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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

RESTATEMENT AND REUNION

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

RESTATEMENT AND
REUNION
A Study in First Principles

BY
BURNETT HILLMAN STREETER
FELLOW, DEAN AND LECTURER IN THEOLOGY AND CLASSICS OF
QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD J THEOLOGICAL LECTURER OF HERTFORD COLLEGE
FORMERLY FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE
EDITOR OF "FOUNDATIONS"

SECOND IMPRESSION

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON'
1914

COPYRIGHT
First Edition, May, 1914.
Reprinted with additional matter, June, 1914.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Note to Second Impression .... vi
Introduction  vii
I. — The Simplicity of Christianity ... 1
II. — Authority, Reunion and Truth . . 39

III. — What does the Church of England stand
for? 
TV. — The Conception of the One Church .
Part I. — From Unity to Disruption .
„ II. — The Preliminaries of Reunion .
,, III. — The Problem of Intercommunion

83
119
119
150183

NOTE TO THE SECOND IMPRESSION
It has been suggested to me that Essay IV
should properly include some discussion of the
question whether an Anglican ought under
any circumstances to receive the Communion
in a Non-Episcopalian Church. This omission
I have now endeavoured to repair. Cf. pp.
194-207. B. H. S.

INTRODUCTION
The object of this book is not controversial
but constructive. Controversy of any kind
is rarely in the interest of true religion ;
controversy on party lines is never so. If
the Church of England is to cope with the
practical and intellectual problems of to-day,
means must be found somehow of bringing
together all that is best in the spiritual
traditions of the High Church and the
Evangelical Schools respectively, and com
bining them with the intellectual fearless
ness of the old Broad Church party. The
contribution which any one individual can
make to such a result is necessarily small, but
the recognition of this fact does not absolve
any individual from attempting to da what
he can. With this intention, and with
a full consciousness of their deficiencies, I

viii INTRODUCTION
venture to publish these Studies in First
Principles. Two of them, I should add, are
based on sermons, delivered to the University
of Oxford in my turn as Select Preacher,
expanded and modified so as to form, with
the others, a continuous and connected series.
Except for a passing allusion to a book by
my witty friend and critic, Mr. Knox, I have
made no attempt to reply to any of the
strictures which have been passed upon my
Essay in "Foundations," and I have not
attempted to defend any of the views there
expressed. I may, however, remark that
some critics have done less than justice to my
standpoint through having, apparently, over
looked the paragraph in my Essay implying
that I heartily associate myself with the
general position, taken up elsewhere in the
volume, in regard to the Divinity of Christ.
Again, the amount of space I was able to allot
to the discussion of the Resurrection was all
too little ; with the result that some, who
have only vouchsafed to that little a hurried
reading, have attributed to me views which
I do not hold. But though I disclaim respon
sibility for some of the opinions which have
been ascribed to me by others, I see no reason

INTRODUCTION ix
to retract any of those which I have myself
expressed, nor even, as at present advised,
to modify them in any important particular.
But, as the publicity which they have received
is sufficient to ensure their receiving the
serious consideration of the Church at large,
no good purpose would be served by their
reiteration. On the principle that a cobbler, however
incompetent, should, at any rate, stick to his
last, it may possibly occur to some one to say,
that I should have been wiser to have con
fined the title and scope of this volume to the
subject of Theological Restatement, and to
have left the question of Reunion to others.
I may therefore explain that during the last
twelve months a visit to India and Ceylon
has given me the opportunity of some first
hand study of the practical aspects of that
problem, as it presents itself in the Mission
field. I have also come to realise more dis
tinctly than before that the problem of Theo
logical Restatement is more intimately con
nected with that of Reunion than is commonly
supposed. For both problems depend for
their solution on a clearer and more compre
hensive elucidation of Truth ; and, in religion,

x INTRODUCTION
isolation inevitably leads to a distorted or one
sided apprehension of Truth. They resemble
one another, I would add, in one more respect.
They cannot be solved all at once. For
though opinions differ as to the value of
practical experiments, like those suggested
at Kikuyu, or theological experiments, like
those put forward in " Foundations," there
can be little doubt that it is only by making
such experiments, with all the element of risk
which this entails, that the right solutions
will be found.
Three-fourths of the volume were already
in page proof before the publication of the
Bishop of Oxford's pronouncement on The
Basis of Anglican Fellowship, so that it
was composed without reference to the position
there laid down. I am happy, however, to
reflect that it is essentially a response to the
appeal, which the Bishop there makes to
members of the Church of England, to think
out first principles.
I am not without hope that the principles
I have worked out, and the practical sugges
tions I have ventured to make, in the con
cluding paper, on the vexed question of
Intercommunion, may ultimately commend

INTRODUCTION xi
themselves to his judgment as a possible
solution of present difficulties. I cannot
pretend to hope that he will receive with
equal favour the reflections which I have
offered on the subject of Theological Restate
ment. I was, however, glad to notice a
sentence in his Open Letter which implies
that nothing advanced in the book " Founda
tions" goes outside what he regards as the
extreme limits of toleration ; and I believe
that there is nothing in this present volume
which he will consider as doing so.
I feel, however, bound to register a protest
against the Bishop's implication that difficul
ties as to the Virgin Birth, the Physical
Resurrection and the " nature " miracles are
only felt acutely by those who base their
criticism " on a mistaken view of natural law,
and on something much less than a Christian
belief in God." And I demur to the state
ment that "it is those who reject these
miracles, and not those who affirm them, who
do violence to the evidence." Thirty years
ago this may have been the case ; but the
& priori philosophical objections to miracles,
though still not inconsiderable, carry far less
weight now than they did then. It is pre-

xii INTRODUCTION
cisely the nature of the evidence that gives
men pause to-day.
For purely literary and critical questions
are not the only ones to be considered. There
is a growing realisation by historians and
psychologists of the large subjective element
which enters into every record of historical
fact, especially where the witness has not been
carefully educated in the difficult art of close
observation and correct description. In par
ticular, Christian Scholars are becoming more
keenly alive to the significance of the fact
that in all nations, at certain stages of culture,
stories of miracles are found rapidly to gather
round striking personages, especially religious
leaders. It is indeed less the weakness of the
evidence for the Biblical miracles, than the
strength of the evidence for others, that con
stitutes one of the main difficulties at the
present time.
Stories of " nature " miracles, and even of
supernatural births, are found outside the
Bible, attested by evidence, which in the case
of non-miraculous occurrences would be re
garded as at least respectable. The reason
why Christians, while rejecting these outright,
are yet disposed to consider seriously the

INTRODUCTION xiii
evidence for the Gospel miracles, is that the
Gospel miracles are felt to be in some sense
congruous with the character of God, with the
Christian scheme of redemption and revelation
in general, and with the moral and spiritual
uniqueness of the person of Christ. These, I
would observe, are as essentially considerations
of an a priori character as are the ordinary a
priori objections to miracles ; and both have
an equal claim to be treated seriously. Both
alike must be subjected to the test of keen
philosophical analysis ; and they must both be
considered in relation to the a posteriori
evidence for miracles in general, whether
Biblical or extra-Biblical, as well as that for
particular Gospel miracles.
The conclusions of such an investigation, both
on its philosophical and on its evidential side,
must necessarily be determined by considera
tions of the most intricate and delicate kind. So
complex a problem does not admit of an easy
and clear cut solution — or, indeed, I would
urge, of any solution so absolutely certain and
impregnable as to be capable of being made an
articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae in the
present age.
The point on which the Bishop lays most

xiv INTRODUCTION
stress is the obligation of Clerical Veracity ;
and, if I may be permitted to say so, I think
he has done the Church a service in calling
attention to a moral issue of no small
importance. The place occupied by the
Creeds in the Liturgy of the Church of
England makes their constant recitation
obligatory on every clergyman. The Bishop
urges that for a clergyman to perform this
duty, if he disbelieves, or even doubts, the
literal truth of the miraculous incidents
alluded to in the Creeds, is inconsistent with
" the veracity required in all public pro
fessions." The remarks which I make in the second
paper in this volume (which were already in
print before I had seen the Bishop's Open
Letter) will, I hope, acquit me of the
charge of being personally indifferent to the
paramount claims of truth, when I say that I
am compelled entirely to dissent from the
general conclusion he arrives at. The more
salient considerations, which appear to me
to bear on the subject, are, briefly, as
follows : —
(1) The unique authority, which the Bishop
is inclined to attribute to the Creeds, goes

INTRODUCTION xv
beyond that which is assigned to them either
in the popular mind or in the official formu
laries of the Church. For the Church of
England their binding authority is conditioned
by a principle, on which the Bishop himself,
in reference to another matter, lays great
stress, viz., "the acceptance of Scripture as
limiting dogmatic requirement," i.e., they are
binding because, to quote the Article, " they
may be proved by most certain warrants of
Holy Scripture." In an age when the inter
pretation of Scripture has been revolutionised,
the interpretation of the Creeds cannot be
supposed to be unaffected.
(2) When a clergyman recites, as part of a
traditional liturgical service, a form of words
upwards of fifteen centuries old, he un
doubtedly commits himself to a hearty assent
to its general intention. He is not supposed
to be committing himself to that literal
affirmation of every individual statement
which would be expected of him in the case
of an affidavit submitted to him for his
personal acceptance.
(3) Several of the clauses of the Apostles'
Creed, those, for instance, which speak of
Creation, of Heaven and Hell in connection

xvi INTRODUCTION
with our Lord's Ascent and Descent thereto,
and of the Day of Judgment, are, by common
consent, admitted to be symbolical (cf. below,
pp. 75-76). Indeed, as the Bishop himself
points out, " with regard to what lies outside
present human experience, we can only be
taught, or formulate our beliefs, in symbolical
language — language which is in a measure
diverted from its original purpose." But these
clauses of the Creed were drawn up in direct
reference to certain passages of Scripture,
which, so far as their matter-of-fact and
realistic manner of description is concerned,
cannot be distinguished from the passages
which relate to the Birth and Resurrection of
our Lord. The clear cut distinction, drawn by
the Bishop, between those historical statements
which may, or rather must, be taken symbol
ically, and those which are to be taken
literally, might possibly have been understood
by the learned Fathers of Alexandria and
some others. It is highly improbable that it
was made in the early Roman Church, in
which the Ap.ostles' Creed originated, and it
has never been recognised by the vast mass of
Christians.

INTRODUCTION xvii
(4) The exact manner of the union of
Divine and Human in the person of Christ,
and the exact nature of the Life beyond the
grave, are both, to use the Bishop's own
language, conceptions which carry one " out
side the world of present possible experience,
and symbolical language is the only language"
that can be used to express them. Thus the
hard and fast distinction which he makes
between the clauses which affirm the Incarna
tion and Resurrection on the one hand, and
those which relate to Creation, Heaven, Hell
and Judgment on the other, breaks down in
another important particular.
In view of these considerations, I would
urge that, provided always a clergyman is a
sincere believer in the Divinity of our Lord
and in the reality of His personal conquest
over Death, there is nothing anomalous or
incongruous in his claim to treat certain
clauses in the Creed as symbolical rather than
as strictly literal expressions of these beliefs.
But his claim to do so is consistent with
absolute sincerity on one condition, and on
one condition only, viz., that, with all due
regard to appropriateness of occasion, and with
all due respect to the susceptibilities of those
o

xviii INTRODUCTION
who think otherwise than himself, he makes it
perfectly clear to those to whom he ministers
that he does claim this particular right.
As an objection to the position I am main
taining, it may be urged that the phrase
"born of the Virgin Mary," if treated as
symbol or parable, is, from the point of view
of the modern mind, not a very illuminative
symbol ; and that therefore to treat it as such
involves a certain amount of " mental reserva
tion." The objection — which applies, by the
way, with almost equal force to any possible
interpretation of the clause " He descended
into Hell " — is one which it is easy to make
too much of, but that there is nothing in it
I certainly will not maintain. But in this
matter none of the Bishops and few of the
Clergy and Laity are in a position to throw
stones. All of them, at any rate I hope so,
would admit with the Bishop of Oxford that
there is at least one clause in the Athanasian
Creed which they cannot recite " without a
mental reservation."
The Bishop speaks of the Athanasian Creed
as a " canticle," and draws certain distinctions
between it and the other Creeds. In its
history and origin it was no doubt somewhat

INTRODUCTION xix
different. But if we were to go into questions
of origin, something might be made of the fact
that in the actual Creed which was sanctioned
by the Council of Nicaea, which is popularly
regarded as having a certain primacy among
the Councils, there was no mention of the
Virgin Birth ; or of the fact that the only form
of Creed, which has Oecumenical sanction,
begins with the words, " We believe," which,
as the Bishop concedes, implies a less strictly
personal form of assent than the Western
formula " I believe." But questions of his
torical origin, or degree of Oecumenical
sanction, are entirely irrelevant to the question
of the legitimacy, or otherwise, of allowing
the use of " mental reservation " in the public
recitation of the Creeds. And so far as the
Quicunque Vult is concerned, there is no
denying that the Articles, the Prayer-Book
and the plain man agree in calling it a
" Creed." It is ordered to be used as a
substitute for the usual Creed ; and that, be
it observed, not on unimportant occasions, but
on the most solemn festivals of the Church.
Moreover, those who most desire to effect a
change, and those who mopt vehemently resist
it, are agreed in doing so, because they regard

xx INTRODUCTION
the document as having credal force. The
Bishop holds out hopes that the obligation to
recite it may be removed at an early date. I
confess I am less optimistic. But if the change
were made to-morrow, those who claimed to
treat as " canticles " some other documents,
which the Church styles "Creeds," could at
least plead that they were only doing what
the Bishop of Oxford and all his brethren
have been doing throughout long and bene
ficent ministerial careers.
But the question is not merely whether a
man is justified in retaining or seeking Holy
Orders, if he is either doubtful whether the
Virgin Birth is historical, or even if he is
persuaded that it is not. There are many
believers in the Divinity of our Lord, who are
convinced that the future of Christianity
depends on its being proved to be possible to
dissociate that belief from any necessary de
pendence on the evidence for the miracle in
question. Among them are men who are
passionately convinced that the Church of
England holds a unique position in the Church
of Christ, and has a unique mission to perform
in the world, and that, in so far as that is the
case, the future of Christianity depends on the

INTR6DUCTION

XXI

attitude which the Church of England takes
up on this particular question. Such men do
not put the question to themselves in the form
" Am I justified in remaining in, or in enter
ing into, the ministry ? " They ask, rather,
whether they are justified in declining to take
that course. When men like the Bishop of
Oxford and many others, whose character and
ability they revere, tell them their place is
outside, they may hesitate for a moment ; but
they take courage from the reflection that
precisely the same, thing has been said by wise
and good men to everyone of the Prophets
that have arisen in the Church of England,
from the author of " Tract XC " to the Editor
of " Lux Mundi."
Consideration for the views and feelings
of the older generation, anxiety to avoid
at all costs anything which might cause
to offend any of the little ones whose souls
are committed to their charge, have been,
and have properly been, motives which in the
past have caused many of the clergy to
exercise a certain amount of reserve in the
public discussion of these questions. But the
times have changed rapidly of late. Problems,
once only recognised in the Professor's study,

xxii INTRODUCTION
are now canvassed in the drawing-room, and in
the working man's club. It is no longer
possible to conceal from the weakest of the
weaker brethren the fact that things once
held to be beyond question are now not only
questioned, but questionable. The danger to
day is not that the clergyman, in trying to
solve difficulties, shall only suggest them, but
that, by studiously avoiding them, he shall
suggest that no solution exists. The ordinary
Church-goer, male and female, is finding it
harder than ever to believe that the clergy
can be ignorant of difficulties, which the
Clarion and the Rationalist Press in one
sphere, the playwright and the novelist in
another, are constantly dinning into the ears
of men — and of women. If a suspicion once
becomes current that the clergy do not dis
cuss these questions because they have not the
courage to face them, the Bishop's foreboding
will, indeed, be realised, and " the Church of
England will be publicly convicted of in
sincerity, and will lose all moral weight with
the mass of Englishmen."
B. H. S.
May, 1914.

RESTATEMENT AND REUNION

RESTATEMENT AND
REUNION

THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY
Everyone, I should imagine, who is en
gaged in the study or the teaching of Theology,
must from time to time be oppressed bjr the
feeling that the concentration on critical,
historical or philosophical problems necessitated
by his work, may possibly lead him into what
may be, after all, but an elaborate missing of
the essential point of Christianity. It was not
with regret, but with exultation, that the
words were spoken, " I thank Thee, Father,
that Thou hast hidden these things from the
wise and understanding and hast revealed them
unto babes."
I do not, of course, mean that such studies
B

2 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
are unimportant. If the Church is the body
of Christ, that is, the expression of His
personality here on earth, it is of the first
importance that that body should be one, in
which the intellectual, as well as the practical
and devotional, functions of personality have
room for expression ; and, if there is to
be a theology at all, it is of the first import
ance that it should be one, which is not
out of touch with the science and the philo
sophy, the criticism and the scholarship of the
age. But theology must always b$ for the few,
and even for those few it can only represent
one aspect of the soul's life. This has always
been recognised by Christians; but in the
present age it is especially necessary to
emphasise more strongly than ever that the
centre of gravity of Christianity does not lie
in theology. For, whether we may regret
it or not, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact
that the traditional Christian theology has
lost the prestige, which it enjoyed in earlier
ages through its acceptance, practically with
out question, by the leaders of human thought.
This no longer holds good; and although

i THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 3
individual thinkers may for their own part
give their adherence either to the traditional
theology or to some particular restatement,
adaptation or modification of it, it is impossible
for them to close their eyes to the fact that
others, equally qualified to hold and express an
opinion, think very differently. It may well
be that the present situation is transitional,
and that in the course of time, perhaps in a
generation or two, perhaps after many gener
ations, a theology commanding general accept
ance will be again evolved. But so long as
there is no greater agreement than at present
obtains among historical critics or philoso
phical theologians, it would seem that anyone,
who builds his faith primarily on their con
clusions, cannot be without apprehensions that
he is building his house upon the sand.
The necessities of the time, then, seem to
be forcing us back, as again and again has
happened at every important crisis in the
course of Christian history, to the words of
our Lord Himself: "Except ye be converted
and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." With
this feeling upon me, I have been pondering
B 2

4 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
how I could , present to my own mind the
essential elements of the Christian message
in such a way as to render it independent
of all those subtleties of historical criticism or
metaphysics, t he hazardous and conjectural
nature of which, are best known to those who
have most closely studied them.
Asking myself, then, how I could interpret to
myself in the simplest form, and, of course,
only in the barest outline, the essence of the
Christian message, it seemed to me to be
included in six main ideas — each in itself
ineffably simple, yet each infinitely expansive
in its practical application. First, Christianity
is a disposition of the soul : "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,"
and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy
self." Secondly, a resultant course of action :
" If any man would be my disciple, let him
take up his cross and follow me." Thirdly, a
consequent achievement : "If any man will
do His will, he shall know of the doctrine
whether it be of God." Fourthly, if it be asked,
" And who is sufficient for these things ? "
there is the promise of a response on the part

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 5
of the Divine to such feeble efforts as we
may make : " Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you," "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Fifthly, there is the assurance that failure
can be retrieved : " For this my son was dead
and is alive again ; he was lost and is found."
Lastly, there is the sure and certain hope,
" This is the promise which He promised us,
even life eternal." On the first two and the
last two points I propose to dwell very briefly,
thus leaving room to offer a few reflections at
somewhat greater length on the third and
fourth. (I)
" Love God ; love thy neighbour " : " On
these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets." We find here no refine
ments of casuistry, no intricacies of dogmatic
definition, no elaboration of ceremonial ordin
ance ; nothing which is easier to the expert
than to the man in the street; nothing in
which the wise and understanding have any
advantage over babes. Yet there is here no
thing childish, nothing immature, nothing
that human thought and human progress have

6 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
transcended, or are ever likely to transcend.
Progress and development there have been since
these words were spoken ; but they have con
sisted only in men's seeing more clearly where
to look for the manifestations of God, the
Divine, the Ideal, and in their becoming more
and more sensitive to new directions and
particular instances, in which the principle
" Love your neighbour " should be applied.
And such an advance depends less on the
trained intellect of scientist, scholar or philo
sopher, than on the trained instinct of the
heart of those who have striven to follow
Christ, and on the quickened conscience of a
society, which the leaven of Christ's teaching
has begun to permeate. (H)
" Let him take up his cross and follow me."
In vacuo, as it were, and without some
concrete definition, it might be asked how far
the love of God and the love of man, which is
the Christian attitude of the soul, is to go,
when it passes from feeling into action, and
from motive into practice. The answer is,

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 7
" There is no ' how far 1 ' Follow me " ; that
is, follow in the footsteps of One who — con
vinced that He was the Messiah of God, the
destined Ruler of all the kingdoms of the
earth — chose not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life for the forward
ing of the Kingdom of God.
Some of the saints of old, it would seem,
achieved a state of mind in which they
positively welcomed the finding and the
carrying of the cross : going out of their way
to seek suffering for its own sake by multi
farious asceticism and self-torture, and actually
rejoicing in it. And from time to time one
comes across people to-day of whom this seems
almost, if not quite, to be true. To the ordin
ary Englishman such asceticism seems morbid
and unhealthy, and I am inclined to think
he is right. Did not our Lord Himself in
Gethsemane pray, " If it be possible let this
cup pass " ? At any rate of very few, even
of those who have longest striven to follow
Him, can it be said that in their heart of
hearts they wish to bear the cross. But that
is not required ; the follower of Christ has no
need to seek out crosses to take up :

8 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
" The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we need to ask,
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God."
In a world full of sorrow and degradation,
whether we will or no, crosses are thrust upon
us ; but the choice is ours, whether to bear
them cheerfully, and in the spirit of Christ :
or to bear them sullenly, in resentment and
bitterness of heart. (Ill)
" If any man will do His will, he shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."
We now come very near the heart of the
Christian message. It is affirmed that the
life which Christ led, the life which we are
invited to lead, is the highest life of all — so
much so that it is in fact the life of God, so
that He, who perfectly lived that life on earth,
is called the " image of the invisible God."
Moreover, it is asserted that, in so far as our
own lives approximate to that life, we too may
" become the sons of God." " If we suffer
with Him, we shall also reign with Him."
The point is of such central importance that it

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 9
must be dwelt upon at rather greater length.
I believe that it contains the essence of
Christianity. Pleasure is pleasant and pain hurts; it is a
natural human instinct to deduce that pleasure
is good, pain evil. It is the affirmation of
Christianity that, so far as moral values are
concerned, this is a mistake, and that pleasure
and pain, prosperity and adversity, are in
themselves neither good nor bad ; they are
only the raw material out of which goodness
or badness may be manufactured according to
the manner in which we use them. Admit for
the moment that this judgment is the right one,
and it follows that that other natural human
instinct is also mistaken, which regards suffer
ing of any kind, unless obviously merited by
an equivalent moral offence, as an outrage and
injustice on the part of the Power, whatever
it be, that controls the Universe. The notion
that suffering always leads to moral growth
is not borne out by experience, but that it
frequently does so is indubitable. But equally
indubitable is it that where suffering does
elevate, it is quite as often the suffering, which
seems to us to be undeserved, as that which is

10 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
plainly the result of open-eyed misdemeanour.
It is, moreover, a fact of experience that, while
merited suffering, borne in the right spirit,
elevates and purifies the sufferer, unmerited
suffering, similarly borne, has a virtue peculiar
to itself. It elevates and inspires not only the
sufferer himself, but many of those who come
in contact with him.
This last point would be more readily
recognised were it not for the difficulty — a
difficulty not peculiar to this case, but com
mon to every search for explanations, whether
in science or elsewhere — the difficulty of
isolating the phenomenon under investiga
tion. For when we reflect on the problem
of unmerited suffering, as seen in ordinary
experience, we are liable to be confused by
the fact that we never get a clear case. We
can often see a life, in which it seems that
suffering outmatches desert, we can never see
one, of which it can be said that nothing that
was suffered was deserved. But in the life
and passion of our Lord we do get such a
case. The ideally good man is brought to the
ideally bad end — not from any morbid ascetic
passion for suffering — " Father, if it be pos-

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 11
sible let this cup pass " — yet voluntarily and
with His full consent, in order thereby to
forward the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Hence in His case, the possibilities of un
merited suffering rightly borne are clearly
manifested ; and it is affirmed that by His
suffering He was Himself made perfect (Heb.
ii. 10) and that by His suffering He, potentially
at least, redeemed the world. But a way of
Hfe that at one and the same time results in
the perfecting of character to him who leads
it, and in the maximum benefit to his fellow
men, is plainly the highest conceivable form
of life.
A line of thought like this brings us to
view, not only the problem of suffering and
sin, but the whole meaning and purpose of
life, the whole scale of moral values, the
meaning of words like "great," or "good,"
from a different angle of vision. It is as
though one brought up in the old common-
sense view that the sun goes round the earth
were to be suddenly confronted with proofs of
the discovery of Copernicus that, notwith
standing all appearances to the contrary, it is
the earth that goes round the sun. Common-

12 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
sense judgment, the " natural " man's funda
mental estimates of value, are simply reversed ;
or, to use the familiar metaphor of the New
Testament, it is as if a man were born afresh
into a new and different world.
A further point, however, and one often
overlooked, is this. Along with such a re
versal of our primitive, natural and common-
sense valuation of things on earth, there must
necessarily go a reversal of our ordinary
prima facie valuation of things in heaven.
If the life that Christ led is the highest life
of all, it must somehow or other be the life
which God leads ; and if we want to picture
to ourselves the life of God, we shall picture
it to ourselves, not as resembling the manner
of life of the Kings of the Gentiles, lording it
in pomp and luxury, but rather as like the
life of " the Son of Man, who came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give
his life a ransom for many."
No doubt the infinite cannot be compre
hended by the finite ; God is necessarily
a Being higher and greater than we can
understand. But if we think of Him in
terms of the highest we know, we think of

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 13
Him in the terms, which are the least inade
quate. No concept or category is known to
us, which is higher and more comprehensive
than that of personal life directed towards the
highest end ; and therefore in the ideal human
life we see the completest possible revelation
of the nature of God Himself.
The life of Christ, then, with its sorrows
and its joys, with its failures and its triumph,
with its Death and its Resurrection, is sub
specie temporis, so far, that is, as man can
apprehend it, the life of God. God is Life
and God is Love, always, through all eternity,
sharing the suffering, battling with the evil ;
yet all along, above and through and beyond
the suffering and the struggle, possessing that
peace which passeth all understanding, in that
heaven in which the risen Christ and His risen
followers continually dwell, where death is
swallowed up in victory.
Think of God as some glorified, super
natural Potentate, immune from suffering and
merely vengeful towards guilt — and to main
tain that this world of sin and evil is governed
by a good God is too glaring a paradox.
Hardly less a paradox is it, if we think of

14 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
the thirty years of Christ's life on earth, or
the three years of His public ministry, or
perhaps even the three hours on the cross,
merely as an interlude in an eternity of
glorious enjoyment removed from all contact
with sin and pain. But if we think of the
life and passion of Christ, not as an inter
lude, but as being to us the most com
plete, and indeed the final manifestation, of
an element which is essential and eternal in
the Divine life — and therefore one essential in
the highest human life — it is as though a
flash-light had been suddenly turned on to
the darkest corner of existence ; questionings
are answered, things are explained. So felt
the Evangelist, and wrote, " in him ... is
light." But at this point a difficulty arises. Chris
tianity is here making an affirmation about the
existence and nature of God ; and that means
about the ultimate constitution of Reality : and
the philosopher has a right, or rather is in
duty bound, to say that here it trenches
on metaphysics, and therefore comes within
his purview. Moreover, Christianity is here
making an affirmation about the life of an

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 15
historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, Who lived
in Judaea at a certain date ; the historian and
his ally, the critic of ancient documents, have
at this point, equally with the philosopher, a
claim to be heard. Here at last, then, we
seem to reach a point where the plain man
cannot do without the expert; where little
children would seem to have to wait for the
verdicts of philosophers, historians and critics,
before they can enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven. That their verdicts have no bearing
upon the situation I would be the last to affirm ;
but I believe that, if we look a little deeper,
we may see that, what philosophers and critics
have to tell us, is still on the circumference
and not at the centre of Christianity. In other
words, there is open to little children a means
of verification, which is independent of the
verdict of scholars and historians ; a means,
which may turn out after all to be the
better way,, and which may even reveal
to babes things, which have escaped, and
are likely to escape, the wise and under
standing : " If any man will do His will, he
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
God. . ."

16 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
In the past those who have endeavoured to
carry out His will, and have by so doing
attained the conviction that the doctrine is of
God, have felt acutely how unpalatable and
absurd a precept, the following of Christ
seems on the face of it to be ; and how entirely
contrary the cross of Christ is to the wisdom
of this world, what a stumbling block to one
and what arrant foolishness to another.
Hence, in commending the following of Christ
to others, they have shrunk from relying on
the single argument that they themselves, and
the saints throughout the centuries, have trod
this path, and have thereby found it to be the
way of life. They have, not unnaturally,
endeavoured to bolster up their convictions
and to satisfy, perhaps in the first place their
own minds, but still more the minds of those
whom they wished to help, by falling back
upon external proofs and confirmations, argu
ments from metaphysics or from history.
Most of all, perhaps, they have been prone
to rely upon the argument from miracles, ob
livious that, in so doing, they were turning a
deaf ear to the warning of the Master Him
self, that " If they hear not Moses and the

t THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 17
prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead."
But to-day they can no longer use these old
supports. The old metaphysic, which was to
prove by irrefutable logic the existence of
God, has broken down. Its place has been
taken by various systems ; of which some do,
and some do not, affirm the existence of God,
but of which it can at least be said that the
doctors, in differing from one another, produce
such cogent grounds for doing so, that he who
is compelled to rely on the consensus of the
experts will get little satisfaction. Again,
controversy is acute as to whether or no the
Gospel miracles can be accepted in their literal
sense. It cannot be denied that on both sides
there are men of learning, ability, and genuine
religious conviction. One side may be right,
or the other ; probably both are defending
principles, intellectual or religious, of which a
satisfactory synthesis will some day be dis
covered. It is obvious, however, that, so long
as this state of things lasts, it is fruitless to
give to the man who doubts an evidence or
a proof based on something, which is in itself
still more in need of proof.

18 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION \
This general weakening of metaphysical
proofs and historical evidences is regarded by
many with trepidation and dismay. I believe
myself it is a real gain, for it is forcing
Christians to re-examine their convictions, and
the Christian, who re-examines his convictions,
is likely to emerge with the courage of them.
" If any man will do His will, he shall know
of the doctrine whether it be of God." The
appeal is to the life's experience of the religious
man : and not merely to the experience of the
isolated individual, but to that of the whole
company of those, who in all countries and in
all ages have tried to follow Christ. It is the
strongest appeal of all ; "I had almost said
even as they, but lo ! then should I have con
demned the generation of thy children." Any
appeal to the authority of a consensus of
metaphysicians or historians is answered by a
confused buzz of multifarious whisperings,
" quot homines, tot sententiae " ; but an appeal
to the witness of the followers of Christ, to
the consensus sanctorum of all the Churches
and all the Ages, elicits an answer like the
voice of a trumpet, and it gives no uncertain
sound.

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 19
" Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless ?
Angels, Martyrs, Prophets, Virgins
Answer ' Yes ! :

i > »

It tells us that if we follow Christ we inevit
ably attain a freedom and a fullness of life
hitherto not experienced, and that this is
accompanied by an opening of the eyes, a
quickening of the spiritual sense, a training
of the moral " taste," or whatever one may
choose to call it, which enables us to see by
direct perception that this is the highest and
best life.
Again, this consensus assures us that the
nature of things is such that it responds to
and feeds this life, and is wont to give us
more than we either desire or deserve, leading
us on from life to more life. Thus the practical
test of experience proves that this life is in
conformity with the ultimate power behind
the Universe, and that it is not merely opined
by certain individuals to be the highest and
happiest life, but that the set of the current,
so to speak, of the life of the Universe is
shewn to move in the same direction. In
other words, both by a judgment of worth and
c 2

20 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION 1
by a judgment of experiment, it is vindicated
as akin to the life of God.
Beyond and more than this, myriads of the
saints tell us that this contact with the life of
God has been experienced as a personal
presence and communion with the Divine. It
is easy to say that such an experience is an
illusion, but in view of its extent in the
matter of time and race and place, and in
view of the character and achievements of
many of those, in whose lives it has been the
central and dominant experience, I would
submit that the burden of proof lies with those
who would reject, rather than with those who
would accept, their testimony.
" Knowledge puffeth up," says the Apostle,
and it is quite possible that in some cases the
possession of a wealth of scholarship or philo
sophy may actually be a hindrance to that
practical and experimental approach to religion
which comes naturally and easily to simpler
minds, and that it may be literally true that the
wise and understanding are particularly liable
to overlook the things which are revealed to
babes. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven we not
only may but must become as little children.

i THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 21
But it does not follow that we must
remain such. ffoflav XaXov/iev ev toIs rekelois,
"We have a Philosophy for the initiated,"
says St. Paul. Religion has room for, nay
rather it has need of, Philosophy, and never
more so than to-day, when its old Philosophy,
its traditional Theology, is breaking down. But
I would venture the opinion that Philosophy
has even greater need to study the data of
Religion. Philosophy fails in its task unless it
is a synthesis of all experience j and if in its
hierarchy of correlated experiences it should
omit, or wrongly place, the experience vouched
for by Religion, it may haply prove to have
left out, or to have built in awry, the Keystone
of the arch of Knowledge. (IV)
Up to this point the result of our reflections
is this : Christianity tells us that if we love
God with all our heart and with all our mind,
and if we love our neighbour as ourselves, and
if this love issues in a passion for service,
which lightly and cheerfully carries any cross,
and which, if need be, will shrink not from
the supreme sacrifice of all, we shall find that

22 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
we have attained that peace which the world
cannot give, " the peace of God which passeth
all understanding." Not only that ; we shall
find that we have attained also a direct,
intuitive knowledge of God, an apprehension
of, and an insight into, the ultimate nature of
Reality, fuller and more secure than anything
that can be reached by any purely intellectual
process. But a great difficulty presents itself. Grant,
for the sake of argument, that the Christian
teaching is true; grant that, if our hearts were
filled with the love of God and man which
Christ had, and if we led the life which Christ
led, we should achieve the end alleged ; still,
the if is too big an if, the condition is one we
are in no wise able to fulfil. Thus the seeming
simplicity of the Christian message turns out
to be an illusion after all ; for if the attainment
of the end is only possible to one, whose moral
character is already like that of Christ,
salvation is no more accessible to the ordinary
man than if it were required of him that
he should have all knowledge and understand
all mysteries, and be a master of philosophy,
history, and science. Indeed, the intellect of

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 23
an Aristotle, or of an Aquinas, is more common
than a character like that of Jesus Christ.
To this difficulty, also, Christianity has a
reply. If it be asked, "And who is suffi
cient for these things?" the reply is frankly:
" Of himself, no man." But to every man, if
he is willing to resort thereto, there is open
access to a limitless source of Divine assistance :
" Not I, but the grace of God that is in me " ;
"My strength is made perfect in weakness."
As a matter of fact we do not love God. At
best, we have a rather spasmodic and luke
warm devotion to some one or two manifesta
tions of the Divine, to one or two ideals.
And we do not love man. At best, we love a
certain number of selected individuals, while
for as many others, if not for more, we have
a very opposite sentiment. Here is the root
of all the trouble, and here at the very bottom
the change must come. "Unless a man be
born again, he cannot enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven."
The change is a radical one — how is it
to be brought about? "The wind bloweth
where it listeth " : to one man a sudden crisis,
to another a succession of imperceptible in-

24 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
fluences, kindles in the soul a small and
flickering flame — the hope, the wish to obey,
or perhaps merely to consider seriously, the
Christian call. "He that hath, to him shall
be given." " Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you ; seek, and ye shall find." That is
the law that holds with regard to all things
human, whether in the sphere of knowledge
or of art or of practical endeavour. Aspira
tion must come first ; then concentration of
interest ; then effort of the will. No door is
opened to man unless he knocks ; only if he
seeks does he find ; and the greatest things
of all are rarely found except when many
together have long been seeking with a
corporate effort.
What wonder, then, if the same law holds
good in religion also. Only if we ask do we
receive ; only if two or three or, it may be,
a multitude are gathered together in His name,
are the greatest things received. But wherever,
either individually or in union, men cease not
to ask, the nature of things is such — so the
saints tell us, so to some small extent our
own experience verifies — that it is responsive.
Aspiration is answered by realisation, study by

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 25
illumination, effort by enhanced power. Once
turn our thoughts in this direction, once turn
our steps along this road, and practical expe
rience shows that there is given to us — not
indeed everything, nor all at once, but some
thing to begin with. That something may, at
the start, be but as a grain of mustard seed,
the smallest of all seeds ; but, slowly in one
soil, quickly in another, it grows into a tree,
which is found to be the tree of life.
Prayer, meditation, work — these, we are told,
are the keys to unlock the gate, the gate that
at first seems strait, that leadeth unto life. A
word may be said with regard to each of
these. Prayer is too often taken to mean a reeling
off of strings of petitions for personal needs ;
almost, as it were, a worrying of God. But
Christ said, " Use not vain repetitions, as the
heathen do : for they think that they shall be
heard for their much speaking." Prayer has
been better defined as " aspiration in the sight
of God." We need to remember that the
prayer that was given us as a model, begins
on this note : " Hallowed be Thy name, Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done."

26 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
From another point of view prayer is the
placing of the soul in an attitude of receptivity
towards the influence of the Divine. " Knock
and it shall be opened " represents a human
aspiration, which has its essential counterpart
in the attitude of God Himself, " Behold I
stand at the door and knock : if any man
hear My voice and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and
he with Me." That is to say, the Life which
pulsates through the Universe, or, in Christian
language, the Love of God, is not a passive
thing or a grudging thing ; it is active,
creative, restorative, going out into the wilder
ness, as in the familiar parable, " to seek and
to save that which is lost." This is part of
what is meant by the Bread and the Wine,
which are for us the Body and the Blood of
Christ. If for men it is more blessed to give
than to receive, so must it also be for God.
But you cannot give to those who will not
take, and no man can be saved except with
his own consent. Prayer, then, in one of its
most essential aspects, is the unlocking of the
door of the heart, a door that often moves on
grating and on rusty hinges ; it is the opening

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 27
of the shutter, which lets in the light ; it is the
effecting of the contact, which sends the
electric current through the metal. Hence it
is a fine instinct which has led the Church to
begin the most central portion of her most
solemn rite with the immemorial words of
invitation and response : — " Lift up your
hearts." " We lift them up unto the Lord."
One thing more. The lifting up of the heart
with the aspiration, "Thy Kingdom come,"
and the answering influx of the Spirit of Him
who loved His neighbour as Himself, cannot
be a selfish or self-centred act. It need not
necessarily articulate itself at all ; it may be
at times just a silent waiting upon God ; but
when it does become articulate, it must neces
sarily be prayer for others, intercession as it
is called, as much and as definitely as for
oneself. And, as a matter of fact, whether
it is because when we pray for others we are
less blind to their real and highest needs,
than we are when we pray for ourselves, or
whether it is because such prayers, being
more disinterested, are more truly prayers
" in His name," it is the experience of many,
with whom I have spoken on this subject, that

28 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
such prayers are answered too often and in
too striking a way to make the hypothesis of
coincidence at all a possible explanation.
Meditation has always been spoken of by the
saints as a road of communication with the
Divine, akin to prayer. It is my own belief
that thought, study and the disinterested
pursuit of truth, even when not consciously
dominated by what is conventionally known
as a religious motive, are, to many minds,
really only another form of that effort towards
personal contact with the Highest Being, which
is the essential element in prayer. Thought
directed towards things eternal is, I would
urge, a form of prayer ; to some men it is the
easiest, if not the only possible, form ; yet,
seeing that thought is the activity of only one
side of the nature of man, it is, if not supple
mented by the activity to which the name
"prayer" is more commonly applied, an
imperfect form. But I also believe — and it is
the tradition of the great Masters of Prayer —
that prayer, in the restricted sense of petition, is
also, if practised alone, imperfect. It requires
to be supplemented by meditation, that is, by
thought about things eternal. There are

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 29
many who find that to begin each day with
meditation upon the great ideas suggested
by some passage of the Bible, accompanied by
prayer, — the " morning watch " as it is some
times called — attunes the mind and spirit to
the practical labours and tasks of the day,
and gives them a power to rise above irrita
tions and worries, to an extent which surpasses
the belief of those who have not tried the
practice. And I venture to think that many
to whom this particular counsel, through their
long disuse of such specifically religious activi
ties, would be uncongenial or impossible, might
make trial of the method by making it a rule
to begin every day with the contemplation of
things eternal, through the medium of some
other great literature or some specimen of
great art.
Labor are est or are. Work, undertaken,
not in the grudging and resentful spirit of one
who hastens to complete his tale of bricks at
the tyrant's bidding, but inspired by the
conception of duty recognised as service, albeit
sometimes a humble and uninspiring type of
service — work, seen in supreme moments to be
more than this, to be the privilege of co-oper-

30 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
ation with Him who said : " My Father
worketh hitherto and I work" — is the last,
but not the least, of the three main avenues
by which man can consciously seek God. For
here the aspiration which is the source of
prayer, the concentration and illumination
which are the goal of meditation, are most
completely translated into act.
The first instinct of humanity is to make
the act everything, but reflection soon shows
the shallowness of this.
" Not always actions show the man, we find ;
Who does a kindness is not always kind,"
Next, by an acute reaction, it is affirmed that it
is only the spiritual that matters. "What
has morality to do with religion ? " cries the
Antinomian.
r] yXScrcr ofn.w/j.0)^ , 17 Se cj>prjv ai/u/xoros.
The last stage is to realise that, though the
spiritual is first, it does not realise its
potentiality until it is embodied in act ; even
as Christ not only loved men, but actually died
for them ; and as the Word of God become
flesh had to be made perfect by suffering.

1 THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 31
Work, then, is the last of the main ways in
which man can actively seek God : there are
other ways by which at times God seeks him
— suffering, for instance, is often one — but
these do not concern us now. And work is
also the way which is commonly the most
conspicuously successful. For, as the old
Greek thinker had discovered, character is
moulded along the lines of action ; by doing
the thing you ought to do, you become the
thing you ought to be. The doing or, it may
be, the refraining, which at first, perhaps, was
hard, becomes with every successful effort less
hard, and the character in regard to that
particular effort becomes stronger ; this in
turn makes the doing easier, and so on — " sic
itur ad astra." Effort at every step is met
by redoubled grace. But the process, though
sure, is slow. " Building up " is the metaphor
used by St. Paul. It is only brick by brick
that a tower rises ; but brick by brick means,
eventually, storey by storey, and at every
storey the view from the top is wider and
more magnificent. That is an allegory of
man's knowledge of the Divine.

32 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
(V)
The moral ideal is not like a target which,
if a man miss, he has indeed failed of his
object, but has at least done no positive harm.
It is rather as if every bullet, which missed
the mark, wounded some innocent onlooker,
and at the same time unnerved the marksman
himself, so that his aim became less steady
than before. Moreover, since to live is to
act, the contest is one from which no com
petitor can withdraw. The struggle is inevit
able, the result of failure disastrous, and the
law ever holds good that " from him that hath
not is taken away even that which he hath."
Yet again, my wrong-doing does not merely
cause loss or pain to others, and greater moral
enfeeblement in myself, it commonly produces
moral detriment as well in others. Injustice
not only causes injury, it usually breeds
hatred also ; cruelty not only causes suffering,
it also as a rule creates in the party wronged
a vengeful spirit, and often an indifference to,
or even a delight in, the pain of others which
perpetuates still further cruelties.
Yet, in spite of these indisputable facts,

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 33
Society exists and life is possible. Moreover,
though doubts may be entertained by some
as to the present tendencies of civilisation,
Progress in the past from Savagery to Civilis
ation has been a fact ; and there are few who
are willing to surrender the hope that the
process, possibly with occasional set backs,
will continue in the future. But the mere
continued existence of Society, let alone the
possibility of Progress, is testimony that there
must be somewhere at work in the world a
Curative Principle. Of the working of a
recuperative and restorative activity in the
physical organism of man or animal, physio
logists tell us many wonderful things. With
out this no living organism could survive. It
would seem that, since social life depends in
the last resort upon character, Society itself
would be impossible unless in the social
organism also — whether there already or intro
duced from without — there were at work in the
moral sphere an analogous Curative Principle.
" He was in the world, and the world knew
Him not." It is the affirmation of Christianity,
that, always and everywhere, there has been
working in the world an eternal divine prin-
D

34 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
ciple, creative and restorative of life and
illumination ; that in the Life and Death of
Christ this principle was for the first time
clearly seen in its inmost nature ; that on the
succession through the ages of His true
followers, as being " the salt of the earth," is
laid, principally at any rate, the task of con
tinuing to exhibit and to mediate the principle
of this preservative and quickening process,
which was in His act once and for all fully
shown forth.
Christ died, and His followers toil and pray,
to forward the coming of the Kingdom of God,
that is for the corporate regeneration of man
kind — a process having its beginning in this
world, but extending beyond the present life.
But corporate regeneration has no meaning
without individual regeneration ; though, as
men are coming more and more to realise,
individual salvation cannot be complete until
corporate regeneration is accomplished. Men
cannot " enter heaven alone," yet they must
be saved one by one. " Unless a man be born
again he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
Only " if we confess our sins " is He " faithful
and just to forgive us our sins."

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 35
The Church of England has wisely declined
to accept the theory held by many Christians
that individual regeneration can be brought
about only if initiated by a single spiritual
crisis or " Conversion " ; or the view of many
others that continuance and renewal of the
higher life is normally effected only through
Sacramental Absolution. " The wind bloweth
where it listeth," and there are multitudes to
whom the Kingdom of God within cometh
indeed, but "not with observation." But
whether it operates through spiritual crisis,
through sacrament, or through a hidden inner
growth, it cannot be gainsaid that there is a
power — most conspicuously, though not exclu
sively, working through the conscious accept
ance of the Christian message — which enables
blinded and habit-fettered souls to break free
from the bondage of their own past acts, to
throw off the clogging influence of the false
standards and low ideals, which have become
part of their very self, and to face life anew in
the conviction that they have been given
"power to become the sons of God." The
Creative and Curative Principle in the Uni
verse, which has made possible the existence,
D 2

36 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
first of physical life itself, then of human
society ; which completely revealed Itself as
the life-giving Love of God, manifested above
all in the voluntary death of Christ ; avails
also for the individual soul, " for this my son
was dead and is alive again ; he was lost and
is found." (VI)
Meagre and outlined though it professes
to be, I shall be told there has been one great
and unpardonable omission in this sketch
that I have attempted of the simplest essen
tials of Christianity. I have spoken only of the
following of Christ and the knowledge of God
in this world ; is it not of the essence of
Christianity that it looks beyond this world ?
" Granting us in this world knowledge of Thy
truth, and in the world to come life ever
lasting " we pray, but, in your outline, what,
it will be asked, has become of the second half
of the petition ?
The answer I would give to this question is
a quotation from St. John's Gospel : " This i3
life eternal that they should know Thee the
only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst

I THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 37
send, even Jesus Christ." Christian specula
tion has framed highly elaborate pictures of
Heaven, Purgatory, Hell ; but in the words of
our Lord all this elaboration is conspicuously
absent. And this cannot be by accident, for
contemporary Jewish Apocalyptic had already
provided an abundant store of those luxuriant
images, which Medieval thought was destined
later on to adopt and systematise. To Christ
the fact of Eternal Life is a necessary deduc
tion from that other fact that God is a God
in whose sight the individual is of infinite
value, for " the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob, is not the God of the dead but of
the living." If we ask the manner of it we
shall turn to St. John's Gospel.
Eternal Life, we there find, is not something
alien to this life and postponed to a future
date ; it is something which may begin here
and now, although it will only realise its full
potentialities in another and higher sphere. It
consists in the knowledge and love of God in
Christ, that is to say, in that full development
of all the highest capacities of our nature,
in that deepening insight into the nature
of the Divine, and in that growing con-

38 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION I
viction of the certainty and reality of the
Divine power and love, which, as we have seen
above, constitute the essence of Christianity
in this world. It follows, then, that in exact
proportion to the development along this line
which a man attains in this world, will be the
depth of his insight into the nature of the
life beyond this world ; and along with growing
insight into its nature there will inevitably
go a growing" conviction of its certainty.
" Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be :
but we know that, when He shall appear,
we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as
He is."

II
AUTHORITY, REUNION AND TRUTH
The first object of religion is to save a man
from himself, but, it is obvious, that this
cannot be done by a religion of his own make.
The religion must be there already, voicing its
categorical imperative, whether he hear it or
no, whether he like it or no.
Yet, again, religion is largely concerned
with the nature of the Unseen. On this
subject, the individual, left to himself, will be
exceedingly fortunate, if he succeed in making
a few happy conjectures, which can be
partially verified in the fragmentary ex
perience of his individual life.
For these two reasons, the principle
of authority must necessarily occupy a far
more important place in religion than in any
other department of thought or life. But,

40 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
in religion, as in every other department,
authority by itself can, at most, procure
acquiescence. Conviction only results when
a certain amount of understanding or personal
verification is present also. " We believe, not
because of thy saying : for we have heard for
ourselves, and know . ..." I cannot, indeed,
be saved by a religion of my own make ; but
neither can any religion help me except just
in so far as I make it my own — which means
that I must remake it for myself; and no two
men will do this in just the same way.
One point, however, must not be overlooked.
The " I believe," which is the fundamental
affirmation of Christianity, does not merely
mean that I accept as true this or that
statement about God or Christ, whether I
do so on authority or as the result of personal
investigation. "Thou believest that God
is one : thou doest well : the devils also
believe, and tremble." The faith that
justifies, as St. Paul would call it, is far more
than this ; it is a passion ; it involves all that
is meant by loyalty to and trust in a person,
by absorption in an ideal, by devotion to a
cause. Like ideal love or friendship, it does

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 41
not admit the possibility of doubt. Yet this
certainty cannot be entirely justified on
purely intellectual grounds. The religious
man admits without hesitation that the
intellectual arguments for the existence of
God or, at least, of a God of the kind
he worships, fall short of demonstration ;
yet he does not therefore describe his
belief in God as "an hypothesis in process
of verification." The Christian is aware
that the infallibility of the historical records
of the life of Christ is questioned by the
majority of competent scholars ; he does not
therefore speak of belief in Christ as resting
upon a convergence of historical probabilities.
But, then, neither does he apply words like
" hypothesis " or " probability " to his belief
in the honour of his wife or of his oldest
friend ; though it might be hard, on the plane
of formal logic, to justify the use of any
other language.
Thus it is essential to realise that in re
ligion, personal appropriation and verification
are far more than purely intellectual processes,
and conviction is far more than mere intel
lectual assent. But it is equally vital to

42 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
insist that, without intellectual assent, convic
tion is impossible. The intellectual powers of
individuals, and the degree of their intellectual
interest, vary immensely. Moreover, the
intellectual powers and interests of one man
may have been trained and directed towards
practical activities, those of another towards
speculative. The intellectual outlook of the
philosopher, of the merchant, and of the
peasant have been developed in very different
directions and to a very different extent.
But each of them, if he really believe, must
and should believe with all the specific
quality of intellect he has. " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God," not only " with all thy
heart and with all thy strength," but also
" with all thy mind."
Hence, no religion can expect to survive,
unless it can express its fundamental convic
tions in such a way as to show them to be
intrinsically reasonable. By which, of course,
I mean, not that they must be mathematically
proved, but that they must be shown to be at
least probable on intellectual grounds. Faith
can accept things which are as yet unproved ;
but to cling to what in your heart of hearts

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 43
you suspect of being disproved is not faith,
but mere delusion.
But the range of human knowledge is con
tinually expanding ; hence beliefs, or, rather,
I would say particular ways of expressing
beliefs, which were at one time in full har
mony with the rest of the sum total of what
was known about science, history, psychology,
etc., and which were therefore then entirely
reasonable, are now seen to be in conflict with
the new knowledge. When this happens —
supposing always that the conflict is with a
considered and established result, not merely
with the latest and as yet unverified hypothesis
in some department — the only alternatives
open are, either to surrender a belief alto
gether, or, if in other respects there are strong
grounds for accepting it, to find some new
way of explaining or expressing the sub
stance of it, which will make it fit in with
the rest of what is now known to be fact.
Sometimes this readjustment is compara
tively simple, at other times it is difficult.
Where this is the case it is not likely that a
complete and satisfactory solution will be
reached all at once. One experimental

44 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
solution must be put forward by one man,
another by another ; as a result of general
discussion and mutual criticism, these will be
rejected or amended until, at last, one is
found which commends itself to general
acceptance. Such a process is often slow, and to those
who live in the midst of it, it does not always
seem over sure. But " he that belie veth shall
not make haste," and to be in a hurry for
truth is the worst way to get to your goal.
But this lesson is one hard to be learned ; man
is by nature impatient, especially when vital
issues are at stake ; and, while the search for
truth is going slowly on, there is no truce in
the battle with sin, within us or without.
Hence I do not wonder that there are some
whose hearts fail them, and who cry out for
some certain and final expression and delimita
tion of truth and bid us, in despite of reason,
trust in some infallible authority ; and, since
the infallibility of the Bible seems to have
broken down, urge us to go back to the Middle
Ages and find an infallible guide in ancient
dogma, or in modern Pope.
It is an easy and a comforting solution, and

n AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 45
it holds out the hope of rest to weary souls.
Yes, but may it not be too easy and. too
comfortable? The Church of Christ was
surely never meant to be, intellectually any
more than morally, a Lotus-eaters' paradise.
" Wide is the gate, and broad is the road " was
not spoken of the way, that leadeth unto life.
May it not be that it was desirable, or even
necessary, for the full spiritual development
of the race, that the theory of infallibility,
whether of Bible or Church, should have been
forcibly exploded at the present stage of
human development ? A wise parent slackens
the discipline of the home as his children
begin to grow up ; a wise teacher at a certain
point ceases to impart information and tries
rather to guide his pupils to experiment and
find out for themselves.
It is, moreover, too often forgotten that
many men — most men, I had almost said —
find it doubly hard, if not impossible, to realise
and accept as true anything, which is put
before them with the demand that it be
accepted in toto on external and infallible
authority. Truth is, no doubt, objective ; but
the realisation of truth by the individual is

46 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
impossible without the free and spontaneous
activity of his own reason and powers pf per
ception. This experience is the exact parallel,
in the intellectual sphere, of the experience in
the moral sphere, to which St. Paul has given
classical expression. If morality is presented
to the individual as Law, that is, as a peremp
tory, external command, instead of as being
the expression in outward act of a principle of
righteousness personally appropriated by him
self, then its observance is made doubly hard.
" If the Law had not said, ' thou shalt not
covet,' I had not known covetousness," says
St. Paul. Just so many a man to-day is
saying, "If Dogma had not said, ' thou shalt
believe,' I had never known doubt."
It is this experience which lies behind the
popular railing against Dogma. But if by
dogma, we mean merely a definite expression
of belief in intellectual terms, some dogma is
indispensable, even if it be only the elementary
dogma that God is One. But when Dogma is
put forward as an infallibility, in the spirit of
a legalism applied to the intellectual sphere,
as unfortunately is too often the case, it
deserves the opprobrium with which it is

ii AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 47
commonly regarded. Infallibility is the
tyrant's claim ; that we do not want ; but we
do want authority, the parent's right — a sign
post to point the direction, a lantern to
illumine the road, which leads to the city of
Truth. Nevertheless the strictly authoritarian
position is being thrust before men's notice
to-day, by the glamour and prestige of
the name of Rome, and by the vigorous
advocacy of men able and sincere in our
own communion ; and it appeals not only to
the innate sloth of human nature, but also to
that impulse to complete surrender which lies
close to the heart of all real religion. Accord
ingly I make no apology for offering one or
two criticisms, trite and obvious as they may
seem to some, of the arguments commonly
urged in its favour, before going on to indicate
what I believe to be a better way.
The logical arguments in defence of authori
tarianism I will not stay to examine. After
all, there must be some fallacy in any process
of reasoning which ends by discrediting reason ;
for if reason is discredited, the reasoning which
is supposed to prove it to be so, is itself

48 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION ii
discredited in advance. Moreover, I do not
believe that such logical arguments are really
the grounds, which determine the beliefs, even
of those who use them.
The authoritarian position really makes its
appeal far more to psychological than to
logical considerations, and these, in the last
resort, resolve themselves into two main
propositions :
(1) The plain man wants something definite.
(2) Religion demands a fixed and unalter
able certainty ; but when once you begin to
criticise and enquire, uncertainty creeps in.
And although to-day the results of such
enquiry may not, perhaps, seem too subver
sive, how do you know what they will be
to-morrow ? Where are you going to end ?
I hope, later on, to indicate where we do
find a point of final and unalterable certainty,
and where, so far as I can judge, the quest for
truth is likely to lead us. For the moment I
would only pause to suggest that the cry
" Where are you going to end ? " has a some
what timorous note. Is it not rather like
saying : " I assure you this is perfectly true,
but please, dear friends, don't ask to look

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 49
and see ? Christianity is a tender plant and
might not thrive in the open air."
A religion which requires this sort of hot
house nursing may possibly be true ; but
there is not much Gospel in it. For, observe,
the question is, not where this individual or
that is going to end, but, where the Church
will end. Christianity is truly in a bad way
if we have not the courage to believe that
the corporate sense of the Church will be
able to extract every grain of truth there is
in the views and experiments of individuals,
and to discard whatever is false. Was not
the promise given to the Church, " The Spirit
shall lead you into all truth " ? But this
promise, like every other promise of Divine
help, is conditional upon men doing their best
to deserve it; and the Church will only be
led towards truth in proportion as she desires
to get there. " Knock and it shall be opened
to you, seek and ye shall find." Those who
are afraid of truth, or of what truth may cost
them, will never see it ; and the worst way to
find a thing is to begin by refusing to look
for it. Truth is to be found, but only by
those who are prepared, if need be, to seek it
E

50 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
in the spirit of the evangelic precept, "Leave
all and follow Me."
But to return to the former proposition :
" The plain man wants something definite."
No doubt he does ; and if the theologian can
supply the want so much the better. But if
it is meant that truth is to be adapted and
accommodated, like a patent medicine, to meet
the popular demand, it seems to me very like
an invitation to frame a theology on the
principle of asking, " How much will Jones
swallow ? " — a procedure which I am given
to understand is objected to by others besides
myself.1 But at this point I should like to raise the
question : What is the difference between the
plain man and such highly sophisticated and
academic persons as myself — and Mr. Knox ?
And the answer is quite simple, viz., that
when it comes to the fundamental needs of
religion and the kind of answer that will
satisfy them, there is simply no difference at
all. If the plain man is the man who feels
the problem of evil — in the world and in the
1 Cf. Some Loose Stones, by R. A. Knox, Ch. I., where this
is alleged to be the method of the authors of Foundations.

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 51
self — the mystery of the universe, the feeble
ness of man's unaided intellect to pierce its
meaning, I am the plain man. If Jones
is the name of the man who wants certainty,
who wants definiteness, I am Jones. But
there is one thing that I need more than
I need definition, and that is truth. And the
answers which Mr. Knox would have me
accept are, no doubt, definite enough ; but
they seem to me, at any rate in the form
in which he states them, to be definitely
untrue ; and the authority on which I am
asked to take them is one which has time and
again, on definite points, been definitely proved
mistaken. The plea that simple minds want simple
fare, and that therefore it is better to give
them too much to believe than to risk their
not believing at all, is the subtlest temptation
that assails the priest.
" Something we may see, all we cannot see.
What need of lying ! I say, I see all,
And swear to each detail the most minute
In what I think a Pan's face — you, mere cloud :
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,
For fear if once I drop the emphasis,
Mankind may doubt there is a cloud at all."
E 2

52 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
Put in this naked form few, I suppose, would
entertain the idea, but it always lurks sub
consciously behind that plea for definition at
all costs. Let us aim at being definite by all
means, but never at the expense of truth.
How this can be done I shall endeavour to
point out later.
The idea that the plain man needs definition
more than he needs truth has been the degra
dation of both politics and religion. " Vult
populus decipi, decipiatur." And, putting it
on the lowest ground, it does not pay. " You
can deceive all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time, but you
can't deceive all the people all the time." A
plausible generalisation, a clever " cry," may
win an election, or even two. But a man's
religion has got to last longer than a couple
of Parliaments, and if you have won him
on false pretences, he will have time to find
you out. " The one grace," it has been said,
"which the Church never seems to reach, is
veracity. But for a teacher veracity is the
essential grace : the Church must reach it or
she must die."
About two and a half years ago I had

n AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 53
occasion to study carefully the answers to a
questionnaire, sent out by the Student Move
ment, making enquiries as to the exact
nature of the religious doubts and difficulties,
which experience showed to be actually
entertained. The answers came from very
different sources, from laymen and clerics,
Churchmen and Nonconformists ; some replies
referred to the working classes, some to the
suburbs, some to the student world ; but the
striking thing was that on one point they
were nearly all agreed, viz., that the number
of those who have clear, definite and intelligent
doubts or difficulties with regard to definite
points of belief is, in all circles, a minority,
though a very influential one. The doubts
of the majority are vague and undefined — a
vague doubt as to whether Christianity is
really any good goes along with an equally
vague doubt as to whether it is really true.
Again, there was an almost equal unanimity
among the replies, as to the main reasons
for this state of things. The ordinary man
doubts the good of Christianity, because the
average professing Christian seems to be
so little better than anybody else, while so

54 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
many of those whose character he admires
are not professing Christians at all. And
he doubts the truth of Christianity, because
he sees that it is doubted by so many who
have better brains than himself, whom he
believes to be seekers after truth — by the
leading scientist, by the eminent doctor,
by the distinguished scholar or man of
letters. In other words, the majority of
men accept their doubts, as they accept their
beliefs, largely on authority. But the point
to notice is on what authority.
The plain man relies upon authority to
guide and help him ; and if the authority
can give him something definite he likes
it all the better ; but the authority he respects
is not that of oecumenical councils or
antiquarian precedents, but the opinion of
the men whose character he respects, or
of the men whom he believes to put truth
before all else. To take a concrete instance.
Sir Oliver Lodge from time to time makes
pronouncements of a theological nature,
and so do various eminent ecclesiastics ;
but the pronouncements which the ordinary
man takes most seriously are not those

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 55
of the ecclesiastics. I do not say that the
ordinary man is right in this; I merely
say that, in point of fact, he does so. And
his reason is simply this : he believes that
ecclesiastics are primarily interested in
tradition, and Sir Oliver Lodge in truth.
So long as so many men of the noblest
character, and so long as a majority (and that
is the case to-day) of those whose first passion
is the search for truth, are known to stand
outside the Church, she has little hope
of the allegiance of the plain man. The
average man is not a fool, and his position
is simply this — a religion, which is not
good enough for the best men, is not good
enough for me. The Church will command
authority when she includes all the best
men, not before.
And how is this to come about ? Let there
be no mistake. It is no use starting a campaign
to " capture " the best men, as the phrase goes.
The best men are not to be captured. There is
only one way. The Church must, in the first
place, show that she possesses a burning pas
sion for righteousness. But you cannot show
a thing until it is there to be shown ; and it will

56 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION li
not be there, till there is far more humility, far
more thought, far more self-sacrifice, and far
more prayer than there is at present. In the
second place, she must show that she really
believes in truth. And to believe in truth
means to be ready to believe that your
present ideas may be wrong, that the views
you inherited from your fathers may require
revision ; it means being ready to say things
which may lose you friendships, things which
will offend people whom you know to be both
wiser and better than yourself, things which,
when you have done all, you know are only
likely to be half-truths. Righteousness is for
every member of the Church, the search for
truth must be left to the few, and results will
only be reached by the Church as a whole
when different individuals specialise, to some
extent, in sub-departments. But when once
it is clear that the Church as a corporate body
is equally in earnest after righteousness and
truth, there will be no need to " capture" the
best men. They will not consent to stand
outside. In the answers to the questionnaire I have
mentioned, great stress was laid on one more

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 57
point. The authority of the Church is weak,
not only because so many of those who love
righteousness and ensue truth stay outside,
but because the Church herself is divided into
a hundred portions, each of which impugns
the claim of the other to have and to teach
the truth. It follows that the authority of
the Church will be little more than a paper
authority, until the question of Christian unity
is settled. Well, we have reached the first stage in
solving that problem ; we have begun to wish
it solved. We go about saying that every
section of the Church stands for some aspect
of truth, and that somehow the united Church
has got to include, in all its fullness, every one
of these aspects.
To have reached the stage when we recog
nise that there is truth in the positions of
those who differ from us is, no doubt, a great
advance ; but how far does it carry us ? It
sounds very nice and genial to say, "We all
stand for truth of a sort : let us slap one
another on the back all round, and say, after
' Alice in Wonderland,' ' Everybody has won,
and all must have prizes.' " But " truth of a

58 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
sort" is not what we want, and when A's
truth looks very like the contradictory of B's,
it makes the onlooker pause. There is some
thing more to do. A century ago we were
all eyes for the errors of every religious body
but our own ; to-day we are recognising the
truth in one another's positions ; but there
is one more stage, and that is for each to
awaken to the errors in his own views — and
that is the hardest stage of all.
" As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria,
and Antioch have erred ; " says the XlXth
Article, with admirable complacency, " so also
the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in
their living and manner of Ceremonies, but
also in matters of Faith." And is it likely
that the Church of England is wholly right,
that the Presbyterians have made no mistake,
that the Congregationalists have avoided
every error ? No. Different religious bodies
stand for different aspects of the truth, but
they also stand for different aspects of error.
Get rid of the errors, and the different aspects
of truth will fit into one another like the
different parts of a picture puzzle. The
magnitude of truth, no doubt, is such that it

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 59
is impossible for any one man, or perhaps
even for any one community, to grasp it
whole ; but this is not what keeps us apart ;
at bottom what separates us is our manifold
misconception of truth. Men say it is their
principles that keep them apart ; they forget
the possibility that principles may need re
vision. We come back, then, to the same point.
For practical purposes the authority of the
Church must await re-union, and re-union
must await the clearer delimitation of truth.
Truth then is the first thing of all.
But this brings us face to face with a
question of fundamental importance. Our
first and greatest need is truth, but the ques
tion arises, by what methods or from what
sources can truth be attained ? Are the
methods of philosophic reasoning and scien
tific research the only way, or is there also an
alternative and in some ways a surer method ?
Of the answer which the Biblical writers
give to this question there can be no manner of
doubt. " Thus saith the Lord " names the
Source from which the Prophets of the Old
Testament believed they derived their

60 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
message. Christ Himself, at any rate as re
ported in the Synoptic Gospels, never argues
or theologises, He simply states. " I think
too," says St. Paul, " that I have the Spirit of
the Lord." " The Spirit shall lead you into
all truth " is the conviction of St. John.
Inspiration is the familiar word to describe
the gift here postulated — a word which
emphasises its Divine side. But I think the
problem involved will be clearer to most
of us if we substitute a word describing it
from the human standpoint, such as " spiritual
insight" or "direct intuition." To speak of
it only from its Divine side, is to emphasise
unduly the distinction between religious and
other knowledge. For in every department
of knowledge undiscovered truth is always
there, " staring us in the face " as we say,
pressing in upon us, but only the few have
eyes to see and ears to hear.
The claim, then, is made that certain in
dividuals have made what, in other spheres,
we should call " discoveries " ; that they have
attained a certain kind of knowledge of God and
His ways by direct intuition. Can this claim
be made good ? The question is fundamental.

n AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 61
But it is also important to notice that it is
implied, — far more clearly, no doubt, in the
New Testament than in the Old, — that this
faculty resides not only in the specially gifted
individual, but, at any rate in a diffused state,
in the community as a corporate whole ; the
Spirit, which is to " guide you into all truth,"
resides in the Church, and the Apostle's
word is not only " I know " but " we know."
The claim, then, to possess this supra-rational
means of knowledge of the Divine, not only
covers the claim of the Bible to be inspired,
but also logically implies a similar claim on
behalf of the corporate mind of the Church.
We may perhaps distinguish biblical inspira
tion as creative and the inspiration of the
Church as interpretative, but they are not
different in kind. It is also worth while
remarking that this same claim has, by impli
cation, a bearing on the question of the
validity of the spiritual experience of the
individual as a means of access to truth.
It will be sufficient, therefore, to examine
the validity of the claim of the Biblical writers
to possess this faculty ; and then to discuss the
limitations under which it appears to be exer-

62 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
cised by them. For, mutatis mutandis, the
same considerations will determine the capacity
of the Church, and of the individual also, to
attain, or at least to judge of, truth by other
than purely rational processes.
Let us, then, consider first what, in sum
total, is the knowledge on the subject, which
the writers of the Old Testament and the
New Testament respectively profess to have
attained. The message of the Old Testament is in
essence simply this : — the Unity of God, the
Righteousness of God, and the promise that,
though at present many facts of experience
disguise it, the time will come when He will
vindicate His Righteousness by redeeming
that remnant of His people who are truly
faithful. The message of the New Testament adds
to this, that the promise of the Old Testament
has been largely fulfilled, for God has visited
and redeemed His people, but that there are
yet better things to come. To go more into
detail; there is our Lord's teaching as to
the true nature of God, the true nature of
morality, the true nature of the Kingdom of

li AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 63
God ; and, in particular, concerning Himself,
the promised Messiah, human, yet about to
assume superhuman functions in a superhuman
sphere, who by His Death (the janua vit03 to
these superhuman activities) will bring about
the great redemption. The primitive disciples,
whose very life was the conviction that He
was still with them, leading, informing, in
spiring, tried to express more clearly to their
own minds the implications of His Life and
Death and Work, which He had Himself some
what scantily outlined in the highly figura
tive and symbolic language of contemporary
Jewish Apocalyptic. These implications, still
struggling for expression in St. Paul, became
most clearly explicit in the Fourth Gospel.
In brief it all comes to this. The Life of
Christ on earth is a manifestation of the
Nature and Life of God ; not, of course, an
exhaustive, but a completely adequate mani
festation, so far as is compatible with the
limitation of the Word being made flesh. So
also the Death of Christ is not merely the
death of a martyr for a great cause — though,
of course, it is that — but also the unique
manifestation in time of an eternal activity of

64 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
the Divine for the effecting of man's redemp
tion ; with the corollary that this life is only
the foretaste of something which will come to
a fuller realisation in another sphere.
Now the results reached by the writers
of the Old and New Testaments were not
attained by philosophic analysis. We have,
speaking merely from the human side, two
factors and two only, viz. : on the one hand
the religious community, a body of earnest
men and women striving to frame their lives
in accord with the Will of God, as far as
they knew it, passionate in prayer, heroic in
temptation and persecution ; on the other
hand the Prophet or Apostle, the inspired
genius raised up to enable the community to
attain a clear expression of that which it had
experienced, or of that for which its spirit
dimly groped.
It is, then, surely, a remarkable fact that
results which were, as a matter of fact, gained
in this intuitive way — mystical, supra-rational,
unconsciously reasoning, or whatever one likes
to name it — are found on examination to be
in accordance with reason.
Take first the results reached in the Old

n AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 65
Testament, viz. ; — that God is One, and that
God is Good. Polytheism, though, perhaps,
the most widespread of human beliefs and
lasting often to a late stage of civilisation,
has become for us intellectually untenable ;
and the view that the Ultimate Power behind
the Universe, whatever its character, must,
at any rate, be One, has become almost (I say
advisedly " almost,") an axiom for modern
thought. That this Power is also rational,
though less generally admitted, has the
great mass of philosophic opinion behind
it. That this Power is also good is an
opinion, which, on grounds of reason, has
commended itself to at least the majority
of thinkers, in spite of certain great difficulties
that it involves, chief among which is the
actual existence in the world of such an
immense admixture of evil.
But the Old Testament revelation insis
tently proclaims itself to be incomplete ; it
looks forward to something more which is yet
to come. That something more is to be found
in the New Testament conception, that in
Christ we see God ; that is to say, that the
Power behind the Universe Itself eternally F

66 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
shares in the suffering, battles with the evil,
swallows up the death in victory. There have
been, and still are, many who regard this
something more as Aberglaube, as a super
stitious embroidery of the simpler Old Testa
ment faith ; and, no doubt, the traditional
statements of the doctrines of the Incarnation
and Atonement, which represent the earlier
attempts of the Church to find a philosophy
of her religion, are so far out of touch with
modern thought as to encourage this idea.
But surely the conceptions which these doc
trines endeavour, however inadequately, to
express, are the one thing required to recon
cile the actual existence of suffering and sin
with that belief in the goodness of the Power
behind things, which, on other grounds and
in spite of that difficulty, philosophy has in
the main felt itself driven to affirm.
Thus, to sum up, we find that the direct
apprehension of Prophets and Apostles —
whatever theory we may hold as to its nature
and working — did, as a matter of historical
fact, arrive at certain results, some of which
are the same as those arrived at by the
speculative reason, while others, which go

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 67
beyond the results attained by reason alone,
are found to provide a reasonable solution of
problems, which reason by itself has found
insoluble. Faith and reason have in the past been
party battle-cries ; and the psychological
conditions and the implications for philo
sophy of this direct spiritual apprehension
of the religious man have only recently begun
to receive the serious and dispassionate atten
tion of scientific thinkers ; hence there are
questions of fundamental importance, which
have not as yet been thought out. Are we,
for instance, to postulate a special faculty of
religious knowledge, or is the activity under
consideration to be regarded rather as a form
of sub-conscious reasoning ? Is the prophetic
gift a case of the diffused reasoning or
intuitions of the community becoming focussed
and explicit in the inspired individual, or is it
something purely individual ? Again, what
is the exact relation of the Hebrew prophets
to the prophets of other races, and how are
we to differentiate the comparative values of
their several deliverances ?
All these questions await solution, and
f 2

68 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
their solution will be of great value to
theology ; but, in the meantime, the facts
and considerations I have adduced appear
to put it beyond reasonable doubt that
the Prophets and Apostles — explain it how
you will — did, as a matter of fact, possess
a power of direct spiritual apprehension,
by means of which they attained results
at least as valuable and as certain as those
arrived at by pure reason — personally I would
be bold to say, more valuable and more
certain. Granted this, it appears at once that
the claim made for the Bible, that it involves
a special inspiration and possesses special
authority in matters of religion, rests on a
solid and impregnable basis. But the one
fatal mistake, which authority can make, is to
push its claims too far and beyond its proper
sphere ; for this immediately leads to a revolt
against it, even within its legitimate domain.
We must, then, at once pause to consider the
limitations of the Biblical authority involved
in the above analysis.
(1) It is involved in the very nature
of the directly perceptive knowledge of God

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 69
possessed by the Prophets, which, for want
of a better name, we have called intuition,
that it is an apprehension of fundamental
principles, rather than a knowledge of details ;
a direct insight into the unseen, not a
discursive acquaintance with the seen ; a grasp
of eternal moral and religious values, not
a mastery of concrete facts. Hence there
is no a priori reason whatever to suppose
that the Prophets' knowledge of the kind
of facts, with which history or science deals,
would be in the slightest degree in advance
of their own age. And, in point of fact, a
cursory reading of the Bible shows that it
was not.
(2) Unlike the Greek, the ancient Hebrew
had no gift at all for philosophy, and in the
Old Testament there is no attempt at a
philosophy of religion, or at any metaphysical
or rationalised explanation or justification of
the beliefs so strongly entertained ; there is
not even any indication of a felt want of such
a thing. The same is true of the bulk of
the New Testament. Some of the language
of St. Paul, interpreted from the point of view
of later theology, has often been taken as

70 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
philosophic, but it is now coming to be seen
that this is a mistake. His conception of the
Person of Christ is in the main derived from
contemporary Apocalyptic, which is picture
thinking, not metaphysic ; and his profoundest
contributions to the philosophy of Christianity,
as, for instance, in the Epistle to the Ephesians,
are better regarded as the expression of the
spiritual experience of the mystic, than as
achievements of the ratiocination of the
thinker. Still it is true that in St. Paul we
do find for the first time in Hebrew litera
ture a dimly felt need for a philosophy of
religion. The one passage in the whole Bible,
which deliberately attempts a metaphysic of
religion, is the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel ;
and here too it is clear that the writer's
interest is not primarily in the metaphysic
as such. He starts like St. Paul with the
conviction, a conviction resting on direct
spiritual apprehension, that the ever present
spiritual Christ is wholly Divine ; he then
tries to explain his meaning by using the
terminology of current philosophy. To him
Christ is Divine and therefore the Logos, not
the Logos and therefore Divine.

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 71
But if the Biblical writers had no gift for,
and, with one exception, no interest in, pro
viding a philosophy of religion — or a theology,
as some prefer to call it — it is futile to try
and arrive at one, after the manner of the old
divines, by piecing together odd texts and
scattered hints into a more or less coherent
system. What the theologian ought to do is
to use the broad facts given by their spiritual
apprehension as the data for his own philo
sophising. (3) The Old Testament is the sum total of
the surviving literature of a people with a
unique genius for religion. Most of it is
great literature, but considered as specifically
religious literature, its value varies enormously
in different parts. The historical books, for
instance, as literature are incomparable, and
without them the Prophets and Psalms would
be largely unintelligible ; but as religious
authorities, as inspired and inspiring witnesses
of the message of God to the soul of man,
they stand lower than some of the books
styled Apocrypha, or the great monuments of
later Christian devotion. Indeed, except in
isolated passages, they cannot plausibly be

72 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
ranked above the great classics of non-
Christian religious literature, like the " Medi
tations" of Marcus Aurelius. Few things, I
believe, have caused more real confusion of reli
gious issues, or have done more in practice to
make men blind to the real spiritual supremacy
of the Bible taken as a whole, than the con
vention which draws a hard and fast line
about a particular selection of Hebrew and
Jewish literature — some thirty-eight books of
the Old Testament and some twenty-seven
books of the New — and says that these stand
on one side of the line, and all the rest of the
world's literature, sacred or profane, on the
other ; which ranks Esther and Leviticus with
Isaiah and St. John, while a book like the
" Imitation of Christ" is assigned to the outer
darkness. As I hinted above, I believe that the same
principles, both positive and negative, which
determine the exact nature of the authority
of the Bible, are also applicable to that of the
Church. If so, it may be fairly assumed that
no doctrine, which has been strongly cherished
for a long period in any considerable portion
of the Church, is either unimportant or wholly

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 73
untrue. It is equally clear that if the
doctrine was defined in a long past age, the
terms, in which it is defined, will be those
which were most illuminating and least inade
quate (all definition of things divine is neces
sarily to some extent inadequate) for the men
of that time. They may, then, become not
only inadequate, but positively misleading, to
men of a later time, and may oven be made the
logical justification of corrupt and mischievous
practices ; so much so as often to make the
positive denial of the thing they stand for
seem to many minds more true. The Roman
doctrines of Purgatory and Transubstantiation
are cases in point. As actually taught they
are more than misleading, but the blank
denial of the things for which they stand has
surely been a real loss to Protestantism,
though the loss has been more than compen
sated by an enhanced appreciation of what,
personally, I should hold to be more vital
truths. The principle, however, is of greatest import
ance in its application to the Creeds. The
Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds represent the
considered judgment of the undivided Church

74 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
as to the essential elements of Christianity,
Our principle then compels us to conclude,
on the one hand, that no statement in these
Creeds can be either unimportant or untrue,
but on the other hand, that any statement
may require re-interpretation in order to
convey to us the same essential meaning which
it was originally intended to convey. For
any attempt to express truth is necessarily
relative to the whole background of the
thought of the age in which the attempt is
made. Apply this to the clause " born of the
Virgin Mary." This item of the Gospel
tradition was obviously included in the Creed
as a concrete and matter-of-fact statement,
which would guard and express that same
fundamental belief, which was expressed by
St. John in the language of contemporary meta
physic in the words " the Logos became flesh."
Now from the point of view of historical
evidence, the records of the Birth and Infancy
of our Lord stand admittedly on a different
footing from the records of His public
ministry. The question of their exact
historical value is still receiving careful in-

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 75
vestigation at the hands of many scholars, and
a general agreement amongst those competent
to pronounce upon such a subject has not yet
been reached. But in the event of a con
sensus of Christian scholars concluding that
their historical value is slight, I do not think
that Christians need feel any sense of loss —
provided that in the interval theologians have
been able to arrive at an equally clear and
straightforward expression, in terms of con
temporary thought, of the essential fact
that in Jesus Christ human and divine
meet, each in a unique and perfect mani
festation. In that event it would soon come to be
a matter of accepted usage to interpret the
phrase, " born of the Virgin Mary," in a
symbolic sense ; just as it now is to interpret
several other clauses of the Creed in that way.
We do not cease to attach a definite meaning
to the phrases " ascended into Heaven," or
"descended into Hell," because we have
ceased to regard the earth as the fixed centre
of the Universe, with Heaven situated locally
above and Hades locally underneath ; nor do
we consider unnecessary the denial of a Pan-

76 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
theistic conception of God expressed in the
words " Creator of Heaven and Earth,"
because we do not accept as historical the
details of the story in Genesis, to which
undoubtedly the clause in the Creed originally
referred. And there is no doubt at all that
even at the time when the Apostles' Creed
was taking shape there were many Christians
who never thought of understanding the
clause, " and sitteth on the right hand of
God the Father " in a strictly literal sense.
We are now able to revert to the problem
of authority in religion. In the New
Testament the coming of Christ is regarded
as an event for which there had been a long
preparation. It is viewed as being, in one
sense, a final revelation and a complete
redemption ; in another sense, as a revelation
which is not yet completely understood, " for
the Spirit shall lead you into all truth " ; and
as a redemption which is not yet completely
effected, " for it doth not yet appear what we
shall be." It is also taken for granted that this
whole process of revelation, past, present and
future, is the joint possession of a special com
munity, indiscriminately described as Israel,

li AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 77
the People of God, or the Church (for the
name Church is used of the Old Israel as well
as of the New) ; but a possession which is
theirs only on condition that they hand it on
to all mankind, so far as mankind is willing
to receive it. As for the individual member
of the community, the revelation and the
redemption are things which he does not
create for himself, but accepts. Yet even so,
that which is offered him is of use to him
only in so far as he opens his eyes to see,
sets his mind to understand, and directs his
will to obey — only, in fact, in so far as he
endeavours to work out his own salvation.
Now, it is quite clear that we have here a
conception of a Redemption effected once for
all, and of a faith once delivered to the saints,
which is not only consistent with the modern
belief that evolution is a necessary accompani
ment of life ; but which, paradoxical as it may
appear, actually demands something of the
sort to make it completely intelligible.
We have, also, a conception of authority,
which is not only consistent with, but
necessarily implies, the fullest possible
development of individuality and freedom ;

78 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
for it is the authority, not of the dead letter,
but of the Spirit in the living community.
Thus, ideally, an authority exists, and one
of just the kind that is wanted, but, in
practice, it carries little weight, and its guid
ance is largely ineffectual. For the divisions
in the Church mean that the authority of
one part contradicts that of another ; a fact
which, psychologically at least, weakens
authority, almost as much in regard to the
points on which all are agreed, as in regard to
those on which they differ. Besides this, both
the Bible, and the traditional doctrines of the
Church, express the results achieved by
spiritual apprehension in terms which have
lost much of their meaning with the disap
pearance of the general background of thought
to which they were relative. Re-statement
and re-interpretation are therefore required.
But it is not the language or the intellectual
forms, but the spiritual facts and values — of
which that language and those forms were
always a confessedly inadequate expression
— that require to be interpreted. And these
facts and values are only apprehended fully
in a community which possesses a rich and

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 79
varied religious life. Thus, a religious revival,
and co-operation between men of different
religious traditions, will both be requisite, if
the theologian is to be given in a living form
the facts he is to re-interpret.
At present, with regard to many a tenet of
no small importance, if we are candid with
ourselves and others — as religious people,
unfortunately, so seldom are — we can only say
that we truly believe that there is " something
in it," or that it is " more or less " true. That
is not a satisfactory state of things. There
is, indeed, very little that is satisfactory about
the present state of Christianity, though
there is much that is very hopeful for the
future. There is too little Gospel ring about
a message " with something in it." We, who
have been brought up in the Church, may
have got, we have got, enough to live upon,
and something to give to others too ; but if
we are to go forth with a world -conquering
message to those without, we must clear up
our ideas, we must give definition to these
various " somethings in it."
But we shall not get this clearing up
of our conceptions by looking fondly back

80 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION II
towards the definitions of the past ; an
obsolete and misleading definition is far
worse than none at all. We must bestir
ourselves in the present, and look forward
to the future. The Church must stir up
all her gifts. " Knock and it shall be
opened unto you, seek and ye shall find."
The men who believe in reason must learn
to practise prayer ; the men who believe
in prayer must learn not to be afraid of
truth ; the men who care little for either
must learn to believe in both. The divided
branches of the Church must draw closer
together, first for co-operation in good
works and then for discussion of belief.
And discussion must go along with prayer ;
for in argument, and above all in religious
controversy, the natural man is out for
victory, only the spiritual man for truth.
Thus eaeh will learn to know the truth
that the other can teach, and the error
himself must give up. Then, for the first
time, Scientist, Theologian and Scholar
will be able to rise above the unconscious
bias which, in an age of religious parties,
no man can entirely escape ; they will

II AUTHORITY, REUNION, TRUTH 81
no longer " attack " or " defend " positions,
but simply follow the truth. And, stage
by stage, what to-day seems vague and
confused, will stand out more and more
clear, and with more and more definite
outline. Where we see only a narrow track,
often half lost in the sands, there will
then be a broad highway through the desert,
and the wayfaring men, though fools, shall
not err therein. And as truth becomes
clearer, faith will grow stronger ; and the
faith that absorbs the mind and the heart
is the faith that makes all things new,
the faith that issues in love. And Christian
Union will settle itself as truth and love
prevail, for it is not truth that keeps us
apart, but error and pride and hate.
And in that day much that we know
only as Tradition will be seen to be also
Truth, for Truth and Tradition will be found
to agree far more than most men think.
But what matters is not merely what men
believe, but the passion with which they
believe it ; and it will make all the differ
ence when a united Church is preaching
a Gospel of truth which she believes, not
G

82 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION n
because it is an old-world tradition which
is just too venerable to be quite given up,
but because she " has seen for herself
and knows." And on that day the world will
hear.

Ill
WHAT DOES THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND STAND FOR?
The question has been asked of late, and
asked with no small emphasis : Ecclesia
Anglicana — for what does she stand? And
it is one to which every member of that
Church should be prepared to give a con
sidered answer. But the mere fact that the
question is asked shows that it is one to which
the answer is not, on the surface at any rate,
obvious to every beholder. In other words,
the question really means, not so much,
what as a matter of fact is the Church of
England commonly regarded as standing for,
whether by the mass of men outside or by
any one section of those within ; but
rather : — What does she stand for ideally ?
83 g 2

84 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION ill
What, in view of her past history, of her
present opportunities, and of her traditional
and characteristic spirit or r/0os>, is she capable
of standing for ? In fact, what ought the
Church of England to stand for ?
The question is one which we shall inevit
ably view from a distorted standpoint, and out
of due proportion, unless we first remind our
selves that the Church of England is not the
whole Church, but only a branch of it ; and
unless we realise that there are certain things,
and these the most important things of all,
for which every branch of the Church has
always stood and does still stand.
There are three things for which the Church
of England, the Church of Rome, the National
Churches of Eastern Europe, and the innumer
able Protestant Churches one and all stand.
Briefly we may sum them up as being : (1) A
summons: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself." (2) A
creed : " God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 85
everlasting life." (3) A promise: "Lo, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the
world." The points on which the Churches differ
are concerned with the organisation and
discipline designed to bring home to men the
summons, and to train them to be responsive
to it ; with the exact definitions and more
detailed implications of the creed ; with
varieties of emphasis or theory as to the
nature and normal operations of those means
of grace by which the promise is made
effectual. And, as a matter of fact, there is
nothing which does more to make men deaf
to the summons, to make doubtful the truth
of the creed, to make ineffectual the power of
the promise, than these multifarious differ
ences. Yet these disastrous differences have one
partial compensation. Each Church strives to
be the complete embodiment of the Christian
ideal, just as every individual must aim at
being so in his own life. But, just as the
Christian spirit expresses itself differently in
different individuals, so it would appear that
every Christian community expresses the

86 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
Christian spirit in its own characteristic way.
Each Church has, as it were, a corporate in
dividuality. Hence any scheme of reunion
which would eliminate the special character
istics of different communities — except, of
course, in so far as any characteristic is not
truly Christian — would be as undesirable as
one which made all the individual members
of a community exactly alike.
The position of the Church of Christ at the
present day may be set forth in a parable.
It is as if a party of children had found in
some corner of a garden, all scattered and
stained, the fragments of a china bowl. And
each of the children has carried off for
himself a different fragment — one a large
piece, one a small piece, one a piece which is
deeply stained, one a piece comparatively
clean. And one of them, a member of the
Society of Friends, as it might be, has carried
away quite a small piece, but fresh and bright,
and showing a section of the pattern wonder
fully beautiful and seemingly almost complete
in itself ; and he thinks to himself that this,
no doubt, is only a little piece, but, though
small, it is the best. And others, Anglicans

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 87
or Presbyterians, as it might be, have carried
away larger pieces, showing a more complete
and more variegated portion of the pattern.
And, because the patterns on their respec
tive pieces have a certain completeness and
balance, they are quite sure that, though
these are only fragments, they contain the
key to the whole, and show, at any rate, the
most typical and representative portions of the
design. And others say the same about their
respective pieces. But there is one in par
ticular — he is the Roman Catholic — who has
carried off the largest piece of all, and because
it is so large, and the pattern which it shows
is so rich and so variegated, he thinks it is
the whole bowl. And if you point to the
chips and the stains, he will tell you that
some are only surface-deep and that others
are not really stains at all, but will appear —
if you view them from the right angle and
not in too strong a light — to be really a part
of the design.
But after a while they begin to compare
their different pieces, and they think of another
and a better way to use them. They must
carefully and painfully cleanse off the stains,

88 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
anxiously watching lest in so doing they also
scrape away some of the enamel beneath ;
they must collect every little fragment, how
ever tiny, and sort them and piece them
together, each to each, never forcing them
together by breaking off bits when they don't
seem to fit immediately. For a bit broken
off from any one piece is a bit broken off
from the bowl. And they find that this can
not be done all at once. But piece by piece,
whenever any two fragments are found to fit,
they cement them together, and others to
these, as it becomes clearer how each fits in ;
and so gradually the whole bowl will be
joined together again. And then the original
pattern, with all its marvellous richness of
beauty and detail, will stand out whole and
distinct, and the bowl can be filled with water
— with the Water of Life — and the nations
will drink thereof.
But if this, or something like this, be the
ideal of a re-united Church, which the Divine
working in history is forcing upon the minds
of all Christians of to-day, then surely it
behoves the members of every particular
branch of the Church to ask for themselves

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 89
the question : For what does that particular
branch stand ? and to ask it in special relation
to this ideal and aim. Not only the Church
of England, but every branch of the Church
should ask itself the question : What is the
special knowledge, the special grace, the special
power with which it has been entrusted ? For
that is the gift, which it is specially bound to
develop, in order to give it back to the Master
on the day when His whole Body on earth is
again made one. To one He has given five
talents, to another two talents, to another
one. Which, then, let us consider, are the par
ticular talents, or if it be so, even the one
talent, which has been entrusted to the
Church of England, and which it is her special
duty so to use and so to increase that her
Lord, when He come, may receive again His
own with usury ?
It may help us to clear our minds on the
subject, if we consider first of all whether there
are any talents, which have been obviously
and conspicuously delivered over to the
special keeping of other branches of the Church,
and which require for their full development

90 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION m
gifts which the Church of England can only
possess and exercise in a subordinate degree —
and that not in spite of, but because of her
own special gifts.
Take first the Church of Rome. It is
obvious that if we are to look about for a
gift, which has been given to the Church of
Rome to an extent unapproached by any
other Church, it is the gift of authority.
Authority is a thing to which any man, any
group, any sect may indeed lay claim ; the
unique gift of the Roman Church is that when
she makes this claim, even those who reject it,
even those who hate it, are yet compelled to
listen, compelled to produce a reason why
they should reject it ; and this in spite of the
fact that the claim has been, and still is being,
stretched to cover things, which grievously
offend alike the intellect and the conscience of
mankind. Thus it has come about that Rome
is the great conservative force in Western
Christendom. The changing currents of
thought, and the disintegrating waves of
criticism, have sometimes tended to wash
away some vital aspects of Christianity and
cause them elsewhere to be forgotten for a

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 91
generation or so. But Rome is still there to
inspire later generations in the other Churches,
to revive — often in a new and better form —
that which their fathers had jeopardied or
almost lost. In the ship of Christ Rome
supplies the ballast, and if, as is commonly
the case, much that is down in the hold is old
iron, in this case there are also bars of silver
and gold.
Now the Church 01 England, like the
Church of Rome, has a spirit which is largely
conservative ; and, especially since the Tract-
arian Movement of the last century, she has
played a part in English-speaking countries
similar to that which has been played by
Rome in regard to the Western Church as a
whole ; she has been the ballast of the ship.
She has prevented men fired with the
enthusiasm of new faith and new knowledge
from forgetting that the old was also good.
But, considered in her relation to the Church
of Christ as a whole, it surely cannot be her
special and characteristic gift merely to do on
a smaller scale what Rome can do on a larger
— and in the future it is obvious that she will
be less able to exercise this particular function

92 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION m
even than in the past. For the shortening
of means of communication between distant
parts of the earth ; the incredible developments
already attained, and likely in the near future
to be attained to an infinitely greater extent,
in the young civilisations of the New World ;
the rapid awakening of the masses in Russia
and in the rest of Sclavonic Europe ; and the
rebirth of India and China — have brought it
about that the future problems of Christianity
must be worked out in relation to the world-
field rather than in relation to Western
Europe, still less to England alone.
But the more one considers religion from
the standpoint of the world-field, the more
clearly does one realise what a comparatively
parochial institution the Church of England
is. Even in the English-speaking world
she is only the fourth largest denomination
among the Reformed Churches. And so
small an institution, even if absolutely
united within itself, and always proclaiming
the same message on the same note — which is
eminently not the case with the Church of
England — is not an institution which will be
listened to by men, if its claim to be heard is

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 93
in the main based on the claim of authority
and tradition. On that ground the Church of
Rome, with her historical associations, her
unbroken traditions, her international charac
ter, her rigid and united discipline, and the
glamour which surrounds the very name of
Rome stands out unique. But even the Roman
Church is to-day beginning to look parochial
and her prestige comparatively local ; for in
Russia, in the Balkans, in India, and in
China, she is not, as she has been for Western
Europe, the mother both of civilisation and of
religion. Rome is not there the magic name
it is for us.
Authority, then, in the sense, that is,
of the authority which commands men's
allegiance less by the reasonableness and
transparent truth of its message than by
the sheer weight of the prestige which comes
from historical associations, unbroken tradition
and united voice — authority of this kind
is a gift, which the Church of England can
never aspire to exercise. The Church of Rome
can exercise it, but, it would seem, she will
be less able to do so in the future than to-day.
On the other hand, there is another gift which

94 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
the Church of England is also precluded from
making specifically her own, the gift of ready
adaptability, which is the gift especially
required for a pioneer Church. On the
Canadian prairie during the last twenty or
thirty years villages have arisen, as it were
in the night-time, and before men knew, they
have become cities. Now, in the Church of
England the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
holds a more central place in religious teach
ing and practice than is the case with the
other branches of the Reformed Church, and
she requires that only an ordained priest
may celebrate this Sacrament. These things
are things which cannot be altered ; which
no one, so far as I know, in the Church of
England, desires to see altered ; but in prac
tice they put her at an immense disadvan
tage, as compared with other Protestant
bodies, for dealing with circumstances of
the kind just mentioned.
For, if in such a new-born village two or
three are found willing to come together in
Christ's name, at once and without waiting
for the priest — and that is often a long wait ;
for neither the man, nor the money to support

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 95
him, is at once forthcoming — they form the
nucleus of a Church, keen and active and
often making up for its lack of those charac
teristic aspects of worship for' which the
presence of the priest stands, by an increased
depth and intensity in other directions. Thus,
again and again it has happened that when at
last the Church of England has been able to
plant herself securely in the new town, most
of the new settlers, even in cases where the
majority were originally her own members,
have been found to have irrevocably trans
ferred their allegiance to some other branch
of the Church, whose system lends itself
to greater adaptability. Better organisation,
more forethought, more sacrifice, may in the
future do something to increase the adapt
ability of the Church of England to new
conditions ; but here again I do not see that
she can rival other branches of the Church
in this respect, without surrendering other
things, which, from the point of view of her
fulfilling her special function, are more im
portant. The way is now clear to return to our
original question : What, then, is the special

96 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
talent entrusted to the Church of England ?
What is the special aim which she should
keep in view ?
The answer which many have given to this
question is Comprehensiveness. But this is
only half satisfactory, for comprehensiveness
in itself is not a grace ; it does not save souls.
Quality, not quantity, is the criterion by which
a Church is to be judged, and the value of
comprehensiveness lies mainly in the fact that
it is a condition peculiarly favourable to the
development of certain graces. Such are,
the spirit of mutual understanding, width
of sympathy, and that toleration which
springs, not from indifference, but from a real
insight into and respect for a point of view
which one does not oneself share. Compre
hensiveness is also a condition of the power
to realise and present, not of course in every
individual, but at any rate in a corporate
witness, the proper balance between different
aspects of religion ; which less comprehensive
bodies, and different sections within the
Church of England herself, readily tend to
over-emphasise in the one direction or the
other. Thus there is a check upon exaggera-

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 97
tion which is very salutary ; for the nemesis
of exaggeration is that it always leads to a
reaction, which blinds men to the real truth
in the position for which it stands.
The via media of the Church of England is
often spoken of as if it were merely an external
and unstable compromise between two funda
mentally irreconcilable positions. Rome and
Geneva, say some, are both of them logically
consistent systems ; the Church of England
is just a hotch-potch, made up of some ingre
dients from each of the other two. Now, it
is true that if we look merely at the two
extreme wings of the Church of England, we
see on the one side a small party whose
general position is only a little removed from
that of Rome, and at the other extreme a
party which is only another of the many sub-
varieties of Puritanism ; and if the Church of
England were merely an external union, kept
up between these extreme parties by the fact
of State recognition, we might have to admit
that it was indeed a meaningless and external
compromise. But to confine our attention to the ex
tremists on the one side or the other, is to

98 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
overlook the fact that the vast majority of
Anglicans do, as a matter of fact, strongly
dissent from many of the characteristic
elements both in the Roman and in the
Puritan positions. Each of these they believe
to be in some points definitely mistaken, besides
being defective in over-emphasising, and thus
seeing in a distorted and misleading proportion,
contrary aspects of the truth. They recognise
that it is quite a common thing for individuals
and communities to appropriate certain aspects
only of the truth, and yet to build up a
vigorous religious life upon them. Never
theless since truth is essentially undivided,
they believe that it should be possible and, if
possible, it is most certainly desirable, to
keep together in a single synthesis as many
as possible of these different aspects. And
this they believe the Church of England, more
than any other Church, has endeavoured to
do, and has in the main succeeded in doing.
Thus the via media position is accepted
con amore by the ordinary Anglican, not as a
compromise forced upon him from without,
but because he really believes that truth is
many-sided ; and that therefore a position,

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 99
which endeavours to be a synthesis between
aspects of truth, elsewhere kept in isolation,
is likely to be a more adequate representation
of truth than anything he can find elsewhere.
Moreover, he is in no way perturbed by the
comparative vagueness and width of inter
pretation characteristic of the doctrinal formu
laries of his Church, or by the taunt that they
do not form a strict and logically coherent
system, for he is profoundly convinced that
the things of God are so far beyond man's
comprehension, that any attempt to express
them in human language is likely to be mis
leading in exact proportion to the exactitude
of its definition.
The notion that abstract logic is a sure
guide to right solutions has long ago been
discredited in matters of statesmanship and
everyday life. It is time that it was dis
credited in Theology also. The "fallacy of
logic" is that its conclusions are only valid,
if the statements with which it deals are
exhaustive and completely adequate expres
sions of the fact or principle they describe.
But the more important a fact, or the wider
the scope of a principle, the more impossible
h 2

100 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
it is adequately to express it in any form of
words whatever.
If this is true of things human, how much
more so of things Divine ? Any statement
about God or His revelation, however true, must
necessarily leave something unexpressed.
We cannot then take a series of such state
ments, and argue that, if A is B and B is C
and C is D, certain conclusions necessarily
follow. They may do so, but they may not ;
for we are arguing not from the facts them
selves, but from an admittedly inadequate
description of them. At every stage some
thing is left out, and those little somethings,
in their totality, may possibly be all-important
to the right conclusion. It is as though a
man were to pour a gallon of water into one
bucket, and from that into another, and from
that into a third, and so on, and so on ; and
then argued that the last bucket in the series
must contain a full gallon, although he knew
that every bucket had a leak.
Hence it follows that the man, or the
Church, with a gift for logical system is the
most likely of all to reach wrong conclusions.
For the more elaborate and strictly logical the

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 101
system, the more probable it is that something
has been left out. While the man, or the
Church, that has no such gift, but painfully
and humbly studies the facts of history and
of life, may possibly light upon the essential
something, which the systematic brilliance of
the other has compelled him to ignore or
deny. This is why the often stated dilemma,
" Rome or nothing," is fundamentally mis
leading. If our knowledge of God is worth
less, unless our deductions about it can be
packed into cut-and-dried formulae, all fitting
into one another to form a rigid logical
system, it does indeed follow that we
must make our choice between Agnosticism
and Rome. But, if the things that pass all
understanding transcend our little systems
also, the suggestion that any two of these are
alternatives, that exhaust the possibilities of
existence, should almost provoke a smile.
It is, then, abundantly evident that the
intermediate position of the Church of Eng
land is not an external compromise, but the
natural expression of the spirit of the com
munity. Christianity is above all a spirit,

102 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
and we can only assess the contribution which
a particular Church can make to the Church
Universal by analysing and discriminating
the characteristic spirit of that Church. We
must ask, then, what are the characteristic
qualities of the spirit of the Church of Eng
land ? Now, the main point which I wish to
emphasise is that this synthetic or moderate
spirit (which we have seen to be characteristic
of the Church of England), though it may
indeed express itself in doctrinal formulae and
in an ecclesiastical organisation, which, exter
nally considered, appear to be intermediate
between those produced by the Roman Catholic
and by the Puritan spirit respectively, is itself
not intermediate between these two, but
something different in kind.
" Extremes meet," says the proverb ; and
in politics, scholarship, and everything else,
the partisans, the fanatics, and the men of
one idea may, whatever their party views,
be classed in one group ; while the men whose
leading characteristics are restraint, propor
tion, judgment, and the desire to see and
combine the truth in opposing points of view,
stand in another. It is often almost an

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 103
accident in which of two hostile camps your
extremist will be found ; it is not a matter of
accident whether a man is an extremist or a
moderate. The truth of this is further brought
home by the common observation that if an
extremist changes his point of view he usually
does so for the extreme opposite. A Non
conformist or an extreme Evangelical, who is
led by some spiritual crisis to a change of
allegiance, rarely becomes a moderate ; he
usually becomes an extreme High Churchman,
or else a Roman Catholic.
It is, of course, emphatically the case that, in
practice, men of the moderate and synthetic
type of mind abound in the Roman and Puritan
Churches ; just as it is true that extremists
are plentiful inside the Church of England.
The strict authoritarian and the member of an
Ascetic Order on the one hand, and the rigid
teetotaler and the person who, for conscience
sake, renounces amusements like theatre-going
and dancing on the other, are fortunately
both to be found in the Church of England.
Their influence on the nation at large, and
on the moderate section of the Church, is as
valuable as is that of the moderate section

104 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
upon them. My point, however, is that they
are not the most characteristic product of
the Church of England ; whereas they are the
most characteristic and the most typical pro
ducts of the Roman and Puritan spirits
respectively, and of the doctrine and discipline
of those communions.
Spiritually, the Roman Catholic and the
Puritan, in spite of all their many and import
ant differences from one another, stand on
one side of a line, and the typical Anglican
stands on the other. I am not arguing that
the Anglican spirit is either more or less
valuable than the other spirit. It is sufficiently
obvious that in this world some things will
never be attempted except by extremists or, at
least, by one-sided men ; and, on the other
hand, that most things initiated or carried out
by extremists bring disaster, unless the
moderates can assert a restraining influence.
I am not saying that the one type is better
than the other, but merely that they are
different, and that each has its special contri
bution to make towards the furtherance of
the Kingdom of God.
I would, however, protest that I am myself

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 105
quite unmoved by the sneers, which it is
rather fashionable in some circles to make, at
moderate positions and moderate men. to
fisaov was the ideal which governed Greek art,
and, in theory at any rate, Greek life as a
whole. The spirit of balance and moderation
has produced the English constitution, which,
with all its patent defects, has become the
pattern for the government of the civilised
world. After all, the " sweet reasonableness "
of the considerate and synthetic temper
ultimately implies that faith in man, which
alone makes cities habitable, and, that un
hurried faith in God, which sooner or later
avails to uproot mountains also.
No doubt the moderate position has special
temptations of its own. Moderation has a
comfortable sound; it is the plea ready to
hand for all who wish to do nothing in par
ticular. The duty of considering both sides
of a question is frequently the excuse given
for the refusal to decide definitely which is
the right side, and to act on that decision.
But these are the defects, not of the ideal, but
of those who falsely claim it as their own.
Every army has its camp followers and every

106 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
profession of faith has those who disgrace its
banner. If the indifferents affect the label
" moderate," the ill-conditioned as often wear
the zealot badge. Tantum religio potuit
suadere malorum. The sins of omission, which
are the weakness of the " moderate party,"
are no worse than the sins of commission that
have been perpetrated in the name of zeal.
But the true Christian moderation, which
springs from a real effort to understand
the truth in rival views and the justice
of opposing claims, and from a real insight
into the value of conflicting ideals, is not
an easy but a hard thing to attain ; for it
depends on the intellectual humility, which
is ready to learn from any source, and the
true charity, which respects the moral per
sonality of any individual.
But to go a little deeper, let us ask why it
is that tliere is this affinity between the Roman
Catholic; and the Puritan tempers, in contra
distinction to the Anglican ? It would seem
that, historically, this is due to the fact that
both Romanism and Puritanism reproduce in
the main St. Augustine's interpretation of
Christianity, whereas the outlook of the

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 107
Anglican Church is much more akin to the
interpretation which we find in the great
Greek Fathers.
The fundamental conviction of St. Augustine
was the utter corruption of human nature,
which made it impossible that it should even
desire, much less co-operate in, its own
salvation. In the Latin Church this idea
works itself out in the belief that the indi
vidual cannot be trusted to stand alone,
whether in thought or action ; in thought, he
must absolutely submit to the dogmatic
decisions of the Church ; in action, he is con
trolled by the compulsion of regular attend
ance at the confessional. To the same
influence is probably due the disproportionate
exaltation of the " religious" life of poverty,
chastity, and obedience ; since only here is
complete renunciation possible of things
which, though good, or at least indifferent, in
themselves, are things which a free individual
may possibly misuse.
Romanism holds up a double ideal, the
ideal for the man living in the world, and the
ideal of the typical religious Order. Puritan
ism discarded this double ideal. Poverty,

108 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
chastity, and obedience were replaced as an
ideal by citizenship, marriage, independence —
all of them in the Lord — which partly corre
sponded to the ideal which the Roman held
up for life " in the world." But the Puritan,
discarding the Roman conception of a separate
ideal for the religious Order, endeavoured to
make the Church as a whole a religious Order,
and to cultivate the virtues of the life " in the
world " in the same spirit as Catholicism had
cultivated the virtues of the monk. Hence,
though in theory, and to a large extent in
fact, Puritanism stood for liberty, in practice
it resulted in an increase of discipline and a
multiplication of restrictions on individual
action, which approximated much more nearly
to what was demanded by the Roman of
the " religious," than to the laxer standard
allowed to the ordinary Christian ; and the
discipline was not less but more exacting,
because it was enforced by the sanctions and
traditions of family life and not by the con
fessional. Again, St. Augustine's belief in the utter
corruption and impotence of human nature
led him to lay stress on the automatic opera-

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 109
tion of divine grace ; for if man cannot even
co-operate in his own salvation, that grace
must be capable of working, at any rate in
the initial stages, even without his consent.
If a drowning man has got beyond the point
when he can clutch at a rope thrown out to
save him, the only chance is to haul him
out with a boat-hook. The Roman view of
Baptism is largely Augustinian. The Puritan,
rejecting this doctrine of Baptismal regenera
tion, adopted a precisely similar conception of
the working of the divine " call." For he held
that only those who were predestinated, and
that for no merit of their own, were to be
saved, and that by these an irresistible call
would at the predestined moment be heard.
The Church of England, on the other hand,
has drawn her theology far more from the
Greek Fathers than from St. Augustine. The
extreme predestinarian doctrine and the ex
opere operato doctrine of the sacraments were
alike repudiated. Man is regarded as fallen
and needing redemption, but not as " made
opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to
all evil." Grace is required, but it is also re
quired of a man (here the Roman and most

110 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION III
Calvinists would agree) to co-operate with the
grace that is given him, to " work out his own
salvation in fear and trembling." Freedom
of the will has been assumed, hence the
burden of preaching has tended to be on
the moral, rather than on the doctrinal side
of religion. Human nature has been regarded,
not as wholly bad, but as made in the image
of God and as still retaining something of the
impress of the die.
Above all, liberty, both in thought and
action, has been the characteristic of Angli
canism. Liberty, it is recognised, may easily
degenerate into licence, yet in itself it is
good; it is a good, however, which cannot
exist at all unless it is put in practice.
Liberty involves risks, but it is worth while
running the risks for the sake of the results
to be achieved. Moreover, " the earth is the
Lord's and the fulness of it," hence that
suspicion of harmless pleasures, characteristic
of Puritanism, (and also of Romanism, in so
far as the technically " religious " life is con
cerned), has been conspicuously absent in the
general attitude of the main body of the
Church of England, though not, of course,

Ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 111
in that of certain sections. Art, scholarship,
music, sport, innocent recreation have been
regarded not as possible temptations, nor yet
as concessions to the weakness of human
nature, but as natural and legitimate expres
sions of that full and complete life, which is
also regarded as the highest life. Thus the
Christian ideal, as interpreted by the Church
of England, includes also the best elements
in the Greek ideal of life. It is a synthesis,
to use Matthew Arnold's terms, of Hebraism
and Hellenism.
If all this be thought a little abstract, I
would mention the names of certain famous
men, who differ from one another in very
many and very important things, but who are
all united in two things, viz., they were
passionately attached to the Church of
England and her ideals, and they were men,
who, if they had been similarly attached to
any other religious body, would have been
conspicuously other than they were. That is,
they are men who may be fairly taken as
characteristic and typical of the rjdos of the
English Church. I would name first of all
Hooker, the creator of Anglican theology, and

112 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
to no small extent of English prose, and a
saint in private life. Then, passing on to a
group of contemporaries in the early part of
the last century, I would name John Keble,
Thomas Arnold, Charles Kingsley.
The range of Christian character and
achievement represented by these names is
wide and fruitful ; it is not universal. Cer
tain types of character and achievement may
be named as distinctly not characteristic of
the essential spirit of Anglicanism. To quote
as instances of this the great mediaeval saints,
like St. Francis or St. Thomas a Kempis,
would be unfair and beside the point. They
were produced in a Church whose inheritance
has been, as it were, divided among all the
Churches of the Reformation and the modern
Latin Church of the counter-Reformation as
well, and it is only with the specific spirit of
the various post-Reformation Churches that
an inquiry into the contribution of each to
future reunion is concerned. But I would
name as eminent types of Christian character
alien to the genius of the Church of England,
Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, Calvin,
and George Fox.

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 113
The Anglican spirit has not produced con
spicuous examples of the whole range of
Christian character ; it has produced a wide
range, and many of these of a type which
could hardly have been produced elsewhere.
It is a spirit, therefore, which is worthy
of surviving, and one which it should be our
aim to strengthen and develop along its own
lines. That does not mean that we are to
rest satisfied with either the range of variety,
or the depth and intensity, of Christian
character and devotion which it has produced
in the past. It does mean that it would be
disastrous to narrow or pervert the tradition
in one direction or the other in order to
produce a few more individuals of the types
which are specially characteristic either of
Puritanism or of Romanism.
If we may sum up the dominant quality of
the highest Anglican type in two words, I
think that sanity and charity would suffice ;
not, of course, that I mean to suggest that
these two qualities are possessed to a con
spicuous degree by even the majority of
present-day members of the Church of
England ; much less do I mean to imply that
I

114 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION ill
they are not to be found in the members of
other Churches. What I do mean is, that
they are the special characteristic of the
greatest and the best, and therefore the most
typical, of the men whom the Church of
England has produced ; and they are, there
fore, the qualities a deficiency in which, where
it occurs, is more reprehensible in the indi
vidual, than it is in the case of members
of communities, whose saints manifest other
virtues in a more dominant proportion.
Anglicanism, then, whatever may be said
of its historical origins— and much which is
commonly said is ignorant and unfair — stands
to-day, not for a political compromise, but for
a type of Christian spirit. It has something
specific and definite to contribute to the Church
Universal ; nay, more, it has already begun to
make that contribution. Only a very super
ficial observer can have failed to have noticed
during the last half century a modification
of the practices and ideals, which I have
outlined as specifically characteristic of
Puritanism, in the direction of what I would
venture to regard as the wider and humaner
ideals of Anglicanism. Recent movements in

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 115
the Church of Rome seem to point in the
same direction. The seeds of a liberal move
ment in Romanism were sown by Newman,
and came from his Anglican upbringing ; and
certain features in the recent Modernist
Movement — which, though crushed and im
potent at the moment, will doubtless in a
more chastened form reappear before long —
are an effort to introduce into the Roman
communion something of the characteristically
Anglican ideal of a Christianity consistent
with intellectual liberty and a wide and
progressive culture.
And this brings me to my final point.
The late Bishop Creighton laid it down as the
differentia of the Church of England that
it was " the Church which appealed to sound
learning." He did not mean, of course, as he
was at pains to explain, that other Churches
were indifferent to learning ; but that at the
time of the Reformation — the formative
period in the re-creation of the present
religious situation of Europe — the storm and
stress and struggle were less acute in England
than elsewhere. It was, therefore, at that time
more possible in England than elsewhere for
i 2

116 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION m
considerations of this kind to have due weight;
and it was less inevitable that they should be
overborne, through the bitterness of fanatical
partisanship, or the exigencies of political
necessity. But if this is so, it surely points
out another direction in which the Church
of England should be competent to make,
or should at least attempt to make, another
contribution to the work of the Church
Universal ; — a contribution, namely, to the
problem, never more urgently pressing than
to-day, of theological restatement.
For comprehensiveness in a Church has one
other great advantage : it means that within
that Church men of very different opinions
must, somehow or other, live and work
together ; and it means that liberty of dis
cussion and expression must be allowed, as
indeed has always been the tradition of the
Church of England, to the widest extent
compatible with the maintenance of unity at
all. But the bringing into close and friendly
contact of men of differing opinions, freedom
to submit hypotheses, and freedom to discuss
them, are a sine qua non of all progress in the
re-statement of religious truths, or in the re-

ill THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 117
expression of doctrines in changing terms, to
meet the changing thought of successive
generations. The Church of England is not, indeed, the
only Church in which conditions favourable to
such activities exist ; but it is obvious that a
Church, in which comprehensiveness is the
conspicuous feature, and which inherits a
special tradition of culture and sound learning,
will be conspicuously going out of her way to
wrap one at least of her talents in a napkin
and bury it in the ground, unless many of her
sons devote their thought and their energies
to this task ; and unless those, who are them
selves precluded from participating in this
part of her work, are prepared to support
those, who are engaged in it, with their
sympathy and their prayers.
What then does the Church of England
stand for ? The answer is becoming clearer.
History, overruled as we believe by Divine
Providence, has determined for her beyond
any other Church the character of compre
hensiveness — a character which is equally the
cause of her weakness and of her strength.
Comprehensiveness is the condition most

118 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION in
favourable to the production of, it therefore
constitutes a special call to display, pre
eminence in three things : charity, sanity, and
the love of truth. Other things this same
comprehensiveness, or, rather, the spirit which
can tolerate comprehensiveness, almost pre
cludes. Not ours, or rarely ours, to produce
that peculiar type of saintship and humility,
which comes from absolute submission of
thought and word and deed to a visible
authority believed to be infallible and
universal. Not ours, or rarely ours, to pro
duce that divine insanity, which often goes
with narrow and one-sided views. Not ours
the ready practical adaptability of institutions
to changing needs.
We have not been given all the talents, but
we have been given these — charity, sanity,
and the eye ever open to truth ; and they were
given us, not for complacent enjoyment, but
with the stern injunction : " Occupy till I
come." These are the things which the Church
of England ought to stand for, these are the
things which she can stand for, and on the
day when she ceases to try to stand for these,
she had better cease to be.

IV

THE CONCEPTION OF THE ONE
CHURCH
Part I. — From Unity to Disruption
At the time of the birth of Christ the
whole of the civilised world, or at least the
world of Western civilisation, was comprised
in a single State, the Roman Empire, which
had incorporated into itself all the numerous
smaller States of the Mediterranean basin,
through whose creative energy and mutual
interactions that civilisation had been devel
oped. Within and subject to this World-
state, but owning a grudging allegiance to it,
and forming a distinct portion of the popula
tion in all the larger and most of the smaller
towns of the empire, there lived a people who
claimed to form a State of a different kind, a
119

120 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
theocratic State, viz.: — the Jewish people
of the Dispersion, regarding themselves as
specifically " the people of God."
Historically the Jews were only one of the
many minor nationalities within the Roman
Empire ; but at this period, except for the
comparatively small proportion of them who
still lived on their native soil of Palestine,
they had almost lost those special character
istics which in ordinary usage are held to
constitute nationality. Ordinarily speaking,
a nation is a community of men and women
united to one another, and at the same time
separated from the rest of mankind, by the
possession of a certain common heritage,
which includes at least two or three, if not
all, of four things — the land they dwell in,
the language they speak, the laws and
customs by which they are bound and the
blood that runs in their veins. But the
Jew of the Dispersion lived in the same
country, spoke the same language, and (ex
cept in so far as the habits of personal and
family life were concerned) was, with trifling
exceptions, bound by the same law as the
Gentile. The Jewish community, moreover,

IV CONCEPTION OFTHEONECHURCH 121
carried on an active religious propaganda ;
proselytes were freely admitted ; and a
proselyte not merely accepted the religious
beliefs of the Jew, he became a Jew. Thus
even the tie of common blood, the last of the
characteristics of nationality, which has been
mentioned, had potentially ceased to be the
note of this community.
The points of difference between a member
of this so-called " nation " and the men among
whom he dwelt, were solely those which arose
from the beliefs and usages of the religion
which he professed. That is to say, the Jews
of the Dispersion, as the result of a subtle
historical evolution, were ceasing to be what
is ordinarily meant by a nation. They were
a community, whose bond of connection was
not that of country, language, law or blood,
but simply that of religion ; that is to say,
they had become, or rather were on the way to
becoming, what nowadays we call a " church."
The transition, of course, was far from being
complete, for they still looked to Palestine
as their native land, and the vast majority
were still of purely Jewish blood. But even
the name ecclesia — " church," or " congre-

122 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
gation," as it is rendered in the English
version of the Old Testament — was already
the technical term by which they styled their
community, when considering it especially in
its religious aspect.
Another notable fact about this community
was that it was regarded as extending beyond
the confines of the present life. The belief
had become for a long while established, at
least among a large section, that the great
and righteous men of the past, — Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, the Prophets, and all the
innumerable men and women who had served
God in their generation but had left no memo
rial, — were waiting and watching in another
world for the fulfilment of the glorious
promise of the Messianic Kingdom, when the
dead and the living should together enter
into a complete fruition of eternal bliss.
The primitive Christian Church regarded
itself not as an entirely new society, but
simply as that portion of the Jewish Church
which had not, by its blind rejection of the
Messiah and His message, forfeited for itself
the promises made to Israel by the ancient
Prophets. After all, it had always been

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 123
foretold that only a remnant would be found
worthy in the Day of the Lord. It was not
that the Christian Church was an offshoot
from Judaism, as the modern historian is apt
to put it ; it was that the majority of the
Jews had broken off from the true remnant.
The Christian Church was the true Israel, the
true heir of Patriarchs and Prophets, and of
" the promises " of the Old Testament. The
Christ who was with " the Church in the wilder
ness " 1 was the same Christ who was with the
Church in the Roman Empire. The Gentiles
had come in, indeed, in unexpected numbers,
but that was not entirely strange ; many of the
Prophets had foretold it; they were but the
wild olive grafted on to the old stock, and
thereby become organically one with it.2 And,
just as to the Jew, the Church on earth had
been but the outpost of the Church of the
Fathers, so to the Christian, the "Church
militant here in earth " was but a small and
imperfect portion of the Body of Christ.
The local Christian Churches in the various
towns of the Empire arose in many ways.
Some were founded by men like St. Paul,
1 Of. Acts vii. 38 ; 1 Cor. x. 4. z Cf. Rom. xi. 24.

124 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
who gave their lives to missionary propaganda
and worked on a more or less thought-out
plan. But the majority seem to have been
founded in a much more haphazard way : by
a Jewish pilgrim, who had heard the Word,
perhaps in Jerusalem, and returned to spread
the new teaching in his own city ; by a
Christian trader, whose business called him to
move from town to town ; by a wandering
" prophet." It might have been expected
that the result of this would have been a vast
number of independent local congregations,
having little regard for the idea of corporate
unity. But the fact that from the beginning
each congregation regarded itself simply and
solely as the local branch of the one united
people of God, made the idea of the Church
as a whole always prior to that of the local
congregation. And this view was still further
reinforced by the conception of the Church as
the Body of Christ — a concept whose signi
ficance was felt to be mystical indeed, but
the reverse of metaphorical.
The question, how far this ideal unity had
found concrete expression in the way of
external organisation is one of no small

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 125
obscurity. There was one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, but it would seem as if at first there
was little or no organised and inter-connected
system of government for the Church as a
whole. Wandering prophets and apostles (the
term apostle, it will be remembered, was
applied to many besides the Twelve) repre
sented no doubt in a way a ministry of the
Church universal, but it can hardly be
regarded as an organised ministry ; and the
exact relation of this ministry to the ministry
of the local Churches, and the exact form and
origin of the local ministry, are both largely
a matter of conjecture, except in the case of
the Church of Jerusalem and the Churches
founded by St. Paul.
In his own Churches St. Paul appears to
have himself established an organised local
ministry almost, but — and this may possibly
indicate that it was a new departure — not
quite, from the first (cf. Acts xiv. 23) ; but,
apparently, this was not originally consti
tuted on a " monepiscopal " system. By
the beginning of the second century, if not
before, a local Episcopate, with Presbyters
and Deacons as clearly defined subordinate

126 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
orders, existed in Antioch and in the chief
cities of Asia Minor, and probably else
where ; and by the end of the second century
episcopacy seems to have become universal.
But at what date the practice first arose of con
secrating a local Bishop by Bishops summoned
from neighbouring Churches — by which simple
device the local Episcopate became the basis
of an organised ministry of the Church
Universal — is unknown. The Canon of the
Council of Nicaea, requiring at least three
consecrating Bishops, was no doubt intended
to standardise a custom of long standing.
During the first four centuries the Roman
Empire was elaborating its organisation on
a bureaucratic system, forced thereto largely
by the incompetence of the local bodies,
which in the Augustan age enjoyed no small
independence. It was almost inevitable that
the organisation of the Church should tend to
follow the same bureaucratic model. Dioceses
and provinces became geographically identical
with similar divisions in the Imperial adminis
tration : the ecclesiastical organisation followed
closely the lines of the civil government, and, as
time went on, became not only more rigid but

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 127
more authoritarian. This change was forced
upon the Church by the severe persecutions
which she had to face, and by the conflict with
fantastic heresies like Gnosticism, and with no
less fantastic tendencies in morals, whether in
the direction of antinomianism or in that of
ascetic extravagance. A community, which has
to fight for its very existence, must necessarily
adopt an almost military organisation : power
and initiative must necessarily cease to lie
with the individual or with the majority, and
be concentrated in the hands of a few.
The strength of her organisation, combined
with the heroism of her martyrs, had enabled
the Church to defy the persecutions of the
strongest and ablest of the emperors. This
was at least one of the main reasons, which
made Constantine seek to strengthen the
decaying Empire by forming an alliance with
an organisation, which his predecessors had
been unable to crush. By the end of the
fourth century, as the result of this policy, the
Church became practically coterminous with
the State. In many ways this fact has been of
cardinal importance in the history both of
Christianity and of civilisation. But what it

128 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
concerns us in the present place to notice is
that it was necessarily fatal to the unity of
the Church ; for the practical, though not as yet
theoretical, identification of the World-church
and the World-state necessarily entailed the
consequence, that in practice, though not of
course in theory, the maintenance of the unity
of the World-church depended on the continued
maintenance of the unity of the World-state.
Now the unity of a State which is com
posed of heterogeneous elements may be
maintained for a while, often for a long
while, by a strong central authority, especially
if such union is keenly realised as valuable
against enemies without. The Austrian
Empire is a conspicuous instance. But the
only unity, which can be relied upon to
survive a repeated series of heavy blows
at the prestige and effectiveness of the
central government, is the natural unity
of a State, which is homogeneous in race,
language, and culture. This the Roman
Empire was not. In Egypt and in the
Syrian and Armenian provinces the Hellen
istic culture of the eastern half of the
Empire had been unable to penetrate deeply

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 129
beyond the larger towns and the more
cultivated classes. There was also the far
more important racial and linguistic division
between the two great halves of the Empire,
between the half-orientalised Hellenism of
the East and the Italianised barbarism of the
West. Hence the beginning of the break-up
of the World-state of the Roman Empire
in the fifth century was also the beginning
of the break-up of the World-church. First
to go were the vernacular Churches of
Syria, Armenia, and Egypt. Nominally,
and up to a point of course really, the
questions at issue between these national
Churches and the Catholic Church were
doctrinal. The religious and doctrinal differ
ences in question had originated within, and
for a long time disturbed, the main body of
the Catholic Church. The significant fact is
that after much heart-searching and prolonged
controversy a solution was ultimately reached,
to which the parties in the Latin and Greek-
speaking area found they could assent, whereas
the vernacular Churches preferred secession.
It is clear, therefore, that doctrinal differences K

130 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
would not have proved insuperable, had the
different parties wished to understand what
each really meant by the words they used.
Besides the; doctrinal, there was & political
point at issue, viz., that the Catholic Church
was regarded as an engine for Romanising,
or rather Hellenising, these nationalities and
so strengthening the Empire ; and this de
nationalisation the local Churches did not
want. In the early centuries Christianity had
been, in a sense, a democratic movement perse
cuted by the government ; Syrian, Egyptian,
Armenian, Greek and Latin were united by a
common bond. Now that the Church had
formed a close alliance with the State, the
Christians of the nationalities, which could
least make their influence felt on the govern
ment, naturally became suspicious. But the
Church, being the Body of Christ, and there
fore in theory having nothing to do with
Caesar, no portion of the Church can with
aj good conscience detach itself from any other,
unless it discovers that that other is heretical.
Where, however, hatred and jealousy abound,
genuine misunderstanding of theological ex
pressions is easy, and where the hated person

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 131
has, and exercises, the power to persecute,
it has often been found comforting to
believe that he will go to hell. This, in
the. last resort, is the- explanation of the
national schisms of the fifth and sixth
centuries. The equally inevitable split between the
Latin and the Greek-speaking portions of the
Empire was retarded for a while by Justinian's
reconquest of Italy, and by the long rivalry
between Rome and the Arianism of theGothic
and Lombard conquerors of the West. Hence
it was at first a necessity, and afterwards at
least a source of strength, for the Popes to
recognise the Emperor at Byzantium. But
later on the havoc wrought by the Germanic
invaders, and their subsequent absorption
into the Latinised population of the West,
enormously increased the racial and cultural
divisions, which had always existed, between
the eastern and western halves of the Empire ;
for the difference was now the difference
between an old and proud, but declining
civilisation, and a haughty, vigorous and
progressive barbarism.
In the year 800 the Pope seized the
K 2

132 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
opportunity, presented by the fact that the
throne of Constantinople was held by a
woman, and that the Church of the East was
imbued with what Rome regarded as the
iconoclastic heresy, to place on the head of
the Frankish monarch Charlemagne, the
hereditary champion of Catholicism against
the Arian, and of Western Christendom
against the Moslem, the Roman Imperial
crown. In theory there was only one Roman
Empire; theoretically, therefore, Charles the
Great — assuming the papal act to have any
legal validity at all — became Emperor of the
whole realm, which had been ruled over by
Augustus or Constantine. In practice his rule
extended only over Germany, Gaul, North and
Central Italy, and part of Spain — a territory
which comprised no inconsiderable portion of
the western half of the Empire, and, in some
directions, extended even beyond its borders.
Under his successors the nominal range
of his Empire was contracted, and within
those nominal borders its actual power
decreased ; but the main importance of the
incident is, that it finally established in the
minds of men for another seven centuries the

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 133
notion of the intrinsic identity of the World-
state and the World-church. The Emperor
of Constantinople was a long way off, out
of sight of most men in Western Europe ;
and, in strict theory, he was held to be a
usurper ; while the Church of the East, except
during short intervals of reconciliation with
the West, was regarded as heretical.
Thus the Middle Ages start with the con
ception of the identity of the World-church
and the World-state — the one represented
by the Papacy, the other by the Emperors
— who were regarded as two co-ordinated
powers in one single community. The theory
of the World-state gradually broke down,
even as a theory ; but the World-church was a
fact, and her officers assumed to themselves
many of the duties and prerogatives, which
would properly have belonged to the secular
authority. The Pope was himself a temporal
sovereign. Prince-Bishops in many a country
owed him an allegiance, that it was often
hard to reconcile with the allegiance in
temporal things, which they owed to their
temporal sovereigns. Clerical persons, not
merely priests and monks but all who

134 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
could lay claim to Minor Orders — which were
often administered for this reason — and in
some countries even all who could read,
could claim "benefit of clergy," whereby,
in temporal as well as in spiritual things,
they came under the jurisdiction of Rome.
Education throughout Europe was under the
control of the Church, and therefore under
the control of Rome. On occasion the Popes
even claimed to declare vacant the thrones of
monarchs, or to demand the obeisance of the
Emperor himself.
Thus the Church was not only the World-
church, but became, up to a certain point and
for many important purposes, the World-state
as well. The Papacy has been described as
" the ghost of the Roman Empire sitting
crowned upon the grave of it." The epigram
is misleading ; it was no ghost.
Some time before the Reformation the
quasi-imperial powers of the Papacy, except
in the matter of judicature, had been on the
wane. But exactly in proportion as the World-
church had approximated to being also the
World-state, she had become exposed to the
danger of disruption from the revolt of those

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 135
sections, which by race and culture were least
in sympathy with the central authority. And,
when practical abuses and the spread of
the new learning had shaken the moral and
intellectual prestige of the ancient system, the
crash came.
The Reformation, unlike the earlier schisms
which we have mentioned, was the expression
of a great moral and religious revival ; but no
less than these was it also the revolt of nation
ality, endeavouring to express its religious
as well as its political freedom and indi
viduality, against the still surviving claims of
the World-state and the World-culture, repre
sented at the moment by the Roman Church.
It was the rebellion of the Teuton against the
Latin ; a generalisation none the less true,
because the more Latinised Teutons ultimately
sided with the Latin. Luther finished the
work which Alaric began.
The Reformation, in spite of very various
expressions, was essentially a single spiritual
impulse, and an immense religious advance ;
and its quickening influence was felt also
within the Roman allegiance, in the so-called
counter-Reformation. But, externally viewed,

136 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
the immediate result of the Teutonic revolt
from the Roman Church was very similar, in
the ecclesiastical sphere, to the immediate
result, in the political sphere, of the Teutonic
invasion of the Roman Empire. A magnifi
cent, imposing and orderly system, expressing
the thought, the labours and the culture of
generations, was succeeded by a chaos of
small, hastily contrived, heterogeneously or
ganised sects and theologies warring one
against another — reminding one of the chaos
of barbaric kingdoms, princedoms, free cities
and the like, which had taken the place of the
Roman Empire.
Historical analogies are proverbially mis
leading, but the analogy between the Roman
Church and the Roman Empire is in many
points so striking, as inevitably to suggest some
further reflections. Half of the Roman Empire,
with its capital at Constantinople, survived the
barbarian invasions. It was even, in a way,
invigorated by the concentration of its forces
which ensued, and lasted another thousand
years, hard, hit at times and seemingly
tottering, but arising again and again and
reconquering most or all of what it had lost ;

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 137
unprogressive, yet retaining almost intact
much of the priceless culture that had dis
appeared elsewhere, preserving it until such
time as the barbarian invaders of the West
were ready to receive and carry on the torch ;
at last gradually sinking from decrepitude
within and attacks without. Meanwhile, within
the chaos and barbarism of the West, there was
seen to be a spirit of life and progress, which
was lacking to the surviving East ; and gradu
ally there evolved from it a young and vigorous
civilisation which, at the right time, was able
to receive from Constantinople all that was
most valuable of that which she had so long
preserved. From the spirit, not the letter, of
what was then received, assimilated by their
own native vigour, the nations of Modern
Europe have produced a variegated civilisation
fuller and richer than anything that Rome in
her grandest days had known.
Are there not signs that since the Reforma
tion the history of the Roman Church has
been, and is likely to be, that of the Byzan
tine Empire ? Preserver and defender of
much that has been lost elsewhere, often
losing ground, at times appearing to totter,

138 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
yet ever and again reconquering with heroic
energy much of the territory which she has
lost, may it not be that she is in reality
slowly and steadily decadent and shrinking ?
On the other hand, the barbarous but vigorous
vitality of Protestantism seems to be gradually
evolving, not one single type, but several
characteristically different yet essentially
related types, of Christianity, freer, richer,
and more enterprising than the old ; with
greater power of leavening and raising the
general standard of social life ; and able to
reconcile liberty and discipline, revelation and
the unfettered pursuit of truth. So far, no
doubt, this is rather a promise than an achieve
ment ; and possibly something more must "be
learnt from Rome before it is achieved. But
that something will not be learnt by slavish
imitations of her organisation or of her
formulae, but by catching and reproducing
in freer and wider force the richness and uni
versality of her spirit and her life.
Rome at present seems to be following the
track of Constantinople — will she end in the
same way ? It depends on one thing : Rome
has within her two spirits ; the spirit of her

rv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 139
Master, who when offered all the kingdoms of
the world and the glory of them, rejected
them as the temptation of the Evil One ; and
the spirit of the Imperial city where she dwells,
parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
Which of the two spirits that live within her
will ultimately prevail — the spirit of brother
hood, which is the spirit of Christ; or the
spirit of empire, which is the spirit of Rome ?
On the answer to this question must surely
depend, not only the possibility of Reunion
between Rome and other Churches, but her
own ultimate survival.
To resume our historical survey. We have
seen how largely the identification (so far as
it still survived in practice) of the World-
state and the World-church assisted the
break up of what claimed to be the World-
church in the sixteenth century, just as it
had done in the fifth and the sixth and the
eleventh. But the idea that Church and
State should ideally be co-extensive was not
yet worn out, and the experiment of National
Churches was tried in England and Scotland,
in Scandinavia, and a great part of Germany,
and all but tried in France. The principle of

140 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
the continental Reformation settlement, cujus
regio ejus religio, was not the cynical com
promise that it sounds to modern ears :
granted the necessity of tolerating at all the
existence of more than one type of religion, it
corresponded to what, at the time, was felt to
be a natural and proper state of things. But
the theory of the co-extensiveness of the small
Church with the small State, was as defective
as the theory of the World-church co-extensive
with the World-state, which it superseded.
Its breakdown may be traced to four main
causes. (1) Political changes soon led to the absorp
tion of the whole or parts of smaller States into
larger ones; but it was impossible to alter
the religious tenets of the majority of the
inhabitants of a district, when it was incor
porated into another State. Thus, sooner or
later it came about that many States necessarily
included, and officially recognised, more than
one type of religion. In Germany this was
common, especially after the Napoleonic
Wars ; in Great Britain it followed the union
of the English and Scotch thrones. Thus the
theory, one State, one religion, completely

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 141
broke down, though — strangely enough as it
appears to us — States, which were compelled
to recognise more than one type of religion,
usually continued to persecute, or at any rate
to penalise, any types beyond the minimum
number that they were compelled to recognise.
Great Britain, for instance, which acknowledged
both Anglicanism and Presbyterianism as State
religions, discouraged both Roman Catholicism
and Nonconformity. But the mere fact that
most Protestant, and some Catholic, govern
ments consented to tolerate unrecognised sects,
even where they frowned on them, has tended
still further to discredit the principle cujus
regio ejus religio.
(2) The whole spirit of the Reformation move
ment was to emphasise the individual aspect
of religion. This aspect is so much taken for
granted by ourselves that it is worth while to
pause and notice that it is really exceptional.
At the present day in Eastern Europe a man
calls himself a member of the Orthodox, the
Bulgarian or the Armenian Church, even if in
actual belief he is practically an agnostic ; for
his Church is a thing which is his by birth
and baptism, rather than by individual con-

142 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
viction. Hence the "forcible conversions"
which have played so large a part in Balkan
politics. So, recently, the "conversion" of
Ruthenians to the Russian Church has been
made a matter of trial for high treason in
Austrian Poland, and apparently on good
grounds. Individual conviction may be
strong enough to make a man leave his
Church for another in very exceptional cases ;
but it is not the reason why he belongs
to it, or why, in nine cases out of ten, he
is content to remain in it. The same attitude,
though perhaps not equally pronounced, is
characteristic of Roman Catholics, especially
in countries where they are in a majority.
But it has been characteristic of Protestant
ism, especially of those forms of it which lay
great stress on individual conversion, to make
full membership of the Church a thing which
the individual does not achieve unless he is
moved thereto as a result of strong personal
and individual conviction. Partly as a result
of this, partly as a reaction against the
spiritual deadness of Established Churches,
which in most countries reached its zenith in
the eighteenth century, there has been since

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CH URCH 143
the Reformation a plentiful formation, often
in the face, of strong discouragement and even
of persecution, of new sects. And in every
case where a sect has been formed by secession
from the National Churcb, a further blow has
been dealt at the theory of the identity of
nation and Church.
(3) In Catholic countries the political
alliance of the Church with obsolete forms
of government, and her intolerant attitude
towards new thought— an attitude shared
indeed, but to a very minor extent, by
Protestant bodies — has resulted, in Italy and
France at least, in a violent hostility between
the Church and the State, which has even
gone so far as to cause membership of the
Church to be widely regarded as positively
unpatriotic and anti-national.
(4) In new countries, like the United States,
every section and denomination of the Church
known to the Old World is represented, and
all stand on a level in the eye of the State ;
and the reaction (by no means inconsiderable)
of American ideas upon the Old World, has
finally disposed of the idea that the Church
and the State are necessarily co-extensive.

144 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
Though, of course, this does not decide the
question whether, in countries where circum
stances are peculiarly favourable, a special
connection of the State with one particular
Church may or may not be desirable, provided
always that sufficient internal liberty is allowed
to the established Church, and complete liberty
of conscience to those outside it.
The foregoing "bird's-eye view" of the his
tory and causes of disruption has necessarily
been a mere sketch ; and it may appear to
some that too much stress has been laid on
national and political, and too little on the
purely religious and doctrinal issues involved.
If that be so, I would still plead that the error
has only been to over-emphasise just those
considerations, which are most frequently
overlooked. In any discussion of the prob
lem of reunion it is of the utmost importance
to realise that the break up of the unity of the
Church was to no small extent due to the fact,
that national aspirations and national liberties
could not otherwise find satisfaction ; and to
the fact, that the way in which Church and
State were in practice identified, was a bar to

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 145
complete liberty of conscience and of religious
activity. Once this is recognised, it is seen
that many of the motives which led to dis
ruption have simply disappeared.
Again, along with the change in political
circumstances there has gone a modification of
doctrinal issues, due to the changed intellectual
outlook of the age. Doctrinal controversy is
still with us, but most of the really living
questions have assumed an entirely new form.
In the past it has been claimed on behalf of
every Church or Sect that it, if not it alone,
conformed to the primitive Apostolic model,
in regard both to doctrine and organisation.
The progress of historical research has shown
that this is an illusion.
It has been shown that there is a progres
sive development of doctrine in the New
Testament. The primitive Apocalyptic Theol
ogy, reflected in the Synoptic Gospels, is
gradually transformed into the metaphysical
and mystical Theology of the Fourth Gospel.
The various intermediate stages of this process
can be traced step by step, in the series of
Epistles written by St. Paul at different
points in his career, and in the Epistle to
L

146 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
the Hebrews. In other words, it has been
discovered that a process of " Theological
Restatement " of an almost revolutionary
character took place in the first century
of the Church's history. Again, although
opinions differ as to the view held by our
Lord Himself, there is no doubt whatever
that the Apostles believed that His visible
return in glory would take place within the
lifetime of those who heard Him. Hence,
whatever may have been the original type of
organisation in the primitive Church — and on
that point statements are often made by the
partisans of different views far more precise
than the evidence warrants — it was not
designed as a permanent arrangement.
These two facts are universally admitted.
Their far-reaching implications are, I believe,
less widely recognised.
Thus we see that in the Apostolic age
there was certainly no one uniform doctrinal
system, there was probably no one uniform
type of Church Order. In their peculiar and
characteristic features Catholics and Evan
gelicals, Presbyterians and Baptists, Friends,
Salvationists and Welsh Revivalists can each

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 147
claim, with considerable show of reason, to
have some point of contact with primitive
usage, which is not to be found elsewhere. But
every modern Church also exhibits develop
ments of doctrine or organisation unknown to
the Apostolic age. If the primitive Church
be taken as the standard, it is a standard to
which no one modern Church even approxi
mately conforms ; and no one branch of the
Church can say that there are no particulars
(whether they be deemed important or other
wise) in which some other branch of the
Church is not nearer to the primitive model
than itself.
But along with the discovery that no one
of us is really " primitive," there has arisen
the doubt whether it is really essential,, or
even possible to be so. An age which believes
in Evolution is disinclined to find in " the
primitive," or indeed in any epoch of the
past, the last word in either organisation or
theology. The old Protestant theory that the whole
of the development, between the Church of
the Apostles and the Church of Hildebrand,
was nothing but a long process of degeneration l 2

148 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
and corruption, and the contemporary Roman
theory, which applies a similar judgment to
the development of modern Protestantism,
have both lost their plausibility. It is coming
to be seen that both these developments,
whatever their defects, were essentially
adaptations of the organism to enable it to
cope with its varying political, social and
intellectual environment ; and that therefore
both are legitimate, though necessarily to
some extent one-sided and transitional, em
bodiments of religious truth and of the
Christian Ideal. Considerations like these, it
is true, are only explicitly realised by a
minority, but, in a vague way, they are rapidly
coming to influence the outlook of wider and
wider circles. Accordingly, though few dis
criminating persons are found to maintain
that either doctrine or organisation are unim
portant, there is a widespread feeling that
the old controversial way of approaching
these questions has lost all meaning, and that,
in so far as divisions depend on these par
ticular controversies, their raison d'etre has
disappeared. I am indeed, inclined to think that, in

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 149
practice, what I may call "temperamental"
differences are as potent as doctrinal, in keep
ing existing divisions alive. The type of
service, the devotional dialect, the religious
" atmosphere," which are endeared to members
of one Church, grate upon those of another.
Besides this, in a country like England, a long
period during which one set of Christians
have been liable to political disabilities, from
which others have been immune, has left
behind it a heritage of mutual prejudice, which
often makes religious differences seem deeper
than they really are.
Divisions, and those important ones, still
exist ; but very often the line of division cuts
across the lines of the old divisions of sects.
On the other hand, many phenomena in
modern civilisation seem to be so evidently
in direct contravention of the principles of
Christ as to demand an effective protest from
all Christians ; but an essential condition of
effective protest is unity among those who
protest. Again, the Church has not merely to
protest against evil, but to inspire and pro
claim ideals of good. Here, again, division
is a source of weakness. Last, but by no

150 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
means least, in great continents like Africa,
India, China — whose importance for the
civilisation and future ethical development
of humanity is daily becoming more obvious —
Christianity is only an infant force ; and the
uncertain voice, the paralysed effort and the
dissipated energy, which result from disunion,
simply will not be ignored ; while, against the
dark background of heathenism, even the most
fundamental differences between Christians
begin to dwindle, and all lesser differences
seem trivial and absurd.

Part II. — The Preliminaries of Reunion.
The question is often asked, " What are
the ' notes ' of the true Church ? " The ques
tion raises a real and a difficult problem, but
I am convinced that to state the question in
this way is to preclude ourselves from finding
a satisfactory answer. It ignores the possi
bility that, in a disunited Church, no one
division may possess all those characteristics,
which are actually indispensable to the life of
the whole.
Thus, for instance, an organised ministry

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 151
ordained by an authority representing the
whole communion, not merely a single
congregation, a definite system of doctrine,
and the two Sacraments of Baptism and the
Lord's Supper, are all regarded as things
essential, not only by Romans, Orthodox
and Anglicans, but by Presbyterians,
Lutherans and Methodists. The Society of
Friends, however, has completely discarded
them all. Yet, it cannot be maintained that
the average spiritual level of this Society is
in any degree below the average of any
other; and few, who have ever attended a
Quaker Meeting, do not feel that there is
something here, which other Churches would
do well to try to reproduce within themselves.
" Where two or three are gathered together
in My Name, there am I in the midst of them,"
said the Master, and again " by their fruits
ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes
from thorns or figs from thistles 1" "The
fruit of the Spirit," says St. Paul, " is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good
ness, faith, meekness, temperance." Where
these abound in a community, it is surely to
run the risk of blaspheming against the Holy

152 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
Spirit to deny it to be a veritable branch of
the Church of Christ, however sure we may
be that it is deficient in some directions.
For, be it observed, it is not in virtue of the
unique gifts of individuals, but of the spiritual
traditions of the community, that these special
characteristics persist.
There are, however, many who find a
difficulty in accepting this conclusion, because
they feel that to admit that a Christian com
munity, which lacks certain things, is truly a
branch of the Church, is to admit that these
particular things are not essential to the life
of the Church. This I believe to be a
misapprehension. The Church, i.e. the whole
community of believers, as being the Body of
Christ, is the organ and means of expression
upon earth of the Spirit or Personality of
Christ. But only a united and perfected
Church could perform this function with any
approach to adequacy or completeness. In a
divided and imperfect Church, it is only to
be expected that every section should be
a defective and one-sided expression of the
One Spirit. It is also to be expected that
different sections should be inadequate, in

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 153
different ways. And this is precisely what
we find to be the case.
In the matter of Doctrine, for example, it
may, I believe, be shown that bodies like
Congregationalists or Friends, who definitely
repudiate all doctrinal definition, are only
enabled to do so, because, implicitly, they
take for granted all that part of the Anglican
or Presbyterian systems, which they do not
expressly deny. That is to say, their position
is essentially a protest against the tendency
towards the over-intellectualisation and over-
definition of belief, which is the bane of the
more dogmatic Churches. But if no other
branch of the Church supplied a definite
system of doctrine, which could be made the
basis of their freer interpretation, these
" undogmatic " Churches would very soon be
compelled to evolve a system of their own.
On the other hand, I believe it to be
equally true that the indirect influence of the
less dogmatic communions does much to save
the more dogmatic from their characteristic
defects. Thus the spiritual vitality of the
Roman Church is conspicuously greater in
countries like Germany or England, where it

154 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
is face to face with Protestantism, than in
countries where it is in sole possession of the
field. And this cannot be explained as due
merely to the inspiring effect of opposition,
because, where Protestantism does not exist,
Rome has to face the still more bitter
opposition of agnostic anti-clericalism.
The experience of the Mission Field seems
to show that the same principle holds good
with regard to Church Order and organisation.
The American Mission at Madura, for instance,
which is mainly worked by Congregationalists,
is admittedly one of the most efficient in all
India. Here the practical necessities of the
work have led to an organisation by districts.
Each is presided over by one of the Mission
staff, who is assisted by a band of formally
ordained native Pastors, and by a number
of superior catechumens forming a lower
order in the ministry. Thus without any
deliberate imitation there has grown up
a system elosely resembling, as a member
of the Mission frankly admitted to me, the
organisation of Bishop, Priests, and Deacons
in the early Church — which also, be it
remembered, was a Mission Ohureh. But if

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 155
a Denomination, which specifically stands for
the principle of Congregational independency,
finds itself, when removed from its original
environment, forced to develop an organisa
tion even remotely resembling Episcopacy,
it would seem to show that the existence,
somewhere in the Church, of a regular and
organised ministry is essential ; and that in
the last resort the unorganised Churches are
only able to remain so, because of the exist
ence side by side with them of the more
organised. On the other hand, the weakness of the
more highly organised Churehes, especially
of the Episcopalian Churches, is twofold. The
emphasis on the "institution" weakens, for
many minds, the grasp on the supremacy of
the spiritual which no Quaker, for instance,
can possibly be tempted to forget; and the
existence of a clerical Order has in the past,
at any rate in Europe, undoubtedly tended
to depress the spiritual activity and initia
tive of the layman. The "priesthood of
the laity " is a phrase often heard in the
Church of England, but if the ideal were not
kept before men by the existence of bodies like

156 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
Congregationalists and Friends, it would be
even more miserably unrealised than it is at
present. Reflection on certain facts of history, and
on certain phenomena of religious experience,
inclines me personally to believe that it may
even be necessary that, at least in some
branches of the Church, the Historic Epis
copate should be retained. That institution,
however, has suffered so much from unwise
defenders that I forbear to run the risk of
adding one more to their number. But even
if it be true, that the existence of Episcopacy,
somewhere in the Church Universal, is indis
pensable, Episcopacy clearly is not the only,
or even the most, indispensable thing. Bodies
which lack this, but are rich in other indis-
pensables, cannot reasonably be put on a lower
level than those which retain this institution,
but are defective in other important respects.
A theory, according to which the Church of
Montenegro is a branch of the true Church,
while the Church of Scotland is not, is refuted
by the facts of life.
Considerations like these do not, of course,
settle the vital questions, what system of

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 157
Doctrine is nearest the truth, or what kind
of Church Order is the best, but I would
submit that they do show that it is possible —
and if possible, surely also necessary — to
recognise, as a veritable branch of the Church
of Christ, every Christian community which
obviously exhibits " the fruits of the Spirit,"
even though it lack certain things, which are
vital, not merely to the well-being, but to the
very existence of the Church as a whole. In
other words, the question "What are the
notes of the true Church ? " is misleading,
because, so long as the Church of Christ is
divided, no part or parts can claim to be the
true Church in any exclusive sense.
It is now possible to pass on to the con
sideration of the practical difficulties which
attend reunion. These I will illustrate by a
concrete example, which I have recently
had the opportunity of studying at first
hand. In Southern India there has recently taken
place a unification of the Churches founded by
five British and American Missions of different
denominations, and some other bodies are
contemplating entering the Union. Three

158 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
Churches, however, feel precluded from
participation, by what they regard as points
of principle. The Anglicans stand outside,
because they — or at least an important section
of them, whose opinions the rest cannot dis
regard — believe that an episcopally ordained
ministry is necessary for the regular adminis
tration of the Lord's Supper. The Lutherans
stand out, because they hold that a correct
belief about the nature of the Elements
administered, i.e., the doctrine known as
Consubstantiation, is equally essential. The
so-called "close" Baptists stand out, on the
ground that Baptism, other than that of adults,
and that by complete immersion, is invalid.
The emphasis laid on any one of these
beliefs by those who hold them, is apt to
seem unreasonable and absurd to those who
do not ; and those who do not hold them
include, in the second and third of the cases
mentioned, the vast majority of Christians,
and, in the first, all Protestant Christians
outside, and many also within, the Anglican
Church. Nevertheless, there is behind each
one of these beliefs, the solid conviction and
experience of vigorous and international

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 159
Christian Societies — for the Anglican Com
munion, it should be remembered, is the
smallest of the three — and, therefore, if there
is any truth at all in the view of authority
outlined in a previous Paper,1 we are com
pelled to assume that each must contain at
least an element of truth. The fact that it
would be perfectly possible, and intellectually
consistent, for the same individual to hold all
three doctrines, further confirms this view.
On the other hand, the fact that each of
them is repudiated by such a mass of un
doubtedly Christian experience, suggests the
probability that, either in regard to the exact
form in which they are held, or in regard to
the implications and deductions, which are
commonly held to be inseparable from them,
there is in each an element of error.
We cannot, however, too often remind
ourselves that neither doctrine, discipline,
nor organisation have ever existed apart
from, or can be understood out of connection
with, the actual religious life of the Society in
which they are found. They represent an
endeavour to express, and, by expressing, to
1 Cf. pp. 72-73.

160 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
fortify and preserve, different aspects of what
is apprehended as vital by the Spirit in
carnate in the community. The community
may be regarded, in fact, as a kind of Cor
porate Personality, but a personality with a
width, richness, and maturity of experience of
infinitely greater scope than that of any indi
vidual. In ordinary life, however, no one
estimates persons primarily by their " views,"
except perhaps at election time, but by their
character as a whole, and by their views, only
so far as these views are expressed in character.
Similarly, in estimating the corporate per
sonality of a particular Church, we should
surely only consider its " views " in relation
to their total reaction on the corporate life.
Where an essentially Christian life exists in
the community, along with views or practices
which, to outsiders, seem out of harmony with,
or strangely inadequate to sustain, such
results, the probability is that the views or
practices mean something different from what
on the face of it appears. Accordingly, in
considering our attitude to a given Church, it
is ridiculous to take in isolation particular
points of doctrine, and to ask whether we

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 161
agree or disagree with them. We can only
consider the community as a whole, regarded
as the concrete embodiment of a specific type
of spiritual tradition.
These spiritual traditions are not only
different, but complementary to one another.
Thus no one who has had an opportunity of
studying the actual working out in life of
Anglicanism and Non-Conformity, can fail
to observe that, in spiritual as well as in
purely practical matters, each is in some
directions wider, deeper, and richer than the
other. How far this one-sidedness or limita
tion is inherent in the institutional or doctrinal
system of either ; and whether, by any modifi
cations of either one or both of these respective
systems, it would be possible for each to
enrich its own life by learning the charac
teristic excellences of the other, are questions
which it will take generations of discussion
and experiment to decide. For the present
it is sufficient to realise that the various
branches, into which the Western Church
has been divided since the Reformation,
seem to have specialised, as it were, in
different aspects of the Christian life ; each
M

162 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
has succeeded in realising and expressing
certain aspects with special success, and each
has failed, often conspicuously, to develop
others. The total amount, which all Christian bodies
have in common, is very large ; and attempts
to disparage or minimise the importance of the
things on which all Christians are agreed are
much to be deprecated. But to work for
reunion on the basis of discarding all but this
"least common denominator," would be to
imitate, in a different form, the Ultramontane
error of seeking uniformity upon the basis of
exclusiveness. A healthy unity is incompatible
with uniformity ; and if you exclude every
doctrine or practice with regard to which men
differ, you exclude all the people who sincerely
hold them — a policy which leads to the for
mation of new divisions, not to the disappear
ance of old ones.
But union, on the basis of a forcible
suppression of differences, not only fails to
achieve its object in practice, it is also wrong
in idea. If it be true, for instance, that
Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
and Friends, have each of them something to

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 163
learn from the other, none of them must
throw away the characteristic truth they have
to teach. But this characteristic spiritual
truth is usually associated in the minds of
those who possess it with some characteristic
point of order, discipline or doctrine, which
the others cannot accept. If, however, no
institution or discipline is perfect, and no
theology is an adequate expression of Divine
truth, it is surely possible that, with certain
modifications, the essential spiritual value may
be retained, while the objection felt by those
outside to the institution or the doctrine, as
hitherto maintained, may be removed.
Sympathetic and non-controversial dis
cussion, the study of historical origins, a
better analysis of the meaning of terms or of
the implications of specific religious beliefs
and experiences, and a deeper grasp of the
essence and proportion of Christianity, will,
doubtless, in time, lead to the clearer elucida
tion of the elements of truth, and to the
progressive elimination of the elements of
error. Until this process has gone forward a
considerable way, unification is impossible.
But the process is one which will take time ;
M 9

164 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
and, what is more important, it can only be
carried forward when a certain amount of
unity is already attained. For religious
doctrines or practices are not like business
contracts, which can be adjusted by friendly
discussion between people of opposing
interests, You only know the real meaning
of a doctrine or a practice when, to some
extent, you share the inside life of the
community which prizes them.
The experience of all who have had any
thing to do with the Student Movement
points towards two conclusions. Firstly,
the most valuable contribution, which any
denomination makes to the spiritual life
of the whole, as often comes from that
which is distinctive and characteristic of
itself, as from that which it shares with all
other bodies. But, secondly, these mutual con
tributions are most easily made where there
already exists a fellowship, in the religious
life of which members of different denomina
tions can feel that they are essentially united.
Hence, no cut-and-dried scheme of general
reunion is worth discussing. Co-operation in
good works, provisional experiments in partial

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 165
union, seemingly illogical working compro
mises must come first. Only by this means
shall we come to understand one another, as
it were from the inside; and only then, 1
would add, shall we learn fully to understand
the real meaning and value of our own
position. Accordingly the solution of the problem of
Reunion would seem to demand, as a prelim
inary stage, a system of loose federation or
alliance, which, while securing a real feeling
of unity, will do nothing to obliterate com
pletely any denominational distinction, which
is bound up with the maintenance of a valuable
and distinctive type of spiritual tradition.
It is obvious, however, that the number of
sects far exceeds the number of really dis
tinctive types of spiritual tradition. The first
stage, then, towards Christian reunion would
seem to be a re-grouping of sects, so as to
correspond to these main types. It is possible
that it would then appear that some at least
of these might take up a position, as
semi-independent societies within a wider
Church organisation — a position such as is
occupied by the various religious orders, each

166 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
with its own characteristic rj0os, in the Roman
Church, or by an institution like the Church
Army within the Church of England. But
that possibility is one which can only be
realised, when a general all-round advance
in the direction of reunion has already been
achieved. The children of this world, we are told, are
wiser than the children of light ; and I believe
that, at this point, we shall get great help by
considering the analogies afforded by the
political development of the last few centuries.
Out of the chaos of small conflicting States,
which arose from the ruins of the Old Roman
and the Holy Roman Empires, a steady
evolution in one direction can be traced. The
goal to which this seems to be obscurely
tending, is the union of the civilised world.
That goal has not yet been reached; it is
indeed still remote ; but, at any rate, we can
see clearly that such a union will not take
the form of a unified and uniform World-state
like the later Roman Empire.
The process has consisted, in the first in
stance, in the gradual unification or federation
of smaller States into larger ones, which

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 167
roughly correspond to great national and
racial types. England and France have been
nations for many centuries, but it is less than
fifty years since Italy and Germany became
so ; and we have just witnessed what perhaps
is only the beginning of a similar rearrange
ment of sovereignty to correspond with
national type in the Balkans. In some cases
the closer correspondence between State-
organisation and real racial or cultural divi
sions has been brought about by Unification ;
that is, by the complete merging of the
independent existence of smaller into that of
larger States ; as was done in France and
Italy. In other cases it has been by Federa
tion, i.e., by a union like that of Germany or
the United States, in which each of the con
stituent bodies preserves unchanged its own
peculiar internal organisation, and many of
its independent sovereign rights. Unification
and Federation have been further supple
mented by the formation of close Alliances
and "good understandings" between groups
of larger States. The process has only been
roughly completed, but it is just the fact of
this incompleteness which constitutes the

168 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
chief obstacle to closer union. If it were
not for questions like the question of Alsace,
Italia irredenta, and the like, the great States
of Europe would probably be able to live in
permanent and unbroken harmony with one
another. But it cannot be doubted that the
relative unity and harmony in Europe is due
to the relative completeness of this process of
re-grouping according to clearly defined
national and racial types.
Now the boundaries between States are
necessarily determined, not merely by racial,
but largely by geographical considerations ;
and the most stable countries are those in
which geographical and race distribution most
nearly coincide. But the religious divisions
between mankind, at any rate in Western
Europe and the New World, do not corre
spond, except very roughly, with divisions
of geography or race. Primarily, as we have
already seen, they represent different spiritual
traditions ; and the first stage of advance must
be a re-grouping of sects in accordance with
those traditions.
This process of re-grouping has already
begun, and by the same alternative methods

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 169
of Unification and Federation, which we have
seen at work in the political sphere. Thus
Unification has produced in recent years the
United Free Church of Scotland, the United
Methodist Church, and the United Church of
Southern India. Elsewhere Federation — not
as yet formally so-called, but of a very practical
though informal kind — is already beginning
to manifest itself between English-speaking
Protestants outside the Church of England.
That the processes of unification and of
federation will both of them advance rapidly
seems highly probable; and it may well be
that Churches, which in England can only
accomplish a federal unity, will elsewhere
achieve unification. Thus unification has
already taken place between Churches of a
Congregational and Presbyterian type in
Southern India, and is at present under
discussion between Presbyterians, Methodists,
and Congregationalists in Canada.
The question of the relation of the Church of
England, either to individual non-episcopalian
bodies, or to any union of such bodies which
might come into existence, is one that presents
peculiar difficulties. It is obvious, on the one

170 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
hand, that unification is impossible; it is
equally obvious that " good understanding" —
though, as far as this country is concerned, it
would be an improvement on existing con
ditions — is nothing like adequate to the
necessity of presenting a united front in the
heathen world. The alternatives would seem
to be Federation, but on rather special terms,
or Alliance. But both Federation and Alliance
are metaphors drawn from the political sphere ;
and the exact nature of the problem will not
be clear till we have discussed the limitations
of the political analogy, and the question of
Intercommunion. In Russia and other countries, where the
various branches of the Orthodox Eastern
Church are in possession, the general level
of culture among the clergy, and still more
among the mass of believers, is notoriously
low; but this state of things is one which
is rapidly changing. The result of this
no one can prophesy; but it is at least
probable that in these countries, as elsewhere,
the intellectual Renaissance will be followed,
after an interval, by a religious Reformation.
It is unlikely that this will proceed on

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 171
quite the same lines as that of Western
Europe; but it can hardly fail to make
Federation, or at least Alliance, between
the Churches of the East and the Reformed
Churches of the West easier than it is at
present. This is a consideration of the utmost
importance ; for there are many in the
Church of England who regard closer union
with other reformed Churches as essential,
but who hesitate to advance it by practical
steps, for fear such approximation would
only widen the gulf between the Anglican
and the Orthodox Eastern Churches. It is how
ever probable that, granted an intellectual and
spiritual revival in the Orthodox Church (and,
without that, no improvement of present
relations is possible), the result would be
exactly the opposite. The Federal principle
is already that which distinguishes Oriental
from Latin Christianity. The Eastern
Church is a Federation of National Churches.
The Roman is a Unification despotically
governed. The Eastern Church has never
been content with a divided Christendom, but
she never can submit to a despotic Pope. If,

172 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
however, a Federal Union should be constituted
between the non-Roman branches of the
Western Church, it is not too much to hope
that the Federation of revived and reformed
Eastern Churches might desire to bring them
selves into closer connection with it. Once
this were effected, the Latin Communion,
instead of being, as at present, the largest
single Communion in Christendom, would
be the Church of a minority, and might
then be willing to consider reunion on other
terms than abject and absolute submission
to the see of Peter.
But, unless and until the Church of Rome
withdraws the demand for absolute submission,
the most that can be hoped for in her rela
tions with other Churches is mutual tolerance
and respect, such as exists in the political
sphere between the Triple Alliance and
the other Great Powers of Europe. At
present it seems unlikely, but if the other
Churches can draw together, it is just
possible, that in some far distant future Rome
will change; and, in that case, the way
would be open to a reunion of the whole of
Christendom on a federal basis.

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 173
That unity on a federal basis is satisfactory
as an ultimate ideal I am not prepared either
to affirm or deny. It is clearly the immediate
ideal for which to work and pray. When
this is attained, it will be time enough to
consider what further developments would
give an even fuller play to the comple
mentary principles of unity and diversity,
corporate membership and individuality,
authority and freedom. " We cannot do our
great grandchildren's work."
So far political analogies may be used
to throw light on the problem of reunion ;
but, just so far as the Church is not merely
a human organisation on a large scale, but
the expression of a Divine ideal, the analogy
between the Church and the State will be
misleading. Some things, which are essential
to the unity of a State, the Church can afford
to dispense with, and some things, which are
indifferent to the State, are vital to the
Church. In the past, as the former part
of this paper has made clear, the analogy
and the connection between Church and
State have been fruitful causes of disruption,
persecution, and stunted growth ; and the

174 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
political analogy will hardly help us to
reunion, unless we realise quite clearly at
least two fundamental points in which it
does not hold.
(1) The Church and the State differ in one
most vital feature. The State stands for Law,
the Church for the Gospel. That is to say,
the State puts before men a minimum
uniform standard, which can be enforced
by compulsion : the Church holds up an
ideal, to which the best will never attain,
but to which the worst are still invited to
aspire. The weapon of the State is compul
sion ; the weapon of the Church is persuasion.
In so far as the Church is a human organisa
tion, the element of discipline or compulsion
cannot be entirely absent ; but the actual
exercise of any form of compulsion is a
confession of the breakdown in practice of the
ideal for which the Church stands. The word
" compulsion," of course, is only applicable to
discipline, which is resisted by the individual
upon whom it is imposed ; discipline which is
accepted, as for instance in penance, is not
really compulsion at all.
Now in the State it is vital that the seat

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 175
of authority should be easily located, and
its decisions rapidly attainable. Questions of
peace and war, besides many lesser emergencies,
necessitate the existence in the State of a
strong central authority able to act rapidly
and decisively. Bismarck has left on record
the reflection that in politics it is often
better to come to a wrong decision than to
come to no decision at all. In respect to
most of the questions upon which the Church
has to decide, precisely the contrary is the
case. Especially is this true when the ques
tion concerns the presentation of religious
truth in view of new knowledge.
The military organisation of the Church
of Rome has given her a machinery, which
enables her to decide quickly, and with plenary
authority, on all disputed points of doctrine.
This is often regarded as the strong point
of the Roman system ; it is really the point
of greatest weakness ; for wherever such an
authority exists men insist on appealing to
it, and the authority is compelled to pro
nounce its verdict. But in matters of this
kind, to decide quickly means in most cases
to decide wrong. When Galileo maintained

176 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
that the Earth went round the Sun, he main
tained a position contrary to the plain words
of Scripture and to the implications of the
Apostles' Creed. It was not to be expected
that contemporaries should at once see that
the foundations of religion were not thereby
imperilled. It is not surprising that authority,
when appealed to, condemned those views.
Nor is it surprising that the present Pope has
condemned " critical conclusions " with regard
to the Old Testament, for a method applied to
the Old Testament cannot be excluded from the
New ; but it is likely that this latter verdict
will discredit the authority, which pronounced
it, as much as the former has done. Other
Churches, of course, have made similar mis
takes, but as Houses of Convocation and
General Assemblies do not claim plenary
authority, their action has been less disastrous.
Those, who can afford to admit mistakes, find
it less difficult to retrieve them.
In modern political theory, the old doc
trine of the " sovereignty " of the State
is being severely criticised. The foregoing
considerations show that it is still less
admissible, if applied to the Church. The

iv CONCEPTION OFTHE ONE CHURCH 177
conception of sovereignty was largely devel
oped by the champions of the late mediaeval
Papacy, so as to combine the theoretically
representative1 autocracy of the Roman
Emperors with the claim to Divine Right,
through the Apostolic Succession, which
made the Pope the Vicar of Christ. On
the Continent, the various monarchs, who
created the modern compact State out of the
loose union of the Feudal State, inherited
this conception. It was the king who made
the State, and " L' e"tat, c'est moi" is only just
a parody of his position. In England, the
concentration of sovereignty in a single
individual was defeated ; but the idea was
none the less accepted that, whatever checks
and counter-checks the constitution may pro
vide, it is necessary that somewhere and some
how there should be found a definite and final
expression of the sovereignty of the State.
On this its unity, and, in difficult times, its
existence, was felt to depend.
It is not unnatural, then, that the analogy
of the State, and the unconscious influence of
1 Cf. ". . . populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium
et potestatem conferat." — Justinian, Dig. I, § 4. N

178 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
the Papal tradition, should have made many
conceive of the unity of the Church in terms
of its seat of sovereignty. This point is one
the importance of which, in the discussion of
the problem of Christian unity, cannot be
over-estimated. For, though we have given
up the idea that the unity of the Church
depends upon the sovereignty of an autocratic
Pope, there is still subconsciously present, in
the minds of most men, the idea that Christian
reunion is only thinkable, if Christians can
again agree upon some organisation, institu
tion, or other device, which will enable men to
see clearly wherein lies the sovereignty of the
Church. No doubt most people envisage such
sovereignty as one of a constitutional kind — a
council of bishops, a parliament of presbyters,
a general assembly of elected representatives
of Churches or groups of Churches, or the
like. That is simply because, while retaining
the notion that unity and sovereignty are
bound up together, they think of sovereignty
in terms of the modern representative, rather
than of the older autocratic State.
The conclusion, then, which I wish to sug
gest is, that this identification of unity and

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 179
sovereignty, already partially discredited in
political theory, is entirely misleading, when
we are seeking for the true conception of the
Church. Or to put the matter in a simpler
form, Federation or Reunion does not mean
that we must evolve a representative central
authority, which has coercive powers over the
minor groups comprised in the Union.
In the political sphere, it is the existence of
such an authority which makes the chief
difference between Federation and Alliance.
Both the United States, and Switzerland, the
typically free Federations, have resorted to
civil war, rather than allow freedom in certain
directions to some of the constituent bodies
of the Union. But in days when the Church
can no longer call in the aid of the civil
power, an analogous proceeding is as un
thinkable as it would be undesirable. When
once all Christians have realised the fact,
and faced all the implications of the fact, that
one essential difference of the Church and
the State is, that in no circumstances can a
United Church coerce minorities, and that the
powers of any central authority must consist
in moral prestige, not in the right of compul-
N 2

180 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
sion, the problem of reunion will take on a
new phase.
(2) It has always been held that the
visible Church does not exactly correspond
even with that part of the invisible Church,
which is still " militant here in earth."
Even Roman theologians lay down that the
visible Church includes some persons, who
will ultimately be found not to be members
of the invisible Church, and that outside
the visible Church are some, who will
ultimately be found to be members of
the invisible Church. For the State this
problem simply does not exist. The State
can always proceed on the assumption that
it is possible to draw a hard and fast line
between those individuals who are its
members, and those who are outside. The
Church, for practical reasons, may be obliged
to draw some kind of a line, but the moment
that she forgets that the line is necessarily one
drawn in a more or less arbitrary way, disas
trous consequences inevitably follow. " Him
that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast
out," said the Master, but many of His
followers have always seemed to be princi-

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 181
pally interested in enforcing the necessity
of exclusion. "Except ye be circumcised
after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be
saved " is a cry that in one form or another
has been lifted up in every period of the
Church's history. In the early Church the
tendency manifested itself in the formation
of exclusive sects like the Montanists and
Novatians. In the sixteenth century and
afterwards the same tendency was one of the
notes of Puritanism. In the former period
the Roman, in the later the Anglican, Church
stood in the main for the more liberal
interpretation of the principle of exclusion ;
but to-day the parties seem to have changed
sides. Exclusion, though no doubt on some
what different grounds, has become the note of
the Ultramontane Roman, or of the extreme
" High Church " section of the Church of
England, while the sons of the Puritan stand
for the Catholic principle of inclusion.
In favour of the Puritan or exclusive
tendency it is usual to urge, that strength
of conviction and distinctness of witness
seem most readily to be produced in a
community, whose conditions of membership,

182 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
whether moral or credal, are very clearly
defined. But this result is surely better
attained, not by limiting the membership of
the Church itself, but by the formation of
smaller societies within the Church — com
parable to the Religious Orders in certain
Churches, though without the celibate vow.
For the Church is emphatically not a body
of tax-payers, a trades-union, or a club,
which has a right to insist that no one shall
enjoy its privileges, who does not contribute
to the support of its burdens. The Church
stands for the principle that " it is better to
give than to receive," and the more truly a
man is a Christian the more widely will he
wish to give, well knowing that, exactly in
proportion as the receiver has appropriated
the gift, . he will desire to become in his turn
a giver. This principle is of special importance in its
application to the difficult question of the
conditions of admission to Communion. It
is not disputed that in certain cases admission
should be refused. But, whether regard be
had to the theory of the essential character of
the Church, or to the practical application of

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 183
the general principles of Christian charity,
it is clear that in all doubtful cases the decision
should not be in favour of exclusion.

Part III. — The Problem of Intercommunion.
The question of intercommunion, as between
the Anglican Communion and the non-
Episcopal Churches, raises difficulties of a
unique and peculiar kind. I propose, there
fore, to confine my discussion to these diffi
culties, and that only in so far as they affect
the principles of the Anglican Church within
its own borders.
A large section of the Anglican Communion
is profoundly convinced that the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper administered otherwise
than by an Episcopally ordained minister is,
to say the least, gravely irregular. Another
large section vehemently repudiates the whole
set of principles on which that judgment rests.
Controversialists on both sides are in the
habit of speaking as if they and their party
were the only true representatives of the
characteristic principles of the Anglican
Church, all others being allowed to exist on

184 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
sufferance only. Such language is wholly
indefensible. Both parties (along with a much
larger intermediate section), and both sets of
views have existed in the Church ever since
the Reformation, and both are consistent with
absolute loyalty to the Prayer Book and
Articles. Both parties, therefore, have a right
to demand that the Church as a whole take no
official action, that is plainly incompatible
with a reasonable interpretation of their
respective principles.
On the question of admitting to Communion
members of non-Episcopal bodies, there is a
difference of opinion within the High Church
party itself. A doubt as to the validity of
the Eucharist, as administered in a particular
Christian body, does not logically carry with
it the view, that members of such a body
are disqualified from participating in a valid
Eucharist elsewhere. In most non-Episcopalian
bodies the rite of Baptism is administered in
a way which is admittedly valid, and accord
ing to the strictest Anglo-Catholic theology,
their members are members of the One Body
of Christ, but guilty of the sin of schism.
The personal responsibility, however, of any

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 185
one living individual for the sin of a schism
three or four centuries old — even on the
assumption that the sin of the schism in
question was all on the side of the non-Epis
copalian body — cannot be regarded as great.
The main difficulty, therefore, from the High
Church standpoint in admitting non-Episco
palians to Communion, lies in the Rubric
appended to the Confirmation Service, " And
there shall none be admitted to the Holy
Communion, until such time as he be con
firmed, or be ready and desirous to be
confirmed." An occasional dispensation, however, from
the requirements of this Rubric, is not, I
would submit, incompatible with the strictest
principles of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Con
firmation, according to the High Church view,
is a Sacrament. But it is expressly laid down
that only two Sacraments, Baptism and the
Lord's Supper, have been ordained " as gener
ally necessary to salvation." Confirmation,
therefore, is on a level with Penance, Orders,
Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. Now, in
mediaeval times, the Sacrament of Penance,
as well as that of Confirmation, was obligatory

186 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
before admission to Communion. The Church
of England, since the Reformation, has seen
fit to dispense with Penance, as of universal
obligation. She has not dispensed with Con
firmation. But she has surely the power to
do so ; she has in fact expressly done so, in
the exceptional cases of all those who are
" ready or desirous to be confirmed." The
question, therefore, whether the dispensation
should be extended to another class of excep
tional cases, is seen to be one of expediency,
and not of principle.
In favour of a relaxation of the require
ments of the Rubric, at any rate under
exceptional circumstances, a great deal of
authority can be adduced, including that of
many definitely " High Church " Bishops of
all periods ; and the practice of occasional ad
mission has always been widespread. Nothing,
however, had, until recently, occurred to
render it necessary for the Church as a
whole to take up any official attitude on the
question. But the circumstances of the
Mission Field, not only in Africa but through
out the world, are making it virtually
impossible for the Church to avoid any longer

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 187
coming to a definite decision in the matter.
That being so, it becomes obvious that the
unity of the Anglican Communion will be
seriously imperilled, unless both the High
Church and the Evangelical parties are pre
pared to approach the question in a spirit of
Christian charity. A solution will only be
possible if each party shows its readiness to
make every concession, which it is possible for
it to make, without surrendering essential
principles. At the risk of appearing presumptuous, I
will set down what I believe to be the conces
sions which the definitely " High " and the
definitely " Evangelical " sections of the
Church respectively, might reasonably be
asked to make. On the bases of these conces
sions a solution could, I believe, be reached,
which both sections could conscientiously
accept. The Evangelical party might, I would
suggest, be asked to submit to two re
strictions. (1) Members of non-episcopal Churches
living within easy and convenient reach of the
ministrations of their own denomination,

188 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
should not be admitted to Communion, unless
in highly exceptional circumstances.
(2) In so much as the action of an officer of
any society may be interpreted as to some
extent committing the society as a whole ; no
Bishop or Priest, whether at home or in the
Mission Field, should himself partake of the
Communion, when administered by one who
is not Episcopally ordained.
On the other hand, if these two points were
conceded, the High Church party might fairly
be asked to recognise officially — under the
category of a special dispensation for excep
tional cases — the relaxation of the Confir
mation Rubric, in all cases where a Baptised
Christian, leading a moral life, is out of reach
of the regular ministrations of his own
communion. Such a compromise as I have suggested,
would involve no sacrifice of principle on
either side ; but that it, or indeed any possible
compromise, is above criticism from the point
of view of strict logical consistency, I am not
prepared to maintain. The situation with
which the Anglican Church is to-day con
fronted, is one which must be dealt with in

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 189
a spirit, which goes deeper than considerations
of formal logic. Every day it is becoming
clearer that the work of the Church of Christ
will never be accomplished without reunion.
In every quarter of the globe movements
towards reunion are on foot, and in every
quarter of the globe it is we who are holding
back. All over the world men, whom we
cannot deny to be true followers of Christ, are
asking to be admitted to our altars — not as a
matter of right, not as a matter of everyday
usage, but in token of Christian brotherhood
to themselves, and as a vital necessity to their
converts, when cut off from the ministrations
of their own communion. The situation is not
of our creating, the question is one on which
we would willingly have postponed decision,
but to-day we are forced to answer yes or no.
And the responsibility of saying no, is one
which we simply cannot take.
The necessity of keeping alive the character
istic and distinctive discipline and tradition of
a particular Church, will justify it in excluding
from its altars members of other bodies, who
are within easy reach of the ministrations of
their own society. It will not justify exclusion

190 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
where this is not the case. Above all in a
heathen country, to insist on exclusion means
that you are to treat as excommunicate a
missionary guest of another denomination,
though he be a man with the spirit of a
St. Francis Xavier ; and it means that you
are to cut off from the greatest source of
spiritual help a coolie, lately snatched from
heathenism by another Christian body, if he
has migrated to a district where yours is the
only Church ; although such an one needs
sorely all that Christian charity, brotherhood,
and spiritual help can give him, if he is not
to be dragged back again into the Paganism
from which he has just been rescued. Exclu
sion, no doubt, is not the same thing as
excommunication, but the distinction is a
subtle one for simple minds to grasp, and in
the Mission Field excommunication is a
discipline frequently enforced and carries with
it a moral slur; and, though it may be
explained that exclusion implies no such slur,
to the native mind a thing, which requires to
be explained away, rarely ceases to be above
suspicion. The question is raised in this practical form

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 191
almost daily in the Mission Field, and if we
ask what answer to it is most accordant with
the principles taught by our Lord, I am con
vinced that the vast majority of clergy and
laity in the Church of England would reply
that there can be only one, viz., that the Con
firmation Rubric, like the Sabbath, was made
for man, and not man for the Rubric.
The difficulty, however, arises, that, in the
minds of a minority, any waiving of the
Rubric seems to involve a point of principle.
The hardest of all problems are those which
arise from the conflict of two apparently
irreconcilable religious or moral principles.
And those, who see their own way clear, are
often tempted to adopt a shallow and un
sympathetic attitude towards those who are
feeling the full force of such a conflict. But,
when principles seem to conflict, the only right
solution is one which carefully delimits the
sphere of operation of each ; and if ever that
seems impossible, it must be ascertained, which
is the higher and more fundamental of the
principles involved, and that one must prevail.
The conflict of principle involved in this
case is, I would suggest, essentially analogous

192 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
to that which nearly tore asunder the Church
of the Apostolic Age. The rite of cir
cumcision had come down with direct Divine
sanction from immemorial antiquity, and had
been submitted to by the Christ Himself ; but
the practical necessities of the Mission Field
forced the Church to decide, whether or no
those outside the old Jewish Church could be
admitted to fellowship, without submitting to
it. The fact that the particular point at issue
is no longer an open question blinds us to the
severe conscientious strain it must have caused
to many Jewish Christians, and probably
to some of the Apostles themselves, before
they could bring themselves to see that the
essential spirit of Christ's teaching necessitated
the waiving, in a particular case, of an
ordinance admittedly of Divine sanction. But
the moral is a clear one ; where two principles
seem to conflict, that one must prevail which
is most fundamentally in accord with the
Spirit of Christ.
There are in the English Church to-day many
who are themselves clear that the principles
of Christ demand that, in certain cases, the
requirements of the Rubric should be relaxed,

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 193
but who hesitate to recommend the formal
authorisation of such a course, for fear that
this might be followed by a secession — pos
sibly to the Church of Rome. It is my own
belief that, if the discussion is conducted in a
spirit of charity and mutual forbearance, the
fundamentally Christian principles, involved
in relaxation, will gradually come to be recog
nised by all, or most of those, who are at
present, not without good reason, alarmed lest
other important principles should be sacrificed.
But, should that much-to-be-prayed-for con
summation not come to pass, the Church of
England will have to ask, as must sometimes
happen in the history both of societies and
individuals, when faced with a choice between
two evils, which of the two evils is the lesser ?
That any considerable number of devout
and earnest Christians should secede from the
Church of England would be a thing infinitely
to be regretted ; but the day is past when
we believe that they would do so at the peril
of their souls. If, however, the Church of
England, rather than lose them, should
definitely commit herself to a position, which
the great majority of her members believe to
o

194 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
be fundamentally opposed to the spirit of
Christ's teaching, it would be the Church of
England that would be in danger of losing her
own soul. For, in the last resort, we must
obey God rather than man, and to be afraid
to take the right side, out of " respect of
persons," is none the less a betrayal because
these persons are sincere religious men.
There remains for consideration a further
question, and one to my m ind far more
difficult. Suppose it to be granted that under
special circumstances, such as those indicated
above, Non-Episcopalians should be admitted
to Communion in the Anglican Church ; is the
arrangement to be reciprocal ? Are Anglicans,
who are cut off from the ministrations of their
own Church, to be encouraged to communicate
at the Table of a Non-Episcopalian body ?
Both from the point of view of strict
theological principle and of the claims of
Christian charity, such a proposal stands on
an entirely different footing from that pre
viously discussed. Thus, whether the con
clusions advocated above be accepted or not,

ivCONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 195
it must at least be admitted that from the
strictly theological standpoint, no persons
recognised as having been validly baptised
can be excluded from Communion, unless
adequate reasons for their exclusion are
produced, and the burden of proof must
obviously lie with the theologian who would
justify such exclusion. If, on the contrary, it
is urged that an individual may permissibly
receive the Sacrament in a Church with
which his own Church is not officially in full
communion, the burden of proof lies with
those who would justify such liberty. Simi
larly, from the standpoint of Christian charity,
it is a serious matter to take the responsibility
of repelling, in the name of Christ, any
sincere Christian whose conscience moves him
to approach the Altar. It is quite another
thing for an individual to claim for himself
the liberty of approaching, or to urge others
to approach, the Lord's Table in a Church
whose doctrine and practice — whatever may
be his personal view of them — are not recog
nised as adequate by his own communion.
The question is much complicated by the

196 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
fact that very diverse views of the nature of
the Sacrament are entertained by different
bodies of Christians ; so that the Lord's
Supper and the act of participation in it mean
different things to different Societies. At
first sight this would seem to deprive inter
communion of all or most of its meaning,
except between societies which hold approxi
mately identical views of the nature of the
rite. Such a judgment, however, must be
qualified by two important considerations.
(l) The line of division of opinion with re
gard to the nature of the Sacrament does not
correspond to the distinction between Episco
palian and Non-Episcopalian. Thus, the
Lutheran Churches, except in Scandinavia,
have definitely discarded anything of the
nature of Episcopacy; but they uphold the
doctrine of Consubstantiation, which is a kind
of half-way house between the Roman and
the High Anglican doctrine of the Real
Presence ; they commonly use wafer bread, and
they prescribe that the Sacrament be received
kneeling. Again, though Presbyterians and
Wesleyans have departed further than

ivCONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 197
Lutherans from pre-Reformation usage and
doctrine, they entirely repudiate the view
that the Lord's Supper is a purely commemora
tive rite, or little more than what was called
a " Love Feast " in the early Church. On the
other hand, ever since the Reformation, the
Church of England has included individuals
who interpret the rite in a " lower " sense than
any of these bodies would officially counten
ance. Hence, in so far as the " intention " of
the particular Church determines the meaning
of the rite for those who partake in it, no
final objection can be made on this score to an
Anglican communicating in any Church whose
Sacramental doctrine is closely akin to any
form of that doctrine recognised as legitimate
within his own Church.
(2) The difference between the " high " and
" low " conception of the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper depends in the last resort on
whether the stress is laid mainly or exclusively
on the act of worship and self-dedication and
on the reception by the individual of a real
spiritual gift, or whether it is laid on his
participation in an act of religious fellowship

198 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION iv
in commemoration of the Passion of the Lord.
But originally both sets of ideas were com
bined ; and in their official theology most
sections of the Church still profess to combine
them. In practice, however, they all fall short
in one way or another. Thus, if it be true —
and I doubt whether it is ever quite true —
that in practice some Protestants make the
Eucharist merely a "Love Feast" or act of
congregational religious fellowship, it is
equally true that in practice many Catholics
make it purely an individual appropriation of
grace. Where both are one-sided it is profit
less to ask which is the potior error. The
undoubted fact that, in the practical working
out of their systems, different sections of the
Church to-day over-emphasise the one or the
other aspect is only another example of the
poverty of doctrine and experience entailed
upon us by division, and of the point pre
viously emphasised, that in a divided Church,
no one branch can claim to possess, or at any
rate vitally to realise, the whole truth.
Nevertheless, whatever the united Church
of the distant future may have in store for

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 199
us, we have at the present time to face the
fact that the Communion Service does not
mean the same thing to the average Anglican
and, let us say, to the average Congregation
alism To both it is a religious act, but not one of
the same kind. To the plain man, the differ
ence between the predominant meaning of the
two acts is brought home by the fact that in the
one Church the Sacrament is received kneeling
and in the other sitting. To an Anglican the
significance of the Sacrament is determined,
not merely by any strictly theological theory
of the nature of the Presence of Christ ; it is
equally determined by its liturgical setting, by
the part it plays in the devotional life alike of
the individual and of the Church, and by its
organic relation to the whole system of the
Church considered as the " body " of Christ,
that is, as the principal vehicle on earth of the
operation of His Spirit. And an integral part
of this system is the conception that the
minister officiates in virtue of a commission
derived from an authority which represents
the whole Church and not a single congrega
tion. Now it is quite untrue to say that the

200 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
ordinary Congregationalist regards the Com
munion merely as an act of religious fellow
ship or " Love Feast," and, accordingly, a
Congregationalist who partakes of the Sacra
ment in an Anglican Church can, at any rate
up to a point, do so in accordance with
the " intention " of that Church. But in
view of what has just been said, it is clear
that if an Anglican were to partake of the
Communion in a Congregational Church, it
would not have the same meaning for him as
the Communion in his own Church. In short,
to an Anglican, a Congregationalist Com
munion can be a " Love Feast," but it cannot
be very much more.
This I believe to be a large part, if not the
whole, of the truth which underlies the dis
tinction frequently drawn between a " valid "
and an " invalid " Sacrament. " Validity " is a
purely legal conception inherited from Latin
theology. The Latin mind was essentially
legal, and especially in the Middle Ages when
Jurisprudence was the one secular science which
had reached a high stage of development, its
categories naturally dominated all departments

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 201
of thought. Much, therefore, of our theo
logical vocabulary is of legal origin. But
legal categories are particularly misleading, if
applied beyond their own sphere, and es
pecially within the province of philosophy or
spiritual experience. But though the current
controversial use of the term "validity" is as
misleading as it is irritating, it is an endeavour
to express the important fact that an Anglican
does really miss something in the Communion
Service as celebrated in most, if not in all,
Non-Episcopal Churches ; and this loss is not
to him fully compensated, even if he does find
realised in such a service more of that feeling
of corporate religious fellowship, which he may
admit to be an aspect of the true meaning of
the Sacrament too little realised in the normal
experience of his own Church.
A full recognition of this principle clears
the way for a discussion of the question
whether, and if so under what circumstances,
it is desirable that liberty should be allowed
to an Anglican to communicate in a Non-
Episcopalian Church. That he should not do
so if within easy reach of the ministrations of

202 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
his own Church follows at once from the
general position urged throughout this paper,
viz. that denominational differences, which are
bound up with the maintenance of distinct
and valuable spiritual traditions, should not
be hastily or unnecessarily surrendered or
impaired. I have already expressed the
opinion that Bishops and Priests, in so much
as they are officially accredited representatives
of the society, should not under any circum
stances claim this liberty.
How far can it be maintained that lay
members of the Church are in any different
case? On the one hand, it may be urged
that the Layman no less than the Priest is
bound to sacrifice his personal inclinations,
and even his real needs, if they are found to
conflict with a principle the maintenance of
which is necessary for the good of the Church
as a whole. On the other hand, although the
bulk of the laity are not inferior to the clergy
in strength and steadfastness of religious
conviction, the laity are not, like the clergy, a
body of selected and specially trained persons.
Hence among the laity will necessarily be

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 203
included a considerable number of people
who, if cut off by the accident of their place
of residence from access to their own Church,
are likely gradually to abandon, first all
religious observance, and ultimately religion
itself, unless they are admitted to full
participation in the corporate religious life of
some other body. Such persons, no doubt,
are of the number of " the weaker brethren " ;
but the spiritual needs of the " weak brother "
are the last thing to which the Church of
Christ can profess indifference.
It is only, I imagine, for the sake of those,
who are permanently resident in a district
where there is no Anglican Church available,
that any one would wish to claim the liberty of
communicating in a Non -Episcopalian Church;
so that on its practical side, the problem is
one which does not occur in this country. It
does, however, occur whenever Anglicans are
resident on the Continent, in places where no
English Chaplain is within reach. And it
occurs still oftener in the Mission Field,
wherever — and that means in most parts of
India, China and Africa — owing to the

204 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
immense areas to be dealt with, and to the
lack of men and money for the work, in order
to cover the ground at all, the Missionaries of
the different denominations have had to map
out the country into areas, in each of which it
is agreed that one denomination only shall
work. In all such cases the position of an
Anglican in a Non- Anglican district may be
summarily, if perhaps somewhat uncharitably,
stated by saying that he is precluded
from participation in a Eucharist, but that it
is open to him to take part in a Christian
Love Feast. That is to say, he is cut off from
one " means of grace," and that, to him, the
highest, but there is still available another ;
for that a Non-Episcopalian Communion is a
" means of grace," I imagine few Anglicans
would care to deny. But, if that be so, it is
surely a serious responsibility to forbid a man
to avail himself of one " means of grace "
(even though it be regarded as of an inferior
order) because he is cut off by no fault of his
own from another and possibly better one.
There is a further consideration which
points in the same direction. Delimitation of

IV CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 205
spheres in the Mission Field is admitted by
general consent to be necessary, but it is
morally and religiously indefensible unless
each denomination implicitly pledges itself to
do the best it can for converts of other
denominations, who migrate into its own
sphere, and trusts others to do the same.
Where the Anglican Church is concerned, this
surely means, not only that such emigrants
shall not be penalised by being excluded from
Communion, but also that nothing be done to
prevent its own members, when they migrate
elsewhere, from entering into the full Church
life of their new home, provided that such
participation is shown to be necessary to
prevent them lapsing into indifference or
Paganism. No doubt, in many cases, partici
pation in a Church life, short of Communion,
would be quite adequate, but, in other cases,
anything less than full participation in all the
religious interests of the Church of the con
vert's new home might be fraught with peril.
The difficulty is met in one well-known
instance by the practice of sending a priest
from time to time to minister the Sacrament

206 RESTATEMENT AND REUNION IV
to any Anglicans who have migrated to a
neighbouring area. Where possible, this
certainly seems to be the best solution of
the problem. But such an arrangement is
not everywhere possible, and in the particular
case I have alluded to, it is made both more
necessary and more possible without friction,
by the fact that the adjoining area is occupied
by the Society of Friends, whose Church
system does not provide any form of Com
munion at all.
Life is more complex than our philosophies
would allow, and it is not only in matters
of theology and religion that questions arise
too intricate to admit of any neat and tidy
answer. Solvitur ambulando is not an attrac
tive solution to offer to any problem ; it
sounds too like saying " trust to muddling
through." But there are problems which
admit of no other solution, and I believe
that this is one of them. A practice, which
cannot be officially authorised, need not there
fore be definitely forbidden ; and I will make
bold to affirm my conviction that, so far as
the Mission Field is concerned, the Church

iv CONCEPTION OF THE ONE CHURCH 207
of England would make a great mistake if
she were to commit herself to any definite and
official ruling, which would preclude the
individual Missionary from giving to any
convert, who is about to migrate to another
district, such advice as he thinks best fitted
to his own individual moral and spiritual
needs.

B. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.

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