l"/^'^*^;'i.Vs
THE GREEN BOOK
CHURCH MKMBKRSHIP— WiL.. iV i;:., vVii ARE ITS PRIVII.EGBS AND OBLIGatton'-^ AND WHAT IS ITS KNr
MRS HORACE BROCK
tihvavy of t:he theological ^tminaty
PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY
FROM THE LIBRARY OF ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER
BX 5950 .B76 1920 Brock, Horace,
The green book
(
THE GREEN BOOK
THE GREEN BOOK
Price, 50 cents a copy, paper, including postage. $1.25 a copy, cloth, postage not included.
This book and other literature of St. Mark's League of Intercession may be obtained from
Mrs. Horace Brock, Chairman, 1920 Spruce Street, Philadelphia.
APR 13 1959 CHURCH MEMBERSHIP— WHAT IT IS, WHAT
THE GREEN BO
.^
ARE ITS PRIVILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS, AND WHAT IS ITS END
BY
MRS. HORACE BROCK
"And he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside : that will bring forth his fruit in due season." — Ps. 1 : 3.
SECOND EDITION
ISSUED BY
ST. MARK'S LEAGUE OF INTERCESSION PHILADELPHIA
1920
TO
JOHN AND DEBORAH
"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." — 3 St. John 1 : 4.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The; Green Book 5
Joining the Church 17
The New Birth 22
Members oe Christ 29
Ineant Membership 39
The Administration oe the Sacrament of Membership 51
The Compi^etion oe Membership: Confirmation 58
Requirements for Membership:
Repentance 65
Faith 80
Obijgations of Membership:
The Threefold Vow 86
Duty to God 100
Duty to My Neighbor 125
The Church and Its Officers 131
The One Body 143
Privii<eges of Membership : Prayer 160
The SacramEntai, System 171
Privileges of Membership:
The Matter and the Alinister of the Sacrament of the Holy
Communion 185
The Holy Communion 197
The Christian Sacrifice 214
Called to be Saints 232
Whither 238
Daily Self-Examination 238
Rule of Life 239
Appendix :
Father Figgis on Revelation 240
Father Figgis on Mystery 241
The Beginning of the Methodists 243
Bishop Gore on Church Unity 244
THE GREEN BOOK
The Green Book is a companion to the little book "Inter- cessions for the Church," familiarly called "the Little Red Book" from its red cover, symbolizing the fire of the Holy Ghost by Whose power we pray. The Green Book takes its name from its green cover, which symbolizes in the Church our every-day Christian life, speaking of freshness, vigor and growth.
The reading matter in the Little Red Book, intended to help those who use it to "pray with the understanding," seems to have been useful, and so many kind and interesting letters have been received from unknown friends that I have been encouraged to write this book on Church Mem- bership for the Nation-wide campaign, "to inform the mind and awaken the conscience," as our venerable Presiding Bishop expresses its purpose. The book is an attempt to help in this work, by presenting in a simple way, and in an inexpensive form that can be largely used if found useful, what Church Membership is, what it involves, what are its privileges, and what its end; following the lines of the Church Catechism.
I would take this opportunity of thanking these friends for their letters, and of expressing my gratitude also for the privilege given me of helping some who have written me about questions of the Faith, or asking advice about books to read. This is one of the reasons I have not given the book to a publisher.
For the theological definitions I have used the words of recognized teachers in the Church, and one of the hopes I have in writing, and one of the objects of the quotations, is to arouse interest that will lead to the reading of the books quoted. To these authors, together with my "spiritual pas-
5
6 THE GREEN BOOK
tors and masters," I owe whatever of mine is good in this book, and I feel I can best show my gratitude by making others sharers of their helpful and stimulating words. There is no better way to teach a child to read and to like to do so, than to read an interesting book to the child, and at the most exciting part put it down. The child will pick it up and finish it, as mothers know. I hope the readers of the Green Book will do the same.
People have an idea that religious books are dull, but cer- tainly no intelligent man or woman could find Fr. Figgis* Antichrist and Other Sermons, Fr. Bull's Sacramental Prin- ciples, or Bishop Gore's Orders and Unity dull reading. How many educated persons, troubled with the problems of life and with doubts about the Christian Faith, have ever heard of The Gospel and Human Needs ? Comparatively few. But people are beginning to think about deeper things, and to ask questions, and we should be prepared to answer the questions, and to lend or recommend books to inquirers. The oppor- tunity often comes in ordinary conversation, not religious, to of¥er to lend a book. One of our clergy in a college town in the West has done a wonderful work in the lending of religious books. At least tYtvy diocese, and where possible every parish, should have such a library, with a librarian to mail books when asked for, and to keep the records.
The ignorance everywhere regarding the facts of the Faith, and the obligations and privileges of Church Mem- bership is appalling. Sometimes it would be amusing if it were not so tragic. I believe it is the Church's keeping of the Christian Year, so bitterly fought by the Puritans, that has kept alive in our land the Christmas Story and the message of Calvary and Easter. What a pity Whitsunday (I hope we will keep the good English name so associated with our history) and All Saints' were not made holidays. Fifty years ago among the Pennsylvania Germans (Luther- ans) Whit Monday was kept as one of the great holidays of
THE GREEN BOOK 7
the year. It is so no longer. As men lost their faith in the Holy Catholic Church they lost their faith in the Holy Spirit, practically if not theoretically. This is the source of our trouble today.
In the last century agnosticism was the pose of the intel- lectuals, but the twentieth century is an age of faith or faiths. A Religion, yes, a Creed, is needed. Men felt this before the war and feel it more now. The question is. What will be the religion of the new century in this new world, and in this new country? Will it be ethical culture, social service, socialism, or some hyphenated Christianity, the product of a hyphenated Christ, or will it be the Catholic Faith? If the latter, will it be the narrowed Latin develop- ment of the Faith or the Catholic Faith as expressed by free English-speaking peoples ? It is for us to answer.
Rome is answering this question with a big, well-organ- ized plan of propaganda. *Xet the rich American Protest- ants rebuild the churches in France and Belgium," we hear ; "our money must be spent in converting this new country." The boast is even made by some that this country will become New Ireland, and Canada New France, and the Pope an American (Irish of course), living in New York. These schemers and dreamers do not fear decaying Protestantism turning into purely social movements, losing more and more their religious character as they give up their creeds. The one thing that blocks the progress of Romanism in this country is the American Episcopal Church, with its Catholic Faith, Orders, and Sacraments. Christian Science, New Thought and Socialism are also having drives, and making many converts, largely by the distribution of literature and lectures on their creeds. We have no fault to find with this propaganda. Proselyting is not wrong. If you think you have knowledge of inestimable benefit to mankind, it is your duty to make it known. Our quarrel with Rome is with her methods and her lack of truthfulness.
8 THE GREEN BOOK
The attraction in all these cults is that they have some- thing definite to offer, and their disciples are enthusiastic missionaries because they believe in their creeds. It is not a creedless religion men v^^ant to-day but a religion that offers something definite and that gives a key to the understanding of the problems of life. Protestantism is losing its hold because it has given up its creed, and is too vague. It is the Catholic Faith alone that fits the facts of life, and in the Catholic Church and the Sacraments the needs of men can be satisfied. We hear this from many quarters, and the American rather than the Latin expression of the Faith v^ill v^in men and v^omen, if only we put it before them in its compelling beauty and charm.
Something definite, yet supernatural and other worldly, men are asking for. The growth of Spirituahsm is due to this yearning to know something of the other world, and of spiritual beings and things. Fr. Figgis says, "Religion is fundamentally concerned with the other world. Ulti- mately, the criterion of any religion lies in what it has to tell us of Death. In the Resurrection of our Lord and His Ascended Glory we have the most amazing of all the riches of that gift to man which we call the Gospel. Here again, despite the clamor of a faithless criticism, there is nothing really to shake our belief in its historical reality." Mr. Carey, chaplain in the British Navy, says, in the great fight for the regeneration of England three things are necessary. First, to make people think. "In church, at the street corner, through books, we must reiterate the unchanging eternal questions : 'Whence do I come ; whither am I going ; what is my business here ?' Personally I have never found an audience, in church or at some crowded street corner, who did not hush into attention when these questions were considered." "Secondly, our task is to remove from the minds of people the false notions of religion which have
THE GREEN BOOK 9
taken so deep a root, and to teach the true religion in their stead." "And the third thing we need is a great increase in the volume of prayer — the surrender of the will to God, the putting ourselves at His service, the asking for a bless- ing on mankind." ^
We could not have a better outline for our plan of cam- paign, for the success of our campaign will largely depend upon the clearness and the definiteness of our message and our purpose. Stirring words and high ideals, as Bishop Gore reminds us, are not enough. "How can you evangelize the masses unless you have a definite doctrine to teach?" he asks. So in regard to Christian Unity "We must think before we can start to act or to combine." ^
Our troubles in the Church today are largely due to the fact that members of the Church do not know the founda- tions of the Faith as taught in the creeds and Church cate- chism. We must teach this in an attractive and definite way. The general complaint of the Every Member Campaign last Lent was that it was too vague. The success of the Trac- tarian or Catholic movement in the Church of England, Bishop Gore reminds us, was due to "the definiteness of its principles. The popular and evangelistic work of these English Catholics was based upon and constantly referred itself back to a school of theologians and thinkers who lived in the region of principles, and knew how to discriminate." Their work in writing and circulating readable tracts gave the movement its name.
One of the objects of our Nation-wide campaign, it is said, is to induce people to go to church regularly on Sunday morning. Every now and then the press, secular and religious, starts discussing why people do not go to church. It used to be why men do not go to church, but the question now includes women and children also. The answer is simple enough : people do not go to church because they do
1 The Kindgom That Must Be Built— W. J. Carey.
2 Orders and Unity — C. Gore.
10 THE GREEN BOOK >
not want to. Religion has been put before them as subjective and altruistic. It is, therefore, not surprising that many feel that if the preaching or the preacher does not please them, or if they think they get no good in going to church, there is no reason for going. Those who are conscientious make social service their religion. The first duty of Christians, the first and great commandment given by our Lord, is not considered, is given second place, or is thought to be included in "doing good" and "making the world a better place to live in," forgetting none of us have long to live here. The Church is greatly to blame for this state of things and this point of view.
What idea of worship is there, and what is there to attract, in a lengthy, inharmonious service, consisting of the whole (or a part) of Morning Prayer, a piece of the Litany and a piece of the Communion Service tacked together with some hymns, often ill-chosen by the organist or the music com- mittee. Any one of these services by itself is beautiful and fitting and not too long ; but the Litany, for example, at the end of Morning Prayer is not beautiful, and is very gener- ally disliked, especially by men. "I do not go to Church Sunday morning because I hate the Litany. I go Sunday evening because I love Evening Prayer." How often one hears men especially say this. Yet during the war the Lit- any, the whole Litany, said alone with two or three special prayers at the end, was the most popular intercession serv- ice, and many spoke of having always disliked the Litany and never having realized how beautiful and satisfying it could be as a service of itself.
Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the service of the Holy Communion are three separate services, and we are gradually learning to treat them as such. That strange rite known as the ante-Communion Service, tacked on to Morn- ing Prayer, is passing away. It was like giving only the first act of a two-act play. It was meaningless, and made the
THE GREEN BOOK 11
service too long, which is largely the reason it is being given up.
Another thing that is mentioned as an object of this Nation-wide campaign, is to make the Eucharist the chief service on Sunday. How are we going about it? Canon Newbolt says, "There have been many schemes pro- pounded, some rather hastily, some perhaps not effecting what they were meant to accomplish. I never could quite understand, for my part, how the Holy Communion would become the great service of Sunday simply by bringing the Eucharist to the people ; I think we want to bring the people to the Eucharist. I do not think we shall make the Holy Communion the chief service on Sunday merely by planting it down, as it were, before the congregation assembled at a particular moment, at a particular hour of the day, as some- thing which they must join in whether they like it or not. I think the Holy Eucharist is to be made the great service of Sunday by making people feel that it is the principal service of the day, so they are drawn to it and attracted to it ; and not by placing it before them without due prepara- tion on their part, and with no proper recognition of the tremendous realities which are therein put before them." ^
There is no service so teaching and so appealing, even to those who understand it but little, as a choral Eucharist without the break and commotion in the middle caused by many communicants. "I have never seen real wor- ship before. It grips you." These things have been said to the writer, again and again, by visitors after the choral Eucharist at our own St. Mark's. One of our Army chaplains who was overseas has said that fasting Communion and non-communicating attendance at the Eucharist are the two practices we must learn if we would learn Catholic devo- tion and worship. There certainly can be no objection to a celebration without communicants where most of those
* The Holy Kucharist.— W. C. E. Newbolt.
12 THE GREEN BOOK
present are regular communicants, and many have made their Communions that morning or during the previous vireek. As Canon Newbolt reminds us, this practice is uni- versal East and West, except among a portion of our own people. The Church is not the Church of the first century but the growing Body of Christ. We cannot say this too often, remembering always healthy growth is slow, that it is evolution not revolution, and that the fads and fancies of a few, Latin or Protestant, are excrescences, not the growth of the Body, and are to be deplored.
If we want to make the Eucharist the people's great act of worship on Sunday, the service must not be too long. People will not go to a lengthy service. Ordinarily an hour and a half is long enough, and with simple music, three hymns and a twenty-five-minute sermon, this is possible. On the great festivals, when the music, as befits the day, is more elaborate, the sermon should be shorter. The writer has known a parish, with a great preacher, where the sermon was never more than five minutes on great festivals. The service, the St. Cecilia Mass perhaps, a procession, no anthem, three hymns, and two or three communicants who made their Com- munions during the singing of the Agnus Dei, with a five- minute sermon, occupied an hour and forty-five or fifty minutes — not too long for a special occasion but too long for the regular Sunday morning service.
There are but few sermons delivered that would not be improved by cutting. How often men come from church saying, "If the Rector had left out that long, tiresome intro- duction, and had preached only what he said in the last ten minutes, the sermon would have been very good." Or — "If the Rector had stopped in the mxiddle of his sermon when he made his point, one would have gone away stimulated and helped, but he went on, people got tired and bored, and now only remember the sermon was too long." At the
THE GREEN BOOK 13
Garrick Theatre, in Philadelphia, during Lent services are held for business men and women ; the lower floor being reserved entirely for men. These services are run by laymen, and the time limit strictly observed. The speaker is given twenty minutes, and is always at his best, for he must con- dense to deliver his message and make his point with no unnecessary words in that time. The theatre is filled day after day, and men listen and remember.
Our Lord came to seek as well as to save that which was lost, to be found of them who sought Him not, and the Church must follow His example. Fr. Figgis bids Chris- tians make their religion attractive, and urges the clergy to make their sermons interesting and stimulating. To avoid being dull does not necessitate being irreverent, slangy and sensational, methods so disliked by the mass of men as our Army chaplains discovered, the cheap camouflage of shallow shams to hide lack of learning and true religion. It does necessitate reading, study, prayer, and a heart aflame with the love of God.
If our Church is to be the power we hope she will be, and know she can be, she must be Catholic, she must be a teach- ing Church and must begin with the children. It is a hopeful sign that so many parishes have children's Eucharists once a month in the Sunday School, and are training children in worship. More memorizing, too, of passages in the Bible as well as the Catechism is what we need. Hymns and Collects are memorized by constant use. There is nothing we can give a child that can in anywise compare in value to good religious teaching and training, and the foundations are laid, educators tell us, before a child is twelve. Such may give up the practice of religion but it holds them and guides them more than they realize, and when they need help they know where to find it. Greek, Latin and mathe- matics are valuable, but knowledge "will vanish away" with other earthly things ; character is the one thing we will 2
14 THE GREEN BOOK
take with us when we leave this world. In the choice of schools, when children are sent away from home, the Church teaching and life should be regarded as of the first impor- tance. The atmosphere, the teaching, above all the Sacra- mental teaching and life, of a good Church school make an indelible mark on character. The war has shown us that men's early religious training, forgotten and little valued, is what they turned to in their hour of need, and it also has shown us the tragedy of those who had not had such training.
It is "the Faith once delivered" as expressed in the Bible, Prayer Book and Church Catechism we must teach ; nothing else will do. Humanitarianism, social service, faith healing and the like cannot have first place in a religion that is "other worldly" and supernatural. "Even among our best priests," says Fr. Figgis, "there is the danger lest reHgion sink down mainly into a thing of this world, making men better here, and using the thought of the other only as a means to that end. Natural indeed is the mistake. But it is a mistake. If it be true that man is a being created to be immortal then those must be right who treat this life as an episode, a brief journey to something better, and bid us 'pass the time of our sojourning here in fear.' " Again — "The death-knell of our present regime sounds for all who have ears to hear, not in its iniquity, but in its transcendent Philis- tine ugliness, its saturnalia of the commonplace. Men want to be taken away from this. It is our office as preachers to do so — not by programmes of politics or economics (which, good or bad, are for statesmen), but by showing them how, at their doors, in their hearts and mouths, there is a world of absorbing loveliness, that can conquer all the outward hideousness, even of this world."* This is what the Christian religion and the Catholic Church did for men living in the Roman Empire in the first century in days not unlike our
♦ Antichrist and Other Sermons, — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
THE GREEN BOOK 15
own, and it can do this for us. It will be remembered the Order of the Resurrection has been a leader in social work in England.*^
Fr. Figgis gives us another warning we will do well to remember in this campaign when we hear the cry, "The conversion of the world to Christ in this generation !" "In all ages," he says, "many, perhaps the majority, will reject Christianity. A philosopher said all the fundamental philo- sophical positions are tenable in any age, though not all are equally prevalent. If they are free, some men will take one, some another. We cannot expect to do away with un- belief in this world. Great harm is done by trying to state Christianity in such a way as to embrace every one in a world like this. All we can hope for is a religion which makes a universal appeal." ®
We are living in times of unrest and unsettlement, and history shows it is not wise to make unnecessary changes or to "swap horses" at such periods. Neurotic times with individuals or societies are not times of sound judgment. People, too, are seeking something familiar and unchanging to cling to, and for this reason it seems unwise, and perhaps unkind, to make radical changes now in the Canons or in the Prayer Book.
In this new age and new land it is the double appeal of the Church that is attractive. She has the stability and the charm of the old, and the freshness of the new. The romance of the old is felt very strongly among us, or such societies as the Sons and the Daughters of the Revolution would not exist, and this feeling has been deepened, we are told, in our men overseas. All this is going to have a great
r "^ "^^^. "°* SO into the services rendered by the Oxford Movement to social reform. They are not the least salient of its results. Then, as always, it has been the mystic, the man with his eyes on the other world, whose hands are most forward to do good in this. If anyone needs proof of this, let him compare recent addresses of the Bishop of Oxford with the utterances of certain digni- taries confessedly 'liberal' on all subjects connected with the poor " — T N Figgis, C. R. f J- .
• Hopes for English Religion, — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
16 THE GREEN BOOK
effect in our development, and will attract men to the Church, if we use it aright. We will not use it aright if we live in the past.
It is the romance of the old with newness of life that will attract. The keenness, the freshness, the vigor, the poise of the Christian character, built on a life of penitence, daily renewed by the Holy Spirit through Bible reading and prayer, nourished and healed by the life of God in the Sacra- ments, finding in each new day new wonders of God's love, new opportunities for service and cross-bearing, and walking "as seeing Him Who is invisible," — that is what will win men and women to Christ.
"New every morning is the love Our wakening and uprising prove; Through sleep and darkness safely brought, Restored to life, and power, and thought.
"New mercies, each returning day, Hover around us while we pray ; New perils past, new sins forgiven, New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.
"If on our daily course our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still, of countless price, God will provide for sacrifice.
"Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be, As more of heaven in each we see; Some softening gleam of love and prayer Shall dawn on every cross and care.
"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.
"Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love, Fit us for perfect rest above; And help us, this and every day. To live more nearly as we pray,"
MEMBERSHIP
What is your name?
*Name
Who gave you this name ?
My sponsors in Baptism;
wherein I was made a member of Christ,
the child of God,
and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Name mny be written iiere.
JOINING THE CHURCH
"Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits ; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning." — Baptismal Service, Book of Common Prayer.
Every organized society has a rule, and many have also rites and ceremonies, by which persons may become members of the society. To join the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Masonic Orders, the Presbyterian or Methodist Church, any organization secular or religious, one must conform to the rule made by the society as a condition of membership.
To join the Christian Society, the Holy Catholic Church, one must be baptized with water "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This is the con- dition for membership made by the founder of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the early days of His ministry. He announced that "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God";^ and before He ascended into heaven He commanded His Church to make disciples^ of all nations, by baptizing them "into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," ^ but He bade His Apostles tarry in Jerusalem until they were "endued with power from on high."
* St. John 3:3-13. "A common-sense view of this passage, taken in connection with the subsequent command to baptize, is that in these words He was referring to Christian Baptism. That tliis is the true explanation of them may be held to be fully proved by the fact that for fifteen centuries they were uniformly interpreted in this sense by Christian teachers, and that no other interpretation of them earlier than the writings of Calvin has been found." The word baptize means to wet or moisten. Holy Baptism — Darwell Stone.
^ The Greek word is inaccurately translated teach in our English Bible. The correct reading is make disciples. » St. Matt. 28:19.
17
18 THE GREEN BOOK
On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended upon these men, chosen, trained and commissioned by the Christ Himself, baptizing them, forming the separate units into one body, and giving them power to carry out the Lord's commands. Through the agency of God the Holy Ghost, The Lifegiver, God the Son was made man and born of the Virgin Mary, and by the same agency His Mystical Body, the Holy Catholic Church, was born of the Jewish Church on the Day of Pentecost.
Our Lord lived and died a member of the Jewish Church. It is most important to remember this. When eight days old He was made a member of this Church by the rite of circumcision ordained by God : as He grew to manhood He kept the law, and went regularly up to Jerusalem to keep the Feasts ; He was found constantly in the Synagogues and the Temple, and as He was entering upon His ministry He was baptized by St. John the Baptist with "the baptism of repentance," that in His "contact with sinful men and in the path of humiliation He might 'fulfil all righteousness.' His baptism may also be regarded as a dedication of His ministry to the service of His Father, and as pointing on to the sanctification of water which would be possible after His death and resurrection and was to be found in the Sacrament of Christian Baptism. After the reception of the 'baptism of repentance', the Divine Person of God the Holy Ghost manifested and bestowed anew His Presence in the Sacred Manhood of the Son, and the voice of the Father was heard from Heaven declaring 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' " *
This "baptism of repentance," like the Jewish sacrifices, was a sign. It taught the need of cleansing, and was an acknowledgment of this by those receiving it. To the Jews, says Canon Mason, "the inner import of the pre- scribed action was a lesson which might be learned, not a
* Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone.
JOINING THE CHURCH . 19
gift which might be apprehended. * * * Now, since the glorification of Christ, and the outpouring of His Spirit, we are presented with signs which not only speak of spiritual mysteries, but convey the things which they speak of." ^ "Effectual signs" the Church calls the Sacraments, because they effect w^iat they symbolize..
Reading the history of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Christian writings of the first centuries, one cannot fail to see that baptism was the means by which men and women were made Christians. On the Day of Pentecost when the great multitude, many of whom no doubt had been baptized by St. John the Baptist, and probably most of whom had seen the miracles that Jesus did, and heard His teaching, "pierced to the heart" by the preaching of St. Peter, cried out "Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" the answer was, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Then they most gladly received His w^ord and were baptized, "and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in the prayers." ^ As the result of the preaching of St. Philip the Deacon in Samaria, many men and women were converted and then baptized.'^
When Saul of Tarsus, miraculously converted by a heavenly vision, asked, in faith and humility, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" he was directed to go to Damascus where he would be told what to do. After three days without sight and food, "a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias," who seems to have been a devout layman, was directed by the Lord in a vision to go to him. When he had talked with him, and restored his sight, he said, "And now why tarriest
•The Faith of the Gospel. — A. J. Mason. ''Acts 8:1-13.
•Acts 2:37-42.
20 THE GREEN BOOK
thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins."* Then he "arose, and was baptized." ® And when Saul the persecutor became Paul the Apostle, he carried on the same teaching and practice. At Phihppi, Lydia of Thyatira, a seller of purple, gave heed to his words, and she and her whole household were baptized. ^^ At the same place, the gaoler after the earthquake "came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house," with the result that straightway "he and all his" were baptized.^ ^ At Ephesus St. Paul found certain disciples who believed but had only received the baptism of St. John the Baptist, and to these he showed that this was only a sign and preparation for the baptism of Plim who should come after ; and "when City heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." ^^ So it was always and everywhere. Even St. Paul, miraculously converted by the Lord Himself, is not regenerate and cleansed from his sins until he is baptized several days after his conversion. Repentance, faith and conversion were not enough.
Regeneration and conversion are two different things. The word regenerate means to be born again, and the word convert means to turn around. Regeneration is the bestowal of life, and is the act of God. Conversion is the conscious turning of the soul from self and sin to God, and is the act of man. It is an act of the will brought about by repentance and faith. The Church does not call the Prodigal to leave his sins and become a son of God. She reminds him that he is a son of God, and bids him return to his father and his home.
« Acts 22:16. "Acts 16:14,15. "Acts 19:2-6.
* Acts 9:18. "Acts 16:25 34.
JOINING THE CHURCH 21
"Christian Baptism, then," says Dr. Stone, "according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, by making the baptized person a member of Christ and a child of God and imparting to him the gift of the Holy Spirit, causes him to partake of the merits of Christ's life and death and the power of His resurrection. It thereby enables him to live a Christian life and attain to eternal glory. Yet he may subsequently depart from grace and fall into sin by the act of his will choosing evil, and, if evil be finally chosen, he may be involved in eternal sin, and consequently in eternal loss. Baptism con- fers a position of high privilege and great responsibility. The free-will of the baptized person has to determine to what use this position is to be put."
"I love the Church— the Holy Church,
That o'er our Hfe presides, The Birth, the Bridal, and the Grave,
And many an hour besides ! Be mine, through life, to live in her,
And when the Lord shall call, To die in her — the spouse of Christ,
The Mother of us all."
—A. Cleveland Coxe
THE NEW BIRTH
Question. What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism?
Answer. Water; wherein the person is baptized, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Question. What is the inward and spiritual grace?
Answer. A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness : for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.
— The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night to talk with Him of the Kingdom of God which He and His forerunner, St. John the Baptist, proclaimed to be at hand, and for which every Jew had been looking for centuries, he was startled by the Master saying "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Strange words these seemed to a Jew and a Pharisee proud of his birth. Were not the promises of the kingdom to Abraham ? What higher birth could there be than the seed of Abraham? "Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again," the Master continued. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Like begets like; a dog produces a dog, and a bird a bird, by this law called in science conformity to type; and flesh can only produce flesh. "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" "If I have told you earthly things" (like this), "and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things" — the mystery of the Ascension and the Passion.* "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," and until he has
» St. John 3:13, 14.
23
THE NEW BIRTH 23
entered the kingdom of God through this new birth, he can- not see it, for spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
In a book much talked about thirty years ago, "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," the author, the late Professor Henry Drummond, speaking as a scientist of the theories of spontaneous generation and biogenesis, says, "Huxley categorically announces that the doctrine of Biogenesis, or life from life, is 'victorious along the w^hole line at the present day.' * * * Translating from the language of Science into that of Religion, the theory of Spontaneous Generation is simply that a man may become gradually better and better until in course of the process he reaches that quality of religious nature known as Spiritual Life. * * * Let us first place vividly in our imagination the picture of the two great Kingdoms of Nature, the inorganic and organic, as these now stand in the light of the Law of Biogenesis. What essentially is involved in saying that there is no Spontaneous Generation of Life? It is meant that the passage from the mineral world to the plant or animal world is hermetically sealed on the mineral side. This inorganic world is staked off from the living world by barriers which have never yet been crossed from within. No change of substance, no modification of environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolution can endow any single atom of the mineral world with the attribute of Life. Only by the bending down into this dead world of some living form can these dead atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality, without this preliminary contact with Life they remain fixed in the inorganic sphere forever. It is a very mysterious Law which guards in this way the portals of the living world. * * * 'The passage from the Natural World to the Spiritual World is hermetically sealed on the natural side. The door from the inorganic to the organic is shut, no mineral can open it ; so the door from the natural to the spiritual is shut, and no man can open it.
24 THE GREEN BOOK
This world of natural men is staked off from the Spiritual World by barriers which have never yet been crossed from within. No organic change, no modification of environment, no mental energy, no moral effort, no evolution of character, no progress of civilization can endow any single soul with the attribute of Spiritual Life. The Spiritual World is guarded from the world next in order beneath it by a law of Biogenesis — except a man he horn again . . . except a man he horn of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. It is not said, in this enunciation of the law, that if the condition be not fulfilled the natural man zvill not enter the Kingdom of God. The word is cannot. For the exclusion of the spiritually inorganic from the King- dom of the spiritually organic is not arbitrary. Nor is the natural man refused admission on unexplained grounds. His admission is a scientific impossibility. Except a mineral be born 'from above' — from the Kingdom just ahove it — it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And except a man be born *from above,' by the same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just above him. There being no passage from one Kingdom to another, whether from inorganic to organic, or from organic to spiritual, the intervention of Life is a scien- tific necessity if a stone or plant or an animal or a man is to pass from a lower to a higher sphere. * * * j^ either case, the first step in peopling these worlds with the appropriate living forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there less of mystery in the act than in the other. The second birth is scarcely less perplexing to the theologian than the first to the embryologist."
"From the analogies of Biology we should expect three things : First, that the New Life should dawn suddenly ; Second, that it should come 'without observation'; Third, that it should develop gradually. On two of these points there can be little controversy. The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which strikes the simplest observer. Long
THE NEW BIRTH 25
before the word Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this very connection. *First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.' "
"Again; in addition to being slow, the phenomena of growth are secret. Life is invisible. When the New Life manifests itself it is a surprise. Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or zvhither it goeth. When the plant lives whence has the Life come? When it dies whither has it gone? Thou canst not tell . . . so is every one that is horn of the Spirit. For the kingdom of God cometh without observation"
"Yet once more, — and this is a point of strange and frivo- lous dispute, — this Life comes suddenly. This is the only way in which Life can come. Life cannot come gradually — health can, structure can, but not Life. * * * But the real moment and the conscious moment are two different things. Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious moment. If it did it would probably say that that was seldom the real moment — just as in the natural Life the conscious moment is not the real moment. The moment of birth in the natural world is not a conscious moment — we do not know we are born till long afterward. * * * The line between the living and the dead is a sharp line. When the dead atoms of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, are seized upon by Life, the organism at first is very lowly. It possesses few functions. It has little beauty. Growth is the work of time. But Life is not. That comes in a moment. At one moment it was dead ; the next it Hved."
"What now, let us ask specifically, distinguishes a Chris- tian man from a non-Christian man? * * * 'pl^g ^^jg, tinction between them is the same as that between the Organic and the Inorganic, the living and the dead. What is the difference between a crystal and an organism, a stone and a plant ? They have much in common. Both are made
26 THE GREEN BOOK
of the same atoms. Both display the same properties of matter. Both are subject to the Physical Laws. Both may be very beautiful. But besides possessing all that the crystal has, the plant possesses something more — a mysterious something called Life. This Life is not something which existed in the crystal only in a less developed form. There is nothing at all like it in the crystal. * * * f\iQ natural man belongs essentially to this order of things. He is en- dowed simply with a high quality of the natural animal Life. But it is Life of so poor a quality that it is not Life at all. He that hath not the Son hath not Life; but he that hath the Son hath Life — a new and distinct and supernatural endowment. He is not of this world. He is of the timeless state, of Eternity. It doth not yet appear zvhat he shall be. * * * It is an old-fashioned theology which divides the world in this way — which speaks of men as Living and Dead, Lost and Saved — a stern theology all but fallen into disuse. This difference between the Living and the Dead in souls is so unproved by casual observation, so impalpable in itself, so startling as a doctrine, that schools of culture have ridiculed or denied the grim distinction. Nevertheless the grim distinction must be retained. It is a scientific dis- tinction. 'He that hath not the Son hath not Life.' "
"Now it is this great Law which finally distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. It places the religion of Christ upon a footing altogether unique. There is no analogy between the Christian religion and, say, Buddhism or the Mohammedan religion. There is no true sense in which a man can say, He that hath Buddha hath Life. Buddha has nothing to do with Life. He may have some- thing to do with morahty. He may stimulate, impress, teach, guide, but there is no distinct new thing added to the souls of those who profess Buddhism. These religions may be developments of the natural, mental, or moral man. But Christianity professes to be more. It is the mental or moral
THE NEW BIRTH 27
man plus something else or some One else. It is the infusion into the Spiritual man of a New Life, of a quality unlike anything else in Nature. This constitutes the separate King- dom of Christ, and gives to Christianity alone of all the religions of mankind the strange mark of Divinity." -
Dr. Stone, after reviewing the teaching of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Church on baptism, giving numerous quo- tations from the writings of the Fathers East and West, on the subject says, "The significance of the teaching of which representative illustrations have been given is of the most momentous kind. It would call for very great consideration even apart from a belief that the Church of God is, in the language of S. Paul, the 'pillar and ground of the truth,' and that the promise of our Lord 'The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it' implies the Providential preservation of the Universal Church from such errors on matters of vital doctrine as would amount to a failure to hold fast that which has been committed to her charge. It is teaching not characteristic merely of some particular time, but found throughout nearly nineteen centuries. It is not confined to any particular place, but declared in the utterances of Chris- tians of all parts of the East and of the West. It is not due to the influence of any special type of mind, for it is held by writers of most different lines of thought. It is as much part of the belief of mediaeval schoolmen in the West as it is of Eastern Fathers in the early days of the Faith. It was no less jealously guarded by the Church in England in the sixteenth century than by the primitive or mediaeval Church. It is found alike in authorized office-books and in the writ- ings of representative theologians. At the present time it is the official doctrine of Eastern Christians, of Western Christians in communion with the See of Rome, and of Western Christians in the Church of England. Looked at merely as a human phenomenon, the unanimity of minds
' Natural Law in the Spiritual World — Henry Drummond.
28 THE GREEN BOOK
differing so greatly under circumstances of such different character would of necessity demand the most careful atten- tion to the doctrine thus affirmed. For those who believe the Holy Ghost teaches and guides the whole Church, it is impossible to doubt that the doctrine thus affirmed comes to us with the authority of God Himself." ^
« Holy Baptism — Darwell Stoae.
MEMBERS OF CHRIST
When we joined the Church we were made members of Christ, for the Church is the Body of Christ, the extension and perpetuation of the Incarnation in the world. It is not enough to say the Church represents Christ, for a repre- sentative has a personal life apart from the person repre sented, and the Church has no life apart from Christ.
The human body is a visible and material thing, and through it the spirit receives impressions, and acts ; and the Church, the Body of Christ, is a human and material society which expresses and communicates that which is spiritual and divine. The Church is not the soul of Christ but His Body ; "as clear cut and definite," says Fr. Bull, "as His In- carnate Body." "Our Lord, in redeeming the world, did not write a book. As far as we know He wrote nothing at all. He formed a society of spirit-bearing men and women to be His Body, through which He might energize in the phe- nomenal, might continue to teach and act; to be the instru- ment or agent of His self-revelation and self-bestowal through which He will work out the world's redemption. Our Lord saves men, not merely by the manifestation of the Truth, but by the bestowal of Life. In Holy Baptism He incorporates them into His redeemed human nature by a new birth. As St. Paul shows in I Cor. 12, there is a close analogy between a human body and tlie Church." "That which our Saviour began to do and teach in the human body of His Incarnation He continues to do and teach through His mystical Body, the Holy Catholic Church." ^
> The Sacramental Principle— P. B. Bull, C. R. 3 29
30 THE GREEN BOOK
That the union of man with God through the Incarnation of His Son was the eternal purpose of God, and not depend- ent upon the fall of man, we are led to believe from Holy Scripture.^ "When the 'foundation of the world' was laid, it was laid with a view to the Incarnation." ^ Man was made for Sonship. The Creed teaches us it was for us men and for our salvation, two distinct things, the Son of God "came down from heaven," "and was made man," "not by the conversion of the God- head into flesh, but by the taking of the Manhood unto God." God was not compelled to create. He did not need creation, for in the fellowship of the Holy Trinity there is perfect beatitude. But God is love — that is His very nature — and love seeks to share its happiness. The creation of man in His image with the god-like prerogative of free will, the power to choose or reject Him, was an act of self sacri- fice and an act of love, and when man used that power against God instead of for Him, and chose to disobey Him, the love of God shines forth in greater splendour, for He does not abandon man to his fate, or give him some lower place, but goes on with His plan, which now involves re- demption.
If man had not sinned the Incarnation would have been an amazing condescension ; but what shall we say of it as we know it, and see the Son of God taking our flesh, and, with it, its sin and shame when He was "Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." We can only bow low in wonder and adoring love. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
In "the laver of regeneration"* we receive remis- sion of sins, both original and actual. But we receive something more. We are made members of Christ, "par- takers of the divine nature." ^ "Adam in Paradise had no such glory as is ours through Baptism. h« * * Rg. generation places us on a higher level than that of our un-
»Eph. 3:9-11. ♦ Titus 3:5.
"The Faith of the Gospel.— A. J. Mason. "11 St. Peter 1:4.
MEMBERS OF CHRIST 31
fallen innocence. 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit/ Flesh may- attain a magnificent nobility of character. * * * j^ ^{(^ so in the case of St. John the Baptist. Our Lord takes him as the highest type of humanity as it then existed. But He says that St. John, after all, was but of the natural order, 'a woman-born thing.'® The least in the new order should be — not better, — but greater than he, — higher in the scale of being, because partaking, not only of human nature at its highest, but of the Divine."^ Think of that ! The most insignificant child regenerate and made a Christian in baptism is greater than the greatest of the Old Testament Saints.^
The Apostle speaks "of the possession of baptismal privi- leges as a reason for real and energetic struggle to do what is right. 'But ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. . . . Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. . . . Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own, for ye were bought with a price : glorify God therefore in your body.' " ^
By this new birth and membership in Christ's glorified humanity, we become children of God and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. Men generally, Jew and Gentile alike, have believed "we are the offspring of God" ^^ and, in the sense that God is the author of our being, have believed that He is our Father. But the Fatherhood of
• St. Matt. 11:11.
'' The Faith of the Gospel. — A. J. Mason.
• Our Lord spoke of St. John the Baptist in this world. After his death upon the cross the Saviour descended into Hades, the place of departed spirits, and carried to the Old Testament Saints and other penitent believers the glad tidings and the fruits of His redemption. (1 Peter 3:18-20.)
• Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone. WActs 17:29.
32 THE GREEN BOOK
God, as we understand it, is something much more than this. Bishop Gore says it is historical fact that this truth came into the world as part of Christianity.
The Fatherhood of God then is a dogma of the Christian religion. The first article of the CathoHc Creed is, "I beheve in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." One of the objects of the Incarnation of the Son of God was to "show us the Father," and in the lowliness of the Incarnation, in a life of perfect obedience, and in the painful and shameful death of the Cross, the Father is revealed. God is love. God so loved the world that He sent His Son into the world. He "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." By His resurrection from the dead, the conqueror of Sin, Satan and death, the Father is revealed as Almighty ; by His ascension into Heaven He took our human nature spiritualized and glorified to the right hand of the Father, and through it He sends the Holy Ghost to make us the sons of God. God so loved the world ! He that spared not His Own Son, "shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ?" asks the Apostle.*
But the Fatherhood of God means authority and disci- pline, and, if we disobey and do wrong, punishment. "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." ^^ On our part it means love, loyalty and obedience.
The Fatherhood of God means the Brotherhood of Man. The Church is the Household of God — a home — a family — and in the first word of the family prayer we are taught that, as members of Christ and children of God, the baptized are members one of another. We as a family must jealously guard our Father's honor, be about our Father's business, strive to please Him and do His will, look to Him and
"Heb. 12:5-10.
* Rom. 8:32.
MEMBERS OF CHRIST 33
depend on Him to supply our daily needs, live in love with one another, and fight His enemies. It has been well said, "Mankind was meant to depend on and centre in God as truly as a family depends on and centres in the father. From God 'every fatherhood in heaven and earth derives its name,' and we judge human families and human fathers to the extent to which they are bound up with each other. The closer the interdependence the more right is the situa- tion. But it can only be kept right by mutual action. Mere fatherhood on the one side can do nothing unless there is filial recognition on the other. And there lies the key to the human tragedy. Men have talked of the Fatherhood of God and also of the Brotherhood of man, but have failed to keep the two together. If our dream of human brother- hood has been shattered by the events of to-day, is it not a reminder that we have ceased to take the divine Father- hood seriously ?" ^^
As members of Christ and children of God we are mem- bers and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our Lord came into the world to found a kingdom. He told Pilate this when the acknowledgment of the claim meant death. He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. His preaching and parables were of the kingdom, and He died with this accusation over His head. His kingdom was to be in the world but not of it.
The Church is the Kingdom of God, the Home of Sal- vation, an organization with officers and a system of govern- ment. But this organization or kingdom is not a collection of individuals't)f similar aims and interests, who have joined together to found a society which they can leave when they feel like it. It is a family, a body of one blood, with one head. The members of this kingdom or family did not found it, and one can only become a member of it by being born into it. This kingdom then is within as well as with- in The Creed of a Churchman.
34 THE GREEN BOOK
out us, by reason of the one life through the new birth, so there must also be within us the ideals and purposes of the kingdom. There is one Spirit as well as one Body, and we must endeavor to keep **the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" even as we are called in one hope of our calling. "One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." ^^
In baptism we swore allegiance to Christ our King, and were signed with the cross. His mark, "in token that here- after we shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under His banner, against sin, the world, and the devil ; and to continue Christ's faith- ful soldier and servant unto our life's end." We must fight against our Lord's enemies who work for our destruction, we must establish His rule over our souls and bodies, and we must also fight His enemies in the world, and work and pray for the coming of His kingdom among men. His kingdom is here in the world but it has not yet come, that is, it is not yet established. Our Lord founded it and left it to us to build up. It has not come because Christians have not been faithful in carrying out their Lord's com- mands. It will come. The question is, will we have a share in it and a share in bringing it about?
The baptized are the elect, the called of God, and the Church is the elect Body. It is for us to make our "calling and election sure." In our Catechism we are taught to thank God for having brought us by baptism into "this state of salvation." This is His free gift. It is for us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, remembering that it is "God that worketh in us to will and to do His good pleas- ure." Judas was one of the elect, called and chosen by the Lord who saw in him great good and great gifts and possi- bilities. But Judas hated and finally rejected the Cross.
"Eph. 4:4-6.
MEMBERS OF CHRIST 35
When the Lord refused to be made an earthly king, and began to say hard things, and became unpopular, Judas was dissatisfied/* The other Apostles also looked for a Mes- siah who would free them from their earthly enemies, and restore the kingdom of Israel, but although dis- tressed and perplexed they loved and trusted the Master. Judas did not, and gradually drifted farther and farther from Him, growing sullen and discontented, until at last he came to a point when he could do the das- tardly deed for which he will be forever remembered; he betrayed His Lord, ended his life not as a penitent but as a suicide, and the Scripture tells us "went to his own place," not the place God had prepared for him and to which he had been called by our Lord, but to the place he chose for himself.
Hell is the abode of those who have lost God. In hell there is no fellowship, for there is no love. It is the abode of hatred, of selfishness and suffering. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" — impotent rage and despair. Like the impenitent thief on the cross, with them suffering brings nothing but rage, hatred, and cursing of God and goodness. The inhabitants of hell have killed all good in themselves by the hardening of their hearts through repeated resistance of the Holy Spirit. This seems to be the sin against the Holy Ghost, not any one sin, but deliberately and wilfully sinning, again and again, against God, against light, and, with the baptized, against grace also, resisting the Holy Spirit's calls to repentance until at last the heart is so hard- ened it cannot respond to God's appeals. It loves evil and hates good, and becomes a devil and tempter of others.
But is this the condition of those who have not been baptized? Does the Church teach God will punish infants in hell for sins they did not commit ? Certainly not. It was
"St. John 6:60-66.
36 THE GREEN BOOK
a heretic, John Calvin, who taught that, and the Church con- demned it. But what about good men in heathen lands, and in Christian lands too, who have never been baptized? God has not satisfied our curiosity by telling us how He will deal with them. His revelation is a revelation of His covenant relations with men under the old and the new covenants, and under the old covenant we see how great are His uncovenanted mercies, and how He constantly re- minded the Jews of their responsibility as His elect people, and warned them of the danger of losing their inheritance. Dr. Stone says, "There are many who have never heard of Baptism, of whom it may be thought that, if they had known of it, they would have received it. There are others who aave never been taught the fulness of Scriptural and Church truth, to whom clearer and more adequate teaching would liave made a strong appeal. There are others, again, the circumstances of whose education or history have been of such a kind that, while earnestly desirous of knowing the truth and doing their duty, they have failed to understand the obligation of receiving this Sacrament without, as it would seem, any fault of their own. * * * God alone can tell how far the conscience of any individual has become so distorted by his surroundings or his history that he has, while he desires to do what is right, become incapable of realizing the truth on this subject. It is our task to affirm what Christ himself has declared, to hand on the teaching of His Church, and to leave the difficulties of individual lives to Him who alone knows in their fulness the needs and the circumstances and the hearts of men." ^^
We know too that God is free and is not tied to His means. There are some who think God will give in the next world to those who have not had a chance here (and only He knows that) the benefits of His Redemption.
" Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone.
MEMBERS OF CHRIST 37
Others believe good unbaptized people will constitute an- other order of beings in Heaven. The Angels are a different order from the Saints. They are not members of Christ's glorified Body. But these are only guesses. When St. Peter asked the Lord about His plans for another man the answer was "What is that to thee ; follow thou me."
We know God loves men better than we do ; wq know that He is just and righteous, that He will judge men by their faithfulness to the light they have had, and that at the con- summation of all things we shall see this and be satisfied. We know also that we have light and grace and must answer for our use of both; so we must hope all things for others and fear for ourselves.
We are reminded by our Lord and His Church again and again, that it is only by walking in the way of the Cross with which we were signed we can win our battles and at last enter into our inheritance. It is the narrow way of discipline and sacrifice, but it is also the way of joy, of peace, and of freedom here, and leads to the Vision of God and "our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul," in His eternal kingdom hereafter. St. Paul, v/ho knew suffering, says, "I reckon the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us." Not something added to us hereafter, but the life of Christ received in the Sacraments, revealed in us. It is for this reason that the true Christian, no matter v/hat his condition, can thank God for his creation. He may be a poor, lonely, blind sufferer, but it doth not yet appear what he shall be. The sufferings and sorrows of life united to the Cross of Christ, and borne in union with Him, are the raw material from which our Lord and Saviour makes our future glory and beatitude.
Members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven ! Heaven is but the perfected union
38 THE GREEN BOOK
with God which was effected at our baptism. "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. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." ^^
"I John 3:2,3.
• INFANT MEMBERSHIP
'"Blest be the Church, that watching o'er the needs Of infancy, provides a timely shower, Whose virtue changes to a Christian Flower A growth from sinful nature's bed of weeds 1 Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds The ministration; while parental Love Looks on, and grace descendeth from above, As the high service pledges now, now pleads."
— Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets, XV.
The Church shown us in the New Testament is a great family — the Household of God — and we cannot think of a family without children. The Jewish Church admits children to membership, and it would be strange indeed if the Chris- tian Church calling herself Catholic rejected them. It has never done so. A Churchman asked why he believes in infant baptism, might very properly reply, I believe in infant bap- tism : First, because I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth,"^ which our Lord promised to guide by His Holy Spirit into all truth, and the Church always and everywhere has baptized infants. Second, I believe in infant baptism because the Church is Catholic and could not be so if it excluded children. Third, I believe in infant baptism because, in founding His Church, our Lord and Master made children the standard of membership. "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," He said. Children need not wait to grow up and have knowledge and experi- ence to enter His Kingdom ; nay, these things are hindrances. The little child needs no conversion, but the adult must be converted and become as a little child if he would enter the Kingdom.
»I Tim. 3:15.
39
40 THE GREEN BOOK
If we look to the writings of the first centuries, Christian and heathen, we have abundant proof that infant baptism was the practice of the Church at that time. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who were born at the close of the first century, in the days of the Apostles, Origen, who was born in the second century and "trained from infancy by Christian parents, and who visited in his travels most of the churches in the world, and gained the reputation of being the most learned man of his time," and many others, testify that the Church at that time received infants into membership. St. Irenaeus, speaking of baptism as regeneration, mentions among those who are thus regenerated "Infants and little ones, children, and youths, and elder persons." Origen says, "The Church received from the Apostles a tradition to give baptism also to infants. For they to whom the Divine Mysteries were committed, knew that there is in all persons the natural pollution of sin, which should be washed away by water and the Spirit, and on account of which, also, the body itself is called the body of sin."
"We would appeal then to your reason ; who is most likely to be correct on this point," — St. Irenaeus, the martyr, who was born during the days of the Apostles, "and trained up under St. Polycarp, 'the angel of the Church in Smyrna,' who had himself been a disciple of St. John" ; "Origen, who lived before the memory of the Apostles had faded from the Church — or those who, 1500 years after their day, for the first time discovered that infant baptism should not be administered ?"^
To understand the rise of the strange heresy that denied baptism and membership in the Christian Church to infants, we must understand the times that produced it. The six- teenth century w^as an age of unrest and unsettlement. The invention of the printing press spread education, and the Bible having been translated into the language of the people,
8 The Double Witness of the Church— Bishop Kip.
INFANT MEMBERSHIP 41
many were now able to read for themselves. Great abuses had grown up in the Church, chiefly due to the increasing spiritual and political power of the Papacy. Protests against this were made by the bishops, clergy and laity, especially in England. On the continent of Europe the effort at reform led the reformers to leave the Church and form new organi- zations. In England in the sixteenth century the Church reformed herself, and a quarrel between the King and the Pope enabled the English Church to regain her freedom. The English Church did not separate from the Roman Church. The Roman Church separated from the English Church be- cause the latter would not submit to Papal domination. Sup- pose to-day the Church in France agreed to throw off the Roman yoke, and said, "We will elect our own bishops and run our own Church," and then proceeded to do so, the same bishops and clergy and the same Church meeting in Council as a National Church, and legislating for the Church in France, it would be doing just what was done in England in the sixteenth century. Many devout Frenchmen, loyal to their country and Church, have said for years "We ought to do what the English did, keep our Church and get rid of Roman domination in Church and State. "^
Later in the sixteenth century the teaching of the reform- ers in Germany, Switzerland and Holland, was brought to England by the returning refugees who had fled to the con- tinent during the reign of Queen Mary ; and soon after the ascension of Queen Elizabeth, the leading Calvinists began their struggle to make the National Church of England Presbyterian. This culminated in the great Rebellion, with their defeat and separation from the Church. Those who left the Church and started new org?.nizations, took the Bible and their private interpretation of it as their guide. Now the Bible is the Church's book. It was written by Church-
* The great Eastern Church has always denounced the claims of the Pope.
Ft will be recalled that tlie Church originated in the East, and that the firsi
Church Council was held, not in Rome but in Jerusalem, and was presided over by St. James (Acts 15:13).
42 THE GREEN BOOK
men for Church people, years after the Church was organized with its three orders of ministry and its Liturgy.* "The Church to teach and the Bible to prove," was the old saying. The books of the New Testament, as the study of these books plainly show, were not written to give men their first knowledge of Jesus Christ and His revelation. They "were written for men and women who had been taught 'the tra- dition,' 'the faith once for all delivered,' 'the first principles' of the Christian religion." "Our Lord intended that men should learn, not from books, but from persons; all His methods show us this. This is why He taught His Apostles to be witnesses, instead of writing Himself or teaching them to write. And, further, He did not mean men to learn from mere individual teachers, however much inspired. He formed a Church, or organised body, and He left to the Church the duty of being witness to the truth till He should come again. It is the Church which, as St. Paul says, is 'the pillar and ground of the truth.' "^
In the sixteenth century when the would-be reformers put the Bible in place of the Church, they broke again the Body of Christ, and substituted discord and confusion for the one Body and the one Spirit, because men's interpreta- tions of the Bible did not agree. In England most of these bodies (Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists) were Puritan, and Puritanism is, in few words, "the conception that the Church was intended by its Author to be a social, and not an educational, brotherhood ; to be a club for enjoy- ing happy Christian fellowship, and not a school for bringing men gradually to Christ ; to be, in short, a select and exclusive circle of Heaven's favourites, instead of a broad and inclu- sive 'net' for sweeping in all of every kind. It is the pleasing dream of a sort of little heaven for mutual participation of spiritual pleasures, — instead of the nobler conception of a vast and perilous field where the tares are mingled with the
* The Liturgy is the service for the celebration of the Eucharist. 0 The Creed of the Christian.— C. Gore.
INFANT MEMBERSHIP 43
•wheat, where Christ's husbandry, Christ's building has to be done, — and where risks are to be run, dangers courted, spirit- ual lepers taken in to tend and nurse, ignorance beckoned that it may be taught, weakness encouraged that it may be strengthened, childhood smiled upon and warmly welcomed, that it may be educated, guarded, matured, and rendered back at last to Christ — the good, the loving, the friend of publicans and sinners, who pleased not Himself, and gave us an example that we should become 'fellow-workers with Him.' " The fixed Puritan idea is ''that the Church consists only of holy and godly persons, or rather — as it is impossible for human eye to discriminate such persons from hypocrites — of 'professors' (as they are called), who give what seems evidence of holiness and godliness. And, there- fore, carrying out this idea to its legitimate and logical con- clusion, a Baptist would say, 'children and immature persons (although 'of such is the kingdom of heaven') I cannot possibly allow to be fit members of a society of conscious, mature, professing believers. If I educate them, it will be as outsiders, who may one day be brought in, or who may not.' "«
Fr. Figgis says, "Historically Puritanism always was oh- garchic ; history has never suffered a deeper perversion than in the popular notion that Puritans were democrats. Calvin certainly never professed to be one. The root-idea of Cal- vinism is the faith that Christ did not die for all, and that Christianity is a coterie of religious aristocrats ; and even in the last century M'Cleod Campbell was condemned for asserting the contrary. Oligarchy in religion takes many forms ; but in one way or another it is at the bottom of nearly all the Protestant systems. Luther went through a devas- tating experience, and came finally to something real. This he tried to universalise into his doctrine of justification by faith. From the days of Luther it has been the aim of every
• Dissent, in its Relation to the Church of England. — G. H. Curteis.
44 THE GREEN BOOK
'believer' — in the Protestant sense — to go through an experi- ence at least analogous. Those who have it not, and are without this feeling of assurance, are not to be treated as true Christians." ^
The Presbyterian Puritans (Calvinists) and other Protes- tant bodies continue to baptize infants as a Scriptural prac- tice but deny the Scriptural teaching of regeneration and remission of sins in baptism. They hold it to be merely a dedication of the child to God. The parents make no promises for the child, but promise for themselves to bring up the child in the fear of the Lord, and to teach him the Christian faith. Some denominations require also a promise to bring up the child in that sect. When the child grows up they hope he will be converted and join the church. They teach that a person is regenerate by conversion, that is, by his own act. "How different is the method of the Catholic Church ! The membership begins with baptism, and is thus treated as independent of feeling and tempera- ment. With its conception of the Christian life as a growth, nourished by the sacraments, it can find a place for the child and for every kind of character, while in no way denying the need, in the case of some, for those cataclysms of the spirit that are called conversion." ^
The Catholic Church teaches that all persons baptized with water in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are members of the Church, no matter by whom baptized. A minister does not baptize into his sect, or even into his part of the Catholic Church, but into the Body of Christ. "S. Augustine," says Dr. Stone, "with that harmony of dogmatic clearness and charitable sympathy which marks his teaching on the subject of the Church, asserts that the children who are born to God in Baptism are the fruit not of division but of union. If the religious body in which they have received Baptism has lost by separation
^-8 The Fellowship of the Mystery.— J. N. Figgis, C. R.
INFANT MEMBERSHIP 45
the bond of affection and peace which should bind it to the Church, it is united to her by the one Baptism of Christians. There is only one Church which has the name Catholic; but she possesses something of her own in those who are divided from her unity ; and, by virtue of this which she has in them, it is she, and not they, who is the mother of the sons."^ Baptized persons, not knowing their true mother, may join the Presbyterian or Lutheran body, or any other body they choose, in the way prescribed by that body, but they have in Christian baptism joined the Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, and a person thus baptized can never become an unbaptized person, for baptism confers character. The first Baptists, who were also Puritans and Calvinists, took a different view from the Presbyterians. They saw the Church's teaching of baptism was in accordance with Holy Scripture, and they accounted for the large number of un- worthy Christians by saying they had never been baptized. They held that repentance, faith and conversion were neces- sary for valid baptism ; therefore, infants could not be bap- tized, and baptism must be by immersion. They declared that baptism by affusion and the baptism of infants were corrupt practices that had crept into the Church, and were a departure from primitive ways. The man who first dis- covered and taught this was Munzer in 1521, and in 1534 the sect of Anabaptists (re-baptizers) as they were called, became regularly organized as a distinct religious society. "In this year, headed by John Boccold, a journeyman tailor, whom they had named their king, and incited to the most impious extravagances by John Matthias, a baker, who claimed to be a prophet, they captured the city of Munster, and attempted to establish a kingdom to be called the New Zion. The city being re-captured in the following year, and their forces dispersed, some escaped to England, and then
• Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone.
4
46 THE GREEN BOOK
for the first time these doctrines began to spread in that land/'i'^
In 1633 the Baptists separated from the Church of Eng- land and from the Independents (Congregationalists), and estabHshed the first Baptist congregation in England. That same year they split in two main branches : the General Bap- tists and the Particular Baptists, the latter stern Calvinists, and there are now said to be over one hundred Baptist sects, In spite of all their regulations love of worldly gain crept in. "You close the door ; and you find you have shut in the evil spirit with you into your cell. You sift among Chris- tians, and rebaptize into some special coterie those whom you think to 'give evidence' of their sincerity, — but the 'evidence' will be, in a hundred cases, deceptive, and you will be certain to admit many a hypocrite within the fold."
"But not merely will hypocrisy creep in, and infest, more fatally than under any free and open-air system, the close and narrow purism of these separate societies. Another danger also attends upon them, like their shadow : and that is, the danger of perpetual subdivision/'
In 1653 John Bunyan joined the Baptists and began to preach, and later he said, "I would be (and hope I am) a Christian. . . . But as for those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or the like, — I conclude they came neither from Jerusalem nor Antioch, but rather from Hell and Babylon. For they naturally tend to divisions : you may know them by their fruits." ^^
Roger Williams founded the sect in this country. But who gave him his commission ? We are told in the History of the Baptist Church in Providence that "to obtain a suitable ad- ministrator was a matter of consequence. At length the candidates for communion nominated and appointed Ezekiel Holliman, a man of gifts and piety, to baptise Mr. Williams,
^° Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. v. iii, p. 65, quoted in The Double Witness of th< Clmrcli. — Bishop Kip.
»* Quoted in Dissent, in its Relation to the Church of England. — G. H. Curteis.
INFANT MEMBERSHIP 47
and who in return baptized Mr. Holliman and the other ten. It is now a principle for which none contend more strenu- ously than the Baptist, that Scriptural and valid baptism cannot be administered by any one who is himself imbaptized. Yet of these twelve persons who thus baptized each other, not one had previously been immersed, and, of course, on Baptist principles, they were imbaptized. What right, then, had they to admit into the visible fold of Christ, or to 'form themselves into a Church ?' And are not the Baptists in this country, on their own confession, now destitute of any kind of valid baptism ?"^^
These various sects that left the Church of England to be more pure and more Evangelical, and who refuse to receive infants as members of the Church, are denying the funda- mental truth of Evangelical reHgion, that salvation is God's free gift and we can do nothing to merit it. "The Catholic Church, by baptizing infants, teaches that grace is the free gift of God's love. We teach the priority of God, that before we can do anything to please or displease Him God has surrounded us with His redeeming love, that the soul of the Christian child begins its unfolding in an atmosphere of God's goodness. Just as its opening eyes gaze not at first on a hostile world, but on the face of a loving mother whose arms are around it to support its feeble efforts and to shield it from harm, so its soul awakens to find that Jesus, in His Body the Church, has already surrounded it with an atmosphere of love, has 'embraced it with the arms of His mercy', has 'given it the blessing of eternal life.' In my own experience of the conversion of souls," says Fr. Bull, "I have found that this priority of God and His pre- venient love is a truth of immense power." ^^
The Baptists of course could not allow other Puritans (Presbyterians or Congregationalists) to come to their Com- munion, nor could they have any religious affiliation with
"The Double Witness of the Church. — Bishop Kip. "The Sacramental Principle.— P. B. Bull, C. R.
48 THE GREEN BOOK
them. They were, according to their ideas, unbaptized and therefore not Christians ; and these Baptists were consistent. The modern, Hberal Baptist who will not have his children baptized, and yet receives the Communion from a Presby- terian or a Methodist minister he does not consider baptized, and who asks these to his Communion table, has not a leg to stand on in support of his position.
In baptizing infants the Church requires the same vows as of adults, and these must be made by sponsors who are the child's sureties. As the state provides guardians for the infant's person and property, to act in the child's name and for him until he comes of age, so the Church provides guardians of his spiritual inheritance. For a boy two god- fathers and one godmother, and for a girl two godmothers and one godfather is required, when they can be had. There must be at least one sponsor. One of the English poets describes this touching rite —
"In due lime A day of solemn ceremonial comes ; When they, who for this minor hold in trust Rights that transcend the highest heritage Of mere humanity, present their charge At the baptismal font. And when the pure And consecrating element hath cleansed The original stain, the child is there received Into the second ark, Christ's Church, with trust That he, from wrath redeemed, therein shall float Over the billows of this troublesome world To the fair and everlasting life." '*
Sponsors must of course be Christians, that is, they must be baptized persons and believe in the Holy Trinity, as they represent the Church. A Canon of the Church of England of 1603 required them to be communicants, and another Canon of the same time prohibits the father of the child from being a sponsor. The mother was never present, as the child
>* Wordsworth's Excursion, Book V.
INFANT MEMBERSHIP 49
was baptized at eight days. This latter Canon was repealed in 1865 by the Convocation of Canterbury, but it was not ratified and was not followed by a corresponding decision of the Convocation of York.^^ The English and the Ameri- can Churches, however, now permit parents to be sponsors but do not encourage it. It is not desirable for the reason that the Church seeks to secure as full a guarantee as possible for the Christian education and training of the baptized. In case of the death of the parents, or their failure to teach the child his Christian obligations, the duty falls on the godparents. The clergy and laity have not been as care- ful as the Church directs in selecting sponsors, the choice by the laity being frequently actuated by considerations alto- gether apart from the Christian training of the child. "It might matter less," says Dr. Stone, "who the sponsors, regarded as representatives of the universal Church, indi- vidually are, if the Church herself, in the present and in the future, as in the past, could securely provide for the Chris- tian training of the baptized." But the clergy should be careful to see the sponsors are at least baptized persons.
The du.ties of the sponsors are to see that the child is taught "so soon as he shall be able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profession he hath made" by those who are his sureties, that he has Christian teaching and training, and that he "be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and is sufficiently instructed in the other parts of the Church Catechism set forth for that pur- pose." To this the sponsors will add their prayers for the child. The relation of sponsors to their godchildren, formerly, was far from a perfunctory one. The godparents heard or taught the child his Catechism, took a personal interest in him and his religious life, and the tie was a very close one. There is a curious idea among some people that
" Holy Baptism.— Darwell Stone.
50 THE GREEN BOOK
a baptized person does not assume his baptismal vows until he is confirmed. This of course is not the case. He assumes his baptismal vows as soon as he comes to the years of discretion.
When a child is born into the world he becomes a member of a family, with a certain place in life which involves certain responsibilities. He has his duty to his parents and brothers and sisters, to his country and to his position in life. He may repudiate all these obligations, and say he is not bound by them because he did not choose them himself ; but society does not hold him blameless if he fails to fulfill them. When parents take the great responsibility of bringing a child into the world, they are bound to do all they can for his welfare, and to give him every aid and advantage in their power. In baptism they give him the greatest privilege any one can have, and with it the power to fulfill the obligations involved. Many of our Lord's Parables and most solemn warnings are directed against sins of omission. He has no blame for the man who tried and seemed to fail. It is the man who did not use his talent, the virgins who neglected to fill their lamps with oil, those who did not visit the sick and feed the hungry, that He warned would receive condemnation ; and parents who fail to bring their children to baptism, and place them "safe in the arms of Jesus," assume a grave responsibility.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENT OF MEMBERSHIP
The proper minister of the Sacrament is a bishop or a priest, but in some circumstances a deacon, and, in case of grave necessity, any man or woman may baptize. A man cannot baptize himself. Dr. Stone, in his book on Holy Baptism, says, "To sum up, then, the evidence which the New Testament supplies, there is no doubt that in the days of the Apostles Baptism was the means of entrance into the Christian Church for Jews and Jewish proselytes and Gen- tiles alike, and was held to be necessary for those who had received the baptism of St. John the Baptist ; that the persons who administered Baptism included a deacon and those wdio appear to have been Christian laymen ;^ that in the case of adults some profession of belief was required from those who were to be baptized; and that in the administration of the Sacrament water was used."
Again, he says, "in the mediaeval rubrics of the Church in England it was laid down, as one of the duties of parish priests, that they should frequently on Sundays explain to their people the right method of baptizing, so that in cases of emergency these might know what to do ; and it was further directed, 'It is not lawful for a layman or woman to baptize any one except in a case of necessity.' " "So great was the importance attached to the reception of Baptism that, in Hooker's words, *Yea, Baptism by any man in case of necessity' was the voice of the whole world heretofore."^
The Eastern Church directs its priests to teach their people, men and women, especially women who may be
^ Ananias, who baptized St. Paul, seems to have been a layman. • Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stoae.
51
52 THE GREEN BOOK
present at births, how to baptize in case of necessity, and it instructs them always in such cases to give the parish priest immediate notice of the baptism. Christian people should be prepared and know how to baptize in case of necessity. All that is needed is a bowl or basin of pure water. Let us suppose the family name to be Smith, and the name selected for the child, John Henry. Have some one hold the infant with his head over the basin, fill the hollow of the hand vith a little water, and say, "John Henry, I baptize thee in the name of the Father (here pour water on the child's head, and fill the hand again), and of the Son (pour the water on again), and of the Holy Ghost" (pouring the water on the third time). That is all that is required.
The proper place for baptism is a church, but in case of necessity baptism may be administered in a private house, or indeed anywhere. The rubric in the service for the private baptism of infants says, "The Minister of every Parish shall often admonish the People, that they defer not the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other Holy-day falling between, unless upon a great and reasonable cause.^ And also he shall warn them, that without like great cause and necessity, they procure not their Children to be baptized at home in their houses." If the child baptized at home lives, the Prayer Book directs that as soon as convenient it is ex- pedient the child be brought to the parish church to be received publicly by the congregation. The obligations of baptism are assumed by the baptized whether or not the vows are made, for baptism itself is our profession. If an adult baptized when very ill recovers, he is in duty bound to be confirmed.
The dress of the officiating minister is a cassock, surplice and stole. A violet stole is used until after the vows of
3 This admonition is not merely to guard against infants dying unbai)tized, but to ensure that as soon as possible they be made members of Christ and enjoy the benefits of this union.
THE ADJMINISTRATION OF MEMBERSHIP 53
renunciation and then a white stole is put on for the baptism and the rest of the service. A stole made for use in baptism is violet on one side and white on the other, and is turned just before the baptism. The material thing employed in the administration of a Sacrament is called the matter and is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace bestowed. In baptism the matter is water, an effectual sign of the washing away of sin and a new birth into righteous- ness. From the beginning of the third century at any rate, it has been customary for the water to be blessed. A prayer of blessing is given in the service in our Prayer Book, and making the sign of the Cross over the water at the words "bless and sanctify" is usual. St. Augustine is the earliest writer to mention this now almost universal custom in the Church, and he is at pains to point out that the validity of the Sacrament is independent of any such ceremony. The same may be said of the signing of the baptized person with the Cross, and of other ceremonies. They should be highly esteemed but not regarded essential.
The method of applying the water in the early Church was by immersion, affusion (pouring) and even sprinkling, the water being applied three times to the person. In the first and second centuries, immersion seems to have been the ordinary practice, but *'the ancient representations of Baptism, whether of that which our Lord received from St. John the Baptist or of the Christian Sacrament, depict it as administered by affusion."^ The ordinary practice in the Eastern Church in the baptism of infants and adults is threefold immersion, but in the West since the fourteenth century the ordinary practice has been threefold affusion. The rubric in our Prayer Book directs the officiating minister to dip the infant or adult, or to pour water on him. Sprink- ling is not allowed, although ''all Western theologians agree that if water is made to flow upon the head of the baptized person the baptism is vahd."*
•-♦ Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone.
54 THE GREEN BOOK
The form for this Sacrament are the words "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." In the Acts of the Apostles we notice on several occasions persons are said to have been baptized "into the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ." This probably means by their baptism into the Triune Name of God revealed by our Lord, they were, as we say, made members of Christ. Our Lord's words are clear, and the baptismal formula used by the Church has always been the words He gave to His Apostles.
"If they who bring the infant to the Church do make such uncertain answers to the Minister's questions, as that it cannot appear that the child was baptized with Water, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (which are essential parts of baptism), then let the Minister baptize it in the Form before appointed for Public Baptism of Infants; saving that at the dipping of the child in the Font, he shall use this Form of words: *If thou art not already baptized (John Henry), I baptize thee In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' "^ This is called conditional baptism. Baptism is of such vital importance that the Church directs again in the service for those of Riper Years that if there be reasonable doubt concerning the baptism of any person, the form for con- ditional baptism shall be used.
There are sects who baptize without water, and others who do not use the baptismal formula but use the words "I baptize thee in the Name of the Trinity," or "in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ." This, of course, is not Christian baptism. The writer knew a man who had been baptized in infancy by a Presbyterian minister, and, when he grew up, was confirmed and became a devout communicant of the Church. After some years as he learned to value the Sacraments, he became worried about his baptism. His parents and the minister who had baptized him were dead,
» Rubric in Baptismal Service.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MEMBERSHIP 55
so he could find out nothing about it. One day when his rector, one of the Cowley Fathers, came to see him he told him what was troubling him. "You need worry no more," said the Father, and sending for a bowl of water, bidding the man stand up, and taking him by the right hand -as directed in the Prayer Book, he baptized him conditionally, to his great comfort and happiness.
In the early days of the Church when adult baptism was the rule, not the exception, as in Christian lands to-day, the ceremony was a very impressive one, which took place at stated times during the year, Easter Even and the Eve of Whitsunday being the most important. The preparation of the catechumens ended with confession to a priest, no absolution of course being given them ; that was not possible, and would be given later by baptism. At the time of the baptism the catechumens gathered about the font, and turn- ing to the west and the setting sun, made their vows of renunciation, then turning to the east they recited the creed. No longer would they serve and follow the world, the flesh and the devil. They accepted Jesus Christ as their Master ; to Him they swore allegiance, and Him would they follow to their life's end. "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." The turn- ing around symbolized conversion. Confirmation followed immediately, and the baptized were soon after admitted to the great privilege of offering the Holy Sacrifice and receiv- ing the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ.
To sum up — for vaHd baptism water, the application of the water to the person, and the form of words given by our Lord are requisite. The consent of the person to be baptized is also held to be necessary. There must be no opposition of the will. An unconscious infant or an unconscious adult who has expressed a desire for baptism may be baptized, but baptism forced upon any one, or given in play, would not be valid. In the case of infants the consent is given by
56 THE GREEN BOOK
the sponsors. By valid we mean ratified. A valid Sacrament is a Sacrament authorized and guaranteed by the Church which is the Body of Christ in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, and speaks for Him. The Church assures and guarantees that if the conditions required by the Church for Christian baptism are fulfilled, the person baptized is regenerate. When we say baptism is irregular we mean it is not done in the regular order appointed by the Church. Baptism by a layman is irregular but is true and valid because it is authorized and guaranteed by the Catholic Church.
But while the baptismal formula is all that is required for valid baptism, the Catholic Church has always provided a ritual for the administration of the Sacrament, to safeguard the teaching and the gifts of baptism." The "views" of the priest who administers it make no difference ; he speaks not for himself, and the sponsors and the congregation "hear the Church." So important is this regarded that the Prayer Book directs that a child baptized when ill in private, with the baptismal formula, shall be brought to the church, if he recovers, to publicly make his vows and be received by the congregation. In the case of an adult, confirmation follows as soon as possible, and the vows are then publicly acknowl- edged.
At the time of the Reformation the Church of England revised and greatly simplified the Baptismal Offices, but as Dr. Stone says, "In spite of strong pressure from determined opponents of the truth, the Church in England, both in the sixteenth and in the seventeenth century, was careful to maintain the doctrine of Baptism which, as enshrined in Scripture and taught by the Universal Church, may rightly be called Catholic. It might well be anticipated that in the Orders for the Ministration of Baptism there would be a very full and clear indication of the mind of the Church
• Ritual and ceremonial mean different things. TIj|£ rite or ritual of baptism is the Baptismal Service; the ceremonial is the forW with which it is accom- panied.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MEMBERSHIP 57
in England on this subject. In them the Catholic teaching referred to is again and again affirmed or implied. * * * In no place is there any indication that this language, or any part of it, is of an hypothetical character or is to be figur- atively explained." ^
"Our Mother, the Church, hath never a child
To honor before the rest, And she singeth the same for mighty kings,
And the veriest babe on her breast ; And the Bishop goes down to his narrow bed
As the ploughman's child is laid, And alike she blesseth the dark-brow'd serf,
And the chief in his robe arrayed. She sprinkles the drops of the bright new-birth,
The same on the low and high, And christens their bodies with dust to dust,
When earth with its earth must lie; Oh, the poor man's friend is the Church of Christ,
From his birth to his funeral day; She makes him the Lord's, in her surpliced arms,
And singeth his burial lay."
— A. Cleveland Coxe
'' Holy Baptism. — Darwell Stone.
THE COMPLETION OF MEMBERSHIP
CONFIRMATION
Confirmation is the completion of baptism. The minister of the Sacrament is a bishop, and in the first days of the Church, Confirmation followed immediately upon baptism, or as soon after as possible/ The difficulty of obtaining a bishop for every baptism led to the separation of the serv- ices, and in the West, in the case of infants, Confirmation came gradually to be postponed until the child could be instructed in the Christian Faith. In the East this separa- tion was not countenanced, and the difficulty was met by using oil blessed by a bishop, called chrism, to convey the gifts and grace of Confirmation, as in the days of perse- cution the Holy Communion consecrated by a priest was carried by deacons, and even laymen, to those unable to attend the service. The East holds with the West that a bishop is the minister of the Sacrament. In the West the Roman and Anglican Churches have continued the Apostolic practice of the laying on of hands by a bishop to convey the grace of Confirmation.^ The Roman Church also uses chrism as it does in baptism, but this is not essential.^
"The title Confirmation is derived from its efifect in strengthening the soul by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In Holy Scripture it is also called the 'Seal of the Lord,' from the fact that it conveys a special character; and it is de- scribed as one of the four principles of the doctrine of
1 Acts 19:5-7. » Acts 8:14-17. » The Religion of the Church.— C. Gore.
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THE COMPLETION OF MEMBERSHIP 59
Christ under the name of 'the laying on of hands.' " * The effect of Confirmation, then, is to convey grace and character. In Confirmation we receive something; we come to be con- firmed not to confirm something. The renewal of baptismal vows is not part of Confirmation. It is an appropriate but modern addition to the service. The renewal of these vows may be made at any time. In some parishes this is an annual custom, New Year's Eve being the time usually chosen, and during a parochial Mission these renewals are generally so made ; but this is not Confirmation. Confirmation conveys character, that is, it stamps an indelible mark upon the soul, and it cannot therefore be repeated. Of course, Confirmation is a profession of faith in the sense that saying the creed, praying, and making our Communions are professions of faith and a promise to serve God, but it is not joining the Church or taking the vows of the Christian life. We did that in baptism. If we do not mean or desire to keep these vows we ought not to ask for more grace ; but if we desire to keep them, we should acknowledge this obligation, and complete our baptism with Confirmation which entitles us to all the privileges of Church membership. Some people who do not understand what Confirmation is, object to being confirmed by a bishop if they have already made such a public profession ; but when they understand, they say, not must I, but may I be confirmed.
Baptized persons of any age may be subjects for Confir- mation. In the East infants are confirmed immediately after baptism. In the West the age has come to be about twelve years, the age our Lord and all Jewish boys were admitted to the privileges of membership in the Jewish Church. At this age children pass from childhood into manhood and womanhood, and go more into the world, perhaps go away to school, and need the grace and strength of Con- firmation. The rubric in the Prayer Book seems to indicate
♦Heb. 6:1-2.
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an earlier age than the customary age of twelve years, and recently in the Roman Church the Pope ordered that children be prepared for Confirmation and Communion at seven or eight years of age. There is quite a movement among us to do likewise, and if the clergy would teach and be more faithful in personal work among the children, Con- firmation before twelve years of age might well become the rule. In some parishes there are communicant classes once a month, which the children who are to make their Commu- nion next day are expected to attend. If something of this kind were general, a return to the age for Confirmation when a child could say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and was sufficiently instructed in the other parts of the Church Catechism, would be desirable. In any case, with a normal child Confirmation should not be deferred later than twelve years. Many of the Church's children go into the world unarmed for the fight, and lost to their Mother because they were not taught their bap- tismal obligations and privileges before they went out to work or to school. These things are being told us by our army chaplains.
Unbaptized persons are of course incapable of receiving any Sacrament but baptism. To confirm or give the Holy Communion to unbaptized persons would be like giving food to a dead body. For this reason it is of the utmost impor- tance that priests in preparing persons for Confirmation inquire carefully, as directed in the Prayer Book, regarding their baptism. "If the child were baptized by any other lawful Minister, then the Minister of the parish where the child was born or christened, shall examine whether the same was lawfully done," says the rubric, and if uncertain answers are given, the person should receive conditional baptism. This is usually done from a bowl in the sacristy when giving the personal preparation that each candidate for Confirmation receives.
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Confirmation is not regarded in the Western Church as one of the Sacraments generally necessary to salvation, for it cannot always be had, but that it is considered of great importance may be seen by the references to it in our Prayer Book. When an infant is baptized the priest says to the Godparents, "Ye are to take care that this child be brought to the Bishop," not to confirm his baptismal vows, but "to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and is sufficiently in- structed in the other parts of the Church Catechism set forth for the purpose" ; and again, at the end of the Confir- mation Office, a rubric says "There shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready (prepared) and desirous to be confirmed."
It has been suggested by those who think Confirmation is confirming baptismal vows, joining the Church or making a pubHc profession of faith, and even by some who ought to know better, that this rubric regarding Confirmation only applies to children brought up in the Church. The reason given for this view is that, as the rubric was inserted first in the first English Prayer Book of Edward VI in 1549, at that time there being no sectarians, it could not be in- tended to apply to such a case. They fail, however, to notice that in the last revision of the Prayer Book in 1662, when the Church of England was more harassed by sectarians than at any other time in her existence, that is, after the Cromwellian period, the Church did not merely leave that rubric (which might have been construed into an oversight) but added the words "or be ready and desirous to be con- firmed," which evidently was intended to cover cases, espe- cially in the Colonies, where bishops could not be obtained for Confirmation. There are some who try to get around the plain English of the rubric by saying, "admit to the Holy Communion" means putting one on the list of com- municants, but the words do not technically mean this. 5
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Some of our clergy, it is true, do not enforce this rubric, but it would be a very different matter for the Church to fall out of line with Catholic Christendom and strike it out or suspend it. For full membership in the Catholic Church and the enjoyment of all its privileges, Confirmation, or the desire to receive it, is requisite, as Bishop Gore has lately said. It is no more narrow for the Church to make this requirement, than it is for the Masonic Order to make obedience to the requirements of their Order obligatory on those who desire the privileges of membership. If Con- firmation is what the Church and the New Testament declare it to be, the completion of baptism, the conveying of char- acter, the receiving of the Holy Spirit in greater measure and with special gifts, and a preparation for the Holy Com- munion, then it is for every one, and those who have it not are the poorer.
In the Roman Church children are frequently communi- cants for several years before they are confirmed. This is admitted even by Roman Catholics not to be the proper order, but it shows that being a communicant does not do away with the necessity for Confirmation. In the early days of this country when there were no bishops, or few of them, many persons who had been communicants for years were confirmed when very old. They had not had the opportunity before. A baptized person very ill or going into battle would be given the Holy Communion, but if he lived should be confirmed. It is pride, not intellectual difificulties, that makes people unwilling to come to Confirmation, and pride is not a proper disposition for receiving tlje Holy Commun- ion. To set one's own opinion against that of the Catholic Church is a very serious matter. To such a one we would say, Do you believe in the Holy Catholic Church, as you solemnly profess to do when you say the Creed? If you do, then hear the Church, and obey.
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The baptized are a royal priesthood, and Confirmation is rightly called the ordination of the laity, and in preparation for it adults as well as children receive careful instruction in the Faith and practices of the Church, and moral and spiritual preparation for the great event. In some parishes the instruction for children covers three seasons, two before and one after Confirmation. While no vows are taken in Confirmation, all the vows of the Christian life having been taken at baptism, faith and repentance are requisite for a beneficial reception of this as of all Sacraments. Confir- mation received with a right disposition enables the baptized Christian to fulfill his baptismal vows, and admits him to the greatest privilege of the Christian life, the ofifering of the Holy Sacrifice and the receiving of the Holy Com- munion of the Body and Blood of Christ. It is an ancient custom for those who have been confirmed to make their first Communion on the first great festival following their Confirmation. In Lent this would be Easter Day, and after Lent Ascension Day or Whitsunday. In the long Trinity season with no great festival near, the Rector would fix a Sunday soon after the Confirmation for the first Communion of the newly confirmed. The instructions continue until after the first Communion, and after Confirmation are more particularly instructions on the Sacrament X)f the Altar, its meaning, its ritual and ceremonial, and careful instruction how to receive the Holy Communion. To avoid being in Church with uncovered heads the custom of wearing white lawn veils, or little caps, at Confirmation arose. It is strange that those who make no objection to wedding veils should object to veils at Confirmation, and it is unfortunate that some people in this country associate the custom with a Church party to which it does not belong.
The veil is put a little back on the head that the part of tlie head on which the Bishop lays his hands may be uncovered.
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Fr. Bull says, "When each child learns that at Confir- mation he is anointed and ordained as a priest of God he will realize that he is as much bound to assist at the Holy Sacrifice on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation as the priest who stands at the altar. And as he tries to realize his priesthood in prayer and worship and intercession, and in manifesting to the world a life of entire consecration to the service of God, the palsied limbs of our Church will tingle with the quickening life of the Holy Spirit as every member responds to His kindling flame."
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP
REPENTANCE
Question. What is required of persons to be baptized?
Answer. Repentance, whereby they forsake sin; and Faitli, whereby they steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament.
Question. Why then are Infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them?
Answer. Because they promise them both by their Sureties; which promise, when they come to age. themselves are bound to perform. — The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
It may have surprised some that repentance and faith were not mentioned as necessary to vaHd baptism. They err, however, who infer from this that such dispositions are unimportant. On the contrary, the Church requires repent- ance and faith of those who com.e to be baptized, for these are necessary to a beneficial reception of the Sacrament. For example, if a very ill man, to please his wife, consented to be baptized, and was baptized without faith or penitence, he would receive the Christian character by this new birth, and potentially its other peculiar gifts, but he would be unable to appropriate these until by faith and repentance he removed the obstacles to their operation. He would not and could not be re-baptized.
On the part of infants, repentance and faith are pledged by sponsors, who act as sureties for the child. When those of riper years, and able to answer for themselves, ask for Christian baptism, the Prayer Book directs (except in an emergency such as a very ill person) that "timely notice shall be given to the minister," that they may have careful instruc-
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tion and preparation, intellectual and spiritual, for the great event, and that they "be exhorted to prepare themselves, with prayers and fasting, for the receiving of this holy Sacra- ment."
Every Church member began his or her Christian life v^ith repentance and faith, and the Church is constantly reminding her children that they must continue in this way unto their life's end if they would enter into their heavenly inheri- tance, and attain "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." It is of the utmost importance then, that we know what the Church means by repentance and faith, and learn to distinguish between the true and the false, for "Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of ; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." *
The word repentance means a change of mind, and in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, our Lord gives us a picture of true repentance.' The words are very striking — ''And zvhen he came to himself, he said. How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger !" What a fool he had been ! With his money, his brains, his position and his opportunities, he was not as well off as his father's servants. He had done just what he pleased but it had not made him happy. He had not started out to live an evil life. He had just drifted on in a life of pleasure and self-indulgence, giving up gradually good habits and restraints, and as this life failed to satisfy, and troubles increased, he had plunged deeper and deeper into excitement to silence his conscience, and forget his troubles in riotous living and it had brought him to ruin. He had been crazy, but it was his own fault. He was himself again and saw it all, and no one was to blame but himself. The Holy Spirit can again work and be heard, and He is convincing the man of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.
iSt. Luke 15:11-32. * II Cor. 7:10.
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Up to this time he had been thinking only of himself, but now memories of home begin to revive, and softer feelings stir within him. He thinks of the father he has wronged. How good he had been to him, and how he had grieved and disgraced him. ''I will arise and go to my father." The will is working ; the man is no longer a slave ; he is master of himself ; he can not only see what is right but do it, hard though it be. Repentance is an act of the will, not an emo- tion. It is sometimes accompanied by emotion but not always. "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants." Here is true penitence. There is no thought of self ; it is of his father he is thinking, of his sin against him and against God. He will go back, acknowl- edge his sin, and take his punishment. He will not ask to be received as a son but as a slave. Then he arose and went. The good resolution was put into action. He turned his back on his old life, and turned his face towards his father's house. That is conversion.
Many a day, we may believe, the father had sat at his door looking up the road, hoping his son might pass by. *'But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion," and ran out to meet him. How he had longed and prayed for this day ! Then he "fell on his neck, and kissed him," and the son sobbed out his broken-hearted confession — "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son" — but he got no further, for the father "said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him," or more correctly the former robe, the robe he wore of old in his father's house, kept for him and now restored, "and put the ring," the family seal, "on his hand, and shoes on his feet." These are not the things worn by a slave. "And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat, and be merry. For this
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my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." He had come to take a slave's place, and had been received as a son. His realiza- tion and acknowledgment of unworthiness made him worthy. He had been given the kiss of reconciliation and peace (in the East the kiss signifies this), his place and position in the family had been restored to him, and he was again at the family table.
The story goes on to tell of the anger of his elder brother, who says to his Father, Thou never gavest me even a kid "that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son" (he would not say my brother) "was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf." The father answered, ''Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." The story ends here but we can see that life is not going to be easy for the Prodigal. The restraints of home life and the dull routine will be hard to bear after the life of excite- ment and self-indulgence he has led, and within him evil tendencies and passions, the harvest of the wild oats he has sown, will be constantly trying to pull him down and back to the old life. Then too, he will have to bear the contempt of his elder brother and the sneers of the servants. Let no one begrudge the Prodigal the joy of his welcome home. He needs it to carry him through the hard days ahead of him, and to help him to persevere.
We have failed to understand the parable unless we have seen that the sin of the Prodigal was his desire to be inde- pendent of his father. That is the essence of all sin. He wanted to lead his own life, to be free from restraint and responsibihty, and he represents all who have left their heavenly Father's house to be independent, acknowledging no duty to Him. They may not spend their days in riotous
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP 69
living or sensual pleasures, indeed they may be quite respect- able, but they will do only what they choose, not what God asks. The Prodigal started out to be independent and ended a slave, a slave to his own passions and to the man whose swine he kept. When men will not heed God's gentler warnings He sends them in love sharper ones. Loss of fortune, illness, death of a loved one, or other trouble, may bring a man to himself and make him stop and think. Happy he who heeds the warning, and goes back humbly and peni- tently to his Father.
The parable shows us that true repentance consists in contrition, confession, and satisfaction or amendment. True contrition is not sorrow for having to endure the penalty of wrong-doing, but godly sorrow that springs from love, and from having sinned against our heavenly Father. It leads, must lead, to confession ; a square acknowledgment without excuse or self pity to ourselves and to God, and if we have wronged our neighbor, to him also, of our sin. If we have wronged any one and can make amends or resti- tution, we must do so, but the Prodigal cannot restore the fortune he has squandered or the years he has wasted. The only satisfaction he can make is to bear humbly and patiently the penalty of his sins, and strive by devotion to his father to show his love and his sorrow for his wrongdoing. The real deep sorrow did not come to him until he had made his confession and had been forgiven. He began with an acknowledgment to himself of wrongdoing, and a desire to tell his father, and take his punishment.
There is no true repentance without amendment of life. The old rhyme says :
"Repentance is to leave, The sins we loved before, And show that we sincerely grieve, By doing so no more."
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But this is not all. Repentance is not only giving up wrong- doing and avoiding temptation ; it is also doing what is right.
It should be noted that it was the servants who put his former robe on the Prodigal, and gave him the ring and the shoes, the symbols of his restoration. So while God only can forgive sins. He conveys His forgiveness to us in baptism and in penance through His servants who are His ambas- sadors. After His resurrection He said to His Apostles, "As My Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." - These words are said to priests when they are ordained, and every day the Church reminds us that God "hath given power, and commandment, to His ministers, to declare and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins." In the exhortation in the service of the Holy Communion and in the Office of the Visitation of the Sick, we are again reminded of this power in the Church.
Baptism cleanses us from original sin and in the case of adults from actual sin as well, but this mystical washing can be but once, for it conveys more than absolution. In the Sacrament of Penance, however, we can be cleansed and healed again and again. The Sacrament of Penance is not generally necessary to salvation. It has been held by the Church to be ordinarily necessary for those who after bap- tism have committed mortal sin. A mortal sin — "a sin unto death" — is a wilful, deliberate, serious sin, called in our Prayer Book "a weighty matter," which has killed grace in the soul and cut it off from God. Something more than prayer, it would seem, is needed for restoration.' Venial sins are sins we commit through carelessness. The things we would not do and do. The word venial means forgive-
2 St. John 20:21-23. "I St. John 5:16.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP 71
able. We must not think lightly of these sins, for all sin is grievous and hateful in God's sight and must be purged out of us here or hereafter. Moreover, if we do not con- stantly watch, pray and repent, they will lead to mortal sin. If we really repent and confess these sins to God, and ask for forgiveness in prayer, and in the Holy Communion, God can and will forgive them, for we can pray in His name. In mortal sin we cannot pray in Christ's Name, for praying in His Name means praying in union with Him.
But the Sacrament of Penance is a means of grace and used not only by grievous sinners. It is the way the Saints have trod. Bishop Gore has said, "It is my persuasion, which deepens with every year of experience, that there will be no revival of vital religion among us, on any large scale, or with any adequate results, except through a deepening of the sense of sin : a return to the properly Christian severity of view about the meaning of sin and its consequences ; and that this is needed equally in all classes of society and among all kinds of men." True repentance requires a definite con- fession of our sins one by one to God. All Christians agree on this, and the feeling is pretty general that under some circumstances, and for some sins, confession to man is desirable, if not essential. The Old and the New Testaments and Christian writers of the first centuries, the Salvation Army and the Inquiry Room of the revival, as well as the Catholic confessional, testify to this. In the army during the great war, chaplains of every religion heard confessions.
Professor William James says of confession, while "not nearly as widespread as sacrifice, it corresponds to a more inward and moral stage of sentiment. It is part of the general system of purgation and cleansing which one feels oneself in need of in order to be in right relations to one's deity. For him who confesses shams are over and realities have begun; he has exteriorised his rottenness. If he has not actually got rid of it, he at least no longer smears it over
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with a hypocritical show of virtue — he lives at least upon a basis of veracity. The complete decay of the practice of confession in Anglo-Saxon communities is a little hard to account for." *
The fact is, all Protestant sects, when they separated from the Church, did not immediately give up confession to man. The Scotch Calvinists required confession, although it was more like an inquisition than a confession. The member appeared before the session, and if a good examination was passed, he or she was given a token, a little metal coin, which must be presented next day when coming to receive the Holy Communion. These old Presbyterians, whose religion was distinctly Jewish, had, Hke the Jews, a deep sense of sin and the holiness of God, which modern Presbyterians have lost. The difference between the Catholic Sacrament and the Inquiry Room confession is that Protestant confession is confession to a man or woman, and the Catholic Sacrament is confession made to God in the presence of a representative of the Church, to whom has been given the power to apply the Precious Blood of Christ to the penitent, and to absolve him. When a priest baptizes an infant or an adult he is doing the same thing. "I baptize thee" is the same as "I absolve thee," as St. Augustine reminds us. A well-known Missioner preaching on penance told the following story: "One day a young man came to me and said he wanted to make a confession but he did not believe in absolution. After some talk with him I said, 'Kneel down and make your con- fession, and I will give you counsel and advice but, of course, I cannot give you absolution if you have not faith and do not desire it.' He knelt down and made his confession, and after I had given him counsel he said 'Oh, I want absolution, I do believe.' He had done his part and the Holy Spirit led him on to faith."
In the first centuries, confessions were usually made in
* Varieties of Religious Experience.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP 73
public, but are now made in private and are secret. "After the cessation of Persecution in consequence of the Edicts of Milan put forth by the Emperor Constantine in A. D. 313, public confession gave rise to great danger of collision with the civil courts, and also of public scandal, and this was really the reason for its discontinuance. * * * To say that sacramental confession, so to call it, did not exist, or to say that it was compulsory, except in the case of certain notorious offences, would be to say what in both cases is clean contrary to the testimony of contemporary writers. But we cannot determine, beyond that, as to how prevalent the practice was at least up to the end of the fifth century. After that date it was becoming increasingly the normal use of the Church, and in the year 1215 it was at last made compulsory in the Western Church. By the Council of the Lateran in that year it was enacted that every one must make confession of his sins once a year to his own priest under pain of excommunication and forfeiture of Christian burial." ^
At the Reformation the Church of England refused to abolish the practice of private confession and deliberately made it voluntary.^ "The Book of Common Prayer, the writings of the Reformers, the Canons of 1603, are all of them absolutely conclusive on this point, and those who attempt to curtail the liberty of the clergy of the English Church in the exercise of their ministry in the hearing of confessions and of the lay-people in making their confessions are at least as disloyal to the emphatic teaching of the Prayer Book and Canons as those who have attempted to make private confession compulsory upon all. It is a matter about which there is not the sHghtest doubt either as to teaching or practice ; the language of the Prayer Book cannot be twisted
• Sin.— H. V. S. Eck.
• "We everywhere find the use of confession, especially public, allowed of and commended by the Fathers; but that extreme and rigorous necessity of auricular and private confession, which is at this day so mightily upheld by the Church of Rome, we find not." Quoted from Hooker, in Sin. — H. V. S. Eck.
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into meaning anything else ; the plain speaking of the most thorough-going Reformers, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, is beyond question ; the Canons of 1603 impose a most severe penalty upon the priest who divulges what has been made known to him under the seal of confession ; whilst the writ- ings and practice of writers of all schools of thought from the Reformation down to the present day make it abundantly clear that the position of the Prayer Book and Canons in the matter of auricular confession is one which has been constantly maintained alike in the teaching and in the prac- tice of the Church of England." ' In the Preface to the American Prayer Book we read, "This Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline or worship." The abuses and the perfunctoriness of the Sacrament in the Church of Rome have come from making it obligatory before every Communion.^
"It must be very nice and easy to feel you can sin, and then go to a priest and be forgiven," people say. It is not half so nice and easy as it is to sin, and kneel down alone and with very little penitence ask God to forgive your sin. It is not because the Sacrament of Penance is easy that people do not use it, but because it is hard. Confession to God before a priest humbles pride, makes confession definite, gives us another's view of our condition, guarding against careless- ness on one hand and scrupulousness on the other, and, above all, it gives us a fresh, clean start ; for into the open wounds the priest, to whom has been given power and authority, pours in the stinging wine and the healing oil of absolution. Sacramental absolution, received in faith and penitence, gives us not only the assurance of God's forgiveness, not dependent on our feelings, but gives grace and strength to conquer temptation. This is what our Prayer Book calls "the benefit of absolution."
» Sin.— H. V. S. Kcki.
* See letter from 3tt BnglisFr prifesf'wha went to Rome and came back, quoted in Catholic, or Roman Catholic. — T. J. Hardy.
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Fr. Figgis says, "It is vain and even silly to expect to convince men of the need of a Saviour who are yet un- troubled by conscience.* * * But is this laxity the mark of good Christians or even of the most religious non-Chris- tians? Do we, as a fact, find that the higher we go in the scale of religious insight the less and less place do we find for sin and the need of forgiveness ? To ask such a question is to answer it. The evidence of the saints in all ages is at one on this point. The words of St. Paul, 'sinners of whom I am chief,' are not the mock modesty of a popular preacher ; they are the deep and poignant cry of the God-stricken soul in every age ; so genuine that at times we deem them morbid. Morbid or not, they are the actual utterance of the inmost being of men so diverse as St. Augustine, Pascal, Bishop Andrewes, Pusey, Bunyan. Even in other and less perfect religions there is the same deliverance — the feeling that man is weak and by his own doing comes short; that there is something out of joint in the world ; and that he cannot of himself heal the breach, h^ * * Once assure me of for- giveness and that the past is no more, and that victory may one day be mine, and I care not what outward punishment there be. I can dance lighthearted through the rough places, and like Paul and Silas sing hymns in prison. That is the answer in actual fact of the shriven penitent." ®
"I believe half the trouble with men arises from sins at the back of their minds, which they cannot get rid of. Many want to come back to religion ; but there are sins behind, and they either do not know about Confession, or else dislike it, and so they tend to treat the Church as the haunt of good people and not (what it is) as the home of sinners." ^°
The absolutions in the Church services are a general absolution of the congregation, "that those things may please Him which we do at this present" (as a body ) . Such general absolutions have always existed in the offices of the Church
• The Gospel and Human Needs. — J. N. Figgis, C. R. **> Religion and English Society. — J. N. Figgis, C. R,
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but have never been regarded as Sacramental. We would do well to remember and act upon the words of the first English Prayer Book, "requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest ; nor those also which think needful or convenient, for the quietness of their own consciences, particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God and the general confession to the Church. But in all things to follow and keep the rule of charity, and every man to be satisfied with his own conscience, not judging other men's minds or consciences ; whereas he hath no war- rant of God's Word to the same."
''Philosophers and reformers," says Bishop Gore, "who have looked below the surface of life and politics have always demanded a fresh start for humanity. Plato, the Greek, long ago said there could be no real remedy for the evils of society unless you could make a fresh start. He demanded a blank tablet to draw the lineaments of life afresh. Centuries later Thomas Carlyle, in the generation behind our own, scoifed at the Radicals of his day, who seemed to think that a number of legislative reforms and 'remedial measures' would set human life straight. Nay, he jeered, these are but quack medicines — 'Morrison's pills.' You need something more radical than your radical meas- ures. Radical means what goes to the root. You want a change at the root of human life — a fundamental change !"
"Ay, but sin is so ingrained in our nature, it passes on from father to son. How can there be a radical change? How can we renew the roots of our nature ? How can we have a new manhood ? In fact, we cannot, except in jKsus Christ. He alone is the New Man ; He alone is Man with- out sin. From Him alone is there new birth. He alone can give, in truth and reality, what Plato and Carlyle demanded.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP 11
Born of a Virgin, a new creation, true man, but new man, He only can give us human nature without sin. *He taketh away the sin of the world.' " He the Lamb of God who "makes a perfect expiation for all the sins which men have committed, and sets flowing a fountain of spiritual renewal, of new life, to dehver them for the future from the power of sin."
"I would summon all social reformers, all persons who desire to improve human life, to see to it that they learn the lesson of the one Great Physician, the one true Redeemer of man. Education and sanitary reform and political change may do much for human life, but they will never remove the fundamental evil. That fundamental evil is sin. * * * Jesus Christ our Lord offered to God the Father, especially by His death upon the cross, a sacrifice of atonement or propitiation, by the merits of which alone we sinful men can be accepted in spite of our unworthiness, and our sins can be forgiven. * * * A sacrifice of atonement, a great act of reparation to God ! Surely, if sin is not mere ignorance or weakness or folly, but is an offense against God our Father, with whom we were created to have fellowship, such an act of repara- tion must have been somehow necessary. * * * Christ, who offers the great sacrifice of Atonement, offers it as the representative Man. But He who offers it is also in our manhood very God. So that God Himself supplies the sacrifice which the moral situation requires — itself a free gift of His love." ^^
"There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins ; And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains.
"The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day; And there may I, as vile as he, Wash al! my sins away.
11 The Creed of tbc Christian.— C. Gore.
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"Dear, dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed Church of God Be saved to sin no more."
We have been considering the godly sorrow for sin that worketh repentance, but the Apostle tells us that there is another kind of sorrow for sin, and that is the sorrow of the world that worketh death. We have doubtless all seen the return of the impenitent Prodigal with his lost fortune, im- paired health, his hard luck story, and the acknowledgment of wrong doing, with self -excusing and self-pity. Sin to him is a mistake, a weakness, and he is sorry he was so weak and foolish. He is perfectly selfish and self-centered, and talks much about the lack of charity in others. He thanks God that while he is not a religious man and has not always done right, he is not like other men he knows. The sorrow of the world is rooted in pride, and worketh self-deception, self- justification, bitterness, hardness of heart and the death of the soul. Holy Scripture shows us many cases of godly sorrow for sin bringing repentance, and also of worldly sorrow that worketh death. St. Peter, after his denial of His Lord, went out and wept bitterly, and became a pillar of the Church, a great Apostle, a martyr and a saint. Judas repented himself and said, "I have betrayed the innocent blood," and went out and hanged himself. ^^ The sorrow of the world worketh remorse, despair and death, for it is not the fruit of love. Pharoah is another example of God's long- sufYering mercy in dealing with sinners. After the death of the first-born it seemed that at last God had succeeded in breaking his stubborn will and his proud heart, but his sor- row was the sorrow of the world and did not lead to repent- ance. Anger and hatred of God, and a determination not to be beaten soon took possession of him. His day of grace, however, was over, and he and his hosts were lost in the
"St. Matt. 27:3-5.
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waters of the Red Sea, through which God's people passed in safety.
"Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples : and are written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation (or trial) taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted (or tried) above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, they ye may be able to bear it." ^^
"I Cor. 10:11-13.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MEMBERSHIP
FAITH
"He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."^
The quest for God has been in all ages and among all peoples the great romance. Man was made for God. While he is akin to the beasts that perish, he feels he is something more. He is not of the passing world; it does not satisfy him; there is something in him that seeks communion and satisfaction with the unseen and eternal and with a being who is above him but to whom he belongs and whom he can know. Man is naturally religious. We see this in primitive peoples and in little children untouched by sophis- tries, and unhardened by the cares and the pleasures of the world. When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts faith as the fundamental requirement of those who would know God, he is not asking something that is un- natural to man. He who wants to know God must believe He exists, that He is not just an influence or a first cause, and that He can be known by men. "That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us."
The quest is one that has always attracted great souls, men and women who have been willing to give up their lives to it. History, art, and literature testify to this. Among ancient peoples it finds its highest expression in the Jewish poets and prophets. **Bov/ Thy heavens, O Lord, and come
»Heb. 11:6.
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down," cries the Psalmist, and, as the sense of sin grows, there grows with it a reaHzation that the Messiah will be "despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Then in the fullness of time, at a certain moment in human history, God answered this age-long cry. He bowed the heavens and came down, and "was Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." And when, on the first Christmas Day, Blessed Mary brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for Him in the inn,
"Heaven's arches rang when the angels sang, Proclaiming Thy royal degree; But in lowly birth didst Thou come to earth, And in great humility.
Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus ! There is room in my heart for Thee.
"Thou camest, O Lord, with the living word, That should set Thy people free ; But with mocking scorn, and with crown of thorn, They bore Thee to Calvary.
Oh, come to my heart. Lord Jesus I Thy cross is my only plea."
This is the faith of the Creeds, this is the Gospel, the good news, the glad tidings of great joy for all people, "unto you is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord." A Saviour, a deliverer, this is what the weary, sin-sick world is asking for, and this is what the Catholic Creeds proclaim.
Christianity is not one of the great religions of the world. It is the revelation of God. It is that or nothing. God has revealed Himself not in a book or by a prophet, but, "God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made
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the worlds ; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." 2 It is this we promised at baptism to believe. Before the war people said, It does not matter what you believe if you do what is right; conduct is the important thing. Of course it was false reasoning, and the war has exploded that idea. The German people are to-day what they are because for forty years they were taught the pagan creed of Nietzsche and Bernhardi. Their conduct and their character are the result of this creed. So the Church requires her members to believe a creed — the Apostles Creed — which is a short form of the great Catholic Creed, the Nicene Creed, drawn up for the most part at the Council of Nicea, A. D. 325; and the Christian creed is the foun- dation of Christian character and conduct.
When faith is spoken of in the New Testament it is sometimes as an act of belief and sometimes as the thing beheved. There is faith and the faith. Those who keep the faith are the faithful, and the Church is "the blessed company of all faithful people." Christian faith is a whole- hearted surrender of mind, body and soul to God. It led the first Christians to sever old associations and family ties, and, confessing their sins, accept in baptism Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. All real faith, whether in business, in science or in religion, leads to action. Faith without works is dead. It is not faith at all.
Repentance and faith are the foundations of the Christian life; without these dispositions Sacraments are of no benefit, for Sacraments are like the good seed which, if sown on hard or stony ground, or uncared for and choked by the cares and pleasures of this world, brings forth no fruit, or no fruit to perfection. That is why so many Christians are
2 Heb. 1:1-3.
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showing no fruits of the Spirit in their lives but are just like other people. They have no real religion because they have no real faith. So I would ask the reader, What does God mean to youf Is He real to you, a tender, loving, Almighty Father, to whom you go with your joys, your perplexities, and your sorrows, and in whom you trust when things seem wrong, and days are dark, because you know and love Him ? What does Jesus Christ, His Incarnation and atoning death mean to you? Do they mean that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever beiieveth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life?" Does your heart thrill with gratitude when you say "through Jesus Christ our Lord" at the end of your prayers, because you remember what it cost God to give you the right to say this? Do you think much of God's love for you? Our religion would be more real if we thought more of God and less of self. What does the Cross mean in your life? Does it lead you to penitence, and speak to you of love and forgiveness? Does it sanctify and enable you to bear your daily crosses with patience and cheerfulness? What does the resurrection of Jesus Christ mean to you? Do you know the power of His resurrection in your life? What does His ascension into Heaven mean to you? Do you often think of Him in heaven ever living to make inter- cession for us ? Does this help you to "carry on," and "with heart and mind thither ascend and with Him continually dwell?"
What is God the Holy Ghost to you ? To most Christians He means less than God the Father and God the Son, but it should not be so. We miss power and joy in our lives if we neglect God the Holy Ghost. By His power we were born again and made members of Christ. He it is that pours upon us His manifold gifts in the laying on of hands at Confirmation, and He it is that brings Jesus to us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. We are the temples of
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tlie Holy Ghost. He is to us "nearer than hands and feet." How much do you think of this ? What does the one Holy CathoHc and Apostohc Church mean to you? Is it to you just a human organization to do good in the world, or is it His new creation by the Holy Ghost, "the Bride of Christ and Mother of us all?" You have often sung the hymn, "The Church's one foundation." Read it over carefully, and see if the Church means this to you. Believing in the Holy Catholic Church means also accepting its teaching and authority, and being loyal to it. What does the Communion of Saints mean to you? Do you realize this fellowship in the Body of Christ as the source of all true friendship, and of all enduring love? There is no such thing as real sepa- ration to those who are in Christ Jesus, and even here we have glimpses of what this Communion may be when "sin shall be no more." How much do you think of the cloud of witnesses about you? And when the strife is fierce, the conflict long, does there steal on your ear the distant triumph song, making you brave and strong?
What does the forgiveness of sins mean to you? The most important thing in the world for us all is to know our sins are forgiven. Do you know what your sins are, and do you know they are forgiven ? What does the resurrection of the body (not the immortality of the soul) and the life everlasting mean to you ? Some day you will die and your body will be laid in the ground. Perhaps you have seen the body of one you loved laid in the grave, and heard St. Paul's wonderful words to the Corinthians, that have helped so many, and are so arresting to the man in the street who never goes to church except to weddings and funerals. Do you know how this mortal body puts on immortality? Do you know what the seed is that is planted in the body, and must be buried and die before it can be raised a spiritual body? Read over the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians in the burial service, and then read the third and sixth chapters
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of St. John's Gospel, and the Baptismal and Communion Services in the Prayer Book, and you will learn the seed was planted in baptism, and the life nourished and kept alive by feeding on Christ in the Ploly Communion. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that eateth my flesh and drinketli my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." What is the Holy Eucharist to you? Is it the very centre of your life? What do your Communions mean to you? Are they a source of strength and joy? Do you make them regularly, prepare for them carefully, and for days after say a thanksgiving, and remember and guard the gift you have received?
"And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Knowing God, not merely knowing about Him, but knowing Him as person to person, friend to friend, is life eternal and is the reward of those who diligently seek Him by faith through prayer and sacraments.
"My faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine I Now hear me while I pray; Take all my guilt away ; Oh, let me from this day
Be wholly Thine !"
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP THE THREEFOLD VOW
Question. What did your Sponsors then for you?
Answer. They did promise and vow three things in my name: First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh ; Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith; And Thirdly, that I should keep God's holy will and com- mandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life. — The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
"No man can serve two masters : for either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Thus our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount puts before us the demand His service makes upon His disciples. We cannot serve Him and serve the world, and will only be unhappy if we try. His kingdom and the kingdom of this world "stand opposed in an everlasting opposition. Neither absorbing the other, but each drawing adherents from each, in an ever-shifting conflict."^ But why is this? Is not this beautiful, wonderful world God's world? Do we not say in the creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth," and do we not see the touch of His hand and His authorship stamped on creation ? Yes, we feel this, and yet, as we look deeper, we see there is something wrong. We look at the world of human society, we read the daily papers, we look into our own hearts, and everywhere we see something is wrong. What is it? The world has many answers ; the Church and Holy Scripture
iThe World.— W. C. E). Newbolt.
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have but one. Sin, they say, is what is wrong with the world, and sin is not ignorance, folly or weakness, the survival of the animal in us which we can outgrow, and which will inevitably disappear from humanity as it progresses and develops, the war has taught us that. "Sin," says St. John, "is lawlessness," rebellion against God and His laws, and sin has produced the discord and misery we see in our- selves and in the world.
"Everywhere in Nature is the reign of law," says Bishop Gore. "The stars and planets in the solar systems move on their appointed courses ; the forces of heat and light and electricity, the various forms of motion, go on each invari- ably by its own law; the life of each plant or body develops or fails according to law ; law reigns over the development of all human faculties and powers, But. . .at the centre of man's being there is a mystery. Man is a moral and not merely a physical being. He can serve with a free service as lawfully as stars or dumb animals, and by his free choice. But he can also rebel. He can know the right and choose the wrong. He may be perfectly enlightened and yet wicked. He may set himself against God, against duty, against lavv^. This is sin in its proper sense. Sin is lawlessness. Sin can, within Hmits, disturb and disorder God's world. I say within limits, for man is not God, and God has not let go out of His hand the government of the world. In the end the universe will reach the end God intended for it. The kingdom of God will come. But, by the way, and (so to speak) down to a certain depth, man can disturb the order of God. He can introduce, he has introduced, lawlessness into the world. * * * When the human body was fitted to the dwelling-place of spirit, man, as a spiritual being, began his career ; he was quite imperfect ; he had everything to learn ; he was simple as a child — 'barbarous,' if you like. But he was not necessarily sinful. He need not have re- belled against God and the laws of his own nature. Had
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he retained his innocence, we cannot doubt that the history of human development would have been more rapid, more glorious — ah, how much more rapid and glorious ! — than, in fact, it has been; for, in fact, it has been at every stage tainted by sin. The first sin is described in the third chapter of Genesis. That chapter, like its surroundings, is probably rather allegory than history. But it is inspired to teach us the deepest lessons of life. It is inspired to teach the true character of sin. Sin is not human nature. It is the viola- tion of the law of human nature. It is lawlessness. It is man refusing God and wanting to be a God himself, and so failing under trial and putting his nature out of joint. This is always and everywhere the nature of sin. Original sin is the result of actual sins. Actual sins are always acts of will by which men reject God, try to be independent of God, and so violate the law of their nature. Sin is lawless- ness." ^ So it is that this world, created for the happiness and the development of man, has become a snare, and may not be freely enjoyed by man. It is indeed, God's world, but "it lieth in wickedness."
There are two beings that strive to win the allegiance of every human being that comes into the world — God and the devil — and at our baptism we, or our sponsors for us, made our choice. Our Catechism reminds us we renounced the devil and all his works. In the revision of the Prayer Book in 1662 the word "renounced" was substituted for the word "forsake." To renounce means to declare war against ; and we promise to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. One of the cleverest things the devil does is to try to persuade us he does not exist. The great world war has helped many to believe in a personal devil, and to see that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against princi- palities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
» The Creed of the Christian.— C. Gore.
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The works of the devil are spiritual sins, and of these the root sins are pride, envy, and anger. St. Gregory called pride," the root of all sin." ^ "It is," says Mr. Eck, "pre-emi- nently the sin of the Devil, the sin which, as some have thought, cast him out of heaven. It is the sin to which he tempted Eve when he said, *Ye shall be as God.' It is the sin of the creature setting itself up against the Creator. * * * As such we see how Pride appeared to S. Gregory, and to those who adopted his enumeration of the seven sins, as the root and ground of them all, for all sin in the last resort is the rebellion of the will against God." Pride is the commonest and most subtle sin and underlies many sins which we do not suspect as having their roots in it. Think what havoc it has wrought in the world, of the ruin it has brought in families, of the friends it has estranged (it is the root of hurt feelings, another name for wounded pride), of the sinners it has kept from repentance, confirmation, and the Holy Communion, of the good things God, would give us and cannot, because we will not stoop 'to receive them. It is the meek who inherit the earth, little as we think it. As the sin of the Father of Lies it assumes the guise of every virtue, especially of humihty. How often a priest is told "I cannot come to the Holy Communion because I am not good enough." "Pride," says a writer on the spiritual life, "seems almost more disastrous than 'the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes,' it seems to blind the conscience and harden the heart more than sins of the flesh."
The only way we can conquer pride, and cast it out of our hearts, is to cultivate the difficult and beautiful virtue of humility. Humility must not be confused with modesty as it sometimes is. Modesty is largely exterior ; humility is
•These seven root sins, commonly called deadly sins, but more properly root or capital sins, are the roots out of which other sins grow. Lying and hatred, for example, may grow from the root of pride or anger or some other sin.
For the definitions of the seven deadly or root sins and the quotations in this chapter, I am indebted to a valuable book — Sin, by H. V. S. Eck, pub- lished by Longmans, Green & Co., in the Oxford Library of Practical Theology.
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interior; modesty may, and often does, exist without humility. "Pride is the enthronement of self on the throne of our personality: Humility is the enthronement of God. All the forms and manifestations of Pride, all the progeny which springs from its root, will be conquered and destroyed in proportion as we attain to a true estimate of self, in pro- portion as we learn to give God the first place in our hearts, the real empire over our lives." Strange and wonderful as it is, it is God Plimself Who shows us true humihty. "He stoops to conquer." "God is great, the cry of the Moslem, is a truth which needed no supernatural being to teach men. That God is little, that is the truth which Jesus taught man, and we find at once so tender and perplexing," says Fr. Figgis.*
Blessed indeed it is to give, but no one can give without hurting until he or she has learned of Jesus how to receive. How unlovely, unlovable and ungracious are those who will do everything for themselves, to whom we can render no service ; or those who in pride take service and gifts for granted or as their right. Such may be drivers; they can never be leaders, for their pride and self-sufficiency kill love and enthusiasm. If we were more careful, more real, more whole-hearted and definite in our thanksgivings to God for His mercies and blessings, many of which come through others, we would be well on the way to learn how to receive with Christian humility.
Humility is the fruit of love — it is self-forgetful love — and in the converted Son of Zebedee — the Son of Thunder — we see pride conquered by love. The dignity, the sweet graciousness, the winning charm of true humility, is pre- eminently exemplified in St. John the Divine, the Apostle of Love, also in our own Saint, John Keble, and in those of the same kind but of lesser degree. If any think humility is a flabby thing, let him read the strong burning words of
*The Gospel and Human Needs.— J. N. Figgis, C. R.
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St. John's Epistles. Pride is said to be the sin of the great, as vanity is the sin of the small, and humility is the virtue and glory of the saints. It is only the big who can stoop, and it is God who stoops the lowest, and reveals Himself to men as a helpless and dependent babe in a manger, and a lowly, despised sufferer on a Cross of shame. He stoops to receive, He allows His creatures, even His enemies, to minister to Him ; this is the wonder of the Incarnation. We can minister to God, we can make Him glad. "Blessed are the poor in spirit : for their's is the kingdom of heaven."
The second spiritual root sin is envy. St. John says the first murder was due to envy, and for envy the Jews de- livered up Jesus^ to Pilate, as he knew. It is one of the meanest of sins. "Envy can never pretend to justice, as hatred and uncharitableness sometimes may," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor. This sin "can only be combated by the very deliberate exercise and cultivation of the contrary spiritual virtues — the virtue of the love of God and of one's neigh- bour— and by the very deliberate setting of one's affections on things above."
Anger is the third spiritual root sin, and it leads to many sins. There is such a thing as righteous anger as there is such a thing as proper pride, but righteous anger is free from self, and made clean by a burning love for God and man. The anger of God is holy and righteous because "it is the anger of Him Who is perfect Love." To combat this sin we must cultivate self-control in thought, word, and deed, and the contrary virtues of patience and temper- ance.
Then again, we renounced the pomps and vanity of this wicked world — the passing show — and promised not to follow nor be led by them. The root sin of the world is covetousness. "It is the sin which stands in 'the lust of getting and the greed of keeping,' the sin which leads a man
•St. Matt. 27:18.
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not only to desire what is another's, but to cling too closely to what is his own." Our Lord expresses this in the parable of the Rich Fool, and St. John says covetousness is idolatry. "It is the sin which puts the creature in the place of the Creator. It is the sin which makes a god of things innocent and even good in themselves, and allows them, little by little, to take up all the affection and interest in a man's life." ^ Love of money, business, pleasure, power, praise, honor, success, and even noble things, like the love of country and family, may become idolatry.
Then, too, we come into the world tainted. We in- herit a diseased nature and a weakened will. A diseased man, or a man with an inherited tendency to a disease, cannot live as a man who is sound. "In sin hath my mother conceived me," cries the Psalmist, and our Prayer Book and Catechism remind us of this, and that our baptism means, "a death unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness : for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace." Every now and then an effort is made by those who would deny the sternness of the Gospel, to strike out or change the words "conceived and born in sin," and "children of wrath" in the Catechism and Baptismal Service. They hurt human pride and offend modern taste. Perhaps, too, Puritanism gave us a wrong idea of the meaning of these words, which express a truth we cannot alter and would be unwise to hide. God does not hate the little child, as the Calvinists taught. He loves him while he is yet a sinner, and opens his arms wide to receive him and make him a child of grace. Every word in the Baptismal Service tells of this. Perhaps it is our neglect of the Old Testament that has made us forget that every child is conceived and born in sin, and needs redemption. A better and more intelligent observance of the Feasts of the Circumcision and the Presentation in the Temple would help us to understand this truth.
•Sin.— H. V. S. Eck.
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But the Catholic Church has never been Puritan. Jesus Christ came eating and drinking, not an ascetic Hke His great forerunner. He was called "a wine bibber" and a "friend of publicans and sinners." His first miracle was not to relieve human misery but to give human happiness. The Sacrament of His Love was instituted in material things — bread and wine — which speak of food and joy. His delight in His creation is shown again and again in sermon and parable, and a fresh delight in nature for itself was a characteristic of the early Christians and a distinctive mark of the Christian Fathers among ancient writers. But while the Church encourages and sanctifies the innocent pleasures of Hfe, she bids her members "sit hghtly" and not "follow nor be led by them." She reminds them, too, that 'what is one man's meat is another man's poison," and therefore to be avoided by the latter, while the former may indulge in it. The man who by his sin has, like Esau, sold his birth- right enjoyment of the good things of life, must cut off his right hand and put out his right eye to be saved. Only by this serious surgical operation and strict self-denial can he at last enter upon his heavenly inheritance. He cannot live as a whole man.
To train us to "sit lightly" tlie Church sets apart one day a week as the Lord's Day that we may remember all our time belongs to God, and also in this way she provides us the time and opportunity so much needed in our busy life for the development of our spiritual nature. Lent calls us to give up for a time the lawful pleasures of life and learn self-control.
And last of all St. Paul bids us remember our duty to our brother. "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient ; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."^ "Where- fore, if meat make my brother to ofifend, I will eat no flesh
' I Cor. 6:12.
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while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." * Thus St. Paul proclaims his Christian liberty and his Chris- tian responsibility.
"Covetousness," says Mr. Eck, "is a sin which needs, more it may be than others, most careful watching, because of its stealthy, creeping nature; a man does not as a rule become covetous at once, it is only gradually that the love of the creature encroaches upon the heart, only at last that it drives out all other love than its own." We can best com- bat this sin by keeping Sunday, by keeping the Christian year of fast and festival, and by generous self-forgetful service of God and man.
We renounced at our baptism the sinful lusts of the flesh, that we should not follow nor be led by them. The first root sin here is sloth, or as it used to be called, accidie, which might almost be translated "don't care." "But while both sloth and accidie are sins of a similar char- acter, they seem rather to proceed from different sides of our nature, if we can so speak, sloth being rather a sin of the flesh, whilst accidie, though not without certain very decided roots in the bodily nature, is very largely a spiritual sin. They are united by the characteristic which is common to both of a certain inertness, a certain indolence, whether of flesh or spirit, which tempts a man to sink down into carelessness and indolence, and a gloomy stagnation of thought and will, and a feeling, from which he finds it diffi- cult, if not impossible, to rise." On the other hand, sloth is bodily laziness, lukewarmness, indifference. In both there is a desire to get through the world with as little trouble as possible, and never to make a stand for principle or accept responsibility. Sloth or accidie is a very common and serious sin in our national hfe to-day, and the cause of much evil in the body politic. People "don't care," "don't want to be bothered," "besides it's no use." How often we hear this ! Sins of omission, so common, so little thought of, and
•I Cor. 8:13.
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so warned against by our Lord, also come largely from this root sin.
"The three great sins of the flesh — Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust — are alike in this, that they all three are the abuse of the innocent and legitimate desires and feelings of the body. So the Catechism speaks of them as 'the sinful lusts of the flesh,' implying what is indeed the fact, that there are lusts and desires which are not sinful. The capital sin of Gluttony is the giving rein to those innocent desires for food or drink." Fasting is the weapon to combat this sin, and temperance the great virtue to cultivate.
The Latin word for Lust is luxuria, or excess, and seems to suggest the peril of the relaxing and softening of the sternness and simplicity which becomes the Christian life. The body becomes the master instead of the servant. The weapons to combat this are avoidance of tem.ptation in bad books, bad plays and bad companions and "the resolute striving and praying for that pure love of God and man, with which no impure affection can co-exist. And the other weapon is that which is fitted for no other sin, the weapon of instant and precipitate flight. It is the one sin with which we can neither argue nor parley, from the very thought of which we are safest if we simply turn and flee."
This list of seven capital or root sins "sums up and specifies the hostile forces which are marshalled in dread array under the banner of the three great enemies of the soul against whom we declared war in the vows of our Bap- tism." ^ They are seven powerful forces of evil, but the forces of good are more powerful, and in the strength of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit received in Confirmation we can win the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us stir up the gift within us by the laying on of hands.
Second. — I promised to "believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith" as contained in the Apostles Creed. ^^ A
» Sin.— H. V. S. Eck. " Baptismal Service.
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Catholic Christian cannot say, "It makes no difference what I believe." He is pledged to believe certain things ; he is in duty bound to understand what these things are, his sponsors are pledged to see he is taught them, and the Church is pledged to teach him. He learns something when he is taught his Catechism, and he learns more at his Confirma- tion, but this is intended to be but the beginning of his educa- tion. In other things his education does not end at twelve years.
The means for our Christian education are the Catechism,
sermons, and the reading of good, sound religious books,
not the light, passing, religious literature of the day, but
books by the leaders of the Church, past and present, who have seen the heavenly vision and believe in the Church
and the Sacraments. "And do you say :" says Bishop Gore, "but I am not a theologian. I am not capable of these diffi- cult tasks of thinking. I am not even thinking of being a clergyman or a religious teacher. I reply: you or I may not have the gifts of a leader of thought ; we may not have the vocation of an Athanasius or an Augustine, or a Hooker, or a Westcott. But the thoughts of all great thinkers need to be apprehended and assimilated by the ordinary man, if they are not to lose their effect. That is what St. Paul seems to claim. He seems to claim that all the Corinthian, or Colossian, or Roman, or Galatian Christians should set their minds to w^ork, and learn not only what they believe, but why they must assert what they assert or reject what they reject. So I seem to see in the Christianity of the period of the Gnostic controversy and in the earlier period of the councils, that, under the leadership of great thinkers, there formed itself a corporate mind of the church. The general body of Christians grew to appreciate the intellec- tual struggle, and to know, with, of course, varying degrees of intelligence, what they were affirming and what they were repudiating. It is such a corporate Christian philosophy —
OBLIGATIONS OF xVlEMBERSHlP 97
such principles of thought held in common by the whole body — that we need to-day and seem sorely to lack." ^^
Then, whether we like it or not, the Church calls on us "to hear sermons," and this should mean not only on Sun- days but special courses on week days in Ivcnt. Unfortu- nately in many parishes the latter have degenerated into lectures on social problems or on the topics of the day, instead of instructions in the Christian faith, and, as some one has said, "Half of the sermons one hears on Sundays, even from men who hold the Faith, could be preached by sectarians, and one- third of them by Unitarians." They have no Sacramental atmosphere or teaching. The Chris- tian year is almost ignored, and the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel that strike the keynote for the week not taken into account at all. Read the sermons by great preachers like Liddon, lUingworth, Scott-Holland, Bishop Paget of Ox- ford, Figgis, and others, and see how different was their preaching. A leading layman said quite recently, "When the Rector preaches on social, political and industrial prob- lems, and tells us how to settle them, not by enunciating fundamental principles but advocating certain plans, I be- come a critic. I am probably better fitted than he to deal with these questions. But when he preaches the faith of the Gospel, he speaks with authority and as an expert, and I listen with respect." Bishop Fisk tells of asking a college student what he would suggest his preaching about to the University. The answer was: "Suppose for a change you give us some straight Christianity ; we get mighty little of it from the college preachers."
"Tell me the old, old story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His Love."
This is what men and women are asking for.
** Orders aad Unity. — C. Gore.
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We forget sometimes how different our Lord's preaching was from that of the modern preacher of righteousness. He struck at the root of evil in human character, and started re- form there in the individual Hfe. His Apostles did the same. They did not, for example, denounce human slavery. They preached the Gospel, and gradually, as the conscience of the brotherhood became enlightened and aroused, they ended it ; but it took centuries to do it. The Tractarians, it has been said, did not so much preach and urge Sacramental confession, as they preached repentance, and set forth in sermon, symbol and Sacrament, Jesus Christ as the Saviour of men ; and men and women believed and came to Jesus to be healed and fed. And when they found Him they fell down and worshipped Him, and opened their treasures and presented unto Him gifts : gold and frankincense and myrrh. Not only at His altars did they offer their gifts, but they carried them to the poor, and the outcast. Religious Orders sprang up, laymen from the Univer- sities went and lived in the slums of London to share their gifts with the less fortunate, while Fathers Lowder, Makonichie, Dolling and Stanton set forth "the praise of God in all its splendour" in the churches. Here the poor could get away from their drab and often squalid environ- ment, and in the light, color, fragrance, and beauty of Catholic worship be lifted up into the presence of God. The cathedrals of Europe are the palaces of the poor. That is why the superman trained his guns on them.
Third. — I promised "to keep God's holy will and command- ments, and walk in the same all the days of my life." Re- nounce— believe — do. Christian life is positive, not nega- tive. It is not merely avoiding evil, although questions for self-examination in many manuals of devotion would lead one to think so. These are probably responsible for the idea that if we do not do, say, or think anything very wrong,
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and can answer all the questions, we are in a satisfactory spiritual state. Nothing could be more misleading.
To conquer our self-will and strive to know and do God's will, making it the law of our life, to keep His command- ments— our duty to God and to our neighbor as taught us in the Catechism — and to walk in the same all the days of our life; this, a life of faith and love, finding its nourish- ment and joy in communion with God in prayer and sacra- ment and expressing itself in service, this is what our re- nunciation and our belief in the Catholic Faith should lead to, and this is our obligation as members of the Body of Christ.
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP
DUTY TO GOD
Question. What is thy duty towards God?
Answer. My duty towards God is To believe in him, to fear him, And to love him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength ; To worship him, to give him thanks : To put my whole trust in him, to call upon him : To honour his holy Name and his Word : And to serve him truly all the days of my life. — The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
The Catechism tells us our first duty as members of the church is to God. And that duty is to believe in Him, to fear or reverence Him, to love, trust, worship, honor, and pray to Him, and to serve Him all the days of our life ; and the Church provides us with the means to do this.
Still day — the first day of the week — is set apart by the Christian Church as the Lord's Day for this purpose. It is not the Jewish Sabbath transferred from the seventh to the first day. It is the weekly memorial of the resurrection, a day of joy and gladness, of obligation and privilege. We keep this day and do not keep the Jewish Sabbath on the authority of the Church. A sect of the Baptists, realizing this and repudiating Church authority, keeps the seventh day, but even they are not consistent Protestants, for they accept the Bible, and there is no authority for the Bible as the inspired word of God but the authority of the Holy Catholic Church.
There are two things to remember about Sunday. First, remember it is the Lord's Day; therefore, it is our duty to go to His house, "to set forth His most worthy
lOO
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praise, to hear His most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul." But cannot I do this at home? we are often asked. I would answer by another question. Do you do it? The only persons I know who do are the "Shut-Ins," who went to Church when they could and now feel deeply being deprived of the privilege. We sometimes forget that the life we entered upon at baptism is a family life, and we have a duty to our Father and the other members of the family. Would a man be considered a good son who never went to his father's house, never sat at the family table or took part in the family life, and said, "I live a good life, and that is all my father should expect of me?" "No," we should say, "such a man does not honor and love his father." And Chris- tian people who do not go to church on Sunday fail to honor their heavenly Father, and if they say the family prayer, they do not strive to live as they pray. The object in church- going is not to hear a sermon or enjoy the music, but to honor Almighty God. Not to get but to give. The Name of God is being spoken against because the children of God do not hallow Elis Name. "Look at your empty churches and your neglected Sacraments. The Church is dead," the world says.
To bear witness to our faith, to publicly honor God, and "set forth His most worthy praise" in public worship is our first duty on Sunday, and the great act of Christian worship is the Lord's own service, the Holy Eucharist. To oiler this Holy Sacrifice every Lord's Day is "our bounden duty and service." Here we enter the courts of heaven and join "with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven" in the eternal Ter Sanctus; here the Lamb that was slain offers to the Father the one "full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Here we can join in offering that Sacrifice, and have part in that great oblation and intercession. From the
102 THE GREEN BOOK
beginning the Eucharist was the great common act of wor- ship offered by the Church to Almighty God every Lord's Day, at least, at which every baptized person was present, if possible. A Catholic cannot and dees not say I can wor- ship God just as well at home, nor does he stay away from church because he does not like the Rector, or because some member of the congregation has offended him.
Then we should hear God's most holy word in Scripture lessons, psalms, hymns and sermons. He speaks to us and we speak to Him. What may we not miss that He has to say to us if we stay away from the services of the Church. And last Vv^e may think of ourselves and ask "those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul."
The second thing to remember about Sunday is to be "in the Spirit on the Lord's Day.'" We get no revelations on the Lord's Day because we are not in the Spirit. What may I do on Sunday, what ought I not to do ? conscientious people sometimes ask. The answer is. Remember the day is set apart as the Lord's Day, and do what is in accordance with the spirit of the day. Seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Christian Church, beyond teaching our obligation to go to church and to offer the Holy Sacri- fice, has given us no definite rules for keeping Sunday. The New Covenant differs from the Old in that it gives us principles to guide us rather than rules and regulations to follow. The freedom of the Gospel calls for a free-will offering — our selves, our time, and our thought. We are put on our honor. There are some general principles, how- ever, that should guide us. First the day should be different from other days. To go to places of amusement, the theatre, the movies, etc., to play bridge, to do unnecessary work, all this should be avoided. What is the difference between playing bridge and playing golf, tennis, or base ball, some may ask? This is hard to define, yet we feel the spirit is
iRcv. 1:10.
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different. The same may be said of tournaments and other amusements where the motive is not purely relaxation. There is the same difference bet wen knitting on Sunday that quiets the nerves and helps one to think, and dressmaking or doing the family mending; between dinner parties and simple Sunday night suppers with a few friends. The spirit of the day should be simple and joyous, not riotous, and should be different from other days.
Second, we should avoid giving unnecessary work to others, and depriving them of their Sunday's rest and relax- ation. Picture galleries and museums that require few attendants should, I think, be open and free Sunday after- noons, especially in winter, and free concerts Sunday after- noons and evenings we will do well to encourage, but we should strongly oppose any Sunday amusements for money. Danger lies there. In France and Germany before the war, in almost every church and cathedral, notices were posted of meetings of Sunday societies, and laws were being passed forbidding Sunday work. Working people were trying to get back their Sundays. Let them hold on here and not be exploited by amusement money makers. Amusement, too, should not fill most of the day ; going to church for half an hour Sunday morning, and taking all the rest of the day for our own pleasure, is hardly giving the Lord Plis due.
Third, we should have time to be quiet and alone, time to read the Bible, time to read a good religious book, and time to think. Fifty years ago everyone had a "Sunday book," and the custom should be revived. After that we may do some other good, solid reading, not religious, which we have not been able to do during the week. In a family there should be also the children's hour. It is hardly possible in our modern life to have family prayers, but it is possible to have the children's hour so charmingly described by Longfellow. On Sunday this consisted in reading from the Bible and from a Sunday book, and some hymns.
104 THE GREEN BOOK
If we are to save our country from the evils that threaten us, we must go back to simpler living, we must revive family life, and we must keep Sunday as the Lord's Day and in His spirit. It is as true of nations as it is of individuals that
"A Sunday well spent Brings a week of content, And a strength for the toils of the morrow, But a Sunday profane, Whatsoever the gain, Is a sure forerunner of sorrow."
The Christian Year. To love God and to worship and serve Him must, and does, produce a certain type of char- acter, and this, the object of all spiritual exercises and knowl- edge, is not for self-satisfaction but for the glory of God. A Catholic religion aims to produce a Catholic character, a well-balanced development of the whole man, and by the Christian Year the Church seeks to have her children live over the life of Jesus, and learn afresh, year by year, with ever deeper meaning, the great facts of the Faith, not over emphasizing or neglecting any doctrine.
The year opens with Advent and the call, "Repent ye ; for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ;" and as we look forward to Christmas, and the coming of our Lord in great humility in our Christmas Communion, we are reminded that He \n\\\ come again one day in power and great glory to judge the world, and that we should prepare to micet Him. Advent leads on to Christmas and the Epiphany season with the ever wonderful message of the Incarnation and its mani- festations.
Then we pass on, as it were, through a gentle twilight, when alleluias cease and the Church puts on her purple robes, to Ash Wednesday, a day of penitence, fasting and prayer, and the beginning of Lent. During the forty days of Lent "the Church requires such a measure of abstinence as is more especially suited to extraordinary acts and exercises of devo-
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP 105
tion." We are called to practice self denial in food and amusements, giving up for a time lawful pleasures, first, that they may not get a hold upon us and become our masters ; second, that we may cultivate our spiritual nature and learn to know God ; and third, that we may give the time and money we save to God. We are to go into training to win our race, we are reminded on Septuagesima Sunday ; we are to practice in a greater degree than at other times the three notable duties : almsgiving, fasting and prayer
Almsgiving covers what we give to the support of the Church and to Missions as well as to charities, helping the souls as well as the bodies of men. The Jews were com- manded to give one-tenth of their income to God ; this was their tax; but beside this they gave thank offerings, sin offerings and other free will offerings. Christians are not taxed; they are put on their honor. Lent calls for more time to be given to prayer, public and private, especially more frequent attendance at the Holy Communion. It is often forgotten that our Lord ranks fasting with prayer and almsgiving as of equal importance. He tells us not to fast with a sad countenance — "the Lord loveth a cheerful giver;" — our self-denial should be a glad offering. Friday is the weekly memorial of the Lord's death, and the Prayer Book bids us keep all Fridays in the year except Christmas Day as days of abstinence, not abstinence from worldly pleasures as in Lent, but abstinence from flesh food — meat. Meat, it will be recalled, was at one time, and still is in some places, a luxury. It was not, however, so much self-denial, as to make the day different, to make us remember the day, that the rule was made. The Irish servant's answer to his master who said he did not keep the Friday fast because he liked fish better than meat is worth remembering. "The more shame to you, Sir, when the Lord has made it so aisy for you," he said.
Fasting adds efficacy to prayer, and the Puritans, who did
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not, like their descendants, eliminate fasting from their reli- gion, emphasized this. Fasting Communions have been the rule in the Church, East and West, from the earliest times. The Anglican Church does not enforce this rule, but did not annul it at the Reformation, and it has been observed by many devout persons in the Church of England ever since the Reformation, and long before the Oxford Movement revived Cathohc practices. When a rule like the Friday fast or the fast before Communion becomes a universal rule of the Church, it is because it meets some need, has some spiritual value, and tends to develop a certain type of char- acter. It is not local; it is Catholic, and those who really believe in the Holy Catholic Church hear the Church.
Lent reaches its climax in the agony and darkness of Calvary on Good Friday, the only day in the year when the Church does not offer the great "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." The calm of Holy Saturday follows Good Friday and breaks into the glory of Easter Day, "the Queen of Feasts," and, like the holy women of old, we go forth in the early morning to find the risen Lord amid the flowers of the garden and in the quiet intimate joy of personal com- munion. "Jesus saith unto her, Mary," and she "saith unto Him, Rabboni." J^.iary might not touch His sacred risen Body, but we may touch Him and receive His Body, because He has now ascended, as He said He would on that first Easter Day, "unto My Father, and your Father ; and to My Go, and your God." ^
Easter is pre-eminently the Lord's Day. All the Sundays of the year reach their climax on this Day of Days, and the Catholic Church throughout the world puts on her festal robes, and, with the best she has to give of art and music, offers to Almighty God with triumphant gladness her cor- porate worship and thanksgiving from the glowing hearts of the early communicants. This Easter joy lingers on
*St. John 20:16, 17.
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during the great forty days to Ascension Day, when we contemplate our Lord carrying our human nature to the right hand of God. During the following days, while the Church waits and watches in expectation of the promised Comforter, the Paraclete, the sacred humanity was being glorified and receiving new powers, which burst into flame on Whitsunday, and the Christian year of fast and festival ends with the Vision of the Holy Trinity and a reminder that hereunto we are called in our baptism. Then the Church takes off her festal robes, puts away for a time her purple, puts on her fresh green dress, and we settle down quietly to common everyday life to grow.
Special days commemorating events in the life of our Lord, of His blessed Mother and of other Saints, however, cover the whole year, lighting up the Trinity season as well as the other seasons. It is curious that people are willing to celebrate days commemorating events in the life of the nation, and keep the birthdays of the nation's heroes, but object to keeping the Christian year and remembering the Saints, the Christian heroes, who have been the choice vessels of God's grace, "and the lights of the world in their several generations." On the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th), for example, we celebrate the greatest event in the history of the world — the Incarnation of the Son of God. The Circumcision (part of the Christmas Festival), the Purification (February 2d), commonly called Candlemas and the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6th), all mark events in the life of our Lord. The Feast of the Trans- figuration was restored to us in the last revision of our Prayer Book, and we may hope another revision will restore the beautiful feast of the Visitation, commemorating the visit of the Blessed Virgin to her cousin Elizabeth, when St. John the Baptist leaped in the womb to greet his unborn Lord, and Mary sang her Magnificat.*
• St. Luke 1:39-54.
108 THE GREEN BOOK
Four times a year on the Ember Days the Church calls us to fast and pray for our clergy, especially those about to be ordained, and the Rogation Days remind us that God gives us our daily bread, and we pray Him to bless the labors of the husbandmen.
The Saints' Days gradually grew so numerous that the great events of the Christian Year were being overshadowed ; so in the revision of the kalendar the Church of England at the Reformation omitted most of these days, but the names of these Saints were printed in the English kalendar in black letters on their proper day, while the great Saints and founders of the Church still have days kept by us in their honor, with special Collect, Epistle and Gospel, and these are printed in the kalendar in the English Prayer Book in red letters. From this the Saints came to be called "red letter" and "black letter" Saints, and many people to-day speak of "red letter days" who have no idea of the origin of this designation for specially marked and joyous days.
On September twenty-ninth we keep the Feast of the Holy Angels, those bright and glorious Spirits so near to us, and directing us and the course of the world so much more than we realize.
"Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright, Filled with celestial splendor and light, These that, where night never followeth day, Raise the "Thrice Holy" song ever and aye.
"These are Thy ministers, these dost Thou own, God of Sabaoth, the nearest Thy throne ; These are Thy messengers, these dost Thou send, Help of the helpless ones! man to defend.
"These keep the guard amid Salem's dear bowers, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, and Powers, Where, with the living Ones, mystical Four, Cherubim, Seraphim bow and adore.
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"Still let them succor us ; still let them fight, Lord of angelic hosts, battling for right; Till, where their anthems they ceaselessly pour, We with the angels may bow and adore." *
Through the month of October this and other ''angelic songs are swelling/' and these and the All i\ngels Collect keep before us the thought of the Holy Angels, to which the month of October has been dedicated for m.any centuries.
November opens with the beautiful festival of All Saints, which commemorates that "great multitude which no man could number," many of whose names and deeds we do not know, who have come "out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple." On the next day. All Souls, we remember our own blessed dead, who rest from their labors, and are being purified and made perfect. During the month there are frequent Requiems, and the hymns speak of the Saints, and of Jerusalem the Golden, Paradise, the Resurrection morning when soul and body meet again, and what the joy and the glory shall be when those endless Sabbaths the blessed ones see.
This leads on to Advent again with its call to awake, arise and repent ; the second and third Sunday telling of judgment, and the fourth bidding us "Rejoice, the Lord is at hand." The Dies Irae is almost as much associated with the second Sunday in Advent as in the Veni Emmanuel with the fourth, and the Adeste Fideles as the first note of Christmas. The Rector of a large city parish, and a well knov;n preacher, who had his music lists printed once a month, when asked how he could select the hymns a month ahead, not knowing what he would preach about, replied that the hymns were chosen proper to the day, as was his Sunday morning sermon.
* It seems a pity that this beautiful hymn should be sung only on one Sunday or in one month of the year. It is quite a suitable general hymn,
8
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although the text was by no means always taken from the Epistle or Gospel. The same Rector in preaching an Ordi- nation sermon, after charging the young deacon, about to be made a priest, never to neglect his morning meditation, and to keep his mornings for reading and study, never giving less than two hours a day to the latter, advised him for at least the first two years of his ministry to preach on the Gospel for the day, unless a Saint's Day came in the octave, when that Gospel might be used. In this way, he told the young priest, he would familiarize himself with the litur- gical Gospels and the spirit of the Christian Year. It was this harmony of color, hymns, music and sermon that made the services in this parish so helpful and satisfying, although many who noted the result did not know the reason.
There are many things to-day tending to interfere with the proper observance of the Christian Year, and one is the frequent requests coming to the clergy to preach on a certain topic on a certain Sunday. We have Temperance Sunday, Civil Service Sunday, and many other kinds of Sundays asked for. These requests are often embarrassing to Rec- tors in small towns where a majority of the congregation have not been accustomed to keep the Christian Year, and do not want the requests ignored. A very wise Rector in one such parish said he did ignore many requests, but when one came from recognized authorities or from an organiza- tion whose request it would seem discourteous to ignore, he introduced some thoughts on the topic in his ordinary sermon for the day, which he had always found he could do without difficulty, and when it served his purpose, as when "Mother's Day" came on Whitsunday, he used the topic, preaching on our Mother the Church and the sanctification of human relations by the Church and the Holy Spirit, thus leading the thoughts in the minds of the people along right lines.
The Christian Year is a real means of grace provided for us by the Church, that year by year we may grow in the
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP 111
knowledge and love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, developing well rounded Christian lives for the glory of God and the edification of the Body of Christ.
The Bible. The Church declares the Bible to be the Word of God, and the Catechism tells us our duty is to honor His Holy Name and His Word. Fifty years ago "the Bible and the Bible only was "the religion of Protestants." "The old Protestant orthodoxy," says Bishop Gore, "stood by the sole and final authority of the Bible as the infallible word of God. But it is exactly this position of the Bible which modern knowledge is making more and more impossible. It is not only that the simple infallibility of the record is com- pletely undermined, but it has become evident that the Bible cannot stand alone. * * * You can very rightly exalt the canon of Scripture, as the church did, as giving the original and authentic form of the apostolic preaching; and you can make it the basis and standard of doctrine. But you cannot reasonably isolate the New Testament from the creed or the episcopal successions, and assert the authority of the one, while you repudiate that of the others : or in particular assert the authority of the first the while you repudiate that of the third. * * * Now it is plain that there are indi- vidual thinkers and scholars who are seeking to meet this serious situation in the true way, by going back to the first principles, and striving to recover and restate the Chris- tianity which is true and permanent ; but unless I am very much mistaken, the general tendency of Protestant Chris- tians, including the ministers and teachers of religion, is to seek refuge from the difficulties of thought in the oppor- tunities of philanthropic or evangelistic action. 'To evan- gelize the masses,' 'to evangelize the world in this generation,' *to break down the barriers of sect and promote union among Christians' : these are the watchwords of Evangelical Chris- tianity today. Admirable watchwords, indeed ! But how can you evangelize the masses unless you have a definite
112 THE GREEN BOOK
doctrine to teach ? All experience goes to show that the more ignorant or poor those whom you wish to evangelize, the more essential it is that you should have clearly expressed doctrines to teach, and clearly defined duties of religion to inculcate. Otherwise your work is shallow, impermanent, or ineffective. * * * Truly we must ask of one another what Joab asked of Ahimaaz : *My son, where wilt thou run, seeing thou hast no tidings ready ?' " ®
And now that modern knowledge has deprived Protestants of their infallible standard many are ready to burn what once they adored. At a recent meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary, the writer heard a young priest fresh from one of our so-called "Evangelical Seminaries" say, in speaking of teaching children the Christian Nurture Series, "First let me say that v/hat we are not to teach is the Bible." Protest- ant and Romanist are at last one in regard to the Bible. Opposed to Protestant and Romanist, however, is the ancient Catholic position expressed in the saying "the Church to teach and the Bible to prove." " 'Do not,' St. Cyril of Jeru- salem says, speaking even to Catechumens, Vlo not believe me simply, unless you receive the proof of zvhat I say from Holy Scripture." "The early Church, believing the Bible to be the guide of individual Christians in faith and conduct," says Bishop Gore, "would have all her members well versed in its contents. They could safely read the Scriptures for themselves and be earnestly exhorted to do so, if only the Church's teaching had first given them the right point of viev/ for their study." ^
This relation of the Church to the Bible was reasserted at the Reformation by the English Church, and it is upon this position that English and American Churchmen take their stand. The late Fr. Sword, who was on very friendly terms with his Roman brethren, used to tell how one day one
' Orders and Unity. — C. Gore.
• Roman Catholic Claims, Chapter 4, "The Bible in the Church," C. Gore. Paper, price 25 cents.
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP 113
of them said to him, "You are so near to us, there is only a piece of paper between us ; why do you not come over ?" To which Fr. Sword repHed, *'Yes, there is only a piece of paper between us, but the Bible is written on that piece of paper." Those who left the Communion of the Church and set up the Bible alone as their infallible authority have not, however, found it a bulwark and a defense against error. "Logic works among men slowly but surely," says Bishop Gore. "I think it will be increasingly difficult to maintain the creed, or Scripture as a standard of apostolic doctrine, torn asunder from the rest of the church's witness." And so we see it working out in the writings and teaching of those who regard the Catholic Church as a human organization. The Bible is treated with ridicule and contempt, especially by the younger men, and this soon passes on to a denial of the Virgin birth and the resurrection of our Lord. A human Church produces a human Christ. It is to scholars and leaders of modern thought, like Bishop Gore, Fr. Figgis, and our own Dr. Hall, Catholic Churchmen who believe the Church to be the Body of Christ, a supernal society, that we must look for defense of the Bible as the Word of God.
Then too, the Bible can never be the same to those out of the Church as it is to those within who believe in Jesus the Christ (the Messiah), the fulfillment of the Old Testa- ment prophecies, the founder of the kingdom promised to Abraham, and the Catholic Church foretold by Malachi. "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering."
The parables and miracles of our Lord, and all His teach- ing as well as His life. His death, His resurrection and ascension, will have a different and a richer and fuller meaning to those who believe in the Church and the Sacra- ments than to those who do not so believe.
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"It can here be taken for granted," says Bishop Gore, "that as the Church existed before the books of the New Testament were written, as they were written for those who were already members of the Church and had received her primary instruction, as she alone witnesses to the inspiration of some of them, as she alone collected them into a canon and drew the line between the Epistle to the Hebrews in which she recognized primary or apostolic authority, and the Epistle of Clement or the Shepherd of Hernias in which she did not, as finally in history the Bible came out into the world simply as the sacred books of a certain society, the Church, accessible to her members and belonging to her alone — it may be taken for granted, I say, that the Bible does not stand alone as giving the Christian rule of faith, but the Bible interpreted by the Church. The Spirit in the society interprets the Spirit in the books."
We receive the Bible as the Word of God on the authority of the Catholic Church. There is no other authority for so receiving it. The Old Testament was received from the Jewish Church and the Catholic Church collected and pro- claimed the New Testament Canon. The Church does not say the Bible is an infallible book, and that those who wrote it were mere machines to write as directed. She tells us that all the books of the New Testament and some of the books of the Old Testament were written by men inspired to give God's message and teach His truth. They had only the knowledge of their day, and their writings expressed their individuality and recollections. One inspired writer, for example, in telling of one of our Lord's miracles may say one person was healed, while another inspired writer telling the same story may speak of several being healed, but this does not affect their message. Some of the Old Testament was not even written by inspired men, but the Church, the inspired Society, put these books in the Canon because they serve the purpose of the book. Dr. Hall says, "The Bible
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP 115
as a whole — the Bible which we have — is a special product of the Holy Spirit's overruling work, and that it has been given us by God to be read for edification in the faith which we have received from Jesus Christ, this is the doctrine of biblical inspiration." '
The purpose of the Bible we see is not to teach us the Faith or to give us life. This is the work of the Living Church. Life can only come from life ; it cannot come from a book, as our Lord told the Jews.® The purpose of the Bible is to confirm and illuminate the Faith. Some one has recently suggested that we omit the Old Testament from our lection- ary, which reminds one of the French Government before the war gravely ordering French history to begin with the French Revolution. St. Augustine says, "The New Testa- ment lieth in the Old," and Dr. Hamilton's book, ''The People of God," has done much to make us see this and to realize that Jesus the Christ came "not to destroy but to fulfill." Our Lord, speaking of the Old Testament, bids the Jews "Search the Scriptures," saying "they testify of me" ; and Fr. Figgis in his last message reminds us, as he has often done before, of the importance of studying the Old Testa- ment and teaching it to children. He tells us it is only as we study the old prophets we can understand our Lord's claim to be the Messiah (the Christ). St. Paul says these old Scriptures were written for our learning, that in reading and studying God's patient and long-sufifering dealings with men, and the long, slow preparation of the world for the Incarnation, we may learn patience and find comfort and hope.^ The Psalms too, the great book of devotion used by our Lord, may be a "lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path."
"The New Testament Heth in the Old and the Old Testa-
' The Bible and Modern Criticism. — F. J. Hall, D.D. Moorehouse Pub. Co., price 25 cents. See also The Creed of the Christian. — Bishop Gore, paper, 45 cents.
«St. John 5:39,40. » Rom. 15:4.
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ment is explained in the New," St. Augustine says. The Gospels giving the very words of our Lord and the story of His life on earth have ever been revered by the Church above all other books, and these with the other books of the New Testament we should constantly "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest." At the close of his Gospel St. John says, *'These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through His Name." That is the purpose of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and if we read it with this in view, we shall find our faith confirmed and illuminated.
"Thus it is only by keeping the whole surface of Scripture constantly before the eyes of the Church at large," says Bishop Gore, "that we can have amongst us the real mind of the Spirit in all its richness and freedom, so that the Church can make fresh starts in view of new needs, so that she can bring forth out of her treasures things new and old, applying the old faith in new ways, because she is drinking constantly through her whole body at the original fount of inspiration. It is the complexity of our rule of faith — taking in the whole Church and the Scriptures and the individual, which is the guarantee that the faith will not be centralized and narrowed, as it goes down the ages." ^^
Nothing has entered so deeply into our national life and has had such influence in forming our national character and our language as the English Bible. Fifty years ago the speeches and writings of our men of letters, and men in public life, were filled with quotations from the Bible, and its incomparable English and the simplicity and beauty of its expression moulded their thought and their style in greater or less degree. Children were taught to memorize not verses but chapters of the Bible, and the children of the Church memorized the Collects and the Catechism also. And what
19 Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
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treasures they laid up against the infirmities of age, when loss of sight, hearing and health creep on. Some of us have been privileged to see what knowledge of the Bible, knowing it by heart in two ways, may mean in old age.
What are the children in Church schools and Sunday schools learning to-day that can compare to this? What treasures are they laying up against the evil days? Are they being equipped with "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," the great weapon used by the Holy Spirit for us in times of temptation? It was our Lord's weapon in His battle with the Devil in the wilderness, and it was His comfort and His cry of dereliction on the Cross. He must have said the twenty-second Psalm many times before, but on the Cross He was entering into its meaning, putting Himself into the words. So we shall find it in knowing Holy Scripture.
Some of us will remember walking for the first time through one of the great picture galleries in Europe. It was very bewildering, and we were becoming tired and confused, when suddenly we came upon a familiar picture, a Madonna perhaps, that hung in a room at home. It was like meeting an old friend, and we sat down before it to rest. Yes, it was the same picture, but oh, so much more beautiful and glori- ous ! And when we got back home and looked at the old photograph it was not the same, it was transfigured. So it is with the Bible. We have read a chapter or a verse often, and it has had no particular meaning to us ; then suddenly one day in some experience or some need it is illuminated and used by the Holy Spirit. It has a message for us ; it becomes part of our hfe and experience, and can never again be meaning- less.
"And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, 'Twill be the Old, Old Story That I have loved so long."
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Reading, "My duty towards God is to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul and with all my strength." That is, with the affections, the intellect, the imagination and the will. This, our Lord Himself says, is the first and great commandment, and to keep it we need to read, to pray and to think about God. Dr. Faber says, ''Other things being equal, a person beginning the spiritual Hfe with a taste for reading has a much greater chance of advancing and of persevering than one who is destitute of such a taste. Experience shows that it is really almost equal to a grace." He goes on to say this taste is attainable, and must be culti- vated if one would make progress in the spiritual Hfe, and he is not speaking only of rehgious reading. He shows how reading fills the idle hour, preventing idle and perhaps un- charitable and wrong thoughts, and how it keeps us from fretting and helps us to control our temper and irritability. At such times, he says, "a book is a strong tower, nay, a very church, with angels lurking among the leaves, as if they were so many niches." And then how it helps our conver- sation, making it more interesting and less petty. "Our books are our neighbor's allies, by making it less necessary to discuss him. It is very hard for a person who does not like reading to talk without sinning." Reading "also makes our piety more attractive to those around us. * * * \Ye are better missionaries in daily society if we have a taste for reading; and this of course does not mean spiritual reading on the one hand, nor on the other that light reading which dissipates our spirit, sullies our faith, and makes our
conversation puerile and frothy." ^^ "A visit to Mrs.
is always a pleasure," said a friend to the writer, speaking of a delightful and cultivated old lady and mutual friend. "She talks about things, not about people ; she appeals to all that is best in you, and you go away feeling refreshed and up- hfted."
i» spiritual Conferences.— F. W. Faber.
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And what a solace a taste for reading is in sickness and in old age. If any one would see what it means to have one's mind the treasure house of the ages, let him read Fr. Con- greves' last book, "Treasures of Hope for the Evening of Life," written at ninety. Our forefathers and the pioneers of our country, east and west, had few books, but how they knew them and how they loved them. All book lovers know there are no better friends than old books, books you have read again and again, and pick up when wearied in mind or body just to read a chapter or two. With our electric light, trolleys, motors, eight hour laws and free text books we are not developing any Abraham Lincolns. "If you like to read, you will read," said the mother of a large family, with many cares and small means, as she laid down the latest English Review, which she had been reading with a baby on her lap, to talk to the writer.
A taste for reading implies a love of knowledge and an interest in things outside of ourselves and our small circle. The self-sufficient individual who "knows it all" is never interesting and does not grow. The physician, for example, who never reads, deteriorates, no matter how clever he is, not only because he does not "keep up to the times," but also because he lacks food for thought, and feeding on himself becomes self-centered and loses his judgment. If he has a real taste for reading, he will not confine himself to books on his profession, but will add to these histories, biographies, religious books, essays, novels, etc., which will broaden his views of life and give him a better understanding of human nature, making him a better doctor.
If this is valuable to those who minister to men's bodies, how much more so is it to those who minister to their souls. Fr. Figgis in urging the clergy to read regularly and sys- tematically, advises their including in their reading good biographies and novels, not that they may preach on them — he never drags the pulpit down to that — but that they may
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have a larger knowledge of life, and also that they may be in touch with modern thought, and thus, in their intercourse with men as well as in their preaching, be able to direct into right channels the currents of thought, at least of those with whom they are associated. Fr. Figgis' own writings and preaching filled with quotations from ancient and modern writers, and expressing and guiding with sympathetic under- standing the aspirations of the new age, are examples of his teaching. Something of what he has done in a big way as the great Seer and prophet of our time, every intelligent man and woman can do in a small way.
Numbers of converts to Spiritualism and Christian Science, it is said, are made among women every year in summer hotels. ^^ How many might be won for God and saved from soul destroying influences, if among these groups there was one well read Churchwoman, able to take an intelligent part in these discussions, point out the false teaching and witness to the truth "as it is in Christ Jesus." The same may be said of men among whom, in clubs and lodges, religion is a frequent topic of conversation. This is the reason the Knights of Columbus are extending their social work. The willingness of men in our colleges and universities to talk religion with one who knows what he or she is talking about, and will talk of it as simply and naturally as the war or the weather, has frequently been shown. The Mirfield Fathers in their visits to our universities remarked on this, and on the simplicity and lack of self-consciousness they found in our young men, God bless them, who have since shown these traits so notably in the offering of their young lives for the salvation of the world from Prussianism. These men v/ill not talk about themselves, but if you keep off personalities, sentimentalism and cant, they will discuss baptismal regener- ation and the difficulties of faith in the supernatural, as
"The Germans said America could be best attacked and conquered through her women.
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naturally as they will discuss Spiritualism or the League of Nations.
For this work solid foundations and a background of good religious reading are necessary. "Spiritual reading," says Dr. Faber, "is itself an essential exercise. It is a special and peculiar form of prayer, the management of which is one of the important features of our spiritual day." But it is not of such reading we are thinking now. By good religious reading is meant the reading of such books as Bishop Gore's "Orders and Unity," Fr. Bull's ''Sacramental Principle," Dr. lUingworth's "Christian Character," Dr. Hamilton's "People of God," Fr. Figgis' "Gospel and Human Needs," and books of a like character, books that inform the intellect, kindle the affections, fire the imagination and stimulate the will. Such reading feeds and furnishes prayer and meditation, and was called by the old Masters "the oil of the lamp of prayer." It also keeps our point of view right and our mind straight, and prevents our being carried away by attractive theories and becoming entangled in bewildering sophistries.^^
A priest who has come to us from the Presbyterians told the writer, that for the first three years of his ministry he read no religious books but those by the great teachers of the Church, past and present. He wanted, he said, to absorb the Church's spirit, to get the Church's point of view, and to learn the Church's language, as one goes to live in a French family where no English is spoken to learn French. Would there were more like him. Many come into the Church and while quite orthodox never see the heavenly vision.
Fr. Figgis saw the vision, and felt the difficulties of the Christian faith as only one possessed of "singular gifts of the Holy Ghost," intellectual and spiritual, can feel them.^* He
'* In such reading it is best not to read more than one chapter a day, and perhaiis read each chapter twice. ** Fr. Figgis was the son of a Congregational Minister.
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saw too an impending catastrophe and the breakdown of our civilization long before it came, and he is (for though he be dead, he speaketh) the prophet of the new day, the interpreter of the Gospel of the Cross to a new world, and in his Hulsean lectures on the Gospel and Human Needs, delivered in 1908, he "blazed the trail." "These lectures," he says, "do but express the way in which to one man alive to 'the currents of troubled thought' the truth of the Cross shines out and what seems a hindrance has been made a help." "My point is," he says in the introduction to the new edition of this book (1912), "that whatever its diffi- culties, the Gospel is congruous with life as it is lived ; by the child, the youth, the soldier, the peasant — and all who struggle and sin. Compared with this the mere speculations of a certain small class devoted to theory, and a larger class who make use of their theories as a luxury, are of but little weight." So while he urges Christians to be thinkers and dreamers, he points out the dangers of pure intellectualism and the vagaries of self-centeredness. "Those for whom life means largely reflection are tempted to make their religion a matter of ideals and personal fancies; and they resent the harshness of external facts," he says. A warn- ing always needed by "bookie" people.
For educated men and women in this new world and this new age, his books pointing out where danger lies, and how to steer a straight course, are invaluable. Among his last words he emphasizes what he has often said before of the soundness of English education. In speaking of outdoor sport he says, "No greater snare lies before the man of intellectual interest than the itch to despise it." ^^ Like Newman, with whom he was deeply sympathetic, he was "an admirable instance of the growth of Evangelicalism into the richer life of Catholic Christianity, and of the profound connection between the two." Of him can truly be said
*• Hopes for Knglish Religion. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
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what he wrote of Newman — translating nineteenth into twentieth century — "His was the most subtle, acute, and sympathetic mind which devoted itself to the problem of religion as a whole in the nineteenth century. Impressed at once with the duty and the difficulty of defending the Chris- tian life as the most reasonable view, he saw the need of understanding its adversaries, and of using the appropriate new w^eapons. Archery is no longer of service, now that gunpowder has become general. What he did \vas to intro- duce gunpowder into apologetics — and thus to originate a vast movement in the direction of definite faith — and to pro- vide new weapons more appropriate than the outworn scholastic long-bow." Again, "What he actually did w^as to bring religion under the category of life, instead of treating it as an aggregate of propositions to which assent is de- manded on grounds intellectually coercive." ^^
But while like Newman "alive to the currents of troubled thought," wath the intellect of a genius, the temperament and vision of a seer, and the heart of a child, he escaped making Newsman's mistakes ; probably largely from a different early training. Of Newman he says, "The truth is that those who yielded to his own wishes and his mother's fears, and saved him from the knocking about of a public school, probably did him a deeper injury than any among his numerous ad- versaries. Newman's sensitive temperament might not have allowed him a happy life at school ; but he would have had a far happier manhood and old age if he had roughed it as a boy." Then too, Fr. Figgis lived through the great w^orld war, from which we were so far removed, and in which we took a noble but small part. He saw the workings of the Roman ecclesiastical system in Ireland and in Canada as well as in Belgium, and he saw the failure of the Papacy in a world crisis. "He had to be neutral," his defenders say of the Pope.
»• The Fellowship of the Mystery.— J. N. Figgis, C. R.
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The effect this neutrality has had upon those who have been near to it, and endured the agony of that great conflict, is reflected in "Hopes for English Religion." There too is shown by the writer a fine discrimination between the Catholic religion as practiced by devout Roman Catholics and the Roman system. ; and an exultant joy in not being obliged to endure the latter to have the former. To him, with his love of truth and faith in human freedom, there was no attraction in infallibility, of which he says, "All that we know about human life and society combines with all that we have been given in the Christian revelation to drive us to a passionate and resolved repudiation of the Ultramontane monstrosity, rightly styled by the great Puritan allegorist : 'Giant Pope.' " "The Papalist theory is not a gift of re- vealed truth ; it is the pillage of the Roman law-books." ^^
To the lon^ roll of honored names of Doctors of the Church who have taught men liow to love God with all the heart, the mind and the soul must be added the name of John Neville Figgis, D.D., Litt.D., priest of the Community of the Resurrection. May he rest in peace.
To him his spiritual mother was no stepmother, but a true mother dearly loved and sorely tried ; neglected by her chil- dren and assailed by her enemies on all sides. In her defense he fought ; to her he gave his best ; like John Inglesant, in her he found a home for his free and restless spirit ; and kneeling at her altars in "the hush before the Blessed Sacra- ment" the wonder and joy of the mystery filled his soul.
"Lord, I am not high-minded: I have no proud looks. I do not exercise myself in great matters : which are too high for me. But I refrain my soul, and keep it low, like as a child that is weaned from his mother: yea, my soul is even as a weaned child. O Israel, trust in the Lord : from this time forth for evermore."
" Hopes for English Religion. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP
DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOR
Question. What is thy duty towards thy Neighbor?
Answer. My duty towards my neighbor is To love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me : To love, honour, and succour my father and mother : To honour and obey the civil authority: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters : To order myself lowly and rev- erently to all my betters : To hurt nobody by word or deed : To be true and just in all my dealings: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart : To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering : To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's goods : But to learn and labour truly to get mine own living. And to do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me. — The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
There is no word more prominent to-day in speech and writing than the word "service," unless it be that overworked word democracy. We have military service, social service, home service and many other kinds of service, yet never have there been fewer wilhng to serve. The war has devel- oped many capable, enthusiastic workers, but outside the Army and Navy, rightly called the service, few servers ; for service means subordination, obedience, and self-effacement.
The call of the Lord is a call to whole-hearted service — a service of prayer, praise, obedience and work. A personal service to a personal God. Is it not better to give to the poor than to go to church and say prayers? is often asked. Judas thought so, or at least said so, when the woman who loved much because she was much forgiven broke her
9 "5
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alabaster box, and poured the precious ointment on the Lord's Sacred Body; but the Lord commended her. All true love is generous. It seeks to share, to express itself in sacrifice, and the supreme example is God Himself Who is love. His love expressed to us first in His self-limitation in the creation of free beings to share His happiness and some of His power, and, second, in His self-limitation in the Incarnation and its extension, shows us what love and serv- ice mean, and how to love our neighbor as ourself. There is a right and a wrong self-love. Portia expresses the humility and dignity of a right self-love as she says to her lover —
"You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand Such as I am ; though for myself alone, I would not be ambitious in my wish, To wish myself much better; yet for you, I would be trebled twenty times myself; A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times More rich."
This is what every true lover feels. As Chesterton &ays, when anyone falls in love, he or she discovers humility.
It is impossible to love God and not seek to be with Him in prayer and Communion ; and it is just as impossible to love God and not love our neighbor. "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." It was the mystic St. John, not the practical St. James, who said this.
The Catechism specifies certain persons to whom we owe duty, reverence and service. "To love, honour and succour my father and mother : to honour and obey the civil author- ity : to submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters : to order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters," this we are taught is our duty as members of Christ. It sounds strange and old-fashioned to-day. Honour, submit, obey — these things are out of date, or were
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before the war. "Betters indeed, what nonsense," says the modern man and woman with scorn. "We live in a democ- racy where all men are equal." But all men are not equal. Some are clever, while others are stupid ; some have physical handicaps, others have robust constitutions and good health. It is equal opportunities and the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness a democracy promises, and such rights can only come to men in a social order, and that means law, authority, discipline and subordination. These things can never be secured in a state where everyone does just as he pleases. A state of anarchy is not a state of freedom, of opportunity or of happiness. Russia has taught us that if we did not know it before. Our forefathers did know it. They had seen the French Revolution and its end in an Empire.
The teaching in this definition of our duty to our neighbor seemed natural and proper to the founders of our constitu- tional democracy. They knew self-government could only exist if the members of the state learned to exercise it upon themselves, and were willing to subordinate their own wishes for the commonweal. When a people lose this power of self-government, and the utter independence of the indi- vidual is asserted, the result is lawlessness and anarchy, ending in the tyranny of mob and minority rule, always fol- lowed by a dictator or a conqueror. "He that loveth his life shall lose it." To the Christian, subordination is not an unnatural and strange thing. He knows it does not mean inequality ; it is merely a matter of order. God the Son is equal with the Father but subordinate to the Father in His work. A private in the Army may be a better and a cleverer man than his captain but he is subordinate. A cap- tain may be better educated and higher in the social scale than his colonel, but he is, nevertheless, subordinate, and orders himself lowly and reverently to all his betters (supe- riors in rank) to use the quaint old English term. It is by
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losing our life, our liberty and our personal happiness (desires) in the brotherhood that we find these things.
Reverence and obedience to lawful authority, as the Cate- chism teaches us, must be learned at home and at school. Lack of respect and obedience to parents and teachers passes on to the Church and the State, and its climax is written on the socialist banner, "No God, No Master." Men and women to-day are rejecting the Lordship of Christ because they are rejecting the authority of His representatives in the home, the Church and the State. This is true of all classes of society. It is through human relationships and human love that we learn to love and obey God, and it is in God alone these human relationships are enduring even in this world.
The duty of "doing good," of giving to charities, of serv- ing on boards, in short, the duty of social service is acknowledged among us everywhere to-day even by those who do and give little. Our danger is in making a religion of social service, and making our duty to our neighbor in- stitutional rather than personal. It must not be forgotten that a working woman defined social service as "minding everybody's business but your own" ; that even the poor need something more than coal and potatoes, as a poor woman said in speaking of her Rector. It is much easier to be patient and sympathetic with a deaf person in an in- stitution than in the family or the parish. "When a very unreasonable and exacting woman comes to me in the store, I always know she is an uplifter and a reformer," said a shop girl to the writer.
"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us !"
It would also help if we would remember how much ?n us others put up with, and how we get on their nerves. It is the principle, the spirit of Christian duty and service,
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that is taught us in the Catechism. Lazarus does not He unnoticed and uncared for at the gate of the man who loves God, for He who loves God loves His brother also.
A right self-love and self-respect, and a right love for our neighbor will lead us "not to covet nor desire other men's goods ; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me." Suppose men and women were to say, We will put these teachings into practice and try them for a month. What would happen? Order would be re- stored, the wheels of government and of society would run smoothly, the look of strain and worry w^ould disappear from faces, and happiness would come back to the world. This is what happened when the Gospel was first preached in a world very like ours. Those who believed and put in practice the laws of the kingdom of God found, as the Master said, they were the laws of happiness. Happy are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those hungering for righteousness, the merciful, the peace makers and the pure in heart.
We have been called of God to a certain place in the world, in society and in the Church. It is doing our duty in the state of a child that enables us to go up higher, and it is doing our duty in a certain place in society that fits us for something better. We have been called of God to serve Him in a certain family, in certain civil and social relations, and in a certain parish and a certain part of the Catholic Church. We are not called to ease and ecstasy, but to warfare. God needs us in the place He has put us to do a certain work for Him. When this is realized we will not be "upset" when things go wrong in the parish or in the Body, and think of giving up. Rather we will say, "I may not like it but this is our job, nay, this is my job, and I am going to stick to it." If wc arc living in His Body, in
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union with Him, we will expect the fiery darts of the wicked that strike Him to strike us. Have we not prayed "Within Thy wounds," close to Thy Sacred heart, "hide me" ?
We cannot do our duty to God and our neighbor and have a comfortable time, but if we learn of Him Who pleased not Himself, obedience, subordination and humility; if we deny ourselves and take up our Cross and follow Him; if we care for His little ones and His poor ; we shall be re- warded with His "Well done," and enter into the joy of the Lord even here and now, and more fully when He comes in triumph. This is the teaching of the Incarnation and the Cross, and it is in the spirit and by the power of His Incarnation and His Passion we must do our duty to God and our neighbor.
"Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory ; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than them- selves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus : Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Where- fore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." ^
»Phil. 2:3-11.
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS
"It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church — Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which Offices w^ere evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by public Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority. And therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed in this Church, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the said Functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal Consecration or Ordination." '
The picture given in popular modern literature of the life and work of Christ is that of an evangelist and philanthro- pist, going about preaching and healing the sick, a reformer and prophet of blameless life and revolutionary teaching, who died a martyr, and the record of whose Hfe and teach- ing has been preserved for us in the writings of His disci- ples. Christians are described as those who take His life as their example, and follow His teaching, which each one interprets for himself. These Christians, it is said, have formed themselves into societies according to their tastes, that they may study and practice His teaching and make it known to all men.
When we are told that God committed His truth to the world in this fashion, we very reasonably say it does
* Preface from the Ordinal, Book of Common Prayer.
X3I
132 THE GREEN BOOK
not correspond with what we know of Him, and therefore, it does not seem to us Hkely to be true. In nature all is law, order and system ; and we learn from history that He chose among the ancient peoples one people, the children of Israel, to be His peculiar people, and to them He revealed His name and purposes. Of them He founded a Church, with orders of ministry and a system of worship, of sacri- fices, symbols and ceremonial. To this Church He gave the law and through it spoke by the prophets. "Salvation is of the Jews," our Lord told the woman of Samaria. But the purpose of this election was not their own advantage but the good of all. The promise to Abraham was "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
Then we turn to the New Testament, and there we see this popular teaching regarding our Lord's life and work does not correspond with these records. From the Gospels we learn that the Christ lived for thirty years in Nazareth, not healing the sick and preaching, but living the life of an ordinary peasant, and, as far as we know, unnoticed and unknown. When He came forth from His retirement we find Him "numbered with the transgressors" at Jordan, to receive with them from His great forerunner the Baptism ©f Repentance, that thus He might fulfill all righteousness. After His baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon His Sacred Humanity, and the Voice of the Father was heard accepting this offering of Himself as the Son of Man. Thus, by the power of the Holy Ghost, He was ordained for His ministry, thus His Apostles were ordained, and thus every priest in the Catholic Church ever since has been ordained.
It was after a night of prayer that we see our Lord choosing among His disciples the twelve to be His Apostles, the foundation stones upon which He would build His Church. "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," He told them; and if His object was to select men to write a book of Him and His teaching. He certainly made a strange
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS 133
choice. But this was not His purpose. He was calHng the twelve to be witnesses. "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth," He told them. The training of these men was His great work, and unto them it was given "to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but unto others in parables." His miracles were acts of mercy, "redemptive acts," "His works," and to be regarded as "Signs"; "That ye m.ay know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (He saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house" ; and when men did not so regard His miracles but sought Him because they "did eat of the loaves and were filled" He rebuked them, and more than once we are told He could do no mighty work because of unbelief. Sometimes the Church has forgotten to show the Signs of her commission in corporal works of mercy, and at other times she has forgotten that these are but Signs, and that her real commission is to preach "the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins." In either case she fails in her Mission.
During the forty days between our Lord's resurrection and ascension He spoke to the Apostolic band of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and gave to them their great commission and their authority. At Pentecost, when they had received the promised power, we read in the book of the Acts how they started out without hesitation to organize the Church. Members were admitted by baptism upon profession of repentance and faith; the Holy Spirit was given by the laying on of the hands of the Apostles ; the first day of the week, the memorial of the resurrection, was made the Christian day of obligation, and on this day the Eucharist, the only service ordained by Christ, was celebrated as nearly as possible to the smallest detail of
134 THE GREEN BOOK
ceremonial as He had done it. The record of this latter has been preserved for us in the ancient Liturgies.
As the Church grew and the work increased, the Apostles said, "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God to serve tables ;" so at their bidding the disciples chose seven men full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them and delegated certain authority to them.- To other men even greater power was given. St. Luke tells us in the Book of the Acts that the Apostles "appointed elders for them (the Galatians) in every Church," and Bishop Gore says in his book on Orders and Unity, "We may assume that this was their regular habit ; and that the elders, also called bishops, whom we hear of later in other churches, such as Ephesus and Philippi, were appointed by the apostles, and that their appointment was with the laying on of hands. At Ephesus in particular we know that at the time of the Pastoral Epistles this method of ordination existed, and had attached to it the idea of the special gift of the Holy Ghost needed for the pastoral administration."
Then we pass on to other Christian writings, and find one of the most important witnesses to the early form of church government in Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who about 110-117 was carried to his martyrdom at Rome. "He moves through Asia in the custody of a maniple of soldiers, whom for their harshness he calls 'ten leopards.' But his progress is converted into a sort of triumph. The churches send deputations to him at Smyrna, and he writes letters to the churches of the Ephesians, Magnesians, Tral- lians, and to the church of Rome. From Troas later he writes to Philadelphia, Smyrna, and Smyrna's bishop. Poly- carp. These extant letters from a man who was probably an old man at the end of the first decade of the second century are of extraordinary interest. They are full of a passionate
•Acts 6:2-6.
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS 135
holiness and a rich theology of the incarnation. But we are concerned only with their witness to episcopacy. Ignatius sees nebulous forms of heresy and lawlessness threatening the young churches with dissolution ; and he pleads passion- ately with them to rally round their officers, that is, the bishop, presbyters, and deacons in each church. * * ♦ Nothing could exceed the strength of his witness to the threefold ministry as being the only form of church govern- ment."
"This testimony of Ignatius, whose letters are undoubtedly genuine, is of overwhelming strength. Plainly the trans- ference of the name of bishop from the presbyters, who had undoubtedly borne it, for instance, at Ephesus, had taken place with general agreement, and the bishop, though he was surrounded by his presbyters and deacons, represented, as we should say, a different order. We have very good reasons for believing that the establishment of 'monepis- copacy' — the rule of the single bishop in each church — had come about in Asia through the influence of St. John the apostle." ^
There are some students of history who believe there was a time when many of the churches were governed by a substantially equal college of presbyter-bishops. Of this Bishop Gore says: **If all presbyter-bishops held at a certain period in certain churches substantially equal author- ity and there was no superior over them, then in exercising the chief authority — for instance, in ordaining others to succeed to their office — they were only doing what they were appointed to do. They were in the same position as the presbyters of any modern diocese would be in, if they were all, in modern phrase, in episcopal orders. They were not arrogating to themselves anything which those who set them in their office had not appointed to them. The principle of succession was quite unbroken, whether
• Orders and Unity. — C. Gore.
136 THE GREEN BOOK
in each church there were many bishops or one. * ♦ ♦ I must say that to me this transition is very hard to reconcile with the inveterate and unhesitating strength of the tradition of monepiscopacy — one bishop only in each church, instituted by the apostles — as it existed in the latter part of the second century. * * * gy^ j^- jg ^^qj^ ^ matter which affects the principle of succession." *
The number three signifies completeness. The complete- ness of the Holy Trinity is reflected in the human family : father, mother, and child or children, and in the church by the three orders of ministry. But it is not so much the num- ber or form of ministry the Church stands for, as it is the principle of succession. This is, that to be a minister in the Catholic Church, bishop, priest or deacon, a man must re- ceive authority from one who has the power to give it. It is the same in the State and in all ordered government. Suppose a man were to say, "I am an American, and in our country all men are equal. I therefore will appoint Mr. Blank an Ambassador to France. I consider him better fitted for the position than the man appointed by the Presi- dent." And suppose the man went to France on this appoint- ment and with these credentials, would he be received by the French Government, and allowed to act as the repre sentative of the United States? Or suppose a man were to say, "I am as good as the Governor of the State. I, therefore, will pardon the men sentenced to the penitentiary." Would they be released on his order?
After His resurrection our Lord as the Son of Man tri- umphant over sin and death, said to the apostolic body, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway,
* Orders and Uni^, — C. Gore.
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS 137
even unto the end of the world. Amen." '^ And again: "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And v^rhen He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."^ The Catholic Church teaches, and has taught always and everywhere, that no other commission and no other authority has ever been given than the one given to the Apostles, and to be a minister in the Catholic Church, an ambassador of Christ, a Steward of the Mysteries, one must receive authority and power from one who has him- self received from a successor of the Apostles the authority and power to convey it. This is the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. It is held by two-thirds of the Christians in the world today, and for fifteen hundred years it was un- disputed.
"The ministry in the Church, perpetuated in accordance with this principle of devolution has taken one form, vis. that in each church there has been a bishop with presbyters and deacons ; and the bishops only have held the authority to or- dain others to the ministry. This particular form of ministry (monepiscopal) undoubtedly comes from the apostolic days. Its establishment as the one form of church ministry may be regarded as due to the authority of the church, but it has been as deeply and universally established in Christendom as the creed or the canon of Scripture. * * * There was a wild ferment of ideas round about and within the Church in the sub-apostolic period : but men were to look to the bishops as the maintainers of the tradition of sound words. Also in their hands was the administration of the sacraments ; and the Christians must receive from no hands but theirs or their delegates' the indispensable food, and join in no eucharist of which they were not the leaders.'^ Thus the
« St. Matt. 28:16-20.
• St. Tohn 20:21-23.
* Italics mine.
138 THE GREEN BOOK
Christian body in each place was kept together. Thus the continuity of the religious tradition was maintained and *the hearts of the children were turned towards their fathers/ Moreover the local president, the bishop, received his author- ity not from the congregation, but from those who were bishops before him, back to the apostles and apostolic men. Therefore, even in the smallest community, the bishop represented the great church; and the fellowship of the bishops amongst themselves kept all the local churches to- gether. It kept each little congregation in conscious fellow- ship with a body wide as the world. Thus the bishops stood for local cohesion, for continuity, and for Catholicity."
"History makes it evident that the forces which tend toward division w^ere at work in the church from the first. 'Views' in religion were never more prevalent — are not more prevalent now — than in the second century. The influence of schismatical personalities was never more deeply felt. Local jealousies and congregational antipathies were then as now a part of human nature. What kept Christians together, on the whole so successfully, was this universally understood obligation of the Christians to adhere to the apostolic ministry." ^
In the sixteenth century the storm known as the Refor- mation broke out over Europe. The arrogant and un- catholic claims of the Papacy, its spiritual and political power, the corruption in the church denounced by all right- minded men, clergy and laity alike, and the failure of the Councils of the fifteenth century to effect reforms, are re- sponsible for the judgment and catastrophe that rent western Christendom. The reformers, Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, differing in many things, "are at one," says Bishop Gore, "in basing the church upon the preaching of the pure word of God, which they could not find in *the Pope's church' : and in repudiating with contempt the idea that the power
^ Orders and Unity. — C. Gore.
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS 139
to ordain pastors for the true church of Christ depended upon succession to the officers — whether bishops or priests — of that communion of which Calvin said, 'the form of the legitimate church is not to be found either in any one of their congregations or in the body at large.' "
"This view of the Reformation would be accepted by the vast majority of Protestants to-day. There exists, however, a school of Presbyterian theologians who seek to maintain, apparently, the whole principle of apostolic succession, only contending that the power of ordination belongs always essentially to the presbyter as well as the bishop, and can be validly exercised by him, at least on an emergency. On this basis they would maintain that the valid succession has been maintained in the Presbyterian churches ; and would draw a distinction between the Presbyterians on the one hand and the mass of the Protestant bodies, Congregation- alists, Baptists, Methodists, &c., on the other."
"There does not seem to me to be evidence that, on the catholic principle of orders to which they appeal, they could justify the claim that the Presbyterian churches have 'main- tained the succession,' even if the fundamental identity of presbyter and bishop were admitted. Certainly, as I have said, the need for the maintenance of such a succession from the mediaeval priesthood would have been indignantly repudiated by the founders of the Reformed churches." (Italics mine.)
"But I speak with much more certainty when I say that the claim that a sixteenth-century presbyter had, even on an emergency, the same authority as a bishop to ordain, is totally unjustifiable. The catholic principle of orders is that a man must have received the authorization to perform whatever ministry he can validly perform by devolution from above."
"These Scottish divines appeal to catholic principles and church law, and on catholic principles and church law
140 THE GREEN BOOK
they have, it must be emphatically said, no case at all. The sixteenth century presbyters who took part in ordaining the reformed pastors, to do them justice, do not seem to have claimed to do so because they were priests under the old succession ; but if they had done so, they would have been claiming a power which, according to the undisputed mind of the church, they had never received." (Italics mine.)
"I revert, then, to what is, I believe, 'the fundamental religious principle of the whole Reformation movement,* vis. the repudiation of the conception that authority to minister is given in the church only by devolution from above, on the principle of succession to the original apostolic ministry. I believe that in repudiating this principle the Reformed churches were — with whatever excuse — repu- diating a law of divine authority in the church, and also an essential principle of the church's continuous life."^
The difficulty in our discussions of Christian unity with Protestants is our different point of view. The Church to Protestants is a human organization, the historic episcopate a question of order and government, and the whole propo- sition purely utilitarian, so we must expect them to consider us narrow, though we belong to the larger part of Christen- dom. Protestantism is a very small part. Then, too, most of them know very little of their own early history. They do not know that they have come back to things for which they left the Church, and have given up their own distinctive teaching. May we not therefore say to them, "You have tried your experiment ; you thought you knew better than your mother how to win the world for Christ and make men holy ; but you have failed and had to come to her ways — come home." "You w^ere sorely tried and not given the help and encouragement in your work and ideals that you should have had from your mother," we may say to the Methodists ; "your mother is greatly to blame and
* Orders and Unity. — C. Gore.
THE CHURCH AND ITS OFFICERS 141
acknowledges her fault, but she is your mother — come home." Many hear this call, see the heavenly vision and come ; others do not see it or hear the call, and some turn away unwilling to make the sacrifice.
The Evangelical Protestant in coming into the communion of the Church, takes a step forward and comes home. He renounces nothing of his past, he just goes on. But a Protest- ant (or Anglican) who goes to Rome makes a declaration of renunciation and denunciation of his past, which is quite different. While we find much to admire and learn from the Roman Com.munion, we cannot fail to denounce and repudiate the narrovv'ing of tlie Catholic Faith, by the un- historic claims of the Papacy which have divided Christen- dom. But we all have sinned — Catholic and Protestant — Anglican, Greek and Latin — and we must all repent.
To sum up : — the Holy Catholic Church in which we con- fess our faith in the creeds is a supernatural society, its members endowed with a supernatural life, its officers exer- cising supernatural powers for the benefit of the Body, and its Sacraments conveying supernatural life and gifts. The officers of the Church are "Stewards of the Mysteries," and the duty of a steward is to guard the treasure and to dispense it to those entitled to receive it. "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs" (unbelievers), "neither cast ye your pearls before swine" (the indifferent and scoffers), "lest tliey trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you," our Lord said in His Sermon on the Mount. In this He was endorsing the teaching and training given by God to the Jewish Church..
When men see the heavenly vision they either go sorrow- fully away, like the young man who came to Jesus but would not make the sacrifice to get it, or they follow it, like St. Paul who gave up everything — pride, old ties, future prospects, ease — everything for Jesus, the Pearl of great price, found 10
142 THE GREEN BOOK
in His Church and Sacraments, the extension of the In- carnation.
When the Church arises in her Pentecostal might, holding up in preaching, in Sacrament and in life, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and calling men to repentance, not three thousand, but three hundred thousand, pricked to the heart, will cry out "What must I do to be saved."
"Thy sins be forgiven thee" — that is the message this weary, sin-sick world is longing for, and that is the message the Church is commissioned to give to the penitent. "But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And He arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men." ^ When the world learns that Apos- tolic succession means this, there will be no further boggling over "the Historic Episcopate." The issue will be clear.
O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee ; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.
•St. Matt. 9:6-8.
THE ONE BODY
The Church in which we profess our faith is described to us as one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church — holy because indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and her work to produce sanctity — Catholic because she is for all ages and all peoples, and holds and teaches the whole truth — Apostolic because built upon the Apostolic foundation — and one because of the one life within her,^ These characteristics are not per- fectly realized as yet ; they are matters of faith but they are all in the Body and the evidences are there. When we make this claim Protestants on one hand and Romanists on the other say, "The only logical thing, if you believe this, is to be a Roman Catholic. Why not be the whole thing?" And we answer, "Because Rome is not the 'whole thing,' and we prefer to be Catholic not Roman, American or Anglican, just Catholics belonging to the American Church." We will not narrow our title or our inheritance. We protest against the claim of Rome to be the whole Church, and this protest gains enormously in weight by being joined to the protest of the Great Eastern Church with its millions of CathoHc Christians. Its Orders and Sacraments are recognized by Rome ; but no Methodist could use stronger language in denouncing the Roman and Papal claims than the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Eastern Church.
We may well then ask on what does Rome base her arrogant claim, which has rent the Body of Christ. First, she
1 "The Church preserves her unity by maintaining continuity in faith and order with the Society which was founded by our Lord and planted in the world by His Apostles. Continuity in order and also, to a great extent, in faith, is maintained through the Episcopate. So far all the historical churches of Christendom are agreed and nave been agreed from the second century onward. The Roman Church stands alone in adding a further condition." — The Holy Catholic church. H. B. Swete.
143
144 THE GREEN BOOK
claims that our Lord gave St. Peter a special commission and authority in the Apostolic Body when He said to him, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." Second, that the Bishops of Rome are the successors of St. Peter and inherit this special commission and authority. Third, that a visible Church requires a visible head ; that this visible head as the Vicar of Christ is infallible when he speaks B.v Cathedra, that is, as the head of the Church. Bishop Gore, in his book on "The Roman Catholic Claims," has answered these and other questions very fully, and has also shown the position of the English Church clearly, and educated Churchmen and women will do well to read this book. To stimulate this interest and answer these questions the fol- lowing extracts are given :
For the answer to the first question we must go to "our Lord's own subsequent words and conduct" ; to "the lan- guage of the Acts and Apostolic Epistles, including St. Peter's own" ; and to "the interpretation of the Fathers." ^ From all these we learn that the Church of the first centuries held that "what is promised to St. Peter in virtue of his con- fession of Christ's name is bestowed by our Lord equally on all after His Resurrection, and St. Peter's Primacy which he undoubtedly held in the apostolic college, carries with it no distinctive powers, but is a personal leadership amongst equals. * * * The Apostles at Jerusalem are described as 'sending him' with St. John to Samaria. Later again he occupies no governing position in the Council at Jerusalem. Christ's revelation to him, indeed, when he opened the door to the Gentiles, was a fact which must have been conclusive of the question before the meeting; but the formal authority, the formal 'I decide,' comes from St. James, and the decree goes out in the name of 'the Apostles and elders' gener- ally. Moreover, St. Peter retires into the background of
s The Romaa Catholic Claims. — C, Gore. Longmans, Green & Co, Paper, 25 cents.
THE ONE BODY 145
history after this, as St. Paul rises into prominence. The history would seem to suggest that St. Peter's special func- tion was one which had to do with the opening of Church history, and this impression is augmented by the utterly 'unpapaF tone of St. Peter's own Epistles. * * * As to the evidence of the rest of the New Testament, it goes very strongly in the direction of minimizing the position of St. Peter. The 'twelve foundations' of the Church equal and co-ordinate are the twelve Apostles, and this implication of St. John's vision accords well with St. Paul's language."
Second, "The earliest Father then who mentions the sub- ject, St. Irenaeus, regards the Roman Church as having been founded concurrently and equally by St. Peter and St. Paul. In fact (as we find from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans) there was a considerable body of Christians at the capital, before any Apostle had been amongst them, during his first and second captivities, and St. Peter was at Rome probably when he wrote his first Epistle — certainly before his martyr's death, which he shared there with St. Paul, perhaps in A. D. 67."
"The prominence in which the Christian Church of the capital of the world must have inevitably found herself among other Churches, the glory which accrued to her apos- tolic and other martyrs, and not least, the early munificence of her almsgiving, gave the Roman Church a special position in Christendom from the earliest days." ^
"It would not appear that any kind of authority was attached to the Roman see during the early centuries even in the West, except such moral authority or prestige as must have belonged inevitably to so great an apostolic see. * * * At an unknown moment, before the middle of the third century, the Church of Rome, which up to that time had been Greek in language — alike in her liturgy and her the-
» "Thus Dr. Salmon Introd. to N. T., p. 565 n., calls attention to the fact 'how all through the first two centuries the importance of the Bishop of Rome is merged in the importance of his Church.' " Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
146 THE GREEN BOOK .
ology — a Greek colony in the Latin city, became perhaps somewhat suddenly a Latin Church, and in consequence of this change of language, so completely forgot her Greek past that in the fourth century she was ignorant of an inci- dent in her life which the coincidences of modern discovery have laid open to our eyes."
From the fifth century the power and claims of the Bishop of Rome began to grow, but slowly and gradually. "St. Gregory the Great can repudiate as pregnant with Satanic arrogance the title of 'universal bishop' which after- wards appears in the forged decretals as a papal title, and which so clearly describes the papal claim. The popes of the seventh century acquiesce in pope Honorius' letter being subjected to the judgment of a general Council, and submit to, and accept, his condemnation. For many centuries each pope on his accession condemned among formal heretics one of his infallible predecessors. The papal claim, which grevv^ always with the growth of actual power, reached its extreme point as far as the claim of authority is concerned in the Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII, A. D. 1302. The authority here claimed is absolute and universal in the secular and spiritual spheres alike. The doctrine of infal- libility came to the fore when the logic of events had demon- strated the untenability of the theocratic claim over the world. But the doctrine was the opinion of a school only, not a dogma. It was repudiated with the most genuine earnestness and without reproof up to a recent date, as for example in a document as common as Keenan's Contro- versial Catechism it was declared to be 'no article of Catho- lic belief.' "
Third, this question of a visible head to the Church "cannot be summed up better than in a typical quotation from St. Augustine, which puts this thought in vivid simplicity: 'Since the whole Christ is made up of the head and the body — the Head is our Saviour Himself, who suffered under Pen-
THE ONE BODY 147
tius Pilate, who now, after He has risen from the dead, sits at the right hand of God : but His body is the Church ; not this Church or that, but the Church scattered over all the world ; nor that only which exists among men now living, but those belonging to it also who were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are members of Christ, has its Head situate in the heavens which governs this body : though It is separated from their sight, yet It is bound to them by love.' " The Church on earth is not a complete thing in itself. "The Church on earth is but the visible portion of a great invisible whole bound altogether in the same order of supernatural life."
"There was never, perhaps, a time of confusion in the Christian Church equal to the second century. Christianity seemed to the philosopher outside a chaos of dissentient sects, 'agreeing in nothing but the name.' * * * jf q^qv a clear rule of faith, a papal voice, a centre to Christendom was needed, it was then. But not only had the Church at that time to struggle through her difficulties without an infallible teacher, she had not even yet formulated her creeds or settled her canon. Once more, the years of the Arian con- troversy were years of deepest distress. Again a papal voice of authority was sorely needed, if ever. But in the moment of uttermost strain and deepest distress, the pope did something very different from giving a clear voice for the guidance of Christians. He repudiated Athanasius the great upholder of the truth, and left him alone 'against the world.' The fact is, the argument from the supposed needs of man to the institution of an infallible teaching chair breaks down historically from the fact that, in the hours of greatest need in the Church, there was no remedy such as it is now suggested that man imperatively requires — there was no quick method of finding out the truth. And indeed is not this difficulty, this requirement of patience, in finding out the
148 THE GREEN BOOK
truth, the very probation of faith? It is just what is suited to our time of discipHne. At any rate we have no right to claim of God the removal of certain difficulties. We must take His revelation under the conditions on which He gives it, and endure what the fathers endured. We make a great mistake about the essence of faith if we imagine that faith is merely the surrendering of our reason and the passive acceptance of an unmistakable voice of external authority. Faith, in the Bible, is opposed not to reason, but to sight. It was not Christ's will to reveal Himself beyond all possi- bility of doubt. He did not utter a dogma about Himself and bid men bow down to it. * * * It should never be forgotten that the saints in Jerusalem upon whose forehead was stamped the mark of the divine approval, were not those who had successfully counteracted, but those who felt and groaned over the evils under which God's people suffered." ^
While on the whole the Roman Church and the Popes stood for orthodoxy through the controversies on the Trin- ity and the Incarnation, individual Popes did fail at impor- tant crises. "Nothing can override the evidence of the formal action of the 6th General Council in 680, when it con- demned Honorius the Pope among the Monothelite heretics. 'With them we anathematize,' says the Council, *and cast out of the Holy Catholic Church, Honorius, who was pope of the elder Rome, because we found that he followed Sergius' opinion in all respects and confirmed his impious dogmas.' * * * When in the extreme crisis of the conflict for the Nicene faith the Pope Liberius 'subscribed to hereti- cal depravity' (so St. Jerome speaks of his signing a com- promising creed), abandoned Athanasius and notified that he had separated him from his communion, St. Athanasius betrays no other feeling than that of sorrow at the fall of a good man and anxiety to palliate his weakness : *he speaks
* "Readers of history hardly need to be told that the Bishop of Rome was never asked to give either mission or jurisdiction to anybody for the first six centuries of the Christian era." — Quoted in Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
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with a noble tenderness of the fall of both Liberius and Hosius' (of Cordova). Now we contend that if anything in the world can be certain, it is certain that St. Athanasius, had he had any idea of the bishop of Rome being in a unique sense the guardian of the faith, much more any notion of his infallibility, must have adopted another tone in regard to his fall."
"It is indeed to 'triumph over history' for the Pope to assert that in decreeing his infallibility he is 'faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the first beginnings of the Christian faith.' The doctrine of the Papacy is so manifestly a gradual growth by accretion that no one can possibly, with his eyes upon the facts of history, regard it as part of the faith 'once for all delivered.' * * * The 'Nag's Head' fable was an impudent assertion of the Romanists at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its utter baselessness is now admitted on all hands." ^~^~''
"Roman writers generally bid us use the living voice of the Church as a witness to what the Church of the past did think, and appear to suppose the argument of the 'difficulty' of reading the past records of the Church a sufficient reason for ignoring them. Thus the v/hole of modern Roman liter- ature has become saturated with a spirit of unfaithfulness to history and to fact. There is a great deal of Romanism in the Church from the fifth century downward, and this they produce with an excessive willingness — they have it at their fingers' ends. But w^e have ceased almost to hope to find in a modern Roman wa"iter a candid review of the whole facts of a case where the Roman claims or dogmas are in
_ * "To ignore all contemporary sources of information and to compile narra- tives from the fictions of late or romancing authors is the Ultramontane way of writing history." — Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
* "The condemnation of Pope Ilonorius for heresy is recorded in the Roman Breviaries until the sixteenth century; at which period the name of Honorius suddenly disapi)ears. The tlieory of Papal Infallibility was at tliat time being raiidly developed. A fact opposed it. Tlie evidence for the fact is suppressed." Quoted from Willis in Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
^ "Has God then need of your falsehoods, that you speak deceitfully for Him?" — Quoted from Perc Gratry in Roman Catholic Claims. — C. Gore.
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question. Candor, an attempt to fairly produce the whole case, a love of the whole truth — this seems to have vanished from their literature, and its place is taken by an abundant skill in making the best of all that looks Romewards in Church history, and ignoring the rest. Indeed it seems to be not only in dealing with the Papal claims that the Roman Church is disquaHfied from dealing broadly and frankly with facts. She has adopted a fatal tone of distrust towards the human reason altogether — so that she seems by her whole method to put herself at a disadvantage in deahng with some of the most pressing problems of our time which are coming up for solution."
"We are not disposed at all to question the unique position held in Western Christendom by the see of Rome. We are not disposed to minimize the magnificence of the vocation assigned to her, especially in view of the Church's need of centralization in the days when the Western Empire was decaying or gone. We would fain not fall short of what is fitting in our veneration of the greatest of Christian patriarchates. But no such veneration can justify us in assenting to any claim she likes to make, or in shutting our eyes to the fact that the acceptance of these claims is only possible on the basis either of a 'Manichean' disbelief in the capacity of the human reason to estimate the plainest facts of history, or of a doctrine of development which would cut at the root of the patristic principle that in Christian doc- trine 'whatever is truly new' or really partial, *is certainly false,' "
"The English Church at the Reformation claims to reform herself, and there is no catholic principle which forbade her to do it. She did not withdraw herself in so doing from the catholic Faith or the catholic Church ; indeed she professed her intention to remain as fully in submission to the Church as before. * * * The Reformation in England was not primarily a doctrinal movement at all. In its first intention
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it was a movement to repudiate papal usurpation, and good care was taken to emphasize the stabihty of the Anghcan position as regards doctrine. * * * The ship of the Church went through a great storm — she lost a great deal, not only in decoration and accoutrements, but in rigging and in bul- warks, but she came out of that storm — the ship. So far then we can accept the statement of our case from Cardinal Newman's lips : 'There was a very trying interval for the Church of England in the sixteenth century, when it ran great risk of being wrecked ; but it weathered the storm, and its good fortune may be regarded as a providence and become a positive argument for its being what ... its great history betokens.' * * * The whole Church is our mother. It is the doctrinal heritage of the whole Church that now in the days of completer knowledge, as the mists clear away, is coming out in its indissoluble coherence before the eyes of men, and being taught to the children of the Church. * * * The evils of a Church into which by God's providence we were new-born, granted she be a Church, are not an excuse for leaving her, but a spur to action. And I am sure that we Anglicans feel a hearty thankfulness to Almighty God, that He has caused our lot to be cast in a Church, which, however deeply she has sinned, can acknowl- edge her sins ; which, however great her defects even in her authoritative formulas, is not prevented, by any arrogation to herself of what belongs to a greater whole, from confess- ing them and openly seeking to reform them. Better any- thing than to be unable to bear the light: better anything than to be unable to face the facts of history and frankly accept them: better any evils than to have to speak deceit- fully for God."
We may also be heartily thankful that our lot is cast in a Church that does not seek political power. Neither our Lord nor His Apostles claimed for themselves or their suc- cessors such power. On the contrary, they refused it and
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were content to be good citizens, rendering "unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Pilate knew it was not be- cause He made Himself a King like to Caesar that the Jews sought to put Jesus to death, but because He refused to be such a King. To-day we see the Bishop of Rome claim- ing as the successor of St. Peter political world power, send- ing ambassadors to every country that will receive them, instead of allowing national bishops to take care of the interests of the Church, and denying to national churches the right of self-government. That has been the trouble in France. A Frenchman is incurably patriotic, and almost incurably religious. These things should go together. In the Catholic religion they do, but in the Roman system they do not. Before the w^ar more than one leading French- man said, "I am a good Catholic, 1 believe and practice all the Church requires, but if I exercise the right of private judgment and vote against the orders of the Church, as I believe best for my country and not in any way hurtful to the Church, I am deprived of the Sacraments until I acknowledge I was wrong and promise to disobey no more, and I am classed as a modernist and an unbeliever until I do this." It was this policy and the belief that the Church was working for a revolution and the overthrow of the Re- public, that led to the separation of Church and State, and threw so many of the people into unbelief. In 1908 the editors of two papers, "Justice de Sociale" and "Vie Catho- lique," were suspended for advising Frenchmen to exercise their rights as citizens and vote. In France as well as in Italy, Roman Catholics were forbidden at that time to vote at all.
The writer when in Normandy and Tourraine, shortl}' before the war, found only a handful of old people in the churches, and was told many would not even send for a priest when dying. In the Austrian Tyrol a little later, speaking to an intelligent physician of the differences in the
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churches there, he said his people were not as extreme as the French and had not given up their rehgion, but the Church was losing its hold. If an order was given in Church to vote a certain way, the men got up and walked out ; very few men went to confession, and the number seeking the priesthood that used to be so large, was now small.
The French Church has never been ultramontane except in name, and has always looked with longing eyes across the channel, and expressed a friendly feeling for the English Church, even when there was little friendliness felt between the two nations. Before the separation of Church and State in France, the government made a proposition to the Pope practically allowing self-government to the French Church, which the Pope asked the French bishops to consider and vote upon. It is said all but two voted to accept it, and the Pope found out how each bishop stood, which was what he wanted. It is this meddling in politics, this seeking political power, not opposition to the Catholic faith, that has alienated the people of France, Italy and other countries of Europe from the Church. Wherever Rome has the power she puts on the screws.^ She is only tolerant when forced to be, or when it is politic.
We may indeed be thankful that we do not have to choose between our duty to our country and the giving up our rights as Church members. No one in the Anglican Com- munion is deprived of the Sacraments because he speaks, acts, or votes as he thinks best for his country. It is this political power and intrigue, denied by Rome here but known to everyone in public life, not the Catholic Faith, that
* The colony of Maryland was settled first by Churchmen. The Rev. John Yeo and Lord Baltimore both wrote from Maryland in 1676 that there were four clergymen of the Church of England in the Province, v.'ith decent main- tenance. The claim has frequently been made that the whole credit for religious toleration in Maryland is due to the Roman Catholics; "but the records go to show that the majority of those responsible for it were members of the Church of England, and that it was they who really combined to protect and tolerate the others." The Anglican Church in this country was fully established, with three Bishops and other ecclesiastical organization, several years before the arrival of John Carroll, the first Roman Bishop. — A History of the American Church. — Leighton Coleman.
154 THE GREEN BOOK . ^
American people dislike and that makes them fear a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. It would indeed be a calamity, not only for the country but even more for the Christian religion, if the Pope and his court ever gained control of our fair land. Unless we are faithless to our trust this will not be, we may believe.
To our land are coming thousands of lapsed Roman Catholics who will have nothing to do with their own Church. Fr. Capozzi, a former Roman priest now with us, in charge of a congregation of Italians, tells in his book "Protestantism and the Latin Soul," that the Latin cannot be made a Protestant ; he will be Catholic or nothing. It is our duty to look after these lapsed Roman Catholics and give them what they demand — Catholic Faith and practice in a free Catholic Church. It has never been our practice to try to make converts of those who have Catholic Sacra- ments and are content where they are; but with those who prefer infidelity to infallibility, or who are asked to believe and do what their conscience forbids, and, therefore, cannot stay in the Roman Church, the case is different, and every year we receive a good number of the priests and lay people. This does not get into the newspapers, but the few who go from us (not those who come back) get large headlines as we know. The control of the press (what is kept out even more than what is put in) by any body of people is a very serious matter.
The test of a system is the type of character and the type of corporate life, social and political, it tends to produce; and the test of the Catholic religion is the Catholic Church and "the lives of the Saints ; only we must include in that term a wider range than is often imagined."* In all parts of the Catholic Church we see the Catholic character pro- duced, but different in type — East, West and Anglican — for there is always variety in the work of God the Holy
•The Fellowship of the Mystery.— J. N. Figgis, C. R.
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Ghost. It heartens us when we are discouraged to consider the characters produced in our own Communion, some humble ones about us and others whose written words make us glad even more by what they are than what they say, and we say to ourselves "as long as our Church is producing such Catholic characters all is well." Some years ago an Englishman was talking with a Roman Catholic in the portico of St. Peter's. The latter asserted that the English Church did not produce Catholic priests because a priest's vocation was written on his countenance. "That," said he, pointing to a nearby priest, "is the face of a priest and a saint, and can only be produced in the Catholic Church," and "That," replied the Englishman, "is Canon Carter, of Clewer."
The Latin type is different, as we know, and both Angli- can and Latin have the defects of their qualities. So, too, is the social and political life developed. If you want to study Buddhism you must study it in India, not in Boston ; and if you want to study Romanism you must study it in Italy, Spain, Austria, Mexico, South America, etc., not in England and America ; and if you want to study the Church of England you must not study it in France or Japan but in England, where it has been in power for centuries, and has had a chance to show its development.^^ We have all admired the wonderful organization in the Roman Church derived from the pagan Roman empire, but we do not wor- ship organization and efficiency as we did some years ago, and the failure of Rome to protect her own people, uphold her splendid cardinal and stand for the right in a world crisis, is not likely to make her attractive to virile men and women who think.
The Holy Orthodox Church — the Church of Greece, Russia and the East — has a glorious past, but has lived too much in the past, and repressed in Russia by an autocratic government
*° It is hardly necessary to remind readers that Columbus and the Spaniards settled South America and Mexico, not our country.
156 THE GREEN BOOK
has not kept in touch with modern life. Those who know, tell us that when the clouds roll away and the truth is known about Russia, there will be revealed persecutions and mar- tyrdoms for the Faith that are not surpassed in the first cen- turies. In the Church and in the world in this new age, Russia and the Orthodox Church will certainly play a big part, and make a great contribution to the Body of Christ. She has preserved the childlike wonder and the awe of the mystery which one sees expressed in devout Russians and devout Anglicans, never in devout Latins. The hard defi- nitions, the bargain and sale of benefits, and the monstrance, seem to have killed this faculty in Roman Catholics.
This Church of ours, though not as large as some other religious bodies, has entered deeply into the life of the nation. From George Washington to General Pershing, in all departments of our national life, it has borne its witness and influenced our development through its noble and patri- otic members occupying positions of leadership, and through the power of its corporate life — the life of its inconspicuous members. "Two-thirds of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Churchmen, and they were in the same proportion among the f ramers of the Federal Constitution.""
We have reason to be proud of our past and to build on these foundations, but to build, not to stand still. The tendency of the old is to live in the past (we know notable exceptions) ; the tendency of the young is to discard the past and live in the present and the future ; in middle life the two tendencies are balanced, and we have wise judgment if we have lived rightly. Our country is young, and the old world is new born ; our tendencies are the tendencies of youth ; and our danger lies in discarding the past and accept- ing things just because they are new — anything for a change. But building of this kind is building on sand.
" A History of the American Church. — LeightoQ Coleman.
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The peoples of the earth who have come to our new coun- try, seeking freedom, have brought to us great problems, great opportunities, and great responsibilities. These cannot be met and solved by money and zeal alone, and the Germans have taught us that education does not make a man or a nation nobler and better. "The revelation of the reality of evil, of the — if I may so put it — non-inevitability of progress and of the inadequacy of culture, has made men feel that the world is in a parlous state, and that it needs redemp- tion." 12
Redemption — salvation — here and now, that is what the world needs ; men feel it, and the Church has it to give, for the Church is the Home of Salvation. It is that because it is in union with the living God-Man Christ Jesus, the Saviour of the World. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." In Him, in the one Body — His Body — can be found the unity that we know must be accomplished if our national life is to endure, and in the one Body we may also find true freedom in deliver- ance from the bondage of sin. This deliverance, this true freedom, this true democracy, to be found alone in the Catholic Church, is the message we must give not only with our lips but in our lives. We need not worry about the title page of the Prayer Book ; that will take care of itself. What we need to worry about is the showing forth of the Catholic life in its winning beauty and power, that men may believe in the one Catholic and Apostolic Church.
This Catholic vision and temper is of all things important in our missionary work, especially among those not of our race and speech. If we are true Catholics, we will not seek to make Italians, Poles, Si;ivs, Chinese, and Philippinos, Protestant Episcopalians, and try to mould them in one Anglo-Saxon type, making them express their religious life
"Hopes for English Religion. — J. N. Figgis, C. R. 11
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and devotion in American ways. And if we are true Catho- lics we will not try to force Latin devotions and practices on ourselves and others. Fr. Stanton, in speaking of a pilgrimage of English Roman Catholics, remarked on its being forced and unattractive, not natural to English people. In family and social life we express ourselves in our own American way, and when Latins call us "cold" we smile, and know they do not understand. Let us be natural and simple in our religion, and remember that "we have many members in one Body, and all members have not the same office."
The Catholic Church, as Fr. Figgis reminds us so often, is not the Church of one age. Those who would make her the Church of the first centuries, or the Church of the middle ages, are just as Protestant as those who would make her the Church of the Reformation, or the Church of the twen- tieth century. The Catholic Church is the Church of all ages, the living, growing Body of Christ, gathering up the rich life and experience of the past, and expressing it for us in our American life. One in Catholic faith and prac- tice we should be, yet making our own peculiar contribution to the Body.
The wounding of the Body of Christ is the great sin of Christendom, and we cannot treat it lightly and easily. These wounds will only be healed through an agony of cor- porate penitence, of which we see no sign anywhere. When we touch them with unwashed hands and try to apply our cheap remedies, we are severely punished for our sacrilege.
Bishop Gore is never tired of telling us of the great voca- tion that seems to be given to our Communion, and when we forget and trifle with this we are sharply reminded of it. Fr. Figgis' last message is "Bright are our prospects ; bright but difficult. Courage and the unconquerable will are the one thing needful, for we have real enemies and they hate Christ." "The post of danger is the post of honour," he told
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us years ago. The heart of the Church is sound; the reli- gious Bolshevists are few, but conspicuous and noisy, and Athanasius is somewhere ready to be called forth by our prayers. If we lack leaders, if for our sins our teachers are removed from us by death, the responsibility of the plain, every-day Churchman and Churchwoman is trebled. Indeed Bishop Gore reminds us that the special men can only do their special tasks if the ordinary communicants are doing their part faithfully. We need no leaders, no organi- zation, no money to do our part ; only faith in God, the will to pray, and living by the sacraments. The days are troub- lous, the fight is fierce, but the issue is not in doubt.
In heaven and earth "the Saints their watch are keeping." Sursum Corda.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP
PRAYER
The great privilege of membership in the Church is prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, prayer in union with His person and His will, not merely saying the words "through Jesus Christ our Lord" at the end of a prayer. The right and the power to pray in His name is acquired in Christian baptism, but we will lose this power, and may, by deadly sin, lose the right if we fail to exercise it, and do not constantly nourish and revive His life within us by receiving His Blessed Body and most Precious Blood. The Eucharist is the great act of prayer in His name ; in it prayer reaches its climax, and from it all prayer derives its power and efficiency. Prayer is a holy communion, a sacri- fice of praise and thanksgiving, an oblation, a giving some- thing to God as well as a receiving something from God. It is of the utmost importance to remember this in thinking about prayer, for it gives the right idea of prayer, and teaches us that prayer is more than "asking for things." The author of that wonderful little book "The Riches of Prayer" tells us one trouble with our prayers is we think too much about self and not enough about God. "Prayer is the real Lifting up of the Living Soul to the Living God. This is the very essence of prayer. All other definitions of Prayer deal with its parts. This expresses its whole. Unless there is a true Ascent of the Mind, Heart, and Will of man to God, Prayer will be cold, dry and wearisome." ^ This is what our Lord taught us in the prayer He gave us. He says, "After this manner therefore pray ye : Our Father which "art in
' The Riches of Prayer. — I^ongnians, Green & Co.
1 60
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Heaven, Hallowed by Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Here we have a real Hfting up of the soul to our Father, with no thought of self.
The praying of this prayer is indeed prayer in His name, and has ever been regarded by the Church as only second in importance to the Eucharist, and, like the Eucharist, its Catholicity as well as its petitions and their order testify to its divine origin. What man would have put the petitions in the order they stand? "The honour of God's truth is so continually, in the modern mind, subordinate to human needs." ^ But after we have sought the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, we are taught to ask for what we need for body and soul. Christian prayer does not strive to bend God's will to our wills and make Him give us what we want, as does pagan prayer ; its object is to conform our wills to His will, and to co-operate in His purposes. In prayer above all else we may be fellow-workers with God. If we remember this we will not be worried about answers to our prayer.
"He always wins who sides with Go J, To him no chance is lost; God's Will is sweetest to him when It triumphs at his cost.
"Ill that He blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be His sweet Will."
Prayer is not only our Christian privilege ; it is our Chris- tian duty. Our duty first to God, acknowledging Him as our Father and our Lord, and then our duty to ourselves and to our neighbors. "Prayer is the Christian's vital breath." If we do not pray we die. We have no contact with God, but God the Holy Ghost still works within us, trying to kindle the spark of life afresh, and when wc kneel
' Prayer, and the Lord's Prayer. — C. Gore
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down in penitence and cry "God be merciful to me a sinner" — Jesus save me — Blessed Spirit whom I have grieved, leave me not but help my feeble efforts — there is joy in the pres- ence of the Angels of God who cry exultingly, "Behold, he prayeth." If we do not pray we also fail to do our part in the great work of intercession in the Body of Christ, and we fail in our duty to the brotherhood and to those for whom Christ died and who know Him not. Bishop Gore says, "There is — I say it with perfect confidence — no greater difficulty in believing God intends to give us whole classes of good things for soul and body, but will not give us them unless we correspond with His purpose by diligent prayer, than in believing that whole classes of good things are stored up for us in nature, which will not be our own unless we seek them by diligent hard work." ^
In order to pray we must have faith in God, and the will to pray. Mr. Carey says : "People are not atheists, they deny nothing. * * * g^^- ^j^gy have not really thought, pondered, realized, the great questions about God and our- selves, which natural religion puts to you and which the Christian religion answers : Whence do I come ? Whither do I go? Why am I here?"
"My own religious faith (such as it is) is not based on an intellectual certainty which is obtained prior to an effort to live a religious life."
"I do not believe anybody is certain before they start. You get certain as you go along. I get along very comfort- ably with an intellectual probability which when tested by daily life increases my certainty every day. I define religious certainty as springing from probability plus experience; all you need for a start is probability."
"In fact I frequently ask people whether they think Christianity is probably true. If they say 'Yes,' I answer, 'Well, will you give it a try for (say) five years, with com-
■ Prayer, and the I^ord's Prayer. — C. Gore.
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plete liberty at the end to turn Mohammedan, Buddhist, or even Atheist if, after an honest trial, it leads you to darkness and not to light?' They usually agree, and I am perfectly content, for I have no doubt as to the result, while they are testing it in a perfectly legitimate way, viz. : testing a prob- able theory by a series of vital experiments."*
While in order to pray all we need is faith in God and the will to pray, we will not pray unless we have fixed and regular times for prayer. Morning and evening, of course, on our knees in the quiet of our own room, and in the middle of the day sometime, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. It is becoming, thank God, more and more common for men and women to stop in church during the day for ten or fifteen minutes just to rest in the presence of God, and say a few words of intercession for the Church, our Country and the World. "Casting all your care upon Him ; for He careth for you," the Apostle says.
Mr. Carey, who is a chaplain in the English Navy, and was in the battle of Jutland on H. M. S. War Sprite, and knows the difficulty of prayer for sailors and other busy people, suggests the following programme for business men or women : "Rise at 7, prayers 7.20, breakfast 7.30, etc. ; mid-day prayer en route to lunch ; 10.30 retire, Bible reading till 10.40, prayers till 10.50, bed at 11 — such a scheme regu- larly fulfilled (with necessary deviations at times) would make us a praying people." ^ But says some one, "Is it not irreverent and wrong to pray when you do not feel like it ?" No, it is not, if you have a desire to pray, but it is irreverent and wrong not to pray. This is doing dishonor to God. Emotion makes prayer easier, but not necessarily better. The joy of prayer comes sometimes to beginners as a gift from God to encourage them, and sometimes from temperament,
* Prayer and Some of Its Difficulties, W. J. Carey. Morehouse Publishing Co. Price 65 cents.
* I would like to recommend to the reader Mr. Carey's book; also "The Riches of Prayer," and Dr. McNeile'a "Self-Training in Prayer."
164 THE GREEN BOOK
but the joy of prayer only becomes a possession of the soul after long practice in the life of prayer. God asks the exer- cise of our wills, not emotion. Then, too, we must see that there is no root of bitterness harbored in our hearts, and no sin we are unwilling to give up. True repentance and charity are conditions of true prayer. A life of prayer is a life of peace and joy, because it is a life of union with God, and it will be ours if we persevere.
Our prayers should include praise, thanksgiving and obla- tion, and intercession for ourselves and for others, especially for those for whom we are bound by ties of family and friendship. Church and State, and for the conversion of the world. We will use, if we are wise, masters of the spiritual life tell us, forms of prayer and also prayers in our own words, and books if we find we keep our minds better on our prayers in this way. As we progress and learn to know our Psalms and forms of prayer by heart, I think we do better without books, but that is for each to decide for himself. The important thing is to be real, to mean what we say. To this end, prayers should be simple and reverent, avoiding all soft, sentimental and mawkish devotions, Protestant or Roman. We may not say what such devotions as we find in some of our manuals to "the Sacred Heart," "the Wound in the Left Foot," etc., are to those brought up to them ; but to us they are not natural, and are repulsive, material and irreverent, and the type of religion they tend to produce, as Fr. Benson has shown, is not the highest and best. The dignity, the reserve, the passionate but reverent love ex- pressed in the best Anglican devotions are natural to our race and our Catholic inheritance, and we will do well to develop our life of prayer along these lines, remembering always it is not in much speaking and many words we pray best, and that prayer is listening as well as speaking.
Some one has said that it is the five minutes before prayer, when we quietly try to realize God's presence, and the five
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minutes after prayer when we listen to God speaking to us, that counts. Learning to pray thus we can go on to learn mental prayer or meditation, which is not beyond the power of even uneducated people, and is worth all the effort it re- quires to learn. For this I would suggest Dr. McNeile's book "Self-Training in Meditation," and let none say they cannot meditate until they have read this simple little book and tried it.
But how are we to get time for all this praying? And after all, is not work for God and our neighbor the best prayer? Is it not true that *'to labor is to pray?" some may ask. "Now," says Dr. McNeile, "when a person thinks that he is too busy to pray, he feels it annoying to be referred to the story of IMartha and Mary, and cannot help sympathizing very much with Martha. But I am sure that that story is con- stantly misused. Are we really to suppose that Mary spent the whole of her life sitting still and doing nothing but con- template, or read her Bible, while Martha spent the whole of her life in house-work? Her grumble against Mary, 'Lord, carest Thou not that my sister hath left me to serve alone?' shows that she was not accustomed to be left to serve alone, and that Mary usually helped her. Martha and Mary must not be taken as types of two people, the one all work and the other all prayer. They are a photograph, a snap-shot, so to speak, of two states of mind at a particular moment — the moment when the chance offered itself of a quiet, satisfying conversation with out Lord. Mary seized it and Martha didn't."
"The question is What is the meaning of work filled with prayer ? Now I cannot speak smooth things ; I must put before you the highest Christian ideal. It means work done in such a condition of soul that in every detail, in every hour and moment and second, you are filled with the Pres- ence of God, you are in touch with the divine Reality. To make quite true in your life the saying that To work is to
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pray, is to be Martha and Mary at the same time ; and that is the dimax of perfection. * * * We must follow Mary every day, if we are to do Martha's work without the Lord's rebuke. If in all the busy racket of work we are to dwell under the defence of the Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty, we must retain that defence, and hide ourselves under that shadow, by making time for deep, quiet prayer. It is the stern practice in private that makes the world-famed professional." ^
To whom much time is given that may be used for what we may call formal prayer, much will be required, and to whom little time is given, little will be required, but the standard set by the Apostle — "pray without ceasing" — is not an impossible ideal. ' Men and women of like passions as we are, and of as busy lives, have attained to it because they desired to, tried to, and persevered. If we would learn to "pray without ceasing," we must do the same. "Some people think that a soul only prays when it utters prayers, which," says Mr. Carey, "is equivalent to saying that you only love when you write love-letters or speak loving words. A soul whose attitude toward God is one of love and longing to serve, never ceases praying; prayers are only the loving attitude becoming vocal." To pray without ceasing, then, we must have regular quiet times for formal prayers, and learn frequently to lift up our hearts to God during the day, that we may live in the presence of God, in an atmosphere of prayer day and night, even when asleep.
We read in the Bible how God spoke to Samuel and St. Joseph and others as they slept, and He still does so. For this reason we have constant prayers about a very ill or dying person unconscious to all about him, but to whom God can and may be speaking.
Being awakened out of sleep by the cries of one in distress, impelled to pray for or to go to see some one — usually one
• Self-Training in Prayer. — A. H. McNeile.
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of whom one has not been thinking at the time, — are not unusual spiritual experiences, as the delightful and anony- mous author of "Wayside Lamps" and "Wayside Neigh- bours," tells us. This may be thought transference, or it may be the call of God the Holy Ghost, as the writer shows. It is on this the Quakers lay such stress, calling it truly "being moved by the Spirit." The closer we live to God, the more completely we surrender ourselves to Him, the more sensitive we shall be to the guidance of God the Holy Ghost, and the Friends knew that this required times of silence and quiet. Such experiences unsought and leading to good, are undoubtedly of God, but not to be reported to psychic societies, talked about, or even thought about. Like the fairies of our childhood days, spiritual things vanish or turn into ugly creatures with the light of day.
To-day we are witnessing a return of a different kind of spiritualism and people are saying, "I believe there is some- thing in it." There is. There are spirits all about us and we have forgotten it. There are the spirits of "Just men made perfect" (the Saints) ; there are the spirits of the dead in Christ who have not yet attained perfection ; there are the Holy Angels and there are the Evil Spirits with the Devil our great adversar}^ the Father of Lies, at their head. What are the manifestations and fruits of the spirits of the seances, mediums and table rappings ? Are these things of God? Can we believe the good spirits, the Saints, the Angels, and the dead in Christ manifest themselves in this way? "By their fruits ye shall know them." What are their fruits ? Do we find that those who practice spiritualism pray more, are more frequent at the Holy Communion, love and serve God better than others, or than they did before they became spiritualists? In other words, does spiritualism lead to God and to holy living ? Communion with the Saints and the Angels, and with those who live near to God should
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do this. We know the fruits of spirituaUsm are not these things, but quite the reverse.
Fr. Longridge, of the Community of the Resurrection, to which we owe so many good things, has written a very sane and wise little book on spiritualism, and Christians would do well to read it that they may be able to talk intel- ligently on the subject, and guide others who are being wrongly influenced. He tells us there are two classes of people studying this subject, scientists and those who make a religion of it.'^ He reminds us that w^hat may be safe and right for a scientist, is unsafe for one ignorant of the laws of the science. This applies to electricity and chemistry as well as to psychology. He shows us how dangerous spiritualism is for those who take it up for curiosity or for comfort and make a religion of it, and he reminds us it is forbidden in both the Old and the New Testaments. This heresy has arisen largely through our neglect of the great Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints, and our failure to realize it in prayers for the dead. When our dear ones pass out of our sight there is no separation if we are in Christ Jesus. There is but one body; the head and part of the body are out of sight, and the lower limbs, as it were, are on earth.
"Angels, and living saints, and dead
But one Communion make ; All join in Christ, their living Head, And of His love partake."
When we recite the Creed we say we believe this, but we do not make it part of our life because we do not pray for our dead. The war has done a great deal to change this. The Jews prayed for the dead, and from the New Testa- ment, the catacombs, the liturgies and the writings of Chris- tians in the first centuries we learn how universal was this custom among the early Christians.
^ Spiritualism and Christianity, — Georfe Longridge. Morehouse Pub. Co Price 45 cents.
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Our dear ones arc indeed at rest in the Lord, and free from temptation, but they are far from perfect, and in their progress to perfection we can help them by our prayers. The fire that cleanses them is the pure love of God, and as this kindles penitence, the stains of sin are gradually purged out of them. When we shall see things as they are, how poor and mean and worthless will seem the things upon which we spent ourselves and set our affections and how awful will our secret sins appear in the light of His countenance, and in the knowledge of His love and what He has done for us. How deep will be our pain in thinking what we might have done for Him, and what we might have been, and how great our joy in the things we did do and bear for His sake — the treasures we laid up in heaven. In this life of penitence and purification we can help the dead in Christ by our prayers, and especially by offering the Holy Sacrifice for them. In the Eucharist we have not only communion with our dead but we can help them. One of the hardest things to bear, when our dear ones are taken from us, is the feeling that we can do nothing more for them. What a com- fort it is to know that we can still minister to them.
In prayer we cast our anchor within the veil, and in times of storm and tempest it holds us fast to our moor- ings, while others who do not pray make shipwreck of their lives. You do not find those who pray and live by the Sacra- ments hunting for comfort in seances.
Oh, but prayer is so difficult, people say. Yes, its very simplicity makes it that except to little children and those who have become as little children, but we can learn if we will. Take one who is learning to play the violin to hear a great master. If he has the right spirit he is not discour- aged, but stimulated and encouraged to go on with the drudgery. So books on prayer show us what prayer may be to help us to persevere, but we can only learn to pray by praying; feebly and haltingly at first rs we learn an instru-
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ment of music. The great symphonies of prayer and praise have to be learned slowly and patiently, and we shall never attain to perfection here. That will be our joy hereafter when our hearts are perfectly attuned to God. But it is here we learn the scales and the exercises, and something of the heavenly melodies too, if we persevere. True love is true harmony, and in prayer "the Saints of all ages in harmony meet" with us, as do our blessed dead and our Lord. How different would be our prayers and our lives if we kept before us this heavenly vision.
All about us lives are breaking under the stress and strain of life, vainly seeking to satisfy immortal souls made for God, with excitement, pleasure, money and material things, and trying human or devilish panaceas for heartaches ; while all the time One who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, Who was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin, stands ready to help. And the Spirit and the Bride say — Come to Jesus.
"What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear ! What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer ! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer."
THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM
Question. What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
Answer. I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us ; ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.
Question. How many parts are there in a Sacrament?
Answer. Two ; the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace. — The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
The Christian religion is Sacramental and social because it is the religion of the Incarnation, and a religion of the whole man. The purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God was to give life. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Jesus told this to Nicodemus, who came to Him for truth, and He told this to the Jews at Capernaum, who followed Him for material benefits, and on both occasions He shows that the life He will give will come through material means. By His Incarnation He sanctifies and redeems the material universe by taking it unto Himself, living by it as He has always lived in it, for He is the light that lighteth every man that Cometh into the world. But in His Incarnation He unites His creation to His Sacred Humanity and takes our human nature to the right hand of God, and through it gives gifts to men. So it is He sanctifies water to the mystical washing away of sin ; so it is He takes the bread and wine unto Himself and through it gives Himself ; so it is through men, by the laying on of the hands of men, the Holy Ghost is given and men are endued with power from on high. When men in amazement rejoiced that such power had been given to men they were not rebuked by the Master.
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There always have been and probably always will be those who reject the Incarnation as too material, and make for themselves a more spiritual God, a God of the mind. ''Many religions, recognizing that spirit is more fundamental than matter, have treated the body with contempt. And the body has had its revenge by entirely enslaving the spirit to carnal lusts. Many imagine that they become more spiritual as they learn more and more to despise and ill-treat or neglect the body. So the Manich^eans find the seat of all evil in matter, the Hindus treat the body with contempt."^
When the Gospel was first preached, St. Paul had to combat this heresy in Corinth. Pride of the intellect kept the Greeks from accepting Christ crucified, and the first heresy the Church had to deal with was this Gnostic heresy. St. Paul told the Greeks the Gospel was for the poor, the Vv'cak and the foolish- (according to the world), not for those who exalt the intellect and make it their God. This worship we have exhibited to-day in the Pantheism of Buddhism and its daughters, Christian Science and New Thought. Mr. Mackenzie, in his little book, "An Angel of Light," has done good service in showing up the teaching and tendencies of these cults which are attracting so many disciples. His book should be largely read. He says, "There is in New Thought a Mind, not the mind of the believer but a superior Mind, which is All in All. That Mind is impersonal Principle ; just as Mrs. Eddy declares ; just as Mrs. Besant insists." Again, "The fascinating swamis who visit our borders have no message for the sin- sick, the suffering, the dying. Their approach is made to the cultured, the wealthy, the distinguished. In this we find every reason for accounting that Theosophy is the religion of the pride of intellect and the selfishness of class isolation. And the cry of debased India and other lands where Bud-
» The Sacramental Principle.— P. B. Bull, C. R. •I Cor. 1:20-29.
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dhism has flourished, underscores this decision." "Whoso- ever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." ^
"The Reis and Rayyet, an influential newspaper of north- ern India, sneers at Mrs. Besant's ecstacies over 'The Beau- ties of Hinduism,' and utters these scorching words, 'When an English lady of decent culture professes to be an admirer of pantric mysticism and Krishna worship, it becomes every well wisher of the country to tell her plainly that sensible men do not want her eloquence for gilding that which is rotten.' The Hindu, the organ of orthodox Hinduism in Madras, confesses thus to the character of the Brahmin priesthood, 'Profoundly ignorant as a class, and infinitely selfish, it is the mainstay of every unholy, immoral and cruel custom and superstition, from the wretched dancing girl, who insults the Deity by her existence, to the pining child- widow whose every tear and every hair of whose head shall stand up against every one who shall tolerate it, in the day of judgment."
To show how this cult is growing, Mr. Mackenzie says, "A correspondent in a large western city has written the author a pathetic letter in which he says, 'I may alarm you by stating that in the college building here, there is a shrine at which Buddha is worshipped. Hundreds of people, who as Presbyterians, Baptists or others, had professed faith in Christ, now twice a week gather to bow before this pagan shrine. Nearly all these people have read much along the lines of 'New Thought.' The teachers whom they follow enlighten these seekers after knowledge by poisoning their minds through the doctrine that our Lord was divine only in the sense that all are divine. To them, Christ was merely a re-incarnation of Gautama. In this vicinity, Theosopliy is luring hundreds of educated people away from Christianity
' "It was by no chance in the course of history, no meaningless coincidence, that the Church of the poor, the childlike, the simple-minded, became the great sclioolof learning and pinlosophy." Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief. — Francis Paget.
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and I believe its leaders claim a larger circle in existence here, than in any city of the world, Benares excepted/ The writer mentions cities of the middle west and the southland into which few would suspect this propaganda of entering.' " Pundita Ramabai, the well-known East Indian Christian teacher and writer, says, "On my arrival in New York, I was told that a new philosophy was being taught in the United States. It is called Christian Science. I recognized it as the pagan philosophy taught among my people for four thousand years. I was born and educated in that philosophy, having taken my degree of Pundita in it, and am acquainted with both its literature and its influence upon my people. And I want to witness to its degradation. It has ruined millions of lives and caused immeasurable suffering; for it is based on selfishness and knows no sympathy. That philos- ophy rests upon the theory of the nothingness of matter. So that when the poor people are starving, this philosophy does not care. Let them starve if they will ; their suffering is not real."
"Do we feel the appalling seriousness of this situation? What could God think, when multitudes flocked to Mrs. Eddy's home in Concord to pay homage to her as the evan- gelist of Light and Life? What, when the Rev. George B. Day, in the Chicago Church, declared, *We are witnessing the transfer of the Gospel, from the male to the female trust."
In New Thought the emphasis is laid on health and pros- perity. "So long as people die, they have not received the full benefits of the saving blood of Christ. To be fully saved from sin is to be saved from its result, death. If you want to know all the mysteries of life, study life, and put out of your mind every thought of death or the condition of the dead. * * * Again, 'The cosmos is conscious. You must not look on this universe as a material but as a mental uni- verse. Mentality is conscious of itself and so the cosmos is
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conscious/ " * This is Pantheism named New Thought, but a very old thought. God and the world are not identical as Pantheism teaches. God is through all and in all yet above all. But "through the Incarnation of His Word He is draw- ing all things into Himself." The Christian Sacraments are "the vindication of the sanctity of matter."* "They preserve the truth of the Incarnation and proclaim that Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of the body, that our bodies are as closely united to the Body of Christ as the branches are to the vine, or as the hand is to the heart. This finally de- stroys that spurious spirituality which fastens a man's atten- tion exclusively on his soul, his thoughts and feelings. It teaches us that every muscle and nerve and tendon of the body is to be sanctified and developed to its highest power for the service of God." ^
In all these Pagan cults love is degraded and marriage flouted, for "Holy Matrimony," says Fr. Bull, "is the highest development of the sacramental principle until wx come to Holy Communion." * * * "The two essential points in a valid marriage are, firstly, that there must be no impediment of such a kind as to make the marriage invalid ; and secondly, the consent of the two persons contracting the marriage, which must be mutual, deliberate, voluntary, and outwardly shown." ^ "According to Western theology, any such mar- riage of two unbaptized persons is valid, but not sacramen- tal; and every valid marriage of baptized persons is sacra- mental, whether it is contracted before a priest or not." ^ Sacramental marriage "signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church" is not to be entered into unadvisedly, or lightly, but reverently, discreetly, ad- visedly, soberly, and in the fear of God" and can only be dissolved by death. Young people in Church Schools, in Guilds, and at Confirmation should be taught this more than
* An Angel of Light. — Kenneth Mackenzie. •The Sacramental Principle.— P. B. Bull, C. R.
* Outlines of Christian Dogma, Darwell Stone. Quoted in The Sacramental Principle.— P. B. Bull, C. R.
* Faith of the Gospel. — A. J. Mason.
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they are, and the custom of preaching on Christian marriage on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, when the marriage Gospel is the Gospel for the day, should grow, for in society and in literature to-day low views of marriage prevail.* "One writer of our most brilliant and most earnest bids us make divorce as cheap, as easy and as secret as possible and openly flouts any view of the union but that which is physiological. Now this is the direct contrary to our Chris- tion notion, which is that the inner meaning of marriage is Sacramental, and that, therefore, the outward part needs guarding; and the Sacramental meaning of love is really the burden of all literature. Such a view could only come naturally to an age which had passed from a denial of the whole Sacramental principle to a questioning of the Incar- nation, and then to repudiate the spiritual meaning of all physical facts. For if matter be something non-spiritual, and outside God's Kingdom, then the marriage-bond may very easily be treated like a contract, made or broken at will. If it has no meaning beyond certain outward acts then, of course, the moral or spiritual law has nothing to do with it."t
The ministers of this Sacrament are the man and woman who marry themselves, the priest acting for the Church receives the vows and blesses the marriage, and only a bishop or a priest can do this. The Holy Communion was always celebrated at weddings until the dead days of the Church, and the custom of asking Jesus to the marriage is happily being revived. Until a few years ago all marriages in Eng- land had to be solemnized before noon to be legal. This rule was made on account of the Holy Communion being always celebrated at a marriage. This is the origin too of the wedding breakfast, which is now a lunch. Formerly marriages were celebrated early, eight or nine o'clock in the morning, the bride and groom only receiving the Holy Com-
* The Mystery of Marriage by H. P. Denison is a useful text book and is also a good book to give young people.
t Antichrist and Other Sermons. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
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munion, and the company returning to the bride's home for breakfast.
The promise to obey in the marriage service has provoked a great deal of discussion. The obligation of course exists whether or no the promise is made, and authorities of the Roman Church have indignantly denied the assertion that they do not require a woman to obey her husband "in the Lord," that is, in all matters except matters of conscience. The promise to obey the Church includes the promise to obey all in authority recognized by the Church, it is said. It would be sad indeed to see our Church give countenance and encouragement to lax and unscriptural notions regard- ing the duties of husbands and wives. There cannot be two heads to a house ; some one must give in when there is a disagreement, and modern notions have not produced sta- bility or happiness in marriage. The Sacramental prin- ciple teaches the dignity and beauty of humility and gives us our Lord as our example. Woman under the Christian religion has been given a position she never had under any other civilization, and this is due to the fact that Jesus Christ exalted the virtues of humility, purity, patience, gentleness and spiritual force — virtues in which women could excel. As long as women stand for these things, men will reverence them, and woman's place of honor and power in society is assured ; but if women belittle their spiritual power and influence, and sneer at these Christian virtues, their fall is certain.
In all the anti-Christian cults, Theosophy, Christian Science, New Thought, etc., marriage is the institution attacked, and spiritual marriages of various kinds are the result. "The love that is always capitalized and exalted in New Thought, as in Christian Science, is another dangerous factor in these cults. If the impersonal Life postulates an ideal which tends to ultimate spiritual fatalism, this im- personal thing, Love, which in the human side becomes
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tremendously personal, has its pernicious mission. The triumph of this Universal Love leads men and women into relations that betray the weakness of human nature." ^
Christian Science, New Thought and other cults make much too of the healing of the body by the mind or by faith. We see faith healing also in the Church at Lourdes and other shrines, and in the Emmanuel movement. There are certain clear lines laid down for us, by which we may judge this work.
First, no teaching that makes light of sin, and denies the Incarnation and the Atonement, is of God.
Second, our Lord's mission on earth was not to heal men's bodies but to save their souls ; and that is the mission of the Church. A movement that makes the healing of the body as important as the healing of the soul cannot be of God. Would the crowds who come to be healed in body come to be healed in soul, and does the healing of the body lead to confession of sin, penitence and faith in Jesus Christ? If not, the Lord's rebuke to the Jews at Capernaum would seem applicable.
Third, all Christian prayer is prayer in the name of Jesus and according to His will. God the Father "spared not His Son," and it may be His will not to spare us. If He does not give us what we ask we ought not to say it was because we lacked faith, if we asked in penitence and sincerity, but rather that He answered our prayer, for our prayer was "Thy will be done."
Fourth, "The wages of sin is death," and we must pay the wage and meet the last enemy, but the Christian does not see or taste of death, for the sting of eternal death has been taken from physical death, by Him who conquered sin and death and in whose power we may conquer.
Fifth, the Incarnation and the Sacraments sanctify and endorse the use of material means. The Christian physician,
'' An Angel of lyight. — Kenneth Mackenzie.
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who ill addition to the use of means, asks God's blessing on His work, is a true follower of the Master. We may well believe the knowledge of the arts of healing and the pre- vention of disease is one of the results of the Incarnation, and thank God for giving such power to men.
Sixth, a well-known neurologist told the writer that the Christian priest ought to be of the greatest assistance to the physician, especially in nervous cases, but that the clergy he had called in to help him had done more harm than good.
Seventh, with the use of means for the healing of the sick always should go prayer and Sacraments, and it should not be forgotten the Holy Communion is for the body as well as the soul.
To the neglect of Sacraments and Sacramental teaching is due the rise of many of these cults. The writer heard one of the founders of the Emmanuel movement, treating nervous and mental disorders, say no persons that practice confession have come to them; the Sacrament of Penance seems to supply the need. That is the remedy provided by our Lord. In sickness the Holy Communion should be fre- quently received, and the Sacrament of Unction also in serious illness. Holy Unction sanctifies the means used for healing, and is in itself a source of strength and comfort. It conveys grace to body and soul. In the Roman Church it is only used in extremis, but this was not its use in the early Church. St. James^ shows how its use is connected with penitence and the forgiveness of sins, as is all Chris- tian healing.
The thorn in the flesh, weakness, sickness, sorrow, pain and death, are the wages of sin. God does not send these things ; He allows them. He spared not His Son and He cannot spare us. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says He cannot spare us because we are Sons. In His Incarnation the Son of God took these things unto Himself,
•St. James 5:14-16.
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bore them and sanctified them, and in the extension of the Incarnation in the Sacraments, He takes us with all our sins and weakness unto Himself, enables us to make our infir- mities an offering to God, a means of sanctification and the gate of heaven. All this Christian Science, Theosophy and New Thought deny, as do all religions that deny the doctrine of the Incarnation, the existence of sin and the need of redemption.
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for- ever." In losing himself in sacrifice, self-denial, and self- limitation for the glory of God, man finds himself. That is the lesson of Bethlehem and Calvary.
The first sacrifice of a life was oflfered in the Garden of Eden, when God clothed man and covered his nakedness and his shame. Man had tried to cover himself but had failed. He was not comfortable or happy in the covering he had made for himself and he dared not meet God in it. He went and hid himself. But when God clothed him he could once more speak to God. To provide this covering an innocent life was sacrificed, and this too was to be a lesson to man. As time went on man beautified his clothing, not for God's glory but for his own. Then God took this wrongly directed work and consecrated it for His glory in the worship of His Temple and the dress of His priests who were ordained to offer sacrifices. The priesthood is the witness in the world that all men and all their work belong to God, and man's chief duty is to worship God in the offer- ing of sacrifices. The priest's dress is to remind men of this.
A Sacramental religion must be a religion of symbol and ceremonial, and the war has taught us the value of these things. Some one has said all dress is Sacramental, that is, it expresses the manners and characteristics of a people and a period, and has an effect upon the wearer and on society. The Church in its clergy and religious orders, the State in the Army and Navy, and the higher civil courts, the Salva-
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liuii Army and the Quakers, all recognize the psychology of dress. The enlisted youth in his new uniform is the same boy he was before he put it on, yet he is different ; he feels it and his family feel it, although they may not realize it. The plain clothes man is useful as a detective, but to stop a fight you want the man in uniform.
Now and then one of our clergy, not understanding the Sacramental principle or human psychology, adopts the dress of an ordinary business man to be democratic and "just like other men," thinking in this way to get closer to people. The reverse is the case. He ma}^ like the detective, learn more of what they are thinking, but he does not get close to them in that way. What plain clothes man ever got as close to the people of all kinds as the late Dr. Houghton, Rector of "the Little Church around the corner" in New York, or Bishop Brent, the former Bishop of the Philippines, the head of our Army chaplains in France, or Father Officer, O. H. C, in our colleges and army camps, or the Bishop of Beth- lehem, formerly of Wyoming and Idaho, our beloved Bishop Talbot, or, to go across the seas, the Bishop of London ? Our bishops and priests have told how in travelling, people in trouble come to them because by their dress they recognize they are men of God, and on their part they are able to approach men and women and gain their confidence because of their dress. Rough men in the West have said they have gone to a minister of the Episcopal Church when in trouble "because he looked different."
The Bishop of London, in his opening address as President of the Midland Institute, after saying he had hesitated to speak on religion to such a gathering, says "After all, there is great truth in the proverb that 'the shoemaker should stick to his last,' and it cannot be entirely without purpose that apparently about once in five years an ecclesiastic is brought on to the scene here in his plain and sober raiment amid the glittering galaxy of Generals and actors and scien-
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bore them and sanctilied them, and in the extension of the Incarnation in the Sacraments, He takes us with all our sins and weakness unto Himself, enables us to make our infir- mities an offering to God, a means of sanctification and the gate of heaven. All this Christian Science, Theosophy and New Thought deny, as do all religions that deny the doctrine of the Incarnation, the existence of sin and the need of redemption.
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for- ever." In losing himself in sacrifice, self-denial, and self- limitation for the glory of God, man finds himself. That is the lesson of Bethlehem and Calvary.
The first sacrifice of a life was offered in the Garden of Eden, when God clothed man and covered his nakedness and his shame. Man had tried to cover himself but had failed. He was not comfortable or happy in the covering he had made for himself and he dared not meet God in it. He went and hid himself. But when God clothed him he could once more speak to God. To provide this covering an innocent life was sacrificed, and this too was to be a lesson to man. As time went on man beautified his clothing, not for God's glory but for his own. Then God took this wrongly directed work and consecrated it for His glory in the worship of His Temple and the dress of His priests who were ordained to offer sacrifices. The priesthood is the witness in the world that all men and all their work belong to God, and man's chief duty is to worship God in the offer- ing of sacrifices. The priest's dress is to remind men of this.
A Sacramental religion must be a religion of symbol and ceremonial, and the war has taught us the value of these things. Some one has said all dress is Sacramental, that is, it expresses the manners and characteristics of a people and a period, and has an effect upon the wearer and on society. The Church in its clergy and religious orders, the State in the Army and Navy, and the higher civil courts, the Salva-
THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM
181
liuii Army and the Quakers, all recognize the psychology of dress. The enlisted youth in his new uniform is the same boy he was before he put it on, yet he is different ; he feels it and his family feel it, although they may not realize it. The plain clothes man is useful as a detective, but to stop a fight you want the man in uniform.
Now and then one of our clergy, not understanding the Sacramental principle or human psychology, adopts the dress of an ordinary business man to be democratic and "just like other men," thinking in this way to get closer to people. The reverse is the case. He ma}^, like the detective, learn more of what they are thinking, but he does not get close to them in that way. What plain clothes man ever got as close to the people of all kinds as the late Dr. Houghton, Rector of "the Little Church around the corner" in New York, or Bishop Brent, the former Bishop of the Philippines, the head of our Army chaplains in France, or Father Officer, O. H. C, in our colleges and army camps, or the Bishop of Beth- lehem, formerly of Wyoming and Idaho, our beloved Bishop Talbot, or, to go across the seas, the Bishop of London ? Our bishops and priests have told how in travelling, people in trouble come to them because by their dress they recognize they are men of God, and on their part they are able to approach men and women and gain their confidence because of their dress. Rough men in the West have said they have gone to a minister of the Episcopal Church when in trouble "because he looked different."
The Bishop of London, in his opening address as President of the Midland Institute, after saying he had hesitated to speak on religion to such a gathering, says "After all, there is great truth in the proverb that 'the shoemaker should stick to his last,' and it cannot be entirely without purpose that apparently about once in five years an ecclesiastic is brought on to the scene here in his plain and sober raiment amid the glittering galaxy of Generals and actors and scien-
182 THE GREEN BOOK
tists and other distinguished men who in other years filled this distinguished office. I have this summer had the high privilege of visiting every battleship, battle cruiser, and most of the smaller ships of the Grand Fleet of Great Britain, and the thousands of sailors I addressed instantly caught the idea that of course I came to represent 'Religion.' I told an East-End story which appealed at once to the lower deck, so many of whom come from places like Bethnal Green, Poplar, Stepney, and similar localities at Portsmouth and Chatham. A rather shy East-End curate, on knocking at a door, heard a voice from the wash-tub at the back ask in a shrill voice, 'Well, Sally, who is it?' and was rather depressed to hear Sally shriek back, Tlease, mother, it's religion/ But, as I told the sailors, my invariable advice to such a man is this, 'Don't be ashamed of representing religion ; you were not dressed in a pudding hat and a dog collar and a long black coat to talk about the weather.' " *
The Church, as well as the Army and the Navy, has a service uniform for the street, and a ceremonial dress for different ceremonies. The surplice and stole for simple services, and the Eucharistic vestments for the great act of worship, be it plain or choral. The Eucharistic vestments are the classical vestments worn in the time of our Lord. This vesture began to be made beautiful by the use of costly material and woman's loving handiwork when the days of persecution were ended. Readers of the "Imitation" will recall the meaning of the priest's dress given in it by St. Thomas a'Kempis. So dress made to cover man's shame and enable him to hold communion with God and his fellows is sanctified, and set apart and offered to God with thanksgiving, for the Lamb of God has not merely covered our shame but has taken away our sin.
But dress is only one of the symbols used by the Church and the State. The national anthem, and the flag when cere-
•The Potter and the Clay.— A. F. W. Ingram.
THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 183
monially displayed, that is, when carried in procession or flown at headquarters and representing the nation, are treated with outward marks of reverence. Is it strange then that Church people pay a mark of respect to the altar, God's throne, and the Cross, the Christian banner, when displayed on the altar or carried in procession ? ^^
Both Church and State believe "Manners maketh man." The youth who went to a training camp full of patriotism, and eager to fight, found the first thing he was taught was not how to shoot, but how to salute according to regulations. When he went home to say good-bye, after long months of dull drill and discipline, the family hardly knew him; the careless, easy-going self-willed boy had become an alert, well-mannered man.
The Sacramental system sanctifies material and common things, so that whatever we do we may do all for the glory of God. It saves us from temperamentalism in religion, and teaches our religious life is a growth. It makes us realize our dependence on God, and that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, but outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls the Great Physician must apply the remedies that alone can save, and it enables us to offer something to God. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord."
"More and more as I muse upon it," says Fr. Figgis, "more and more as the wonder and beauty of the Catholic experience of all ages come into my soul, do I feel that the more rich and strange is the experience that may be ours, and the sense of praise and worship and of God's Presence given to us in our Eucharistic worship ; and more and more am I convinced that for the majority of men and women, not, perhaps, capable through time or temperament of high
10 With men this salute consists of a slight bowing of the head or body, and with women a slight bending of the knee, and is, like lifting hat and courtesying, am act of respect. Genuflecting is an act of adoration.
184 THE GREEN BOOK
speculation or of any great powers of religious rapture, the system of external ordinances and of Sacramental means is the one truly democratic system in religion which gives them each and all their place and their rights independent of their temperament, their education, and, if I may say so, of their character. It provides for them, not at the time when they are at their best, but at the time when faith burns dim, when the light of life seems low, when everything seems dull and nothing worth doing — then they can come and rest in the beauty of the Sacrament, when they would perhaps by themselves be unable to make prayers of any meaning." ^^
" Hopes for English Religion. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP
THi: matt£:r and thk minisT£:r o:^ Ti-iE sacrame;nt OF the: holy communion
Question. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained?
Answer. For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby. Question. What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?
Answer. Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.
Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified? Answer. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.
Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby ?
Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.
Question. What is required of those who come to the Lord's Supper?
Answer. To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remem- brance of his death ; and be in charity with all men,
— The Catechism, Book of Common Prayer.
Man's highest ideal is union and communion with God. This is the cry of the ages, and in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ that cry is answered. This Sacrament is called by various names, the most ancient being the Holy Communion, the Holy Mysteries, the Liturgy, and the Eucharist, expressive of its different aspects.
In the first English Prayer Book the title of this service
185
186 THE GREEN BOOK
was "The Holy Communion commonly called the Mass," and a Church dictionary defines "the Mass" as "The Euchar- istic service, so called colloquially at first, from the Dis- missals in it." The service is every where and always divis- ible into two distinct parts : the so-called Pro-Anaphora (before the oblation), which we call the Ante-Communion service, and the Anaphora (the oblation). The first part is for edification, and consists of readings from the Bible, the Epistle and Gospel, some prayers and the sermon, when there is one. At the end of this part of the service formerly came the first dismissal. The unbaptized, even the catechumens preparing for baptism, the ex-communicate, and those possessed of devils, were then dismissed. These persons were not permitted to be present at the celebration of the Holy Mysteries. The second part of the service begins with the oblation of the bread and wine, and is for worship. At the close of this part of the service came the second dis- missal with the words ''Ite missa est." So the first part came to be called by the people the Mass, or dismissal, of the Catechumens, and the second the Mass of the Faithful. There are some who think the word Mass is a very wicked Avord, and there are others who think it is very holy. It is neither. It is a short popular word with no particular mean- ing in the word itself. It has, however, acquired a meaning by long association in the West with the Holy Mysteries. Dr. Stone says the word "lays stress through its associations on the momentous facts of the historic continuity of the Church of Christ, and that English and foreign Church- people, seemingly so divided, are really at one in the central devotion of their lives."
This Sacrament is also called the Lord's Supper, the name originally given to the Agape or Love-feast that for a time was held in the evening before the celebration of the Euchar- ist, which followed in the early morning. On the night in which He was betrayed our Lord ate the Last Supper with
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 187
His Apostles, after which seem to have come the discourses given in St. John's Gospel ; then — after midnight perhaps — He probably began to recite the Jewish morning prayer and "transformed that morning prayer with its memorial of sacri- fice, and of incense, into the Eucharistic service for His Church, by the institution in it of the New Sacrament that summed up the old memorials into One Oblation. * * * The Mass of the Faithful is as unmistakably based on the morning service of the Temple, as is the Ante-Communion Service, the Mass of the Catechumens, based on the second part of the Jewish Liturgy for the morning, the Torah, the part special to the Synagogue." ^
The Apostles' first thought in celebrating the Eucharist seems to have been to reproduce as nearly as possible every detail of the original institution. ''That is it," says Canon Baring-Gould "which furnishes the key to explain all the peculiarities of the Eucharist. * * * j^ ^y^s this desire exactly to reproduce the order of events which induced the primitive Church to celebrate an Agape in the evening before the Eucharist, to combine a Lord's Supper with the New Institution. * * * In St. Paul's time (A. D. 57, 58) the Eucharist was plainly combined with this supper. The instructions he gives to the Corinthians (I Cor. xi, 20-34) seem to imply it. The assembly was held, and in eating the Lord's Supper (the Agape) there was a sad exhibition of greed and bad manners. There were cases of drunkeness. * * * Then — immediately after, came the Eucharist, the institution of which St. Paul proceeds to give, and finally warns the Corinthians of the danger of unworthy Com- munion if they venture to receive the Eucharist in the state of acerbity, inebriation, and disorder in which the Love-Feast has plunged some of them. 'What!' he exclaims, 'have ye not (your own) houses to eat and drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not ? — Wherefore,
* Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
188 THE GREEN BOOK
my brethren, when ye come together to eat (the Agape), tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home ; that ye come not together unto condemnation.' "
"In the account of the assembly at Troas, the same order was probably followed. 'Upon the first day of the week' (i. e., after sunset on Saturday), 'when the disciples came together to break bread' (in the Agape), 'Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight.' There were the breaking of bread and instructions first, as on the occasion of the Last Supper ; first the supper, and then the discourse. Then came mid- night, and after midnight, as we are expressly informed, ensued the Eucharist, the second breaking of bread." The Agape on account of the scandals that arose from it was soon separated from the Eucharist, and celebrated on Sunday night or some other time, and it was finally discontinued entirely ; but the Eucharist still retained the name of the Lord's Supper, "given to it when held in conjunction with the Agape, a designation proper only to this precedent Supper."
Whether the Lord ate the Passover with His Apostles before He instituted the new rite in His Body and Blood, or whether the meal He ate was an ordinary supper, has been a matter of dispute for centuries. The Synoptic Evangelists seem to assert that the Last Supper and the Passover took place on the 14th- 15th Nisan, and that Christ died on the 15th, while St. John in his Gospel, written after these, states very clearly that Jesus ate the Last Supper on the day before the Feast, and died on the 14th Nisan. ^ He says it was on the preparation of the Passover that our Lord was crucified, that He died at the time the Paschal lambs were being slain at the Temple, and that the Sabbath following "was a high day." St. John,^ St. Mark* and St. Matthew"' agree with this.
"St. John 18:28. * St. Mark 15:42.
•St. John 19:14,30. 'St. Matthew 27:62.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 189
"If we put ourselves in the position of reckoning days from sundown, the difficulties disappear, and the Synoptics are reconciled with St. John who, in his account leaves no doubt about the matter. * * * If we insist on the synoptic Evan- gelists as asserting that the Institution was on the 14th-15th — then we make them contradict themselves. * * * The tradition of the Church, burnt into its heart, is that Jesus died on the 14th Nisan. * * * j^ the second place, the un- wavering usage of the Church in the first centuries, the never altered usage of the Oriental Church to the present day, has been to employ for the Eucharist leavened bread, because Christ instituted the Holy Sacrament on the 13th-14th Nisan in leavened bread. * * * When unleavened bread was introduced in the West in the 5th and 6th centuries it was under a misconception — the supposition that Christ had ante- dated the Passover." ^ This is the opinion of Canon Baring- Gould and many others, and it is the opinion of the Eastern Church on this question, but while it is a matter of interest, it is not of serious importance. There is no doubt, however, that the Passover our Lord so greatly desired to eat with His disciples was not the old rite, but the new rite which He would institute in His Body and Blood.
The minister of this Sacrament is a bishop or priest of the CathoHc Church. "No man taketh this honor to himself, but he that is called of God as was Aaron," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Under the Old Covenant, when the sacrifices were but types and figures, any "stranger," that is any one not of the seed of Aaron, and therefore not divinely appointed and duly consecrated, who presumed to perform priestly functions was severely pun- ished. The case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram is a striking illustration of this. Moses said to these Levites, "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them : wherefore then
• Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould. 13
190 THE GREEN BOOK
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? * * * The Lord will shew who are His ; and who is holy ; and will cause him to come near unto Him : even him whom He hath chosen will He cause to come near unto Him. * * * Ye take too much upon yourselves, ye sons of Levi. * * * Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself to do the service of the taber- nacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them? And He hath brought thee near to Him, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also ?" ^
"If thou hadst the purity of Angels and the sanctity of Saint John Baptist," says St. Thomas a'Kempis, "thou wouldst not be worthy to receive or to touch this Sacrament. For this is not due to the deserts of men, that man should consecrate and handle the Sacrament of Christ : and receive for food the bread of Angels. Grand is this ministry, great too is the dignity of Priests : to whom has been granted that which is not permitted to Angels. For none but Priests duly ordained in the Church: have power to celebrate and to consecrate the Body of Christ. The Priest is indeed the minister of God : using the word of God by God's command and appointment. Nevertheless God is there the principal Author and invisible Worker ; to Whom all that He wills is subordinate : and all that He commands is obedient." * The Church has ever taught that Christ is the true priest, and the Holy Ghost the true consecrator of the Sacrament. The priest at the Altar is merely the agent.
Those who left the communion of the Catholic Church at the Reformation repudiated the teaching of the Euchar- istic Sacrifice, and had various ideas of the value of this Sacrament as a Communion and means of grace. Their
T Numbers 16:1-41.
• The Imitation of Christ. — Thomas a'Kempii.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 191
ministers claimed to be preachers of the Word; the most prominent object in their meeting houses, as they called their places of assembly, was, and is, the pulpit, not the altar ; their ministers did not, and do not now, claim to be priests or to offer sacrifices. Had they made the latter claim we believe the history of these sects would have been dift'erent. God blessed their preaching of the Word and their zeal for Him.
The Anglican Church does claim to be a part of the Catholic Church, to ordain priests and to offer the Sacrifice of the Eucharist. The Ordinal and the service of the Holy Communion testify to this, while the rubric requiring con- firmation for those who would be communicants, testifies to belief in the priesthood of the laity. Moreover, the more our Church has asserted its Catholicity, not in word but in deed ; the more clerg}' and laity have believed in their priest- hood and acted upon this belief ; the more the Eucharist is honored as the re-presentation to Ahnighty God of the one "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satis- faction, for the sins of the whole world," the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, the centre of our worship and life ; the more this Church of ours proves she is Catholic and has the Spirit within her, the more she grows and pros- pers, and arouses the opposition of the powers of Evil. We may be quite sure this would not be so if her claim w^as a false one, her priests committing sacrilege and her people hving on delusions.
The matter, or "outward and visible sign," of the Sacra- ment is bread and wine. Both must be consecrated and both partaken of by the celebrant. The bread must be made of the purest wheat flour unadulterated, and should be specially made for the purpose. In the East, with the small exception of the Armenians and xvlaronites, leavened bread is used. It is made of the finest wheat flour in small loaves, stamped with a cross and other emblems. St. Paul says, "We being many are one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers
192 THE GREEN BOOK
of that one bread."* "Since about the end of the ninth century the usual custom in the West has been to use un- leavened bread." The Church of Rome to-day orders its use while allowing the validity of the consecration of leavened bread, and permitting the use of the latter to the Uniats or Eastern Christians in communion with the Church of Rome. The Anglican Church permits the use of either leavened or unleavened bread, but the best and purest wheat bread must be used. This of course does not allow the use of baker's bread, which is not the purest and best, and makes it necessary to use, as has always been the custom, bread made for the purpose. Unleavened bread is being largely used by us as convenient and pure. It is made in Religious Houses or by Altar Societies, of the finest wheat flour and for this special use. It will keep sweet and good for a long time, and as it does not crumble it is convenient to administer. Unleavened bread is also used by the Lutherans. The use of ordinary bread "was forbidden by the sixth canon of the Sixteenth Council of Toledo, in 693, where priests are condemned for cutting off round slices from their common house bread." ^^
"It is in a high degree probable that the wine used by our Lord at the institution of the Sacrament was mixed with water. Pure wine was rarely drunk in ancient times. "^^ That the mixed chalice was the custom in the early Church there is frequent testimony from the second century down. Wine alone, however, may be consecrated and be a valid Sacra- ment, but not un fermented grape juice or water alone. The amount of water used in the chalice is very small.
"In the early Church Communion was administered and received in both kinds in all ordinary cases. * * * f j^g evidence for this fact is so clear that Cardinal Bona, though
•I Cor, 10:17.
»» Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
" The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 193
defending the restriction of the chahce to the celebrant, wrote : *It is certain that all in general, clergy and laity, men and women, anciently received the holy mysteries in both kinds when they were present at the solemn celebration of them, and both offered and were partakers/ 'The faith- ful always and everywhere, from the very beginning of the Church even to the twelfth century, communicated under the form of bread and wine/ * * * 'po the pres- ent time Communion in both kinds in ordinary cases has re- mained the custom of the Eastern Churches. * * ^k jj^ the West the chalice was gradually withdrawn from all com- municants except the celebrant. Writing near the end of the third quarter of the thirteenth century, S. Thomas Aquinas says that 'certain Churches' and 'many Churches' do not give the chalice to the laity. * * ♦ After the time of S. Thomas Aquinas the two methods continued for awhile side by side. * * * The Council of Constance in 1415 made Communion in one kind for the laity the law of the Western Church." ^^ Reverence for the Sacrament was the reason given for withdrawing the chalice from the laity, and as the whole Christ is received in each species it was said to be unnecessary to receive in both kinds. While it is of course true that the whole living, risen and glorified Christ is received in each species, and any other view "would seem, inseparably connected with a carnal and materialistic view," the withdrawal of the cup from the laity is a serious breach of Catholic practice, and disobedience to our Lord's own command on the plea of doing honor to Him.
That the chalice has a grace of its own is taught by many theologians, including Romans. Canon Mason says, "The gift of the cup is not simply the gift of Christ's Blood, but of Christ's Blood 'which is poured out (shed) on behalf of many.' " ^^ Its sacrificial significance was understood by the Apostles when at the institution of the New Covenant our
'* The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone. »» The Faith of the flospel.--A. J. Masoa.
194 THE GREEN BOOK
Lord took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you, and for many for the remission of sins." Bishop Alexander Forbes says, ''While the Sacrament under one kind conveys all the graces necessary to salvation, the chalice has a special grace of its own, — the grace of gladden- ing." Even those who deny the chalice to the laity seem to admit it has a special grace. "The leave given by Pope Clement VI. to the King of France to communicate in both kinds has never been withdrawn ; and as late as 1825 King Charles X. received Communion in both kinds at his corona- tion." The Bull granting this permission says it is given "for the greater increase of grace." ^* The chalice in the Church of Rome is a privilege for the privileged. In the hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas, which now forms part of the Latin office of Matins on Corpus Christi, we find these words in speaking of the Apostles :
"He gave them, weak and frail, His flesh, their food to be; On them, downcast and sad, His blood bestowed He."
The chalice is indeed the wine of God "which maketh glad the heart of man." "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."
In the East, in administering the Sacrament a small piece of the species of bread is dipped in the chalice and admin- istered with a spoon. The dipping of a sop in the wine cup was in the East a very common way of partaking of bread and wine, and this method of administering the Sacrament was adopted very early. In the Church of Rome to-day the priest puts the species of bread in the mouth of the com- municant, and the reed as an instrument of the Passion has also been used in the Church of Rome as "an instrument of the Mass," for Communion. St. Thomas a'Kempis, alluding to this custom, says, "Thou art a fountain always full and
1* The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
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overflowing: a fire ever burning, and never going out. Wherefore if I am not permitted to draw out of the full fountain nor to drink my fill : I will, notwithstanding set my lips to the mouth of this heavenly conduit ; that I may receive from thence at least some drop to allay my thirst." ^^ It is said Pope Leo XIII, who was devoted to ancient customs, always communicated himself with a reed, which of course was burned after the Mass.
In the Anglican Communion the ancient method of ad- ministering the Sacrament has been restored. In times of epidemic, and in tuberculosis camps where there is danger of infection, the Sacrament has been administered, with the permission of the Diocesan, by intinction ; that is, the Sacred wafer is half dipped in the chalice and put in the mouth of the communicant — a spoon is not used. It is hoped that authority will be given the Bishops to grant this permission when and where they deem it necessary to do so, but we should beware of hysteria and give heed to Dr. Stone's wise words. "In the rough days of the Middle Ages," he says, "the reverent administration of the chalice may often have been far from easy. At the present time objections have been urged against the Anglican method of giving Commun- ion on quite different grounds by doctors and others. In all such difficulties, whatever their right solution may be, the withdrawal of the species of wine from others than the celebrant is one of those rough and ready ways of dealing with a problem for which in the end men pay dear." ^^
"Whoso of this food partaketh, Rendeth not the Lord nor breaketh —
Christ is whole to all that taste : Thousands are, as one, receivers, One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of Him who cannot waste.
'* The Imitation of Christ. — Thomas a'Kempis. ^* The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
196 THE GREEN BOOK
"Bad and good the feast are sharing, O what diverse dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life: Life to these — to those damnation, See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.
"When the Sacrament is broken, Doubt not, but believe 'tis spoken That each severed outward token Doth the very whole contain: Nought the precious Gift divideth. Breaking but the sign betideth, Jesus still the same abideth,
Still unbroken doth remain.
"Lo ! the angels' food is given To the pilgrim who hath striven; See the children's Bread from heaven.
Which on dogs may not be spent: Truth the ancient types fulfilling, Isaac bound, a victim willing. Paschal lamb, its life-blood spilling,
Manna to the fathers sent.
"Very Bread, good Shepherd, tend us, Jesu, of Thy love befriend us. Thou refresh us. Thou defend us. Thine eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see ; Thou who all things canst and knowest. Who on earth such food bestowest, Grant us with Thy Saints, though lowest, Where the heavenly feast Thou showest,
Fellow-heirs and guests to be." "
" S. Thomas Aquinas.
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THE HOIvY COMMUNION
The Eucharist is the center of the Sacramental system and the center of the Church's hfe. It has been called the Sacra- ment of Sacraments, for it is the Sacrament to which all others point, in which they culminate, and from which all spiritual exercises derive their power. Baptism, confirma- tion, marriage and unction ; prayer, Bible and spiritual read- ing, and active service, all center in the Eucharist. In the other Sacraments the Lord confers life or grace; in this Sacrament He comes Himself. That is why we worship and adore. But how does He come ? Ah, we do not know. It is a great mystery. We reject the doctrine of Transub- stantiation, because " 'it overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament' by destroying the reality of the medium of com- munication. * * * \Ye object to Transubstantiation be- cause it is an explanation. * * * We should be bound equally to repudiate any other explanation of this Sacra- mental union." ^ The Russian and Greek Churches, while adopting the word, carefully repudiate any philosophical explanation of the term.
Speaking of certain aspects of belief in the Church of Rome, Fr. Figgis says, "We resent its hard outlines, its clear distinctions, its arrogance of certitude ; while its attempt to secure an intellectually coercive proof of God's being strikes us as both ineffectual and unattractive. It is not valid; and if it were valid, it would destroy the very belief it proves, and it would make God inferior to our intelligence.
» Bible T«a8hmgs.— R. M. Bensoa. S. S. J. E.
197
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So with the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It is not to the truth therein enshrined that the EngHsh mind objects, but to the attempt to rationalise a mystery. The same feature was prominent in the revolt of the last century against the cruder forms of 'the scheme of salvation/ as it used to be called. Men did not so much object to the doctrine of the Atonement, but they shrank from the familiar and almost vulgar way in which coarse analogies were pressed, and attempts were made to measure a profound and glorious mystery by line and rule."^ "It is rather with Thomas of Acquino singing as the saint than with the Angelic Doctor writing as the theologian that the light and rest of the soul will be found.^
"Miracles," says Fr. Benson, "belong to the economy of nature. Mysteries belong to the economy of grace. Mir- acles are a marvel of a transitory world. 'Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.' Mysteries possess an inherent, abiding power. 'If any man eat of the living Bread he shall live for ever.' * * * Miracles are at least an apparent disturbance of the law of nature. Mysteries are the regular and changeless working of a supernatural power, according to the law of a higher world. * * * Mir- acles have a spiritual occasion, but their reality is outward, not affecting spiritual life. Mysteries have nothing outward to make them manifest, but they have an inward reality, quite independent of outward recognition."
It was at the very height of His popularity that our Lord uttered the strange and mysterious words recorded in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel. "I am the living bread which came down from Heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto
•The Gospel and Human Needs.— J. N. Figgis, C. R. ' The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
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them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day."*
That those who heard these words understood them liter- ally, and that the Christ intended they should so understand them, no unprejudiced reader of this chapter can doubt. It was "a hard saying" and impossible to understand; the IMaster did not deny it, He knew it would test their faith to the utmost, but for two years He had been pre- paring them for such trust in Him. Would they stand the test? "From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve. Will ye also go away ?" Simon Peter, always im- pulsive, and faith triumphing over perplexity and distress, answered Him, ''Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."^
St. Peter found the answer to the question, the solution of the difficulty, the rock on which alone faith can build, in the person of Jesus Christ. If we hold the doctrine of the Incarnation in its fullness, if we accept this miracle of mir- acles, we will not boggle over its miraculous manifestations or the mysteries of its extension.
The disciples whose faith failed, and who "walked no more with Him," had sought and followed Him for worldly ad- vantage and material things, for which the Master rebuked them. "Ye seek Me, not because of the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." The miracles were signs to prove that He came from God, and lead them to trust in Him ; but they were blind and said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph? how is it then that He saith, I came down from heaven ?" He spoke to them of everlasting life, of the
*St. John 6:51-54. • St. John 6:66-69.
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resurrection of the dead, of the ascension of the Son of Man, carrying our humanity to Heaven whence He came, and He bid them 'discern His Body' existing under different conditions, but they would not lift their hearts unto the Lord. The heavenly kingdom and the heavenly food made no appeal and had no attraction for them. They were seek- ing one who would "make this world a better place to live in" ; so "they departed to the things that were behind" ® — a literal translation.
The Incarnation of the Son of God is the rock on which the Catholic Faith and the Catholic Church is built — other foundation can no man lay — but this rock has ever been a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to materialists. Those who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, or who seek Him for worldly objects, however high and noble, may follow Him for a time as a prophet or an example ; but when He begins to say hard things and disappoint their hopes, they will leave Him, some sorrowfully, others mock- ing and reviling Him. "We thought that it had been He which should have stopped wars, ended poverty and injustice, and, like Moses, given us bread without labor," they say, as they go away to seek another leader.
The five thousand going up to Jerusalem, who had seen the miracles that He did, many of them His disciples, when they did eat of the loaves and were filled, hailed Him as the Messiah and would take Him by force and make Him a King ; but when Jesus perceived it He departed unto a moun- tain alone. It was alone in the mountain wilderness at the beginning of His ministry that He had fought and conquered this temptation, but the suggestion comes to Him again and again. Each time He recognizes its source. "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon : for he it was that .should betray Him, being one of the twelve." Judas seems to have
• St. John 6:66.
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been the leader of the movement, in which probably the other eleven also took part, to make Jesus a King, and the discourse at Capernaum marks the beginning of his dis- affection and downfall. A year later, when Jesus went up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, He accepted the homage and encouraged the hosannas of the people; then, led by Judas, they crowned Him with thorns, and brought Him to Calvary and nailed Him to a cross, and over His head His accusation was written, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."
When the shadows deepened and the storm gathered about Him on the night on which He was betrayed, as He took the bread and blessed and break it, and said, "Take, eat, this is my Body," and took the cup and gave thanks, and said, "This is my Blood of the New Covenant, Drink ye all of it," that day at Capernaum and the strange discourse must have been instantly and vividly recalled. Not until Pentecost, however, did they understand it fully. Then they learned what the Lord meant when He said, "It is expedient for you that I go away." "Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." ^ The abiding joy of His Presence in the Eucharist is His great gift to His Church.
"The purpose of the Incarnation was to give life to our weak and sinful manhood, to provide a Humanity which shall be life-giving, not merely an example, but an instru- ment, of perfect life. This Humanity, joined to the Deity of Christ at the Incarnation, was perfected in glory at the Ascension. The Incarnation brought God and Man into new relations. In the unity of the Person of Christ the Godhead communicated grace and life-giving power to His Manhood. Christ's Humanity, inseparably linked to His Divine Person, became life-giving. It was not the Humanity in and by itself, however perfect, that could give life, for it was weak, as a truly created thing. But linked through
"• St Joha 16:22.
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the Incarnation to the Divine Person of Christ, the Sacred Humanity acquired Hfe-giving powers. Until the Ascension, those hfe-giving powers of Christ were restrained within His own Sacred Person. The Ascension, by glorifying and spirituaHsing the powers of Christ's Manhood, made His Humanity the perfect means of giving life to others. The medium through which He *gave gifts to men' was not His Deity, but His Manhood. Christ, by taking manhood into Himself, has made His Sacred Humanity the means of our restoration, has provided a Presence self-limited, definite, which man can claim, and according to the terms of His own ordinance, control and take humbly into His own life, as the pledge of eternal bliss. This real presence of Christ's Sacred Humanity is the distinctive gift of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar."
"This Eucharistic Presence is the Presence of Christ's glorified Humanity. It is the fruit of the Ascension. There is no dead Christ. The only Humanity of Christ is the living and glorified Humanity. There is, there can be, no other. The glory of the Altar is indeed the Presence of Christ's sacred and glorified Humanity, the Presence, spiritual and true, of the real Body and Blood of our Saviour, the truly created and glorified Humanity of our Lord, an actual, objective, supernatural, sacramental Presence, the mode of which transcends our understanding, the certainty of which is guaranteed by the obedience of the Church to the institu- tion of Christ." »
St. Paul, who was called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, was given a special revelation from the Lord Jesus in regard to this Sacrament, he told the Corinthian Christians in rebuking them for their behavior and failure to "discern the Lord's Body" in it. In partaking of it as an ordinary meal, he said they were guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ. "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of
• The Woadrous Passion. — F. W. Drake.
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that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's Body." * There are some who say the Lord's Body and Blood in the Sacrament are the result of faith, not of the consecration of the bread and wine by a priest. St. Paul certainly does not say so. These Corinthians were rebuked for their lack of faith. The Body and Blood of the Lord zuas there, and they did not discern it and reverence it. Bishop Gore, always careful in his use of words, says, ''I do not think it possible to exaggerate the extent to which the early Christians believed in the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ."
This doctrine of the Real Presence of the living, risen, and glorified Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar is taught us in our Catechism and in the service of the Holy Communion, nowhere more plainly than in the Prayer of Humble Access written and added to the service at the Reformation. In it we pray "so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us."
Reverence and reserve in dealing with holy things was natural to the Apostles, trained in the Jewish religion and ceremonial, and from the first this was deeply impressed upon the Christian Church. In the early days only the faithful were permitted to be present at the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, or to know "the Secret of the Lord." This en- abled the heathen to circulate all kinds of strange stories to discredit the Christians. They were accused of gross im- moralities and cannibalism in connection with the celebra- tion of the Eucharist. It was said they killed a child, roasted and ate it. On account of this Justin Martyr was led to break the Discipline of the Secret, and in A. D. 148 wrote
•I Cor. 11:28-29.
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his apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, "who held the lives of the Christians in his hand," giving a true account of the Eucharist. Excusing himself for being obliged to do this, he says, "This food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing for regeneration and remission of sins, and who is living as Christ enjoined.^" For, not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ, our Saviour, having been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." Tertullian, writing fifty-seven years later, in his Prescription against Heretics, "casts it in the teeth of sectaries that they have no reserve. 'It is doubtful who is a catechumen, and who is a believer. They allow access to all alike ; all hear alike, pray alike. That which is holy they cast to the dogs, and their pearls — though, by the way, they are sham ones — they fling to the swine.' " ^^
The position of the altar in every Catholic church ex- presses the honor and reverence in which the Sacrament is held. Not only has the altar the most prominent place, but it is lifted up and set apart to protect it from careless approach. The choir or rood screen, the altar rail, in the East a veil or curtain, and a series of steps, all symbolize what is taught by St. Paul and expressed in the exhortation to those "w4io mind to come to the Holy Communion." The exhortation is now rarely read in full excepting before the great Festivals, and perhaps this makes it more impressive, but in these lax days we need its warnings, and would do well to read it carefully from time to time, that we may be reminded what the Church requires of those who come to the Holy Communion. Like other invitations and exhorta-
10 Baptism in the first centuries always included Confirmation. " Quoted in "Our laheritance." — S. Baring-Gould.
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tions in the Communion service, it is addressed to those who have been admitted by confirmation to the privileges of membership. One part of the Prayer Book explains, it does not contradict another part.
The exhortation calls attention to the dignity of the Sacrament "which being so divine and comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily, and so dangerous to those who will presume to receive it unworthily ; my duty is to exhort you, in the mean season to consider the dignity of that holy Mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving there- of ; and so to search and examine your own consciences, (and that not lightly, and after the manner of dissemiblers with God; but so) that ye may come holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast, in the marriage-garment required by God in holy Scripture, and be received as worthy partakers of that holy Table." That this is not meant to frighten people away is plain from the words of another exhortation. "Wherefore, most dearly beloved in Christ, take ye good heed, lest ye, withdrawing yourselves from this holy Supper, provoke God's indignation against you. * * * if ^ny man say, I am a grievous sinner, and therefore I am afraid to come : wherefore then do ye not repent and amend ? When God calleth you, are ye not ashamed to say ye will not come ?" And that all excuse may be taken from such, the exhortation says, "Because it is requisite that no man should come to the Holy Communion but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience ; * * * let him come to me, or to some other Minister of God's Word, and open his grief ; that he may receive godly counsel and advice, as may tend to the quieting of his conscience, and the removing of all scruple and doubtfulness." The English Prayer Book says, "that he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice." Both the English and American Prayer Books counsel confession to a priest. The English Prayer Book makes mention of the benefit of absolution as 14
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one of the reasons for such a confession. The American does not speak of this but of course does not exclude it. The priest to whom the person troubled in conscience goes for help will certainly "counsel and advise" such confession, in order that the penitent may have this personal and sacra- mental assurance of pardon.
The absolution in the Communion service is a general absolution. "Approach to God is always such a solemn and awful thing, that whenever and however we approach Him there may well be the sprinkling of Absolution applied even to those who, it may be, have just made a private and solemn act of penitence in their own person. "^^ In the Roman Mass there is a general confession and absolution, very like that in our service, to be said for those who are about to make their communions, and who have made confession to a priest and received sacramental absolution. It is evident that our Church "supposes, when she pronounces her Absolutions in church, that she has done so over people who are already penitent, and who are already forgiven ; that is to say, either they have confessed their sins to God in the quiet of their own rooms, with contrition and deep sorrow, and with full purpose of amendment of life, and have received that pardon which He knows how to give ; or else that they have confessed them to God in the same way, and have received Absolution at the hands of His priest. Both the one and the other — vis. he who is satisfied with the private confession and he who is not satisfied, but needs the special confession — are absolved again for the purpose of the service ; my con- tention being that we ought to insist more on the private preparation with its accompanying act of penitence, whatever it may be ; that which goes on in what the Exhortation calls 'the meantime,' that is, before we come to the service itself." '^'^ (Italics mine).
Reverence for this Sacrament was very marked in the
ia.18 The Holy Kucharist.— W. C. E. Newbolt,
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early days of the Protestant sects, fresh from Church in- fluences. The early Baptists and Presbyterians were espe- cially careful to "fence the table," as the Scotch called it. They were very particular as to who were admitted to the Holy Communion, and careful in their preparation for it. "Communion Sabbath" in Scotland was a very solemn and important day, and the children not yet communicants attended the service with their parents. Although they regarded the bread and wine as mere symbols, they believed that in fulfilling the Lord's command they had communion with Him in a special manner, and by faith spiritually received His Body and Blood. And who shall say such do not? Certainly the Church does not say so. She has ever taught the reality of spiritual communion. Readers of "The Imitation" will recall this.
"In Spiritual Communion we receive our Lord according to our own powers and fitness, according to our own measure of correspondence with His grace." "In Sacramental Com- munion, on the other hand, we receive our Lord according to His own fulness, as Pie is in Himself, according to His own measure of love, His own largess of beneficence. His own power of blessing, irrespectively of our own imperfections or narrowness of capacity." ^* The use we make of the Sacra- mental gift of course depends upon ourselves; that is why when we receive Him sacramentally we are bidden to feed on Him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving. Upon our preparation to receive the gift, and our care of it after we have received it, depends the value of our Communions to us.
The invitation in the Communion service is not to the whole congregation, but to those "who mind to come to the holy Communion," those who have fulfilled the require- ments for Communion laid down by the Church, and come to the service prepared and intending to receive the Sacra-
" The Holy Eucharist.— T. T. Carter.
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ment. It is shocking and distressing to see people make their Communions who have made no preparation and had no idea of making a Communion when they came to Church, and some of whom until the offertory had not made up their minds to ''stay." Frequently these do not stay for the bless- ing. One has seen people m.ake their Communions as if they were going to a lunch counter, and walk right out of church as soon as they have received ; never a thanksgiving or act of praise, and not waiting to receive the Eucharistic blessing. What would St. Paul say of such communicants?
If they sin in ignorance, we may pray they may be for- given, for they know not that they are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ. But what of the Stewards of the Mysteries, the Guardians of the Treasure, who do not teach, and who even tear down the fences erected by the Church to protect the Altar and the communicants, giving promis- cuous invitations to those present to receive the Holy Com- munion ?
There are three things very clearly and emphatically told us in these exhortations. First, if we neglect the Holy Communion we dishonor God and imperil our souls. Second, if we come without the preparation of self-examination, repentance, faith, love and thanksgiving, we may eat and drink condemnation instead of blessing to ourselves. Third, the Holy Communion is not a reward of merit for the righteous, but the Bread of Life for the weak and sinful. The only reason any one can honestly give for not coming regularly to the Holy Communion is that he does not want to come, that he does not believe, or that he does not want to repent and prepare himself.
Writers on the spiritual life say that most ill-prepared communions are due to irregularity, not having fixed times for communions, and that half of the ineffective commun- ions are due to failure in thanksgiving, after the service and during the following week. The Catechism tells us
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our preparation should consist in repentance, faith and thanksgiving. Repentance is only the beginning. We must have "a lively faith," an active, vigorous faith that reaches out to embrace the gift, and a thankful heart to receive it. Many conscientious communicants fail to realize the joy of Communion because most of their prepa- ration is taken up with thinking about themselves, while most of it should be taken up with thinking about God and the coming of the Lord to them in the Sacrament. When we go to church to receive it, this should be the one thought as we kneel in happy, quiet oblation and expectation, quiet in mind and body, in the freshness of the early morning and the hush of "the low Mass," and think of Him as He comes to us in great humility. ^^
This wondrous Sacrament is the extension of the Incar- nation and the Atonement — it perpetuates Bethlehem and Calvary — and it unites us with the heavenly oblation and worship. It is the meeting place of Heaven and Earth. Time, space, and even death are no more as we kneel in penitent humility to receive this gift. In this supreme moment we have fellowship one with another, with our blessed dead, and with that great multitude which no man could number, who, here and beyond, are serving God in spirit and in truth.
"From every stormy wind that blows, From every swelling tide of woes, There is a calm, a sure retreat; 'Tis found beneath the mercy-seat.
"There is a place where Jesus sheds The oil of gladness on our heads, A place than all beside more sweet ; It is the blood-stained mercy-seat.
" At the early service the custom lias coine of kneeh'ng ti.roughout the whole service, excei)t during the Creed and Gospel, to avoid consunt movement and cultivate stillness and simplicity, as a help to devotion. But individual feeling will decide this.
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"There is a spot where spirits blend, Where friend holds fellowship with friend; Though sundered far, by faith they meet Around one common mercy-seat.
"There, there, on eagles' wings we soar, And time and sense seem all no more; And heaven comes down, our souls to greet, And glory crowns the mercy-seat."
But the Holy Communion is food for the body as well as the soul. When the priest gives us our Communion he says, "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," and we pray "that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body." From the very earliest days fasting has been the preparation of the body for the receiving of this Holy Sacrament, and the homage it renders the Lord's Body. St. Augustine says, "In honour of so great a Sacrament the body of the Lord should enter the mouth of a Christian before any other food ; for this is the reason why the custom is observed throughout the whole world." And after quoting St. Paul's words in I Corinthians XI, 20, 34, St. Augtistine goes on, "Whence we are given to understand" "that the Apostle himself set in order the observance in which no diversity of custom is found." ^^ As in everything we do for God, we receive in return far more than we give.
Those who have visited the great spas in Europe will recall how early in the morning the place was alive with people walking to a distant mineral spring to drink its life-giving waters, it being essential they be taken as the first food of the day. And when one sees communicants in large num- bers making their Communions comfortably at midday, with well-filled minds and bodies, one cannot but feel "for this cause many are weak and sickly among us, and many sleep." Among the crowd at the spa one has known some, and no doubt there were many, who had always been too lazy or
" The Holy Communion.— Darvell Stc»c.
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been considered too delicate to go out before breakfast to an early service ; yet, "whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again : but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst," says our Lord. "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."
In the Church of Rome the Pope only can grant dispen- sations from the fast before Communion, and while such dispensations are not common as are dispensations from the Friday fast, they are not infrequently granted in cases of real necessity, especially to the clergy who are getting old, or who must take journeys to celebrate in distant parishes, or for some other good reason. The writer recalls, when in Rome some years ago, reading in a newspaper a notice of the granting of such dispensations to several of the older Cardinals, and the statement was made that the Pope, Leo XIII, would not dispense himself. Such a dispensation does not permit a meal but only some light food taken in the privacy of one's own room. "This is a matter," says Fr. Puller, "in which a man should not dispense himself." The rule of course does not apply to those who are dying, or near death, as in the case of men going to battle.
"Those who do not recognize any authority of the Uni- versal Church cannot be expected to see that this rule is binding upon them ; but * * * those who do acknowledge the authority of the Universal Church must be prepared to take this rule with the rest. Certainly it would be unbecoming in any to make a point of the Anglican appeal to primitive antiquity and to ignore the teaching of primitive antiquity in a matter of this kind." "
Whether the Eucharist was instituted before or after mid- night we do not know. In any case it was, for the Apostles, the beginning of a new day, as the Jewish day began after sundown; and from the very first it was celebrated in the morning, that is, after midnight, and usually very early. For
*^ The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
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a time in some places, on fast days it was deferred until afternoon, to prolong the fast, and a celebration was held on the evening of Maundy Thursday. But whatever the hour, the Communion was always received fasting, that is, no food or drink was taken after midnight of the previous day. Before long these afternoon and evening celebrations were given up, even on Maundy Thursday ; and celebrations in the morning, that is, after midnight and before midday, became the universal rule of the Church. Afternoon and evening Communions are now absolutely unauthorized and in every way undesirable. The Passover, always eaten fast- ing, was the rite of the passing day and an evening meal ; the Eucharist is the new rite of the new day, and the Catho- lic Church has ever faced East in her worship, looking for the coming of the Lord.
Several years ago one of our clergy, while recovering from an illness, was staying in a southern town where the church had been closed for some months. The people were anxious for a service, and asked the priest if he would give them one. He explained that he was not strong enough to preach or have a long service, but said he would be glad to have a Communion service Sunday morning at eight o'clock. There had never been such a service in the place, but it was agreed to, and the next Sunday the church was filled with devout communicants. Afterwards many expressed their enjoy- ment of the service. They had been in the habit of making their Communions after breakfast, and at the end of a long service with a sermon. To go, fresh from one's morning prayers, with no distracting work or talk to interrupt that preparation, to a simple, quiet service with no sermon, no badly sung music, no ill-chosen hymns, nothing to irritate or fatigue, this was indeed a revelation of what Communion with God in the Sacrament of His love could be.
"Early Communions are the obvious choice of the devo- tional instinct. They embody its moral and its sacramental
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significance, they necessitate an act of self-denial, and they secure the freshest energies of the soul for the altar of God. When no word has yet been uttered except to God, when no nourishment has yet passed the lips, when the first self- dedication of the waking moment still echoes through the soul, there is the truest welcome, the most genuine adoration, the most tender and soul-constraining recognition of the King of Kings, who sets up His throne in the heart, as in the world, without observation. Only let the soul have felt this experimentally, and a late Communion will appear to be a disadvantage."
Canon Liddon, I think it was, said, "The early Com- munion is the pulse of the parish." To go to an early service means effort and self-denial, and only those who value the Sacrament, and, therefore, prepare for it, will make this effort. How often Jesus comes to His own, and His own have made no room for Him.^^
In the heyday of prosperity men may argue about the Real Presence, but "in the hour of death and in the Day of Judgment" it is the only thing they want. We had abundant proof of that during the war. Men knew they were un- worthy, therefore nothing else would satisfy. "Come to Jesus," said the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation Army. "Where is He, and how can I come?" asked the soldier. "Believe and pray," they answered. "But He seems so far away ; my faith is weak and vague, and I do not know how to pray," said the soldier. "Come to Jesus," said the Catho- Hc Church. "He is here amid the roar of the guns and the smoke of battle ; you can touch Him ; you can receive Him in all His power in the Sacrament of His ordaining. Be not afraid, only repent and believe ; trust Him, give yourself to Him. Come to Jesus." And men came in thousands and found "grace to help in time of need."
1* Dr. Morgan Dix used to say that confession and fasting communion were thiC heart of the Catholic movement.
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THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE
The Eucharist is the great Christian sacrifice, as a reading of the prayer of consecration will show. The Catechism also tells us the Sacrament was ordained "For the continual remembrance of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby" — two things. In the Holy Eucharist we do show before God "the Lord's death till He come." This is very beautifully expressed in Canon B right's well-known hymn —
"And now, O Father, mindful of the love
That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, And having with us Him that pleads above,
We here present, we here spread forth to Thee, That only offering perfect in Thine eyes, The one true, pure, immortal sacrifice.
"Look, Father, look on His anointed face,
And only look on us as found in Him ; Look not on our misusings of Thy grace.
Our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim ; For lo ! between our sins and their reward, We set the Passion of Thy Son our Lord.
"And then for those, our dearest and our best,
By this prevailing presence we appeal ; Oh, fold them closer to Thy mercy's breast 1
Oh, do Thine utmost for their souls' true weal ! From tainting mischief keep them white and clear. And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere." ^
Sacrifice has been defined to mean "the act of offering or presenting an oblation before Almighty God," and as a
1 This hymn is frequently sung in the Communioa service after the Conse- cration, either during the Communioii of the people, or, in Advent and Leat, in place of the Gloria in Bxcelsis,
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means of approach to God it is as universal as religion. A religion that did not make the offering of sacrifice to God the centre of its worship, we should feel was not of God.
It seems probable that man offered oblations to God of the fruits of the earth before he sinned, but the bloody sacri- fice was the acknowledgment of sin and the need of redemp- tion, and the first sacrifice of this kind it would seem was offered to provide clothing to cover the nakedness and shame of the sinner. Cain's sacrifice was an oft'ering of self- will and without acknowledgment of sin, what man had offered before he sinned, and God w^ould not accept it. Abel's offering was accepted because it was the offering of obedience and penitence. When this sin-offering w^as made, man could again offer the fruits of the earth, as we see in the Jewish Church ; for example, in the Shew-Bread — more properly the bread of the Face or the Presence — and the Minchah the meat offering, a cake of fine flour, and wine (the drink-offering) offered with incense. The Mincha was the ''pure offering" of which the Prophet Malachi spoke when in prophesying of the Messiah's kingdom he said, "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure oft'ering: for My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." The ancient Fathers are unanimous in applying this prophecy to the Eucharist.
"The continuity of nature is the accepted doctrine of science ; there are no breaks, or leaps or sudden beginnings in nature. Had, then, Christianity started suddenly into exist- ence, instead of being the, as it were, natural result of the working of a long succession of causes, we might well have looked upon it with some suspicion, and doubted whether it could have come from the hand of the same God whose method of working in nature we have recognized as one of unbroken continuity. But Christianity did not appear as a
216 THE GREEN BOOK
new revelation about eighteen hundred years ago ; it may fairly claim to be, if not *as old as creation/ yet as old as the Fall of man, as old as the promise of Redemption."
"That the Jewish and the Christian Churches form in reality but one Church of God, though in different stages of development, is very generally admitted. Bishop Words- worth, in his commentary on Zechariah, says distinctly, 'The Christian Church from the commencement, is the only legiti- mate continuation 'of the Israel of God.' The root is in Zion, but the branches overshadow the earth.' * * * Very similarly he speaks in his Introduction to the Book of Leviticus : 'If the Christian student desires to have a clear view of the various phases, and divers effects, of the one Great Sacrifice offered once for all on the Cross ; if he would comprehend its composite universality, and analyze its dis- tinct offices and benefits ; if he would understand the spiritual organism of each of its parts, and admire the harmonious symmetry and divine fulness of the whole ; and if he would rightly apprehend how that one Sacrifice is continually re- presented in the Christian Church, and how its virtue is ever communicated to the faithful in the Holy Eucharist, He will have his desires fully satisfied, and his labours amply re- warded, in reading the Book of Leviticus by the light of the New Testament, and with the help of those expositions which have been handed down from the primitive times.' " ^
On the Cross our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ "made there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." That sacrifice can never be repeated, but in heaven our great High Priest continually re-presents this Sacrifice to the Father, and we here on earth, at the altars of the Catholic Church, join in that great offering and intercession. It is one sacrifice, one oblation; the offering on Calvary, the offering in heaven and the
"The Worship of the Old Covenant— E. F. Willis.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 217
offering in the Eucharist — "our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."
The Eucharist is one of the oldest names for the Sacra- ment. The word translated ''thanksgiving" in the Epistles frequently means the service of the Eucharist. For example, in the Epistle to St. Timothy, in giving his directions in regard to his work, St. Paul says, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks (Eucharists), be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God and our Saviour." ^
This sacrifice is not the praise and thanksgiving we offer to God at the celebration of the Holy Mysteries as well as at other services ; it is the offering of the risen and glorified Body of Christ, and with it ourselves, our souls and bodies, and our praise and thanksgiving. "A merely spiritual offer- ing, if it stood alone, would miss one whole purpose of the Incarnation — the sanctification of the material universe and the body of man. A sacrifice essentially involves two parts — an interior disposition and an exterior gift. Without the first the sacrifice is ineffectual : without the second the offer- ing is not a sacrifice. * * * To offer the interior disposition alone, the praise and thanksgiving without any exterior symbol, would not be to offer sacrifice. To offer bread and wine alone would be to off'er the material universe without man. To offer man alone in his sins and failure would be to offer an unclean and imperfect thing which God could not accept. To offer Christ alone would be to off'er the Head without the Body. But when our bread and wine have been caught up into union with the risen and ascended Body of Christ : when through them He uplifts us, body and soul, into union with Himself, and presents us to the Father, then
•I Tim. 2:1-3.
218 THE GREEN BOOK
we see the splendour of His great Redemption, which em- braces the whole universe in the arms of God's mercy."
"There is another aspect of the Holy Sacrifice. The Body of Christ is not merely that which we receive in the Blessed Sacrament : it is the whole Church, living and departed. 'Ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.' Each one of us 'in one Spirit' is 'baptized into one Body' through which Christ is working out the world's redemp- tion. Each in his place — in mill and factory and workshop and mine, in office or profession, as merchant, doctor, nurse, student, teacher — labours throughout the week in God's service, as a member of Christ through whom He teaches and acts on the world. On the Lord's Day we, the members of the Body, meet at the Lord's service ; each brings his little contribution of love and labour and suffering with all their manifold imperfections and failures, and these with us are caught up into union with the perfect Sacrifice of Christ, and Christ our High Priest offers us to the Father. It is the offering of the Church, the Body of Christ, to the Father, in which the work of the past week in prayer and interces- sion and manifold activities is cleansed and presented to the Father ; and in which we are again purified and conse- crated afresh to His service." *
The Jewish sacrifices and the Temple worship ceased with the destruction of the Temple. They were "the shadow of good things to come," "the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," and in the Eucharist this sacrificial worship is ful- filled, for God has Himself provided the Lamb for the sac- rifice. "That must have been a glorious scene, when the congregation (Israel) stood in the Temple court and looked up to the great gates of the Holy Place, and saw harpers, trumpeters, and singers ranged there, with the incense steaming out from behind them through the parted curtains, and before them the altar of sacrifice with the blood stream-
*The Sacramental Principle.— P. B. Bull, C. R.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 219
ing from it. Then suddenly with a loud voice, came the call to thanksgiving and glory, in union with angels, and cherubim, and seraphim, and with a clang of harps and blare of silver trumpets, and the shout of a great multitude, priests and Levites, robed in white, there rose the song —
'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory.' "
"And there is deep significance in the change as shown by St. John. The altar of sacrifice, identified with the altar of incense, is no longer without in the court, nor the golden altar in the Holy Place, but the combined altar of sacrifice and incense is within the veil in the Holy of Holies, and there around it are the white-robed harpers, and incense bearers, and singers, and there, on it, is the Lamb that had been slain. We lose wholly the significance of the vision of St. John, unless we first picture to ourselves the scene at the morning sacrifice in Jerusalem below, and then see in what points the service differs, as revealed in the Jerusalem which is above." ^
Of necessity, the worship of the Primitive Church, while full of dignity and ceremonial, was poor and meagre in its appointments. Splendor was impossible under the circum- stances. But if we turn to the book of the Revelation of St. John, and read what is there shown us of the worship in Heaven, we shall see what St. John looked forward to. "We will grant that what is told us is symbolic ; but we ask, — A symbol being taken from something known, to illustrate the unknown, where was the known reality from which this picture was taken and transferred to heavenly things, where, if not in the worship of the Church in Apostolic times?"® The worship of the Church on earth is reflected and ideal- ized in heaven. It is the worship St. John knew in his own Church at Ephesus. So the principle of worship and sac- rifice passed on from the Jewish to the Christian Church.
•-* Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
220 THE GREEN BOOK
That the best sacrifice is spiritual, no CathoHc, Aiighcan, Greek or Roman would deny. *'What they would refuse to admit would be that such a sacrifice was exclusive of sac- ramental oblation and worship."
The manner of celebrating the Holy Mysteries, as might be expected of men trained in the dignified, reverent and orderly worship of the Jewish Temple, was a matter of the first importance to the Primitive Church, and so it has ever been in the Catholic Church. There was no zvritten Liturgy, or authoritative form of words in the primitive age, "but that there was a general structural type, seems certain, for that remains constant. 'Under the dictation of habit and experience,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'these prayers were gradually assuming a fixed form.' " ^ Later this form of words was consigned to writing, and we have the Liturgies named after their presumed authors. As the Church grew and received into it men and women of different nations and habits of thought, and as "views" increased, such a fixed form was most important. When St. Athanasius, in his defense of our Lord's divinity, stood out against the world, not only the heathen world but the bishops and clergy, and even the Pope, the Church in spite of her hereti- cal clergy went on witnessing to the Faith in the unchanging Liturgy. What would have become of the Church of Eng- land in the eighteenth century if she had not had her Catholic Prayer Book? This fixed form is also the great protection of the laity. The "views" of the officiating priest do not affect the service.
An argument for variety in usage is sometimes based on the fact that the Church of Rome admits to her Communion congregations of baptized and confirmed Eastern Christians, micmbers of a branch of the Church whose Orders and Sac- raments she recognizes, and allows them the use of the Liturgy and customs to which they have been accustomed,
^ Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 221
and which include married priests, Communion in both kinds, and the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist. Would she receive congregations of Protestants with no such customs and training, no Orders and no Catholic Liturgy, and allow them to get up for themselves forms of service for the administration of the Sacraments? We know very v/ell that Rome would not do so, and would say the case was quite different from that of the Eastern Christians. If congre- gations of Eastern Christians ask to be received by us we might, and I think should, receive them as Rome does; but when Protestant congregations, with no Catholic inheritance, ask to be received by us, we certainly should expect them to complete their baptism with confirmation, as required by the Catholic Church everywhere, and should require the priests in charge of these congregations to use for the adminis- tration of the Sacraments our Prayer Book services. Our Liturgy is the Liturgy of the English-speaking peoples, and we are the Catholic Church in the United States.
Rome's experience with Eastern Christians is one that may well make us stop and think. We know it has not made for harmony. The Irish frequently refuse to attend Mass celebrated by a Uniat priest, and when he arrives, with wife and children, to take charge of a parish, there is apt to be a riot, and he will be lucky if he is not stoned or shot. If we accepted the proposed Congregational concordat we should likely have ]Miss Smith leaving her parish church to worship with the Reverend Mr. Jones' congregation. "Mr. Jones, you know, is so interested in ancient Liturgies. He has revived many ancient rites and ceremonies, and has a most wonderful Catholic service," we should hear Miss Smith say. Mr. Brown would be shocked at the services conducted by the Reverend Mr. Black, and would not attend them ; and although Mr. Black had received Episcopal ordination, Mr. Brown would prefer to go to the Presbyterian Church, which made no pretence of being Catholic. We would certainly 15
222 THE GREEN BOOK
have some such situations under the proposed concordat, and discord and hurt feelings, not unity. We cannot heal the wounds in the Body of Christ with these cheap remedies.
The Eucharist is the only service ordained by Christ, and in the Acts of the Apostles we read that, immediately after Pentecost, Christians met daily from house to house for the "breaking of bread," and "did eat their meat with glad- ness and singleness of heart." ® On the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, there seems to have been a special celebration with preaching, which all Christians were ex- pected to attend; and the Sacrament was carried to those unable to get to the service. For several centuries this was the only service on the Lord's Day, and when other services were developed the Eucharist continued the service of obli- gation. "In Apostolic times and for three centuries the rule, the privilege, was weekly if not daily communion."
As the Church grew and persecution ceased, the love of many became cold, and the number of careless, indifferent Christians increased. "As the Church grew in geometrical progression, in like inverse proportion decreased the number of daily and even of weekly communicants." ^ Those who continued to come to the service began going out after the sermon, with the catechumens and excommunicate, and the Church had to decide what action to take. "The Second Council of Antioch, A. D. 341, ordered— 'All who attend God's church, and hear the Holy Scriptures, but who do not communicate in the prayer along with the congregation, or turn away from the Communion of the Eucharist in any dis- orderly way, are to be cast out of the Church, until having made confession and shewn fruits of repentance, and made entreaty, they may be able to receive pardon.' * * * A canon of S. Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, about 668, says 'When the people come to celebrate Mass in the
•Acts 2:46,
• Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 223
name of the Lord, they may not depart from the Church till Mass is ended, and the Deacon cries : 'Ite, missa est.' " '^^
The Church at first seems to have been inclined to excom- municate all who did not communicate every Sunday, but guided by the Holy Spirit she ruled to permit her members to join in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice without com- municating, making this attendance at the Holy Mysteries of obligation every Lord's Day, and requiring them to make Communions on the Great Festivals — Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday. In the Church of Rome now a Communion in the Easter Season only is of obligation.
It was with deep sorrow and regret that the Church made this rule to prevent a complete falling away, but, except in periods of deadness, she never failed to urge upon her mem- bers frequent Communions. In 1902, Pope Leo XIII wrote : "History bears witness that the virtues of the Christian life have flourished best wherever and whenever the frequent reception of the Eucharist has most prevailed. And on the other hand it is no less certain that in days when men have ceased to care for this heavenly bread, and have lost their appetite for it, the practice of the Christian religion has gradually lost its force and vigor." ^^ As will be seen, the habitual separation of the offering of the Holy Sacrifice from the feeding on that Sacrifice in the Holy Communion is deprecated by the Roman as well as by the Anglican Church. It is only in Christ we can offer Christ. The non- communicating attendance at the Holy Mysteries of habitual non-communicants is one thing. The non-communicating attendance of regular communicants is quite another.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries great efforts were made both in the Church of Rome and in the Church of England to increase the frequency of Communions ; and readers of John Inglesant will recall the efforts of Molinos
1° Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
" The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
224 THE GREEN BOOK
and his followers to induce the Pope to permit Communions to be made without confession to a priest before each Com- munion, and to make such confession obligatory only at cer- tain times. In spite of the great increase of Communions in some places in the Roman Church, m.any Roman Catholics admit the requirement of confession before each Communion is the great obstable to frequent Communion, especially among men. Rome, however, has never been w^illing to give up an instrument that is so valuable to her in maintaining her political as well as her spiritual power.
"Until the middle of the fifth century it appears to have been the rule in some places that the Eucharist might not be celebrated more than once on one day in the same church. About 445 S. Leo the Great, the Bishop of Rome, wrote to Dioscorus the Bishop of Alexandria, pointing out that on some days the observance of this rule might prevent some of the people from offering the sacrifice, and urging him to bring the usage of the Church at Alexandria in this matter into conformity with the custom of the Church at Rome, by which the sacrifice w^as offered in the same Church on one day as often as there was a congregation to fill the Church,"^-
"From the saying of Masses for special purposes and the repetition for the convenience of the congregation was developed the ordinary method of the West in the INIiddle Ages." ^^
The ancient Liturgies, too, were long and elaborate — the Oriental was accustomed to long services and fasts — but as the Church became Western these things were found burdensome. They did not suit the Western climate, tem- perament and habit of life. So the Church in the West, while adhering to the framework or structure of the Ancient Litur- gies, began curtailment. To-day every Communion service
12 It will be noted Poiie Leo the Great, as Bishop of Rome, makes a sugges- tion and request to another Bishop. He does not claim the right to give him an order.
*3 The Holy Communion. — Darwell Stone.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 225
in the Catholic Church has the same organic structure ; "but there is a small difference in the distribution of parts owing to different methods of curtailment, and to the distribution of the parts curtailed." ^*
The Catholic Church is the Church of the Living God, not a dead organization but a living organism adapting herself to different ages, and absorbing into herself dift'erent races and culture. "So again, in that social product, the Liturgy. Like a net cast into the sea, it gathers of every kind, and has won its compelling beauty through the age-long opera- tion of social forces which have been wider than any indi- vidual genius, and have united to create a whole which could not be the work of a single man or even of one generation. In the ritual, and the order, and every accompaniment Vv'hich has the consecration of time and thereby enables us to wor- ship more deeply, we possess a home of the spirit in which the soul can take her rest. It envelops us like an atmos- phere, although in all our use of it we should guard against a spirit merely antiquarian. * * * The Church is the Church of all the ages, not of any one of them; and we, the heirs, must not only use, but also develop, what we inherit." ^^
We shall, therefore, expect to find dift'erent practices and customs as the Faith once delivered expresses itself in dift'er- ent races and in dift'erent ages. Sometimes these practices degenerate into superstitions, or are contrary to the Faith, and need to be uprooted. Such were many of the practices and devotions in the Middle Ages and even to-day in the Church of Rome. Then there are practices that are plainly contrary to Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church, such as withholding the cup from all but the celebrant at the Mass. This practice has not received "general consent," and is not a development but a contradiction of our Lord's own command. General, or Catholic consent, is the voice
'* Our Inheritance. — S. Baring-Gould.
1* The Fellowship of the Mystery.— J. N. Figgis, C. R.
226 THE GREEN BOOK
of the Catholic Church. Even the decisions of an Ecumeni- cal Council were not "de fide" until they were accepted by the whole Body after the Council closed and the bishops and clergy went home to report its decisions. Again, there are practices not known in the Primitive Church that are the development of a Catholic dogma, and have received "Catholic consent" — such is the practice of non-communi- cating attendance at the Eucharist ; and there are practices that seem a legitimate development of a Catholic dogma, that have not received as yet general consent — such is the practice of reservation of the Blessed Sacrament for the pur- pose of adoration and intercession.
From the first the Sacrament of the Altar has been re- served for the purpose of Communion, and in the East this is the only use that has ever been made of the reserved Sac- rament ; no light burns before it and no reverence is shown it. In the Church of Rome to-day it is used as a centre of prayer as well as for Communion. There seems no evidence that the former practice was known in the first thousand years of the Church's life, but from the twelfth century on there are indications of the growing practice in the West. It does not seem, however, to have, been common until after the Reformation. Here we have a practice that cannot claim Catholic consent, that is not essential to the development of sanctity, for the great virile Saints of the Church knew nothing of it, but that seems to be a legitimate and helpful development of the doctrine of the Real Presence. For us, the lawfulness of its use, one cannot but think, depends upon the consent of the bishop of the diocese. A bishop who required the Sacrament reserved for communion to be kept where it was inaccessible to the people, would seem to be acting quite within his rights, and the every-day Christian untrained in sophistries could not see on what ground a priest could disobey such an order — and to obey is better than sacrifice. Exposition, the service of Benediction, and,
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 227
what seems to many, the irreverence of the monstrance, are on a different footing.*
We have heard of the help and comfort the reserved Sac- rament has been to EngHsh Church people during the war, and in these troublous days of our modern life we need to use every legitimate means that enables men and women to realize the nearness of God, and helps them to pray to Him, The writer agrees with those who, while in no sense regard- ing this practice essential, and deploring the lawlessness and disobedience to lawful authority that have characterized many who advocate it, earnestly hopes the General Conven- tion will definitely sanction the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in a secluded chapel or altar and merely forbid exposition. The fear that non-communicating attendance will be substituted for Communion, and that "Visits" to the Blessed Sacrament will take the place of attendance at the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, it not justified by experience.
Receiving the Holy Communion every Sunday and holy day at least, is the ideal and standard the Church sets before every communicant, but it would not be wise for young communicants to begin with this. The effort would be too great, and they would receive more than they could assimi- late. Communicants, however, who never get beyond Com- munions once a month, with which they began, are not only not advancing in their spiritual life but are deteriorating.
As celebrations of the Eucharist multiplied, to avoid a long fast, unadvisable for many and impossible for some no matter what the hour of service. Communions began to be made at the short service without music early in the day, and this has so commended itself to the devout instinct that the practice has taken deep root among us.
On the Lord's Day this quiet, intimate, personal Com- munion bursts into a great corporate act of praise and thanksgiving in a choral Eucharist. "All experience must
* The Eastern Church and the great Anglican Theologians so regard it.
228 THE GREEN BOOK
be at least individual experience ; but unless it is also social experience, and unless the whole religious community which is in question unites to share it, this experience is but as sounding brass, and as a tinkling cymbal."^® The Eucharist is a great social act, whether the offering be a plain or a solemn celebration. It is also an individual experience, and the latter is especially emphasized when we make our Com- munions. The priest then says to each communicant, **The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." It is an individual gift, an individual Communion, and we need to reahze this deeply. The Choral Eucharist, when we go not to get but to give, emphasizes the social and corporate experi- ence. The confession then is made a corporate act of peni- tence and confession for the sins of the Body ; the thanks- givings, corporate thanksgiving for all God's gifts and blessings, especially Communions — ''the m.eans of grace and the hope of glory" ; the intercessions are corporate inter- cessions for the Body ; and the praise and worship our part as a congregation and parish in the unceasing worship of the Body.
"Let saints on earth in concert sing With those whose work is done ; For all the servants of our King In heaven and earth are one."
The Eucharist is "the most easily intelligible because the most dramatic of all services," when it is celebrated without the break and the distraction of many communicants in the middle of the service. It is only at a service with simple music and good congregational hymns, with no communi- cants, or only two or three, that we can ever realize its meaning as a corporate act of worship, and make it a popular service.
"The Church and the sacraments are social and com-
" Royce quoted in The Fellowship of the Mystery. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP 229
munal. It may indeed be doubted whether even those who hold high sacramental doctrine do not in some cases rather over-emphasise its individual side, as a gift to each per- sonally ; and the discontinuance in so many churches of the Eucharist as the great corporate act of praise has rather tended to em.phasise this view. It is only as we see this restored as a social, not merely individual act, the praise of God in all its splendour, that we are likely to correct an evil so widespread." ^^
The offering of our selves, our souls and bodies, our pray- ers and our praises, all center in the one perfect sacrifice which we offer and present to the Father. "At every Eu- charist the Church stands at the altar as the High Priest of God's creation, and, gathering up every rich splendour of colour and sound, the gold and the jewels, the lights and the incense, the flowers and the bread and wine, she offers them all to God in union with the sacrifice of His dear Son. At every Eucharist the dumb inarticulate groaning of creatiori bursts forth into a song of praise. The altar is the burning bush, aflame with God, who embraces all creation in Hi> redemptive love." ^®
It was as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world" that the Baptist hailed the Son of ]\Iary at the Jordan as He came to offer Himself to God to fulfill all righteousness. "And Him hath God the Father sealed,"^" He told the Jews at Capernaum. As the Lamb of God He was rejected and crucified by the world that could not force Him to be its King on its terms. As the Lamb of God He reigns in heaven, the object of adoring worship by the whole company of heaven. As the Lamb of God one day He will burst through the clouds and the sacramental veils, to judge the world.
"The Gospel and Human Needs. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
'«The Sacramental Principle.— P E. Bull, C. R.
^* The lambs for the Jewish sacrifice were inspected by the priests, and ii they were without spot or blemish, they were stamped with the official bcb) to mark approval and acceptance.
230 THE GREEN BOOK
"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains ; and said to the mountains and rocks. Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand ?" ^^
"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud voice, saying. Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen : Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him. Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are they which came out of great tribu- lation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." ^^
Until that "Great Day," from the altars of the Catholic
» Rev. 6:15-17. » Rev. 7:9-17,
PRIVII.EGES OF MEMBERSHIP 231
Church when the priest offers the Holy Sacrifice, and the faithful worship and adore, uniting their intercession with His great Intercession, and showing forth His death "till He come," there goes up the cry :
"O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world :
have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world :
have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world :
grant us Thy peace."
CALLED TO BE SAINTS
This is the Christian vocation, this is our high calHng, and this is the call of the Lord, not to the self-righteous but to sinners. Some one has described saints as "sinners who kept on trying," and if we would make our calling and elec- tion sure, we must pray constantly to God to crown His gifts with strength to persevere.
We need the perseverance of the Saints, and we need also their vision. Why is the level of Christian life so low? Why are Christians just like worldly people? Is it not because they do not realize the high calling of their baptism, have forgotten they are called to be saints and are signed with the cross ? We all want to be "inheritors of the King- dom of Heaven," but we do not want to bear the cross which our Lord declares to be the only way to heaven. The boy Lillo, in George Eliot's famous novel, expresses the feelings of youth when he says to Romola, "I should like to be some- thing that would make me a great man, and very happy besides — something that would not hinder me from having a great deal of pleasure." "That is not so easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our ov/n narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feel- ing for the rest of the world as well as ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world,
232
CALLED TO BE SAINTS 233
that no man can be great — he can hardly keep himself from wickedness — unless he gives up thinking much about pleas- ure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. * * * There was a man to whom I was very near, that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of anything cruel or base. But because lie tried to slip away from every- thing that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds — such as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery ; he betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him." Have we not seen this ? Lives lived solely for pleasure and slipping out of everything hard and unpleasant, ending in disaster or blase before middle life?
The cross is the condition of the crown of success. In any profession or line of work, there must be self-limitation, self-denial, self-control to succeed. It is the same in mar- riage and in family life. Here love is the motive, but it is the cross nevertheless. When, therefore, Jesus bids us take up His cross, and follow Him daily if we would be His disciples, and promises us happiness, peace, and rest for our souls here, true self-development and eternal bliss with Him in His eternal kingdom, He is not asking any new thing, anything contrary to our experience. The question is. Do we think it worth while to follow Him ? Will we choose to bear His cross or bear the cross the world offers us as a condition of success?
It was into a world like ours, war weary, blase with pleasure and luxury, reeking with poverty and injustice, seeking rest and finding none, and looking for a deliverer, that our Lord came and offered men happiness. The laws
234 THE GREEN BOOK
of His kingdom which He gave in the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel for All Saints' Day, He proclaimed to be the laws of happiness. They are not attractive and they go contrary to our nature ; but those who have believed on Jesus have accepted them and have found the happiness He promised.
The Christian life is a life of faith; a life therefore of venture and adventure. If we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we will trust Him and follow Him. If we do not believe He is the way, the truth, and the life, we will not follow Him. I suppose most of the Christians who give little or no thought to God, who go rarely to church, who say prayers very irregularly, and never pray, who think of pleasing themselves, not of pleasing God in what they do, and who spend their time and their money for themselves, and even those who disregard His laws in marriage and other things, would say they believe in God and "expect to get to heaven." "God would not send us to hell; He is too kind. Is He not our Father?" they say. They look upon God as a good-natured potentate who will decide men's fate at the Day of Judgment, or when they die, as He pleases. Like all that goes with it, this is of the devil, the Father of Lies.
When God created man and gave him free will, the power of choice and of self-determination, God Hmited Himself. He cannot save man against his will. When man chose evil, and perverted and poisoned his nature, God provided the remedy and showed the way of salvation, the way of humil- ity, of penitence and of obedience. He told men the truth about themselves and about God, and He lived the truth ; and from His sacred veins and wounded side He offers men new life. No matter how vile they are, or how often they sin, if they repent, obey, and use the means He has pro- vided in the Sacraments, they will be saved — not saved from pain, not taken down from the cross, but their cross made
CALLED TO BE SAINTS 235
the means of sanctification and salvation. A physician can only tell a man how he can be cured and offer him the remedy. If the man will not believe, accept and obey, he cannot be saved. God "desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live."
Let us face facts. We can only "get to heaven" through much tribulation, by following Jesus in the royal road of the cross. In baptism we were called to this warfare. What kind of soldiers are we? Would the battles of the Marne and the Argonne have been won with soldiers such as we are? And what was it made our boys endure months of dull drill and discipline, and then, leaving home, business, and loved ones, go overseas to face death and worse? Was it not the call of the country? Yes, and something more — it was the call of an ideal, the call of righteousness, the call of the Lord. And it was "for the joy that was set before them" that they and our AUies "endured the cross" and won the war. It was this joy and this vision that enabled them to endure.
The call of the Lord is indeed the call to take up the cross, but it is the call to take it up for an ideal, "and holiness con- sists not in doing uncommon things but in doing common things in an uncommon way." ^ For the joy that was set before Him — the joy of glorifying His Father, doing His will, putting His enemies under His feet and redeeming His people — our Lord endured the cross.
The first fruit of the Spirit is love and the next is joy. You cannot have love and not have joy ; but there is no joy for those who try to serve two masters, and who give God a half-hearted service. It is the life of love, the life of full surrender, that brings joy. "Half-hearted Christians," says Fr. Figgis, "have the pains of both, and the joys of neither party. Unfortunately, the standard of spectators is largely made by such. But to the free observer it is clear this is
IE. B. Puscy.
236 THE GREEN BOOK
wrong; you cannot judge any system by its lukewarm disci- ples. What you need is to measure it by men to whom it is the breath of life." -
That many people think the Christian life is dull and color- less is our fault. The Bible shows it as a life of joy. It is wonderful how much St. Paul, for example, has to say about the joy and the light-heartedness of the Christian life. It was the characteristic in the early Christians most noted by pagans. "They ate their bread with gladness and singleness of heart" ; and sang their hymns to God in prison. Their joy was unconquerable. Time, change and chance cannot kill the joy of those whose hearts are fixed "where true joys are to be found." It grows brighter and brighter as it nears the end of this troubled life and looks towards the break of the new day.
How pitiable and how ugly is old age clinging to the things of youth, and clutching at the things of this world, trying to find happiness in what can never satisfy an immortal soul made for God. Verily, they have their reward.
And how beautiful is old age the sum total of a disciplined life, a life of unseliishness, and of union with God ; whose full development and reward are not here. Serene, joyous, keenly interested in all real things in this world, but sitting lightly, only "tarrying," waiting for the summons "to be with Christ, which is far better."
Members of Christ — Children of God — Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. May we know the joy of His presence here, and look ever on to the fullness of that joy "at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore."
"Blessed cit}^ heavenly Salem,
Vision dear of peace and love, Who of living stones art builded
In the height of heaven above, And, with angel hosts encircledf
As a bride dost earthward move.
• Antichrist and Othei- Sermons. — J. N. Figgis, C. R.
CALLED TO BE SAINTS 237
"From celestial realms descending,
Bridal glory round thee shed, Meet for Him Whose love espoused thee,
To thy Lord shalt thou be led; All thy streets, and all thy bulwarks
Of pure gold are fashioned.
"Bright thy gates of pearl are shining,
They are open evermore; And by virtue of His merits
Thither faithful souls do soar, Who for Christ's dear Name, in this world Pain and tribulation bore.
"Many a blow and biting sculpture
Polished well those stones elect, In their places now compacted
By the heavenly Architect, Who therewith hath willed forever That His palace should be decked.
"Laud and honor to the Father, Laud and honor to the Son, Laud and honor to the Spirit,
Ever Three, and ever One, Consubstantial, Co-eternal, While unending ages run." *
•Translated by the Rev. J. M. Neale.
16
WHITHER?
I came from God. I was made for God. I go to God. Do I realize this?
Am I just drifting, or am I striving to reach a goal? What is it?
What is the purpose of my life? Is it to please God or to please myself?
I was put here to spend a few years to prepare for eternity. Do I think of this?
God has given me the power of choice. I alone can deter- mine what my life and my place shall be in eternity. Every day I am making the choice. What is it ?
Am I giving to God, who has given so much to me, gener- ously of my time, my money and my talents ? All I am and all I have belong to God. Do I remember this ? What am I doing and giving to help the Church — Missions — my Diocese — my Parish?
What am I doing to make others happier and better in my home, my city and my country?
What sacrifices am I making that I may give to God? I cannot serve God and the world, and will only be unhappy if I try. I cannot spend all my time, thought and money on myself and be a true Christian. I cannot get to heaven but by loving and serving God, and bearing the Cross for His sake. I had better face facts and decide which Master I will serve; which reward I will seek.
DAILY SELF-EXAMINATION
Pray for the light of the Holy Spirit before beginning a self-examination.
What have I done for God to-day ?
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THE GREEN BOOK 239
How much of my time have I given Him in prayer, read- ing, thought and service ?
How have I spent my money? Waste and extravagance are robbing God. Have I remembered this?
Have I done anything to make any one happier or better to-day ?
Have I kept my rule ?
What have I left undone that I know I ought to have done?
What have I done that I ought not to have done, in thought word or deed?
How often have I given way to my besetting sin?
RULE OF LIFE
Pray to God every morning and evening, kneeling rever- ently and praying with mind and will. At noon and during the day lift up your heart to God and speak to Him.
Give minutes every day to reading the Bible.
Make a short self-examination every evening.
Go to Church every Sunday morning. If possible be present at a celebration of the Holy Communion.
Make a communion on the Sundays of each
month ; prepare for them carefully and say a thanksgiving before leaving the Church after communion and during the week following.
Give regularly, systematically and generously time and money to the support of the Parish, the Diocese and to the missionary work of the Church ; to the poor and to such charitable organizations as have a claim upon you.
Keep the feasts and fasts of the Church. There should be a special rule for Lent.
APPENDIX
FATHER FIGGIS ON REVELATION
"Dominated by sonorous commonplaces about irrevocable law and iron uniformity, most of us find or did find grave difficulty to faith in the miraculous. All the alleged instances we strive to reduce into conformity with natural order. It is with reluctance that we admit any as actual, in spite of the fact that we know that the idea is bound up with a special revelation of what otherwise man could not know.
It is true that the difficulty lies deeper. Miracles are but the expression of God's freedom; the truth that He is above and not merely within the order of nature. Disbelief in them really leads on to pantheism. Displaying this truth of God's liberty and per- sonality they arouse no deeper speculative difficulties than does the common daily fact of human free-will — perhaps even less. No reasoning has solved that problem or reconciled the deliverance of consciousness with a belief in the uniformity of nature, if that belief be extended into an entire philosophy of things. On the other hand, no determinism, 'hard or soft,' can be reconciled with the psychology of repentance, or with our sense of personal activity, for this view postulates the many, the other absorbs every- thing into the one. If we have once surmounted the cardinal crux of human freedom, there is no real ground for boggling over miracles.
But with the increasing pressure of this notion of iron law, there is an increasing sense of the need of a power above it. Instead of being a drag upon faith, the miraculous, or the idea of revelation, or whatever you choose to call it, is once more beginning to be a pillar of it. Without it we cannot consistently retain the notion of freedom, which is essential to our moral life. Miracles were easy of credit in days when personal agency was detected through- out nature, and the physical world was not conceived as an orderly whole. Belief was easy then, but it was also superfluous; for the
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APPENDIX 241
miracle was simply a fact, like any other fact of daily life, and conveyed none but a particular lesson. Nowadays the belief is not easy, but it is essential; unless we are to be deprived of all faith in our own spiritual being, and driven to view the world as a vast system, which may perhaps be a living whole, but without any place for personalities, and with our own loves and fears, our sin or sanctity mere illusions, a sort of phosphorescent by-product of the outer world. The iron law of physical sequences is always with us; the pressure of the world, environment, heredity, is patent and appalling; what is a mere theory to the student is the most constant and oppressive of facts to the plain man. It is just this very thing he wants to escape from. It is only a miracle, revelation, that can assure him that behind all this network of material forces there is a living will; while God manifest in Christ displays that will as Love. That is all he wants. That gives him a refuge, a home for the soul, whose deepest emotion and noblest desires may now be satisfied. Just as a man of business or toil needs a home with all its pieties, if his higher nature is not to be starved, so man 'who goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening' and is ever confronted by natural law, demands the assurance of spiritual freedom, of the living reality of Love and Peace. Such an assurance is not now possible if there be no revelation which may prevent all his highest thought from 'fading into the light of common day,' and being withered by the chill of rigid natural forces. Miracles, in fact, give men just that thrill, that sense of exhilaration and freedom which all of us experience in any conspicuous act of heroism. Colonel Picquart apparently ruining his career to defend Dreyfus ; a schoolboy saving another from drowning, have the same lesson. They show that man is 7tot the slave of circumstance. Here, we say, is an act which breaks the chain of environment, which rises above the outward, and uplifts us with a sense of our own freedom — to go and do likewise. This is its appeal. So with revelation." — The Gospel and Human Needs. — /. N. Figgis, C. R.
FATHER FIGGIS ON MYSTERY
"Taking the religious sense as a given fact, are we right in sup- posing that a religion without mystery would satisfy its needs? Are not those very mysteries, which are most repugnant to the ration- alist, the very elements which make the faith so great? I take one
242 THE GREEN BOOK
instance — the cardinal one — the Eucharist. Believe it or not, you cannot deny that no other rite has gathered round it such tender- ness of devotion, or stimulated so deeply man's sense of God's nearness and love; nor will it be disputed that here is mystery enshrined in the actual and the concrete — not far off, but in the daily life. For this reason the Eucharist is inevitably the first object of dislike to the rationalistic temper, and offends men who will accept other and less immediate mysteries. Yet Europe, since Wyclif, affords ample evidence that where this mystery is ignored or denied, religious life — except for spurts of individual piety and mysticism — becomes chill and commonplace, and in time the other supernatural aspects are also seen to vanish, as in Germany and Geneva.
Does it not then appear a rash undertaking to reconstitute the Christian Church by excising all its most wonderful elements? Are not the accomplished and respectable persons who preach the crusade a little muddle-headed, if we may be pardoned the word? Is not even an eminent man like Sir Oliver Lodge making a blunder, and mistaking futile concessions to an implacable foe for defence of that religion which he loves so dearly? The aim is to strengthen the ark of the Church; the danger is (as Carlyle once said of a similar effort) that we are boring holes in the bottom. Truly it would be pitiful, if while we are overthrowing the cargo to lighten the ship, we should lose the rudder too, and drive it on the rocks. Before we turn the house of our God into a glorified Polytechnic Institute, it were well to pause and ask ourselves whether the age-long instincts of humanity are to go for nothing; whether the love and devotion which gather round the Cross have not some deeper root than stupidity or fear.
I think there is such a root; it lies far down, and ineradicable within us. It is man's own consciousness that is the abiding home of mystery, and offers resistless front to all the thrust of dialectical attack. Dominated by the daily pressure of the out- ward, or by the intellectualist fantasy, we forget to ask ourselves what is most vital. Is not the reality of life to us all, neither sense nor intellectual process, but that dark inner world — that twilight of reflection — in which we grope and wonder from day to day, fighting with devils whose name is legion, whose bewil- dered gloom is lit by strange lights of love and pain, and trans- forms itself a hundred times an hour? Love and pain and death, but above all things chance and choice are present for us all; they are the most real things in life; 'divine anarchists,* they
APPENDIX 243
baffle all efforts to sum the series of being, and defy prediction. These are the things we really know, and all else is secondary and subordinate, or partial and abstract. It is in the 'abysmal depths of personality' that we find the final and fatal foe of mere intellectualism." — The Gospel and Human Needs. — /. N. Figgis, C.R.
THE BEGINNING OF THE METHODISTS
When the Rev. John Wesley, a priest of the Church of England, started a revival in the Church, it was with no idea of leaving it. The Wesleyans, as they were called, were merely an organization in the church. There are many persons living in England to-day who remember that in their youth the Wesleyans came to the Church of England for their sacraments, and it was due to the deadness of the Church at that time that this body ever separated from the Church. The Rev. John Wesley, when eighty-two years old, and feeble, laid his hands on the Rev. Dr. Coke, another priest of the Church of England. This act took place secretly, in Mr. Wesley's bed-chamber. When his brother, the Rev. Charles Wesley, the author of 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' and other well known hymns, heard of this ceremony, he heartily disapproved of it, and wrote the following epigram :
" 'So easily are bishops made By man's or woman's whim ; Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid, But who laid hands on him?"
"This witty sally contained the pith of the whole matter, and the crucial defect in the procedure soon became apparent, even to John Wesley's mind. At first, the name which Coke and Asbury assumed was, according to Wesley's directions. Superin- tendent. At length, they took that of Bishop, whose functions they presumed to discharge. Then it was that Wesley wrote to Asbury in these terms : 'You and the Doctor differ from me. I study to be little ; you study to be great. I creep ; you strut along. . . . How can you, how dare you suffer yourself to be called Bishop? I shudder, I start at the very thought 1 Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content ; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop. For my sake, for God's
244 THE GREEN BOOK
sake, for Christ's sake put a full end to thisl Let the Presby- terians do what they please, but let Methodists know their calling better.* No wonder that Asbury, on reading this rebuke, remarked, 'Unpleasant expressions.' " — History of the Church in America. — height on Coleman.
BISHOP GORE ON CHURCH UNITY
"We may feel quite sure that by far the most important con- tribution we can make to the cause of unity among Christians in the future is by developing the strength and meaning of our own communion. The logic of events works slowly; but the decay of the distinctive forms and barriers of Protestantism, and the rise of national Christian churches in Africa and China and Japan and India may, nay must, produce a profound change in the religious situation. The world's need of a liberal Catholicism will surely become increasingly apparent. And what doom should not we deserve if we of the Church of England had failed to make its possibility and its reality apparent?
When we look beyond our borders, and ask ourselves what we ought to be doing towards the recovery of Christian com- munion, I do not think that we shall be encouraged to believe that any project of 'corporate reunion' is at all near to realization at present. But if we repent, each within his own communion, of our sins against unity and the shortcomings of our own part of the church, we shall lose our narrowness. We shall become conscious how far our own communion is from having or being all that is catholic. We shall see how much others have to teach us. We shall seek to know more about other com- munions, laying aside any remains or traces of pride or self-suffi- ciency or contempt. When we go abroad as visitors, we shall make it our religious interest and duty, as far as is compatible with 'making our communions,' to associate ourselves with the religious worship of the country we are travelling in. So far as we are students, we shall do our best to avail ourselves of and to promote the communism in theological science which already exists. At home we shall make the most of our opportunities of co-operation with Nonconformists for social and philanthropic objects. We shall not only pray ourselves, but join with our fellow-Christians in prayer, wherever we can on really neutral ground, for the promo-
APPENDIX 245
tion of the kingdom of Christ. But we shall be very chary of doing anything which promotes the prevalent undenominational spirit. To use the very ugly word, for which, however, there is no substitute, interdenominational action is permissible, but not what is undenominational. We should encourage all men to be as definitely and consistently as possible members not only of the Church of Christ in general, but also of the particular body to which in good conscience they belong. The Christianity from which nothing can grow is the Christianity which ignores the obligation of definite membership and a definite creed.
I do not attempt to decide what an officer of the Church of England may or may not, consistently with his loyalty to his own church, do for or among members of other communions. But of this I am quite sure, that whatever he may think it right to do, so far as his own judgment goes, he should ask himself before he does it what its effect will be on his own communion. It is, I am persuaded, in the making our own communion more coherent and more intelligible that our real contribution to the cause of unity must for the present lie. (Italics ours.)
It is much more than waste of time for adherents of different religious parties in the Anglican communion to seek a chief advan- tage by calling attention to the faults or mistakes of other parties. We have all been foolish, we have all sinned. But I venture to believe that the call to us now is to assert our agreement in the maintenance of the creeds and episcopal order, and the doctrinal supremacy of Scripture, and the intelligent and intelligible use of the Prayer Book and the catechism; and on the basis of this agreement to be deliberately tolerant, so far as the maintenance of public discipline goes, of ceremonial differences, and doctrinal dif- ferences on secondary matters; and to labour patiently for the recovery of the church's spiritual liberties and the removal of practical abuses." — Orders and Unity. — C. Gore.
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