"LI E> RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 It 
 
 Not Published, 
 
 THE 
 
 TRUE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN REUNION. 
 
 A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 
 
 DURHAM JUNIOR CLERGY SOCIETY, 
 Dec. i8th, 1894. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS B. STRONG, M.A 
 
 Christ Church, Oxford, 
 Exanitning Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Durham. 
 
 Oxford : mdcccxcv.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 A very few verbal alterations have been made 
 in the following paper, and one or two short 
 notes added on points raised in the discussion 
 after it was read. It is printed in accordance 
 with a suggestion made by some wha heard it : 
 but as it was not written for publication, it has 
 seemed better not to publish it.
 
 ,uiuc .
 
 THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 I WILL waste as little time as may be, in apologizing 
 for my existence, my way of life, and my presence here 
 to-day. But something must be said in the way of apology, 
 and said at the beginning, as it will help to make clear 
 the line I propose to take in considering this question. I 
 come here, then, in answer to the kind invitation of your 
 Committee, to consider a question, which has come before 
 me probably in a way very different from that in which it 
 presses upon you. With you I imagine it is largely a 
 question of pressing practical importance. The disunion 
 of Christendom affects your work in your parishes, and 
 complicates all the questions to which parish-life gives rise. 
 Education, Temperance, other social and moral movements 
 are all complicated — where indeed comphcation would seem 
 to be the last thing necessary — by difficulties with Dissenters. 
 Are we to go on to the same platforms with them? Are 
 we to put aside our differences in matters where all who 
 claim the title of Christian would seem to be •necessarily 
 at one — or are our differences so vital and significant that 
 they must affect our view of the ordinary problems of moral 
 life? These are ways in which the question of reunion 
 does not, from the nature of the case, touch me. And I do 
 not, therefore, wish to attempt an answer to them. Living 
 as one does in the atmosphere of a University, one is not 
 called on for decisions upon such points, as a rule: nor, 
 in the present conditions of University life, is any decision 
 which might be reached on such a question of any interest 
 for any one outside the University. When I add to this 
 that I have hitherto refrained from avaihng myself of the 
 exceptional advantages — in the way of salubrious air, 
 economical hotel-tariffs, and miscellaneous conversation on 
 deep subjects — which, I understand, are offered at the 
 Grindelwald Conferences, you will see at once that it would 
 be unwise to expect anything of me but an academic and 
 theoretical discussion of the question.
 
 It is, of course, impossible not to be aware, even in 
 Oxford, that the question of reunion is in the air. The 
 recent utterances of Cardinal Vaughan, the Grindelwald Con- 
 ference itself, and many other discussions in many other 
 places, make it impossible to ignore the growth of a 
 movement towards reunion. And, I suppose, experience 
 in English parishes, and still more in the colonies and the 
 mission field, leave no doubt that reunion is desirable. It 
 is therefore impossible not to have some opinion on the 
 subject, — impossible to avoid asking oneself whether the 
 thing may not be attainable, and, if so, upon what terms. 
 It is upon this latter point — the conditions and terms of 
 any reunion — that I wish to concentrate attention to-day. 
 And if it seems unpractical, or presumptuous to face so 
 comprehensive a question, let me remind you that it is 
 extremely desirable to be clear where we are going before 
 we set out upon our travels. However earnestly we may 
 desire reunion we cannot, we dare not desire it, at the 
 expense of impoverishing the life of the Church, by sur- 
 rendering any vital truths. 
 
 And the danger of such surrender of vital truth is no 
 imaginar}^ one. It seems very easy, in the presence of the 
 frightful evils which disunion causes, to remedy the difficulty 
 by dropping the points of difference. It is not hard to 
 understand that men who care for the welfare of humanity 
 and see how souls which the Church was meant to refresh 
 and save, are deprived of their natural food and made to 
 wander in desert places — that these should be inclined to 
 say, " Let us at all costs put an end to this intolerable 
 position : what are a few more or a few less doctrines in 
 comparison with the welfare of souls : let us become all 
 things to all men that we may by all means save some." 
 This is a natural position, I think ; but it is a fatally hasty 
 and superficial one. As applied to the questions which 
 divide Churches it is unworthy of the subject-matter and 
 it is unworthy of the dignity of men. Men do not quarrel 
 for ages about nothing : or at least they do not do so on a 
 national and historic scale. A difference about a boundary 
 will sometimes separate two families for a generation or two : 
 but it is something real and of tenacious vitality that avails
 
 to separate sections of men for centuries. The rough-and- 
 ready solution of the difficulty, then, is unworthy and 
 superficial : but though it is both of these things in no small 
 degree it will serve to draw our attention to a truth fre- 
 quently passed by.* The truth in question is, that in all con- 
 troversy it is always the suppressed mattev of the discussion, 
 which is of real importance. The points selected to quarrel 
 over, the particular modes and occasions of the discussion, 
 are often simply incidents of the whole matter : they are the 
 signs on the surface of a far more serious divergence 
 underneath. In controversy the occasion meets the eye, 
 the cause lies in the suppressed matter. It would not be 
 hard to illustrate this truth from history. To go back into 
 ancient days, it was a small difference that separated those 
 who held the Homoousion from those who held the 
 Homoiousion. But it would have been a very superficial 
 observer who would look for the real explanation of this 
 difference in the desire to add or omit this one letter. The 
 truth is, of course, that the external difference which was 
 discussed and fought over so earnestly and, at times, so 
 acrimoniously would never have availed to divide any two 
 men, not to mention bodies of men, if it had not been that it 
 was the symbol of a real and tremendous difference which 
 underlay it. In such a case to adopt the rough-and-ready 
 course of action — for both parties to surrender their dis- 
 tinctive formula, in favour of one which should offend neither, 
 would have been to surrender truth. It was a question in 
 which one side was right and the other wrong, and nothing 
 but the admission of this fact would have satisfied the con- 
 ditions of the case. 
 
 And what is more, such a solution could never have been 
 lastingly successful. The difference which broke out then — 
 and it is typical of hundreds which have come out since — 
 represents a different view of things, a difference in the 
 general attitude of minds, which is only glossed over and 
 concealed by an external agreement, and is not put away. 
 Hence it remains unmodified and will break out in the 
 
 * For the phrase in which I shall express this truth I am indebted to Dr. 
 Martineau (Essays, vol. I., p. 159).
 
 8 
 
 end in a new form, startling and disturbing the order which 
 seemed to be so easily and firmly established. 
 
 It is, therefore, I contend, idle and misleading to talk 
 of reunion between the various opposing elements in the 
 existing Church of Christ except upon the basis of a review 
 of the points of difference and an enquiry into the real 
 occasions of dispute — the suppressed matter of controversy — 
 which is so often hidden, and so inevitably ranges men 
 upon opposite sides in such very various connexions. The 
 question for us, which has hope in it, — though it is far the 
 hardest and makes far the heaviest demand on patience and 
 insight and studious labour, — is the question whether there 
 are any points where there is radical opposition of opinion, 
 and whether in this region there is any possibility of easing 
 the strain of variance. The practical issue, whether upon 
 this or that subject we can take our stand side by side with 
 those who differ from us may be distressing and difficult ; 
 but it is not the question of reunion. We might decide to 
 act as often as we like with Dissenters, and yet leave the 
 real points in controversy as far from solution as ever. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the English Church stands conspicu- 
 ously in opposition to the Roman Catholics on one side, and 
 the various Protestant bodies on the other : the Eastern 
 Church, which in some respects offers the best hopes of 
 reunion, must be left on one side on the present occasion. 
 If, then, we propose seriously to grapple with the question of 
 reunion, it will mean for us, how are we going to face the 
 differences between ourselves and these various Christian 
 bodies ? What, in the last resort is the basis of the difference 
 of opinion ? Is this or is it not, a difference which shows 
 any prospect of being reconciled ? 
 
 1. I will consider the Protestant sects first, by which, of 
 course, I mean, those bodies which broke off from com- 
 munion with the Western Church in general at the Reforma- 
 tion, and were formed de novo at that period. Of these there 
 are, from our point of view, two widely different classes : 
 (i) those which in no sense profess the Creed as we receive 
 it, (2) and those which professing virtually the whole Creed, 
 departed at their start from the traditional order and disci- 
 pline of the ancient Church. Of course, the actual points in
 
 9 
 
 controversy between the English Church and these several 
 bodies are very various. But, roughly speaking, we may 
 affirm that the differences are either theological, or dis- 
 ciplinary, though I hope to shew that these are not so 
 far remote from one another as might seem, (i) The chief 
 doctrinal difference is connected with -the Doctrine of God 
 and divides Unitarians from all who believe in the doctrine 
 of the Holy Trinity. Of course this is in one sense an 
 absolutely final point of difference, if we can be sure that 
 the two opposing parties are talking of the same thing. 
 The question of the Divinity of Christ is a question of 
 fact, upon which two contradictory answers are impossible. 
 And if two parties, looking at the same facts and considering 
 them without bias, arrive at opposite conclusions there can 
 be no solution of the controversy, except the surrender of 
 one of the parties. But it must not hastily be assumed 
 that the questions are being faced precisely in the same 
 way on both sides. In degrees which vary greatly amongst 
 different thinkers, the suppressed matter of controversy is 
 not the mere question whether the Word was Incarnate in 
 Palestine at a particular period in time, but whether 
 the conception of God admits of the possibility of an In- 
 carnation.* To some minds, God exists simply as a first 
 Cause : a being whose existence must be assumed in order 
 to prevent an infinite regress in the line of causation. It 
 is not possible, men think, to go continuously back from 
 effect to cause, and from effect to cause again, without 
 any point of final arrest : and thus they assume a first 
 Cause, adequate to produce all the succeeding results. To 
 this the name of God is given ; and with the name there 
 follow a varying number of moral and religious associations. 
 Again, there are others who have passed beyond this vague 
 
 * The exigencies of space forbid me to enter upon the historical questions 
 between us and the Unitarians. And I omit them with the less regret because 
 they are strictly secondary to those raised above. If the Incarnation is a 
 priori and in theory impossible, no historical evidence, however good and 
 full, would be adequate to prove it. On the other hand, if it is possible in 
 theory, the historical evidence may be estimated on its own merits, simply as 
 historical evidence, without being confused by a priori considerations. It 
 would greatly help towards clearness in weighing the evidence for the 
 Christian Faith, if these two aspects of it — the metaphysical and the historical 
 — were more accurately distinguished.
 
 lO 
 
 metaphysical conception to something ethically more attrac- 
 tive. The God in whom they believe is personal ; has an in- 
 terest in the life of men and the order of the world, is moral 
 and interested in the moral condition of individual souls : more 
 than all things, is benevolent with a benevolence that cannot 
 ever long maintain an indignant demeanour, but is easily 
 appeased by penitence and tears. Such an idea of God 
 is on the whole the best of unitarian types : but to such 
 a point of view the sternness of the Gospel is repellent. 
 It cannot understand why Christians think so seriously 
 of the gravity of sin, as to demand for its obliteration the 
 sacrifice of the Cross. The whole scheme of redemption 
 seems to those who hold this view savage and unnecessary. 
 And as for the Incarnation, every man is in some sense 
 a manifestation of the Divine Existence : the Nicene doctrine 
 of the Incarnation is merely a metaphysical fancy. 
 
 It is clear that these are in some sense the best of the 
 Unitarians. There is something living and warm and 
 worshipful about the God in whom they believe. And 
 though it is true that there is and can be no logical or meta- 
 physical justification for the existence of such a Being : 
 though, that is. His connexion with the world and man can 
 never be satisfactorily made out : yet it is easy to represent 
 this as a comparatively unimportant detail. On all points of 
 moral practice and worship they are so closely in agreement 
 with ourselves, that we are inclined to ask whether a mere 
 matter of metaphysics ought to continue to divide us. But, 
 as a matter of fact, it is no small flaw in their position. It 
 means that their practice is better than their theory, indeed, 
 that in the end they have no logical defence for their theory 
 at all. For bare Monotheism is not a possible type of belief 
 any longer. The belief that God is capable of caring for the 
 world means in the end that He is capable of saving it. 
 The belief that God is Love in His own Nature forbids us 
 from thinking of Him in lonely isolation without any object 
 of His Love but the world that He Himself created, of 
 which the character is temporary. Either we must infer 
 from such a belief that the world is eternal and is the proper 
 complement of the Divine Nature — i.e.^ that without it God 
 Himself is not perfect, and this is one form of Pantheism —
 
 II 
 
 or we must sever Him from the world in the remote isolation 
 of the Deistic First Cause. The belief in one God is not 
 rationally tenable, except in the form of Trinitarianism : and 
 this we reach only through the Incarnation. When the 
 Incarnation is rejected, therefore, on a priori grounds — i.e., as 
 being impossible — the real ground of the controversy lies 
 below the surface : it is a question not of the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation in itself, but of the whole nature of God, and 
 His relation to the world. It will be idle, then, to look for a 
 solution of the difficulties and differences between us and 
 Unitarians in any region that leaves the doctrine of God 
 untouched. No plan, by which we say a little less about 
 Christ and the others say a little more, will really bring us 
 together. For the difference which is obvious to the eye^ 
 runs back upon a fundamental difference in our whole point 
 of view. 
 
 (2) I suppose this conclusion will be readily admitted by 
 almost every one here : but that I shall run the risk of in- 
 curring the charge of bigotry and narrowness of mind, if I 
 say that much the same is true of the differences between 
 ourselves and the so-called orthodox Protestant sects. For 
 it is popularly maintained that these differences are external : 
 and it is popularly assumed that that which is 'external is 
 also unessential. Let us pause for a moment before we 
 accept this identification. That all unessential things are 
 external to the real centre and core of the faith we may 
 readily admit : but is it true that all external things are also 
 unessential ? Surely not : unless we assume that there is no 
 natural link between the motions of the soul, and the out- 
 ward expression of them — unless we assume that man's soul 
 is a single individual atom, without necessary relations to 
 other men, without any necessary demand resting upon him 
 for self-expression and influence upon the outer world, //we 
 assume all this — if we separate man from his kind, and 
 divorce his inner from his outer life, then we may fairly 
 believe that his religious life will be exhausted in his private 
 intercourse with God, and that there is no absolute need for 
 any religious organization, in which his essentially social life 
 must develope on its religious side. It is only, I repeat, to a 
 purely individualistic conception of manhood that a religion
 
 12 
 
 is tolerable without external organization, without a common 
 worship in which the whole community joins as a community, 
 and not as a loose lot of individuals who have arranged to 
 say their private prayers in public. It is, of course, possible 
 to hold this individualistic theory of Hfe, and yet to submit to 
 an organization of a more or less solid character. In fact, 
 one may say broadly that no sect in Christendom has ever 
 succeeded in carrying out this theory to its logical conclusion.* 
 And, on the other hand, there is to be found in the English 
 Church a considerable body of people, whose theory of religion 
 is indistinguishable from that just described : though they 
 formally comply with the external order, and gain by it ; they 
 express themselves as being indifferent to it, and assert their 
 indifference in various ways — e.g., by repeating all the priest's 
 part of the service in an audible whisper. But, though it is 
 possible to separate thus theory and practice, the objections 
 to and even the indifference to external order spring ulti- 
 mately from a different conception of human nature, its needs 
 and possibilities, to that which finds a ready and natural 
 expression in a common religious life and worship. And it 
 is in this region that our real controversy lies, I think, with 
 all the orthodox Protestant sects except Presbyterianism.f 
 For that body insists no less than we do on the need of an 
 organization, though the organization adopted, and, still 
 more the method of religious observance prevailing, lends 
 itself to a more individualistic view of man than seems to me 
 consistent with the practice of the Church of England. And 
 thus, however large our charity and sympathetic our de- 
 
 * I suppose, the Quakers and possibly the Anabaptists — a very different 
 class of people — came nearest doing so in their original forms : and, in 
 modern times, Dr. Martineau maintains it in theory, apparently regarding 
 public worship, &c. , as a concession. See his preface to Home Prayers. 
 
 f The discussion between the English Church and the Kirk of Scotland is 
 largely historical : and therefore falls beyond the scope of this paper. At the 
 same time, I think that the polity of the Kirk was determined by a view of 
 the Sacraments, of the value of an external order, and of the functions of 
 ministers, which has more in common with Protestantism pure and simple, 
 than with any body, which has clung to the historic discipline of the Church. 
 The fact that Anglicanism is established in England and Presbyterianism in 
 Scotland complicates the whole matter rather seriously. It gives an air of 
 arbitrariness to the differences between the two bodies and suggests that the 
 disabilities of a member of the Scotch Establishment when he comes South of 
 the Tweed, are of merely legal value. But there is probably considerable 
 likelihood that these two bodies will, in time, draw together.
 
 13 
 
 meanour, however successful we may be in reconciling indi- 
 viduals, we shall not succeed in reuniting Churches, except 
 upon the basis of a decision upon the real point in con- 
 troversy : i.e., upon the nature of man and the true method 
 of its self-expression. 
 
 We differ, then, from the various bodies to which I have 
 alluded — in two directions prominently : in regard of the 
 Doctrine of God and in regard of the doctrine of man. But 
 these two are not so separate as might appear at first sight. 
 There is often a hidden logic in things which really connects 
 opinions and ideas, even when they do not openly suggest 
 close connexion. And there is a compatibility and rather 
 more than a compatibility — a suggestion of connexion, be- 
 tween the individualistic view of man and the more sterile 
 view of God. From the point of view I have last mentioned 
 man stands as a lonely individual before God. His whole 
 religious horizon is occupied by this one relation. In the 
 words of Dr. Newman (describing his earliest religious ideas), 
 such a person, at his highest, " rests in the thought of two 
 and only two supreme and luminously self-evident beings," 
 himself and the Creator. Beyond this the whole world is in 
 some degree irrelevant : in the case of Newman it ' con- 
 firmed ' him in his mistrust of the reality of material 
 phenomena. This was a result which, I suppose, is hardly 
 intelligible to most of us : but it is logical. The soul which 
 thus isolates itself from all its natural environment, if it is 
 serious in its convictions loses hold of the world. From 
 regarding outward things as unessential, from turning aside 
 from and ignoring the gradual manifestation of God in 
 history it comes to restrict the action of God to a personal 
 relation with itself and other souls. Nature, history, the 
 Church, from being thought unnecessary to God's self-revela- 
 tion, come to be regarded as barriers — obstacles to its 
 freedom. The same measure is applied to the Bible, where 
 that is still retained. The prophets and holy men of old 
 tend to be regarded as passive vehicles of the Divine Inspi- 
 ration : the human element in their writings is minimized 
 and in the end disappears. So more and more the close 
 presence of God is removed from the world. Some will still 
 maintain that He interferes with the course of nature, sus-
 
 H 
 
 pends its law, and works miracles — for the most part leaving 
 the world to the operation of ordinary laws. Until at last 
 the question is raised, Why is this complex scheme of Re- 
 demption necessary ? How can it affect the relations of the 
 lonely soul and God ? Will not God be satisfied when the 
 soul turns to Him in tears and penitence ? And with these 
 questions the link is forged which binds bare individualism 
 in regard of man with the sterile Unitarian conception of 
 God. Belief in the Incarnation is bound up, when we press 
 it to the last, with the belief in the true unity of mankind, in 
 the manifestation of God continuously in history : and that 
 will mean in the end, with belief in the necessity of the 
 existence of His historic Church. And if this seems startling 
 at first sight, it will not seem so to a more thoughtful gaze. 
 It is surely a strange thing to believe about God that a large 
 portion of His activity is unessential. With all His Bounty 
 in dealing with man. He is also, if I may use the phrase, 
 wonderfully parsimonious. Men of science tell us of the 
 parsimony of nature, of the narrow margin of bare sufficiency 
 within which the life of animals is made to work : it is a 
 common reflection, for instance, that the organization of a 
 human being is only just sufficient to keep him alive, and 
 seems to run very close to dangerous economy. And as 
 with nature, so it is in the Kingdom of Grace. Man is given 
 enough to save him, and not more. And unless we are pre- 
 pared to deny altogether that God is at work in the historic 
 Church, we cannot but regard it as necessary to God's Plan. 
 The one thing it cannot be — and the same may be said of 
 the whole scheme of God's self-revelation — the one thing it 
 cannot be is non-essential. It hangs together : it is neces- 
 sary or it is nothing. 
 
 It seems to me, then, — looking at things in the somewhat 
 theoretical way which is habitual with me, — that our differ- 
 ences with Dissenters — orthodox and Unitarian — are great 
 and of vital importance. When expressed in their final form, 
 they are differences as to the Nature of God and the Nature of 
 man and the essential relations between them. In saying this, 
 I am certain that I am not distorting the facts or magnifying 
 tendencies to disagreement. I know well, of course, that 
 there is every variety of strange combinations in men's con-
 
 15 
 
 victions — that imagination, old association, lack of thorough- 
 ness in logic and in insight prevent the suppressed matter of 
 controversy from being the acknowledged subject of dispute. 
 But though this is true, I believe that Unitarianism itself 
 arose (through an intellectual development such as I have 
 sketched) out of the Individualism which prevailed after the 
 Reformation in a sect which originally had no idea of 
 departing from the faith : and I am sure that if I have 
 been in any degree accurate in my view reunion is and 
 will remain impossible unless people will face and come to 
 agreement upon the points on which they really differ. 
 
 But it is time that I passed from the question of the 
 Dissenters to that of the Roman Catholics. So far as we 
 are in earnest about reunion, our hopes must include reunion 
 with Rome — the see to which for so many centuries the 
 Western Church had accorded a primacy of reverence. For 
 the last 300 years we have been in a state of broken unity as 
 regards this Church, as we have, on the other hand, never 
 entered into Communion with those newly-founded sects of 
 which I have already spoken. What is the character, then, 
 of our differences with the Roman Church ? Is there any 
 chance here of a reopening of communion, or is the breach 
 final and hopeless ? It is very hard to discuss this question 
 dispassionately ? The cry of ' No Popery ' is an easy one to 
 raise, and it is popular in proportion to the uncertainty of its 
 meaning. At the risk of appearing gratuitously paradoxical, 
 I must say that the Roman Church seems to me to differ 
 from the English in its method of interpreting a creed 
 common to both, rather than in its fundamental principles 
 of theology and metaphysic. The essence of Romanism as 
 such seems to me to be the placing of certain logical exten- 
 sions and interpretations of the Creed upon the same level 
 with the articles of the Creed themselves. But the Creed 
 thus treated is the one which we share with the Roman and 
 Greek Churches — that, I mean, which we call the Nicene. 
 So again a similar method has been applied to the usages 
 and order of the Church with similar results. I will en- 
 deavour to establish my point by means of one or two 
 illustrations. 
 
 I imagine that among the points of most serious difference
 
 i6 
 
 between us and Rome we should mention the doctrine of the 
 Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, the doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation, and the doctrine of Infallibility. I 
 will endeavour to show what I think is the real character of 
 our differences in these three cases, (i) I imagine that the 
 practice of Mariolatry arises largely out of a belief in the 
 truth of the first-named of these three doctrines : in other 
 words, that this practice, which forms one of the most solid 
 barriers against reunion is not a piece of wanton idolatry, but 
 is the outcome of a belief of a particular kind. And the 
 question then, is, What led the Roman Church to this par- 
 ticular belief ? It seems to me to have arisen through an 
 effort to ease by logical interpretation the great difficulty of 
 the interruption by the Incarnation of the sinful succession 
 from Adam. Somehow or other, the inheritance of sin which 
 had come from our first parents is interrupted by the entry 
 of the impeccable Word upon the line of David. There had 
 been sins enough, in all conscience in that line : but the 
 Child of Mary is born in it sinless and incapable of sin. The 
 instinct of the Church has led Christians to maintain the 
 purity and holiness of the Virgin Mother : but this belief 
 falls short of that in an Immaculate Conception. For that 
 means nothing less, if terms are used in their natural signifi- 
 cance, than that in her case the succession of original sin 
 was first interrupted, and not in that of her Divine Son. His 
 birth, upon which indeed our hope of salvation depends, was 
 remote from all contact with the sinful strain : for it had been 
 already broken in the case of His Virgin Mother. I am well 
 aware that the difficulty is great (when we really look it in 
 the face) of explaining the possibility of the sinless Birth of 
 Christ in a sin-stained line of men : and it is easy to see that 
 an appearance of satisfaction comes from extending the 
 breach of continuity over two generations. But though it 
 may be true to say of ourselves that our only chance of sin- 
 lessness is to be born anew in Christ, we have no right to 
 apply that principle to His Birth too, and demand that His 
 parent also shall have been conceived without sin. The 
 article of the Creed * conceived by the Holy Ghost ' should 
 have prevented this misuse of logic. The nemesis of such a 
 proceeding has been the ascription of quasi- Divine attributes
 
 17 
 
 to a person to whom a quasi-Divine mode of birth had 
 already been assigned. 
 
 (2) Something of the same kind may be said of the 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation. In this case, starting, as all 
 Christians must start, from the Words of Institution, a 
 metaphysical theory has been evolved and is affirmed as 
 being of equal authority with the fact which it professes 
 to explain. The doctrine arose at a time when the nature 
 and relations of Substance and Attributes were much under 
 discussion. There were, as every one knows, two schools 
 of thinkers on this subject — the Realists — those who held 
 that substance — the substratum underlying attributes — was 
 different from them and independent of them : and the 
 Nominalists — who denied reality to anything but the facts 
 of sense, and regarded general ideas as being merely names. 
 And this philosophical discussion affected Eucharistic 
 doctrine very seriously. For if nothing was real except 
 the facts of sense, then in no way at all could the Eucharistic 
 elements be said to be that which they signify. The words 
 of our Lord were deprived of all meaning, and reduced to 
 the level of highflown metaphor. Thus the doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation was a justifiable protest against a materialistic 
 philosophy : and was intended to save the trutR which the 
 Church had long held from the assaults of scepticism. It 
 was this ; but it was something more. It was also — and 
 here was its danger, — an attempt to explain the mystery 
 of the Eucharist in the metaphysical language of the day. 
 And that means that it not only asserts a fact about the 
 Eucharist, but also maintains a theor}^ in regard of it. 
 Hence to adopt it as part of the general tradition of the 
 Church involves committing the Church not merely to a 
 fact revealed to it in the Gospels, but also to a particular 
 philosophical theory of Being. Here again, therefore, our 
 point of departure from the Church of Rome arises after that 
 which we believe in common. We reject the stereotyped 
 logic and metaphysic — not the fact which these are meant 
 to explain. 
 
 (3) The doctrine of Infallibility represents the logical 
 outcome of a method by which a distinction of function 
 and order is gradually stiffened and magnified almost into
 
 a distinction of kind. All bodies which have anj^ organi- 
 zation at all, carry on the work of the Church through the 
 instrumentality of ordained ministers. That is, every 
 organized body is managed upon the principle of the 
 division of labour. So long as this principle and this alone 
 is at work the ordained differ only in regard of their special 
 commission from the multitudes of unordained lay people. 
 The priesthood, for instance, conveys a commission to 
 perform certain actions and nothing else : the priest does 
 not differ in kind from any other member of Christ's Church. 
 But upon the special Roman theory this di£ference of function 
 is gradually accentuated : the common points between priest 
 and people are gradually lost sight of : until at last there 
 arises the conception of a separate class of men, possessing 
 certain prerogatives absolutely, and administering at their 
 own will the gifts of the Church for the benefit of the 
 unprivileged — the laity. The extreme case of this unfor- 
 tunate development is the Papacy. From possessing by 
 widespread consent a primacy iniev paves among Bishops the 
 Bishop of Rome gradually becomes distinguished from them 
 all. The supremacy which he administered, at first, con- 
 stitutionally and in connexion \vith the whole body of other 
 Bishops was exaggerated until, one by one, all the pre- 
 rogatives of the Church were concentrated in the one see. 
 The addition of Infallibility in 1870 was simply the last 
 stage in a process which had taken centuries to develop. 
 
 These three instances will, I hope, have made plain the 
 truth of what I said earlier, that the differences between us 
 and Rome relate predominantly to certain extensions of 
 truths which we hold in common. Like them we believe in 
 Jesus Christ — conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the 
 Virgin Mary : we reject the attempt to give a logical and 
 metaphysical exposition of this doctrine. Like the Church 
 of Rome we believe that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist 
 Christ draws near to us in exceptional closeness — gives us 
 Himself — but we reject the formula by which this is philo- 
 sophically explained. Like the Romans, like all other 
 organized Christian bodies, we regard the priest as com- 
 missioned to perform certain functions and we deny the right 
 to do so to persons not commissioned : but we reject the
 
 19 
 
 one-sided assertion of this principle either in the form of the 
 distinctively Roman doctrine of the priesthood or in the form 
 of the Papal claims. 
 
 In the effort to make clear the grounds of difference, 
 I have left myself hardly any room to explain my views 
 as to the hope of reunion. I must now turn to this side 
 of the question. It will be plain from what I have already 
 said that I think seriously of the differences which separate 
 us from Nonconformists. Indeed, if it be not too outrageous 
 a paradox, I should be inclined to argue that, so far as mere 
 differences go, we are infinitely nearer a reunion with Rome 
 than with any of the various Protestant sects. Our differ- 
 ences with these are deep and significant, touching the 
 very essentials of the Faith — the conditions preliminary 
 in thought which make a definite creed and organization 
 possible. While, on the other hand, the Romans differ in 
 the effect they have given to the beliefs and practices which 
 we share with them. But I am prevented from maintaining 
 this paradox by the fact that the Romans have taken one 
 fatal step which seems to me to have postponed reunion 
 indefinitely. They have turned their extensions of the doc- 
 trines and practice of the Church into dogmas, w'hich are 
 now (since 1870) as completely necessary to Christianity as 
 the articles of the Creed. The danger of this is twofold : it 
 has combined under the shelter of one authority two dis- 
 parate things — articles of the Faith and philosophical inter- 
 pretations of them : and it has closed the door against all 
 reconsideration of the questions : so that the whole idea of 
 Church authority has been confused, and a permanent bar- 
 rier has been erected against all change. On this side, there 
 seems little hope of change, save through revolution. But 
 on the side of the Protestant sects, I would speak more 
 hopefully. It might seem as if metaphysical ideas were 
 the last to change and the least likely region in which to 
 look for agreement, more especially as they are not openly 
 under discussion. But as a matter of fact, there are two 
 tendencies at work which we shall all of us have to reckon 
 with, and both are in the direction which we require. The 
 one is the spread of the idea of Evolution : the other the 
 marked development of a quasi-socialistic conception of
 
 20 
 
 man. The Evolutionary idea claims to rule over all the 
 range of human experience : and rightly, if its claims to 
 rule anywhere are justified. And Evolution lends itself 
 readily to the idea of a purpose slowly and gradually ex- 
 pressed ; of a thought gradually made intelligible in and 
 through a process of material change. And the socialistic 
 conception of man runs in the teeth of all the narrow 
 individualism which has so long characterized our religious 
 and political thinking. More and more it is becoming 
 necessary to think of man primarily as social — as incomplete 
 in his manhood, until he has entered into social relations. 
 In former days, men started with the individual and en- 
 deavoured to explain his adoption of social ties. But such 
 theories conspicuously failed. There seems more hope of 
 those to which the isolated individual is an abnormality : in 
 Aristotle's phrase, rj drjpiov rj 6e6s — either below or above the 
 level of humanity. Neither of these two intellectual ten- 
 dencies is consistent in the last resort with a theory of 
 religion which is outside the movement of life and history, 
 or with a theory of man which isolates him in his highest 
 aspect from all union with his fellows. In religion as in 
 political science man is a social animal and by degrees 
 the inconsistency of treating him in any other light 
 will declare itself. Indeed it has already begun to do so. 
 And I say this in full consciousness of the fact that both 
 Evolution and Socialistic principles are found in close contact 
 at times with scepticism, and even atheism, — of the fact that 
 in many quarters negative results seem to flow from the use 
 of the evolutionary method. And I am tolerably sure that 
 unless something unusual happens, the process of drawing 
 together will be a long one — outlasting, perhaps, the lives 
 even of the Junior Clergy. And mistakes will be made, as 
 they have been made before — mistakes that will embitter 
 and retard and hamper us. People will be, as they have 
 been before, alarmed at the wrong things : and they will be 
 retentive at the wrong times : stringent when they ought to 
 be lax, and lax when they ought to be stringent. But there 
 is all around us this impulse towards union of which I 
 spoke at the beginning — this disdain of the barriers which 
 hold Christian men apart, and weaken their hands in the
 
 21 
 
 war with evil. And if only we can control our impatience, 
 and not construe this heaven-sent impulse as a call to relin- 
 quish any morsel of the truth we have, we may go forward 
 in hope : using, indeed, any means we have in our power of 
 assuaging bitterness of feehng and laying the spirit of contro- 
 versy : but for the rest trusting in the tranquil operation of 
 God's perpetual Providence. 
 
 BAXTER S PRESS, OXFORD.