THE
U^ITV OF THE CHORCH
tihrary of t:he Cheolocjical ^tmimry
PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
BX 8 .»L32x
Lacey, T. A. 1853-1931.
The unity of the church as
treated by English
^be Cburcb Ibistorical Societ\>.
President: — The Right Reverend M. Creighton, U.D.,
Lord Bishop of London.
Chairman: — The Reverend W. E. Collins, Prof, of Eccl. Hist.
AT King's College, London.
XXXV.
THE
UNITY OF THE CHURCH
AS TREATED BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
REV. T. A. LACEY, M.A.
vicar of madinglev.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
LONDON :
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. ; 4^, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, B.C.
BRIGHTON: 129, North Street.
New York : E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
.1898.
Digitized by
the Internet i
Archive
in 2015
https://archive.org/details/unityofchurchastOOIace
PKEFACE.
The first part of this brief dissertation
appeared in the Revue a nglo-romaine of June
20, 1896. Written at Rome under great pres-
sure of time to meet an instant emergency,
it might easily have been improved and
brought into a form more suitable for English
readers. It has, however, been thought wiser
to republish it in English exactly as it
originally appeared in French, omitting only
an allusion to a personal incident which is
already forgotten. The second part was
to have followed immediately, but in the
interval the Encyclical, Satis cognitum, on
the Unity of the Church, wag issued, and it
was thought unseemly to continue the treat-
ment of the subject in a sense necessarily
opposed to that of the papal document. The
scope of the dissertation was shown to be
• A 2
4
PREFACE.
purely historical, the statement only of what
had actually been taught in the Church of
England ; but in spite of this it was held in
very high quarters that the second part ought
not to appear in the Review. It was accord-
ingly withdrawn.
In greater leisure it has been carefully
revised and considerably enlarged. To those
who lack opportunity for study, this little
book may perhaps be useful as summarizing
the teaching of the Church upon a subject
which is continually in debate; with others,
it will entirely fail of its object if it does not
lead them to study at first hand the great
masters of theology whose conclusions are
here recorded.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
VAGK
§ I. Introductory ....... 7
j 2. The Particularity of the English Ctiurch . . 8
I 3. T}i() Principle of Dissidence . . .10
54. The Theory of Sacramental Unity . . • '7
§ 5. The Branch Theory 20
PART II.
§ 1. Tlie Church and the Churches .... 27
is. Tlie earlier definitions pf tlie Churcli . . 30
The Controversy of the Great Schism . 32
§ 3. The question raised by the Reformation . . 34
§ 4. Tlie public teaching of the English Church . 37
The Necessary Doctrine, &c. • • • 37
The Thirty-nine Artichs . . . .41
§ 5. Contemporary definitions by Curialist theo-
logians 43
§ 6. The Reconciliation with Rome ... 47
§ 7. The public teaching of the English Church 50
The Canons of 1604 ..... 50
Orrrall's I (iiiroralion Book .... 52
§ 8. Th(' problem for theologians • • ■ • 55
§ 9. Pole and Tunstull on the JItad of the Church . 56
Jewell's Ajxitoyia .... .60
§ icx The teaching of Hooker ..... 61
§11. The teaching of the Laudinn School: Ham-
mond, &('. ...... 68
Its j)ractic!il failure • • • • 73
6
CONTENTS.
PAGE
§ 12. Tlie English Divines iinder the Calvinist
oppression ...... 75
Branihall, liis Just Vindication ... 76
,, on internal and external com-
munion .... 77
,, on essential unity ... 83
Thorndike 85
§ 13. The teaching of Pearson ..... 87
The six modes of unity .... 94
§ 14. Pearson on the essential unity and holiness
of the Church . ' . . . -91
§ 15. The practical teaching of the Restoration
period ....... 99
The union of National Churches . . 104
§ 16. The teaching of Barrow ..... 105
§ 17. The internal unity of particular Churches . 113
Say^vell . . . . . . .114
Barrow . . . . . . .116
Beveridge . . . . . .118
§ 18. Weak points in the foregoing teaching . . 122
Compulsory Uniformity .... 122
Toleration ...... 123
Occasional Conformity .... 123
The Else of Dissent .... 124
Exaggerated Nationalism . . . 126
Latitudinarianism ..... 128
§ 19. Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Christ . . 130
§ 20. Modifications of the geographical system . 142
§ 21. Later developments ...... 146
Manning 146
Forbes 146
Pusey 148
§ 22. Summaiy and conclusion . . . .151
THE
UNITY or THE CHUECH
AS TREATED BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
PART I.
§1-
As we say our Creed we profess our belief
in one only Church. What do we mean by
this unity 1 What is this one Church ? Clearl}^
we suppose ourselves to be members of it ;
unless, indeed, we are using words without
any present meaning, a relic of a former state
of tilings, or a pious aspiration after a future
development. 13ut what is this one Church of
which we claim to be members ? We of the
English Church are regarded by the greater
part of Christendom as a separate body, com-
pletely isolated. How do we regard ourselves ?
(i) Do we shut ourselves up in our own com-
munion, declaring that this alone is the true
8 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Church of Christ ? (2) Do we console our-
selves with the fiction of an invisible Church
which is one thi-oughout the world, of which
the true members are known only to God ?
(3) Do we picture to ourselves a number of
separate societies, united only by the fact
that all receive the same grace and share in
the same spiritual life of the sacraments ?
(4) Do we think of the one Church as com-
posed of several societies or communions,
loosely associated in a sort of federal union ?
Here are four questions which habitually
occur to those who study the Church of Eng-
land from without. They may perhaps have
seen or heard remarks of individuals among
us which appear to suggest an affirmative
answer to one or the other of these questions.
I shall endeavour in the first place to show
that such an affirmative answer would en-
tirely misrepresent the conception of unity
which prevails among Englisli theologians,
and I will then try to set out this con-
ception in a more positive fashion.
§2.
It should hardly be necessary to answer
the first question. But if it be needful to
show that the Church of England is regarded
BY ENGLI^<H THEOLOGIANS.
9
as a part only, and a purely local part, of one
whole Church, I can do this best by quoting
her own most official lanjjuawe. The Preface
of the Prayer Book, written at the time of
the last revision in 1662, speaks of certain
alterations then proposed, but i-ejected, as
" secretly striking at some established doc-
trine or laudable practice of the Church of
England, or indeed of the ivhole Catholick
Church of Christ."' And further, this particu-
larity of the English Church is to be regarded
as purely local or geographical. The short
treatise Of ceremonies, prefixed to the Prayer
Book, says expressly, '• In these our doings
we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe
anything but to our own people only : for
we think it convenient that every country
should use such Ceremonies as they shall
think best to the setting forth of God's honour
and glor}-, and to the reducing of the people
to a most perfect and godly living, with-
out error or superstition."
You may, if you will, call this an expres-
sion of an exaggerated particularity, or of
a dangerous nationalism ; but you will find
no room left for the idea that the Encrlish
Church claims to bo herself alone the true
Church of Christ.
lO THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
The second question brings us face to
face with the fundamental principle of the
Dissidence of Dissent. According to this
principle, the one true Church of Christ is
not visible here on earth. It is a mystic
invisible body, the members of which are
known to God alone. Believers are free to
band themselves together in different con-
gregations ; and every such congregation forms
a Visible Cliurch, which may, or may not, in-
clude some members of that one Church which
is the mystical Body of Christ. The external
organization is purely local, accidental and
temporary ; membership in it is voluntary
and has no necessary relation to the spiritual
life. A Christian may join himself to any
such organization or may leave it as he wills.
Any number of these societies may exist side
by side, in friendly or hostile rivalry. It is
well that they should live at peace among
themselves, with mutual offices of good-will
and charity, for that is a Christian duty ; but
the invisible unity of the one true Church is
neither injured by their quarrels nor promoted
by their alliance. There is no need for them
to have any formal relations with each other ;
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
II
still less is it necessary or even desirable
that they should submit to any common rule,
adopt even approximately any common form
of worship, or make any common profession
of faith Some great and fundamental truths
indeed they must hold in common, but even
these need not be defined by all in the same
terms, or should be expressed only in the
terms of Scripture.
I have sketched a theory of the Church
which is widely held in England, still more
widely in America and the English colonies,
and which is not unknown among the Pro-
testants of Europe. I might trace its genesis
to the confusion of the Reformation, its
gradual development among the English
separatists, its enormous growth during the
present century. It is more to the point to
observe it as now in full vigour. It is the
theory of the Eixingelical Alliance.
It is clear that one who holds to this theory
may profess his belief in One Church. He
will mean the Invisible Church of which he
dreams. Does the English Church leave her
members free to make their profession of faith
in this sense ?
The Thirty-nine Articles do not directly
condemn this theory. At the time of their
12 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
composition it was not yet sufficiently
developed ; nor do I find that our rulers have
ever taken the trouble to pronounce an ex-
press judgement upon it. But at the same
time the definition of the Church which is
found in the Thirty-nine Articles will exclude
any such idea.
"Ecclesia Christi visibilis "The visible Chiircli of
est coetus fidelium, in quo Christ is a congregation of
verbum Dei purum praedi- faitliful men, in the which the
catur, et sacramenta, quoad pure word of God is preached,
ea quae necessario exiguiitur, and the sacraments be duly
inxta Christi institutuin recte ministered according to
a(hninistrantur.'' Christ's ordinance, in all
those things that of necessity
are requisite to the same'."
This definition as read in the Latin might
indeed stand for the particular and local
visible Church of the theory which we are
considering. But the English version, which
has equal authority with the Latin, uses the
' Article xix. Compare the definition of Bellarmine,
Controvers. 1. iii. de Eccltsia, c. 2 : "Nostra .sententia est
ecclesiam iinam tantum esse, non duas, et illani unam et
veram esse coetum hominiim eiusdem Christianae fidei profes-
sione et eorundem .sacramentorura communione colligatuui
sub regiiiiine legiuiitoriim pastorum ac praecipue unius Chri<ti
in terris Vicarii lio iiani pontifiois." With this again compare
that of Lyiidwood, the English canonist of tlie fifteenth cen-
tury : " Ecclesia Christiana cum suis sacranientis et legibu-i,
<liiae aliter ap[)ellatur Catholica seu Universalis, dicitur
Fidelium niukitudi) fide ut caritate unita." Prov. lib. i. tit. i.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
13
definite article in a way to exclude any such
interpretation. Any doubt which may remain
will be set at rest by a citation from one of
the authorized homilies: "The true Church is
an universal congregation or fellowship of
God's faithful and elect people, built upon the
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-
stone. And it hath always these notes or
marks whereby it is known : pure and sound
doctrine, the sacraments ministered according
to Christ's holy institution, and the right
use of ecclesiastical discipline ^"
The Church is here defined as universal and
also as visible, having marks by which it may
be recognized. Moreover, the Church of
England has forbidden her own faithful, under
pain of excommunication, to maintain the
legitimacy of such freely formed congregations
as are contemplated by the theory in question.
The eleventh of the canons promulgated in the
Synod of London in the year 1604 runs as
follows : —
"QuicuiKiuo ill posterum " Whoever shall hereafter
affirniabit aut tuebitur ullos affinn or maintain, that tliere
oonventus, <oetii8, aut con- aro within thlH rejilin other
{{regationes 8iil)'litoriiui indi- meetings, assemblies, or con-
genarum infra hoe rcgnum gregations of the King's born
' Homily for Whitsunilay, part ii.
14 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
existere (jiraeter eos qui ex
huius regni legibus tenentur
et api)robantur) qui veraruin
et legitimariim ecclesiarum
nomen possint sibi iure ven-
dicare : excommunicetur, non
nisi per Ai-chiepiscopum re-
stituendus, idque postquam
resipuerit, et iinpium hunc
errorem puLlice revocarit."
subjects, than such as by the
laws of this land are held
and allowed, which may
rightly challenge to them-
selves the name of true and
lawful Churches ; let him be
excommunicated, and not
restored, but by the Arch-
bishop, after his repentance,
and public revocation of such
his wicked errors."
In the face of this declaration it is im-
possible for any one seriously to maintain that
the opinion of dissidence is free to the mem-
bers of the English Church. In professing
their belief in One Church they cannot fall
back upon the theory of an Invisible Church,
consisting of members hidden in divers visible
organizations.
But does the teaching which is actually in
force follow these lines ? We hear from time to
time of priests of the Church taking part with
ministers of the Protestant sects in proceed-
ings of a compromising character ; we hear of
them in conferences at Grindelwald and else-
where, which appear to be conducted on the
principle of dissidence. We find some of them
engaged with the Evangelical Alliance itself.
What shall we say to this ?
We may admit in the first place that there
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
15
is in certain quarters a dangerous tendency
to abandon the ground of principle in this
respect. We may allow also that there is
very widely diffused a sort of timidity, which
hinders alike the plain declaration of the
teaching of the Church, and the reprobation
of those who offend against it. But it would
be a great mistake to suppose that this
timidity is due to an imperfect grasp of the
truth. It is due to entirely different causes.
In England we are face to face with an
organized sectarianism, always aggressive, and
not so very long since powerful both socially
and politically. To denounce this, or even to
teach definitely the truth which it opposes, is
to invite virulent attacks, and a ridicule
which it needs no little courage to face.
But I will point out in the next place that
much of our fraternization with the ministers
of Protestant sects docs not in the least imply
an acceptance of the principle of dissidence.
It is on the contrary adopted as a means of
spreading the truth. The Archbishop of York,
whom no one will suspect of any unfaithful-
ness to the principle of unity, invites the
Protestant ministers of his diocese to his
palace. It is precisely what the great Bossuet
loved to do. Even those who assist at tlie
l6 THE L-MTi OP THE CmTBCH AS TEKATED
conferences at Grindelwald and elsewhere, find
there an opportunity for driving home some
truths to the a^embled sectaries. Indeed, it
was at Lucerne that Mr. Hammond, Canon of
TrurO; read h'ls paper on what he calk, by
a painfully barbarous term, "Polychurchism."
the most vigorous attack on the principle of
dissidence which recent times have seen. At
the Norwich Church Congress there was a long
discussion on the hindrances to the reconcilia^
tion of Dissenters, when Mr. Hammond was
again the protagonist, and I do not remember
that a single word was said which suggested
any paltering with the truth.
The best witness however to the actual
teaching of the Church is afforded by the
Dissenters themselves. They denounce the
exclusiveness of the Chtirch, the arrogance
of the priesthood- They band themselves
together, in spite of their mutual antagonisms,
in a tinion of hatred against this one body
which refuses to consort with them, and
which will not so much as allow them the
name of Churches. They have been working
for years to drive the clergy from the schools
on the express ground that they teach the
children the iniquity of dissidence. If in spite
of all our carefulness, our moderation our
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
17
timidity indeed, we bring these attacks upon
ourselves, it is clear that "we cannot be
altogether neglecting the duty of insisting on
the visible unity of the Church.
§4.
The conception of unity implied in the
third question is one, we must admit, which
has great attractions for many amongst us.
For them the Church throughout the world
is actually and visibly one, by virtue of the
one spiritual life which all its members share
in common by the visible means of the sacra-
ments. They may be entirely without inter-
course, they may be separated from one
another in sympathy, they may disagree even
in matters of faith ; but being baptized into
one Body, and partaking of the one Bread of
Life, they are inseparably one. This unity
of the Church is a natural fact, comparable
to that of a family where the brothers, being
born of one father, remain necessarily and
indestructibly united by origin and kinship,
however widely they may bo sundered by
accidents of travel, by diti'erence of tastes and
pursuits, or even by bitter enmities.
It is unnecessary to point out the incon-
veniences and inconsistences which flow from
B
1 8 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
this theory if it be taken for a complete
statement of the unity of the Church. My
object is rather to show that, whatever partial
truth it enshrines, it cannot lawfully be taken
as expressing the whole meaning of our belief
in One Church. My citation from the Homilies
may be sufficient for this, where the right use
of ecclesiastical discipline is set down as one
of the notes or marks of the true Church. A
community of Christians, then, who lack this,
even if they enjoy the fullest possession of
the sacraments, cannot be regarded as forming
a part of the one Church in which we profess
our belief. We shall not of course interpret
the phrase rigorously, so as to conclude that
a weak or faulty administration of discipline
would involve a defection fi'ora the Church,
but we shall be compelled to allow that the
general maintenance of the constitution of the
Catholic Church on its broad hnes must be
required of any local organization which shall
claim to be a part of the whole. The precise
nature indeed of the discipline here proposed
as necessary is matter for further question.
The demand is mentioned here only as evi-
dence that we do not make the unity of
the Church rest merely on participation in the
sacraments.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
19
But again, in the Visible Church, as defined
in the Thirty-nine Articles, the imre word of
God must be preached. As the late Bishop
of Winchester pointed out in his Commentary
on the Articles, the expression is not "the
•word of God is purely preached," but •' the
pure word of God is preached." In other
words, the definition does not point to a sub-
jective purity of teaching, but to the possession
of an objective body of doctrine, the main
truths of the Gospel, the fundamentals of
Christianity, the Faith of the Church. As
there is one sacramental life, so also there
must be one faith, and those who do not hold
this faith cannot be reckoned as within the
unity of the Visible Church. The practice of
the English Church in this respect can be
precisely determined. At the request of the
Nestorians of Persia and Kurdistan the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury maintains a mission
amonof them. The missionaries are forbidden
to proselytize from the Nestorians, or in any
way to break up or disturb their ecclesiastical
order; but, on the other hand, they are not
allowed to communicate with them until such
time as they shall renounce their heresy and
acknowledge the faith of the Church as de-
fined at Ephesus.
B 2
20 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
It is clear that neither the authoritative
teaching nor the practice of the Church of
England -will tolerate the theory which makes
the essential unity of the Church consist solely
in the unity of the sacramental life.
§5-
There is a fourth theory which is often
attributed to us — an imputation founded, per-
haps, on a rigorous interpretation of certain
careless statements of individuals. It is com-
monly known as the Branch Theory, and as
such it is made the object of attack by many
disputants, who expend considerable ingenuity
in assailing a position which no one defends.
The term Branch is indeed used in connexion
with the Church by many of our best writers.
They will speak of the English Branch of the
Chuix-h, of the Roman or the Greek Branch.
They will speak also of the French or
Spanish, or of the American Branch. The
distinguished Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Words-
worth, was a well-known exponent of the
idea set forth by this expression. But he
made it perfectly plain in what sense he used
it. In his Theophilus Anglicainis, discoursing
On the A rt(jlican Branch of the Catholic Church,
he quotes from Hooker: — "As the main
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS. 21
body of the sea being one, yet within divers
precincts hath divei"S names, so the Catholic
Church is in like sort divided into a number
of distinct societies, every one of which is
termed a Church within itself ^" Thus when
our writers speak of the Branches of the
Church, they have in view the local divisions
or branches of a homogeneous body such as
the sea.
The term, however, is ambiguous, and very
naturally suggests the branches of a tree —
a suggestion which is perhaps aided by an
inaccurate association with the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ, comparing individual
(Christians to the branches of the vine, or with
those of St. Paul describing them as engrafted
into the olive tree. Hence there results a not
unfrequent extension of the figure, which
represents far less accurately the constitution
of the Church. For the branches of a tree,
though they spring from a common stem, and
derive sap from the same root, have no sort
of actual communication or intercourse with
each other, none of that free circulation which
estabUshes a real unity between the various
divisions of the sea.
It is this comparison with the branches of
' Eccl. I'ol. bk. iii. uh. i. § 14.
22 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
a^tiee, and all the consequences which may
be rigorously deduced from it, which some of
our critics are eager to fasten upon us. We
are supposed to hold that the various parts of
the Church, like the branches of a tree, do
indeed spring from a common stem, but are
separate from each other, enjoying an entirely
individual existence. We are asked ironically,
if all the parts of the Church are branches,
where is the stem ? We are invited to show
how an individual passes from one branch to
another when he changes his domicile. We
reply that these questions demand of us the
explication and defence of an hypothesis
which we do not in the least accept. This
Branch Theory is not our invention ; it is
the invention of our adversaries who gra-
tuitously attribute it to us. It is not for us
to develop its absurdities.
They are not perhaps very open-minded
critics who treat us in this fashion, but, partly
as a consequence of persistent misrepresenta-
tion, we are in some quarters seriously sup-
posed to regard the Catholic Church as con-
sisting essentially of a number of separate and
independent communions — the Roman, the
Russo-Greek, and the Anglican, at least, even
if we exclude, as heretical, the Copts and the
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
23
Armenians, and other separated Churches of
the East. Our theory of the Church, on this
supposition, regards each of these various
communions or Churches as enjoying a cor-
porate existence, as possessing a body of
doctrine peculiar to itself, as endowed with
a separate life and capacity of development.
From this it would follow that, so far as the
whole Church is one, its unity is found only
in the agglomeration of these parts, essentially
independent, but bound together by a loose
federal tie. So loose indeed is the tie, that it
does not as a matter of fact involve so much
as diplomatic intercourse between the members
of the union. Indeed they might rather be re-
garded as so many separate kingdoms reigned
over by one Divine and invisible Monarch.
Now it is quite true that we do sometimes
speak of the various Communions into which
Christians are divided. In doing so we are
merely noting an obvious fact. We in no
way imply that they ought to be so divided,
still less that such divisions are a necessary
or essential feature of the Church's consti-
tution. On the contrary we regard the fact
as a deplorable one. I do not believe that
a passage could be adduced from any of our
writers treating this kind of division as a thing
24 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
good or even tolerable in itself. We recognize
it only as a matter of fact. It is a state
of things which has to be reckoned ynth for
the present, and as soon as possible amended.
Christians have not that perfect intercourse of
charity and that perfect community of worship
which they ought to have. Moreover, by
reason of these differences they do actually
fall into certain well-defined groups, and
these groups are commonly called different
Communions. The term may not be well
chosen ; it might be wiser to adopt one, if
possible, which should lend itself less readily
to misunderstanding ; but we are not singular
in the use of such inaccurate terms, nor are
we conscious of giving any direct cause for
misunderstanding.
We use the term, then, to express a certain
unhappy fact ; and we are careful not to
extend its meaning beyond the precise limits
of the fact. It is not these divers Com-
munions that we regard as members or
branches of the Catholic Church, but the local,
provincial, or national Churches which are
attached to one or other of them. The
Church of France, the Church of Spain, are
branches of the Universal Church. In one
of the constitutions promulged in 1604, the
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
25
Church of England, speaking of our unhappy
divisions, uses language of the most careful
precision.
" Tantuiii aberat ut Eccle-
uia Anglicana ab Italiae,
Galliae, Hispaniae, Germa-
iiiae, aliisve siiiiilibus Eccle-
siis voluerit per oinnia re-
cedere, qiiicquid eas sciret
tenere aut observare, ut
. . . ceremonias illas cum
reverentia susciperet, quas
citra Ecclesiae incommodum
ac hominum sobriorum
ofifensioiiem retineri posse
senserat."
" So far was it from the
purpose of the Church of
England to forsake and re-
ject the Churches of Italy,
France, Spain, Germany,
or any such like Churches,
in all things which they
held and practised, that . . .
it doth with reverence retain
those ceremonies, which doth
neither endamage the Church
of God, nor offend the minds
of sober men '."
It will be seen that we do not here read of
the " Roman Communion " as an entity apart,
but of the local Churches, within certain geo-
graphical limits, which in fact hold to the
communion of the Roman See. We and
they are unhappily separated from each
otlier in a certain manner, but when wo
confess the one Church we Ijelieve that these
Churches and the English Church arc equally
integrating parts of the one Catholic Church.
The Branch Theory, in short, does not regard
tlie Catholic Church as consisting of a con-
federation of several Counnunious ; it merely
' Canuu XXX.
26 THE UNITT OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
recognizes the fact that the Church is organized
in provinces and groups of provinces geo-
graphically circumscribed.
Again, when we work or pray for the
reunion of Christendom, we do not regard our
object as the development of a somewhat
closer federal bond between three or more
independent Churches ; we desire the realiza-
tion in practice of a true unity which already
exists. We do not think of unity as pro-
ceeding from multiplicity; we recognize the
profound truth that the Church is funda-
mentally and essentially one, and that from
this unity proceeds the multiplicity of the
local divisions. To return to the figure of
speech which gives rise to this discussion, the
branches of the Church are not like the
branches of a tree, which have no real inter-
course with each other, but like branches of
the sea through which the same waters
freely circulate. The divisions of Christendom
we may compare to the floating boom with
which the entrance to a harbour or bay is
defended. It prevents the passage of ships,
it hinders free communication upon the
surface, but the waters flow freely beneath,
and the continuity of the sea is unbi-oken.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
27
PABT II.
§ I-
I HAVE examined and set aside four in-
adequate theories of unity. I am not here
concerned with their proper falsity, but only
with their inadequacy as representing the
sense in which we actually profess our belief
in the one Church. They spring from a
simple misundeistanding of terms, or they
are inconsistent with certain principles of
belief and practice to which the English
Church firmly adheres.
It remains to show in what sense we really
are bound to use the words of the Creed. We
believe in one Church. That is to say, there
is, in the region of fact, but one Church,
(,'atholic and Apostolic, to which we our-
selves belong as members. We do not ex-
press an opinion that something ought to be
which is not ; nor yet a hope or aspiration
for the future. We speak of that wliich
exists, a part of the divine order. But oui-
belief is in apparent contradiction to facts ;
the language of the Creed conflicts with the
28 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
language of ordinary life. We habitually
speak of several Churches, some of them
sharply antagonistic. How, then, do we
believe in one Church ?
It may be as well to remove out of the way
at once a mere verbal quibble. No one Hnds
any difficulty in reconciling the Scriptural
language about the Churches of Asia or of
Judaea with the truth of the unity of the
Church. They are clearly but parts of a whole,
each one sharing the common name, or else
contributing to the whole in a collective sense
the title which is proper to each. Neither
is any doubt raised when we speak at the
present day of the (churches of France or
Spain. The}' are known to be held straitly
together in a highly centralized system. In
popular but very inaccurate language they
would be called parts of the Roman Church.
The difficulty begins when we find several
Churches holding no intercourse with each
other, or exchanging only frigid salutations,
more or less completely denying one another
communion. I do not speak of quarrels and
controversies. When Rome and Carthage,
Constantinople and Alexandria, were ex-
changing fierce denunciations over diver-
gences of belief or practice, we may see in
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
29
the very vehemence of the dispute, in the
ardour of mutual interference, a proof of un-
derlying unity. But when, as now, great
Churches treat each other with cool and even
polite indifference, the note of unity is less
easily found. Separation seems to be accepted
as normal. And if there would be a difficulty
even in the case of Churches geographically
separated, a still greater confusion arises
where the professed adherents of several
Churches are locally intermingled.
The difficulty is simplified for those who
persuade themselves that one only of these
severed parts of Christendom is the true
Church, and that all the rest are fallen away
from unity. It is simplified, but not solved,
for there remain questions about the nature
of member.ship in the Church and the con-
dition of the separated, which varieties of
practice have rendered singularly embarrass-
ing. With these, however, I have little or
nothing to do. We have not attempted such
a simplification of the problem. Neither the
public teaching of the English Church nor
the individual teaching of English theolo-
gians looks that way. We recognize the
severed parts of Christendom as being truly
parts of the one Church. Where, then, is the
30 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
unity ? What is the one Church in which
we believe ?
I have distinguished the public teaching
of the Church and the individual teaching
of theologians, and to this distinction it will
be convenient to adhere. The theologians
speak with authority only as interpreting the
teaching of the Church, and, conversely, if
the public teaching of the Church be obscure,
it is to the common interpretation of recog-
nized theologians that we must turn.
§2.
Controversy regarding the unity of the
Church can hardly be said to have existed
before the fourteenth century. There were
disputes whether certain persons or certain
dioceses were or were not severed from the
unity of the Church, but the dispute turned
upon the validity of some excommunication,
or upon details which could not be regarded
as belonging to the essential constitution of
the Church. Of the latter kind was the con-
troversy that raged in the early years of the
English Church about the Celtic usages. Men
fought for uniformity in details.not for essential
unity. But this trivial dispute was animated
by a growing idea that Rome was in some sense
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
31
the centre of unity, and that unity was to be
secured only by conformity to the practice of
the Roman Church. St. Wilfrid Avas indeed
a precursor of St. Boniface, that English
missionary who was the true leader of the
centralizing movement which laid the founda-
tions of the later Papacy. The idea can
hardly be said to have prevailed in the time
of Wilfrid, but it grew in strength from his
time onward. It was not however formulated :
it did not appear in the recognized definitions
of the Church. The definitions of earlier times,
of St. Cyprian, of Theodoret, of St. Gregory
the Great, were still considered adequate.
The Church was merely the AHsenihly of the
faithful. So it was defined by the Pope
Nicholas I ; so St. Thomas Aquinas defined
it ^ On the eve of the great schism, the
' St. Cypri.an, Ep. Ixvi. 8 : " lUi sunt ecclesia plebs sacer-
doti adunata et pastori suo grex adhaerens." Ixix. 5 ;
" Gregem nostrum significat conimixtione adim<atae multitu-
dinia copulatum."
Theodoret in Ep. ad Eplies. i. 23; fKKXrjaiav icaKii rov
avWoyov TUIV maruiv.
St. Greg. Mag. E.rp. mor. in Job, lib. xix. cap. 22: " Sancta
ipiippe Ecclesia sic consistit u&itate Fidcliuin sicut corpus
nostrum nnitutn est couipage meuibrorum."
Nic. I. in Deer, de L'oiisecratiune, dist. i. cap. \'iii :
" Kcclt'sia, id est, catliolicorum cougregatio."
The only place in the genuine writings of St. Thomas
32 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Franciscan Nicholas de Lyra loosely described
the Church as consisting of those in whom is
the knowledge and genuine confession of the
faith and the truth, without regard to eccle-
siastical power and dignity K
It was coming to be thought, however, that
communion with the Roman See was the test
of unity. The bull Unam Sanctam gave
coherence to the idea. When therefore the
Great Schism broke out on the election of
Urban VI in 1378, when for forty years there
were two men, and at times three, each
claiming to be the true occupant of the Holy
See, the nature of the unity of the Church
necessarily became matter of controversy. But
where I can find anything answering to a formal definition
of the Church is S- T. iii. qu. 8. art. 4, where he seems to
treat the phrase Congregatiojidelium as a sufficient definition.
The following, however, from his Commentary on the Epistle
to the Ephesians, has considerable interest : " Cum Ecclesia
Dei sit sicut civitas, est aliquod unum et distinctum. ... In
qualibet autem civitate ad hoc ut sit unum quattuor debent
esse comniunia ; scilicet uiius giibernator, una lex, eadem
insignia, et idem finis." On this he builds the unity of the
Church, "quae est una; primo, quia liabet diicem unum,
scilicet, Christum," &c. Comment, in EpJus. c. iv. lect. ii.
' De Lyra, in Matt. xvi. i8: "Ecclesia non consistit in
hominibus ratione potestatis vel dignitatis ecclesiasticae vel
saeculari.s, quia multi Principes et Summi Pontifices et alii
inferiores invent! sunt apogtatasse .a fide, propter quod
eccU'sia consistit in illis persouis in quibus est notitia vera
et confessio fidei et veritatis."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
33
the controversy was smothered. The fiercer
partisans of each Pope might claim that
with them alone was the one true Church.
Moderate men sought a practical solution. The
Western Church was reunited in the Council
of Constance by a practical expedient. Under
the direction of the Council, the cardinals nomi-
nated by three rival popes combined to elect
Martin V; visible unity was for a time restored,
but the question remained undetermined,
wherein the true unity of the Church consisted.
During all this period the English Church
was disturbed by the same difficulties, and
calmed by the same practical solution as the
rest of Western Christendom. It may be as
well, however, to note what was done in
England at the time when the difficulties
of the Schism reached their height. In 1416
there were three claimants to the Papacy.
The English Church recognized none of them.
Three sees were vacant, which in the ordinary
practice of the age could not be filled without
Bulls from Rome ; in this emergency the
Archbishop of C/anterbury, fortified by royal
support, filled the sees by his metropolitic
authority It is plain that Chichele recog-
nized the lawfulness, under proper circum-
' See the king's wriU in Kymer, ix. 337, 338.
0
34 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
stances, of independent provincial action,
without the authority of the Roman See. On
the election of Martin V, the English Church
returned without question to its former rela-
tions with the Papacy.
Thus the controversy of the Great Schism
was without result. The definitions of the
Church put forward even by Curialist theo-
logians were as wide and indeterminate as
before. The Cardinals de Cusa and de Turre-
cremata, the English Lyndwood, and others,
were content to define it as the Congregation
of the Faithfid, sometimes with a vague
attempt to identify the members, sometimes
with the significant addition that Christ is
the Head ^
§3-
Such was the state of theological opinion
when the storm of the Reformation broke
' Jo. de Turreciemata, Summa de Ecclesia, lib. i. cap. i,
thus defines the Church fecniidum rem: "Est enim catho-
liconim sive fidelium coUeclio." Just below, however, he
adds : " Sive Ecclesia est universitas fidelium qui uniug
veri Dei cultu, unius fidei professione oonveniunt."
Nic. Cusanus, de Concordantia Calholica, lib. i. cap. I :
" Ut per harinoniam quandaiu virtutura ac ministeriorum
corpus unum, ex omnibus rationatilis naturae spiritibus,
adhaereat capiti siio Christo."
For Ljndwood, see p. 12, note ; and compare the defini-
tions given below, pp. 43-46.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
35
upon the Western Church. Within a very
few years the partisans of Luther were called
upon to formulate a theory of the constitution
of the Church and its essential unity. They
took a new departure, and they had to justify
it. A little later the Swiss and the Genevese
were subject to the same necessity'. I have
no immediate concern with their theories ;
they affected the opinions of certain English-
men, but only as any treatment of an eagerly
debated subject was bound to do so. The
question which the English Church had to
face was different from that which pressed
upon the Protestants and the Swiss Reformers.
The English Church as a body put aside the
jurisdiction of the Roman See, as then usually
exercised. Here the question was not whether
individual Christians were cuttinij themselves
off from the unity of the Church, but whether
unity was destroyedby a rupture of the existing
relations between certain parts of the Church.
The question was not to be evaded. When
the English Church, at the instance of Henry
VI n, began to act independently of the
Papacy, the cry of broken unity was at once
raised. Reginald Pole wrote his Defence of the
Unify of the Church, an epistle to Henry,
which he soon afterwards published. Roundly
36 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
accusing the king of schism, he made his
meaning the clearer by founding his accu-
sation mainly on the title of Supreme Head.
The one head of the Church on earth, he said,
was the Roman Pontiff, and the unity of the
Church consisted in subordination to him ; to
set up another head was to make another
Church. Pole's language was rhetorical and
exaggerated as usual ; his later action at the
time of the reconciliation shows that it must
be read with some qualification ; he did not
clearly distinguish, as indeed theologians
had not yet learnt to distinguish between
the external oneness of the Church and its
internal unity ; but he raised a question, the
practical meaning of which was clear. He
was answered as clearly. Starkey and Tun-
stall replied that England was in no sense
departing from the unity of the Church. The
issue was definitely joined. From this time
forward the position of the English Church
was formally taken up, to be abandoned only
for a few years under pressure of circumstances.
But so far the position is only a negative one.
To remain in the unity of the Church it is
not necessary to submit to the jurisdiction
of the Roman Pontift'. What of the positive
teaching ?
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
37
§4.
I shall consider first the public teachiag of
the English Church. The pressure of con-
troversy and the turmoil of the reformation
movement made it necessary, in England as
elsewhere, to put out some definitions of the
truths that were most called in question.
The English Church did this, rather hurriedly
perhaps, in 1537, by publishing the book
entitled The Inditution of a Chridian Man.
Carefully revised, it was put forth again in
J 543 under the title of A Necessary Doctrine
and Erudition for any Christian Man, and,
though popularly known as The Kings Book,
it was issued with the full synodical authority
of the Church. In the exposition of the ninth
article of the Creed, the Church is defined as —
" An assembly of people called out from other,
as from infidels and heathens, to one faith
and confession of the name of Christ."
Of this Church Christ is the only Head, and
therefore it is Holy, by reason of His holiness.
It is also Catholic, " that is to say, not limited
to any one place or region of the world."
There are therefore several Churches in divers
parts of the world having distinct ministers,
and divers heads in earth." The unity of the
38 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Churcli is nevertheless intact. " Yet be all
these holy Churches but one holy Church
Catholic, invited and called by one God
the Father to enjoy the benefit of redemp-
tion wrought by one only Lord and Saviour
Jesu Christ, and governed by one Holy Spirit,
whicli teacheth to this foresaid holy Church
one truth of God's holy word in one faith and
baptism." It is then argued that the recog-
nition of one supreme governor in earth is
not necessary for preserving unity, and there
follows a passage on the true nature of unity,
which I must transcribe at length : —
" The unity therefore of the Church is not
conserved by the Bishop of Rome's authority
or doctrine : but the unity of the Catholic
Church which all Christian men in this article
do profess, is conserved and kept by the help
and assistance of the Holy Spirit of God, in
]-etaining and maintaining of such doctrine
and profession of Christian faith, and true
observance of the same, as is taught by the
Scripture and the doctrine apostolic. And
particular Churches ought not in the said
doctrine so accepted and allowed, to vary one
from another for any lucre, arrogance, or any
other worldly affection, but inviolably to
observe the same, so that by reason of that
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
39
doctrine each Church that teacheth the same
may be worthily called (as it is indeed) an
apostolic Church, that is to say, following such
teaching as the Apostles preached, with minis-
tration of such sacraments as be approved b}'
the same.
" And this unity of the holy Church of
Christ is not divided by distance of place nor
by diversity of traditions and ceremonies,
diversely observed in divers Churches, for
good order of the same. For the Churches of
Corinth and of Ephese were one Church in God,
though the one were far distant in place from
the other : and though also in traditions,
opinions, and policies there was some diversity
among them, likewise as the Church of England,
Spain, Italy, and Poole ^ be not separate from
the unity, but be one Church in God, notwith-
standing that among them there is great dis-
tance of place, divei'sity of traditions, not in all
things unity of opinions, alteration in rites,
ceremonies, and ordinances, or estimation of
the same, as one Church peradventure doth
esteem their rites, traditions, laws, ordinances,
and ceremonies to be of more vix'tue and efficacy
than another Church doth esteem the same.
As the Church of Rome doth affirm certain
' i.e. Polaud.
40 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
of their laws and ordinances to be of such
estimation that they be of equal force with the
word of God, and that whosoever disobeyeth
or transgresseth the same committeth de<adly
sin ; yet we, perceiving the same to be dis-
crepant from the truth of Scripture, must
needs therein dissent from them. But such
diversity in opinions, and other outward
manners and customs of policy, doth not dis-
solve and break the unity which is in one
God. one faith, one doctrine of Christ and
His sacraments, preserved and kept in these
several Churches without any superiority or
pre-eminence, that one Church by God s law
may or ought to challenge over another
This teaching on the Unity of the Church
became ingrained in English theology ; the
very words of the passage here cited find
a continual echo in later utterances. The
formal definition of the Church, however,
given above, was clearly inadequate, and was
soon improved. In 1552, at the time when
the influence of the Swiss Reformers was
working most disastrously in England, a new
definition was adopted, which, so far from
bearing the marks of that influence, difters
' The King^s Book. Reprint by Rrowniiig, 1S95. pp.
24-27.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
41
from the older one only in being more precise.
Forty-two Articles of Religion were then put
forth, under the pretended authority of Con-
vocation. The twentieth of these was iden-
tical with the nineteenth of the Thirtj'-nine
Articles finally adopted by the Synods of
1562. I have already quoted this, but I repeat
the text here for the sake of convenience : —
" Ecclesia Chiisti visibilis
est coetus fidelium, in quo
verbum Dei puruui praefli-
catur, et sacranienta, quoad
ea quae necessario exiguntur,
iuxta Christi institutum recte
adniinistrantur."
"The visible Church of
Christ is a congregation of
faithful men, in the which
tlie pure word of God is
preached, and the sacraments
be duly fliinistered according
to Christ's ordinance, in all
those things that of necessity
are requisite to the same."
In this definition there are seven points to
be noticed, (i) The Church here spoken of,
as I have shown above, is that one universal
Church which is rightly called Catholic.
(2) This universal Church, spread throughout
the world, is visible, and therefore, since it is
exhibited to sense or to the understanding as
one, it follows that the unity itself also miist
be visible. (3) It is a congregation, that is
to say, it consists of a number of individuals,
who are bound together in some special way.
(4) It is a congregation of faitliful men, that
42 THE UNITY OF THE CHUBCH AS TREATED
is of men who profess a cei-tain faith, and are
known thereby. (5) In this Church the pure
xvord of God is preached, or the sum of
revealed truth. (6) The sacraments also are
ministered in this Church ; and the sacra-
ments — to quote another of the Thirty-nine
Articles — are " not only badges or tokens of
Christian men's profession, but rather they be
certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of
grace ^" ; and among them Baptism is " a sign
of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by
an instrument, they that receive Baptism
rightly are grafted into the Church ^ " ; whence
it follows that the Church consists only of the
baptized. (7) Lastly, the sacraments must be
duly ministered, with all that is necessary for
carrying out the ordinance of Christ ; and
therefore any professing themselves Christians
who fall short of this requirement are so far
alien from the one Church. But, further, the
notion of ministering includes the idea of a
certain control, and therefore the ministers of
the sacraments must exercise some discipline ;
^ Art. XXV : " Sacramenta a Christo instituta non tantuni
sunt notae professionis Christianoruin, sed cei'ta quaedaiu
potius testimonia et efficacia sigua gratiae."
* Al t. xxvii : " Baptismua . . . est signuni regenerationis,
per quod, tanquam per instrumentum, recte Baptieiuum sua-
cipientes Ecclesiae iuseruntur."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS. 43
and since, according to these same Articles, it
is not lawful for any man to take upon him
the office of ministering the sacraments, before
he be lawfully called and sent to execute the
same ^, it follows that the true Church must
be established under the rule of lawful pastors.
§5-
I have thought it well to analyze the whole
of this definition, though it contains no actual
reference to the note of unity, because upon the
essential constitution of the Church depends
the nature of its unity. But in the definition
itself there is nothing peculiar, nothing to
mark the standpoint of English theology. It
corresponds closely to those that Avere current
in the fifteenth century and earlier ; con-
temporary theologians, even among those who
strenuously supported the claims of the Roman
Pontiff, were content with a similar form.
Fisher, indeed, in controversy with Oecolam-
padius, fell back upon the simplest definition^.
' Art. xxiii : " Non licet cuiquam sumere eibi muinis
publice praedicandi, aut iidiniiiistraiuli Bacrameuta in Eccle-
eia, nisi prius fiierit ad haec ubeunda legitime vountus et
misBua."
^ Fisher, Contra Oecolampadiuin, Praef. ad lib. iv. ail
Jiiiem : '• Quid est Ecclesia Catliolica, niai corpus unum ex
plebe patribusque coUectutn, ubicumque fuerint per orbeiii
aparsi ? "
44 THE UNITY OF THE C'HURCH AS TREATED
Albertus Pighius, face to face with the divisions
that were racking the Church, distinguished
the true part from the false merely as that
which kept the true faith and worshipped
the true God with true religion^. Michael
Bucchinger proposed three alternative defini-
tions of the Church, the longest and fullest
being as follows : "A congregation of faithful
men agreeing in one and the same doctrine of
the Gospel according to the consent of the
holy fathers, and in the same catholic and
lawful administration of the sacraments
Stapleton was among the most vigorous con-
' nierarchiae Eccledasticae Assertio, lib. i. cap. I : " Ut
evidens faciamus quaenam sit Christi Ecclesia, ab ipsa
nominis notione exordiendum est. Ecclesia itaque Latine
multitudinem, coetuni, aut conventuin significat. . . . Seil
quoniam et vera est et falsa de Deo fides, vera falsaque
religio, veri Dei falsornmque deorum cultus, hie statim in
duo e dianietro se secat Ecclesia, videlicet in Ecclesiani
sanctam, quae rectam de Deo fidem servat, vera religione
verum Deum colit et adorat, et ab eo salutem suam ex-
spectat; et in earn quae dicta omnia non habet sincera ac
recta, sed vel in omtiibiis vel in aliquo eorum aberrat."
^ Bucchinger, Hist. Eccl., Moguntiae, 1560, p. i. His
definitions are as follows : —
1. " Ecclesia Catholica niilitans est sanctorum communio,
sen congregatio, couiplectens tam bonos quam males.
2. Ecclesia est multitude vel coll«ctio fidelium fide et
caritate unita.
3. Ecclesia est congregatio fidelium consentientium in
unam ac eandem evangelii doctrinam, secundum conso-
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
45
troversialists on the papal side, yet his defini-
tion goes no further. "The word Ecdesia,"
he saj s, " means nothing else but the whole
multitude of the faithful scattered throughout
the world." Coming to close quarters with
the Calvinist opinion that the elect belong to
the Church even before Baptism, he requires
something more precise, and produces the fol-
lowing definition: "The Church is a society
of those that profess the name of Christ,
gathered and lawfully ordered in the unity
of the faith and sacraments." Elsewhere he
makes one of several modes of unity consist in
submission to the Roman see ^. Estius, when
nantiam sanctorum patruin et in eundein Catholicum ac
legitiinum sacrainentorum ritura."
It is noteworthy that Bncchinger, while qualifying the
universal Church as Jtomanu, formally treats the source of
its unity {Ecclesiae Vnitaa mule, p. 4) without any mention
of the Pope. He attributes it exclusively to the immediate
action of the Holy Ghost. " Sed unde Ecclesiae ea unitas, et
sibi per omnia secula consentiens ? Ex Spiritu unicae veri-
tatis uiiico. Spirituiii ilium Christus (imago Dei inconspicui)
suae Ecclesiae, non solum consolatorem, sed et rectorem, et
omnigenae veritatis doctorem promigit." Compare above,
p. 38.
* Stapleton, 7?e?ec<io t>cholastica,kc. Controv. I. <le Eec-le-
sia in xe. Qu. i, " Vox Ecclesiae nihil aliud quam universam
fidelium multitudinem toto orbe di.sper.sam significat." Qu. ii.
art. 3, " Ecclesia est iirmissime una per connexionein oumium
membrorum tam superiorum et pastorum ipsorum immediate,
46 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
expressly distinguishing between Calvinist and
Catholic definitions of the Church, states the
latter as follows : " The society of those who
are held together by a right faith and the
sacraments
At length the mention of the Roman
Pontiff began to creep into the definitions
of the Church. The Dominican Banes
propounded two definitions — one by which
all the baptized, orthodox and heretical alike,
were included in the Church ; another by
which it was "A visible congregation of faithful
men baptized under one head Christ in heaven,
and His Vicar on earth From the time of
Bellarmine the definition has always taken
this form in Curialist writers. It was however
a novelty, and was strongly opposed by many
quam alioruni onmiuin mediate, sub uno primario capite
Petri succe?sore et Cbristi Vicario." Qu. v. art. i, "Ecclesia
est societas Christi nomen profitentium in unitate fidei et
sacramentorum collecta atque legitime ordinata."
' Estius in Matt, xviii : " Controversia est inter Catholicos
et haereticos, quid nomine Ecclesiae intelligcndum sit.
.Joannes Hiis et eum secuti haeretici nostri teni ports de-
finiunt Eccles\Rm,Praedestin(iiorutn universitatem. Catholici
definiunt Societatem eorum qui per rectam Jidem et sacra-
menla sibi midtto cohaereiit."
Banes, Comment, in Sec. Sec. qu. i.art. 10: "Congregatio
honiinum fidelium baptizatorum visibilis sub uno capite
Christo in caelis, et Vicario eius 'tn terris." Ed. 1615, toni.
iii. p. 45.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
47
of the Gallican school. It is a very significant
fact that the definition adopted by the English
Church is practically identical with those put
forward by many supporters of the Papacy,
and employed by them for the express purpose
of combating Calvinism.
§6.
After some nineteen years of independence,
the Church of England submitted once more
to the Roman see. The reconciliation was
certainly carried out under pressure from the
Crown, but none the less it seems to have
been the genuine act of the Church. The very
men, such as Tunstall, Gardiner, and Bonner,
who had been foremost in advocating the
rupture of relations, were foremost also in
restoring them. They had seen the Church,
during the later years of Edward VI, rushing
headlong, as it seemed, into Zwinglianism
and other heresies. In a sort of despair they
turned to the Roman obedience as the only
sure defence of unity and orthodoxy. They
did not shrink from saying precisely what
they had formerly denied, that the English
Church had fallen from unity. In 1554 the
clergy of the Province of Canterbury in Con-
vocation addressed a petition to the bishops,
48 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
referring to their " godly forwardness ... in
the restitution of this noble Church of England
to her pristine state and unity of Christ's
Church, which now of late years hath been
grievously infected with heresies, perverse and
schismatical doctrine sown abroad in this
realm by evil preachers ^" The language is
guarded, and very different from that of Pole
in his Defence of Unity. While acknowledging
a certain lapse from unity, the clergy claimed
to be still members of the nohle Church of
England. It was not the essential unity
of the Church that was broken, otherwise they
could make no such claim ; it was some ex-
ternal, accidental unity. We can trace what
was in their mind. In the course of their
petition they call the English Prayer Book
a schisviatical book ^. In this they anticipate
the language used by Cole in the discussion
of 1 559, when he declared that the substitution
of an English for the Latin service »would
involve a breach of unity, a horrible schism
and division. His argument shows that he
meant nothing more than a serious divergence
in practice fi-om the rest of the Church ^ ; his
' Canlwell, Synodalia, p. 433.
- Ibid. p. 434.
' Cardwell, Cciiferences, p. 66.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
49
opponents answered him by asserting the right
of every particular Church to vary ceremonies,
arguing, with quotations from Irenaeus and
Augustine, that such variation does not involve
any breach of peace and unity ^ The schism
complained of in 1554 was of this nature. It
meant a needless and therefore a mischievous
variation from the general practice of Christen-
dom. In 1555, when the reconciliation with
Rome was effected, and the English Church
was fairly in the grip of the Legate, we find
a closer approximation to Curialist language.
Bonner, in his declaration to the people of
London concerning the reconciliation, spoke of
" this noble realm of England dividinsr itself
from the unity of the Catholic Church, and
from the agreement in religion with all other
Christian realms 2." Pole, in the first decree
of his Legatine Council, used similar but
even more emphatic words''. The English
Church, during the Marian j-eaction, un-
doubtedly looked to the Roman see as the
centre of unity; but this was probably in
regard not so much to the essential unity of
' Cardwell, Conferences', pp. 79-82.
' Cardwell, 'Documentary Annals, vol. i. p. 170.
' Ibid. p. 176: " Hoc regnum, quod a corpore catholicae
Ecclesiae Beparatum erat, iam Dei misericordia ad eins uni-
tateiu rediit."
•D
50 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the Cliurcb as to the practical maintenance
of unity and concord in Christendom.
§7-
I have already shown, when speaking of
the Branch Theory, that in the thirtieth
canon of the Code of 1604 the English Church
definitely repudiated the idea of having
separated essentially from the other local
Churches of the West^ There were great
and serious differences, but these were not
to be taken as involving a breach of unit}'.
In the same Code there is included a con-
stitution which is often put forward as indi-
cating that in this unity were to be included,
on equal terms, the organizations created in
various countries by the Protestant or Cal-
vinist reformers. The fifty-fifth Canon requires
all preachers to bid prayer in a form beginning
as follows : Ye shall pray for Christ's holy
Catholick Church, that is, for the whole
congregation of Christian people dispersed
throughout the whole world, and especially
for the Churches of England, Scotland, and
Ireland." But, we are told, the Church of
Scotland at this period was a Calvinist bod}',
organized on a Presbyterian basis. Therefore,
* Above, p. 25.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
according to this Canon, such bodies were to
be regarded as forming regular parts of the
Catholic Church. The argument is a striking
instance of the transfer to other times of ideas
proper to our own time. We are familiar with
the long-established, permanent settlement of
Presbyterianism. We readily forget that in
the early seventeenth century there was no
such thing. In Scotland the Church had been
harried by Calvinism, precisely as the Puritans
had endeavoured to harry the Church of
England under Elizabeth. The whole eccle-
siastical order had been thrown into confusion ;
the bishops were all departed, and their places
were filled, if at all, by mere titular holders of
the temporalities. But the Church of Scotland
had not, therefore, ceased to exist. However
disorganized, it was none the less rightly to be
aided, alike by prayer and by more active
benevolence. The same Fathers of the English
Church who bade prayer for the Church of
Scotland took order also, at the earliest oppor-
tunity, for supplying the Church of Scotland
with what she lacked. In 16 lo the titular
Scottish bishops received consecration in
England, and were charged with the restora-
tion of the ruined discipline of their Church.
Nor is it only by this subsequent action that
52 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
we may determine the regard in which the
Church of Scotland was held when robbed of
her hierarchy. A later session of the same Con-
vocation supplies a further doctrinal witness.
In 1606 the Provincial Synods of Canter-
bury and York adopted a most elaborate
declaration concerning the government of the
Church. It was divided into three books
and sixty chapters, the doctrine of each
chapter being for the most part digested into
a eanon. Owing to the opposition of the
king these canons were not promulged, but
many years afterwards they were published,
with their chapters, under the misleading
title of OveralVs Convocation Book. The fifth
canon of the second book contains the fol-
lowing condemnation : —
If any man shall affirm, under colour of
anything that is in the Scriptures, either that
our Saviour Christ tvas not the head of tJie
Church from the beginning of it ; or, that all
the particular churches in the world are
otherwise to he termed one Church, than as He
Himself is the head of it^, and as all the
' It would be stretching the sense of the canon too far
to make it mean that this is the only mode or ground of unity.
It is treating e.r professo of tlie f/overnmeid of the Church,
and deals with only that one element of unity. Compare the
quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas given above, p. 32.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
53
particular kingdoms in the world are called
but one kingdom, as He is the only king and
monarch of if; or, that our Saviour Christ hcdh
not appointed under Him several ecclesiastical
governors to rule and direct the said particu-
lar churches, as He hath appointed several kings
and sovereign princes to ride and govern their
i^everal kingdoms ;' . . . he doth greatly err.
The unity of the Church is here made
precisely parallel to the unity of human
society. It depends upon the One Head, from
whom inferior rulers immediately derive their
authority. Unity is at once organic and
hierarchical. Human society is an organic
unity, of which Chri.st is the Head, and all
princes and magistrates are His vicegerents,
ruling by His authority. The Church is also
organic unity, gathered out of all mankind,
of which Christ is again the one Head, and the
bishops throughout the world are His vicars.
In the chapter prefixed to this canon it is ex-
pressly taught that Christ Himself immediately
upon the Fall of Man, " not only began the
erection of that one Church, selected people,
and society of believers, which ever since hath
been, and so shall continue His blessed Spouse
for ever ; but also took upon Him thenceforth
and for ever to be the sole' monarch and hca<l
54 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
of it, ruling and governing the same visibly
by such priests and ministers under Him,
as in His heavenly wisdom He thought fit
to appoint " ; and that, when the fullness of
time was come, He also " did, by the direc-
tion of the Holy Ghost and ministry of His
Apostles, ordain in the New Testament that
there should be in every national Church
some ministers of an inferior degree to instruct
His people in every particular parochial
church or congregation ; and over them
bishops of a superior degree, to have a care
and inspection over many such parochial
churches or congregations, for the better
ordering as well of the ministei's as of the
people within the limits of their jurisdiction;
and lastly, above them all, archbishops, and
in some especial places patriarchs, who were
first themselves, with the advice of some
other bishops, and when kings and sovereign
princes became Christians, then with their
especial aid and assistance, to oversee and
direct, for the better peace and government
of every such national Churches, all the bishops
and the rest of the particular Churches therein
established ^"
' Overall's CoHVOcadon Book, pp. 124, 128, edit. Oxford,
1844.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
55
We may see here some crude and doubtful
history. Wfe may be amazed at the confidence
with which Divine authority is claimed for
the formal organization of National Churches.
But the very exaggeration of the language
serves to emphasize the doctrine thus publicly
taught, that one only Church was established
by Christ Himself, an organic whole and unity,
of which the several National or Provincial
Churches are only administrative divisions.
With this I conclude my survey of the
public teaching of the English Church.
§8.
How does the existing state of Christendom
answer to this teaching ? What sort of unity
can we recognize in the Church, so divided as
we see it ? Where is the one Church in Avhich
we believe? The synodical teaching which
we have reviewed takes little count of exist-
ing divisions. Indeed, in the sixteenth century
those divisions had not the appearance of
permanence which they now have. Men
were confronted, as they thought, with a pass-
ing difficulty ; patience would find a solution.
The continuance of division has compelled
theologians to face, and gradually to answer,
questions which the public teaching of the
56 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Church passes by. It is useless to define the
one Church in terms which point to nothing
now visible on earth, which may correspond
to the experience of some golden age in the
past, or to something which the providence
of God has in store for the future, but which
has no relation to existing facts. What is
the unity of the Church now, and how is it
to be recognized ? Does it exist ? Is it per-
fect or impaired? What is needed for its
perfection ?
W^e must turn to the writings of theolo-
gians. What have we learnt during the last
three centuries? We ma}'^ expect to find
a growincr consciousness of difficulties, and if
the matter is not inscrutable, then also
a growing clearness of definition. I shall
refer to some few writers only, choosing those
who enjoy the highest reputation, and who
are most characteristic of their several periods.
§ 9-
Cardinal Pole, as we have seen above, at-
tacked Henry VIII for breaking the unity of
the Church. He made it perfectly clear what
he meant. In the Apologia ad Angliae Par-
liamentum, prefixed to his work on Unity,
he insists that for the presei-vation of unity
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
57
there must be one Chief Pastor of the Church
Militant, even as there is one only Head of
the Church Triumphant, and this Chief Pastor
is the Roman Pontiff ^ His whole argument
turns on the assumption by the king of the
title of Supreme Head on earth of the Church
of England, the attainment of which title he
recklessly takes to be the chief object of
Henry's breach with the papacy^. An attack
delivered in this vein was not a difficult one
to answer. It was easy to show that the
title adopted by the king made no inroad
upon the unity of the Church, but merely
indicated a certain legal relation between the
prince and that part of the one Church which
was locally established in his dominions.
Such, in fact, was the tenor of the replies
actually made. Before publishing his book
' " Quoil ;ul unitatuin Ecclesiae attiiiet, ut sit umis Faster
in Ecclesia inilitaiiti nd exemplar triuiiiphantis, quain per-
sonam J'uiUifex Romanus gtrit." I'uli Epist. Pars. i.
p. 187.
' " Ut cniin te Hupremiim caput Ecclesiae in regno tiio
conHtitueres, negasti unum in univerta Ecclesia caput esse,"
I'ro Uiiilale, fol. 3 a. edit. Argentorati, 1555. A little
above he speiika of the overthrow of the papal jurisdiction
as the greatest injury that could he done to the Church :
" Dico igitur, dico hanc ahs te iniuriam Kccleniac inferri,
ijua haud Bcio an major potuerit, (|uod suuui illi caput in
terris aufers, cum I'oiilificem Uonuiii'im unicuni iu terris
Ecclesiae caput et Christi Yicarium no^as."
58 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Pole sent a copy of it to the king, who placed
it in the hands of Tunstali for examination.
Tunstall replied in a long letter to Pole,
answering his chief objections, and earnestly
dissuading him from publication. I am con-
cerned here, not so much with the intrinsic
value of the bishop's argument, as with his
presentment of the English case. He em-
phatically denies the breach of unity, and
shrewdly points out that Pole himself makes
no attempt to prove it, but assumes it
throughout.
" Your purpose," writes Tunstall, "is to bring
the king's grace, by penance, home unto the
Church again, as a man clearly separate from
the same already. And his recess from the
(yhurch ye prove not otherwise than by the fame
and common opinion of those parts ; who be
far from the knowledge of the truth of our
affairs here, and do conjecture every man as
they list (blindly) of things unknown to
them.
" Ye presuppose, for a ground, the king's
grace to be swerved from the unity of
Christ's Church ; and that in taking upon
him the title of Supreme Head of the Church of
England, he intendeth to separate his Church
of England from the unity of the whole body of
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
59
Christendom. . . . His full pui-pose and intent
is, to see the laws of Almighty God purely and
sincerely practised and taught, and Christ's
faith without blot kept and observed in his
realm ; and not to separate himself or his
realm anywise from the unity of Christ's
Catholic Church, but inviolably, at all times,
to keep and observe the same, and to reduce
his Church of England out of all captivity of
foreign powers heretofore usurped therein, into
the pristine state that all Churches of all realms
were in at the beginning \"
Tunstall states the English position clearly
enough. " We believe,'' he says in effect, "in
the one Church, and in the unity of that
Church we abide." But he does not, any more
than Pole, prove his case by argument. It
was the same with Henry's other apologists.
Sampson accumulated precedents for the
king's action from Scripture, from the acts
of the councils, from ecclesiastical history.
The inference was that if such action in the
past had not broken the unity of the Church,
neither did the king's action now. But with
the fundamental (juestion as to the true nature
of ecclesiastical unity every one fenced. The
' TunBtall to Pole; Burnet, Becurds, Piirt III. book iii.
no. 52 (^Pocock's edition, vol. vi. p. 177 seqci.).
6o THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS ^TREATED
controvei'sies of the Great Schism were not
yet forgotten, and he was a bold man who
would venture on a definition. Pole indeed
had the advantage here. He did not venture
on defining the unity of the Church as con-
sisting essentially in subordination to the
Roman Pontiff, but he was certainl}'' feeling
his way to this, and, as we have seen, within
a few years this definition began to appear in
books, and was finally adopted by all the
theologians of the Roman schools. This idea
•was behind Pole's argument and gave it a
certain coherence. His adversaries apparently
had no clear idea with which to encounter it.
The same weakness appears in the defenders
of the English Church for some time after-
wards. They stoutly repel the charge of
schism ; but they do not explain the nature
of the unity which they defend. Jewel, in
his famous Apologia, has a noble passage on
the one Church in which we believe, not
confined like that of the Old Testament to the
circumscription of a single nation, but spread
throughout the world, in the sense that no
part of the human race is excluded ; but when
he has to speak of the actual state of things
he becomes at once hazy and irrelevant.
He distinguishes vaguely between separating
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
6l
from a part of the Church and separating
from its en-ors and faults, without an}^ at-
tempt to determine the nature of the union
which remains ; he builds upon our unity
with the whole of the Church in its best age ;
he has nothing to say about the corporate or
organic unity of the Church that now is.
§ lo.
These were arguments of hard-pressed con-
troversialists. Controversy was not .to be
silent for many years to come, but our next
author is one who had the extraordinary merit
of placing even trivial disputes upon a broad
and philosophic foundation. Hooker, brought
up under Calvinistic influences, freed himself
gradually from them as he became the cham-
pion of the Church against the Puritans. In
earlier days he could still speak of the invisible
Church in the sense of Calvin, "that body
mystical whereof Christ is the only head, that
building undiscernible by mortal eyes, wherein
Chi'ist is the chief corner-stone," and contrast
with it "the visible Church, the foundation
whereof is the doctrine of the prophets and
Apostles profest'." In his mature work he
' Sermon II. § 23. This sermon was preached in tlie firBt
year of Hooker's MaBtership of tlie Temple, 1585 6. See
the note ta Kebleu edition- of the Workg, vol. iii. p. 483.
62 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
maintains with a wealth of argument the
essential unity of the visible Church, no less
than of the invisible. I will quote him at
some length : —
" When we read of any duty which the
Church of God is bound unto, the Church
whom this doth concern is a sensibly known
company. And this visible Chuich in like sort
is but one, continued from the first beginning
of the world to the last end. Which company
being' divided into two moieties, the one
before, the other since the coming of Christ ;
that part, which since the coming of Christ
partly hath embraced and partly shall here-
after embrace the Christian religion, we term
as by a more proper name the Church of
Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth
plainly of all men Christian, that be they
Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, they are all
incorporated into one company, they all make
but one body. The unity of which visible
body and Church of Christ consisteth in that
uniformity which all several persons thereunto
belonging have, by reason of that one Lord
whose servants they all profess themselves,
that one Faith which they all acknowledge,
that one Baptism wherewith they arc all
initiated. The visible Church of Jesus Christ
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
63
is therefore one, in outward profession of
those things, which supernaturally appertain
to the very essence of Christianity, and are
necessarily required in every particular Chris-
tian man/'
A little below he adds : " Although we know
the Christian faith and allow of it, yet in this
respect we are but entering ; entered we are
not into the visible Church before our admit-
tance by the door of Baptism." He seems
to allow no mark of membership in the one
Church but that of one Lord, one Faith, one
Baptism. " For apparent it is, that all men
are of necessity either Christians or not
Christians. If by external profession they be
Christians, then are they of the visible Church
of Christ ; and Christians by external pro-
fession they are all, whose mark of recog-
nizance hath in it those things which we have
mentioned." He argues that even heretics
are in some sort, though a maimed part, yet
a part of the visible Church." Their baptism
is allowed, and the honour of martyrdom is
not denied them. They are .separated " not
altogether from the company of believers, but
from the fellowship of sound believers. For
where professed unbelief is, there can be no
visible Church of Christ; there may be, where
64 THE UNITY OP THE CHURCH AS TREATED
sound belief wanteth." Even the act of ex-
communication, he says, " neither shutteth out
from tlie mystical, nor clean from the visible,
but only from fellowship with the visible in
holy duties
It is clear that he here recognizes in the
Church a soi't of organic unity which is of
God, and is altogether independent of the wills
and the human actions of the individual
members of the Church. He then passes on
to a different aspect of unity. " For preserva-
tion of Christianity there is not anything
more needful, than that such as are of the
visible Church have mutual fellowship and
society one with another." Here follows that
passage, already quoted, in which particular
Churches are compared to branches of the sea ;
and the visible unity of all these is further
founded on the common possession of certain
marks or properties. " As therefore they that
are of the mystical body of Christ have those
inward graces and virtues, whereby they differ
from all others, which are not of the same
body ; again, whosoever appertain to the
visible body of the Church, they have also
the notes of eternal profession, whereby the
world knoweth what they are : after the same
' Eccl. Pol. bk. iii. ch. i. §§ 3, 6, 7, 11, 13.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
65
manner even the several societies of Christian
men, unto every of which the name of a Churc h
is given with addition betokening severalty,
as the Church of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus,
England, and so the rest, must be endued with
correspondent general properties belonging
unto them as they are public Christian societies.
And of such properties common unto all
societies Christian, it may not be denied that
one of the very chiefest is Ecclesiastical
PoUty \"
By this expression he means the general
order and government of the Church as ap-
pointed by God -. Thus he makes the visible
unity of the Church depend of necessity on
the maintenance of lawful authority. On the
constitution of this lawful authority he is not
very explicit. The scope of his work did not
demand this. Great as are its positive merits,
Hooker's work on the Lcnvs of Ecdemistiml
Polity is primarily a defence of the Church
of England against the Puritans. These main-
tained that no form of Church government is
lawful or tolerable save what is explicitly set
forth in Holy Scripture, and further, that all
the teaching of Scripture on this point had
' Keel. Vol. bk. iii. ch. i. § 14.
' Il.id. ch. ii. §• I.
E
66 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
been precisely ascertained and put in practice
by the Calvinists of Geneva. The Genevan
settlement was therefore the only tolerable
form of Church order, and those bodies only
which conformed to it were any part of the
true visible Church of Christ. Against this
contention Hooker had not to prove that any
other form of government was essential ; in
doing so he would have fallen into the argu-
mentative blunder of attempting to prove too
much. It was sufficient for his purpose to
show that all the particulars of ecclesiastical
polity are not explicitly contained in Holy
Scripture ; many features, which are no less
truly of God. may be derived from other
sources. He had to defend the Catholic
discipline received and established in the
Church of England. It was not necessary,
even if he had thought it right, to attack the
Genevan discipline as actually unlawful.
It must not however be supposed that
Hooker allowed unlimited freedom in this
matter to particular Churches. In that case
the unity of discipline would disappear.
" Dissimilitude in great things," he says, " is
such a thing which draweth great inconveni-
ence after it, a thing which Christian religion
must always carefully prevent. And the way
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
67
to prevent it is, not as some do imagine,
the yielding up of supreme power over all
Churches into one only pastor's hands ; but
the framing of their government, especially for
matter of substance, everywhere according to
the rule of one only Law, to stand in no less
force than the law of nations doth, to be
received in all kingdoms, all sovereign rulers
to be sworn no otherwise unto it than some
are to maintain the liberties, laws, and re-
ceived customs of the country where they
reign. This shall cause uniformity even
under several dominions, without those woe-
ful inconveniences whereunto the state of
Christendom was subject heretofore, through
the tyranny and oppression of that one uni-
versal Nimrod who alone did all. And, till
the Christian world be driven to enter into the
peaceable and true consultation about some
such kind of general law concerning those
things of weight and moment wherein now
we differ, if one Church hath not the same
order whicli another hath ; let every Churcli
keep as near as may be the order it should
have, and commend the just defence thereof
unto God'."
In Hooker, then, we find the elements of
' Eccl. Pol. bk. viii. ch. iii. § 5.
E 2
68 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the Church's unity broadly sketched, but not
worked out in detail. Beginning with unity
in the worship of one Lord, the unity of one
Faith professed by all in common, and the
sacramental unity of one Baptism, he pro-
ceeds to the unity of government by which
the Christian society is held together. He
may seem, however, to have recognized in
the one Faith only those ti'uths, the denial
of which would fasten upon a man the name,
not so much of heretic, but rather of apostate
or infidel. So too, while asserting a necessary
unity of government, he does not treat the
form of such government as specifically deter-
mined by the divine law ; he rather suggests
that particular Churches, if they adhere to
certain general principles, may vary it in
details even of some importance.
§ II.
Hooker holds an unique position in modern
English theology, a position due partly to his
philosophic breadth of mind, partly to those
very circumstances which induced a certain
incompleteness in his work. His special task
was to turn the tide of Calvinism which
threatened to overwhelm the Church. He did
not, however, stand alone ; there were others
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
69
about him to fill up the gaps of his teaching.
Already, four years before his great work
appeared, Bancroft had preached the famous
sermon on the Trying of Spirits, in which he
asserted the episcopal government of the
Church to be of divine right. Almost simul-
taneously with the Laivs of Ecdesiadiccd
Polity appeared the kindred work of Bilson
on The Perpetual Government of Christ's
Church, in which the same principle was
strenuously maintained. But beyond all ^is
contemporaries Hooker made an impress on
English wa3'S of thinking which has never
been effaced. His temper in controversy, no
doubt, had much to do with this. He was
recognized from the first as the "Judicious."
He sot the form of thinking, even where he
failed to supply the matter ; the forces of the
Church were marshalled against Calvinism,
and the issues were clearly joined.
Hooker died with the sixteenth century.
During the forty years that followed, the
fruits of his work were ripened. I shall
make only one brief citation from a writer
who sums up, more perfectly perhaps than
any other, the teaching of the time. Ham-
mond, the chaplain of Charles I, was amoug
the most faithful and devoted disciples of
70 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the Laudian school. At the great crisis of
the Church of England, in the year 1644, he
published his Practical Catechism, in which
we read as follows : —
" The word ' catholic ' signifies ' universal,'
dispersed or extended all the world over ; in
opposition to the former state of the Jewish
(.'hurch, which was an inclosure divided from
all the world beside, in time of the law ;
whereas now the gospel is preached to all the
world, and, by those powers of the Holy
Ghost forementioned, a Church with all those
ministrations in it is constituted over all the
world. This Church is a society of believers,
ruled and continued according to those ordi-
nances, with the use of the Sacraments, preach-
ing of the word, censures, &c., under bishops or
pastors, succeeding those on whom the Holy
Ghost came down, and (by receiving ordi-
nation of those that had that power befox-e
them, i. e. of the bishops of the (Jhurch, the
continued successors of the Apostles) lawfully
called to those offices." So far in theoiy.
Then he asks, " What is the practical part
of this belief?" To this he answers: "The
living peaceably, cliaritably, faithfully, and
obediently within the fold of the universal
Church, yielding all reverence to the decrees
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
71
and doctrines of it ; and in every particular
or national Church, ' obeying them that have
the rule over us,' labouring to preserve both
unity of faith and charity with all our fellovp-
brethren, both in that and all other particular
Churches ; and not breaking into factions,
parties, divisions, subdivisions ; but labouring
our utmost to approve ourselves holy mem-
bers of that holy Catholic Church, by unity,
charity, brotheily love, ensuing and contending
for peace, and all other branches of Christian
purity ^"
It is clear that Hammond regarded the
essential unity of the Church as founded
mainly in uniformity of government and the
common use of the sacraments. Unity of
faith, as of mutual charity, he seems to place
rather among the objects of the Christian life,
to be earnestly desued and carefully sought,
than among those properties by which the
one Church may be discerned. This way of
thinking was common to most Eno-lish theo-
logians of the time. They insisted much upon
the corporate organization of the (Jhurch i
careful attention to the form of public worship,
strict observance of canonical order, would
' Hammond,' Pm(7. Cut. lib. v. sect. iv. pp. 329, 330,
ad. 1847.
;2 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
have the effect of bringing men to a right
DO D
faith as well ; they hardly regarded the possi-
bility of any Church retaining the apostolic
discipline and yet losing the faith. Recog-
nizing no rule in the Church but that of the
bishops, the successors of the Apostles, they
judged all men who were duly subject to
their own bishop in their own particular
Church to be fully established in the uni-
versal Church as well ; the bishops of the
several Churches throughout the world were,
potentially at least, united in one supreme
senate ruhng the whole Church of Christ.
The perfect realization of tliis idea], at least
in England and the associated kingdoms, was
the aim of Laud and his followers. The
religious unity of the nation, based on strict
ecclesiastical uniformity, was first to be
secured. The aid of the secular arm was
freely invoked ; it was the duty of the
Christian prince to secure this unity within
his dominions. When this was done, the
three national Churches of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland, bound together with inti-
mate communion, were to exhibit to the
world a pattern of wider unity, and the
divisions of Christendom were to be healed
by the universal apphcation of the same
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
73
principle. In the meanwhile, if practice was
to be uniform, opinion was to be free. The
great verities of the Christian faith must
not be impugned ; iierce and heated contro-
vers}' ought, perhaps, to be stifled ; but there
must be no undue forcing of thought — above
all, no proscription of opinion ; men must
agree to differ, and, differing, to live together
in unity. The ecclesiastical rigour of Laud
was crossed by a remarkable breadth in the
matter of doctrine.
This was the weakness of his school. Too
little account was taken of the passion with
which men, orthodox or heretical, will press
their beliefs. Too little importance was
attributed to the right faith which alone can
bind men together in the supernatural society
of the Church. The uprising of Calvinism,
no less against the Laudian toleration than
against the Laudian strictness, proved this in
part. The lamentable state into which the
English Church was at once reduced proved
it for the rest. The objective notion of the
(Jhurch which had seemed adequate in pros-
perity was found wanting in the day of ruin.
Theologians could not abide by it. They no
longer had before their eyes a great and
splendid house in which there was visibly
74 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
room for vessels not only of gold and silver
but also of wood and earth, some to honour,
some to dishonour. They could no longer
dream of a vphole nation bound in one sacred
society under the rulers of the Church. The
house was fallen ; they saw the nation
miserably deceived and divided, the bishops
murdered, imprisoned, hiding, or driven to
exile. Triumphant sectaries were trampling
all ecclesiastical order under foot ; the
Calvinist discipline was in part established,
in part made way for mere anarchy ; no
vestige of orthodox rule or worship was even
tolerated. Where was now that National
Church which proclaimed itself an integral
part of the Universal Church, and as such
demanded the allegiance of all Christian men
within the nation 1 In what fashion did the
Church of England still exist? Was it in
exile, with the scattered bishops here and
there exercising their pastoral function with
doubtful right beyond their own borders ?
Was it in hiding at home, where some few
priests, amid the general defection, ministered
as they could in timorous and scanty gather-
ings of the faithful ? How did the actual
state of the Church stand with the theory 'i
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
75
§ 12-
The pressure of this question had a remark-
able effect on English theologians. They
were not cowed by their misfortunes ; on the
contrary, in the time of worst oppression,
they were roused to extraordinary efforts.
Some of the greatest works of English
theology belong to this period ; and in these
writings there is a tone, not of bitterness,
such as persecution often engenders, but of
breadth and sympathy beyond what is found
in the previous age. There is a firm con-
viction that the Church of England will be
raised up again from her misery, and at the
same, time, a wider outlook over the whole
Catholic Church, their membership in which
men prized the more in proportion as their
own particular Church was forlorn. Bramhall,
pursued by the dominant faction with a hatred
second only to that which fell upon Laud, was
derided as " the advocate of a dead Church."
It was dead, he replied, " even as the trees
are dead in winter, when they want their
leaves ; or as the sun is set, when it is behind
a cloud ; or as the gold is destroyed, when it
is melting in the furnace. When I see a seed
cast into the ground, I do not ask where is
70 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the greenness of the leaves 1 where- is the
beauty of the flowers ? where is the sweetness
of the fruit ? but I expect all these in their
due season. Stay awhile, and behold the
catastrophe. The rain is fallen, the wind
hath blown, and the floods have beaten upon
their Church ; but it is not fallen, for it is
founded upon a rock. The light is under
a bushel, but it is not extinguished. And
if God in justice should think fit to remove
our candlestick, yet the Church of England
is not dead, whilst the Catholic Church
survives
It was in 1654, when the fortunes of the
Church of England were at their lowest ebb,
that Bramhall published his Jud Vindica-
tion'^. An opponent might well sneer at him
as the champion of a dead Church. It seemed
superfluous to defend the Church of England
against the charge of schism, when the Church
of England no longer existed ; when, as her
enemies might say, she had received her
deserts, when sentence and execution had gone
forth against her. But for Bramhall she lived
' Ueplicadon to the Bishop of Ckalcedon. M'orks, vol. ii.
p. 95. Oxford, 1842.
' A Just Vin licafion of the Church of England from the
unjml aspersion of Criminal Schism. Works, vol. i. p. 84.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
77
and claimed his allegiance. In rebutting the
charge of schism he had occasion to define
the unity which to rend were criminal ; and
therefore we shall find in this treatise some-
thing to our purpose.
He goes far beyond the conception of the
numerical unity of the Church, or of the local
unity by which the Christians of any place
are gathered into one society. The Church
is to be united as well as one. " Schism is an
exterior breach, or a solution of continuity,
in the body ecclesiastic." According to the
several modes of union there are sevei'al forms
of schism. " Consider," he says, " by what
nerves and ligaments the body of the Church
is united and knit together, and by so many
manner of ruptures it may be schismatically
rent or divided asunder." He then passes
without comment from the term unity to
the term communion, which he uses in the
same sense ; and he distinguishes the commu-
nion of the Catholic Church as partly internal,
partly external.
" The internal communion consists prin-
cipally in these things : to believe the same
entire substance of saving necessary truth
revealed by the Apostles, and to be ready im-
plicitly in the preparation of the mind to
78 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
embrace all other supernatural verities when
they shall be sufficiently proposed to them ;
to judge charitably one of another ; to ex-
clude none from the Catholic communion
and hope of salvation, either eastern, or
western, or southern, or northern Christians,
which profess the ancient faith of the Apostles
and primitive Fathers, established in the first
general Councils, and comprehended in the
Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds ; to
rejoice at their well-doing ; to sorrow for their
sins ; to condole with them in their sufferings ;
to pray for their constant perseverance in the
true Christian Faith, for their reduction from
all their respective errors, and their re-union
to the Church in case they be divided from
it, that we may be all one sheepfold under
that One Great ' Shepherd and Bishop of our
Souls' ; and lastly, to hold an actual external
communion with them 'in votis' — in our
desires, and to endeavour it by all those
means which are in our power. This internal
comnmnion is of absolute necessity among all
Catholics.
" External communion consists, first, in the
same Creeds or Symbols or Confessions of Faith,
which are the ancient badges or cognizances
of Christianity ; secondly, in the participation
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
79
of the same sacraments ; thirdly, in the same
external worship, and frequent use of the
same Divine Offices or Liturgies or forms of
serving God ; fourthly, in the use of the same
public rites and ceremonies ; fifthly, in giving
communicatory letters from one Church or
one person to another ; and, lastly, in ad-
mission of the same discipline, and subjection
to the same supreme ecclesiastical authority,
that is, Episcopacy, or a general Council : for
as single Bishops are the Heads of particular
Churches, so Episcopacy, that is, a general
Council, or Oecumenical assembly of Bishops,
is the Head of the universal Church'."
This external communion is not, says Bram-
hall, of the like necessity with the internal.
It may obviously be suspended by the just
censures of the Church. "And as external
communion may be suspended, so likewise it
may sometimes be waived or withdrawn by
particular Churches or persons from their
neighbour Churches or Christians in their
innovations and errors." And further the
most complete external communion does not
imply uniformity in all opinions, even upon
matters of the gravest moment. " The Roman
and African Churches held good communion
■ Works, vol. i. pp. 103, 104.
8o THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
one with another, whilst they diffei-ed both in
judgement and practice about rebaptization
We must follow him as he comes to the
pith of his special controversy. " If any par-
ticular Patriarch, Prelate, Church, or Churches,
how eminent soever, shall endeavour to ob-
trude their own singularities upon others for
Catholic verities, or shall enjoin sinful duties
to their subjects, or shall violate the un-
doubted privileges of their inferiors contrary
to the canons of the Fathers ; it is very lawful
for their own subjects to disobey them, and
for strangers to separate from them. And if
either the one or the other have been drawn
to partake of their errors upon pretence of
obedience or of Catholic communion, they
may without the guilt of schism, nay they
ought, to reform themselves, so as it be done
by lawful authority, upon good grounds, with
due moderation, without excess, or the viola-
tion of charity ; and so as the separation from
them be not total, but only in their errors
and innovations ; nor perpetual, but only
during their distempers : — as a man might
leave his father's or his brother's house, beinor
infected with the plague, with a purpose to
return thither again so soon as it was cleansed.
' Works, vol. i. pp. 104, 106.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
8t
This is no more than what Gerson hath taught
us in sundry places : ' It is lawful by the law
of nature to resist the injury and violence of
a Pope ^ ; ' and, ' if any one should convert
his Papal dignity to be an instrument of
wickedness to the destruction of any part of
the Church in temporalities or spiritualities,
and if there appears no other remedy but
by withdi'awing oneself from the obedience of
such a raging power, . . . until the Church
or a Council shall provide otherwise ; it is
lawful 2.' He adds further, that ' it is lawful
to slight his sentences,' yea, ' to tear them in
pieces, and thi'ow them at his head
" Bellarmine in effect saith as much : — ' As
it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he should
invade our bodies ; so it is lawful to resist
him invading of souls, or troubling the com-
monwealth ; and much more if he should
endeavour to destroy the Church ; I say it is
lawful to resist him by not doing that which
he commands and bv hindering him from
' Rerjulae Morales, tit. De rraecept. Decalog. [BramhaU'H
reference : the Oxford Ed. addn ; Op. 1*. ii. fol. 131. Paris,
1521.]
' Lib. (h Auferibilitate Pupae, Consider. 14 [Op. P. i.
fol- 35-1
' De Unit. Ecclm., Consider. 10. [Op. P. i. fol. 38.
" PoHsuiit occurrere cebuh, ip quibus . . . liceret, &c."]
F
82 THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH AS TREATED
putting his will in execution ^' We ask no
more. The Pope invaded our souls by enact-
ing new oaths and obtruding new articles
of Faith ; he troubled the commonwealth with
his extortions and usurpations ; he destroyed
the Church by his provisions, reservations,
exemptions, &c. We did not judge him, or
punish him, or depose him, or exercise any
jurisdiction over him ; but only defended our-
selves by guarding his blows and repelling
his injuries^."
A careful reader will note a certain omission
in Bramhall's argument. Both the internal
and the external communion of which he
speaks are alike elements of a moral, not of
a natural unity. They are alike to be upheld
as a matter of duty, the former in all cases,
the latter where possible. We do not here
touch the essential unity of the Church — its
unity as an organism. Bi-amhall transcends,
as I have said, the idea of numerical unity ;
does he ignore if? Numerical oneness is
a necessary element in the full present-
ment of the Chui'ch's Unity. We believe in
Oiie Church. The unity of which we have
heard Bramhall speaking might be the unity
' De llomun. Poniif. lib. ii. c. 29. [Op. torn. i. p. 820, A..]
" Brauihall, Woilg, vol. i. pp. 106, 107.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
^3
of essentially separate bodies, united in some
sort by a complicated system of communi-
cation.
It is impossible to suppose that such was
Bramhall's idea. There is abundant evidence
to the contrary both elsewhere and close at
hand. The Catholic Church, he says, is fo-
tuvi homogeneum, and for this reason only
" every particular Church and every particular
person of this Catholic communion doth
participate of the same name inclusively, so
as to be justly called Catholic Churches and
Catholic Christians He had occasion after-
wards to justify what seemed to be the
particularism of his Vindication. " No man
can justly blame me," he says, " for honouring
my spiritual mother the Church of England ;
in whose womb I was conceived, at whose
breasts I was nourished, and in whose bosom
I hope to die. ... If I have had any bias, it
hath been desire of peace, which our common
Saviour left as a legacy to His Church ; that
I might live to see the re-union of Cbristen-
dom, for which I shall always bow the ' knees
of my heart ' to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. . . . Howsoever it be, I submit myself
and my poor endeavours, first, to the judge-
' Bramlittll, Wwkn, vol. i. ji. 109.
K 2
84 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
ment of the Catholic Oecumenical essential
Church ; which if some of late days have
endeavoured to hiss out of the schools as
a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning-
it was not so. And if I should mistake the
right Catholic Church out of human frailty
or ignorance ... I do implicitly and in the
preparation of my mind submit myself to the
true Catholic Church, the spouse of Christ,
the mother of the Saints, the pillar of truth.
And seeing my adherence is firmer to the
infallible rule of Faith, that is, the Holy
Scriptures interpreted by the Catholic Church,
than to mine own private judgement or
opinions ; although I should unwittingly fall
into an error, yet this cordial submission is an
implicit retractation thereof, and I am confident
will be so accepted by the Father of Mercies,
both from me and all others who seriously and
sincerely do seek after peace and truth. Like-
wise I submit myself to the representative
Church, that is, a free general Council, or so
general as can be procured ; and until then,
to the Church of England, wherein I was
baptized, or to a national English Synod : to
the determination of all which, and each of
them respectively, according to the distinct
degrees of their authority, I yield a conformity
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
85
and compliance, or at the least, and to the
lowest of them, an acquiescence ^"
Bramhall then by no means lost sight of
the essential unity of the Church, but the
conduct of his argument put that thought
in the background. The stress of the times,
the miserable overthrow into which her pre-
carious, if splendid, isolation seemed to have
brought the Church of England, the obvious
difficulty of resisting heresy with the forces
of a divided Church, led him to insist on the
paramount need of a moral unity. His argu-
ment might have been sounder had he based
the need more clearly upon the essential unity,
of which moral unity is the right manifestation.
Hooker, going always to the root of the matter,
in like circumstanceswould probably have done
so ; but Bramhall, if a better theologian, was
a worse philosopher^ and therefore his con-
clusions have not that air of absolute finality
which, in spite of all omissions, characterizes
the work of Hooker.
He was not alone in this limitation. The
circumstances of the time pressed moral con-
siderations to the front. Thorndike also stood
on this ground. " I maintain," he said, '• that
the Church, by divine institution, is in point
' Wwkti, vol. ii. pp. 21-2.
86 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
of right one visible body, consisting in the
communion of all Christians, in the offices of
God's service ; and ought, by human adminis-
tration, in point of fact to be the same."
Unity is here regarded purely as a matter
of right. Yet the One Church has a voice,
a judgement, in fact as well as in right.
" Owning, therefore," he adds, " my obligation
to the whole Church — notwithstanding my
obligation to the Church of England — I have
prescribed the consent thereof, for a boundary
to all interpretation of Scripture, all reforma-
tion in the Chui'ch ^"
It is the almost inevitable fault of con-
troversial treatment to be thus incomplete.
Attention is concentrated on the actually
disputed point. The numerical unity of the
Church was not at this time challenged, unless
by the more extreme Independents. All were
agreed as to the oneness of the true Church ;
its boundaries and marks were in dispute.
In controversial writings this numerical unity
is taken for granted. It is only in the positive
teaching of a trained theologian, covering the
whole field, that we should expect to see it
formally treated, and laid square and firm as
the foundation of moral unity. We have this
' Thorndike, Works, vol. ii. pj'. 6 and 7. O.xford, 1845.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
87
positive teaching in the work of Pearson on
the Creed.
§ 13-
Through the worst years of the Calvinist
oppression Pearson continued to lecture at
St. Clement's, Eastcheap, where he delivered
those discourses which he afterwards published
as An Exposition of the Creed. The very
conditions of the time, and the caution which
they imposed, were favourable to the positive
treatment of the subject. Pearson dealt with
the broad, solid foundations of Christian faith
and practice ; so far as he treated the contro-
versies of the time at all^ it was by establishing
the underlying principles on which they
turned. For this reason his work never
grows old ; it remains, like that of Hooker,
an imperishable possession of the English
Church. It is even more solid and homo-
geneous, for the greater and more luminous
passages of Hooker are imbedded in a mass
of forgotten controversy, trivial and tiresome,
while Pearson's arijumcnt deals throughout
with fundamental verities.
Expounding the ninth article of the Apostles'
Creed, The holy Calholick Church; the Com-
raunion of Saints; although there is here no
88 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TKEATED
express mention of the note of unity, he
nevertheless treats it with great fullness ^. The
Chui'ch is One ; and the existence of this
Church is a fact. " For when I say, I believe
in the Holy Cathollclc Church,! mean that there
is a Church which is Holy, and which is
Catholick." He beo-ins with the origin of the
Christian Church, when the Apostles gathered
into their fellowship " the multitude of them
that believed, who trere of one heart and one
souiy Thus he establishes the definition of
the Church from the beginning. But he
then observes that the oneness of the Apostolic
Church at Jerusalem differs in a way from
the oneness of the Church in which we believe ;
for " that Church, which was one by way of
origination, was afterwards divided into many,
the actual members of that one becoming the
members of several Churches," whereas the
Church in which we believe is " one by way
of complexion, receiving the members of all
Churches into it." So in the language of the
^ He note^ in the margin that it was expressed in Bonie
of the most ancient forms of the Creed. Cyril of Jerusalem
has it, ets" n'tav aylav Ka9o\iic^v (KKKrjcrlav. Alexander of
Alexandria gives an emphatic form in his Confession ; /jtiav
Hal ixuvTjv KaOoKtKfjv t^v anoOToXiK^v (KKKijaiav. Theoiloret.
Hint. 1. 2. c. 4. It is of course contained in our Niceut
Creed.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
89
New Testamefit the word Church has a double
use. " Sometimes it admitteth of distinction
and plurality; sometimes it reduceth all
into conjunction and unity. Sometimes the
Churches of God are diversified as many ;
sometimes, as many as they are, they are all
comprehended in one."
It will be observed that Pearson treats the
many Churches of the New Testament as
divisions of the One Church founded in
Jerusalem. He goes on to show that these
divisions are pure!}- local, and establishes
the unity of each local Church within itself.
" When the Scripture speaketh of any country
where the Gospel had been preached, it
nameth always by way of plurality the Churches
of that country as the Churches of Judaea,
of Samaria, and Galilee, the Churches of
Syria and of Cilicia, the Churches of Galatia,
the Churches of Asia, the Churches of Mace-
donia^. But notwithstanding there were
' Gal. i. 22 ; Acts ix. 31 ; 1 Cor. xvi. i, 19 ; Rev. i. 1 1 :
I Thess. ii. 14 ; 2 Cor. viii. i.
' It is obvious that on tliiii principle it wouKl be iiiore
accurate to .S|)eak of the Churches of Eiifjlund tlian of tin-
Church of Ktiglanil. I'earson would probably Iiave replieii
that by ancient custom and by le;,'al conhtiliition the vai ious
CluircheH of Englaiul are bound toj,'ether in a special unity of
tlieir own.
90 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
several such Churches or Conffreorations of
believers in great and populous cities, yet
the Scriptures always speak of such Con-
gregations in the notion of one Church. As
when St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Let
your women keep silence in the Churches;
yet the dedication of his Epistle is, Urdo the
Chvrch of God ichich is at Corinth. So we
read not of the Churches, but the Church at
Jerusalem, the Church at Antioch,the Church
at Caesarea, the Church at Ephesus, the Church
of the Thessalonians, the Church of Laodicea,
the Church of Smyrna, the Church of Per-
gamus, the Church of Thyatira, the Church of
Sardis, the Church of Philadelphia^. From
whence it appeareth that a collection of
several Congregations, every one of which is
in some sense a Church, and may be called so,
is properly one Church by virtue of the sub-
ordination of them all in one government
under one ruler. For thus in those great and
populous cities where Christians were very
numerous, not only all the several Churches
within the cities, but those also in the adjacent
parts, were united under the care and in-
spection of one Bishop, and therefore was
' Acts viii. I ; xiii. i ; xviii. 22 ; xx. 17 ; i Thess. i. I ;
Col. iv. 16 ; Rev. ii. and iii.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
91
accounted one Church ; the number of the
Churches following the number ot" the Angels,
that is, the rulers of them, as is evident in
the Revelation."
This was. of course, urged against the English
Presbyterians and Independents ; but with
Pearson it was much more than a controver-
sial point. He was going to the foundation
of the idea of unity. He has proceeded from
the unity of the original Church at Jerusalem
to the multiplicity of Churches throughout
the world ; he has ascertained the principle
of internal unity in each of these ; he now
returns to establish by this same principle
the essential unity of the whole Catholic
Church.
" Now as several Churches are reduced to
the denomination of one Church, in relation
to the single governor of those many Churches,
80 all the Churches of all cities and all
nations in the world may be reduced to the
same single denomination in relation to one
supreme governor of them all, and tliat one
governor is Chrid the Bishop of our souls
Wherefore the Apostle, speaking of that in
which all Churches do agree, comprehendeth
them all under the same appellation of oik!
' Compare the Canon of 1606, above, p. 5J, and note.
92 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Church ; and therefore often by the name of
Church are understood all Christians what-
soever belonging to any of the Churches
dispersed through the distant and divided
parts of the world. For the single persons
possessing faith in Christ are members of
the particular Churches in which they live,
and all those particular Churches are members
of the general and universal Church which
is one hy unity of aggregation ; and this is
the Church in the Creed which we believe,
and which is in other Creeds expressly termed
One — / believe in one Holy Gatholick C/iurch."
Aggregation, in itself, might be the gather-
ing of essentially separate bodies, but Pearson
has guarded against this misunderstanding
by showing that the various Churches, which
are thus aggregated, are themselves but local
divisions of the Church originally founded
in unity. And further they are aggregated,
not by any action of their own, but by virtue
of their proper relation to the one Head,
which is Christ. This at once shows that
something more than numerical unity is in-
tended ; but so far nothing more is expressed,
and thus Pearson grounds all which follows
upon that numerical unity. The unity of
the Church of which he now proceeds to speak
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
93
is the expression of the natural and essential
oneness of the Church. He does not ex-
pressly note this distinction, but it is inherent
in his argument. " It will be further neces-
sary," he says, " for the understanding of the
nature of the Church which is thus one, to
consider in what that unity doth consist."
It is not then a mere aggi-egation. He turns
back to the one Church as constituted in the
beginning, and asks in what respect it was
one. "We may collect," he says, "from their
union and agreement how all other Churches
are united and agree." And what do we find
there. " They were described to be believing
and baptized persons, converted to the faith
by St. Peter, continuing steadfastly in the
Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and prayers. These then
were all built upon the same Rock, all pro-
fessed the same faith, all received the same
sacraments, all performed the same devotions,
and thereby were all reputed members of the
same Church."
Starting from this he proceeds to enumerate
six modes of the unity of the Church con-
sidered in itself. This limitation is important,
and rather obscure. He means a unity " be-
side that of the Head, v/hich is one Christ,
94 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
and the life communicated from that Head,
which is one Spirit." This latter we may
perhaps distinguish, with other authors, as
the invisible unity of the Church. By the
unity of the Church, considered in itself,
Pearson means a kind of social unity, which
is, at least in some measure, visible. The
sis modes of this unity are as follows : —
I. In the first place the Church is one in
respect of Origin. There is but one Founda-
tion, which is Christ, and in so far* as the
Apostles are called the foundation, yet they
are united by the one Corner-stone. Upon
this foundation " was the fii-st Church built,
and whosoever have been, or ever shall be
convei^ted to the true Christian faith, are
and shall be added to that Church, and laid
upon the same foundation, which is the
unity of origination. Our Saviour gave the
same power to all the Apostles, which was
to found the Church ; but He gave that
power to Peter, to show the unity of the same
Church 1."
' He quotes in the margin the well-known passage of
St. Cj-prian, de Vniiate, c. 4 : "Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus
post resurreclionein suain parem potestateni tribuat, et dicat,
iSicut mitii me Pater, et ego mitto vo", &c., tamen ut unitateui
iiianifestarct, unit;itis eiusdem originem ab uno incipienteiii
Kua auctoritalc dispusuic. Hoc crant utique et ceteri Apostoli,
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
95
2. In the second place he puts the Unity of
Faith. " The Church is therefore one, though
the members be many, because they all agree
in one faith. . . . They which believe the same
doctrine delivered by Christ to all the
Apostles, delivered by all the Apostles to
believers, being all professors of the same
faith must be members of the same Church."
3. Next he advances the Unity of the
Sacraments. " Many persons and Churches,
howsoever distinguished by time or place,
are considered as one Church, because they
acknowledge and receive the same sacraments,
the signs and badges of the people of God. . . .
All believing persons, and all Churches con-
gregated in the Name of Christ, washed in
the same Laver of Regeneration, eating of the
same Bread, and drinking of the same Cup,
are united in the same cognizance, and so
known to be the same Church."
4. Thence he passes to the Unity of Hope.
" Whosoever belongcth to any Church is some
quod fuit Petrug, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potest-
tatis, sed exordium ab uiiitato proficiscitur, ut Ecclesia una
uionstrctur." TIiIh he interprets: "For whereas all the rest
of the ApoHtles hud tcnial power anil honour with St. Peter,
yet CliriMt did pa? ticularly give that power to St. Peter, to
bhow the unity of the Clitirch which he intended to build
upon the foundation of the ApontleB "
96 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
way called ; and all which are so, are called
i II one hope of their calling^'
5. Then follows naturally the Unity of
Charity, which Pearson finds not so much in
outward acts of mutual kindness, as in a
certain inward and spiritual bond of common
life. " They which are all of one mind, what-
soever the number of their persons be, are
in reference to that mind but one ; as all
the members, howsoever different, yet being
animated by one soul, become one body."
6. Lastly, the Church is one in the Unity
of Discipline and Government, " by virtue
whereof the same Christ ruleth in them all.
For they have all the same pastoral guides
appointed, authorized, sanctified, and set
apart by the appointment of God, by the
direction of the Spirit, to direct and lead
the people of God in the same way of eternal
salvation : as therefore there is no Church
where there is no order, no ministry ; so
where the same order and ministry is, there
is the same Church.'" Here he inevitably
quotes in the margin the two well-known
passages from St. Cyprian, Episcopatus uvua
est, cuius a singulis in solidum pars tenetur ;
and Cum sit a Christo una Ecclesiaper totum
riiundum in multa membra divisa, item
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
97
Episcopatus unus Episcoporum multomm
concordi numerositate diffusus ^. These quo-
tations fill up what would otherwise be a gap in
the text, and identify the order and ministry
which are essential to the unity of the Church.
Such is the unity which Pearson finds in
the Catholic Church. Nor is it only in
theory that he regards the Church as thus
one ; as an object of faith it is really existent.
" For when I profess and say, / believe a
Church, it is not only an acknowledgment
of a Church which hath been, or of a Church
which shall be, but also of that which is."
This Church is indefectible, not so much by
virtue of its own nature, as by reason of the
promise of God ; and this promise relates not
to each several part of the Church, but to the
whole. A particular Church may fail and its
candlestick be removed. " But though the
providence of God doth suffer many particular
Churches to cease, yet the promise of the same
God will never permit that all of them at once
shall perish."
§ 14-
If we critically examine this teaching of
Pearson, we shall see that he is speaking
throughout of the essential unity of the
' Cyprian, de Uuitiile, c. 5 ; Kyist. Iv. 24.
Q
98 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Church. He is dealing with it, to use his
own language, as an Object of Faith. It has
therefore an objective reality. But neither
is this a purely invisible reality ; for it is not
so much the actual existence of the one
Church which is propounded as the object
of faith, but rather its perpetual existence to
the end of time, according to the promise
of God. The unity of the Church is a visible
reahty, an object of human knowledge, which
is seen by faith to be indefectible. Pearson,
expounding the objective realities of the Creed,
is not concerned with the moral unity of the
Church — the unity which depends on human
agency conforming to the purpose of God.
We shall understand this the better if we
bring into comparison what he says about
the Holiness of the Church. This is not a
holiness which ought to be, and may be, which
is to be striven for and attained ; nor yet are
there two Churches, " one, in which good and
bad are mingled together, another in which
there are good alone " ; but " the Church of God
is universally holy in respect of all, by institu-
tions and administrations of sanctity." In like
manner the unity of which he speaks is not a
unity that we are to strive after and to pray for.
It is the essential unity in which the Churcli is
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
99
constituted by the Word of God. And this
is not a mere abstract numerical unity. The
Church is not only one ; she is also united. She
is held together hy bonds, partly visible, as
her origin, the sacraments, and the Episcopate ;
partly invisible — the bonds of faith, and
hope, and charity. It will follow, though the
inference was beside the scope of Pearson's
work, that just as the practical holiness of
the Church, however imperfect, is the ex-
pression of her essential and inherent holiness,
so also the moral unity of the Church is the
expression more or less perfect, more or less
visible, of her indefectible essential unity.
§ 15-
So Pearson taught in the days of oppression.
He may be said to have definitely fixed the
colour of English theology on this subject.
There are questions which he did not touch,
practical ditticulties with which he did not
concern himself, but for the solution of all
these it has been found necessary only to
apply the principles laid down by Pearson.
At the time when he wrote, the actual
circumstances of England were in flagrant con-
flict with his theory. But the anarchy was
nearly at an end. Within a few months,
a 2
lOO THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
with dramatic suddenness, the restoration of
order in Church and State was complete.
Rarely has there been such a simple renewal
of broken institutions. The surviving bishops
resumed the administration of their dioceses ;
the vacancies were filled at once ; the disorder
of twenty j-ears was treated as a mere episode.
What rendered this possible was the fact that
a clear and definite foundation of theory had
been laid. The confusion of thought con-
sequent upon the breaking up of mediaeval
ideas in the crisis of the Reformation had
now passed away. The conception of the
Church as an organic body realizing its life
in local, provincial, or national organizations,
which in the minds of the Laudian school had
been too closely identified with the mere
accidents of the English political system, was
now purified by the failure of those accidents.
It was not indeed shaken altogether free from
them on their revival, but it was at least
separable from them. Indeed the ecclesi-
astical system was revived more whole and
entire than the civil ; and its independence
was thus more clearly discerned. During
the latter part of the seventeenth century the
English Church enjoyed a freedom of activity
such as had never, perhaps, been known before.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
lOI
The bishops then set to work vigorously to
realize the ideal of the Church as now con-
ceived, and statesmen, from whatever motive,
were ranged at their side. The local unity
of the Church within the borders of the
nation was to be firmly established. Uni-
formity of practice was not only enforced, as
never before, on the actual ministers of the
Church, but any separate activity was rigidly
suppressed. The new dissent, which sprang
from the repression of the older nonconformity,
was prosecuted with inquisitoi'ial zeal. Nor
was this care for orthodoxy narrowly confined
to a mere nationalism. A new episcopate
was forced on the reluctant Calvinism of
Scotland, to bring that nation also into the
unity of the Church. Towards the Calvinists
of France and the Netherlands the attitude
of many English divines was perplexing and
inconsequent. Political ties and the danger
of a common enemy had formerly associated
them closely with England ; they had been
commonly acknowledged as forming sub-
stantially a part of the Catholic Church,
though denuded of much that was essential
to the true order of the Church. The stress
of the conflict with Calvinism at home, and
the more definite insi.steuce on the notes of
102 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the true Church which followed, made this
attitude all but impossible. Political sym-
pathy also was broken by the rivaby and
the growing strength of Holland. Rome
and Geneva were now alike enemies ^, and
foreign Calvinism became as distasteful as the
home-bred dissent. There was, however, this
difference. The Calvinists of France were
regarded as having some good grounds for
withdrawing from the communion of bishops
who allowed most of the errors of the Roman %
See ; the English Calvinists were supposed
to have no defence at all for rebellion against
their bishops. We have to read with this
caution the emphatic assertion of the rights
of the Episcopate by English theologians of
the period.
Their attitude towards the Roman Church,
on the other hand, was perfectly simple and
consistent, though their language varied con-
siderably in intensity. The Roman Church
and all the Churches subject to the Papacy
were regarded as indisputably parts of the
' See Beveridge's Oratio Cuiioiiica in his Tlie.Kiunis
Theologicm, vol. ii. p. 340, ed. Oxford, 1816 : " Faxit ut
Ecclesiiv nostra, vel potius sua, niagis magisque indies stabi-
liatur, floreatque. Faxit, ut nec Koniae, nec Genevae, neo
ipsae inferorum purtae adversus earn unquam praevaleant."
This sermon was preached in one of the years 1679-80-81.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
Catholic Church ^. Yet there was little desire
for closer union, or even for any intimate
relations with them. They seemed to be full
of corruption, doctrinal and practical. Above
all, the claims of the Roman See barred
the way, and the profound conviction that the
Roman Court was bent on making good
those claims by force awakened a frenzy
of antagonism. Popery became the night-
mare of the English people, and the gravest
divines were not free from a certain obsession
with regard to it. The period of the Popish
Plot, of the Exclusion Bill, and of the in-
trigues which gathered about the person of
James IT, was not one for a fair and profitable
' We must except tliose who use the word Catholic as
implying perfect orthodoxy. Beveridge, in the sermon just
quoted, delivered amid the excitement of the Popish Plot, to
which he makes an acrid allusion, fiercely denies the C'at/io-
licily of the Roman Cliurch {Thesaurus Thcologicus, vol. ii.
P- 335)' "At vero Romana ista Ecclesia, in cuius fidem
raoresque Pontificii omnes iurati sunt, tot nova dogmata
adinvenit, totque novos ritua Ecclesiae universali vel reiectos
vel incognitos nuperinstituit,hodiequeimperat,utvixEccl'giae
Christianae, nisi forsitan corruptissimae, neduiii Catholicae
nonien mereatur. Nihil enim cumC'atliolica, nihil cum omnibus
aliis Ecclesiis commune haliet, scd omnia potius di versa et con-
traria, praeter ea in <iuibiis cum Anglicana conaentit." Yet
even liere, with his vlx Eccle.iiae ('hrutimiae he grudgingly
allows the »Hl)stanti.T.l itichnion of the Roman Church in tlie
universal Church of Christ;
I04 THE rXITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
discussion of the Roman controversy. Yet
Barrow was able to treat it with candour
and with some approach to courtesy. The
interest taken by English divines in the
conflict about the Galilean liberties led to a
clearer distinction between the Papacy and the
Churches subject to it. This cuhninated in
the well-known attempt of Wake to detach the
French Church bodily from the Papacy and to
brincy it into line with the Church of England.
The attempt failed through causes operating
on both sides, but it is of lasting interest as
the only step seriously undertaken, befoi'e the
apathy of the eighteenth century was com-
plete, towards the realization of that concep-
tion of a united Church which occupied the
minds of English theologians. Accepting the
national organization of Christendom as an
accomplished fact, standing to the order of
the Church much as the provincial organiza-
tion of the Roman Empii-e stood in the fourth
century, they would draw the national
Churches together, not as separate bodies
politic joined in a federal union, but as already
parts of an existing but disorganized unity.
The Papacy they regarded asachief cause of the
prevailing confusion. The Churches of Chris-
tendom must break with the Papacy before
BY EKGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
they could become effectively united. United
in reality they were, though not in effect.
The note originally struck by Tunstall was
maintained. The English Church was not
sepai'ated from Catholic unity, nor was any
Church that might follow her example. On
the contrary, this was the only way to perfect
unity. Every national Church must be
reduced "out of all captivity of foreign powers
heretofore usurped therein, into the pristine
state that all Churches of all realms were in at
the beginning Then only could the original
unity of the Church be completely restored.
§ 16.
To those who regard the Papacy as the
divinely appointed instrument of unity, or
even to those who think of it as the best
practical guardian of unity, this will seem the
wildest paradox. I am not here concerned to
criticize or to defend it ; 1 merely propound it
as the characteristic opinion of English theo-
logians from the seventeenth century onward.
The half-century following the Restoration
was for the English Church a period of extra-
ordinary learning and literary activity. Out
of the mass of material available I shall make
' Above, J). 59.
I06 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
a small number of typical citations. We
naturally turn first to Barrow, as the author
of a formal treatise on the Unity of the
Church. He shows his sense of the im-
portance of his theme by prefixing to it as
a motto the saying of St. Augustine : Non
habet caritatem Dei, qui ecclesiae non d 'digit
unitatem^. He allows, in almost the same
terms as Hooker the distinction between
" the true universal Church, called the Church
mystical and invisible," and "the visible
Church Catholic here on earth." The former is
" the catholic society of true believers and faith-
ful servants of Christ, diffused through all ages,
dispersed through all countries, whereof part
doth sojourn on earth, part doth reside in
heaven, part is not yet extant ; but all
whereof is described in the register of divine
preordination, and shall be re-collected at
the resurrection of the just." This is abso-
lutely and indefectibly united. The latter is
" the society of those who at present or in
course of time profess the faith end gospel
of Christ, and undertake the evangelical
covenant." This latter "doth enfold the
other, as one mass doth contain the good
ore and base alloy ; as one floor the corn
' Aug. (le llapt. 3. ' See above, p. 61.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
and the chaff; as one field the wheat and
the tares ; as one net the choice fish and
the refuse ; as one fold the sheep and the
goats ; as one tree the living and the dry
branches." The visible Church must there-
fore correspond to the " true universal,"' and
the same attributes are " by analogy and
participation" assigned to it. This, there-
fore, is also united, and " the question is.
Wherein the unity of it doth consist, or
upon what grounds it is called one ; being
that it compriseth in itself so many persons,
societies, and nations^ ?"
The question thus put he answers by dis-
tinguishing eight grounds of unity.
1. The Church is one by consent in faith
and opinion concerning all principal matters
of doctrine. All who desert this one faith
are to be esteemed ipbo facto cut off and
separated. But, on the other hand, there
are points of less moment, more obscurely
delivered, in which Christians may dissent,
about which they may dispute, in which
they may err, without breach of unity ^.
2. All Christians are united by the bands
' Barrow, Works, vol. iii. pp. 204, 205, edit. Nelson, 1846.
' Ibid. pp. 206, 207. I quote for the most part verbally,
but, for convenience of compreiuion, without marks of quo-
tation.
Io8 THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH AS TREATED
of mutual charity and good-will. Any one,
therefore, who highly offends against charity,
separates himself from the body of Christ ;
and since the causing of dissensions and
factions in the Church is the most notorious
violation of charity, the authors of causeless
separations or of unjust condemnations of
any Church are to be rejected as schismatic.
3. All Christians are united by spiritual
cognation and alliance ; as being all regene-
rated by the same incorruptible seed, being
alike born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ;
whence as the sons of God, and brethren of
Christ, they become brethren one to another.
4. The whole Christian Church is one by
its incorporation into the mystical body of
Christ, making up one spiritual corporation
or republic, whereof Christ is the sovereign
Lord. A habit of disobedience, therefore,
severs a man from this body.
5. All Christians are linked together in
peaceable concord and confederacy. In par-
ticular they are bound to assist one another
in the common defence of truth, piety, and
peace, in the propagation of the faith, and
enlargement of the Church
' Barrow, Works, vol. iii. pp. 208, 209.
EY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
109
6. The Church is held together by a common
discipline exercised by lawful pastors, who
ought therefore to maintain intercourse and
concurrence to preserve truth and charity.
No Church should admit to communion those
who are excommunicated by another, or who
are schismatically divided from it.
7. All Christian Churches are also one by
a specifical unity of discipline, resembling
one another in ecclesiastical administrations,
which are regulated by the indispensable
sanctions and institutions of their Sovereign.
They are all bound to use the same sacraments
according to our Lord's appointment, with-
out any substantial alteration, and to uphold
the order and ministry which God appointed.
In lesser matters of ceremony or discipline,
instituted by human prudence, Churches may
differ ; but no power can abrogate the main
form of discipline constituted by divine ap-
pointment. It is a fundamental rule that
but one bishop should be in one Church ;
and no new priesthood can be ordained.
8. Lastly, it is expedient that all Churches
should conform to each other in great matters
of prudential discipline, although not insti-
tuted or prescri])ed by God ' .
' B.'in-ow, Works, vol. iii. pp. 211, 212.
no THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
It is clear that Barrow has in view that
moral unity which is to be attained by sub-
mission to the will of God. The essential
unity or numerical oneness of the Church is
postulated — the unity of the field, the floor,
or the draw-net. What is to be sought is the
effective unity of those who are contained as
members in the one Church ; and these are
the grounds to go upon. Having set them
out he approaches the further question :
" Whether the Church is also necessarily, by
the design and appointment of God, to be in
way of external policy under one singular
government or jurisdiction of any kind ; so
as a kingdom or commonwealth are united
under the command of one monarch or one
senate ? " He draws a negative answer from
the silence of Scripture, from the practice of
the Apostles, from the teaching of the Fathers,
and from the fact that Churches not thus
united have yet been recognized as Christian
and Catholic. He argues it more particularly
in a stern arraignment of the Papacy, which in
claiming such singular jurisdiction has done
not good but injury to the Church ^.
It is to be noted that, according to Barrow,
the Church is no more to be ruled by a senate
' Barrow, Works, vol. iii. pp. 212-319.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
Ill
than by a monarch. The conciliar theory of
the fifteenth century was no less foreign than
the Papal theory to the essential constitution
of the Church. Indeed he makes short work
with it. General councils, he says, " are ex-
traordinary, arbitrary, prudential means of
restoring truth, peace, order, disciphue ; but
from them nothing can be gathered concerning
the continual ordinary state of the Church.
For during a long time the Church wanted
them ; and afterwards had them but rarely ;
'for the first three hundred years,' saith
Bellarmine, ' there was no general assembly ;
afterwards scarce one in a hundred years "
The unity of the Church, therefore, is not
effected by general councils, and cannot be
dependent thereon.
In pressing this argument, however, he
uses an illustration which has to be read with
caution: "General councils are wholesome
expedients to clear truth and heal breaches ;
but the holding of them is no more an argu-
ment of political unity in the Church, than
the Treaty of Munster was a sign of all
Europe being under one civil government."
But the Treaty of Munster was an agreement
' " Primis trecentis annis nulla fiiit coiiffre^^atio gcneralis ;
postea vero vix ceiite»iuio anno." De Hum. Pont. i. 8.
112 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
between independent sovereign states ; and
if Barrow's illustration is pressed too far it
will commit him to the opinion that the
several Churches of Christendom are in like
manner separate and sovereign — an opinion
clean contrary to the whole body of his
treatise. We must, therefore, either pass
this as an imperfect illustration, or we may
suppose that Barrow was deeply impressed
with the fundamental unity of the European
system, which in the seventeenth century took
the place of the older ideal of Christendom
and the Empire. In that case he might see in
a treaty agreed to by all the European Powers
a close analogy to the decrees of an oecume-
nical council. But the main point is that
general councils are not for the ordinary
government of the Church ; they are for
exceptional emergencies. " In the opinion
of St. Athanasius," he says, "there was no
reasonable cause for synods, except in case of
new heresies springing up, which may be con-
futed b}' the joint consent of bishops
For healing the disorders of the Church,
therefore, Barrow did not look to the
gathering of an oecumenical council. He
even doubted whether, if possible, it would
' A than, de Syn. § 6.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
be expedient. In this respect be certainly
moved somewhat from the usual ground of
English divines, who from their first quarrel
with the Papacy appealed to a general
council, when one could be held. Barrow
did not look to the methods of the fifteenth
century, nor did he seek to revive even those
ot the fourth or fifth. He found a closer
correspondence with the needs of modern
times in the century of St. Cyprian \
§ 17-
Such is the position maintained by Barrow,
with a prodigious array of leai'ning, alike in
his Discourne concerning the Uir'dy of the
Church, and in his Treatii<e of the Pope's
Siq^reniaey. We are here on the high ground
of theory. ^Yhat was put forward as of
practical moment? Every Christian man
was bound to do what lay in his power to
promote the unity of the (,'hurch. And how
should he do this ? By living in dutiful
subjection to those set over him in the Lord.
Tlie practical enforcement of unity was to be
sought in each several Cliurch; for English-
men in the Church of England. This was
that part of the Church Catholic in which
' Barrow, Works, vol. iii. (ip. 122, 22^.
H
114 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
God's providence had placed them. Living
in communion with this, they were in com-
munion with the whole.
This consequence was pressed at every turn.
Dr. William Saywell, Archdeacon of Ely,
published at Cambridge in 1689 an edition of
the works of Launoi. The fact of itself is
interesting, as an evidence of sympathy with
the Gallican controversialists. The Preface,
in which Saywell spoke not to English readers
only but to the learned of Europe, admirably
states the position of the English Church.
" We have not," he says, " separated from the
Catholic Faith, from the unity of the Church,
or from any particular Church whatever^."
Nor does he mean by this merely that we are
not the authors of the schism or responsible
for the separation ; the division, he would say,
is only in certain relations, not absolute or
essential. He sliows what is the nature of
the really existing unity. The whole power —
potestas et auctoritas — of teaching and ruling
resides in the bishops and pastors of the
Church ; the prime duty of Christian men is
to submit to their ruling. If all the bishops
of the world could be gathered together, they
' " Non enim a fide Catholica, ah unitate Ecclesiae, aut
ab uUa Ecclesia particulaii separavimus."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
might determine all matters by their common
suffrages, after the fashion of an aristocratic
commonwealth. Saywell clearly did not share
BaiTow's objection to an ecclesiastical senate.
But since this can rarely be done, we must
ordinarily depend upon the authority of the
Church as diffused throughout the Episcopate,
and exercised by the bishops in their respec-
tive dioceses, or even as deputed by them to
parish priests. He who submits to their rule
is maintaining the unity of the Church; he
who rebels is rightly excommunicate ^
' I transcribe the whole of a long passage, as the book is
uot reailily acces-ible to all, and the argiiirient is of first-rate
importance : " Tola vero potestas et auctoritas docendi
regendi corrigendi Ecclesiam Episcopis et Pastoribus com-
missa est ; et nihil niagis Christianis iniungitur quani pacem
colere, schismata vitare, Pastores audire, eis obedire et
86 subicere, eontm fidem seqiii ; et ne sub aliquo praetextu
in doctrina et moribna ab ecclesiae imitate recedant, semper
ad episcopos in dubiis et arduis reciirvendiim est. Qui vos
a ml it' me audit, qui von reicit me etium reicit ; it ccce
vrihixrum sum, iix'iiie ad coiiKumniatioiiein saeculi. Deinde
])oniiniis ipse modinn definiens qtioiiiodo lites et dissidia in
Ecclesia tenninaniia sunt, ait: Si peccaverit in tc fratir,
(He Ecclesiap, et si Kcclesiain non audierit, nit tibi lanquam
Kthiiicus el I'lihlirriiius. Et per Ecclesiam hie Episcopi et
Presbyteri sunt intelligendi ; quia stafim subiungitur, Quod-
cttmque liijHveritis in lerris liijatum crit et in cacUn. Per
Ecclesiam igitur Servator denotat cos quil)U8 incuuibit sen-
tontiani ferre, et non obeditntes cxcouimunicationis vinculo
ligare. Et si possent omnes Episcopi in unuui convenire,
n 2
Il6 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Barrow, once more, enforces the same prin-
ciple in his Latin tract De regimine Episcopali.
In form this is merely an academic exercise,
but it is full of the learning and the vigorous
thought of the man. He has to maintain the
thesis that "The rejection of episcopal rule,
where orthodox and lawful bishops are estab-
lished, makes in the proper sense of the
word a deadly schism Episcopal rule,
he says, is that ancient and universal order
of the Church, by which one supreme pastor
procul dubio omnibus aeqiiale esset ius et auctoritas de rebus
ecclesiasticis communi sufFragio diiudicandi, ut est in
regimine aristocratico : sed cum lioc saepe fieri non possit,
unanimi Episcoporum consensu Ecclesia ita in Provincias,
Dioeceses, et Parochias distributa est, ut quamvis diversis
locis, eandem tamen fidem et caritatem onines vere Catholici
summa cum benevolentia amplectantur ; et ad osttndendam
strictam unionem et connexionem omnium membrorum inter
se, et cum Christo capita, saepe Ecclesia coniparatur corpori,
viti, domui, &c. Quorum partes vitam et perfectioneui
amittunt quuni primum a toto vel sua propria sede et loco
separantur. Atque ita hac ratione Laieus qui non atidit
Parochuni, et Paroclius qui non audit Kpiscupum, et Kpi-
scopus qui non audit Synoduiii Provincialeni, et Synod us Pro-
vincialis quae non audit Collegium Pastorum sive Concilium
vere generale, in rebus ad pacem et unitatem Ecclesiae
spectantibus, non audit Ecclesiam, ao proiiide non Dominum
ipsum qui dixit : Si Ecclesiam non audierit, ait tihi /anqiutiti
Ethnicus et Puhlicanus."
' Worlis, vol. ill. p. 240 : " Eeiectio regiminis episcopa-
lis, ubi habentur orthodozi et legitimi episcopi, facit proprie
Bchisma mortale."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
117
and overseer was appointed to rule the whole
congregation of clergy and laity in a certain
defined region, with certain offices reserved to
himself, as ordainingr and confirming and the
exercise of jurisdiction^ Schism he accurately
defines as a division within the Church, mar-
ring the unity, charity, and peace in which it
is the will of God that all Christians should
abide. Schism is due either to faction within
a particular Church, to an unjust refusal of
one Church to communicate with another, or
to the violation by any particular Church of
the common rules and usages determined by
the whole body ^. The guilt of schism is in-
curred by those who reject episcopal rule,
because, as he shows at large, it is either
an act of rebellion against their immediate
' Works, vol. iii. p. 240 : " lUuil neinpe regimen, j)enes
quod, in (listrictu quopiam ecclef ia<tico, singularis unus (ad id
rite vocatuf, delectus, approbatus et consecratus) toti coetui,
totique clero praeficitur, ceu p:istor et inspector supremus,
in sacris quibuscuiique rebus di.tjjensandis et ordiuandis,
vpfafitia quaedain obtinens et peculiaria munia sibi reser-
vata, sacroe ordines couferendi, baptizatos confiruiandi, iuris-
dictionem exercendi."
^ Ibid. p. 241 : "Cum una qiiae|iian) ecclesiasticae dis-
pensalionitt inoduii\ qiieincuiique generali conucnnu a con-
foederatis pa.storibus, fvra^iat aut eoncordiae gratia, lege
i>ancitum, vel u.su firmatum (nulla cogente necessitate, vel
gravi ratiuue suadente) viobif."
Il8 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
superiors, or else it is a corporate departure
from the fixed order of the Church and the
institution of Christ. This proposition, how-
evei", is to be read with two limitations : the
bishop must be orthodox, for it is not merely
the right of the faithful but their duty to
withdraw their allegiance from a heterodox
bishop ; and he must be kavful, that is to say,
duly consecrated, and rightly promoted to his
charge^. Subject to these two limitations,
Barrow maintains the duty of submission,
with no little insistence on St. Cyprian's
judgement that the episcopate was expressly
constituted for the defence of unity. The
unity, as distinct from the mere numerical
singleness of the Church, is to be upheld by
ever}^ Christian remaining in the communion
of his own proper bishop, and by all the bishops
of the world remaining in communion with
each other.
I will quote one more author, Beveridgo,
Bishop of St. Asaph, for piety and learning
perhaps the greatest ornament of the English
Church at the opening of the eighteenth
' Works, vol. iii. p. 241 : " Nam episcoporum lietero-
tloxoruin uedum regimen, at comimniioncm ipsam leicere fas
est, hno officii est." P. 242: ^' Lnjitiini ; hoc est, (jui cum
rite conneirantur, turn iure populo suo praoficiuntur."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
119
century. Beveridge has left us several ordi-
nation sermons, which form indeed a theo-
logical tieatise on the sacred Ministry. The
fourth of these treats of Salvation in the
Church only, under such a Ministry. Start-
ing from the text, And the Lord added to the
Church daily such as should he saved (Acts
ii. 47), he shows that by the Church is here
meant the society which the Lord founded by
choosing the twelve and the seventy, and
afterwards " took cax'e to settle the perpetual
government of it by granting to His Apostles
the like power and commission which He had
received from His Father for that purpose."
Those converted by the preaching of the
Apostles " are said to be added to the Church,
that is, to the society or congregation of the
faithful people before described ; consisting
of the Apostles, as the governors of it, and of
such as were joined to them, and held com-
munion with them in the Word and Sacra-
ments, which our Lord had instituted. And
when the said society was dispersed, as it soon
was, over the whole world, it was still the
same, and retained the same name, being still
called the Church. And not only the whole,
but wheresoever any part of it was settled in
any city, and the iterritories belonging to it,
I20 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
that also was called the Church of that city;
as the Church of Jerusalem, the Church of
Corinth, &c. And wheresoever there were
several such cities and Churches in them be-
longing to any province or country, they are
called the Churches of that country ; as the
Churches of Asia, Macedonia, &c. But as
every private Christian is a member of some
particular Church, so is every particular
Church a member of the catholic or universal,
which is always meant when we I'ead in
Scripture of the Church in general, without
the addition of place or country ^"
Of the necessity of being thus added to the
Church, he says : " Forasmuch as this being
the way and method that He hath settled
in the world for the saving of souls, or for the
applying that salvation to them which He
hath purchased for them ; we have no ground
to expect that He should ever recede from it."
This iiosition he supports by recalling the
conversion of Cornelius, of the Aethiopian
eunuch, and of St. Paul, concluding that God
would rather work miracles to bring men
into the Church, than save any without it.
" Seeing therefore," he continues, " that the
Holy Ghost hath so positively affirmed that
'■ Beveridge, Works, vol. i. pp. 72-4, edit. Oxford, 1817.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIAXS.
121
the Lord added to the Church such as should
be saved, and likewise hath given us such
extraordinary instances of it ; it is no wonder
that the Fathers so frequently assert, that
there is no salvation to be had out of Christ's
holy catholic Church ; but that whosoever
would be a member of the Church triumphant
in heaven, must first be a member of the
Church here militant on earth '."
Here is the same teaching. The Church is
one and universal, but it is geographically
distributed into several particular Churches.
The plain duty of every individual Christian
is to adhere to the particular Church in which
God's providence has placed him, and so he is
retained in the unity of the whole Church.
Pai'ticular Churches also have their duty.
Beveridge sets this out in a sermon preached
before the Convocation of Canterbury. Every
provincial Church is bound to adhere to all
that is detennined by the universal Church,
even in matters of rite and discipline. This
obligation Hows from the very nature of an
ordered society, and the Church is bound to
be the most orderly of all societies
' Beveridge, Wori-s, vol. i. pp. 75-77.
'■' Beveridge, Themiurus 'Duoloyicus, vol. ii. p. 331, edit.
0.\f"ord, i8i6: "Ad nctaiii Proviiicialiij cuiuslibet Ecclesiae
122 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
§i8.
The teaching, theoretical and practical, which
I have here set out is not that only of certain
individual theologians. It is the expression
of a belief solidly held by the whole Church of
England, and of a practice which for a time
was strenuously enforced. It was enforced,
not only by spiritual censures, but also by
civil penalties. In the heat of reaction from
the anarchy tempered by tyranny into which
Calvinism had plunged England, the State
accepted the theory of the Church. All Chris-
tians living within the realm were to be forced
constitutiouem necessarium esse, ut Ecclesiae universae
disciplina ac ritus ab eadem obsei ventur, constat ex ipsa
Ecclesiae natura ac notione. Ecclesia enim, geiieratim sic
dicta, una est permagna hominum ubicunque terraruni
Christi fideni protitentium Societas aut Congregatio, cuius
singulae Provinciales Ecclesiae totiJem sunt partes sive
membra. In omnibus autein huiusniodi societatibus, qualis
est Ecclesia, pars omnis toti suo coiigrua, et pars minor
maiori consentanea esse debet. Hoc ratio suadet. Ho<^
ius naturale edicit. Hoc communis hominum consensus
necessarium esse statuit. Adeo ut si quid a maiori, multo
niagis quod a n)axima cuiiisvis societatis parte constituitur,
eodem pars relicjua constringatur, ilhulque observare necesse
habeat, si membrum manere et jirivilegiis istius societatis
gaudere velit. Quod cum in onmibua cuiuscunque generis
societatibus valeat, niulto magis in Ecclesia valere debet,
quam omnium ordiuatissimam esse decet."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
123
into unity. The procedure adopted, as we now
see, was terribly unwise, even if we say no
worse. Civil rights were made dependent on
conformity, and the sacraments w^ere profaned
as a title to public office. Nor was this the
whole of the harm done. The intimate con-
nexion of Church and State bred an almost
inevitable confusion in ordinary minds. The
result was not patent while the repressive
policy was maintained. But with the first
Act of Toleration the result began to appear.
Spiritual censures carried with them temporal
disabilities ; therefore, if Dissenters were to
be tolerated, they must be released from the
jurisdiction of the spiritual courts. This was
done, and the bishops and their officials were
restrained from proceeding against a man who
formally claimed his rights as a Dissenter.
But the same man was driven by the Test
Act to communicate in his parish church, in
order to quality for office, lie was allowed,
nay compelled, to claim the rights of a member
of the Church, and, at the same tiine, he might
not be subjected to the discipline of the Church.
Occasional conformity, as it was called, was
the inevitable result, and only a feeble attempt
was made to restrain it. The authorities of
the Church Avero thcmsolves in practice made
124 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
parties to the toleration of that dissent which
in theory they denounced.
With the popular delusions that ensued
I am not directly concerned. I am dealing
only with the teaching of theologians. But
the existence of such delusions may lead us
to ask whether an^-thing in the matter or
manner of contemporary theology afforded
them occasion.
During the latter part of the seventeenth
century English theologians were in face of
a certain definite controversy. The country
was affected by a twofold schism. On the
one hand were the Recusants, or Papists, as
they were invariably and accurately called,
who refused the communion of the English
bishops on the ground of heresy ; on the other
hand there were organized bodies of Cal-
vinist or Protestant Dissenters, who rejected
the authority of the bishops as unscriptural.
Each of these schisms was further connected
with a ceitain theory of the Church, and
theological writing, even when not directly
polemical, was coloured by the consciousness
of the dispute. This might have induced a
preciseness of definition corresponding to what
was found in Curialist and Calvinist authors.
Tlie former, as we have seen, were diivon by
BY EXGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
the stress of controversy to import into the
formal definition of the Church the note of
subjection to the Roman Pontiff ; the latter
were compelled to justify their separation by
a theory which reduced the visible Church to
a particular congregation of men associated by
their own choice of companionship. Kut the
theologians of the Eno-lish Church were not
driven to any such straits. They took their
stand on the historical position of their Church.
They challenged opponents to dislodge them
from this gi-ound. Tiiey examined and refuted
all definitions framed for the purpose of ex-
cluding them fiom the pale of the Church ;
but they had no need to aim at an equal
nicety in their turn. Their object was to
show that neither Recusants nor Dissenters
were justified in their separation. "I do not
.scruple," says Barrow. " to affirm the Recu-
sants in England to be no less schismatics
tha^n any other separatists ^" To this end
they laboured to show, on the one band, that
in faith and polity the English Church con-
fonned to the standard universally recognized
until the rise of the papal monarchy; on the
other hand, that she required of her children
nothing but what was founde<l on warranty
' Barrow, M'or/cs, vol. iii. p. 225.
126 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
of Holy Scripture. Their practical teaching
was : Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna.
The inevitable result was an exagoreratecl
nationalism, and a certain looseness of doc-
trine. Disputants who were always telling
Papists and Calvinists alike that they had no
cause for separation from the national Church,
could not be very precise on ditterences of
opinion, and might easily seem indifferent to
the truth. It is true they were not always
consistent. According to their theory, strictly
interpreted, they had no direct concern with
the corruptions, practical or doctrinal, of other
Churches, and notably of the Church of Rome.
Their ground of quarrel with the Pope was,
first, that he claimed a jurisdiction over them
which they rejected, and, secondly, that he
countenanced and admitted to his communion
the English Recusants. Doctrinal disputes,
however, with the Recusants, who took their
doctrine from Rome, complicated the disci-
plinary controversy with the Papacy ; and this
was one of the causes which wrecked the
attempt of Wake at a practical union between
the Anglican and the Galilean Churches. On
the other hand, the passionate, unreasoning
abhorrence of papal rule, felt by nearly all
Englishmen, embittered the doctrinal dispute,
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
127
until differences were rather exaggerated than
minimized. The fading memory of the Puritan
tyranny left nothing of the kind to sharpen
the controversy with Dissenters, and they
were too often treated as merely unreasonable
schismatics. It was recognized, indeed, as we
have seen, that there were grounds on which
Chi-istian men might lawfully withdraw their
obedience from the bishops set over them, but
the nature of these grounds was seldom de-
fined with precision ; it was enough to show
that the grounds alleged by the Dissenters
were insufficient. They were insufficient,
partly because they were false, partly because
they were trivial. The Dissenters were urged
to lay aside their objections, renouncing those
and waiving these. But for them, both alike
were founded in conscience. The Church
was exhibited in controversy as regardless of
conscience, intolerant where she was strong,
indifferent where she was weak.
I speak of an impression produced by a cer-
tain controversial method, not of the express
teaching of any authors. It is an impression
of the Church as a great national institution,
embracing in a sense the whole population,
without much regard to the belief or practice
of individuals. Over against this idea stood
128 THE UXITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
the fact of the existence of several organized
bodies, holding aloof from the national Church
on the ground of certain beliefs or practices
regarded by their members as vital. Combine
the idea and the fact, which are inconsistent
but not mutually exclusive, and there issues
the confusion which seems to dominate English
thought in the eighteenth century. Public
opinion was able to accept in varying propor-
tions the theory of the Established Church,
and the theory of the denominational system.
The Church of England appeared at one time
the national organization of religion ; at
another she was one denomination among
many. Butler, with characteristic fidelity
to fact, accepted the denominational system
as existing. In his sermon on the Propaga-
tion of the Gospel he claims the control of the
work for the Church, but he thinks it " much
to be wished that serious men of all denomina-
tions would join in it." In the true spirit of
latitudinarianism he bids them ''remember,
that if Christianity is to be propagated at all.
which they acknowledge it should, it must be
in some particular form of profession. And
though they think ours liable to objections,
yet it is possible they themselves may be
mistaken ; and whether they are or no, the
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
129
very nature of society requires some com-
pliance with others \" But latitudinarianism
was not always so logical as in Butler. Without
having any clear conception of the unity of
the Church, men were nevertheless fretted
by the existence of Dissent. The effect of
the prevailing confusion is noticeable in the
attitude of Wesley. He could exhort his
followers to remain united to the Church,
while ignoring his whole life long the hier-
archical basis of unity.
Another effect is seen in the schemes for
comprehension, as it was called, which the
eighteenth century produced in abundance.
Easier terms, not indeed of communion, for
such could hardly be invented, but of admis-
sion to the ministry of the Church, were
sought in a relaxation of subscription ; Dis-
senters were to be cajoled into a purely
external union. Such schemes, renewed in
the present century by Arnold and his
followers, even if the Church could have
agreed to them, would liave been wrecked
upon the rugged conscience of the Dissenters.
With them we have no immediate concern ;
we are considering the teaching of theolo-
gians.
' Butler, Sermoim, p. 174, edit. 1838.
I
130 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
So far as this confusion of thought was due
to the neglect of instant facts by the divines
of the seventeenth century, an obvious remedy
was to return to their principles and apply
them rigorously to the facts as developed.
This course was taken b}' those who saw the
need. The Oxford movement, if it was an
appeal to the Fathers, was no less a revival
of the true English theology. In the face of
a militant, an almost triumphant sectarianism,
it was necessary to state afresh the theory of
the Church. New principles were not wanted,
but an application of old principles to existing
circumstances. The need was supplied. I .shall
not quote from any of the Tractarian leaders ;
I shall quote from one who enjoyed far more
fully than they the confidence of the whole
English Church.
Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Chrit^t
appeared in the year 1H38. Its authority was
at once recognized ; it remained for many
years the standard work on the subject. I shall
attempt to extract the author's leaching on the
particular point of the unity of the Church.
He treats this under the two general heads
of unity in Communion and unit}'' in Faith.
He subjects the idea alike of unity and of
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS. 13I
schism to a searching analysis. "Particular
Churches," he says, '■ were instituted by the
apostles in obedience to the divine will, not
to divide, but to organize the Church uni-
versal." Their relation to the whole is thus
clearly determined. They are rather ad-
ministrative than component parts. They exist
for the sake of the whole ; and the relations
of an individual to them are determined by
his relations to the whole. Palmer thus
avoids the mistake of proceeding from the
particular to the universal ; he recognizes
from the first the universal in the particular.
This leaves no room for the fault, common
to so many English writers, of strenuously
defending the unity of the particular Church,
to the comparative or entire neglect of the
unity of the universal. He looks both ways
at once. " Hence the communion of the
Church," he says, '• is twofold, and there
may be offences against it in two ways : either
in dividing the communion of a particular
Church, or in dividing that of the universal
Church. The one arises, when professing
Christians divide or refuse to communicate
with the particular Church of which they are
members: the other, where particular Churches
refuse to communicate with the universal
I 2
132 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
Church ; that is, with the great body of
Christians." On tlie effect of such schism he
passes the severest judgement. " When one
or more professing Christians separate them-
selves from the communion of a particular
Church, and from that of the great body of
Christians, or are cut off from it by a regular
and legitimate judgement, they are totally
separated from the Church of God ^"
After an examination of authorities he
naturally concludes that "separation from the
Church is incapable of justification. No excuse
can be admitted in the case of positive and
deadly sin, except the plea of ignorance ; and
this does not render the act less heinous,
though he who commits it may be ' beaten
with few stripes.' To separate openl}' from
the universal Church, or, which is the same
thing, to separate from a particular Church,
on grounds and principles which equally
involve sepai-ation from the universal Church,
is, as I have said, inexcusable Are
there then no grounds which can justify
separation ? He allows their existence, but
defines them much more narrowly than
his predecessors. " The mere existence of
doctrinal errors, or the corruption of rites
' Palmer, vol. i. pp. 51, 52. ^ Ibid. p. 61.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
and sacraments in any Church, afford no
excuse whatever for separating from its com-
munion. The abuses of the Corinthians, the
errors of the Galatians, did not justify any
separation from those Churches ; on the con-
trary, the duty of union was strongly incul-
cated on them by the Apostle. ... I speak
here only of faults and defects which do not
amount to a rejection of what God has plainly
revealed, or to a manifest contradiction and
disobedience to His commandment ; because if
any Church of Christ should be guilty of such
a rejection and contradiction, and obstinately
persist in them, it would be ajwdate, and
cease ipso facto to be a Church of Christ ;
and therefore he wlio should forsake its com-
munion, would not forsake the communion of
the Church, but of a .synagogue of Satan
Nothing short of apostasy, then, can justify
separation from any particular Church.
Unity in comrtmnion is thus intimately con-
nected with unity in fai/h. Palmer regards
this in two lights— as an obligation, and as
an actual fact. "THE TRUTH revealed by
Chiist must be believed by all Christians in
order to salvation^." Put not every error
amounts to heresy. "Heresy is the perti-
' Palmer, vol. i. pp. 64. " Ibid. p. 88.
134 "^HE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
naeious denial of some truth certainly re-
vealed And this alone imperils salvation ;
this alone excludes from the Church. Errors^
in matters of opinion are tolerable. But
even in matters of faith, "if a doctrine has
been declared de fide by the legitimate
judgement of the universal Church, still if
through an error of fact it is supposed by
some Churches not to have been so declared,
they do not incur heresy in retaining a dif-
ferent doctrine." And conversely, " Churches
which through an er?w of fact, but on strong
reasons, believe a doctrine to have been de-
fined by the universal Church as a matter of
faith, which was in reality not so defined,
and which is erroneous even in faith, are not
guilty of heresy in holding that doctrine^."
It follows that while the obligation of
unity in faith lies upon all Christian people,
it is not necessarily realized in actual fact.
Apparent imity in faith cannot therefore be
taken as a mark or sign of the Church, noi-
can apparent disunion l»c taken as a proof
of defection from the Church. But on the
' Palmer, vol. i. p. 91.
' Tbiil. pji. 106-108. He supports tlie.se propositions by
many liistorieal iii.stances, but he does not allwle to a point
of nuiuh interest at the present clay — their application to the
so-called Nestoriaus and Monophysites of the East.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
other hand, " Christ having enjoined unity in
the belief of the truth on all Christians, there
must necessarily be in His Church some
means for preserving or restoring this unity,
as well in particular Churches as in the
Church universal ; and, therefore, all those
societies which are prevented by their funda-
mental principles fiom sustaining unity in
the truth, cannot be Churches of Christ \"
Proceeding as he does from the universal
to the particular. Palmer has no need to insist
on the numerical unity or singleness of the
Church. His object also led him to neglect
this point. He had to set out the four notes
of the Church — One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.
Face to face with a multitude of discordant
sects and communities, all clairainw for them-
selves membership in the Church of Christ,
he saw the necessity of determining which of
them were entitled to the claim. Assumina:
then the oneness of the Church, these, if their
claim be true, must be parts of the one. But
if so they must partake of its character. The
notes of the true Church must in some way
be found in them. The first of these notes
is Unity. Palmer, as we have seen, reduced
this to unity in communion and unit} in
' raliiiur, vol. i. p. 1 1 5.
136 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
faith. UBity, in the sense of singleness, is
of no avail as a test ; it is not an attribute
of which the parts can partake. Of the moral
unity of the whole Church, of its corporate
and sacramental unity, they can partake, and
by this they can be tested. Palmer applies
the test, along with those supplied by the
other notes of the Church, to the vai-ious
claimant bodies. He finds no difficulty in
allowing the claims of the British and of the
orthodox Eastern Churches. Of the Churches
of the Roman communion, he distinguishes
carefully between those founded anterior to
any schism, those founded more recently in
heathen lands, and those founded by an inva-
sion of other Churches. The last only he
pronounces schismatical, on the ground of
broken unity in communion. He then turns
to consider the case of the Protestant and
Calvinist communities. Of the English Dis-
senters he makes short work. He shows
that the principle of separation is a " maxim
of dissent \" and those who maintain it can
have no claim to be regarded as integral
parts of the Church whose note is unity.
The Lutherans and Reformed of continental
Europe he holds to have l)een unjustly and
' Faluier, vol. i. p. 406.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
against their will driven from the communion
of the Church. He will not therefore lay to
their charge the sin of schism. " Under such
circumstances they had no remedy, and were
obliged to remain as a distinct community
until God should see fit to restore them to
union with the rest of the Church." As
individuals, therefore, they may be considered
as not cut off totally from the unity of the
Church ; but as organized bodies they lack
the other notes of the true Church, and cannot
be accounted integi-al parts of it. Their
organization was purely provisional. The
favour at one time shown them by English
divines he attributes to a charitable inter-
pretation of their acts and principles. " There
was a great probability that they were not
schismatics nor heretics ; and as they did not
exhibit an unfriendly feeling to our Churches,
there were good and sufficient reasons to view
them with kindness and charity. The suffer-
ings which we experienced, in common with
them, from the persecution and ambition of
the Roman pontiff, added sympathy to this
general good-will ; and tho agreement on
certain points of doctrine and discipline
against Rome may have, perhaps, induced us
to give a better construction to some things
138 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
than they deserved, and to overlook some
faults which an unfriendly, or even a strict
criticism vs^ould have condemned." Their
after history, however, made this impossible.
They '■ deemed it necessary to assume the
office and character of Churches of Christ
in the ordinary sense '" ; and this " led them
to reject that Catholic tradition which did
not suppoit their novel system, and thus to
open the door for the intrusion of heresy and
infidelity ^" Thus Palmer, whose opinion
I quote as interesting in itself, without passing
judgement on its historical accuracy.
It will be seen that Palmer treats his
subject in that practical, not to say polemical,
tone, which characterizes most of the authors
that I have quoted. Of the unity of the
Church in the abstract he has not much to
say ; and therefore he does not touch, unless
incidental]}', on the distinction between the
essential, indestructible unity of the (Jliurch,
and that practical unity which dopeuds on
human agency. The distinction is, however,
implied in a question which he treats at
great length. He glances at essential unity
when he speaks of an impossibility. " Unity
of communion," he says, "being the law of
' Palmer, vol. i. pp. 382-392.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
God, both in the universal Church, and in
all the particular Churches in which it is
arranged, it is impossible that in the same-
place there can he several dlljerent Churches,
authorized by God and united to Christ^."
But given the necessary existence of one
Church only in each particular place, as a
member of the Church universal, he goes
on to ask the important question, " Whether
the external communion of the universal
Church can ever he interrupted'-." We have
here a question which our older writers had
strangely neglected. An affirmative answer
is necessary to the defence of their position.
It is an obvious fact that all the particular
Churches which they recog-nized as parts of
the universal are not actually knit in the
bonds of perfect unity and communion. On
the contrary they hold aloof, sullenly or
fiercely ; they denounce, they even anathe-
matize each other. If, then, the external
communion of the Church cannot be inter-
rupted, if the fullness of external communion
be a part of the essential unity of the Church,
it will follow that only one of these discor-
dant parts can belong to the true Church.
Controversialists had urged this against the
' Palmer, vol. i. j). 68. ^ ibid. pp. 71 seqtj.
140 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
English position ; English divines had been
slow to answer. Palmer undertook the task.
He shows that what is said in Holy Scrip-
tui'e about the unity of the Church is either
to be understood of a spiritual unity of rela-
tions to Christ, or of spiritual privileges, which
might exist even if external unity were inter-
rupted ; or else must be taken as showing
by way of moral precept rather what ought
to be than what must be. From the very
earnestness of our Saviour's repeated prayer
for the unity of His disciples he infers " that
the Church was in imminent danger of dis-
union, and that so great an evil would most
probably at some time arrive." He then
shows that neither the Fathers nor the Coun-
cils of the Church ever affirm the impossibility
of such divisions among the members of the
one Church as should amount to a breach of
communion. The well-known passage in
which St. Cyprian sa,ys that " unity cannot
be severed, nor the one bod}^ by laceration
be divided refers to the Novatian schism
at Rome, and asserts only the impossibility
of the coexistence of two Churches in one
' Cypr. De Unitnte, c. 23, p. 2.^1, edit. H artel : " Scindi
unitas non potest nec corpus iinum discidio conpaginis
eeparari, divulsis laceratioiie visceribus in frusta discerpi."
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS,
141
place. It says nothing of the estrangement of
different parts of the Church from each other.
In the thu'd place he brings into evidence
the many recorded interruptions of communion
between bishops alike of the East and of
the West, in which it is agreed that both parties
remained in the unity of the whole Church :
he insists especially on the Great Schism
of the fourteenth century, when for nearly
forty years the Latin Church was divided
into two or even three obediences. Lastly he
quotes various theologians, and in particular
Tourncly, as distinguishing three kinds of ex-
communication ; the fii'st, " by which bishops
are deprived of the charity and ecclesiastical
communion of other bishops " ; a second, " by
which a person was totally cut off from the
body of the Church " ; and a third, " most
customary among the ancients ... by which
bishops or Churches separated themselves from
mutual communion, and thus one, as it ivere,
excommunicated the other, though not subject
to it ^" This last kind, according to Tourncly,
is not excommunication properly so called.
"Therefore," he concludes, "if the Church
universal should be divided into two portions
hy audi an excommunication, neither party
' Tournely, Praelect. Theol. de Ecclesia, qu. iv. art. iv.
142 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
would be truly cut off from the Church, and
therefore the Church would exist in different
communions ^" There maybe divisions, in-
ducing a breach of external communion, by
which the unity of the Church, though im-
paired, would not be destroyed.
§ 20.
The elaborate but condensed argument in
which Palmer deals with this question, fills
up a serious gap in the English presentment
of the doctrine of unity. His treatment of
the doctrine as a whole is not exhaustive ;
as I have noted, he passes by the points of
essential and of numerical unity ; but he sup-
plies what was lacking in earlier theologians.
The defects and the merits of his work are
closely connected. There is in his method a
sort of hard and hammerins; logic which was
needed for the rescue of English thought from
the confusion that had mastered it. There is in
his argument a tone of bitter polemic, and a
certain narrowness of view, which occasionally
betrays him into inconsistency. An instance
may be found in his treatment of a question
which was then beginning to press for solution.
' This passage is interesting ;is fixing the sense in which
we speak of the Church as divided into various Cotnmutiion.'.
See above, p. 23.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
The geographical arrangement of the Church
was from the beginning the basis of practical
unity. To St. Cyprian it was the pledge of
unity : there was to be one bishop in a city,
and a united episcopate. On this ground the
English bishops took their stand in rejecting
the Papal jurisdiction. All English theo-
logians since have stood by the same principle,
and Palmer with them. But he was familiar
with a certain modification of it, established
by centuries of usage in the East. The violent
controversies which broke up the unity of
the Eastern Church in the fifth and sixth
centuries have left a legacy of confusion to
our day. Inveterate schisms, following as a
rule the lines of national divisions, are not
easily healed, even when their original cause
is removed. There are now several com-
munities, Nestorian, Monophysite, or Mono-
thelite in their origin, which have been led,
chiefly by Roman influence, to abandon their
heresy, and ai'e admitted to the communion
of the Roman Church. But they retain their
independent organization, and their jurisdic-
tions are interlaced over the whole field of
Oriental Christendom. The position is further
complicated by a Latin Christianity, intro-
duced in the timje of the Crusades. There
144 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
are thus, besides the Orthodox Eastern Church,
various independent hierarchies, with their
several patriarchs, all in communion with the
Roman See. Palmer allows this to be effected
without any formal breach of unity. As a
provisional arrangement, at least, it may be
tolerated ^ But when he has to face a not
dissimilar state of things in the West, his
judgement is much more rigid. Setting aside
England, where it is clear that the adherents
of the Roman communion separated them-
selves in formal schism from the local Church,
there have been established, in several new
countries, rival hierarchies of the Anglican
and the Roman communions. These are the
fruit of a division which may well be re-
garded as inveterate, and which follows in
the main the lines of national cleavage —
notably between England and Ireland. We
might expect to find the same charitable
judgement passed on these rival hierarchies
as on those of the East. Palmer indeed de-
fends in this way the establishment of an
Anglican hierarchy in one region. After
allowing the regularity of the Church founded
by the French settlers in North America, he
proceeds: "If, in Canada, the English com-
' Palmer, vol. i. pp. 302-304.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
munity united to our Catholic Churches have
bishops and priests, it is only as a matter
of necessity, because the Church there refuses
them communion, and they are properly for
the English only. The arrangement must be
considered only provisional in a certain
measure, and not designed to interfere with
the prior claims of the Roman Churches there,
within their proper didricts." But a similar
establishment of bishops of the Roman com-
munion in the United States he condemns
without reserve : " When America received
bishops from our Churches, the schismatics
constituted a rival episcopacy, and so remain
to this day separated from the true Church '."
It might be more fairly argued that in the
West, or in new countries associated with the
West, as in the ancient field of Eastern
Christendom, the effects of a long-standing
quarrel may require, provisionally at least,
some modification of the geographical arrange-
ment of the Church. In the United States, with
their extraordinary gathering of people from
all parts of the old world, bred in every form
of Christian profession, the question is most
pi'essing and will perhaps find its solution.
' Palmer, vol. i. pp. 304, 305.
Iv
146 THE UNITY OP THE CHURCH AS TREATED
§ 21-
If it was the merit of Palmer's work to
clear away confusion, his defects were hardly
less serviceable in calling for the completion
of his system. His neglect of the natural or
essential unity of the Church compelled atten-
tion to it, as the necessary foundation of all
manifest unity. Manning followed him with a
treatise on the unity of the Church, in which
natural and moral unity are carefully distin-
guished ; the natural unity which is the imme-
diate work of God and is therefore indestruc-
tible, and the moral unity which, depending on
human agency, is variable and may fail entirely.
This distinction became the keynote of the
aspirations after the reunion of Christendom
which have lately been so marked a feature
of English religion. I have traced it in many
of our older writers ; it has found clear and
familiar expression duringthe last half-century.
Dr. Alexander Forbes, the late Bishop of
Brechin, proposed another distinction. He
divided unity into objective and subjective.
" Objective unity is that inwrought by our
Head, Jesus Himself, through union with Him-
self. It is wrought on His side, by the com-
munication of the ' one Spirit,' and by the
Sacraments, making us all one body in Him. It
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS,
requires, on our part, continuity of the com-
mission which He gave to His Apostles, and
perseverance in the faith which He committed
to the Church. Subjective unity is unity of
will, and intercommunion with one another.
Subjective unity may be suspended, while
objective unity is maintained. Subjective
unity was suspended during the schism at
Antioch, yet objective unity is maintained,
for the blessed Meletius is a saint. Subjective
unity was suspended in the quarrels between
the British and Western Churches in the Saxon
times, yet nobody doubts of the salvation or
sanctity of St. Aidan or St. Cuthbert. Sub-
jective unity was suspended during the
struggles of the antipopes, yet no one con-
siders the followers of Peter de Luna as
either heretics or schismatics. And thi.s must
also apply to the mighty disunion between the
East and the West, and between ourselves and
the rest of Christendom. It is deeply to be
deplored that the state of the Church is as it
is ; but let us hope, that the evil is not so
great as it seems, and that there is a fund of
unity, if men only understood each other ;
that the fissures are only surface ones ; that
the disorder is functional, not organic ^"
' Forbes, Exphinalion of the Sicene Creed, jj. 276. Second
edition, 1866.
K 2
148 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
This is clearly a cross-division. The objec-
tive unity of Forbes is partly natural and the
immediate work of God, partly moral, depend-
ing on our continuance and perseverance.
Forbes would probably say that a purely
natural unity is a mere abstraction. The
Church, a society of moral beings, cannot have
an}^ real unity which is independent of their
moral co-operation. A simple static unity —
the unity for example of the baptized as such
— is nothing more than a classification ; nor
does it become a living unity, through the
relation of the members to the Head, without
the express or implicit perseverance of the
members in adhesion.
Pusey, than whom no one of our day has
pondered more deeply the question of unitj^
adopted these terms, but used them in the
older sense. " Unity," he wrote, " in part, is
the direct gift of God ; in part, it is the fruit
of that ffift in the mutual love of the members
of the Church. In part, it is a spiritual
oneness wrought by God the Holy Ghost ;
in part, it is a grace, to be exercised hy man,
a consequence and fruit of that gift. In
one way, it is organic unity derived from
Christ, and binding all to Christ, descending
from the Head to the Body, and uniting the
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
149
Body to the Head ; in another, it consists in
acts of love from the members one to
another^." Quoting from St. Athanasius,
he shows that the primal unity of the Church
is " an actual mystical oneness, inwrought by
Christ our Head, uniting the whole Church
together in one with Himself in His Body;
an actual oneness produced by grace, corre-
sponding to tlie Oneness of the Father and the
Son by nature-." He shows how St. Hilary
urges against the Arians that the unity of
the Church is an unity not of will but of
nature ^. This unity is imparted primarily
through the sacraments, and so far depends
on the continuance of the powers given to
the Apostles ; but the work done by the
sacraments is essentially the work of God.
Those who wilfully reject the organization
by which sacramental grace is given, reject
Christ. Those who retain it are like the
river of Eden, which is one though it parted
and became into four heads. " Unknown in
face, in place separate, different in language,
opposed, alas! in some things to one another,
still before the Throne of (Jod they are One
Holy (,'atliolic Apostolic Church ; each several
portion praying for itself and for the rest,
' /j7re»/Vo)i, part i. p. 45. " Iliid. p. 47. ' Iliid.p. 51.
150 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
united in the prayers and oblation which it
offers for all, by the One Bread and the One
Spirit which dwelleth in alP."
He then passes to the subjective, which is
for him the whole moral unity of the Church.
" The Divine gift of Unity requires, as a corre-
sponding duty, mutual love as the exercise of
that ' love of God which is shed abroad in our
hearts through the Holy Ghost which is given
to us.' This has been called ' subjective '
unity, or ' unison of wills,' and of this,
intercommunion is the natural expression."
He shows, with his usual wealth of erudition,
that in the history of the Church there have
been numerous interruptions of communion
without breach of the organic unity of
the Church. He shows the true nature of
Donatism, involving a different kind of schism
from these, and one which is often misunder-
stood. " The Donatists were not merely
separated from the Catholic Church through-
out the world, but denied its existence, and
claimed to be the whole Church. The body
was formed on a heresy, rejected by the Eng-
lish Church 2." He points to the evidence of
the life of grace, of the working of the Holy
Ghost, in " the several Churches, owning the
' Eirenicon, part i. p. 57, et ante. ' Article XXVI.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
same Lord, united to Him by the same
Sacraments, confessing the same Faith
Objective unity is therefore the work of
God. It is a gift of grace ; but since the
Church is the creation of grace this gift is
the natural law of the Church's life, organic,
essential, indestructible as the Church herself.
Subjective unity on the other hand is the
result of human effort, corresponding to the
Divine grace given ; like all the fruits of
grace it varies with the varying efforts of the
individual man. It can never disappear en-
tirely, as holiness can never be banished
entirely from the visible Church, but its
natural expression by intercommunion may
for a time be lost.
§ 22.
It remains for me to summarize all this
teaching — the public doctrine of the Church
and the teaching of theologians.
The Church is, in the first place, numerically
one. There is but one Lord, one Faith, one
Baptism. There is, moreover, but one human
race, one naturally indivisible human society,
and the Church is designed to embrace the
whole of it. There is but one foundation and
' Eirenicon, part i. pp. 58-66.
152 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
one superstructure. The Church is essentially
singular, and is divided into a plurality of
parts only for reasons of administration. It
was founded in a single community, and re-
mains as truly one, though widely expanded,
as when gathered wholly at Jerusalem.
The Church is eskentialiy one, not a mere
aggregate of parts. This truth, propounded
by Nicholson and others in the seventeenth
century ^, but obscured or neglected by many
writers, has more recently obtained the fullest
recognition. This oneness, being essential, is
not a mere matter of classification. It belongs
to the nature of the Church. There is there-
fore a natural unity ; and since the Church
consists of persons united by the grace of God
to Christ, in a manner comparable to the
union of the members of a living body with
' Nicholson, Uxposilion of the Catechism, p. 58, edit.
Oxford, 1 842 : " This Church is but one, as it is in the Nicene
Creed ; one body knit together by one Spirit, under one
Head. ' Tliere is but one Lord, one Spirit, one Faith, one
Baptism.' Inwardly, then, and essentially it is but one,
but outwardly and externally you may say the'-e be many
Churches cither national or congregational ; who are bound
to retain one faith, but may differ in rites and ceremonies."'
It is not easy to see what he means by conijretjational. Of
course he does n.it use the word in its modern sense.
I think he must have had in view any gnmping of dioceses
on otlier than national lines.
BY ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
their head, this unity is rightly called organic.
From another point of view it is a social
unity, since the Church visible is a form of
human society, ordained by God as a means
to the salvation of men.
This unity of the Church, essential, natural,
organic, social, is the work of God alone, fixed
and immovable as the laws of nature. The
Church is not only unalterably one, it is also
unalterably united. The individual man is
gathered into this unity not by any act or
volition of his own. but by his baptism, which
the Church as the Body of Christ administers,
but in which the Holy Ghost Himself operates.
In this unity the man remains until he is
either cast from it by effective excommunica-
tion, or falls from it by apostasy from the
conditions of membership. In neither case is
he removed by any act of human will, but by
the working of a divine law — the natural law
of the Cliurch's being. No man can divide
the Church essentially. The member cut ott
ceases to be a membei-.
This unity, being organic, depends upon a
certain principle of life, which is the possession
of the true faith and sacramental grace. This
is diffused through all tlie parts of the one
Church, though it may not be found every-
154 THK UNITY OF THE CHURCH AS TREATED
where in the same vigour ; and therefore if
it fail entirely in any part, that part is cut
off as a branch and withered. It ceases to be
a part of the Church at all, remotely through
its own will and action, but immediately
through the cessation of the flow of life.
This unity, being social, depends upon the
continuance of a certain order. The Church
was founded in the fellowship of the Apostles,
and this fellowship developed, under the guid-
ance of the Holy Spirit, into a hierarchy, which
extends into every part of the Christian society.
This hierarchy alone, by the gi-ace of God, binds
the scattered parts together. The episcopate,
in particular, is one solid indivisible order, and
the individual Christian is held immovably in
union with this whole order by communion
with his own bishop.
In addition to this natural, essential unity,
there is another kind of unity proposed to the
Church as an end of moral action. In contrast
with the other it is called subjective, because
it is immediately dependent upon human
volition ; but as realized and expressed in
action it is in truth equally objective. It is
a moral as distinct from a natural, afunctional
as distinct from an organic unity. It is the
result of an effort, on the part either of the
BY EXGLISH THEOLOGIANS.
individual or of the community, to live in
coiTespondence with the divine grace of unity.
Its principle is charity. Its outward expres-
sion is found, on the part of the individual, in
loyal submission to authority, in mutual for-
bearance, in prayer and almsgiving and other
acts of charity ; on the part of the community,
in the same acts corporately performed ^, and
especially in free and pei'fect intercommunion.
This moral unity corresponds to the natural
unity of the Church, and therefore to its various
phases. Corresponding with the organic unity
of the Church is free and brotherly partici-
pation in the sacraments, free and brotherly
communication for the defence and propaga-
tion of the faith. Corresponding with the
social unity of the Church is the common
action of each several diocese or province ;
in a wider field, the brotherly intercourse of
Church with Church, bishop with bishop,
tlio mutual recognition of each other's acts,
' Moral union between England and the rest of Christen-
dom might Metin to be ended after tlie accession of Elizabeth :
yet in 1 565 public prayers were ordered for the rescue of
the Knights of Malta from the Turks ; and in the following
year for " the Emperor's excellent Majesty, as God's prin-
cipal minister," and " all the Christian army now assembled
with him," to resist the Turks in Hungary. See Liturgical
Services of the lieiyn of Queen Elizuheth, Parker Society,
VV- 5 '9-5 35'
156 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
mutual support against heresy or schism ; in
the last resort, the assembly of a General
Council and the universal acceptance of its
decrees.
This moral unity is an end : it is set before
us accordincr to the will of God as a thing
to be attained. It is also a means : it is neces-
sary to the perfect well-being of the Church,
to the final conversion of the world, to the
accomplishment of the woi'k of salvation. It
must therefore be realized ; but the necessity
does not stand in any special time or manner.
The moral unity of the Church may be
realized in varying degrees. In different parts
of the Church it may be realized in varying
intensity ; between some parts there may be
the closest union ; between others at the same
time there may be grave dissension. No part,
perhaps, can ever be entirely without moral
union with the rest, but the outward expression
of it may be all but wliolly lost.
The moral unity is therefore variable, but
the natural unity is indefectible. In this sense
we declare our belief in the Church, past,
present, and to come, OXE and united.
INDEX.
Aggregation, vinity of, 92.
Aiclan, Saint, 147.
Antioch, Schism of, 147.
Apologia, Jewel's, 60.
Apostasy, 6H, 13,^, 153.
Arnold, 129.
Articles, the Thirty-nine, 12, 19, 41, 42, 43.
Athanasius, Saint, quoted, 112.
Bancroft, his sermon on the Trying of Spirits, 69.
Banes, his definition of the Church, 46.
Barrow, 106-113, 116-118.
— on General Councils, iii.
Bellarmine, his definition of the Church, 12, 46.
— on General Councils, 1 1 1.
— on resistance to the Pope, 81.
Beveridge, 1 18-121.
— denies the catholicity of the Roman Church, 103.
— on salvation only in the Church, 120.
— on the enmity of Rome and Geneva to the English Church,
102.
— on the powers of provincial Churches, 121.
Bilson, 69.
Boniface, Saint, 31.
Bonner, 47, 49.
Bramhall, 75-85.
— on separation from Rome, 80.
— on the reunion of Cliristendon, 83.
— on submission to the rule of Faith, 84.
Branch Tlieory, the, 20, 50.
Bucchingcr, his definitions of the Church, 44.
Butler, on the denominational system, 128.
Canada, hierarchies in, 144.
Canon ot 1604, English, on sectarian congregations, 13.
on separation from other Churches, 25.
on tlio Church of Scotland, 50.
— of 1606, English, on the unity of the Church, 5^.
Canterbury, Archbisliop of, and the Nestorians, 19.
Centre of unity, Rome as the, 3t, 32, 49.
Chichelo, his confirmation of Bishops, 33.
Cole, his argument against the Book of Conimoii Prayer, 48.
Communions, division of the (,'hurch into, 23, 142.
Compri'liension, schemes of, 129.
Conciliar Theory, the, iii.
158
INDEX.
Constance, Council of, 33.
Convocation of Canterbury, on reconciliation with Rome, 47.
Cusa, Cardinal de, on the constitution of the Church, 34.
Cuthbert, Saint, 147.
Cyprian, Saint, quoted, 31, 96, :i3, 118, 140, 143.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint, quoted, 88.
Definitions of the Church, 12, 13, 31, 34, 37, 41, 43-47, 125.
Denominational system, the, 128.
Discipline, necessity of, 18, 65.
— unity of, 96, 109.
Dissent, principle of, 10, 136.
Dissenters, their origin, 123-124.
— their testimony to the principles of the Church, 16.
— refuse comprehension, 127, 129.
Donatism, its true nature, 150-151.
Episcopate, necessity of the, 70, 116, 119, 154.
— the united, 72, 79, 143.
Essential unity, 71, 82,91, 97-99, 138-139, 152.
Established Church, the, 128.
Estius, his definition of the Church, 45.
Evangelical Alliance, the, 11, 14.
Excommunication, effect of, 64.
— nature of, 141.
External communion, interruption of, 79, 139.
Faith, vinity of, 19, 62, 73, 95, 107, 131, 133.
Fisher, his definition of the Church, 43.
Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, 146.
Fraternization with Dissenters, 15.
Galilean Church, attempted union with the, 104, 126.
— controversialists, English sympathy with, 114.
their definition of the Church, 47.
Gardiner, 47.
Genevese Calvinists, the, 35, 66, 102.
Geographical organization of the Church, the, 25, 39, 121.
modified, 143.
Gerson, on resistance to the Pope, 81.
Gregory the Great, Saint, his definition of the Church, 31.
Grindelwald Conferences, the, 14, 16.
Hammond, teaching of his Practical Catechism, 69-71.
— Canon of Truro, 16.
Head of the Church, Christ Himself, 34, 37, 52, 9., 108, 149.
— the Roman Pontiff, 36, 46, 57.
— royal title, 36, 57-58.
Henry VIII, 35, 56.
Heresy, definition of, 134.
Heretics, not wholly excluded from the Church, 44, 63.
Hierarchy, institution of the, 54, 119.
— necessity of the, 43, 70, 116, 154.
Homilies, the authorized, definition of the Church, 13, 18.
INDEX.
Hooker, 20, 61-69, 85, 87, 106.
Itistitution of a Christian Man, the, 37.
Intercommunion, 79, 150.
Invisible Church, Calvinist theory of the, 11, 14, 61, 106.
Jewel, 60.
King's Book, the, 37.
Land, 72.
Lannoi, 116.
Lutherans, the, 35, 136.
Lyndwood, Ids definition of the Church, 12, 34.
Lyra, Nicholas de, on the constitution of the Church, 32.
Manning, 146.
Martin V, 33, 34.
Meletius of Antioch, Saint, 147.
Monophysites, 134, 143.
Moral unity, 82, 110, 146, 150, 155-157.
National Churches, 24, 54, 71, 74, 104, 128.
— unity of, 72, loi.
Natural unity, 146, 152.
Necessary Doctrine, etc., definition of the Church in the, 37.
— on the nature of unity, 38-40.
Nestorians, 19, 134, 143.
Nicholas I, his definition of the Church, 31.
Nicholson, on essential unity, 152.
Novatian schism, the, 140.
Numerical unity, 77, 82, 86, 99, 135, 142, 152.
Objective unity, 147, 155.
Organic unity, 53, 64, 153-154.
Overall's C'ontt/cation Book, 52-54.
Oxford movement a revival of English theology, the, 130.
Palmer, Treatise on the Church of Christ, 130-146.
— on heresy, 134-135.
— on interruptions of external communion, 139-142.
— on relations with the Lutherans and Reformed, 137-138.
— on separation, 132-133.
— on the geographical organization of the Church, 141.
— *• on the nature of excommunication, 141.
Papists, 124, 126.
Particular Churches, not indefectible, 97.
— the unity of, 90, 131.
Pearson. Kxpusition of the Creed, 87-99.
— on Christ as the Head of the Church, 91.
— on tlio episcopate, </>.
— on the holiness of tlie Church, 98.
— on the indolectibilitj' of the Church, 97.
— on the modes of unity, 94-97.
Pigliius, Alhortus, on the constitution of the Church, 44.
Pole, ('iiKliiial, liis Defence of Unity, 35, 48, 56.
— his Legatine Council, 49.
i6o
INDEX.
Prayer-book, the Preface to, 9.
— called schismatical, 4.8.
Presbyterianism, 51.
Protestants, the, 35.
Pusey, on the nature of vmity, 148-151.
Recusants, 124, 126.
R«formers, relations with foreign, loi, 136.
Restoration, the, loo, 105.
Roman Communion, Churches of the, 25, 28, 136, 144.
Roman See, its jurisdiction put aside in England, 35, 82.
— regarded as the centre of unity, 31-32, 49.
Sacraments, necessity of the, 42.
— unity of the, 17, 95, 149.
Salvation only in the Chiirch, 120.
Saywell, Dr. William, 114.
Schism, definition of, 77, 117.
— effect of, 132.
— • in England, 124.
— the Antiochene, 147.
— the Great, 32, 60, 141.
Scotland, the Church of, 50, 72, loi.
Separation, when justifiable, 118, 133.
Social unity, 94, 153-154.
Stapleton, his definition of the Church, 45.
Subjective unity, 146, 150, 154.
Swiss Reformers, the, 35, 40.
Test Act, the, 123.
Theodoret, 31.
Thomdike, 85.
Toleration, Act of, 123.
Tournely, on excommunication, 141.
Tunstall, 36, 47, 105.
— his reply to Pole, 58-59.
Turrecremata, Card, de, his definition of the Church, 34.
h'nam Sanctam, the Bull, 32.
Uniformity, compulsory, 123.
United States of America, hierarchies in the, 145.
Visible Church, the, 10, 41, 61, 106.
— unity, 17, 41, 64, 65, 98.
can be impaired, 79, 140, 147.
Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, 104, ia6.
Weslej', 129.
Wilfrid, Saint, 31.
Winchester, the late Bishop of, 19.
Wordsworth, Dr., Bishop of Lincoln, 20.
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