evident, and St. Paul was emphatic in attributing them to divine appointment. The question is whether any of these functions, or some of them, can be regarded as proper to a sacerdotal order within the sacerdotal Church. Evidence of this within the apostolic period is lacking, but afterwards it becomes abundant. The facts admit two hypotheses. The first, that from the beginning the apostles constituted a special sacerdotal order, into which they admitted others by ordination. The other, that from the beginning there was no such order, all the faithful indiscriminately exercising the sacerdotal functions of the Church, some of which were afterwards reserved to a special order by an appointment corresponding to that of Aaron. On either hypothesis | a special priesthood is duly constituted within the Church. : As with the priesthood of Aaron, so with this, the reser- vation is not complete. The rest of the faithful are still a royal priesthood, and freely exercise sacerdotal functions. Nothing is clearer than this in the whole practice of the Church, though it is rarely explicit in the language of administration. Every Christian has free access to God in prayer and worship; every Christian can by prayer mediate the bestowal of divine gifts of grace on his fellows ; the universal practice of intercession has no other meaning. Nor is this mediation confined to the more private sort of religious exercises. Two sacraments can be ministered t The word tdétc in 1 Cor. xiv. 40, and Col. ii. 5 goes well with this hypothesis, but certainly does not demand it. THE PRIESTHOOD 139 by any Christian. The sacrament of marriage is ministered by no public officer of the Church, but only by the two parties who marry each other ; the due solemnities of marriage are performed by an official priest, but they add nothing to the sacramental grace, which is complete without them. The sacrament of baptism, reserved by ancient custom to the ministration of a bishop or his delegate, by modern usage to a priest having cure of souls, can be administered by any man or woman, and ought to be administered in case of need without hesi- tation by any Christian of private station ; and there is no more definite priestly function than this mediation of the grace of New Birth. The strictly reserved functions of priesthood are solemn benediction, the complement of baptism in confirmation, absolution of the penitent, ordination, and the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice. In the teaching of St. Ignatius, the last is reserved to a bishop or his delegate, but the subsequent extension of this function to the whole presbyterate made it so specially characteristic of that order that in the Latin Church reference was made to it in the rite of ordination, a reference which some theo- logians have thought to be essential ; but nothing of the kind is known in the Eastern Churches. Whether these reservations operate in such a way as to deprive a layman of the power to minister in the functions so reserved is a secret of the divine economy, and such it must remain. It is enough for a faithful Christian to know that they are reserved; and he will not rashly intrude on sacred things by attempting to minister in them. An Anglo-Catholic can there rest content. CHAPTER XI PUBLIC WORSHIP ae years ago, during one of the periodical outbursts against what was then called Ritualism, an agi- tator of exceptional intelligence objected to the waste of energy on trivial details. ‘‘It is the Mass that matters!” he exclaimed; if this were put down other things would follow, or might be treated as negligible. Those whom he was attacking accepted his estimate with alacrity. “ Rem acu tetigisti,”’ might have been their reply. They hastened to adopt his aphorism ; the word which had been creeping more or less privately into use became prominent ; Anglo-Catholics began to talk openly about the Mass, perhaps with a touch of truculence which may be deplored, and proclaimed in their turn that in the public worship of God it is the Mass that matters. This habit, with the raw edge of novelty worn off, is now so well established that I shall adhere to it as a matter of course, for otherwise I might make a false impression. But I may have readers for whom a brief explanation will be useful. What then is the Mass? In strict propriety the word should mean only a service of religious worship according to a Latin rite, especially that of the Roman Church, for it has no other origin than the ‘‘ Ite, missa est,” with which the worshippers on such an occasion are bidden depart. More narrowly it is reserved in common use for that form 140 PUBLIC WORSHIP 141 of service which culminates in Eucharistic Communion. In Communion, I say, because the exceptional Mass of the Presanctified has this, although on that occasion there is no Consecration. This narrowest sense of the word had a long vogue in England. During the existence of the abominable Penal Laws, which made it a criminal offence to ‘‘say Mass,” this meant nothing else but the use of the Roman rite for the Holy Eucharist. This restriction, however, cannot be maintained, for words are not tied to their origins, but mean what they are made to mean in current speech. We all speak of the Greek or Russian Liturgy as the Mass; in the English Prayer- book of 1549 the Service for “the Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion ” was described as being “‘ com- monly called the Mass.” The Lutherans of Scandinavia retain the word in common use. But when we say it is the Mass that matters we are not talking about a word. We are thinking of something which is found in the Latin Mass and the Greek Mass and the Russian Mass, in the Mass of 1549, and in the Mass of the existing Prayer-book which is not officially so called. We have in mind the offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which from the time of the Apostles has invariably been the normal culmina- tion of Christian worship. What our Lord did on the night of his betrayal, what St. Paul did at Troas and what he set in order at Corinth, the solemn “ breaking of the loaf ”’ which continues identically the same action in the reed hut of a mission station or in the splendour of the Vatican: that is what matters. It is sometimes said that the Reformers “ turned the Mass into a Communion,” and we are accused of wishing to reverse the process. To meet these two statements with contemptuous denial may be sufficient for some purposes ; but a more seemly procedure is to ascertain what the 142 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Reformers really did, and what we in our turn really have done or are doing. This involves yet another retrospect. We need not go behind the year 1559, following the accession of Elizabeth. That self-willed lady is credited with the intention of following closely in the footsteps of her self-willed father, breaking away from the Papal Court, asserting her own sovereignty in things spiritual as in things temporal, and retaining—perhaps with slight modifications—the forms of public worship then in vogue. The first two steps were taken without much difficulty. The third intention, if entertained, was not so easily fulfilled ; she lacked, as her father did not, the agents for carrying on, and had to lean on men who demanded extensive changes. Indifferent herself, probably disliking them, she had to put up with these instruments of her policy, and that meant a religious revolution. After the abortive experiments of the years 1549-1553, the old order of worship had been restored, with the goodwill of all but a very small minority of the people. There seems to have been no popular demand for more experiments, but the minority was vocal and furnished with capable leaders, — who abandoned their dissembling, came out of their retire- ment, or returned from exile. Elizabeth needed these men, and had no scruples about paying the price of their services. To those who know modern Englishmen it seems strange that the bulk of the people tamely endured a violent change in the accepted habits of worship. Perhaps, however, we shall find that the change did not seem to them quite so violent as it seems to us. Perhaps, and even probably, they expected the new experiment to be as transitory as those which they had endured before ; indeed if Elizabeth had died young, leaving Mary Stewart in- contestable heir to the crown, her policy would almost certainly have perished with her. PUBLIC WORSHIP | 143 Picture an English parish church in the spring of 15509. It has not had time to recover from the gteat pillage of the time of Edward VI, and is rather poorly equipped, but things necessary for the simpler forms of the old Catholic worship are provided. The people assemble on Sunday morning and hear part of the divine service, which they inaccurately call Mattins, sung or mumbled by the curate and a clerk or two. This is followed by a procession of the curate and clerks, with sprinkling of blessed water, in time for which some late comers arrive. Then the curate begins Mass, perhaps with some chanting, perhaps without ; the people recognize the familiar Kyrie and Creeds. They stand up for the Gospel, which is perhaps rendered into English for them; there is possibly a sermon. Afterwards some of them make the accustomed offering of money. They hear Sursum corda, and perhaps respond ; then the sacring bell, and they raise their heads to look at the elevated Host, with a pious prayer unless they are too tired or indifferent. They are aware that the curate is taking the Holy Communion, and presently they are dismissed, knowing that they have been rendering their accustomed homage to the Presence of God. After dinner many of them repair to the church again, to hear Evensong. Some months pass, and the new service-book is come into use. The people go to the church again, and hear the same curate read Mattins, the same clerk responding. Many of them can make out something of what is read, and consider this an improvement, but others think it rather profane ; Latin is the proper language for worship. In place of the procession there is a litany, which seems familiar in parts, but there are no invocations of the saints. At Mass the clerk says something like the Kyrie, and the Gospel is read only in English. There is a sermon, 144 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH or something read out of a big book, which the squire may understand, but nobody else will presume so far. Then there is the offertory as usual, followed by a long prayer in English, after which they are dismissed with a blessing. They remember much the same sort of thing going on seven years ago ; but now those rapacious Queen’s visitors have carried off most of the vestments, so that the curate has to make a shift with what he can get ; moreover they observe that he did not consecrate the Host or make his Communion, which was very strange. However, Evensong is pretty much what it was. If we can read, and get hold of a copy of the new service- book, we shall understand rather better. It is true that the curate is told to wear the old vestments, but they have been carried off, so it is not his fault if he disobeys orders. Then there is a rubric which says there is to be no Communion unless there is “‘a good number ”’ of us to communicate with him, and that will seldom happen, because it is not our habit to communicate except at Easter. However, there is another rubric which says that we are all to communicate three times a year, and we shall probably have to do that, or we shall be had up before the Archdeacon’s Court ; so we shall have the whole Mass now and then. And besides, this kind of thing did not last long the other time it was tried, and it is not likely to last long now, so we shall go to church as usual, and make the best of it. They went to church as usual, knowing they might be fined the enormous sum of a shilling if they did not ; but it did last, and a generation grew up that was accus- tomed to it as a matter of course. They even learned to like it, and heard with unconcern that priests were being hanged for saying Mass here and there in the old way, which was supposed to be somehow a serious offence €¢ PUBLIC WORSHIP 145 against the Queen. It is not difficult to account for their acquiescence ; but what seems obvious to us now is that the Reformers had not turned the Mass into a Com- munion, but had rather turned the Communion out of the Mass, except on rare occasions. I still call that mutilated service the Mass. The mutila- tion was not normal, though usual. The Prayer-book, then as now, had a rubric providing that in Cathedral and Collegiate churches the whole sacred rite should be com- pleted on “every Sunday at the least,’’ and there is no ground for supposing that the Reformers intended or expected the mutilation to become usual in parish churches. But if they did not, they blundered grievously. They provided for it in a way that made its usual occurrence inevitable. It was not without precedent. There was a well-known form of worship, called missa sicca, the features of which it exactly reproduced. This was, no doubt, an abuse, but an abuse which Cardinal Bona’s erudition proved to have been tolerated, and even com- mended, by holy and learned men. St. Louis of France had it daily on his ship when crossing the Mediterranean. Durandus in his Rationale allows it if celebrated ‘‘ ex devotione non ex superstitione,’’ which seems a hard saying. Bona describes it as dressed out with full cere- monial of the Mass at an evening funeral so late as the year 1587, but thinks that in his own day, forty years later, it has been everywhere suppressed. ! The Dry Mass, then, became the ordinary service in English parish churches. The rubric which led to this deplorable state of things should be accurately under- stood, for otherwise the result is unintelligible. In the Prayer-book of 1559 the first clause ran thus: “ Upon the holy days, if there be no Communion, shall be said * Bona, De Rer, Liturgi, I. xv. 6 L 146 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH all that is appointed at the Communion, until the end of the Homily, concluding with the general prayer, for the whole state of Christ’s Church militant here on earth: and one or more of these Collects before rehearsed, as occasion shall serve.”” It should be noticed that Sundays are not mentioned, and perhaps it was hoped that on a Sunday this would never happen. If so, the hope was rendered futile by what follows: ‘‘ And there shall be no celebration of the Lord’s Supper except there be a good number to communicate with the priest, according to his discretion.””’ What was a good number? A standard is set by the next clause: ‘‘ And if there be not above twenty persons in the parish of discretion to receive the Communion: yet there shall be no Communion, except four, or three at the least, communicate with the priest. And in Cathedral and Collegiate churches, where be many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Minister every Sunday at the least, except they have a reasonable cause to the contrary.’ The three clauses must be read together, and the only reasonable interpretation is that in parish churches there was to be no Communion unless one-seventh of the possible communicants were prepared to communicate. To make the observance of the rule possible, there was another rubric requiring intending communicants to “ signify their names to the curate overnight, or else in the morning, afore the beginning of morning prayer or immediately after.’ There may have been a hope that this condition would be not unfrequently fulfilled, but the habits of the people made any such expectation futile. The custom of communicating only at Easter was deeply rooted, and it was even thought wrong to do otherwise. In the year 1549 the Western Insurgents had included in their demands : ‘“‘We will have the sacrament of the altar but at Easter PUBLIC WORSHIP - 147 delivered to the lay people.”” This reluctance was not peculiar to England. St. Philip Neri, trying to revive the practice of more frequent communion at Rome, found himself confronted by the same prejudice.2 Inits reforming zeal the Council of Trent expressed an earnest desire that the faithful present at Mass should always communicate,3 but this had little effect until recent times. The English Reformers, more violent in their zeal, decreed that there should be no complete Mass at all unless a large propor- tion of the people communicated, and the priest “ according to his discretion” might even require a larger number than was indicated, The only result was that the more pious, priests and laymen alike, were debarred from Communion altogether, €xcept on rare occasions. To George Herbert a monthly celebration seemed to be the limit of possible frequency, and he thought that six in the year would be as much as could be hoped for.4 The Dry Mass, under the name of “the second service” or “ table prayers,” became the ordinary conclusion of the morning worship on Sundays and Holy Days. So it continued until the suppression of the public use of the Prayer-book by the Long Parlia- ment, At the Savoy Conference the Puritans presented among their “Exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer’ the demand, “ That the minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the communion- table, save only those parts which properly belong to the Lord’s Supper; and that at such times only when the said holy supper is administered.” To this the bishops t Strype, Cranmer, App. xl. 2 Dalgairns, The Holy Communion, 2nd ed., Pp. 236. 3 Sess. xxii. cap. 6. “ Optaret quidem sacrosancta Synodus ut in singulis Missis fideles adstantes non solum spirituali affectu sed sacramentali etiam Eucharistiae perceptione communicarent,” 4 Herbert, The Country Parson, ch. xxii. 148 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH replied that they would not “ give offence to sober Christ- ians by a causeless departure from Catholic usage,” a rather daring vindication of missa sicca, and added the pious explanation: “The priest standing at the com- munion-table seemeth to give us an invitation to the holy sacrament, and minds us of our duty, viz. to receive the holy communion, some at least every Sunday; and though we neglect our duty, it is fit the Church should keep her standing.’’! So the practice was revived, not without hope of improvement. Wheatley afterwards took up the bishop’s suggestion: ‘It were to be wished that the elements were placed ready upon the table on all Sundays and holy-days: for then the people could not help being put in mind of what the Church looks upon as their duty at those times ; and I persuade myself that the Minister would generally find a number sufficient ready to communicate with him.’’ But this was no more than a vague aspiration, and he seems to have taken the rubrics as meaning that “‘ four or three at the least’ would be a number sufficient for all places alike. Paterson’s Pietas Londiniensis shows that in 1714 such a standard was reached by some parishes of the City ; sixteen years later the Wesleys and their Methodists at Oxford were able for a time to maintain it; but this false dawn was suc- ceeded by a gloomier night in which the general practice fell below the level proposed by George Herbert. Towards the end of the century Evangelicals of the school of Henry Venn and Charles Simeon aimed consistently at monthly communions ; of the rest, men who were reckoned High Churchmen, like the father of Hurrell Froude, were usually content with four in the year. 7 t Cardwell, Conferences, pp. 307, 342. a Wheatley, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. vi, sect. xxx. PUBLIC WORSHIP 149 The saving grace in all this was the persistence of a tra- dition, inadequate, mutilated, but living. It did not depend on the active work of the clergy. Seventy years ago, a Lincolnshire parish well known to my family had a rector who lived and enjoyed himself in London. Each Saturday he travelled down to a neighbouring market-town and put up at an hotel. On Sunday morning he drove out to his flock, read the whole morning service in the presence of nearly all the farmers and a good number of the labour- ing folk, celebrated any marriage on demand, formally visited any house to which he was urgently called, read evensong early in the afternoon, and baptized any child produced for that purpose, delivered one sermon at least, and returned to London the same evening, presumably with the consciousness of a well-spent day. He celebrated the Holy Communion three times a year, on Easter-day, Good Friday, and Christmas-day, on one or more of which occasions nearly everybody communicated. He had not a good character, being suspected of loose living, but that was not made by his parishioners an excuse for neglecting their religious duties as they understood them. I never heard what was done about funerals ; perhaps a neigh- bouring priest was called in. All else was left to the churchwardens, the clerk and the sexton, who carried on. Much more recently I have myself served, as occa- sional visitor, a parish in Derbyshire where similar con- ditions survived. These were backwaters. A hundred years ago such circumstances were common. Even in the terrible industrial districts the tradition was not quite dead. The vast churches built with deep galleries in those regions during the earlier years of the nineteenth century were designed to meet a demand, and they did not stand empty. There was a real value in this tradition. The people accepting and using it were kept in touch with the 150 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH whole system of the Catholic Church; from time to time the Dry Mass liquefied in streams of Charity, and they saw the Lord’s Table spread for a sacrificial banquet to which they were invited ; if they did not “‘ stay the Sacrament,” as they put it, they knew they were turning their backs on a privilege that was theirs by right. With this state of things the Tractarians were con- fronted. They do not seem to have been at first much troubled about it. They knew it was unsatisfactory, but they also knew its good. points. Let us remember that out of this state of things had issued Keble’s Christian Year. They knew that it was a very unsatisfactory state of things, but the air was full of wild schemes of reform which would have made matters worse, and their attitude was defensive, conservative. One of these schemes may have called their attention to an obvious defect which might be remedied. A definite rubric was not being observed. A perfectly sound custom of long and respectable authority prescribed that a preacher should wear the comely priest’s gown, against which the original Nonconformists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had violently pro- tested ; the officiating minister who had to preach therefore divested himself of his surplice for the sermon, a proceeding which Mr. Pepys humorously describes when he tells how the curate of his parish reluctantly obeyed the revived Act of Uniformity ; when the Communion was to follow, he resumed his surplice after the sermon. When there was to be no Communion, but only the Dry Mass, he still ought to resume it, according to the rubric, and return to the altar to read the Prayer for the Church. But this apparently seemed otiose, and it had become customary to dismiss the people with a blessing from the pulpit. This led one of the reforming wiseacres to complain that the Nicene Creed was not a very suitable conclusion of the PUBLIC WORSHIP 151 service, and its omission was advocated. Moved by this threat, or otherwise influenced, the Tractarians seem to have resolved that the rubric must be observed, and the Dry Mass properly concluded. The innovation, for such it was, caused great excitement, and opprobrious remarks about “‘rubricians.’’ The Bishop of Worcester explained in a charge that rubrics were not to be interpreted ‘‘ with Chinese exactness,” an observation reasonable enough but fraught with dangerous consequences. This trouble, however, was nothing to that which arose when the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, supported the observance of the rubric and further discovered that there was in the Prayer-book no direction to lay aside the sur- plice for preaching, which therefore should not be done. A little later the redoubtable Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, gave a more formal ruling to the same effect in his Consistory Court. The Tractarians were not responsible for these directions, but they obeyed them with alacrity. It is difficult to speak patiently of the raging controversy which ensued, a controversy conducted with a bitterness ludicrously disproportionate to the matter involved, and with much patent absurdity. Thus the traditional gown was denounced as a “‘ relic of puritanism ” or a ‘‘ Genevan rag, * which was at least an antiquarian blunder of the first magnitude, since the Genevan habit of the early Puritans was an ample cloak substituted by them for the canonical priest’s gown. An Edinburgh reviewer, on the other hand, eloquently described a worshipper watching for the arrival of the preacher in the pulpit, burst- ing into tears of relief and sobbing, ‘‘ Thank Heaven, it’s black!”’’ Beyond these puerilities were orgies of violent rioting, condoned by responsible men of affairs. Yet it 1 J. C. Robertson, How shall we Conform to the Liturgy ? 1844, p. 103. 152 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH would be unjust not to observe that something serious lay behind the absurdity. Two different conceptions of divine worship were obscurely involved. On one side was the idea that public worship culminates in the pro- phetic setting forth of the Gospel— the monstrance of the evangel’’'—to which prayer and psalmody and the reading of Scripture are introductory; on the other side the idea of sacramental and sacrificial approach to God, in which a sermon is but incidental. The symbolism on either side was an incongruous accident. Anything may serve for a symbol. This hidden meaning alone makes such trivial details relevant to my subject. The Tractarians valued the traditional Dry Mass partly because it was traditional, partly because it supplied a good method of working a reform. They knew quite well that the whole Mass with Communion ought to be celebrated every Sunday at least. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not mean that they talked thus about Mass; so far as I have noted, they did not use the word except in its etymo- logical sense of the Roman Liturgy; but, words apart, that was their meaning. And to preserve the Dry Mass in its integrity, so far as it went, was to keep the way open for extension. In a book the title and author of which I do not remember, I have read a description of their method : ‘‘ Where we found a quarterly Communion, we made it monthly; where we found it monthly, we tried to make it weekly.’”” This they recommended to their dis-. ciples in the country, a slow and cautious advance on tta- ditional lines. Nothing else was to be changed at present. The goal probably seemed far distant: it must be — approached with patience. I think that if this course * Dr. Carnegie Simpson in the Review of the Churches, July 1924, P. 399. PUBLIC WORSHIP 153 had been consistently followed, we might have been by now in better estate than we are. It was interrupted. First, by the impetuosity of the Cambridge Camden Society. Tractarianism was of Oxford ; Ritualism sprang from the other university. There was an orgy of medievalism, the fashionable medievalism of the time; the medievalism of Young England politics, of Pugin, of the Eglinton tournament, of Tennyson’s middle period. Nothing but profound ignorance of medieval thought and practice made it possible. Dis- jointed excerpts of what had been done in a period of eager and rapid movement were set up as immovable standards. There were grotesque examples. The Eccle- stologist once published the only possible way of warming a church, if such a thing were tolerable at all ; stoves were abominable ; the tire of a cart-wheel must be laid somewhere on a stone floor, with glowing wood-embers heaped up in its circle. Newman was slightly touched with this folly when he built his church at Littlemore, but he afterwards returned to his first love, which was Trinity Chapel. Hurrell Froude was sickening for it when he died. Pusey was infected, but only on the surface, when he founded St. Saviour’s, Leeds. Lesser men were smitten more deeply. Years afterwards the plague suddenly struck me, and I know the symptoms. The disease lay in the confusion of religion with esthetic, and a bad esthetic, a fashionable craze. It imported into the Catholic movement a vein of frivolity, far removed from Tractarian austerity. Hurry took the place of patience; there must be Mass at once, and High Mass, with all gorgeousness. When this came, it was important not to be Roman, as indeed it was not, for Romanism is anything but medieval. So Sarum was unearthed, with a fantastic pretence that worship at Salisbury in the 154 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH fourteenth century did not follow the Roman rite. Perhaps we have now outgrown all that. I have elsewhere barely mentioned the ritual prosecu- tions as bearing on the relations of Church and State. Ritualism accidentally did us good service there, but I am now concerned with its more internal effect. It cut across the line of advance marked out by the Tractarians, ruining their methods both where it was strong and where it was weak. Pusey, it is known, was troubled about the result. Where strong it was premature, winning apparent success at the cost of continuity, and breaking up the orderly development of a tradition. Where weak it did worse, and destroyed what was good in the tradition. I speak of things quorum pars parva fur, of things in which I had a hand, not altogether with a good conscience, and to my ultimate regret. What was wrong with some of us can be told quite simply. Eager to have our Mass, and to have it as well equipped as possible, we found a hindrance in the settled habits and prejudices of the people who attended church on Sunday morning. We _ therefore chose for our purpose an earlier hour, and, as we flattered ourselves, a more suitable hour, leaving everything to go on as usual at the traditional hour, and taking little interest in this. We thus threw away the opportunity, which the Tractarians valued, of building better on the old founda- tions. Perhaps we hoped that those whom we thus left to their own devices would gradually transfer themselves to our new venture. If so, we were disappointed. They went on, contented with what they had, but in diminished numbers. We thus divided the people into two sets, which had little in common. This at the best; and we were fortunate if there was not friction. For a time the traditional arrangements went on without change, for they seemed obligatory. Indeed there was PUBLIC WORSHIP 155 some doubt whether our new service was quite in order. Presently the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act of 1872 came to our aid. It established, with the consent of Con- vocation, our right to use any one of the traditionally combined services of Mattins, Litany and Mass apart from the other two. Whether it allowed us to break up the combination altogether, or only to use one of the parts as an additional service, might be doubted ; but it was given a liberal interpretation, of which we took advantage. Having no use, as we thought, for the traditional Dry Mass following Mattins and Litany, we cut that off. There were protests; the loss of the weekly recitation of the decalogue was deplored. I remember one gentleman earnestly contending that the moral superiority of English- men over all other men was bound up with that practice. But on the whole the loss, both of this and of the Nicene Creed, was endured with equanimity. After some years we were able to observe what we had done. We had called into existence a large class of non-communicating members of the Church of England, who regularly attended a Sunday morning service adjusted to their state, never saw the altar even prepared for its proper use, and grew up to regard the Mass as a provision for people of abnormal or eccentric piety. And we had blundered into this in excess of zeal for the Mass that matters. Another motive drove us in the same direction. I shall have to speak elsewhere! of the practice of fasting until the Holy Communion has been received; here I observe only that a perfectly genuine advocacy of this practice was a further reason for removing the Mass from its tra- ditional place after Mattins to an earlier hour. If more thought had been given to the matter, we might have t Infra, p. 165. 156 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH reckoned that all who intended to keep the fast would keep it to any reasonable hour, while those who did not so intend would probably not be fasting at any hour. I do not disparage the practice of providing opportunities of Communion at an early hour for those who have a real difficulty in prolonging the fast ; I am only deploring the removal of the Mass, for such a cause, from its traditional place. Much labour has been expended in undoing the mischief thus done, and considerable progress has been made. It has the drawback of being sectional, and not as general as the Tractarian way of advance might have been. Two conflicting modes of worship are in possession, and neither can be dislodged, except here and there in a favoured parish, without friction that tends to become perversely irreligious. The difficulty has to be faced. The record of past mistakes may be useful for reminding us that an arrangement which is facile is not always good. CHAPTER XII SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES HE major elements of the Gospel in its more per- sonal aspect have been treated within the limits proper to my subject. I pass to minor, but not unim- portant, observances of the Christian life. And first, the practice of fasting. Until comparatively recent times it might seem that nothing was more firmly rooted in religion. By the Christian Church it was taken over as a matter of course from natural religion and from the ordered observances of the Old Testament. How soon such observances were prescribed in the Christian Church cannot be ascertained, but by the middle of the second century Irenaeus knew the appointed fast before Easter as an apparently universal institution, though the details _ of it varied widely in different parts of the Church. I am here, however, concerned less with ecclesiastical regula- tions than with fasting as a practice of devotion, a recog- nized accompaniment of prayer, based on our Lord’s own example and on general principles of religion. It is known how constantly it was observed in the Church for many centuries, and with what strictness or even severity. It was a characteristic habit of great saints, imitated by the most ordinary Christians in their degree. It is still in some vigour throughout the Eastern Churches, but in the West it seems to have passed into almost complete 157 158 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH disuse, except in some of the stricter religious orders. Rules of fasting are still publicly maintained, but they are so emptied of meaning by general or particular dis- pensations that they have lost all religious value except as occasions for obedience. Current habits have to be considered in this connexion. In the period during which the Christian rule of fasting was formed, it was customary to eat twice a day, a lighter repast (dpuorov, prandium) about noon, and a solid meal (defmvov, cena) early in the evening. The general rule of fasting was to omit prandium, — but for more severity cena also might be omitted, or reduced to a very meagre content. In the English practice of the sixteenth century, when the two-meal custom still prevailed and “‘ breakfast’? was but an occasional indul- gence, the method of fasting was inverted, a midday dinner of ‘‘ very sober and spare diet” being eaten, with no supper to follow.t Either practice obviously provides for a fast of about twenty-four hours. There was a reversion to the older practice. The ‘‘ Order of Fasting,’ issued at the time of the Plague in 1665, pre- scribes ‘‘ but one competent and moderate meal, and that towards night after Evening Prayer.’”’ This may explain the fact, appearing in the Journal to Stella, that on Good Friday, 1710, “‘ breakfast’? was substituted for dinner at Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s ; it is the only allusion to fasting that I can find in the Journal, but Swift remarks that he hates Lent because fish does not agree with him; from which * Cardwell’s Documentary Annals, vol. ii, pp. 55, 57. The Parker Society’s Liturgical Services (Elizabeth), p. 489, and Correspondence of Matthew Parker, p. 216. The “‘ fish supper’’ which the Arch- bishop provided for the French Ambassador’s suite on Friday seems to have been a special indulgence for them. a “A Form of Common Prayer, together with an Order of Fasting, etc. Printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1665.” I am indebted to Dr. Claude Jenkins for this reference. SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES - 159 we may infer that some notice was taken of the holy season. Fifty years later Samuel Johnson, who sought so pathetically the grace of temperance, records in his Prayers and Meditations a rigid fast observed each Good Friday ; one year he takes nothing but a little water morning and evening ; another year he notes reproachfully a cup of tea drunk without milk, or remarks simply ‘‘ fasted all day’’; after this, on Easter Eve, he ‘‘ dined on cakes ”’ and found himself satisfied. Johnson was an exceptional man, but there was certainly some real fasting among the Methodists, and it was not entirely neglected by the strict Evangelicals. The tradition lingered. In my childhood I knew a devout woman of the Independent persuasion, who on days of her own choosing would keep a close fast until evening, and then break it on nothing but tea and bread. When Thomas Binney repudiated a National Fast proclaimed on some public occasion with the declaration, ‘‘ We will fast when the Spirit of God moves us to fast, and not when the Government orders ea | am unwilling to think that this was merely a defiant evasion. But in general it may be said that fasting, as a religious exercise, became unknown in England. A result has followed which would be ludicrous if it were less injurious. The word is so prominent in the Bible that it cannot be overlooked in a country where the Bible is still read, but a non-natural meaning is im- portedintoit. Fasting is made to mean almost any kind of self-discipline except abstinence from food: and this, the chosen self-discipline of the Lord Jesus and of all great saints, is sometimes disparaged as if tainted with a kind of Manichean aversion. The climax of absurdity has perhaps been reached in the announcement of ‘a special service of prayer and fasting from twelve to one o'clock.” 160 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH The Tractarians found this godly discipline apparently dead. Their apostolic zeal could not let it he. They revived it ; with severity in their private habits, but with- out much public appearance of conviction. Even Froude does not seem to have driven his friends in this direction, his fatal malady, perhaps, making it impracticable for himself. Pusey’s ‘‘Thoughts on the benefits of the system of fasting, enjoined by our Church,’ forming the eighteenth Tract, were faint in expostulation, generous in excuses. That seems to have been the continuous record of Anglo-Catholics ; personal fasting, infrequent and evan- gelically hidden, as if it were rather a luxury of the godly than a remedy for sin. Fifty years ago I knew a clergy- house where the Great Fast was observed from the evening of Maundy Thursday until after the Easter Communion ; but I do not think the people of that parish were taught to fast. There has seemed to be a reluctance to press this most evangelic practice; and it has not, like some other devotions, spread without open encouragement. I am inclined to attribute this in part to a thoughtless con- fusion of fasting with the subsidiary abstinence from certain meats which accompanies it in the public rules of the Church. To speak of fasting on fish and vegetables, or for that matter on bread and water, is to betray a complete _ forgetfulness of the real meaning of the word ; for fasting and breakfasting on meagre fare are not the same thing. The spiritual value of the genuine practice thus becomes identified with bare obedience to an arbitrary command. One recalls Father Faber’s caustic remark after lunching with Wiseman on a day of abstinence: ‘“‘ There is what you might call a lobster-salad element in the dear Cardinal’s character.’” That element was not agreeable to a former Tractarian. I am afraid that it sometimes appears in the sons of the Tractarians. SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 161 What is the spiritual value of fasting? I once put the question to Professor Wincenty Lutoslawski, a great authority on the subject, advancing the suggestion that it may promote clarity of ideas. ‘‘ Not of ideas,’ he replied ; ‘‘ ideas mean work for the brain, and that needs food. Not of ideas, but of intuitions.’”’ He advocated a fast of at least eight days in preparation for the priesthood, and proposed this to Cardinal Mercier, who replied that even if it were good for Poles it would not suit Belgians, but nevertheless allowed a student of Louvain to make the essay. I saw the young man on the eighth day, just before his ordination, when he seemed none the worse for his experience, and I had no doubt he was the better, Father Benson was of much the same Opinion as the Polish professor about the value of fasting. He told us in a retreat at Cowley that we must not fast when engaged in meditation, for then the brain needed nourishment ; “ but,” he added, “‘ we ought to have special retreats for fasting.” My own slight experience does not bear this out. I have only once kept a fast of any considerable length ; it lasted, for surgical reasons, about a hundred and forty hours, and I was not aware of any weakening of mental efficiency. A medical adviser in whom I have much confidence has told me that fasting in moderation _is always beneficial, and is at its best when combined with active out-of-door exercise. The decay of religious belief in the practice has been curiously balanced by a growth of scientific belief. If priests have ceased to advise fasting, physicians have begun to take their place. To another mode of fasting Anglo-Catholics are more constant. The “ ecclesiastical fast,”’ so called, is subject not only to formal dispensation but also to modification and relaxation at the discretion of the faster ; the “ natural fast ’’ before Communion means complete abstinence from M — 162 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH meat and drink. No rule of the Church is more startling than this, for it runs directly counter to the circumstances of the Institution. Itis true that reception of the Eucharist ‘after supper’ did not mean for the Disciples exactly what it would mean for us; the day being reckoned as beginning at sunset, the supper was for them the first meal of the day, and to this fact may probably be traced the origin of the fast observed from very early times before Communion; but nevertheless the Institution did follow, and not precede, that first meal. It is beyond dispute that this order was at first retained in the practice of the Church. A casual reference to familiar facts, contained in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, shows an evening assembly for a communal meal, a ‘‘ Lord’s Supper,’’! and with this ‘the loaf which we break ’’ and ‘‘ the cup which we bless ” were evidently associated. And yet, after a brief lapse of time, we find a custom in the Church requiring the sacramental food, dissociated from all else, to be abso- lutely the first to enter the mouth of the communicant on the day of reception. It was not, indeed, quite uni- versal, but only two exceptions are recorded. St. Augus- tine knew, apparently by hearsay, a local custom of celebrating the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday after the one meal allowed on that day, in commemoration of the original Institution. This seemed to him so strange that he thought it might be intended for such as abstained even from that meal, protracting their fast until night. tt Cor. xi. 20, Ovx gore Kupiaxdy deimvoy dayeiv. A noted difficulty. The absence of an article is inconclusive, but makes it improbable that the phrase is the specific title of the Christian repast. Quaeve whether it was a term commonly used in the Mysteries. 2 Ep., 54 (alit. 118), § 7. I give what seems to me to be thesense of an obscure sentence: ‘‘ Honestius autem arbitror ea hora fieri, ut qui etiam ieiunauerit post refectionem, quae hora nona fit, ad oblationem possit occurrere.”’ SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 168 The other exception, found by the historian Sozomen in many cities and villages of Egypt, is not open to such a benign interpretation, and he notes it as contrary to the otherwise universal practice. How shall we account for this remarkable change ? St. Augustine thought that it could not have been effected without direct apostolic authority, and he found an occa- sion for this intervention. The grave disorders at the communal meal, reported to St. Paul from, Corinth, demanded regulation, which he promised to arrange at his next visit. What did he order? In his epistle he had counselled those who were hungry to feed at home before going to the place of meeting. This would tend to reduce the communal repast to modest proportions. Did he reduce it still further? Some months later we find him at Troas, and the story is told by an eye-witness.2 The disciples come together in the evening ‘‘to break bread.” There is no hint of a communal supper, but a long discourse by the Apostle lasting till midnight leads to the “‘ breaking of the loaf.”” Was this the order which he had settled at Corinth? It is at most a probability. St. Augustine was inclined to make more of it. He con- jectured that on that very occasion St. Paul instituted the obligatory fast before Communion, as an effective safeguard against scenes which might resemble the orgies of some pagan mysteries. He thus sought to put the rule on higher ground than mere prescription. It was ordered by the Holy Spirit, he says, for the honour of so great a Sacra- ment, that the Body of the Lord should take precedence of all other food entering the mouth of a Christian.3 It should be the first food of the day. The beginning of the * Hist. Eccl. vii. 19. Japa td kowy mda vevouiopévov mpdg éatrépav TH oappdtw ovvidrtec nplotnKores 4On uvotnpioy wetéxovat. 2 Acts xx. 6-12. 3 Ibid., § 6. 164 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH day would still be reckoned from sunset, and the proce- dure at Troas would conform to the supposed rule. This may seem too ingenious, and it would be unwise to attach importance to it. When we find the rule definitely established, the meeting for worship has been transferred from the evening to the following morning, either very early as at Christmas im galli cantu, or at other hours vary- ing with the observances of the day. The evening Masses then celebrated were not a reversion to primitive custom, but belonged to days on which it was expressly intended to prolong the fast until after vespers. Papal dispensations from the rule begin to appear in the sixteenth century. The earliest instance that I have found is recorded in the Diary of John Burchard, Master of the Ceremonies to Alexander VI. At the Pope’s Mass one Easter Day, a Roman nobleman going up to communicate inadvertently took a sip of wine from the cup offered to returning communicants; seeing this, Burchard hurried to the Pope seated on his throne, and brought back per- — mission for the delinquent to make his communion. The Emperor Charles V, after his abdication, had a standing dispensation to communicate daily after breaking his fast: about the same time, at the instance of the King of Portugal, a like indulgence was granted, “‘ si urgentissima fuerit celebrandi necessitas,”’ to priests serving in the tropics; in the eighteenth century it was extended to some kings and queens at their coronation, because of the inordinate length of the ceremonies.? It is difficult to ascertain how far the rule was observed in England during this period. As long as dinner continued to be the first meal of the day, there was no difficulty ; everyone was normally fasting at the usual hour of Mass. 1 These three cases are mentioned by Benedict XIV. De Synodo Divec., vi. 8, § 19. SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 165 The slight refreshment sometimes taken at rising, Charles Cotton’s ‘ breakfast ” of a pipe of tobacco and a draught of ale, Swift’s occasional cup of chocolate—to cite familiar instances—may have been deliberately put aside on days when Communion was intended. Johnson mentions on one occasion a cup of tea drunk before his Easter Com- munion, and, so mentioned, it was probably exceptional. But when, at a date which baffles investigation, an early breakfast became a regular meal, there were complications. The rule or custom’ was not entirely forgotten. The devout Calvinist whom I have mentioned above used to fast strictly before her monthly Communion, the time of which was the afternoon or evening; but her friends suspected in this a savour of superstition. Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, the architect, told me that when he was examining a Yorkshire church for restoration, about sixty years ago, an old woman who kept the keys spoke of the new rector’s kindness: ‘‘ He gives us the Sacrament quite early, so as we can get our breakfasts.” Much scattered evidence of this kind could probably be collected, but there is no ground on which to suppose any general observance of the rule. The Tractarians were compelled, both by their principles and by their instincts, to follow it themselves, but they were cautious in pressing it on others. Ingrained habits of pious men and women were not to be lightly disturbed ; their own habits could be reformed, if necessary, and they did not spare themselves. Pusey’s mother describes in a well-known letter his Sunday work when visiting her in London: preaching at the eleven o’clock service in Margaret Street Chapel, then ministering to crowds of com- municants, and not returning to the house for breakfast till half-past two. The obligation of the fast was steadily assumed, and before long steps were taken to make it less 166 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH onerous. Early celebrations were an obvious device, and a startling innovation ; when they were established, it was possible to discourage communion at a later hour. I have elsewhere called attention to some disastrous consequences of this policy! ; what has to be noted here is a certain confusion of values. For the distinction of fasting and non-fasting was substituted the distinction of early and late, and “early communion” was treated as a mark of piety or of Catholic-mindedness. This was to take the line of least resistance, for it was easier to advocate early rising than to urge the obligation of the fast. Two considerations were overlooked: that people are not necessarily fasting at eight o’clock in the morning, and that an accidental state of fasting is not the same thing as a conscious adher- ence to the rule. Much Anglo-Catholic teaching has been marred by this defect. Ina parish served by a priest who was greatly respected among us, a woman complained to me of being pressed to go to the early celebration ; it was such a scramble, she said, to get breakfast over in time. - The rule, it would seem, had not been adequately expounded. There has been another mistake, as it seems to me, in the presentation of the rule. Its original meaning, as we have seen, was that the Sacrament should be the first food of the day. By a perfectly natural conversion this was turned into a prohibition ; a priest must not celebrate after breaking his fast, nor must he give the Sacrament to any who are not fasting, and in this form the rule has usually been expressed. The difference may seem quite unimportant, since the effect is the same whichever way it be stated. But there is a subtle difference of emphasis. The older statement condemns an action of the intending communicant, who takes food when he ought reverently to abstain: the later statement condemns the act of 1 Supra, p. 155- SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 167 communion. It is this, I think, which offends, and causes much recalcitrance. To condemn a communion made piously, in good faith, and in the manner of the original institution, is to hurt very tender and holy sensibilities. A warning not to indulge in common food before approach- ing those holy mysteries would have a different colour. The rule is often misunderstood as implying that un- digested food in the stomach is defiling, and makes the subject unfit to receive the Sacrament. Medieval authors are quoted to that effect, and possibly some unwise talking among ourselves may encourage the error. It is refuted by the fact that the Church has never prescribed a fast of any particular duration, so that before the midnight Mass of Christmas it may be very brief, and also by the complete exception of the dying from the operation of the rule. Some such misconception may perhaps account for the alleged ‘unwillingness of the Irish peasantry to profit by thisexception. I have heard that it is sometimes extremely difficult to persuade them to receive the Viaticum when not fasting. There may be a danger of this if the rule is unwisely urged and obeyed. Other exceptions also should be safeguarded: the exception of the “case of necessity ’’ especially, which is always implicit in the rule, even if not expressed. I have known a priest refuse to celebrate Mass for his people assembled in church because he had inadvertently drunk something after mid- night. One might think that the needs of his people laid a necessity upon him ; according to the older reading of the rule, the reprehensible act had been done and could not be undone; why should his people suffer loss in consequence ? At the present time the rule itself seems to be in danger, Dispensation, it has been well said, is vulnus in legem, and papal dispensations have become so numerous and so 168 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH extensive as to threaten its existence. If it falls into disso- lution at Rome, it is not likely—unless the conservatism of the East be called in aid—to be left standing in the Church of England. The fast before communion may become a rare practice of undirected piety. That would be a grave misfortune, for it is almost the only vestige of regulated fasting retained outside monastic orders in the Western Church. There are many other activities of Anglo-Catholicism which I might explore, and many observances which may — be thought characteristic. But some of them are not peculiar to the sect, and few are of real importance. Limits must be kept in mind, and I shall pay further attention to no more than three subjects on which there is consider- able difference of opinion within the Church of England, and sometimes heated disputation. In the Thirty-nine Articles a certain ‘‘ Romish doctrine ~ concerning purgatory, and the system of indulgences? connected therewith, is described as “‘ a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.” If this harsh judgment were passed upon teaching common until then to the whole Catholic Church, it would be impossible, as I have remarked in speaking of the Sacraments, to answer a charge of heresy brought against the Church of England. But what is condemned is a particular kind of teaching identified as Romish. What does this mean? As both Newman and the Bishop of Brechin pointed out long ago, it cannot be a reference to the dogmatic decrees of the Council of Trent, for this subject was not approached | by the Council until many months after the Articles had t Called in the text of the Article ‘‘ pardons,” which was their popular name at the time; but the Latin original has “ de indul- gentiis.”: SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 169 passed their final revision. I cannot comfort myself with the Bishop of Brechin’s contention that the word ‘“ Romanenses’”’ in the Latin text means “the extreme Medieval party.” The circumstances of the time make it certain that a reference was intended to the authorities actually functioning at Rome, and what is condemned must be a system of teaching and practice allowed by them. But the doctrine is not defined. That grave abuses were rife is indisputable, for the Council of Trent made trenchant reforms, and might with advantage have made more. The only reasonable interpretation of the Article makes it a general condemnation of these abuses, which for lack of specification affords no guidance in teach- ing and puts no restraint on error. In these circumstances Anglo-Catholics in general hold and teach a doctrine of Purgatory which they find consonant to Holy Scripture and the traditions of the Catholic Church. They have no doubt that the redeemed, departing this life, follow the Lord Jesus in his descent into hell—properly so called— and are there helped by the prayers of the faithful with the merits of the saints, until they are cleansed from every defilement and ready to pass into the joy of Paradise: Some of them believe very confidently that this is the true meaning of the First Resurrection depicted in the Apocalypse. Those in holy orders have declared their assent to the doctrine contained in the Article, namely that grave abuses have in the past been treated with favour at Rome ; but it is too much to expect that in the absence of more specific guidance they succeed in avoiding all those abuses. In this respect there is evidently a call for correction when needed, and at all times for charitable toleration. The same adverse judgment is passed upon a Romish doctrine concerning ‘“‘ worshipping and adoration, as well 170 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints.” I shall treat this as one subject, not as two, though the parts of it are separable. Here there is rather more definition than in the previous case, and the words used must be examined. The Latin text has “ de veneratione et adoratione,” and as the English word “ worship’’ has a wide range of meaning I shall speak of veneration. Adora- tion is an almost equally wide term, though it is now almost restricted in the graver sort of speech to the render- ing of divine honour. I do not think it can be supposed that the authors of the Article suspected anyone of paying such honour to images or relics. If they did, we should, of course, agree with the condemnation, and put it aside as due to a heated imagination. We must rather suppose them to be referring to adoration at a much lower level. If it be necessary to illustrate this use of the word, Shake- speare, almost contemporary, applies it in a rhetorical passage to the ceremonial treatment of a king.t Does the Article condemn the veneration paid, certainly at that level, by the whole Church for many centuries to relics and images of the saints? If so, there is a very serious ques- tion to be faced. But again it is only “‘the Romish doctrine ’’ which is condemned, and here also that term must be construed of abuses allowed, or unduly tolerated, by the authorities of the Roman Church. Of abuses there is abundant evidence both in England and elsewhere ; they were made an excuse for rapine which swept from the churches of the country priceless treasures of art, and humbler objects on which the harmless affections of simple souls had been set. The superstitions were bad, in some cases gross ; the remedy was deplorable. It had the effect of banishing habitual veneration for acknowledged sanctity from minds of the common order, and the saints ceased to : Henry V, Act iv, Scene tf. SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 171 be familiar companions in the Christian life ; a heavy price to pay for getting rid of some spurious relics and winking images. | The same reflections apply to the Invocation of Saints. Let it be granted as incontestable that there was much superstition here also, descending from the old paganism of the “little gods’ of the country-side; a fond notion that appeals for help would be specially effective at some favoured shrine; requests for something more than aid rendered by prayer. These faults might be eradicated by patient teaching. But to obscure the reality and extin- guish the hope of help to be rendered by the prayers of God’s glorified servants, comrades of the victorious Christ, was to take all meaning out of the Communion of Saints. It means the banishment of the Saints to an inaccessible heaven, probably thought of as remote in space: a super- gstition not much less gross than the worst medieval fancies. It blots out the vision of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, _ coming down from God out of Heaven, or relegates it to a vague future out of touch with human life. Theinjury done to English religion by this rupture of intercourse can hardly be measured. Desire of such communication is a holy instinct. I have heard a distinguished Nonconformist minister in London, preaching at a funeral, apostrophize the departed friend with a passionate appeal for continued help in prayer. Denied religious expression, the instinct finds a vent in the superstitions of current spiritism. Anglo-Catholics are determined to undo this mischief. It is not pretended that either the use of sacred images or the practice of invoking the Saints had a place in primi- tive Christianity. Jewish traditions were strong to repel them, and a real peril of idolatry in the presence of pre- vailing paganism was a good reason for keeping them at a distance. But it is maintained that in due time the whole 172 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Church was led by the Holy Spirit to adopt these practices, in legitimate development from the truth of the Communion of Saints. We will do our best to avoid abuses which we reprobate; we will not fear to walk in the way of the Catholic Church. The control of public worship is work for those to whom it belongs; the faithful have duties in regard to their own devotions. Our last subject also may be introduced by a quotation from the Thirty-nine Articles: ‘‘The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.’’ This statement, as usually understood, is little more than a truism. An attempt to make it mean that by Christ’s ordinance these things were not to be done, though gathering some support from the Latin text, is frustrated alike by the grammatical construction and by the absence of any such prohibition from the records. The value of the statement appears to lie in an implied claim that the Church of England was not bound to continue these practices; and that may be allowed, subject to the caution that innovation may be rash and undesirable. It is permissible to speak more strongly. The practice of reserving the Eucharist for subsequent consumption is so general and so ancient, dating at least from the time of Justin Martyr, that to do away with it entirely does not seem to be within the function of a particular Church. Circumstances, however, may call for a temporary suspension of the practice. The usual custom is to reserve the Sacrament for not more than a fortnight; if, then, the Eucharist is consecrated only at longer intervals, reservation will naturally cease. In t “ Sacramentum Eucharistiae ex institutione Christi non serva- batur, circumferebatur, elevabatur, nec adorabatur.’’ The imper- fects indicate a reference to the practices named as having been in vogue for some time past. . SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 178 point of fact the cessation of it in England did coincide with the unhappy change, referred to above, by which the consecration became a rare event. The connexion was observed by Thorndike, who deplored this infrequency. “The Church,” he wrote, “‘ is to endeavour the celebrating of it so frequently that it may be reserved to the next Communion. For in the meantime it ought to be so ready for them that pass into another world, that they need not stay for the consecrating of it on purpose for every one.’ It is easily understood that the authors of that change found it necessary to justify the abandonment of reservation as not required by the original institution. The case for adoration is even stronger. On the bare ground of natural piety, a Sacrament of which the “‘inward part ” is the Body of Christ imperatively demands it. But the collocation of words suggests a limited reference : ~ Carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.’”’ This triad points to a connected set of observances strictly confined to the Western Church, and unknown before the thirteenth century. They were conspicuously not a part of the original institution, being definitely added to it by eccle- siastical authority. It can hardly be argued that a par- ticular Church might not put them aside. The English Reformers vehemently assailed them. There were three chief points of attack: the Sacrament was exposed in a monstrance to the veneration of.the faithful, was carried in procession at Corpus Christi, and was kept in a receptacle known as the canopy suspended above the high altar, here also for the veneration of the people. Exception was taken to these usages as superstitious, on grounds not very intelligible, and sometimes of more than doubtful t Works, A.C.L., vol. v, p. 578. Even Jewel, in his controversy with Harding, hinted at something to the same effect. Works, Parker Soc., vol. ii, p. 559. 174 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH orthodoxy; but also on the specific ground that it was unlawful to use the Sacrament in a way so remote from the original institution. The Article of which we are treat- ing is almost certainly a reflection of this opinion, expressed with a moderation that was hardly to be expected. In the form of a doubt it is shared by a good number of Anglo-Catholics, whose general standpoint, now unhappily made a subject of acute controversy, ought to be explained as clearly as possible. We are entirely at one about the adoration due to our Lord present in the Sacrament, and our right to teach this is not in dispute, having indeed been legally established more than fifty years ago. We are entirely at one about the Reservation of the Eucharist for the purpose of Communion, whether of the sick and dying, or of others who are occasionally prevented from being present at the celebration of Mass. We are entirely at one about the need of a reverent and solemn mode ot reservation, and I think we are all agreed that, failing any other appointment or in the presence of exceptional circumstances, it is for the bishop to prescribe the mode. We are not all agreed on the question whether there is at present a sufficient prescription of the ordinary mode by existing canons. We are all agreed that in the presence of the Holy Sacrament, in whatever mode reserved, it is the right and the duty of the faithful to express by outward acts of reverence their adoration of our Lord there sacra- mentally present. Beyond this lies a region of controversy. I am in doubt whether I ought not to attempt, in fulfilment of my task, a statement of contrary opinions. But there is presumption, and much danger of unfairness, in setting out an opinion which is not one’s own. I will therefore content myself with stating a position taken, as I under- stand, by some among whom I would range myself. SOME RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 175 We are convinced that the public exposition of the Holy Sacrament for the veneration of the faithful is a practice of legitimate development from the original institution. We believe it to be a salutary practice, conducive to a personal religion of high value, as proved by abundant experience. It is a reverent exhibition of this ‘‘ Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death ’’ which moves the beholder to a responsive love. There is not the same individual exhibition and apprehension as in Communion, for which this can be no substitute ; but it is an exhibition of the Lamb of God bearing the sins of the whole world, and there is a responsive apprehension of the whole truth of the atoning Love of the Redeemer. Christ is evidently set forth as Crucified, and that with an intensity of sug- gestion which no words can equal. We are sometimes told that we are here supposing and seeking a mere local and temporary presence of the Body of Christ, a satisfaction which will extinguish the sense of that abiding presence which is ‘‘ Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We reply theologically that the sacramental presence is in no sense local, and that we do not suppose ourselves to be spatially nearer to our Lord when kneeling before the Sacrament than we are at other times; for _ that would be impossible. But we experience in the sight of the Sacrament a stirring of the memory, the understand- ing and the will, by which we apprehend the inmost reality of the Presence. We are told by others that such a use of the Sacrament as a symbol comports with the very lowest estimate of sacramental reality. We reply that it may be so, and we would not refuse to anyone the privilege of so using the Sacrament. But we think that the privilege cannot mean to one for whom the Sacrament is a bare symbol as much as it means to us. 176 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Believing all this, and greatly desiring the privilege, we do not forget that exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is an act of public worship. It is therefore subject to regulations affecting public worship in the Catholic Church, and ought not to be introduced anywhere without the authority, or at least the consent, of the Bishop actually in control. In this temper we are prepared to wait patiently and confidently for the solution of a practical difficulty. EPILOGUE I HAVE left out many things of set purpose, and about some of them a word of explanation may be required, It may surprise my readers to find so little said about those ritual and ceremonial developments which are commonly alleged to have changed the face of the Church of England during the last sixty or seventy years. They have been passed over precisely because they can be so described. They are superficial. I do not despise them on that account ; the face of the Church ought to be fair to look upon; the King’s daughter ought to be not only glorious within, but also decked with clothing of wrought gold. But they are not essentially connected with my subject. These changes were begun by certain pre- cursors of those who are now called Anglo-Catholics, their origin lay partly in a reviving care for Catholic traditions almost extinguished, they accidentally brought about some clashes in which we have been interested, and their later progress has been so closely connected with the real advance of our cause that imperfectly informed observers are inclined to treat the two things as one; yet they are profoundly different. The zsthetic clothing of religion, however valuable, is not religion. It may even be adverse to religion, and we have had occasion to see that by these adornments inj ury has sometimes been done to that which is incomparably more important. I decline to reckon their achievement, however welcome, as part N 177 178 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH and parcel of the Anglo-Catholic movement. There is another reason for neglecting them in my present study. Interest in them has for a long time not been confined to Anglo-Catholics, and there is reason for thinking that it is now at least as active in others. That is good: Anglo- Catholics do not wish to claim the esthetic of religion as their province, and would rather see the treatment of it widely diffused. More important things have been left out. I have not so much as mentioned the revival of the Religious Life, specifically so called. It has been the work of Anglo- Catholics, but I could not treat it as part of their public activities. All that belongs properly to this phase of religion is the personal affair of the devoted men and women who enter it; their life is intended in a special degree to be hid with Christ in God, and I would not intrude into their domesticities. I bow myself in respect, ask for their prayers, and pass on. To defend my neglect of missions to the heathen, and of Churches in many parts of the world which have sprung from the Church of England, is not so easy a matter. It has been due to my conviction that Anglo-Catholicism cannot be rightly understood unless its limitations are observed. The name is useful as marking them. It stands for a special kind of Catholicism, the specific qualities of which are due to causes which lie deep in the history of England, and to present conditions which are the effect of those causes. Neither the original causes nor the resul- tant conditions can be reproduced elsewhere. An attempt to transplant the Church of England, such as it has become, can never succeed. The work of the late Archbishop of Melbourne mentioned above? illustrates the folly of the attempt, and the confusion caused by the adoption of t Supra, p. 59% EPILOGUE 179 such a style as “the Church of England in Tasmania.” With infinite trouble that confusion is now being slowly straightened out. I have had occasion to mention the beginning of the process in South Africa, but I would not pursue the subject. These new Churches, which have inevitably and properly carried over much from the Church of England, have at the same time circumstances of their own, in which they must work out their own special kinds of Catholicism. I put the Church of similar derivation in the United States of America on exactly the same footing in this respect as the Churches formed in dominions of the British Crown. Catholicism transcends nationality and political frontiers, but in transcending it should recognize them. I will speak particularly of the United States. My one visit to the country, in the critical spring of the year I9gI7, was in design purely ecclesiastical ; I crossed the Atlantic expressly to lecture in the General Seminary at New York. But both the visit and the interest of the visit were extended in consequence of the conditions of the naval war. These conditions brought into prominence the latent Englishry of my hosts. I found them in many ways as English as myself, but always English with a difference. And this was specially true of the Church with which I was working. It was English with a very considerable difference. The difference was naturally most perceptible where contact was prominent. I felt it when I found in a church at New York an effigy of “ St. Edward of Oxford,” which was an excellent portrait of the man whom I had known and revered as Dr, Pusey. I felt it when asked to preach on 30 January at a Com- memoration of “St. Charles, King and Martyr,” which was arranged by ladies belonging to the exclusive society known as “‘ Daughters of the Revolution.”” For 180 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH the first time in my experience the observance of that fragrant memory seemed to be untainted with political insincerity. Liturgical differences I wished to be greater than they were; for the Prayer-book in use, adhering very closely to the lines of our own book, seemed to lack some desirable elements of nationality. But in spite of this, the notion of a transplanted ‘‘ Church of England ”’ was effectively excluded. On the whole it seemed clear that a specifically American Catholicism was being culti- vated. There is probably room for variations even in this. I have found good reason for not including it in my survey of Anglo-Catholicism. The propriety of excluding Anglo-Catholicism from the field of Missions to the heathen is still more evident. Two deplorable illustrations of its intrusion come to my mind. The first is drawn from an old report of the Melanesian Mission. A bishop, a priest, and a deacon, arrived in the mission schooner at a certain island where they spent Sunday. The report stated with regret that there was not a single confirmed Christian in the island, and therefore the visitors were not able to celebrate the Holy Communion. This was due, one gathered, to the fact that there would not be ‘“‘three at the least’’ to communicate with the celebrant. That is to say, a rubric designed for an English parish, and found unworkable even there, was rigidly applied to a remote island in the Pacific. The other illustration came under my own notice. One Sunday morning I attended divine worship at a church in the suburbs of Calcutta. Mattins and Mass were admirably sung in the Bengali language, but everything else was. done as if to convey the impression that we were in a London suburb. I was the only European present, and the furniture was adjusted to my notions of comfort ; the rest of the worshippers were constrained to kneel or sit EPILOGUE 181 in a manner evidently unsuited to their habits, from which they occasionally relapsed out of sheer weariness into more familiar postures. It was borne in upon me that Angli- canism is at least as foreign to India as Romanism to .England. There may be an imitation of Anglo-Catholicism in the mission field, but I am not disposed to treat it as part of the reality. And how does it stand in England? I began by calling it a sect, and so I shall end, without any note of disparage- ment. A sect is a temporary association of men gathered about a leader or an idea. Anglo-Catholicism began with the leadership of the Tractarians, but those leaders were feeling after an idea which they eventually seized, and expressed with growing clearness. It was the idea of Catholicity. This they set up as a standard, a rallying- point, and gathered numerous adherents. There came a scattering ; the chief, who seemed almost to be the only leader, was lost. In that loss there was some gain. From that time onward Anglo-Catholics have had no leader, and have rallied to the idea alone. Even this has been variably expressed, with barely sufficient unity of meaning. There is therefore in the sect a flexibility of movement which would be intolerable if it were more than a sect, the following of an idea. There have been leading men in abundance, but no leader, none to whom allegiance is rendered. Those without have sometimes taken Lord Halifax to be such; he has been trusted and loved as few leaders are; he has been a wise counsellor, an impassioned pleader, but he has not led. None else has come so near to doing it; the rest have been rather sergeants than commanders. We have rallied round the idea of Catholicity, extensive and intensive, knowing no other bond of union. We have had societies of all sorts, marshalling many or few of us for particular aims and efforts, but there has never been 182 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH an organized group qualified to speak for us all. That has been our strength and our weakness ; our weakness for a combined effort in emergency, our strength as a current of influence. A sect is a temporary association of the like-minded, As a fossil it may become permanent and useless, a hard lump in the living tissue of human society, a nuisance at least, and perhaps a danger ; as a living combination of living beings it may be even worse, or on the other hand it may be a focus of specially intense and healthy activity. © So long as it is that, its existence is more than justifiable ; but it had better be dispersed before it becomes fossilized. The Anglo-Catholic sect claims to be no more and no less than a focus of Catholicity within the Catholic Church of England. When the temper of Catholicity has permeated the whole Church, this focus should disappear. It may disappear by diffusion. But we have no right to expect that the particular presentation of Catholicity which we have achieved will be the final presentation. Our own presentation has varied, and there may be more variations to come. So much the better, if the ultimate result is the richer. The older men among us do not hope to see as much as another stage of the flowing movement; the youngest can hardly expect to see the end. Old and young join in the same prayer: ‘‘ Show thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory.” INDEX Anselm, 14 Antioch, Schism of, 116 Antiquity, Appeal to, 44 Apollinarianism, 1o1 Apostolic Succession, 31, 79, 82-4 Arnold, Thomas, 37, 50 Articles, The Thirty-nine, 28, 42, 45-8, 100, 126, 168, 172 Assembly, The Church, 68 Augustine, 114, 120 Benson, Father, 42, 161 Brechin, Bishop of, 47, 169 Butler, 29 129, Caecilian, 12 Calvin, 7, 27 Calvinism, 22, 27, 32 Canon Law in England, 19 Catholic, The word, 10-12 Catholic Church, Definition of the, 74-6 Chalcedon, The Council of, 102 Church of England, Meaning of, 14 Colenso, 61 Colonial Churches, 59, 178 Commonwealth-Church, The, 33, 73 Confession, Auricular, 104-12 Conversion, 103 Convocation, 54 Creighton, 96 Cyprian, 11, 81, 84, 115, 123 De Maistre, 9 Development of Christian Doc- tvine, The, 41 Disestablishment, 53, 69 Donatists, The, 41, 123 * Ecclesia, The word, 4 Elizabethan Settlement, 20-5, 142 Episcopate, The, 82-8; 97 Evelyn, 28 Exposition, 173-6 The, Fast before Communion, The, 155, 161-8 Fasting, 157-61 Forsyth, 126 Franzelin, Cardinal, 127 Froude, Hurrell, 30, 35, 148, 160 Froude, J. A., 19 Gallicanism, 8, 28, 91 Gildas, 13 Gladstone, 51, 63 Gorham Case, The, 55 Gregory the Great, 13 Grosseteste, 16 Harnack, 77 Herbert, George, 147 184 Heresy, I, 3, 113 Hooker, 27, 32, 36 Ideal of a Christian Church, The, 38 Ignatius, 10, 83, 139 Images, Veneration of, 170 Independents, The, 27 Jewel, 44 Johnson, Samuel, 159 Jowett, 39, 47 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, The, 52, 55- 67 Keble, 30, 35-6, 57, 116 Lanfranc, 14 Langton, 15, 17 Laski, 69, 73 Latinism, 128 Laud, 28, 32 Liddon, 42 Lightfoot, 131, 137 Lombard, Peter, 121 Lorraine, Cardinal of, 23 Lutoslawski, 161 Lux Mundt, 102 Lyndwood, 17 Mackenzie, K. D., 9, 87, 89 Magna Carta, 14 Malines, 98 Mann, Mgr., 16 Manning, 57 Mass, Meaning of the word, 140 Mediation, 134 Medievalism, 51, 153 Missa sicca, 145, 148 Missions, 180 Monothelitism, tor Nazarenes, Sect of the, 2, 4 Newman, 30, QI, 104 THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC FAITH Nonconformists, The, 22, 25 Novatian, 12 Opere operato, Ex, 123-6, 128 Orthodoxy, Standards of, 113 Penance, 107-12 Polycarp, 11 Priest, The word, 132 Priesthood, The Aaronic, 137 Priesthood, The Christian, 130-9 Protestant, The word, 7, 28, 40 Purgatory, 169 Puritans, The, 27 Pusey, 41, 57, 91, 153, 179 Quick, O., 10 Recusants, Popish, 22, 27, 89 Relics, Veneration of, 170 Reservation, 172 Ritualism, 153-4, 177 Rome, Breach with, 18, 22-3, 90 Rubrics, The Communion, 145, | 180 Sacrament, Definition of a, 120 Sacrament, The word, 117-8 Sacraments, The Seven, 122, 124 Saints, Invocation of, 171 Schism, Meaning of, 3-8 Scotland, The Free Church of, 70-2 Sect, Meaning of the word, I-12, 181-2 Speier, Diet of, 7 Submission of the Clergy, The, 54 Swift, 158 tig, Tait, 46, 63-5 Tertullian, 119 INDEX 185 Test Act, The, 34 Vatican Council, The, 91-6 Theodore, 13 Vincent of Lerin, 44 Tractarians, The, 12, 26-37, 103, 150 Ward, Condemnation of W.G., 39 Transubstantiation, 29, 126-8 Wheatley, 148 Wilfrid, 13 Uniat Churches, 86, 116 Wilson, J. 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