THE SCOTT LIBRARY.
C-/75' ^^^
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
»*» FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK.
The Oxford Movement. Being A Selection from Tracts for THE Times. Edited, with an Introduction, by William G. Hutchison.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE.
NEW YORK: 3 EAST 14TH STREET.
CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . vii
Advertisement to " Tracts for the Times,"
Vol. I. ..... 3
Tr.\cT'I. Thoughts on the Ministerial Com- mission ... .6 /II. The Catholic Church . .12 III. Thoughts on Alterations in the
Liturgy . . . • 17 IV. Adherence to the Apostolical Suc- cession the Safest Course . 27
IX. On Shortening the Church Services 37
XL The Visible Church, Part I. . 41
XX. The Visible Church, Part II. -52
XLVIL The Visible Church, Part III. . 58
' XV. On the Apostolical Succession in
THE English Church . . 63
XVIII. Thoughts on the Benefits of the System of Fasting enjoined by our Church . . -76
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
Tract XIX. On Arguing concerning the Apos- tolical Succession . .Ill XXIII. The Faith and Obedience of Churchmen the Strength of the Church . . .116 XXIX. Christian Liberty, Part I. .119 XXX. Christian Liberty, Part II. . 135 XXXIV. Rites and Customs of the Church 1 46 . XXXVIII. Via Media, No. L . . .155 XLI. Via Media, No. II. . . . 168
Advertisement to " Tracts for the Times,"
Vol. II. ..... 182
Tract XC. Remarks on Certain Passages in
the Thirty-nine Articles . 187
INTRODUCTION.
It will not be counted against me, I hope, as presumption, if, before proceeding to a short account of an ecclesiastical revolu- tion, I make personal confession of such indifference to the matters in dispute as Gulliver may have had to the question of high and low heels, which excited to civic strife the rival factions of Tramecksan and Slamecksan. No one who questions the validity of all religious dogmas can taste the excitement of taking sides in the collisions of contending dogmatists; he must needs remain as little a partisan as the average person who studies the Wars of the Roses, and finds small cause to sympathise with either York or Lancaster. Yet indifference to the subject-matter of the controversy does not imply lack of appreciation of its extreme interest, both by reason of the great personalities engaged, and of its influence on the Church to which they belonged, and which some of them forsook.
It is characteristic of religious bodies to be periodically possessed with panic by the trend of the prevailing time-spirit, when that time-spirit happens to be a progressive one, promising to realise itself in anti-clerical legislation. For about a decade round 1830 the time-spirit was one of revolution, and this country knew a period of political ferment and agitation. Political and philosophical writers like the two Mills, the two Austins, Bentham, and Grote were at the zenith of their influence, and reform of the Constitution, reform of the Law, and reform or disestablishment of the Church had their keen advocacy. In 1828 the Test and Corporation Acts were re- pealed, in the following year Catholic Emancipation was con- ceded; all the while a growing sense of the need for parlia-
viii INTRODUCTION.
mentary reform was making itself felt throughout the land, and culminated in the Reform Bill, brought in in 1831 and finally passed, after titanic struggles, in 1832. The French Revolu- tion, which had scared all classes out of advanced thinking, no longer obsessed the minds of the majority with its old terror; people were beginning to ask whether what was ancient was necessarily admirable, whether class privilege might not with advantage be reduced, whether, to take a concrete instance, a' ruined mound should send two representatives to the House of Commons and nearly a million Londoners have no representation at all. There were, of course, plenty of stubboni and con- scientious opponents of every attempted change. Sir R. H. Inglis, member for the University of Oxford, on the first night of the Reform Bill debates concluded his speech with an im- passioned appeal for the pocket boroughs.^ Inglis was a faith- ful representative of his constituents; the typical clergyman of the day hated all that threatened the comfortable status quo of the more fortunate members of his class. There was a general clerical belief in having an easy time, slackness in doing duties prevailed, pluralities abounded, the possibility of serving God and Mammon was triumphantly demonstrated. The Church was still the humdrum, worldly Church of the eighteenth century, unadapted to more strenuous times. Religion was too generally accepted as the "correct thing" to require discussion. The disproportion between the Church's ideals and the actual life of her clergy had grown too great.- It was not that the latter were like so many of the mediaeval clergy, notorious evil- livers. Rather they erred by over-respectability : " The beauty
' "It is only by this means," he said, "that young men who are unconnected by birth or residence with large towns can ever hope to enter this House, unless they are cursed — I will call it cursed — with that talent of mob oratory which is used for the purpose of influencing the lowest and most debasing passions of the people."
^ "Once Dr. Liddon, walking with me down the hall of Christ Church, pointed to the portrait of an extremely bloated and sensual- looking prelate on the wall, and said, with that peculiar kind of
INTRODUCTION. ix
of the English Church in this time was its family life of purity and simplicity; its blot was quiet worldliness.'" The clergy were not in practice a priesthood set apart; they lived like their neighbours, distinguished only by their dress and more careful demeanour. The Church was asleep when the new and some- times crude ideas of the Reform days came to jostle it into wakefulness. The somewhat rhapsodical hero, or rather victim, of the Nemesis of Fail h has a scathing passage on this topic which deserves quotation :
"A foolish Church, chattering, parrot-like, old notes, of which it had forgotten the meaning; a clergy who not only thought not at all, but whose heavy ignorance, from long unreality, hung about them like a garment, and who mistook their fool's cap and bells for a crown of wisdom, and the music of the spheres; selfishness alike recognised practically as the rule of conduct, and failh in God, in man, in virtue, exchanged for faith in the belly, in fortunes, carriages, lazy sofas, and cushioned pews; Benlham politics, and Paley religion; all the thought deserving to be called thought, the flowing tide of Germany and the philosophy of Hume and Gibbon; all the spiritual feeling, the light froth of the Wesleyans and Evangelicals; and the only real stern life to be found anywhere, in a strong, resolved and haughty democratic inde- pendence, heaving and rolling underneath the chaflF-spread surface. How was it like to fare with the clergy gentlemen and the Church turned respectable, in the struggle with enemies like these ?"'-'
Bentham's Utilitarianism was, indeed, the dominant philo- sophy, and inspired the reforming legislation of the day. Reforms were so badly needed that there was a disposition to take short cuts to improvement by over-riding obstacles, in preference to going a long way round. Both Roman Catholics and Nonconformists had flagrant grievances, which nobody nowadays would defend, yet round which men rallied then as
mincing precision which added so much to the point of his sarcasms : ' How singular, dear friend, to reflect that that person was chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble with the Apostles.'" — G. \V. T.. Russell: Collections atid Recollections, p. 82.
' Dean Church: Oxford Movement, p. 4.
- J. A. Froude: Nemesis of Faith (Scott Library), p. 166.
X INTRODUCTION.
something sacred. But science as well as liberty was at last having its innings, and the prospect for upholders of ecclesiasti- cal privilege seemed to them black indeed. A typical Church- man, William Palmer of Worcester College, the learned author of Origines Liiiir-giccc, tells in his emotional way of the ominous situation. God, in consideration of England's adherence to the faith in the Revolutionary epoch, gave her prosperity ; but this prosperity has engendered pride and forgetfulness, and a new generation has arisen, which ignores God and imagines its wisdom can correct and amend the whole world. The Romanists are having every encouragement from Govern- ment, they have received the news of emancipation with " savage exultation " and look for the " revival of the funeral piles of heretics." True religion, on the other hand, is going down : mention of God's name is tabooed in polite circles ; society begins to ask for the exclusion of the supernatural from the Christian system; allusions to God's being and providence are distasteful to the British Parliament.^ " In Oxford," says Palmer elsewhere, " we were more than once alarmed by reports that the Birmingham Political Union intended to march through Oxford on their way to London, and to sack and burn the Colleges."- Thomas Mozley writes similarly : "While at Oxford that year one heard every day dreadful accounts of what was done, said, threatened, and designed in all quarters."^ Lord Liverpool was darkly reported to have said in private conversa- tion that the Church was a mare's nest, and he had certainly warned the Bishops to set their houses in order. No wonder that, as J. A. Froude says, " the Whigs of those days were to young Oxford apostles the forerunners of Antichrist."-*
The Church thus exposed to impending "threatenings and slaughters" was, of course, not one uniform whole. Apart from
^ W. Palmer : Narrative of Events connected %vith the Publication of Tracts for the Times, p. 21.
- Ibid., p. 113, note.
^ T. Mozley : Reminiscences of Oriel College and the Oxford Move- ment, vol. i. p. 253. * Short Studies, vol. iv. p. 245.
INTRODUCTION. xi
individual members with ideas of their own, including such Liberals as VVhately, Arnold, Blanco White, and Milman, it had two great parties : the old High Churchmen and the Evangelicals. The first were the inheritors of the Anglicanism of the past, of such men as Hooker, and Wilson, and Waterland. The best of these "High and Dry" clergy preached sober ser- mons without appeal to the emotions, set up as their standard a reasonable and serious conception of duty, and bestowed blankets and good advice on their parishes. The worst, from a religious point of view, were the preferment seekers, the pluralists, the "two-bottle orthodox," the country gentlemen in orders who hunted, shot, danced, and farmed, making the best of both worlds, especially the present. Good and bad alike were usually creatures of routine, performing " the daily round, the common task" without initiative, without enthusiasm, and, not seldom, with insufferable pomposity. To this average there were, of course, shining exceptions like the Kebles, Dr. Pusey, Dr. Hook, and Hugh James Rose. The party generally regarded as the religious party was that of the Evangelicals. Despite the great influence of some of its members on such public questions as prison reform and the abolition of slaver)', its preaching was of a shallow and sensational kind, a claptrap appeal to the religiosity of those who prefer to find salvation, not in building up character by a godly, righteous, and sober life, but in a sudden conviction that God has arbitrarily laid their sins on his innocent Son. A short and easy method certainly, but even a Rationalist can sympathise with the strenuous opposition which the High Church has always maintained to such puerile con- ceptions of the meaning of Christianity. One High Churchman wrote of it thus: —
" The impression of the system on my mind . . . was that il put the character of Jesus Christ entirely out of account, and that it reduced the .Sermon on the Mount, all the discourses of our Lord, and all the moral arguments and exhortations of St. Paul and other Apostles, to mere carnalities that no real Christian need have anything to do with." ^
T. Mozley: Keminiscences, vol. i. p. 187.
xii INTRODUCTION.
At the time of which I write what usefulness the Evangelicals may have had was passing away; they had grown popular, even fashionable, and on easy terms with the world; their message to mankind was delivered in floods of verbosity; they were "great on platforms and profuse of eloquence at tea-meetings."
The position, then, was this: two mutually distrustful allies, a great historic High Church party, scarce conscious of its tradi- tional position and responsibilities, and an active but degenerat- ing Evangelical party, were, like Canute, confronting a rising tide, the tide of scientific inquiry and expanding political free- dom. The Oxford Movement began in the conviction that the Church was in peril, and that a great efYbrt must be made to stem the threatening flood.
If any one deserves credit for being the first begetter of that Movement, it was John Keble, whose Christian Year (1827), mediocre as poetry though it be, had presented an exalted ideal of churchmanship. Keble, though unbending and severe in principles, was modest and retiring in temperament. After winning all the honours that Oxford University could give him, he went home to be curate of his father's country parish, and, living out of the world, remained a keen observer of what was going on in the religious sphere. As Churchman he was a strong adherent to tradition, in politics a staunch Tory; none the less he denounced all luxury and show, and practised and preached the ascetic life. The key-note of this good man's life was the beautiful text from Isaiah which he placed on the title-page of The Christian Year — " In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." He had serious limitations indeed ; his thoughts ran in a groove, his insight into human problems was shallow, he had no sympathy with any but the religious passions of man; "if he had not been Keble, he would have been called (treason though it be to write the words) narrow-minded."^ I have stated him the first begetter of the Movement; but he was disqualified for being its leader by his shyness, incapacity for debate, impatience of contradiction. His main contribution to
^ J . A. Froude : Short Studies, vol. iv. p. 267.
INTRODUCTION. xiii
the Catholic revival was his influence on two brilliant men who made that revival what it was, a living force gathering strength and vigour as it swept on its way.
The first of these was the enfant terrible of the Oxford Move- ment, Richard Hurrell Froude, one of the most original and engaging personalities who have ever enlivened the dulness of theological controversy with their audacity and wit. He had great gifts both for attaching friends to him and repelling foes; a keen, logical intellect, loftily impatient of compromise and cant, and at times aggressive and intolerant ; a whole-souled conviction of the rightness of his cause, and a merciless eye for what he counted the fallacies and pretences of his opponents. With all this, he was his own severest critic. Rightly or wrongly, his inner life was laid bare to the world by the publica- tion of his diary and letters after his death, and some of those who had had the rough side of his tongue made merry over the revelation of his humble efforts after the good life. Yet, Pepy- sian as some of the entries in the journal may be, they reveal a hunger and thirst after righteousness for which all honour is due.* People who disliked him — and he inspired great dislike
* Some idea of these candid confessions can be gathered from the following random extracts: — "I do not reckon the day to have been at all well spent. I have ate and drank too much, and thought too little;
enjoyed the laugh against when he talked politics after dinner. I
feel too that I am getting stingy and anxious to save in all manner of little things, — wished to win at cards when we were playing for six- pences, etc." " Looked with greediness to see if there was a goose on the table for dinner." " Was ashamed to have it known that I had no gloves. Talked about matters of morality in a way that might leave the impression that I thought myself free from some vices which I censured; this was unintentional but silly." "Meant to have kept a fast and did abstain from dinner ; but at tea ate buttered toast when I knew it was bad for me. . . , Have rather stuffed at breakfast — can- not help taking my money out at a meal — must get rid of this vulgar feeling." "My first impulse was to be pleased when I found there was no evening prayer, a proof of my laziness and want of steady religion." — R. H. Froude, Keinains, vol. i. pp. 14-22.
xiv INTRODUCTION.
as well as great love — put down his audacities of language^ to flippancy and arrogance; but, as those who knew him best have testified, his nature was essentially sweet.
" Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with jt, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real asperity of temper. . . . His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. It was his poetry."^
While he found his chief recreation in baiting loose and wordy reasoners, the asceticism which he practised did not prevent him from being a handy man in a boat in dirty weather, and a bold cross-country rider.
In several respects this young man, whose short life burned so fiercely, was a curious contrast to that learned and pious country parson, John Keble. But to Keble he gave the allegi- ance of a devoted disciple. Under his influence he formed his principles and his standards, his reverence for the past and for tradition, his dislike of novelty, his sturdy conservatism which did not preclude an occasional fling at " pampered aristocrats " and the "gentleman heresy."
"Mr. Keble's goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept without reserve his master's teaching ; and towards Mr. Keble, along with an outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature."'
It was through Froude that Newman became intimate with Keble. At Oriel, where he was appointed a fellow in 1826, a
^ They are certainly rather startling sometimes in the mouth of a clergyman. He thus describes in one of his delightful letters a joint mission of Anglicans and Wesleyans in Barbadoes: "The Rural Dean and the clergy ' went a whoring ' after the Wesleyans, Moravians, and the whole kit besides, to concoct a joint plan of general education." — Remains^ vol. i. p. 400.
^ T. Mozley, in British Critic, April 1840.
^ Church: Oxford ]\fovenient, p. 41.
INTRODUCIION. xv
tutor in 1827, Fronde found Newman, of whom he and his friends knew little, save that he was an able man, a friend of Whately's, and reputed a Liberal who had been through an Evangelical stage earlier ; at this time, in fact, he " loved to choose and see his path." The two, nevertheless, were mutually attracted. " Newman is a fellow that I like more, the more that I think of him; only I would give a few odd pence if he were not a heretic," wrote Froude in 1829.^ Newman, however, was in process of sloughing his Liberal heresy (in 1829 he took part in the Tory agitation which turned out Peel, and thus broke with Whately's party),- and the process seems to have been materially hastened by the influence of his new friend, who had been a High Churchman and Tory from the first with no doubts whatever. From Froude Newman learned reverence for the hierarchical system, conviction of the supernatural powers of the priesthood, dislike of the Reformers, scorn of "Bible Christianity." Froude in his way was a fanatic, Newman a groper, who allowed himself to be led by the " kindly light " which he found in his colleague. Keble was not particularly an.xious at the outset to know Newman; the odour of Liberalism which hung about him was offensive to his nostrils. But Froude carried his point, for he recognised that in Newman he had found an ally to translate Keble's ideas into action. " Do you know," he writes, " the story of the murderer who had done one good thing in his life? Well, if I was ever asked what good deed I had ever done, I should say that I had brought Keble and Newman to understand each other."^ This turned out to be a notable triple alliance. The O.xford Movement, says Dean Church, was the direct result of the searchings of heart and communings from 1826 to 1833 of these three men.
They had plenty to occupy their minds. The break-up of
' Remains, vol. i. p. 232.
■'' By the ^larch of 1831 he could write to a friend: "They are Liberals, and in saying this I conceive I am saying almost as bad of them as can be said of any one." — Newman, Letters and Correspond- ence, vol. i. p. 209. " Retnaius, vol. i.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
parties due to Catholic Emancipation, followed by the French and Belgian Revolutions of 1830, gave fresh encouragement to English reformers who saw their time approaching. Froude was disgusted with Whigs and Tories alike, and assailed them both.
" Froude is growing stronger and stronger in his sentiments every day," writes James Mozley in 1832, "and cuts about him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk." And again: "Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, ' What fun it is living in such times as these ! how could one go back now to the times of old Tory humbug?'"^
He found great exhilaration in thus speaking his mind, and neither in conversation nor correspondence minced his words. Thus he writes in a letter of August 28th, 1831 :
" A most respectable clergyman of the name of , who has the
reputation of being a very sensible man, proposed at 's dinner
* the health of those dissenting ministers who have laboured in the cause.' Did he recollect that the Prayer Book would translate his words, * the health of the promoters of damnable heresy l'"^
His brother, J. A. Froude, said of him that his notions of the Evangelicals must have been taken from some unfortunate specimens, for he used to speak of them as "fellows who turned up the whites of their eyes and said Lawd/"'^
Space merely permits me to mention in passing the tour in Southern Europe which Froude and Newman made together in the winter of 1832-33 ; the latter did not return till July 1833, having gone through a dangerous illness in Sicily after his companion's departure. This stay in Roman Catholic countries was a formative influence on Newman, and gave him insight into both the practical defects of the Roman system as applied to whole populations, and into what he considered the majesty of its ideal conception of Catholicity. On the publication of
^ Quoted in Church: Oxford RIovement, p. 43.
- Remains, vol. i. p. 244. ^ Short Studies, vol. v. p. 254,
INTRODUCTION. xvii
Fronde's Rctiiains it even came out that when the two Anglican pilgrims were at Rome, they asked Wiseman on what terms they could be received into the Roman Church, and found that they would have to swallow the Council of Trent. Newman dismisses this statement as a jesting way of saying that they had taken the opportunity of ascertaining the actual points of issue between the two Churches ; but the incident, when known, roused much distrust, expressed, for instance, by William Palmer.'
Newman's return from Southern Europe almost coincided with what was generally regarded as the start of the Movement. He reached home on July 9th, 1833; five days later Keble delivered his famous sermon at Oxford: "National Apostasy." Its immediate occasion was the Government's proposed sup- pression of ten Irish bishoprics and two archbishoprics, a measure which seemed an interference with the Apostolic Succession and a portent of further encroachments on the privileges of the Church ; the panic-stricken Pahner was even convinced that the real object of the party in power was the abolition of the Anglican hierarchy, to please the Romanists, and pave the way for a Roman establishment. The preacher's argument was that England, being a Christian nation, was also a part of the Christian Church, and therefore bound by the fundamental principles of that Church. Those who acted con- trary to this assumption were thus guilty of " direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God." Less than a fortnight later the Oxford Movement was born in the parsonage of Hadleigh, Suffolk, where the Rev. Hugh James Rose, editor of a Church periodical, the British Magazine^ summoned a meeting of friends to discuss the position of the Church, and decide what steps should be taken for its vindication and defence. The group consisted of William Palmer, A. P. Perceval, and Froude; Keble and Newman, who were unable to attend, being in full sympathy and correspondence. There was a three days' dis- cussion ; all were agreed on the evil — the apathy of the Church
* See Palmer's Narrative, pp. 40-42.
xviii INTRODUCTION.
in the presence of threatened changes of the most vital sort. But it was found more difficult to agree on what means should be adopted for awakening priests and laymen to a sense of the Church's peril. This nucleus of a party, indeed, represented two types of mind : Rose, Palmer, and Perceval were essentially conservative; they did not have the same dissatisfaction with the Church felt by Keble, Froude, and Newman, all they wanted was to have her freed from what they deemed State oppression. Rose thought that if they could stand ten or fifteen years, little was to be feared. Time, however, was wanting, something had to be done at once. An association was mooted, and a paper drawn up, urging the formation of such a body. But the proposed association came to nothing. Froude objected to any narrower body than the whole Church, and vehemently opposed the Movement getting into the Bishops' hands ;^ Newman, who from the first insisted on a loose formation, "had a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London."'- The proposal, however, aroused interest throughout the country, and a clerical address to the Archbishop of Canterbury was resolved on, which, despite the coldness of most of the Bishops, received 7000 signatures, whilst a month or two later followed a lay address signed by 230,000 heads of families. These addresses had their effect : they showed politicians that the Church was a more formidable
^ Lord Blachford writes : "I remember one day his grievously shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a council in J. H. N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or other, to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length on Newman's sofa, and broke in upon one of Palmer's judicious harangues about Bishops and Archdeacons and such-like, with the ejaculation, ' I don't see why we should disguise from our- selves that our object is to dictate to the clergy of this country, and I, for one, do not want any one else to get on the box.'" — Church: Oxford Movement, p. 62.
'■^ Ibid., p. 106.
INTRODUCTION. xix
force than they had thought. The King himself (WiUiam IV.) showed how the wind was setting by making on his birthday in May, 1834, a declaration of his attachment to the Church and his resolve to maintain her integrity. In the autumn the Tories came into power, and, as Palmer says, "arrested the march of Revolution."
Already, in the autumn of 1833 the Tracts for the Times'^ had begun their flow. It had been decided at Hadleigh that some writing should be done, but there had been differences of opinion as to methods of composition and publication. Rose and Palmer would have made London the centre of operations, and have issued nothing without the sanction and revision of a committee. But Newman could not stand committees and compromises; he felt that straight speech was essential, and that straight speech could only proceed from an individual. It was his principle that the Tracts should be written as expres- sions of personal judgment without supervision. Neither he nor Froude was much enamoured of the addresses now being signed; they disliked the necessary watering-down of principles, so as to let every one subscribe to what no one liked, and, as a matter of fact, these addresses were signed by Low Churchmen as well as High. The first of the Tracts (written by Newman) appeared on September 9th, 1833, '^"'^i thanks to zealous helpers, they soon attained a large circulation. "The Tracts had to be circulated by post, by hand, or anyhow, and many a young clergyman spent days in riding about with a pocketful, surprising his neighbours at breakfast, dinner, and tea."- How useful these Tractarian missionaries would have found the cycle ! Palmer, though he thought the earlier Tracts in- cautiously worded, helped in the distribution; but when he found that many clergy refused their signatures to the address, because of the supposed connection between it and the Tracts, he had misgivings of their effect, and begged Newman to stop
' This title came later ; at first they bore no general name, but were known as the Oxford Tracts.
- T. Mozley, Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 313.
XX INTRODUCTION.
them at least temporarily. The latter refused, however, and a second attempt of Palmer's to secure revision was also fruitless. It was perhaps as well for the Movement that it was so; had Palmer and his moderates got control of the Tracts, they would have become something much more colour- less than they were. Owing to the rejection of his suggestions, Palmer now withdrew from active co-operation with the Tract writers, but his sympathy with their aims precluded him from open opposition; he comforted himself with the reflection that no great religious movement had ever taken place without accompanying evils.
The early Tracts do not seem so incautious nowadays as they did then; Dean Church describes them as "clear, brief, stern appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without rhetoric, intense in purpose."^ All they did was to reiterate High Anglican doctrines, grown atrophied by disuse, such as the Apostolic Succession, practically discarded by the Low Church. The story went that a certain prelate, after reading one of the Tracts on the question, could not make up his mind whether he believed the doctrine or not.'* It was inevitable that from the first they should excite the "No Popery ! " cry, even though all they said might have the sanc- tion of the Prayer Book and the Anglican divines. They implicitly condemned the opinions of many in the Church, no doubt, but that was because, rightly or wrongly, these latter had departed from the Anglican positions. These positions were enforced in some of the Tracts by collections of extracts from such sound Anglican authorities as Beveridge, Wilson, and Cosin, and from Fathers like Ignatius, Justin, and Irena?us. These caiencr, however, came later; the earlier Tracts were deliberately intended to startle, and they fulfilled their purpose.
There is no question that Newman, the chief contributor, enjoyed the writing of them. After a long illness his health and strength had come back with a rebound. It was the
1 Oxford Moveiiietit, p. lio.
- Newman: Apologia pro FiVa ^'wa (popular edition, 1904), p. 28.
INTRODUCTION. xxi
happiest period of his Anglican life, for the ardour of his zeal for the cause banished from him for the time anxiety about his soul. He had still the imperturbable sense of rightness in- dispensable to the fanatical leader; he felt the pulse of the younger men at Oxford beat in unison with his own. Here are a few snatches of what he says of himself at this time:
" I had a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had well-nigh faded away out of the land, through the political changes of the last hundred and fifty years, and it must be restored . . . also, on the other hand, I despised every rival system of doctrine and its arguments too ... I thought . . . that the Apostolical form of doctrine was essential, and its grounds of evidence impregnable. . . • My behaviour had a mixture in it both of fierceness and of sport; and on this account, I dare say, it gave offence to many." '
The Tracts swelled in numbers during 1834. Palmer, after making a draft for one on the Apostolic Succession (No. 15),- left it to Newman to complete, and did no more for the series. Newman wrote a majority himself, but Froude, John Keble, Perceval, Bowden, and others helped. Thomas Keble (John's brother) contributed several in the form of didactic tales, in which an impossibly humble, pious, and receptive young work- man called Richard Nelson has long and edifying conversations on usages and doctrine with his vicar. Newman's influence with his pen was supplemented by that of his voice at St. Mary's. Whilst Oxford men were reading and pondering the Tracts, they were also submitting to the spell of one of the greatest preachers the world has ever known. The many impressions of the St. Mary's sermons which have been recorded are varied indeed, but they all testify to Newman's extraordinary power of searching the hearts of his hearers, of probing the most secret individual consciences of a whole congregation. -Stories were current at Oriel of fast men dropping in to hear him out of curiosity, and
^ Apologia, pp. 27-28. See p. 63.
r
xxii INTRODUCTION.
being reduced to cold terror. By now he was clearly recognised as the leader of the new party. Rose, on whose initiative the Hadleigh meeting had taken place, was unsuitable for such a position, being a Cambridge man and out of touch with the younger Oxford generation, obviously destined to play the principal part in the work; he had not the necessary physical health moreover, and died an early death in 1839. Froude did not live so long; for his health he went to the West Indies in November 1834, and returned home in the following year with less than twelve months left him. Had he lived the history of the Movement would have been profoundly modified; Newman, with his drifting, and theory-spinning, and subtlety of reason- ing, would have had the tonic of a strenuous and straight- forward personality. After Froude's death there was a per- ceptible decline in Newman's confidence in the cause.
Round about him had gathered some of the most remarkable men then at Oxford, including Robert and Henry Wilberforce, Thomas Mozley (to whose delightful Reminisce7ices we owe so much insight into the Movement and its actors), J. B. Mozley, Frederic Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford), William Froude, James Bliss, Isaac Williams, W. J. Copeland, and many more. These were all men of promise, but towards the end of 1834 a man of performance joined the Movement, with which he had been in at least partial sympathy from the start. This was Dr. Pusey, a learned scholar of high standing in the University, a Professor and Canon of Christ Church, described by Dean Church as "a venerated and rather awful person, from his position not mixing in the easy intercourse of common-room life, but to be consulted in emergencies.'"^ His accession was of the greatest value:
" He at once gave to us," writes Newman, "a position and a name. . . . There was henceforth a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the country who were adopting the new opinions ; and not only so, but there was one who furnished the Movement with a front to the world, and gained for it a recognition from other parties in the University."-
' Oxford Moi'ement, p. 131. ^ Apologia, p. 3S.
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
Pusey, indeed, with his erudition and his loyalty to the Church, was a kind of guarantee of responsibility, and assumed a posi- tion in the Tractarian party almost on a level with Newman's; he was, in fact, widely regarded as the official chief.' It was Pusey who gave permanence to that part of the Movement which persisted in its Anglicanism, and, when the crisis came, did not branch off Romewards. Oakley described Pusey as the "St. Barnabas of the Movement," and this aptly characterised him, for his was the work of conciliation. His influence was also felt in the Tracts, which began to be graver, more sober, more adequately documented. Such was his own treatise on Baptism (forming Tracts 67, 68, 69, and running to 300 pages in the first edition, 400 in the second), of which Church writes: "The Tract on Baptism was like the advance of a battery of heavy artillery on a field where the battle has been hitherto carried on by skirmishing and musketry. It altered the look of things, and the conduct of the fighting,"' Pusey also planned a Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division of the East and West, edited by himself, Keble, and Newman, the largest contributor being Charles Marriott.
In 1834 the Movement was in full swing and progress was being steadily made ; hopes ran high. It had great success with young Oxford men of culture for whom Evangelicism was a burden, and to whom, by reason of its very authority, the old " High-and-dry " orthodoxy was an incentive to revolt. Men of the dialectic type of mind were attracted by such uncom- promising views, and historical students, whatever their opinion
' "Its enemies fastened on it [the Movement] a nickname from his name, and this nickname, partly from a greater smoothness of sound, partly from an odd suggestion of something funny in it, came more into use than others; and the terms Puseismtts, Pttseisme, Ptiseista found their way into German lecture-halls and Paris salons, and remote convents and police-offices in Italy and Sicily; indeed, in the shape of ^^o^'i'e^(^/x6s it might be lighted on in a Greek newspaper." — Church : Oxford Afcrvevtent,^. 183.
- Oxford Afoveiiient, p. 1 36.
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
of the Movement's tendencies, welcomed its revival of interest in the past. But as yet it was not a popular movement in any sense : it appealed to the educated class through the intellect, not to the proletariat through the emotions, like Evangelicism. Naturally, moreover, it was anything but favourably considered in some quarters. The peremptory tone of the Tracts, their apparent novelty of teaching, had aroused resentment in several parties : in the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism and unsound views on justification, good works, and sacraments, in the "two-bottle orthodox" by their uncomfortable ascetic ideals among the Liberals by their rigidity of dogma.
This last Tractarian characteristic grew prominent in Oxford when the Subscription question came up for discussion. Unlike Cambridge, the Oxford of that day, emphatically a close pre- serve of Anglicism, demanded subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles on matriculation. In the great majority of cases this was doubtless no hardship. Many men would be ready to say with Theodore Hook: "Sign the Thirty-nine Articles.'' Oh, Forty if you like!" But some conscientious souls might well feel disinclined to gulp down so many absolute propositions at such an early stage in their education. About the end of 1834 Dr. Hampden, then Principal of St. Mary's Hall and Professor of Moral Philosophy, aroused a war of words by a pamphlet advocating the abolition of such subscription. His leading argument was that a distinction must be drawn between the " divine facts " of revelation and human interpretations of them ; the "divine facts" being binding on all Christians, the human interpretations — and all Church formularies are such — being only binding on those who deem them true, and therefore least of all on undergraduates who cannot have given them due examination. This does not seem an unreasonable contention, though there is a logical fallacy in letting the novice off the interpretations, but still pinning him down to the "divine facts." However, the storm raged in the tea-cup. Oxford orthodoxy united with Tractarianism to denounce as latitudinarian the proposals of Dr. Hampden, who was now the most unpopular man in the University. He had sent a copy of his pamphlet
INTRODUCTION. xxv
to Newman, and the latter wrote back that he thought its principles would shipwreck the Christian faith, and lamented that a first step had been taken to interrupt peace and mutual good feeling at Oxford. Convocation rejected the proposal in May, 1835, by a five to one majority, and for this defeat of Hampden's the Tractarians were largely responsible by their literary activity. He was a person they could not abide ; Thomas Mozley, the most amiable of men, wrote of him thus :
"lie was not so much repulsive as utterly unattractive. . . . Hampden's face was inexpressive, his head was set deep in his broad shoulders, and his voice was harsh and unmodulated. Some one said of him tliat he stood before you like a milestone and braced at you like a jackass."^
But Hampden, defeated though he might have been, was still to prove a thorn in the flesh. About the end of 1835 died Dr. Burton, the Regius Professor of Divinity; and his death was of the nature of an awful warning to theological disputants, for its immediate cause is said by T. Mozley to have been a heated argument with a dissenting farmer, which threw him into a fever. As a successor Lord Melbourne was bold enough to appoint Hampden, and thereby raised another storm about the latter in the University. According to Palmer, who, as we have seen, always took the most calamitous view of things, Melbourne meant it as a studied insult to the University for its past resistance to the Government, and an attempt to thrust latitudinarian principles upon the Church. Had that statesman seen fit he might have stopped the trouble before it had gone far, for Hampden offered to withdraw, and might have been solaced with some other appointment. But Melbourne stuck to his guns, and, tempers being up on both sides, what was called "the persecution of Hampden" went on briskly. Four years before he had delivered the Bampton Lectures; they had been printed and circulated with the University's sanction ; no protest had been raised; the probability was that their dulness
^ Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 380.
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
made readers few. But now that he had openly attacked sub- scription, and had been pushed into a high and responsible post, his enemies made a study of the Lectures and found the book a convenient stick wherewith to belabour the new Pro- fessor, The Tractarians had always professed a scorn for "Bible Christianity," and here was a man who threw over tradition and said the Scriptures alone were to be accepted as a basis for Christian dogma; that general councils might and did err; that the Bible's statements on matters of faith were alone to be implicitly accepted. Newman showed his controversial agility in his Elucidations of Dr. Hampdetis Theological Statements., which drew down upon him Dr. .'Arnold's famous onslaught in the Edinburgh Review., "The Oxford Alalignants."^ Arnold wrote in a white heat of indignation, and his criticism of Newman's methods was certainly damaging. He showed how the quotations from Hampden were garbled by omissions, which made it hard to acquit the author nf thf^ Elucidciiiqns of deliberate dishonesty. From Newman he turned to the Tractarians generally, whom with singular short-sightedness he described as "a few obscure fanatics,' and proceeded :
" The fanaticism of the English High Churchmen has been the fanaticism of mere foolery. A dress, a ritual, a name, a ceremony ; — a technical phraseology ; — the superstition of a priesthood, without its power; — the form of episcopal government, without its substance; — a system imperfect and paralysed, not independent, not sovereign ; afraid to cast oft" the subjection against which it is perpetually murmuring."
Worst of all, " the attack on Dr. Hampden bears upon it the character, not of error, but of moral wickedness.^'' Another Liberal, Whately, was no less severe; he denounced the Elucidations as "a tissue of deliberate and artful misrepresen- tations." These slashing contemporary criticisms must of course be considerably discounted in the light of history. Dr. Abbott says of this incident that Newman did not fight
1 Vol. Ixiii. (1836), p. 225.
INTRODUCTION. xxvii
fairly, but that it does not follow he was guilty of deliberate dishonesty, and quotes a very sane comment on the subject by Sir James Stephen :
*' As for Newman himself, I am sorry that his integrity should be impugned. I am convinced that a more upright man does not exist. But his understanding is essentially illogical and inveterately imagina- tive ; and I have reason to fear that he labours under a degree of cerebral excitement, which unfits him for the mastery of his own thoughts and the guidance of his own pen,"^
It must not be supposed, however, that the opposition to Hampden was an entirely Tractarian affair. The inspiration came in large measure from Newman and his associates; but the whole conservative force of the University was in the same boat. The Heads of Houses, timid of making definite charges, did all they could to mark their displeasure by proposing in Convocation that Hampden should be deprived of his vote in the choice of Select Preachers. The country clergy flocked up to the meeting, and the large majority of votes in favour of the motion was no doubt due in part to the relative ease of reading the ElucidatiotiSy 47 pages long, instead of the dry and weighty tome of 548 pages which it attacked. The two Proctors, however, exercised their power of veto, and the motion was thrown out. Yet it was not long in being carried, for, on the appointment of new Proctors hostile to Hampden, a second Convocation was summoned.
The Hampden affair was a good advertisement for the Tract- arians ; it made the London and provincial clergy recognise their existence as a young, aggressive party. Moreover, Hampden's appointment was so much in the teeth of average Anglican opinion, that, in the French phrase, it gave to think furiously of what further drastic treatment the Church might expect from the Government. These Tractarian young men might be audacious in statement, rigorous in application of
^ Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman, vol. ii. p. 63.
xxviii INTRODUCTION.
principles to a degree that seemed fanatical in a Church which has never worried much about consistency, which, to use a common phrase, has a Catholic Prayer Book, Calvinistic Articles, and an Arminian clergy. Yet they formed a living party, so confident of its future, that even its opponents might concede that there was something in it, that it was at least better than the stagnation and apathy which it arose to dispel. For the time the Movement attracted some of the best men in the University. In 1838 Whately, an unsympathetic observer, writes, " Oxford has at present two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists — i.e. Puseyites."' When a party has several nicknames, it is obviously a party that is being talked about, and Tractarianism was indeed the one topic at Oxford. G. V. Cox, an independent observer, tells us that it was generally acknowledged that the time had come for the Church of England to revive her claim to Catholicity and Apostolicity; after having been so Low, it was natural that she should become rather High, and the Movement, so far, was regarded by most as a blessing. It was both theoretical and practical in aims. Theoretically it asked such questions as: What is the Church? what are her bases? what her essential constitutions? It was practical, in so far as it insisted on personal righteousness and devotion. The first of Newman's sermons to be published was called " Holiness necessary for future blessedness," and this note persisted in the teaching of the Movement. The death- bed repentance, so dear to the Evangelicals, had no encourage- ment from these austerer Christians. For them the principal idea in the New Testament was not so much the Atonement as the Incarnation, and hence the stress they laid upon the Gospels as compared with the Epistles; hence their sense of the need of self-discipline. This was in some cases carried to lengths extravagant or absurd. " Early in the Movement," writes T. Mozley, " I heard that one of the Oxford leaders fasted on boiled mutton, because he did not like it."- The party was wide enough to include all kinds of men. If some were inclined to
' Whately' s Life, p. 163. - Reminiscencts, vol. i. p. 411.
INTRODUCTION. xxix
be too cautious and hesitant, others, especially among the younger, were headstrong and eager to push on without regard for policy, and in theology paraded what the chiefs merely hinted; as we shall see, this feature was a factor of increasing import in the Movement.
The two leaders, Newman and Pusey, went on their way with mutual confidence, though they by no means saw eye to eye on all subjects; Newman's thought being much more fluid and susceptible of change than that of his colleague. He was also much more accessible; he gave breakfast parties and evening gatherings, where he met men on equal terms, and the range of talk was wide; he had the personal charm that attracts disciples, and Credo in Ncwmantitciii became an article of faith with a large proportion of young Oxford. And yet it must be said that as a leader and teacher he had grave deficiencies. Those whom he attracted he could not keep in order. AH in him depended on a system, and he was not always sure of his system. Till he finally reached the Roman haven of refuge where he could have his system ready-made, he was ever a groper, never quite sure of his position — ^"one step enough for me." His over-subtlety of argument which perplexed friends and gave foes openings for attack had always been opposed by the downright Froude, who might be described as a cross-country theologian as well as a cross-country rider, but Froude was no longer at his elbow. With all his confidence in the cause, he was, moreover, too shy, self-distrustful, and conscious of his own failings to lead well. He would have been far more successful had he followed his own judgment more and taken less heed of his friends' opinions. In loyalty to such a chief how great the risk I Dr. Abbott scarcely overstates it when he says:
" ' I believe in Newman' — a short creed indeed, but not 'extremely simple.' How little those who committed themselves to it knew to what they were committed ! Compared with this unwilling misguider, the most fallacious of Sirens was but a beginner in deceits. All the more deceitful, because so unwilling to deceive; so complex and tortuous in reality, yet so fatally attractive by an obvious transparency
XXX INTRODUCTION.
of thought and superficial smoothness of expression — here was a leader who seemed to see cleaily whatever he spoke about, yet in reality saw but one step before him, and not always that.''^
He was still preaching his afternoon sermons at St. IMary's, and also giving theological lectures in Adam de Brome's Chapel, an anne.xe of that church, some of which were published as a book, The Prophetical Office of the Church viewed relatively to Roinanisin and Popular Protestantism (1837). Fully expecting it to cause charges of Romanising, he dedicated it to Dr. Routh of Magdalen, that it might have the shelter of an orthodox and learned name.
By the end of 1837 the Movement was diffused all over England; the year 1838 has been given as its high-water mark. True, in the August of that year the Bishop of Oxford in his charge disapproved of some expressions in the Tracts. New- man was no doubt prepared for this; he had, like the fat boy, stated his intention of making people's flesh creep. He now offered to suppress any of the Tracts of which he had the copy- right, but the Bishop declined the offer; he had, he said, merely wished to give a warning. This mild rebuke was a straw to show how the official wind was blowing. The affair of Hampden had left a good deal of bitter feeling, which led his supporters to answer the Tractarian attacks on his orthodoxy with countercharges of Romanising, secret and open. The orthodox Evangelicals who had united with the Tract party in the heresy hunt, now joined forces with the Liberals to accuse their late allies of treachery to the Church. The latter, indeed, influenced in this matter by Froude, to whom Bishop Jewell was no better than " an irreverent dissenter," openly disavowed Pro- testantism and the Reformation, and sought the revival of institutions for almost three hundred years left in abeyance, like fasting, daily Common Prayer, observance of saints'" days, and frequent sacraments. Their argument, in fact, was that if these indispensable features of life and worship were not re- stored, nothing could avert the triumph of Popery. In its
Abbott: Anglican Career of Newman, vol. ii. p. 35-
INTRODUCTION. xxxi
beginnings the Movement was largely inspired by this dread of Rome, a dread deepened by the panic after Catholic Emancipa- tion. Newman had started with the idea that the Pope was Antichrist, and that the case against his Church was so obvious that it needed no further proving. Under Froude's influence, however, this extreme view was greatly modified and went on being so. Froude admitted that despite her corruptions and errors, the Roman Church had not, any more than the English Church, ceased to form part of the body supposed to be in con- tinuous connection with the Apostles. She had a strong logical theory wherewith to confront her foes, and had more to say for herself than people imagined. Now it was characteristic both of Froude and Newman to have immense reverence for power as power; their attitude to their Ueity was abject and grovel- ling. Froude quoted as sublime in a letter to Keble the line in Measure for Measure —
" Let the Devil Be sometimes honour'd for his burning throne."
The Devil was to him, after all, a powerful potentate, and so to Newman was the Antichrist of Rome. But this was in an early stage of his opinions. He had now come to conceive, not a pure Church on one hand, a corrupt on the other, but two great parts of a Church that had been rent in twain, each with its own merits, each with its own defects. He realised how much popularly presumed Popish was ancient and Catholic, and warned his fellow-Churchmen of the peril of hasty charges against Rome. He had, in short, reached the stage in his religious experience which he called the Via Media} He could not accept infallibility, because of the way in which it was made to overrule the " consent of the Fathers," and because it con- tradicted the conditions of human reception of teaching, was useless as an assurance of truth, and pernicious in its working. In the early Church, he contended, there was authority but not infallibility. The Via Media got the name of a paper theory
^ See p. 155.
xxxii INTRODUCTION.
from those who could see no logical halting-place between Romanism and Protestantism, and Newman himself, as we shall see, ultimately dropped it as impracticable;^ but the steady growth of High Anglicanism and approximation to Roman usages ever since the Tractarian Movement testifies that a large party in the Church of England has some such implicit idea.
Up to 1839 the Movement, despite the prejudice it excited and its own occasional indiscretions, had prospered fairly. Newman was active in literary production; besides Tracts, sermons and articles, he published such important works as The P7-ophciical Office of the Chicrc/i, already mentioned, and the Lectures on Justijicatioti. He also became editor of the British Critic, 1837, which was henceforth the party organ. But after 1839 began a stormier epoch. Internecine differences tended to grow more accentuated. The party had been swelled by a second generation of men, who, naturally enough, were a little more in a hurry than those who had initiated the Move- ment, and the hostility to it was also increasing. Towards the end of 1838 a scheme, partly at least intended as an off-set to the open anti-Protestantism of many Tractarians, especially as expressed in Froude's Reniains, now published, had been pro- posed for the erection of a memorial to the Oxford martyrs of the Reformation. At first a few moderates of the party, in- cluding Pusey, were disposed to support the proposal, but Newman held aloof from glorifying men whom he deemed to have been untrustworthy guides, and most of his friends did the same. Nevertheless funds were subscribed, and the monument
1 Dr. Abbott somewhat scornfully sums up the stages of what he calls Newman's dream of the Via Aledia: — (l) On collapse of his Evangelicism seeking for basis of faith found it in the Church as set forth by Laud; (2) read some of the Fathers hastily; (3) sketched hazy Anglo-Primitive system; (4) proclaimed this as a new Reformation;
(5) read the Anglican divines in the hope of finding this system in them;
(6) found it; (7) discovered before ten years had passed that it was a mere paper system and accused the Anglican divines, whom he had not seriously studied, of having 'taken him in.'" — Anglican Career of Newman, vol. i-. p. 330.
INTRODUCTION. xxxiii
was set up "and stood, a decisive though unofficial sign of the University against them.'" In 1839 came a rift in the lute. Palmer, who was highly jealous of his Anglicanism and had a keen scent for incipient Romanism, thought he detected in some of Newman's followers a disposition to accept the Roman view of the invalidity of Anglican orders, as expounded by Wiseman in a recent number of the Dublin Rez'iew. What Newman himself thought was not then publicly known. True it certainly was that while some Tractarians kept steadily on the old lines of upholding Anglicanism against the Roman system, certain others were beginning to question whether the English Church were a true part of the universal Church, founded by the Apostles and continued by the Fathers. For this growing uncertainty there were two main causes.
One was the unsettling of Newman's mind. Till the summer of 1839 the ideal he had formed of the English Church seemed to him tenable; what he had to do was to bring that Church up to his own standard. But a study of the Monophysite contro- versy which he made at this time gave him disturbing reflec- tions.'^ It was hard to make out how the Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics too, hard to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century without condemning those of the fifth; the principles and proceedings of heretics then were those of Protestants now:
"I found it so, — almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful because so silent and unim passioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth."''
' Church: Oxford Movement, p. 221.
- "I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall. It was clear that I had a goad deal to learn on the question of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was coming upon me. He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again. The thought for the moment had been, ' The Church of Rome will be found right after all'; and then it had vanished." — Apologia, p. 73. ^ Ibid., p. 71.
3
xxxiv INTRODUCTION.
The uneasiness thus induced was increased still more by Wiseman's Diibli?i Review article on the Donatists, with an application to Anglicans. It had given him a stomach-ache, Newman wrote to Lord Blachford. St. Augustine's words quoted therein — "Securus judicat orbis terrarum" — struck him with a power which he had never felt from woids before. " By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverised.'" New- man goes on to say that after this summer of 1839 he had a growing dislike of speaking against the Roman Church or her doctrines, and began to suspect he had been too ready to take the statements of the Anglican divines for granted: " I was sore about the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say strong things which facts did not justify."- Henceforth, while deeply resenting the political manoeuvres of Rome, her alliance with O'Connell, from whose methods he had an unspeakable aversion, he wished for an Anglo-Roman union, if and when it was possible. In discussing the differences between England and Rome, he had dwelt on the lack of Catholicity in the former, of Apostolicity in the latter. For long the contrast between primitive and Roman usages and doctrines had seemed to him to bar identification of the Roman with the Apostolic Church. But his studies were now making him doubt the Anglican claims to primitive purity and sim- plicity, and enabling him to explain away the Roman departures from those qualities by his famous theory of Development. The truth was that the Church of Rome, with its seeming vastness, majesty, and continuity was gradually hypnotising him into surrender. This, however, was a process of some years' duration; his loyalty to the English Church, degenerate though she might appear to him, survived the "ghost" of 1839; so long as there was hope of her restoration he felt it a duty to stand by her. Yet there was an inevit- able falling off in enthusiasm; his growing consciousness of
^ Apologia, p. 73. "^ Ibid., p. 76.
INTRODUCTION. xxxv
Anglican defects made the struggle a harder, more ungrateful task.
The other cause for uncertainty of outlook was the new blood in the party. Men like Oakeley, Faber, Brande Morris, and W. G. Ward were now joining, who lacked the almost passion- ate attachment to the English Church of the earlier Tractarians. Of these the most notable was Ward, who in many respects recalls Hurrell Froude. He had the same keenness and hard- hitting power in dialectic, the same contempt for convention and compromise, the same love of a straight issue, and, it may be added, the same defective historical sense. It was indeed in great part the reading of Froude's Remains that made him throw over Dr. Arnold, hitherto his master, and attach himself to the Movement in its most Romanising form. "He found in Froude's Remains" says Lord Blachford, "a good deal of his own Radicalism (though nothing at all of his own Utilitarianism or Liberalism), and it seemed literally to make him jump for joy."' The literal jumping may be taken as unexaggerated, for Ward was an amazing combination of a profound, at times gloomy, devotee and playful jester. He had great capacity for fun, sang a comic song to perfection, and was even famed among intimates for his pirouetting powers as a ballerina. "Thomas Aquinas dancing a ballet" — so one of his friends described him/^ Ward was with the Preacher in his saying: "To everything there is a season ... a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;"^ for the
' Wilfrid Ward : //': G. Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 84.
- "On one of these occasions," writes his son, Mr. Wilfrid Ward, " the performance was more vigorous than usual, and Ward was for the moment impersonating Cupid [one might interpolate that ho was of generous girth]. Mr. Chapman, one of the tutors, was unable to continue his reading in the room below, and sent his scout to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. The scout came back with the assurance: 'It's honly Mr. Ward, sir. 'E's ahacling of a cherubym.'" — Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 40.
^ Ecclesiastes iii. 4.
xxxvi INTRODUCTION.
curious thing was that this bright spirit, with so keen a zest for ife, sufifered all along from despondent reactions. His attitude to God was as abject as that of Froude or Newman, and yet his paradoxical turn of mind led him into occasional irreverences of speech which horrified staider folk. Ward's genius did not run to learning; of history he confessed, or rather boasted, his ignorance. Before joining the Movement in 1839 he went to Bonamy Price, a Liberal churchman, to hear what the other side had to say, and made it clear that he knew little of the alleged facts on which the contentions of the Tractarians were based. Nevertheless he cheerfully persisted in his course, on the ground that since Price's teaching led logically to " infidelity," its grounds must needs be false. Newman was a great influence on him — it was Ward who originated the phrase Credo in Newinanninn — but before coming under that influence he was singularly reluctant to expose himself to it. Newman was preaching at St. Mary's every Sunday at five, and Ward, then a Liberal, was often pressed to go and hear him. But he refused. "Why should I go and listen to such myths?" he said. At last a friend beguiled him into it by taking him for a walk and bringing him to the church porch as the clock struck five. " Now, Ward," he said, " Newman is at this moment going up into the pulpit. Why should you not enter and hear him once? It can do you no harm. If you don't like the preaching you need not go a second time, but do hear and judge what the thing is like." Ward walked in, and left, after the sermon, a potential disciple of the preacher.^ In years to come, when unable to act with Newman, he felt himself "a kind of intellectual orphan."
None the less the spell which Newman cast upon him did not imply complete intellectual agreement. He remained unconvinced of the probable regeneration of the English Church on primitive lines to which Newman was still clinging. He thought that nothing short of a disavowal of Reformation principles could meet the logical necessities of the case. Before
^ Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 80.
INTRODUCTION. xxxvii
tliinking of turning Tractarian he had indeed considered the possibihty of joining the Roman Church, whose beauty of ritual fascinated him on his aesthetic, whose logical consistency on his intellectual side. His becoming a Newmanist did not hasten his Romeward progress ; it temporarily retarded it. He and some other new recruits were "Catholics" from the first, and saw their way clear before them. " I do not consider that for them I am going too fast,"^ wrote Newman to Keble at the end of 1838. He was right; if anything, he was going too slowly, and there was a tendency among these young men in a hurry to hustle him forward. At his weekly gatherings they would put leading questions, suggest inferences, and imperceptibly push him on. Newman, as I have said, was highly sensitive to the influence of those about him; he also believed in external signs, so perhaps he took the accession of one so advanced as Ward to betoken that he should put on the pace. Dean Church blames Ward, with his passion for logic and ignorance of facts, for worrying his leader with searching questions and irresistible inferences, and thus forcing him into conclusions which he would fain have left in suspense, into extreme views which he shrank from because they were extreme; but, as Dr. Abbott puts it, " Who expects tenderness or consideration in a colonel sending to his general for orders in some crisis ?"'" The fact was that the latest Tractarians of Ward's kind were enthusiastic dialecticians, bent on conclusions and impatient of trimming and compromise ; they perplexed and upset Newman, who, instead of saying nothing when he had nothing to say, com- mitted himself to sometimes injudicious speech for fear lest silence might injure the cause. He was more to blame for letting himself be pushed than Ward and others for pushing.^
' J. H. Newman : Letters, etc., vol. ii. p. 243.
- Anglican Career of Newman, vol. ii. p. 145.
^ Newman himself recognised his defects as a guiding force; he writes of himself in the autumn of 1839: " A firm and powerful control was necessary lo keep men straight ; I never had a strong wrist, but at
xxxviii INTRODUCTION.
There was something undignified in the spectacle of a general being thrust forward by one of his aides-de-camp. And towards what was he being thrust? For Ward and the advanced section the goal was no longer that set before it by the Hadleigh group. At the start the Movement had been anti-Roman as well as anti-Erastian; it was to prevent people from becoming Romanist through ignorance. Now it was the English Church which required apologising for, and the professed object was to approximate her to Rome. The younger bloods, with the easy insolence of the cock- sure, were highly superior to those who saw no reason for disloyalty to the English Church : "The Neo-Catholic youths thought themselves especially clever, and regarded Low Churchmen and Liberals as fools." ^ "How I hate these Anglicans I " one of them is said to have remarked.
If old-fashioned Anglicans were so hated, they for their part made no secret of their hostility to the ]Movement in its new phase. The conservative force of the University authorities was now dead against it. They had never understood it, says Dean Church, they were good, respectable men, living in a comfortable state and ease, and these root and branch reformers perplexed and perturbed them. Towards the close of 1839 Newman wrote to his sister that the Heads of Houses were getting more and more alarmed by the trend of affairs. For this, despite Church, they had some excuse; they judged the tendency of Tractarianism by what advanced Tractarians were saying and doing; Newman, for example, had been out of Oxford in the autumn and had twice entrusted St. Mary's pulpit to one of the extremest of his partisans, J. Brande Morris. Much to Newman's vexation he preached the neces- sity of fasting in his first sermon, and approvingly expounded
the time when it was most needed, the reins had broken in my hands" — i.e., by the ominous presentiments caused by Monophysite studies and Wiseman's article. — Apologia, p. 79.
' J. A. Froude, Short Studies, vol. iv. p. 255.
INTRODUCTION. xxxix
the Roman doctrine of Mass in the second.' The Bishops, a similar type of men to the Heads of Houses, were also taking alarm and showing antagonism. At the start they had practised their favourite tactics of sitting on the fence. The Movement was, indeed, for the benefit of the Church, and strongly upheld their own direct descent from the Apostles; but it was in the hands of irresponsible persons, who did not hesitate to wish the Hishops the lot of early days. In the very first Tract Newman wrote: "We could not wish them a more blessed termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods, and martyrdom." - To a comfortable prelate of aristocratic connections, with an ambitious wife and a large family, such a sentiment must have seemed little short of blasphemous. At the same time the Bishops might well have scruples in attacking those who exalted the episcopal ofiice, and, as a matter of fact, they let them alone for a few years. Not that they showed them sympathy: that would have brought the Evangelicals about their ears, and the Evangelicals were now in favour with the politicians in power. So they " kept on saying nothing," at least publicly and officially.
The first episcopal bombshell to fall in the Tractarian camp was a charge of liishop Sumner of Chester in 1838; he wrote :
" Under the specious pretence of deference to Antiquity and respect for primitive models, the foundations of the Protestant Church are undermined by men who dwell wilhin her walls, and those who sit in the Reformers' seat are traducing the Reformation."
Later he amiably ascribed the Movement to Satan. Palmer, who had helped to start the Movement, but was rather disgusted with its present course, put all the hostility down to its offensive expression, inconsiderate language, and unwise acts. That
* Newman wrote to Bowden : "He preached to them, lotidem verbis, the Roman doctrine of the Mass; and, not content with that, added, in energetic terms, that every one was an unbeliever, carnal and so forth, who did not hold it." — Letters, etc., vol. ii. p. 291.
■^ See p. 7.
xl INTRODUCTION.
hostility, a neutral observer must admit, was not unmerited. The Tractarians, like a contemporary politician, were in too great a hurry for the consummation of their dreams; like him they believed in a " raging, tearing propaganda," which was apt to carry away the propagandists in their excitement. Some followers again, without regard for proportion or expediency, concentrated their attention on minor details; others, fascinated by the leader and ignorant of the real bases of the Movement, displayed a fatuous contempt for reasoning and argument.' To the outside world the Tractarians seemed to be unwilling to tackle the Roman claims, now actively pushed by Roman Catholic theologians, who jumped at such a good chance of catching converts; to be unduly indulgent to Rome and unduly exacting to England. Some of the party's publications caused a great stir, Froude's Remains especially, of which Dr. Faussett, a sturdy anti-Tractarian, made great capital in a sermon on " The Revival of Popery." Two Tracts also came in for much abuse. One was No. 80 by Isaac Williams, "On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge" (1838). The other (No. 89), issued three years later, a long essay by Keble on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the Use and Interpretation of the Scriptures," suggested a new charge against the Tractarians, that of mysticism.
Bagot, the Bishop of Oxford, who had already in 1838, as we have seen, given mild reproof to some of the Tracts in a charge, requested Pusey early in the following year for a declaration
^ Newman sadly acknowledged llie unruliness of sonieof his followers in an article in the British Critic of April 1839, which summarised the history and the present position of the ISIovement. " A mixed multi- tude went out of Egypt with the Israelites," he said. " There will ever be a number of persons, professing the opinions of a movement party, who talk loudly and strangely, do odd or fierce things, display them- selves unnecessarily and disgust other people ; persons, too young to be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intellectual to be humble. Such persons will be very apt to attach themselves to particular persons, to use particular names, to say things merely because others do, and to act in a party-spirited way."
INTRODUCTION. xli
showing his loyalty to the Church. Pusey complied with his well-known Letter to the Bishop of Oxford^ in which he cleared Tractarianism, as he understood it, from any leaning to Rome, and defended the Via Media as the faith of the primitive Church, "after whose model our own was formed." The year 1839 also saw the first publication of Plaiti Sermons by the Authors of the Tracts for the Times, a series of moderate tendency, started by Isaac Williams, among the other contributors being the two Kebles, Pusey, Copeland, and Newman himself. The last found them a good opportunity for checking his more violent disciples, and Williams said the effect of these sermons was very quieting. Early in 1840 Newman retired for a season to Littlemore, near O.xford, a parish dependent on St. Mary's, where he had built a church and was a frequent visitor. This short experience of the everyday life of a country parson was a sort of oasis in his wilderness of doubts and difficulties. He liked the place so well that he bought nine acres, and planned the adaptation of a dis- used range of stabling to the uses of a small monastic establish- ment. Nothing definite seems to have been arranged then, however, and he had to return to Oriel in the summer. He was now entering on what Dr. Abbott calls the drifting period of his life, and was much distressed about his position in Oxford. In October he asked Keble's advice as to whether he should re- sign St. Mary's: (i) because he was not influencing his own parishioners, and did not know them personally; (2) because his preaching was obnoxious to the University authorities; (3) because of the tendency of his sermons to incline people to Rome. Keble, however, wished him to stop, and he did so. His self-justification was the argument that fair trial had not yet been made of how much the Church of England would bear. " I know," he said, " it is a hazardous experiment — like proving cannon. Yet we must not take it for granted that the metal will burst in the operation. It has borne at various times, not to say at this time, a great infusion of Catholic truth without damage."' During the latter part of the year and beginning of
' Apologia, p. 84.
xlii INTRODUCTION.
1 84 1 he was engaged on the last and most momentous of the Tracts, No. 90, which may certainly be said to come under his figure of the proving of cannon.
He wrote it to oppose the allegation, made both by opponents of the Movement and by the more advanced Tractarians, that the Thirty-nine Articles were in contradiction with the Catholic teaching which he had claimed as inherent in the English Church. Some of the weaker brethren, in fact, were beginning to fear that the Articles committed the English Church to heresy, and meditated flight to Rome. No. 90 sought to prove that the language of the Articles left unaffected all clearly Catholic, and that their real object of attack was the corruption which had infected a great system. They were "Articles of Peace," in which, as in the Church's sacraments and polity, much was left out to please the Protestants, but much more left in to satisfy the Catholics. Thus, though "the product of an Uncatholic age," they were " patient of a Catholic interpreta- tion," which the author forthwith proceeded to give. It is a skilful piece of special pleading, the process being what Church calls "the paring down of language, alleged in certain Articles to be loose, to its barest meaning."^ Newman believed he wrote it to keep his disciples straight, but he also wrote it to keep him- self straight, by proving that Anglicans could sign the Articles and yet accept practically the whole cycle of Roman doctrine. If an Anglican could lawfully Romanise where he was, why should he not remain in his own Church ?' James Mozley wrote thus of its publication in a letter dated March 8th, 1841 :
" A new Tract has come out this week, which is beginning to make a sensation. It is on the Articles, and shows that they bear a highly Catholic meaning; and that many doctrines, of which the Romanists are corruptions, may be held consistently with them. This is no more than what we know as a matter of history, for the Articles were expressly worded to bring in Roman Catholics. But people are astonished and confused at, the idea now, as if it was quite new. And
^ Oxford Movement, p. 288.
' See Abbott : Anglican Ca>-ee> of Neiuman, vol. vii. p. 243.
INTRODUCTION. xliii
they have been so accustomed for a long time to look at the Articles as on a par with the Creed, that they think, I suppose, that if they sub- scribe to them, they are bound to hold whatever doctrines are not positively stated in them, but merely not condemned. So if tliey will bear a Tract sense, they are thereby all Tractarians."'
The eflfect of No. 90 was a revival of the anti-Traclarian hubbub in its intensest form. Ordinary people saw an evasive- ness in Newman's methods, which were bluntly denounced as dishonest; and of course the usual charges of false doctrine, history, and reasoning were freely made. Events moved fast, with indecent haste indeed : on Februar)' 27th the Tract was published; on March 8th four senior tutors (one of them Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) wrote to the editor of the Tracts for the Times, asking for the author's name, and asserting that he opened a way by which men, in the matter of Roman ideas, might violate their oath to the University; on March loth the Vice-Chancellor submitted the Tract to the Hebdomadal Board; on March 15th that Board passed a resolution, censuring it as " inconsistent with the due observance of the statutes which require subscription to the Articles," which was afifixed to the buttery-hatches of all the Colleges; on March i6th Newman made his defence in his Letter to Dr. Jelf. The chief instigator of the storm is said to have been Golightly, a strong anti- Tractarian and one of the chief promoters of the Martyrs Memorial. He puffed the Tract as a curiosity all over Oxford, buying and planting copies on bishops and other likely people, and when the soil was thus prepared, moved the tutors. Church wrote at the time to Blachford : "The row, which has been prodigious they say, has made Golly a great man ... he has received letters of thanks for his great and indefatigable exertions from four Bishops— London, Chester, Chichester, and Winton."- The precipitate haste of the Heads of Houses in con- demning Newman before he could speak in his own justification was a blunder, and rallied to him some of the friends who had
' J. B. Mozley : Letters, pp. in- 1 12.
- Newman: Letters, etc., vol. ii. pp. 329-331.
xliv INTRODUCTION.
been getting out of sympathy with him, Hke Palmer, Perceval and Dr. Hook. Pusey too gave his support, though he thought the Tract injudicious and hkely to bring the charge of Jesuitism on the party as a whole. Newman had a correspondence with his Bishop, who treated him with much consideration, and it was agreed that no more Tracts should be issued. The principal feature of the war of pamphlets which ensued was Ward's audacious defence of No. 90. He wrote two brochures on the subject— .(4 Few Words in Defence of Tract go, and A Few Words More, — the substance of which was to emphasise what Newman had suggested more cautiously. While Newman left it open whether the Reformers were Catholic or not in sentiment, Ward held the latter hypothesis as certain; while Newman spoke of signing the Articles in their "literal and grammatical sense," Ward said boldly that they might be subscribed in a "non-natural sense."^ While Pusey, who also contributed to the controversy, and those Tractarians who shared his views thought the two pamphlets violent and extreme, Newman himself did not repudiate Ward's developments of his arguments. Both supporters and opponents of the Tract regarded Ward's vindica- tion as a plain avowal of opinions which Newman, owing to his awkward position or over-subtlety of mind, shrank from speaking openly."
However, leaving Ward out of account. No. 90 was sufficiently daring in itself to provoke the protests of the Church and
^ Ward put it very candidly in his Ideal: "Our twelfth Article is as plain as words can make it on the Evangelical side ; of course I think its natural meaning may be explained away, for I subscribe it myself in a non-natural sense." Such things can no doubt be done in a religious sphere, but non-natural subscription in the business world is apt to land people in the dock.
- In 1842 Pusey wrote to Newman, asking whether he agreed with Ward, and Newman made the significant reply that he did not know the limits of his own opinions : '* If Ward says this or that is a develop- ment from what I have said, I cannot say Yes or No. ... It is a nuisance to me to beyo;'fec/ beyond what I can fairly accept." — Apologia^ p. 106.
INTRODUCTION. xlv
University authorities. On both sides there was bitterness. The Tractarians were in the eyes of their foes perjured traitors and slaves to superstition ; the Tractarians retahated with charges of heresy and persecution. At this time of day it is ahnost amusing to read some of the attacks — that of Dr. Close, for example, afterwards Dean of Carlisle. At a public dinner he delivered himself of this post-prandial judgment:
" When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; but I said then, and I repeat here, not with any personal reference to the author, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract with my purse."'
Meanwhile the bishops in severe but more measured terms were denouncing the Tract in their charges. Newman saw the game was up;- he had abandoned the Tracts, he now relin- quished the editorship of the British Critic, and retired to Littlemore.
"His reasons varv, as usual, with the persons to whom he gives them," caustically observes his mentor Dr. Abbott; to his followers he described his withdrawal from the arena as a strategic move, Littlemore being his Torres \'edras. With some disciples he lived a sort of monastic life at Littlemore, where such rigours were indulged in that one of the inmates made himself seriously ill, and the doctor called in said very sensibly that they would all be dead soon, if they went on in that style. Reports, some exaggerated, were soon current about the " Littlemore Monastery," and Newman had some
' Cheltenham Examiner, March I, 1843.
^ " I saw indeed clearly that my place in the Movement was lost ; public confidence was at an end ; my occupation was gone. It was simply an impossibility that I could say anything henceforlh to good effect, when I had been posted up by the marshal on the buttery-hatch of every college of my University, after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks, and when in every part of the country and every class of society ... I was denounced as a traitor who had laid his train and was detected in the very act of firing it against the time-honoured Establishment." — Apologia, p. 56.
xlvi INTRODUCTION.
correspondence with the Bishop of Oxford on the subject. He set his disciples to write the Lives of the English Saitiis, his own work being a translation of St. Athanasius. He was, we must remember, as he says himself, " on my death-bed as regards my membership with the Anglican Church."^ In his Athanasian studies the "ghost" of 1839 returned a second time; in the Arian history he found in a bolder shape what he had found in the Monophysite. He saw clearly now that the pure Arians were the Protestants of to-day, the semi-Arians the Anglicans, and that Rome then was as Rome now. There was yet another shock to what remnant of Anglicanism he still held by. This was the affair of the Jerusalem bishopric, to which he applied such adjectives as "fearful," "hideous," and "atrocious." It was an agreement made, mainly through Bunsen's influence, by the British and Prussian Governments, that an Anglican bishopric should be established at Jerusalem, the appointment to be alternately filled by the two powers. Such philandering with Lutheran heresy seemed to him an outrage on the Catholic faith, and he presented a solemn personal protest to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This project, he says in the Apologia, brought him to the beginning of the end.
Meanwhile the Movement's enemies at Oxford, heartened by their success, went on with the war. They had an opportunity in the autumn of 1841, when Keble resigned the Poetry Pro- fessorship. The most appropriate successor would have been Isaac Williams, a man of high character, literary taste, and some merit as a sacred poet. But Williams was obnoxious as a Puseyite, a friend of Newman, and, worse still, the author of the notorious Tract on " Reserve," so the rival candidate, a Mr. Garbett, of no particular celebrity, was elected by a majority of three hundred. Another attack on Tractarianism in the same year had temporary success. Macmullen, a Fellow of Corpus Christi, a well-known Tractarian who ultimately went to Rome, had, in order to retain his fellowship to take his B.D. degree, for which he had to defend two theses.
^ Ibid., p. 91.
INTRODUCTION. xlvii
These were usually chosen by the candidate himself, but on this occasion the examiner, Dr. Hampden, knowing his Roman tendencies, sent him two theses which no conscientious Tractarian could defend. Macmullen declined to submit, and legal processes dragged on for two or three years in the courts before he finally got his degree, by doing the required exercises on non-searching questions. Much higher game was flown at in the following year (1842), no less than Dr. Pusey. On May 24 he preached a University sermon on "The Holy Eucharist as a Comfort to the Penitent " ; its phraseology and teaching. Dean Church assures us, were strictly Anglican. Yet Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor of Divinity, who had already shown malevolence to Tractarianism, at once requested the Vice-Chancellor to enforce the statute De Concionibiis, which provided that when a sermon was " delated " for heresy to the Vice-Chancellor, he should demand a copy, let it be sat upon by six Doctors of Divinity, and, if they found heresy therein, condemn and punish the preacher. A board of assessors, strongly opposed to Pusey for the most part and including Faussett the accuser, was carefully selected. Natur- ally the sermon was condemned, and Pusey was suspended from preaching in the University for two years. There was much indignation over this travesty of justice, and a protest even came from London, signed by, among others, W. E. Gladstone and Sir J. D. Coleridge (afterwards Lord Coleridge). This protest made the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Wynter, a peppery gentleman, lose his temper; he sent back the memorial to London by the hands of his bedel, which seemed to him to show his disapproval better than dropping it in the post, and lectured the signatories on their presumption.
We have seen that in 1841 Newman resigned control of the British Critic^ and was succeeded by Thomas Mozley. It at once became more Roman in tendency than ever, and Palmer appealed to Newman to put some check upon it.
"Newman," says Palmer, "replied under evident excitement, and in a spirit which was new to me. He said that he was no longer
xlviii INTRODUCTION.
editor of the British Critic; that it had passed under different control; that the heads of the Church had thought fit to condemn him, and that they would now have to deal with younger men, whom it was not in his power to restrain."^
Palmer now saw good to write his Narrative^ exculpating himself and other moderates from complicity with these young men. Ward was, of course, the keenest and most advanced. Poor dear Mozley, editing the British Critic^ twenty miles from a station, in the depths of Salisbury Plain, found Ward a troublesome contributor with his prolixity and high-flying Romanism. " Looking through Ward's articles," he says, " to see that he was not sending us all quite into space was' itself an anxious affair."- If he attempted any toning down, there was trouble :
"I did but touch a filament or two in his monstrous cobwebs, and off he ran instantly to Newman, to complain of my gratuitous imperti- nence. Many years after I was forcibly reminded of him by a pretty group of a plump little Cupid flying to his mother to show a wasp-sting he had just received."^
Ward's admiration for Rome had two causes: (i) her constant maintenance of the supernatural element in religion; (2) her high standard of sanctity, discipline, and self-sacrifice. A nega- tive cause of similar import was his detestation of the doctrine of justification as professed in England, which seemed to him profoundly immoral. All this made his British Critic papers strongly depreciatory of the English Church, strongly favourable to the Roman; and Palmer's alarm was not unjustified. In the autumn of 1S43, about the same time that Palmers Na7-raiive appeared, the British Critic, whose readers were beginning to fall off because of its pronounced views, was discontinued.
Ward meanwhile was preparing an answer to the Nartative and it was issued in the summer of 1844 in the shape of a fat volume of six hundred pages, entitled The Ideal of a Christiufi
^ W. Palmer: Narrative, p. 77. - JRetniniscettces, vol. ii. p. 167.
' Ibid., vol. ii. p. 225.
INTRODUCTION. xlix
Church in Comparison with Existing Parties^ verbose and rambling, as Ward's writings were wont to be. It makes no denial to Palmer's accusation of Roman doctrines; rather it asserts the right of Anglicans to hold them by the simple expedient of signing the Articles in a non-natural sense, and proclaims that in point of fact many Anglicans do: "We find, oh I most joyful, most wonderful, most unexpected sight, we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually possessing numbers of English Churchmen."' He was proud to avow himself one of them :
"Three years have passed since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounced no Roman doctrine, yet I retain my fellowship, which I held on the tenure of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any shape. "-
In publishing such words abroad he must have known that he was bringing down on himself the censure which he had so long escaped. His book appeared in the Long Vacation; early in the October term the Hebdomadal Board handed it to a com- mittee for consideration, and in December announced their intention of bringing three measures before Convocation: first, to condemn Ward's book; second, to degrade him by stripping him of all his degrees; third, to add in future to the subscription to the Articles a declaration by the subscriber that he took them in the sense " in which they were both first published and are now imposed by the University." Such an outcry was raised, however, against this new test, that the third measure was dropped, one censuring Tract 90 being substituted. Convoca- tion met on February 15th, 1845. No one spoke save Ward, whose defence merely repeated what he had said in the British Critic and Ideal, challenged all parties in the Church equally to vindicate their subscription to the Articles, and included a candid statement of his faith in all the doctrines of the Roman Church. On a vote being taken, the first measure was carried by 777 against 386, the second by 56 against 511; in the case of
> Ideal, p. 565. ^Ibid., p. 567.
1 INTRODUCTION.
the third, the censure on No. go, the Proctors used their power of veto, and it had to be withdrawn. It could have been revived at a later Convocation, but no attempt was made to do so. This incident inspired an epigram which went round Oxford :
" It seems no matter what a man believes, If he finds shelter 'neath the Proctor's sleeves; When Proctor's twain pronounce their potent veto, In vain eight hundred Masters cry, ' Scrutinium peto !"'^
After the painful scene in the theatre and the widely-felt sympathy with Ward, there came as a humorous relief the news of his engagement to be married, which of course caused many comments on the backsliding of an exponent of celibacy. Ward wrote a long letter in exculpation, saying that he had never pro- fessed to live a celibate life himself, though he admitted it was a higher life than a married. What the future Mrs. Ward said of this letter history does not record.
All this while Newman was at Littlemore, very anxious to be left alone to work out his destiny, and not being allowed to. He had been too prominent a figure in Oxford for friends and foes to leave him alone. Some of the latter, much to his indig- nation, came poking about his " monastery," to see what they could see. Though suspected of pushing some of his followers Romeward, it was really they who were pushing him. He still shrank from the final plunge. His sense of responsibility to Church and University had still some vitality. Might not seek- ing refuge in Rome drag others with him.? or, worse still, cause a reaction in Oxford of Liberalism, antipathy to which had brought the Movement to birth?
On the other hand he felt himself an outcast, spurned by episcopate and University alike. The attempted censure in Convocation must have been of critical import in his state of suspense between the two Churches. He was now hard at work getting rid of the last intellectual barrier across his Rome-
^ G. V. Cox: Recollections of Oxford^ p. 328.
INTRODUCTION. li
ward path by writing the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine^ in which he hoped to dispose of the objections he had formerly felt to the Roman Church for her concretions of later beliefs and practices. If he had his will, he wrote to his sister in March, 1845, he would wait for seven years — this was a characteristic touch, seven being a sacred number — from the time when the "ghost" first appeared to him. That being in 1S39, his transformation was due in the summer of 1846. But he did not wait so long, nor was the Essay on Development concluded. When it appeared, unfinished, it had this postscript to the preface : " Since the above was written the author has joined the Catholic Church." He had been formally received into the Roman communion by Father Dominic, a Passionist, on October loth, 1845. "On the evening of the Passionist father's arrival, Newman, as the story goes, flung himself at his feet, saying that he would not rise till the father had blessed him and received him into the Church of Christ."^ The out- ward manifestations leading up to his secession had been a formal retractation of all the hard things he had said against Rome in February 1843, his resignation of St. Mary's on September i8th, and his request to the Provost of Oriel to remove his name from the books of the College and University on October 8th, 1845.
It was at first thought that Newman's secession had destroyed the Tractarian party as a living force in the Church of England; and the Evangelicals had a fine chance for saying, "We told you so; Catholic principles lead straight to Rome." Several members, including Ward, Oakeley, Dalgairns, Faber, and Christie, had preceded the leader; about fifty clergy followed him. But the moderates, Pusey, Williams, Palmer, Keble, and the rest stayed behind to keep the Movement alive. The last named, indeed, according to Dr. Abbott's conjecture, was almost on the point of following Newman, who, up to the time of »decision, had kept his friend constantly informed of the progress of his wrestlings. The burden of so many confidences may
^ R. H. Ilutton: Cardinal Newman ^ p. 187.
lii INTRODUCTION.
have caused receiver as well as giver much painful introspec- tion. What probably held Keble back was the last words of his dying wife, which seemed to convince him that the Church of England was a safe one to die in. Pusey, whilst grieving over this breaking of ties,^ saw that prompt action was neces- sary to save the Movement in its Anglican form. Without delay he issued a letter, announcing himself its leader, in which Newman was mentioned without censure as a labourer in another part of the Lord's vineyard. Pusey was the right man in the right place, a loyal Anglican with confidence in his position, a man of diplomacy who brought conciliation to bear in a party of divided opinions. He governed the High Church cause from 1845 till 1882. The Movement had been under a triumvirate — Newman, Pusey, and Keble; now that the first had gone the triumvirate was still continued. A paper circulating in the party, suggesting themes for intercession like the unity of the Church and the conversion of sinners, bore the names of Pusey, Keble, and Marriott.- To replace the defunct British Critic, the Christian Remembrancer was taken over and became the party organ, and the still surviving Guardiati was started as its weekly periodical in January 1846. The Movement had had a great shock, it had lost some of its ablest exponents, but it had grown rooted in the life of the English Church, and its
^ "Mr. Ward used to relate wilh great delight how Pusey woefully remarked, ' It is very sad. And all who have left us have deteriorated so much — all, that is, with two exceptions. One exception is Newman, whose nature is so beautiful, so perfect, that nothing, not even going over to Rome, could change him. The other exception is Ward. Ward had got so bad already that with him further deterioration was impossible.'" — IV. G. Wai'd and the Oxford Movement, p. 367.
'■* " He was a man, under an uncouth exterior, of the noblest and most affectionate nature; most patient, indulgent, and hopeful to all in whom he took an interest, even when they sorely tried his kindness and his faith in them." — Church: Oxford Movement, ^. 2>2. "No one' sacrificed himself so entirely to the cause, giving to it all he had and all he was, as Charles Marriott." — T. Mozley: Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 447.
INTRODUCTION. liii
influence endures to this clay; "at present there is scarcely a clergyman in the country who does not carry upon him in one form or other the marks of the Tractarian Movement."* After all, it was in every way to the prestige of the clergy ; it en- couraged their sacerdotal pretensions to divine calliny^, powers of absolution, and spiritual authority; it favoured all the beauti- ful externals of worship, such as dramatic ritual, impressive music, and seeming trivialities like costly vestments and incense, which allure people into the psychical state of ecstasy and devotion so conducive to faith in the Church's claims. Palmer includes among the blessings brought about by the Movement a deepened theology, a more zealous clergy, churches better filled, sacraments more frequently taken. Also, he says, though the statement is scarce correct, that for twenty years it suppressed the " wild and sceptical " theories which had pre- ceded it.
" It was only when the Tractarian Movement itself degenerated and lost sight of its original principles, that the spirit of Infidelity and Rationalism took courage to appear on the scene, and to outrage Christianity by publications which exceed those of any European country in blasphemy and irreligion."-
These " infidel " works began with the Essays and Revie^v of 1861 ; what adjectives would have been left Palmer had he survived to read Lux Mundi, and some of the Anglican con- tributions to the Encydopadia Biblica?
After 1845 the Movement acquired a wider scope; it could no longer be specifically denoted the Oxford Movement, for it was now active throughout the country, and had varied fruits. Pusey, for instance, by lay help, was in 1845 enabled to found in London the first Anglican sisterhood for two hundred years, and other communities sprang up as years went on. High Church principles gradually made their way among clergy and laity until they attained their present predominance, a pre- dominance which, without approving the sputtering fury of
' Short Studies, vol. iv. p. 310. - Narrative, p. 33.
liv INTRODUCTION.
certain Protestant fanatics, we may regret for several reasons, for its reactionary influence on popular education for instance. To the neutral observer it is obvious that to-day the High Churchmen are having the best of it, and that, for the present at least, the Low Church is, in the French phrase,7'iai.vjci/,and has lost much of its attraction. So much for the after-efifects of Tractarianism on the Church at large. Its effects on its birthplace were not so marked. It always insisted on the essential .Anglicanism of Oxford ; it would have maintained all barriers against Nonconformists and Rationalists, and made culture and scholarship subservient to theology. But in this matter the time-spirit was too strong for it. Since 1845 changes have been many at Oxford. The tests have been swept away; no sort of religious profession is demanded from intending students; fellowships and scholarships are tenable by persons of any religion or none; morning chapel is not everywhere compulsory; there is a tendency to elect laymen to be Heads of Colleges. For this healthy development of humanism we have the Liberals to thank — those Liberals religiously hated by the great writer and retrograde obscurantist who cried in one of his sermons : " I do""not shrink from uttering my firm conviction that it would be a gain to the country were it vastly more super- stitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion than at present it shows itself to be.''
WILLIAM G. HUTCHISON. London,
March 1906.
1 Quoted by the preacher in his Apologia, p. 29.
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ADVERTISEMENT TO VOLUME I.
The following- Tracts were published with the object of contributing' something towards the practical revival of doctrines which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in addi- tion to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline. Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful main- tenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us), are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in communion with the
4 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Established Church ; yet, if Providence has graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and con- straining- motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them ; just as it would be a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however scripturally enforced, m restraining from schism the awakened and anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher " because (as he expresses it) he gets good from him": and though he does not stand excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the Ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ, they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace ; that the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith ; that fellowship with it was a gift and privi- lege, as well as a duty, we could not have had so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it.
This instance may suggest many others of the superior influence of an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them ; and in its hunger will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the Word. Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom the Church stints of the gifts of grace ; they are the foster-mothers of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the desecra- tion of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and offices imperfectly developed, the want of Societies for particular religious objects, and the like
ADVERTISEMENT TO VOL. I. 5
deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to the smaller religious Communities, to prayer and bible meetings, and ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, — 011 the other, to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its proselytes. More- over, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but supersede individual exertion.
These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts. The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are ade- quate for that gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age, which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission ; and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines, faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery for which the ever-multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly preparing the way.
Oxford, T/ie Feast of All Saints, 1834.
TRACT I.
THOUGHTS ON THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION. RESPECTFULLY AD- DRESSED TO THE CLERGY.
I AM but one of yourselves, — a Presbyter; and therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by speaking- in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very evil, yet no one speaks against them.
Is not this so? Do not we " look one upon another," yet perform nothing-? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to draw you forth from those pleasant retreats which it has been our blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way ; so that one and all may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing- to remedy it.
Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our Bishops to stand the brunt of the battle without doing- our part to support them ? Upon them comes **the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped: indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their high Office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet. (as far as they are
I
THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION. 7
concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods, and martyrdom.
To them then we willingly and affectionately relin- quish their high privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the successors of the Apostles; we touch not their sword and crosier. Yet surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence ; and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to St. Paul.
Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address you. Should the Government and Country so far forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and sub- stance, on ivhat will you rest the claim of respect and attention which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your birth, your education, your wealth, your connections; should these secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is not this a serious practical question ? We know how miserable is the state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their Minis- ters, depending simply upon the people, become the creatures of the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a greater evil befall Christians than for their teachers to be guided by them, instead of guiding? How can we " hold fast the form of sound words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very office to oppose the world ? can we then allow ourselves to cotirt it ? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits ? to make the way of life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be so; — and the question recurs, on what are we to rest our authority when the State deserts us ?
8 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us oppose the world, yet g'ive us no credentials for so doing". There are some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success; and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built, — our apos- tolical descent.
We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will ot the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should succeed them ; and these again on others ; and so the sacred g'ift has been handed down to our present Bishops, who have appointed us as their assistants, and in some sense representatives.
Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently practically impressed on their minds. They do believe it ; for it is the doctrine of the Ordination Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made Ministers of Christ's Church.
The office of Deacon was thus committed to you : " Take thou authority to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto thee: In the name," etc.
And the priesthood thus:
" Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forg^ive, they are forgiven ; and whose sins thoti dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful
THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION. 9
dispenser of the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacra- ments: In the name," etc.
These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in any form of words ; — yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have confessed before God our belief that through the Bishop who ordained us, we received the Holy Ghost, the power to bind and to lose, to administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now how is he able to give these great gifts? Whence is his right ? Are these words idle (which would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish (which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather indicate that the Speaker is conveying a gift ? Surely they can mean nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he any right, except as having received the power from those who consecrated him to be a Bishop? He could not give what he had never received. It is plain then that he but transmits; and that the Christian Ministry is a succession. And if we trace back the power of ordina- tion from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact: and therefore all we, who have been ordained Clergy, in the very form of our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession.
And for the same reason, we must necessarily con- sider none to be really ordained who have not thus been ordained. For if ordination is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine ordinance, how dare we use it ? Therefore all who use it, all of ns, must consider it necessary. As well might we pre- tend the Sacraments are not necessary to Salvation, while we make use of the offices of the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are the means.
lo THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring- that the words do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly time for random words is that in which Ministers are set apart for their oflSce. Do we not adopt a Liturg-y, in order to hinder inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of speech, which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly?
Therefore, my dear Brethren, act up to your profes- sions. Let it not be said that you have neglected a g-ift; for if you have the Spirit of the Apostles on you, surely this is a great gift. "Stir up the gift of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or rank, which gives you a hearing- with the many. Tell them of your gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be still any thing. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both as glorying in your privilege, and to ensure your rightful honour from your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a notion that present palpable usefulness, produceable results, acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such-like are the tests of your Divine com- mission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our Holy Fathers, the Bishops, as the Representatives ot the Apostles, and the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being- ordained by them to take part in their Ministry.
THK MINISTERIAL COMMISSION. ii
But if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to you, not doubtingfly, yet (I hope) re- spectfully, at all events, choose your side. To remain neuter much long-er will be itself to take a part. Choose your side; since side you shortly must with one or other party, even though you do nothins^. Fear to be of those whose line is decided for them by chance cir- cumstances, and who may perchance find themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove themselves from worldly politics. Such absti- nence is impossible in troublous times. " He that is not with Me is ag-ainst Me, and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad."
[By J. II. Newman ; published 1S33.]
TRACT II.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongiie that shall rise against thee in judgment
THOU SHALT CONDEMN.
It is sometimes said that the Clergy should abstain from politics; and that, if a Minister of Christ is politi- cal, he is not a follower of Him who said, " My kingdom is not of this world." Now there is a sense in which this is true, but, as it is commonly taken, it is very false.
It is true that the mere affairs of this world should not engage a Clergyman ; but it is absurd to say that the affairs of this world should not at all engage his attention. If so, this world is not a preparation for another. Are we to speak when individuals sin, and not when a nation, which is but a collection of in- dividuals ? Must we speak to the poor, but not to the rich and powerful? In vain does St. James warn us against having the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons. In vain does the Prophet declare to us the word of the Lord, that if the watchmen of Israel "speak not to warn the wicked from his way," "his blood \vill be required at the watchman's hand."
Complete our Lord's declaration concerning the nature of His kingdom, and you will see it is not at all incon- sistent with the duty of our active and zealous inter- ference in matters of this world. " If My kingdom were of this world," He says, "then would My servants
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 13
fight." — Here He has vouchsafed so to exphiin Himself, that there is no room for misunderstanding- His mean- ins^. No one contends that His ministers ouf^-ht to use the weapons of a carnal warfare; but surely to protest, to warn, to threaten, to excommunicate, are not such weapons. Let us not be scared from a plain duty, by the mere force of a misapplied text. There is an unex- ceptionable sense in which a clerg-yman may, nay, must hQ political. And above all, when the Nation interferes with the rights and possessions of the Church, it can with even less grace complain of the Church interfering- with the Nation.
With this introduction let me call your attention to what seems a most dangerous infringement on our rights, on the part of the State. The Legislature has lately taken upon itself to remodel the dioceses of Ireland; a proceeding which involves the appointment of certain Bishops over certain Clergy, and of certain Clergy under certain Bishops, without the Church being consulted in the matter. I do not say whether or not harm will follow from this particular act with reference to Ireland; but consider whether it be not in itself an interference with things spiritual.
Are we content to be accounted the mere creation of the State, as schoolmasters and teachers may be, or soldiers, or magistrates, or other public officers? Did the State make us? can it unmake us? can it send out missionaries ? can it arrange dioceses ? Surely all these are spiritual functions ; and Laymen may as well set about preaching, and consecrating the Lord's Supper, as assume these. I do not say the guilt is equal ; but that, if the latter is guilt, the former is. Would St. Paul, with his good will, have suffered the Roman power to appoint Timothy, Bishop of Miletus, as well as of Ephesus? Would Timothy at such a bidding- have undertaken the charge? Is not the notion of such an order, such an obedience, absurd ? Yet has it not been realised in what has lately happened? For in
14 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
what is the English state at present different from the Roman formerly? Neither can be accounted members of the Church of Christ. No one can say the British Legislature is in our communion, or that its members are necessarily even Christians. What pretence then has it for not merely advising, but superseding the Ecclesiastical power?
Bear with me, while I express my fear that we do not, as much as we ought, consider the force of that article of our belief, " The One Catholic and Apostolic Church." This is a tenet so important as to have been in the Creed from the beginning. It is mentioned there as a fact, and a fact to be believed, and therefore prac- tical. Now what do we conceive is meant by it ? As people vaguely take it in the present day, it seems only an assertion that there is a number of sincere Christians scattered through the world. But is not this a truism ? who doubts it ? who can deny that there are people in various places who are sincere believers ? what comes of this ? how is it important ? why should it be placed as an article of faith, after the belief in the Holy Ghost? Doubtless the only true and satisfactory meaning is that which our Divines have ever taken, that there is on earth an existing Society, Apostolic as founded by the Apostles, Catholic because it spreads its branches in every place; — i.e., the Church Visible with its Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. And this surely is a most im- portant doctrine; for what can be better news to the bulk of mankind than to be told that Christ when He ascended did not leave us orphans, but appointed representatives of Himself to the end of time ?
"The necessity of believing the Holy Catholic Church," says Bishop Pearson in his Exposition of the Creed, " appeareth first in this, that Christ hath ap- pointed it as the only way to eternal life. . . . Christ never appointed two ways to heaven, nor did He build a Church to save some, and make another institution for other men's salvation. There is none other name
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 15
under heaven g^iven amonj;' men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus; and that name is no otherwise g^iven under heaven than in the Church." "This is the cong-reg-ation of those persons here on earth which shall hereafter meet in heaven. . . . There is a necessity of believing- the Catholic Church, because except a man be of that he can be of none. Whatso- ever Church pretendeth to a new beg^inning-, pretendeth at the same time to a new Churchdom, and whatsoever is so new is none." This indeed is the unanimous opinion of our divines, that, as the Sacraments, so Communion with the Church, is " g^ene rally neces- sary to salvation," in the case of those who can obtain it.
If then we express our belief in the existence of One Church on earth from Christ's coming- to the end of all thing's, if there is a promise it shall continue, and if it is our duty to do our part in our g-eneration towards its continuance, how can we with a safe conscience coun- tenance the interference of the Nation in its concerns ? Does not such interference tend to destroy it? Would it not destroy it if consistently followed up? Now, may we sit still and keep silence, when efforts are making to break up, or at least materially to weaken that Ecclesi- astical Body which we know is intended to last while the world endures, and the safety of which is com- mitted to our keeping- in our day ? How shall we answer for it, if we transmit that Ordinance of God less entire than it came to us ?
Now what am I calling- on you to do? You cannot help what has been done in Ireland; but you may pro- test against it. You may as a duty protest ag^ainst it in public and private; you may keep a jealous watch on the proceeding-s of the Nation, lest a second act of the same kind be attempted. You may keep it before you as a desirable object that the Irish Church should at some future day meet in Synod and protest herself against what has been done; and then proceed to
i6 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
establish or rescind the State injunction, as may be thought expedient.
I know it is too much the fashion of the times to think any earnestness for ecclesiastical rights unseason- able and absurd, as if it were the feeling of those who live among books and not in the world. But it is our duty to live among books, especially to live by one book, and a very old one ; and therein we are enjoined to " keep that good thing which is committed unto us," to " neglect not our gift." And when men talk, as they sometimes do, as if in opposing them we were standing on technical difficulties instead of welcoming great and extensive benefits which would be the result of their measures, I would ask them (letting alone the question of their beneficial nature, which is a question) whether this is not being wise above that is written, whether it is not doing evil that good may come? We cannot know the effects which will follow certain alterations; but we can decide that the means by which it is pro- posed to attain them are unprecedented and disrespectful to the Church. And when men say, '■'■ tJie day is past for stickling about ecclesiastical rights," let them see to it, lest they use substantially the same arguments to maintain their position as those who say, " The day is past for being a Christian."
Lastly, is it not plain that by showing a bold front and defending the rights of the Church, we are taking the only course which can make us respected ? Yielding will not persuade our enemies to desist from their efforts to destroy us root and branch. We cannot hope by giving something to keep the rest. Of this surely we have had of late years sufficient experience. But by resisting strenuously, and contemplating and providing against the worst, we may actually prevent the very evils we fear. To prepare for persecution may be the way to avert it.
[By J. H. Newman; published 1833.]
TRACT III.
THOUGHTS RESPECTFULLY ADDRESSED TO THE CLERGY ON ALTERATIONS IN THE LITURGY.
Attempts are making- to get the Liturgy altered. My dear Brethren, I beseech you, consider with me, whether you ought not to resist the alteration of even one jot or tittle of it. Though you would in your own private judgments wish to have this or that phrase or arrange- ment amended, is this a time to concede one tittle?
Why do I say this ? because, though most of you would wish some immaterial points altered, yet not many of you agree in those points, and not many of you agree what is and what is not immaterial. If all your respective emendations are taken, the alterations in the Services will be extensive ; and though each will gain something he wishes, he will lose more from those alterations w^hich he did not wish. Tell me, are the present imperfections (as they seem to each) of such a nature, and so many, that their removal will compen- sate for the recasting of much which each thinks to be no imperfection, or rather an excellence?
There are persons who wish the Marriage Service emended ; there are others who would be indignant at the changes proposed. There are some who wish the Consecration Prayer in the Holy Sacrament to be what it was in King Edward's first book; there are others who think this would be an approach to Popery. There are some who wish the imprecatory Psalms omitted ;
i8 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
there are others who would lament this omission as savouring- of the shallow and detestable liberalism of the day. There are some who wish the Services shortened ; there are others who think we should have far more Services, and more frequent attendance at public wor- ship than we have.
How few would be pleased by any given alterations; and how many pained !
But once begin altering, and there will be no reason or justice in stopping, till the criticisms of all parties are satisfied. Thus, will not the Liturgy be in the evdl case described in the well-known story of the picture subjected by the artist to the observations of passers- by? And, even to speak at present of comparatively immaterial alterations, I mean such as do not infringe upon the doctrines of the Prayer Book, will not it even with these be a changed book, and will not that new book be for certain an inconsistent one, the alterations being made, not on principle, but upon chance objec- tions urged from various quarters ?
But this is not all. A taste for criticism g-rows upon the mind. When we begin to examine and take to pieces, our judgment becomes perplexed, and our feel- ings unsettled. I do not know whether others feel this to the same extent, but for myself, I confess there are few parts of the Service that I could not disturb myself about, and feel fastidious at, if 1 allowed my mind in this abuse of reason. First, e.g. I might object to the opening sentences; " they are not evangelical enough; Christ is not mentioned m them ; they are principally from the Old Testament." Then I should criticise the exhortation, as having too many words, and as anti- quated in style. I might find it hard to speak against the Confession; but " the Absolution," it might be said, " is not strong enough; it is a mere declaration, not an announcement of pardon to those who have confessed." And so on.
Now I think this unsettling- of the mind a frightful
ON ALTERATIONS IN THE LITURGY. 19
thing; both to ourselves, and more so to our flocks. They have long- regarded the Prayer Book with rever- ence as the stay of their faith and devotion. The weaker sort it will make sceptical; the better it will offend and pain. Take, e.g. an alteration which some have offered in the Creed, to omit or otherwise word the clause, " He descended into /;<•//." Is it no com- fort for mourners to be told that Christ Himself has been in that unseen state, or Paradise, which is the allotted place of sojourn for departed spirits? Is it not very easy to explain the ambiguous word, is it any great harm if it is misunderstood, and is it not very difficult to find any substitute for it in harmony with the composition of the Creed? I suspect we should find the best men in the number of those who would retain it as it is. On the other hand, will not the unstable learn from us a habit of criticising what they should never think of but as a divine voice supplied by the Church for their need?
But as regards ourselves, the Clergy, what will be the effect of this temper of innovation in us ? We have the power to bring about changes in the Liturgy; shall not we exert it ? Have we any security, if we once begin, that we shall ever end? Shall not we pass from non-essentials to essentials? And then, on looking back after the mischief is done, what excuse shall we be able to make for ourselves for having encouraged such proceedings at first ? Were there grievous errors in the Prayer Book, something might be said for begin- ning, but who can point out any ? cannot we very well />tv/r things as they are? does any part of it seriously disquiet us? no — we have before now freely given our testimony to its accordance with Scripture.
But it may be said that " we must conciliate an out- cry which is made; that some alteration is demanded." By whom ? no one can tell who cries, or who can be conciliated. Some of the laity, I suppose. Now con- sider this carefully. Who are these lay persons ? Are
20 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
they serious men, and are their consciences involuntarily hurt by the things they wish altered? Are they not rather the men you meet in company, worldly men, with little personal religion, of lax conversation and lax professed principles, who sometimes perhaps come to Church, and then are wearied and disgusted? Is it not so? You have been dining, perhaps, with a wealthy neighbour, or fall in with this great Statesman, or that noble Land-holder, who considers the Church two centuries behind the world, and ex- presses to you wonder that its enlightened members do nothing to improve it. And then you get ashamed, and are betrayed into admissions which sober reason dis- approves. You consider, too, that it is a great pity so estimable or so influential a man should be disaff'ected to the Church ; and you go away with a vague notion that something must be done to conciliate such persons. Is this to bear about you the solemn office of a Guide and Teacher in Israel, or \.o follow a lead?
But consider what are the concessions which would conciliate such men. Would immaterial alterations ? Do you really think they care one jot about the verbal or other changes which some recommend, and others are disposed to grant ? whether "the unseen state" is substituted for "hell," "condemnation" for "damna- tion," or the order of Sunday Lessons is remodelled? No; — they dislike the doctrine of the Liturgy. These men of the world do not like the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed, and other such peculiarities of our Services. But even were the alterations, which would please them, small, are they the persons whom it is of use, whom it is becoming to conciliate by going out of our way ?
I need not go on to speak against doctrinal altera- tions, because most thinking men are sufficiently averse to them. But, I earnestly beg you to consider whether we must not come to them if we once begin. For by altering immaterials, we merely raise without gratifying
ON ALTERATIONS IN THE LITURGY. 21
the desire of correcting- ; we excite the craving, but withhold the food. And it should be observed, that the •chang-es called immaterial often contain in themselves the germ of some principle, of which they are thus the introduction: — e.g. If we were to leave out the impre- catory Psalms, we certainly countenance the notion of the day, that love and love only is in the Gospel the character of Almighty God and the duty of regenerate man; whereas that Gospel, rightly understood, shows His Infinite Holiness and Justice as well as His Infinite Love ; and it enjoins on men the duties of zeal towards Him, hatred of sin, and separation from sinners, as well as that of kindness and charity.
To the above observations it may be answered, that changes have formerly been made in the Services with- out leading to the issue I am predicting now ; and therefore they may be safely made again. But, waving all other remarks in answer to this argument, is not this enough — viz., that there is peril ? No one will deny that the rage of the day is for concession. Have w^e not already granted (political) points, without stopping the course of innovation ? This is a fact. Now, is it worth while even to risk fearful changes merely to gain petty improvements, allowing' those which are proposed to be such ?
We know not what is to come upon us ; but the writer for one will try so to acquit himself now, that if any irremediable calamity befalls the Church, he may not have to vex himself with the recollections of silence on his part and indifference, when he might have been up and alive. There was a time when he, as well as others, might feel the wish, or rather the temptation, of steering a middle course between parties ; but if so, a more close attention to passing events has cured his infirmity. In a day like this there are but two sides, zeal and persecution, the Church and the world; and those who attempt to occupy the ground between them, at best will lose their labour, but probably will be drawn
2 2 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
back to the latter. Be practical, I respectfully urge you; do not attempt impossibilities; sail not as if in pleasure-boats upon a troubled sea. Not a word falls to the ground, in a time like this. Speculations about ecclesiastical improvements which might be innocent at other times, have a strength of mischief now. They are realised before he who utters them understands that he has committed himself.
Be prepared then for petitioning against any altera- tions in the Prayer Book which may be proposed. And, should you see that our Fathers the Bishops seem to countenance them, petition still. Petition them. They will thank you for such a proceeding. They do not wish these alterations ; but how can they resist them without the support of their Clergy? They consent to them (if they do) partly from the notion that they are thus pleasing you. Undeceive them. They will be rejoiced to hear that you are as unwilling to receive them as they are. However, if after all there be per- sons determined to allow some alterations, then let them quickly make up their minds how far they will go. They think it easier to draw the line elsewhere, than as things now exist. Let them point out the limit of their concessions now; and let them keep to it then; and (if they can do this) I will say that, though they are not as wise as they might have been, they are at least firm, and have at last come risrht.
THE BURIAL SERVICE.
We hear many complaints about the Burial Service, as unsuitable for the use for which it was intended. It expresses a hope that the person departed, over whom it is read, will be saved ; and this is said to be dangerous ii
THE BURIAL SERVICE. 23
when expressed about all who are called Christians, as leading the laity to low views of the spiritual attain- ments necessary for salvation ; and distressing- the Clergy who have to read it.
Now I do not deny, I frankly own, it is sometimes distressing to use the Service; but this it must ever be in the nature of things; wherever you draw the line. Do you pretend you can discriminate the wheat from the tares ? Of course not.
It is often distressing to use this Service, because it is often distressing to think of the dead at all ; not that you are without hope, but because you have fear also.
How many are there whom you know well enough to dare to give any judgment about? Is a Clergyman only to express a hope where he has grounds for having it? Are not the feelings of relatives to be considered? And may there not be a difference of judgments ? I may hope more, another less. If each is to use the precise words which suit his own judgment, then we can have no words at all.
But it may be said, " Everything of a personal nature may be left out from the Service." And do you really wish this ? Is this the way in which your flock will wish their lost friends to be treated? a cold " edification," but no affectionate valediction to the departed ? Why not pursue this course of (supposed) improvement, and advocate the omission of the Service altogether.
Are we to have no kind and religious thoughts over the good, lest we should include the bad?
But it will be said, that at least we ought not to read the Service over the flagrantly wicked, over those who are a scandal to religion. But this is a very different position. I agree with it entirely. Of course we should not do so, and truly the Church never meant we should. She never wished we should profess our hope of the salvation of habitual drunkards and swearers, open sinners, blasphemers, and the like; not as daring to despair of their salvation, but thinking it unseemly
24 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
to honour their memory. Though the Church is not endowed with a power of absolute judg'ment upon indi- viduals, yet she is directed to decide according- to ex- ternal indications, in order to hold up the rules of God's g-overnance, and afford a type of it, and an assistance towards the realising- it. As she denies to the scan- dalously wicked the Lord's Supper, so does she deprive them of her other privileg^es.
The Church, I say, does not bid us read the Service over open sinners. Hear her own words introducing- the Service. " The office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptised, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves." There is no room to doubt whom she meant to be excommunicated — open sinners. Those therefore who are pained at the general use of the Service, should rather strive to restore the practice of excommunication, than to alter the words used in the Service. Surely, if we do not this, we are clearly defrauding the religious, for the sake of keeping close to the wicked.
Here we see the common course of things in the world. We omit a duty. In consequence our services become inconsistent. Instead of retracing our steps we alter the Service. What is this but, as it were, to sin upon principle? While we keep to our principles, our sins are inconsistencies; at length, sensitive of the absurdity which inconsistency involves, we accommo- date our professions to our practice. This is ever the way of the world ; but it should not be the way of the Church.
I will join heart and hand with any who will struggle for a restoration of that "godly discipline," the restora- tion of which our Church publicly professes she con- siders desirable ; but God forbid any one should so depart from her spirit as to mould her formularies to fit the case of deliberate sinners ! And is not this what we are plainly doing, if we alter the Burial Service as proposed? We are recognising the right of men to
THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY. 25
receive Christian Burial, about whom we do not like to express a hope. Why should they have Christian Burial at all?
It will be said that the restoration of the practice of Excommunication is impracticable; and that therefore the other alternative must be taken, as the only one open to us. Of course it is impossible, if no one at- tempts to restore it; but if all willed it, how would it be impossible? and if no one stirs because he thinks no one else will, he is arguing- in a circle.
But, after all, what have we to do with probabilities and prospects in matters of plain duty? Were a man the only member of the Church who felt it a duty to return to the Ancient Discipline, yet a duty is a duty, though he be alone. It is one of the great sins of our times to look to consequences in matters of plain duty. Is not this such a case? If not, prove that it is not; but do not argue from consequences.
In the meanwhile I offer the following texts in evidence of the duty: —
Matt xviii. 15-17; Rom. xvi. 17; i Cor. v. 7-13; 2 Thess. ill. 6, 14, 15 ; 2 Tim. iii. 5 ; Tit. ill. 10, 1 1 ; 2 John 10, 1 1.
THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY.
Testimony of St. Clement, the associate of St. Paul (Phil. iv. 3), to the Apostolical Succession: —
"The Apostles knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that strife would arise for the Episcopate. Wherefore having re- ceived an accurate foreknowledge, they appointed the men I before mentioned, and have given an orderly succession, that on their death other approved men might receive in turn their office." — Ep. i. 44.
Testimony of St. Ignatius, the friend of St. Peter, to Episcopacy: —
26 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
"Your celebrated Presbytery, worthy of God, is as closely knit to the Bishop, as the strings to a harp, and so by means of your unanimity and concordant love Jesus Christ is sung." — Eph. 4.
"There are who profess to acknowledge a Bishop, but do everything without him. Such men appear to lack a clear conscience." — Magn. 4.
" He for whom I am bound is my witness that I have not learned this doctrine from mortal man. The Spirit proclaimed to me these words: 'Without the Bishop do nothing.'" — Phil. 7.
WitJi these and other such strong" passages in the Apostolical Fathers, how can we permit ourselves in our present practical disregard of the Episcopal Authority ? Are not we apt to obey only so far as the law obliges us? Do we support the Bishop, and strive to move all together with him as our bond of union and head; or is not our everyday conduct as if, except with respect to certain periodical forms and customs, we were each independent in his own parish ?
[By J. H. Newman; published 1833.]
(tract iv}
adherence to the apostolical suc cession the safest course.
We who believ'^e the Nicene Creed, must acknowledg-e it a hig'h privilege that we belong" to the Apostolic Church. How is it that so many of us are, almost avowedly, so cold and indifferent in our thoughts of this privilege ?
Is it because the very idea is in itself overstrained and fanciful, apt perhaps to lay strong hold on a few ardent minds, but little in accordance with the general feelings of mankind ? Surely not. The notion of a propagated commission is as simple and intelligible in itself as can well be; is acted on daily in civil matters (the admin- istration of trust property, for example) ; and has found a most ready, sometimes an enthusiastic, acceptance in those many nations of the world which have submitted, and are submitting themselves to sacerdotal castes, elective or hereditary. " Priests self-elected, or ap- pointed by the State," is rather the idea which startles ordinary thinkers ; not " Priests commissioned, succes- sively, from heaven."
Or is our languor rather to be accounted for by the want of express scriptural encouragement to the notion of a divine ministerial commission? Nay, Scripture, at first sight, is express; whether we take the analogy of the Old Testament, the words of our Lord, or the practice of His Apostles. The primitive Christians read it accordingly; and cherished, with all affectionate
6
28 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
reverence, the privilege which they thought they found there. Why are we so unHke them ?
I fear it must be owned that much of the evil is owing to the comparatively low ground which we our- selves, the Ministers of God, have chosen to occupy in defence of our commission. For many years, we hav'e been much in the habit of resting our claim on the general duties of submission to authority, of decency and order, of respecting precedents long established ; instead of appealing to that warrant, which marks us, exclusively, for God's Ambassadors. We have spoken much in the same tone, as we might, had we been mere Laymen, acting for ecclesiastical purposes by a com- mission under the Great Seal. Waving the question, " Was this wise? was it right, in higher respects?" — I ask, was it not obviously certain, in some degree, to damp and deaden the interest w^ith which men of devout minds would naturally regard the Christian Ministry? Would not more than half the reverential feeling, with which we look on a Church or Cathedral, be gone, if w-e ceased to contemplate it as the house ol God, and learned to esteem it merely as a place set apart by the State for moral and religious instruction ?
It would be going too deep into history, were one now to enter on any statement of the causes which have led, silently and insensibly, almost to the abandon- ment of the high ground which our Fathers of the Primitive Church — i.e. the Bishops and Presbyters of the first five centuries, invariably took, in preferring their claim to canonical obedience. For the present, it is rather wished to urge, on plain positive considera- tions, the wisdom and duty of keeping in view the simple principle on which they relied.
Their principle, in short, was this: That the Holy Feast on our Saviour's sacrifice, which all confess to be "generally necessary to salvation," was intended by Him to be constantly conveyed through the hands of commissioned persons. Except therefore we can show
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 29
such a warrant, we cannot be sure that our hands convey the sacrifice; we cannot be sure that souls worthily prepared, receivin*;- the bread which we break, and the cup of blessing- which we bless, are partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ. Piety, then, and Christian Reverence, and sincere devout Love of our Redeemer, nay, and Charity to the souls of our brethren, not good order and expediency only, would prompt us, at all earthly risks, to preserve and transmit the seal and warrant of Christ.
If the rules of Christian conduct were founded merely on visible expediency, the zeal with which those holy men were used to maintain the Apostolical Succession might appear a strange unaccountable thing. Not so, if our duties to our Saviour be like our duties to a parent or a brother, the unalterable result of certain known relations, previous to all consideration of conse- quences.^ Reflect on this, and you will presently feel what a difference it makes in a pious mind, whether ministerial prerogatives be traced to our Lord's own institution, or to mere voluntary ecclesiastical arrang-e- ment. Let two plans of Government, as far as we can see, be equally good and expedient in themselves, yet if there be but a fair probability of the one rather than the other proceeding from our Blessed Lord Himself, those who love Him in sincerity will know at once which to prefer. They will not demand that every point be made out by inevitable demonstration, or promulgated in form, like a State decree. According to the beautiful expression of the Psalmist, they will consent to be " guided by " our Lord's " eye ";- the indications of His pleasure will be enough for them. They will state the matter thus to themselves: "Jesus Christ's own com- mission is the best external security I can have, that in receiving this bread and wine, I verily receive His Body and Blood. Either the Bishops have that commission,
* Butler's Analogy, part ii. c. I. ■^ Psalm xxxii. 9.
30 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
or there is no such thing in the world. For at least Bishops have it with as much evidence, as Presbyters without them. In proportion, then, to my Christian anxiety for keeping- as near my Saviour as I can, I shall, of course, be very unwilling to separate myself from Episcopal communion. And in proportion to my charitable care for others, will be my industry to pre- serve and extend the like consolation and security to them."
Consider the analogy of an absent parent, or dear friend in another hemisphere. Would not such a one naturally reckon it one sign of sincere attachment, if, when he returned home, he found that in all family questions respect had been shown especially to those in whom he was known to have had most confidence ? Would he not be pleased, when it appeared that people had not been nice for inquiring what express words of command he had given, where they had good reason to think that such and such a course would be approved by him ? If his children and dependants had searched diligently, where, and with whom, he had left com- missions, and having fair cause to think they had found such, had scrupulously conformed themselves, as far as they could, to the proceedings of those so trusted by him; would he not think this a better sign, than if they had been dexterous in devising exceptions, in explaining away the words of trust, and limiting the prerogatives he had conferred ?
Now certainly the Gospel has many indications, that our best Friend in His absence is likely to be well pleased with those who do their best in sincerity to keep as near to His Apostles as they can. It is studiously recorded, for example, by the Evangelists, in the account of our Lord's two miraculous Feasts, that all passed through His Disciples' hands (His twelve Disciples ; as is in one instance plainly implied in the tioelve baskets full of fragments). I know that minute circumstances like this, in a Parable or sym-
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 31
bolical act, must be reasoned on with great caution. Still, when one considers that our Blessed Lord took occasion from this event to deliver more expressly than at any other time the doctrine of communion with Him, it seems no unnatural conjecture, that the details of the miracle were so ordered as to throw light on that doctrine.
But, not to dwell on what many will question (al- though on docile and affectionate minds I cannot but think it must have its weight), what shall we say to the remarkable promise addressed to the Twelve at the Paschal Supper? " Ve are they which have continued with Me in My temptation : and I appoint unto you a Kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me; that ye may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Thus much nobody will hesitate to allow, concerning- this Apostolical Charter: that it bound all Christians whatever to be loyal and obedient to Christ's Apostles, at least as long as tJuy were living-. And do not the same words equally bind us, and all believers to the world's end, so far as the mind of the Apostle can yet be ascertained? Is not the spirit of the enactment such, as renders it incumbent on every one to prefer among- claimants to Church authority those who can make out the best title to a warrant and commission from the Apostles ?
I pass over those portions of the Gospel which are oftenest quoted in this controversy ; they will occur of themselves to all men ; and it is the object of these lines rather to exemplify the occasional indications of our Lord's will, than to cite distinct and palpable enact- ments. On one place, however, — the passage in the Acts which records, in honour of the first converts, that " they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship," — one question must be asked. Is it really credible that the privilege so emphatically men- tioned, of being- in communion with the Apostles,
32 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ceased when the last Apostle died ? If not, who among- living Christians have so fair a chance of enjoying- that privileg-e, as those who, besides Purity of Doctrine, are careful to maintain that Apostolical Succession, pre- served to them hitherto by a gracious and special Providence? I should not much fear to risk the whole controversy on the answer which a simple unprejudiced mind would naturally make to these two questions.
Observe, too, how often these principles, which are usually called, in scorn, High-Churchmanship, drop as it were incidentally from the pens of the sacred writers, professedly employed on other subjects. "How shall they preach, except they be sent?"— "Let a man so accx)unt of us, as of the Ministers of Christ, and Stewards of the mysteries of God." — "No man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." I do not think it possible for any one to read such places as these with a fair and clear mind, and not to perceive that it is better and more scriptural to have, than to want, Christ's special commission for conveying His word to the people, and consecrating and distributing the pledges of His holy Sacrifice, if such commission be any how attainable; — better and more scriptural, if we cannot remove all doubt, at least to prefer that communion which can make out the best probable title, provided always, that nothing heretical, or otherwise immoral, be inserted in the terms of communion.
Why then should any man here in Britain fear or hesitate boldly to assert the authority of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church, on grounds strictly evan- gelical and spiritual; as bringing men nearest to Christ our Saviour, and conforming them most exactly to His mind, indicated both by His own conduct, and by the words of His Spirit in the Apostolic writings? Why should we talk so much of an Establishment^ and so little of an Apostolical Successioti ? Why should we not seriously endeavour to impress our people with this
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 33
plain truth;— that by separating^ themselves from our communion, they separated themselves not only from a decent, orderly, useful society, but from the only Church in this realm ivhich hits a right to be quite sure that she has the Lord's body to give to His people ?
Nor need any man be perplexed by the question, sure to be presently and confidently asked, " Do you then unchurch all the Presbyterians, all Christians who have no Bishops? Are they to be shut out of the Covenant, for all the fruits of Christian piety, which seem to have sprung- up not scantily among- them?" Nay, we are not judging- others, but deciding on our own conduct. We, in England, cannot communicate with Presby- terians, as neither can we with Roman Catholics, but we do not therefore exclude either from salvation. "Necessary to Salvation," and " necessary to Church Communion," are not to be used as convertible terms. Neither do we desire to pass sentence on other persons of other countries; but we are not to shrink from our deliberate views of truth and duty, because difficulties may be raised about the case of such persons; any more than we should fear to maintain the paramount necessity of Christian belief, because similar difficulties may be raised about virtuous Heathens, Jews, or Mahometans. To us such questions are abstract, not practical: and whether we can answer them or no, it is our business to keep fast hold of the Church Apostolical, whereof we are actual members; not merely on civil or ecclesiastical grounds, but from real personal love and reverence, affectionate reverence to our Lord and only Saviour. And let men seriously bear in mind, that it is one thing to slight and disparage this holy Succession where it may be had, and another thing to acquiesce in the want of it, where it is {if it be anyivhere) really unattainable.
I readily allow that this view of our calling has some- thing in it too high and mysterious to be fully under- stood by unlearned Christians. But the learned, surely, are just as unequal to it. It is part of that ineffable
34 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
mystery, called in our Creed, The Communion of Saints; and with all other Christian mysteries, is above the imderstanding of all alike, yet practically alike within reach of all, who are willing- to embrace it by true Faith. Experience shows, at any rate, that it is far from being ill adapted to the minds and feeling- of ordinary people. On this point evidence might be brought from times at first glance the most unpro- mising; from the early part of the seventeenth century. The hold which the propagandists of the " Holy Dis- cipline " obtained on the fancies and affections of the people, of whatever rank, age, and sex, depended very much on their incessant appeals to their fancied Apostolical Succession. They found persons willing and eager to suffer or rebel, as the case might be, for their system ; because they had possessed them with the notion that it was fhe system handed down from the Apostles, "a divine Episcopate"; so Beza called it. Why should we despair of obtaining, in time, an in- fluence, far more legitimate and less dangerously exciting, but equally searching and extensive, by the diligent inculcation of our true and scriphiral claim ?
For it is obvious that among other results of the primitive doctrine of the Apostolical Succession, thoroughly considered and followed up, it would make the relation of Pastor and Parishioner far more en- gaging, as well as more awful, than it is usually considered at present. Look on your pastor as acting by man's commission, and you may respect the authority by which he acts, you may venerate and love his per- sonal character, but it can hardly be called a religious veneration ; there is nothing, properly, sacred about him. But once learn to regard him as "the Deputy of Christ, for reducing man to the obedience of God;" and everything about him becomes changed, every- thing stands in a new light. In public and in private, in church and at home, in consolation and in censure, and above all, in the administration of the Holy Sacr^-
ALTERATIONS IN THE rRAYER-BOOK. 35
merits, a faithful man naturally considers, *' By this His messenger Christ in speaking to me; by his very being and place in the world, he is a perpetual witness to the truths of the sacred history, a perpetual earnest of Communion with our Lord to those who come duly prepared to His Table." In short it must make just all the diflerence in every part of a Clergyman's duty, whether he do it, and be known to do it, in that Faith of his commission from Christ, or no.
How far the analogy of the Aaronical priesthood will carry us, and to what extent we must acknowledge the reserve imputed to the formularies of our Church on this whole subject of the Hierarchy; and how such reserve, if real, may be accounted for; — these are questions worthy of distinct consideration !
For the present let the whole matter be brought to this short issue. May it not be said both to Clergy and Laity: " Put yourselves in your children's place, in the place of the next generation of believers. Consider in what way they will desire you to have acted, sup- posing them to value aright (as you must wish them) the means of communion with Christ; and as they will then wish you to have acted now, so act in all matters affecting that inestimable privilege."
ON ALTERATIONS IN THE PRAYER-BOOK.
The 36th Canon provides that "no person shall here- after be received into the Ministry . . . except he shall first subscribe" certain "three articles." The second of these is as follows: —
" That the Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and that it may lawfully so be used; and that he himself will use the form in the said Book prescribed, in public prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, and none other,"
36 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Now here is certainly a grave question to all who have subscribed this Article. We need not of course sa)' it precludes them from acquiescing in any changes that are lawfully made in the Common Prayer; but surely it makes it most incumbent on them to inquire carefully whether the Parties altering it have a right to do so. E.g. should any foreign Power or Legislature, or any private Nobleman or Statesman at home, pretend to reform the Prayer Book, of course we should all call it a usurpation and refuse to obey it; or rather, we should consider the above subscription to be a religious obstacle to our obeying it. So far is clear. The ques- tion follows: Where is the competent authority for making alterations ? Is it not also clear, that it does not lie in the British Legislature, which we know to be composed not only of believers but also of infidels, heretics, and schismatics; and which for what we know may soon cease to be a Christian body even in formal profession ? Can even a Committee of it, ever so carefully selected, absolve us from our subscriptions? Whence do the Laity derive their power over the Clergy ? Can even the Crown absolve us ? or a com- mission from the Crown ? If then some measure of tyranny be ever practised against us as regards the Prayer Book, how are 7ve to act?
Oxford,
September Zl'it, 1833.
[By John Keble.]
.^
/"tract IX
ON SHORTENING THE CHURCH SERVICES.
There Is a growing" feeling that the Services of the Church are too long; and many persons think it a sound feeling, merely because it zs a growing one. Let such as have not made up their minds on the sub- ject, suffer themselves, before going into the arguments against our Services, to be arrested by the following considerations.
The services of our Church, as they now stand, are but a very small part of the ancient Christian worship ; and, though people nowadays think them too long, there can be no doubt that the primitive believers would have thought them too short. Now I am far from con- sidering this as a conclusive argument in the question; as if the primitive believers were right, and people nowadays wrong ; but surely others may fairly be called upon not to assume the reverse. On such points it is safest to assume nothing, but to take facts as we find them ; and the facts are these.
In ancient times Christians understood very literally all that the Bible says about prayer. David had said, "Seven times a day do I praise Thee;" and St. Paul had said, " Pray always." These texts they did not feel at liberty to explain away, but complying with them to the letter, praised God seven times a day, besides their morning and evening prayer. Their hours of devotion were, in the day-time, 6, 9, 12, and 3,
38 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
which were called the Horae Canonicae; in the night, 9, 12, and 3, which were called the Nocturns; and besides these the hour of daybreak and of retiring to bed ; not that they set apart these hours in the first instance for public worship, — this was impossible; but they seemed to have aimed at praying with one accord, and at one time, even when they could not do so in one place. "The Universal Church," says Bishop Patrick, "anciently observed certain set hours of prayer, that all Christians throughout the world might at the same time join together to glorify God; and some of them were of opinion that the Angelical Host, being ac- quainted with those hours, took that time to join their prayers and praises with those of the Church." The Hymns and Psalms appropriated to these hours were in the first instance intended only for private meditation ; but afterwards, when Religious Societies were formed, and persons who had withdrawn from secular business lived together for purposes of devotion, chanting was introduced, and they were arranged for congregational worship. Throughout the Churches which used the Latin tongue, the same services were adopted with very little variation ; and in Roman Catholic countries they continue in use, with only a few modern interpola- tions, even to this day.
The length of these Services will be in some degree understood from the fact, that in the course of every week they go through the whole book of Psalms. The writer has been told by a distinguished person, who was once a Roman Catholic Priest, that the time required for their performance averages three hours a day throughout the year.
The process of transition from this primitive mode of worship to that now used in the Church of England, was gradual. Long before the abolition of the Latin Service, the ancient hours of worship had fallen into disuse ; in religious Societies the daily and nightly Services had been arranged in groups under the names
ON SHORTENING THE SERVICES. 39
of Matins and Vespers; and those who prayed in private were allowed to suit their hours of prayer to their convenience, provided only that they went throui^h the whole Services each day. Neither is it to be supposed that this modified demand was at all generally complied with. Thus in the course of time, the views and feelinj^-s with which prayer had been reg'arded by the early Christians became antiquated; the forms remained, but stripped of their orig'inal meaning"; Services were compressed into one, which had been originally distinct; the idea of united worship, with a view to which identity of time and language had been maintained in different nations, was forgotten ; the identity of time had been abandoned, and the identity of language was not thought worth preserving. Con- scious of the incongruity of primitive forms and modern feelings, our Reformers undertook to construct a Service more in accordance with the spirit of their age. They adopted the English language; they curtailed the already compressed ritual of the early Christians, so arranging it that the Psalms should be gone through monthly, instead of weekly; and carrying the spirit of compression still further, they added to the Matin Service what had hitherto been wholly distinct from it, the Mass Service or Communion.
Since the Reformation, the same gradual change in the prevailing notions of prayer has worked its way silently but generally. The Services, as they were left by the Reformers, were as they had been from the first ages, daily Services; they are now iveekly Services. Are they not in a fair way to become nionUily?
40 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
SUNDAY LESSONS.
There are persons who wish certain Sunday Lessons removed from our Service — e.g. some of those selected for Lent — nay, Jeremiah v. and xxii,; and this, on the ground that it is painful to the feelings of Clergymen to read them.
Waving other considerations which may be urged against innovation in this matter, may we not allow some weight to the following, which is drawn from the very argument brought in favour of the change? Will not the same feeling which keeps men from reading the account of certain sins and their punishment from the Bible, much more keep them from mentioning them in the pulpit? Is it not necessary that certain sins, which it is distressing to speak of, should be seriously de- nounced, as being not the less frequent in commission, because they are disgraceful in language? And if so, is it not a most considerate provision of the Church to relieve her Ministers of the pain of using their own words, and to allow them to shelter their admonitions under the holy and reverend language of Inspired Scripture ?
Oxford,
October 2,1 st, 1S33.
[By R. H. Froude.]
TRACT XL
THE VISIBLE CHURCH.
[Ill Letters to a Friend.)
Part L
LETTER L
You wish to have my opinion on the doctrine of " the Holy Catholic Church," as contained in Scripture, and taught in the Creed. So I send you the following- lines, which perhaps may serve through God's blessing to assist you in your search after the truth in this matter, even though they do no more ; indeed no remarks, however just, can be much more than an assistance to you. You must search for yourself, and God must teach you.
I think I partly enter into your present perplexity. You argue, that true doctrine is the important matter for which we must contend, and a right state of the affections is the test of vital religion in the heart: and you ask, "Why may I not be satisfied if my Creed is correct, and my affections spiritual? Have I not in that case enough to evidence a renewed mind, and to constitute a basis of union with others like minded? The love of Christ is surely the one and only requisite for Christian communion here, and the joys of heaven
42 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
hereafter." Again you say, that and are
constant in their prayers for the teaching of the Holy Spirit; so that if it be true that every one who asketh receiveth, surely they must receive, and are in a safe state.
Believe me, I do not think lightly of these arguments. They are very subtle ones ; powerfully influencing the imagination, and difficult to answer. Still I believe them to be mere fallacies. Let me try them in a
parallel case. You know the preacher at , and
have heard of his flagrantly immoral life; yet it is notorious that he can and does speak in a moving way of the love of Christ, etc. It is very shocking to witness such a case, which (we will hope) is rare; but it has its use. Do you not think him in peril, in spite of his impressive and persuasive language? Why? You will say, his life is bad. True; it seems then that more is requisite for salvation than an orthodox creed, and keen sensibility — viz., consistent conduct. Very well then, we have come to an addi- tional test of true faith, obedience to God's word, and plainly a scriptural test, according to St. John's canon, " He who doeth righteousness is righteous." Do not you see then your argument is already proved to be unsound? It seems that true doctrine and warm feel- ings are not enough. How am I to know what is enough? you ask. I reply, by searching Scripture. It was your original fault that, instead of inquiring what God has told you is necessary for being a true Christian, you chose out of your own head to argue on the subject; — e.g. "I can never believe that to be such and such is not enough for salvation," etc. Now this is worldly luisdofu.
Let us join issue then on this plain ground, whether or not the doctrine of "the Church," and the duty of obeying it, be laid down in Scripture. If so, it is no matter as regards our practice, whether the doctrine is primary or secondary, whether the duty is much or
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 43
little insisted on. A Christian mind will aim at obey- ing the ivhoh' counsel and will of God; on the other hand, to those who are tempted arbitrarily to classify and select their duties, it is written, " Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kiiif^i-dom of heaven."
And here first, that you may clearly understand the ground I am taking, pray observe that I am not attempting to controvert any one of those high evan- gelical points, on which perhaps we do not altogether agree with each other. Perhaps you attribute less efficacy to the Sacrament of Baptism than I do; bring out into greater system and prominence the history of an individual's warfare with his spiritual enemies; fix more precisely and abruptly the date of his actual conversion from darkness to light; and consider that Divine Grace acts more arbitrarily against the corrupt human will, than I think is revealed in Scripture. Still, in spite of this difference of opinion, I see no reason why you should not accept heartily the Scripture doc- trine of " the Church." And this is the point I wish to press, not asking you at present to abandon your own opinions, but to add to them a practical belief in a tenet which the Creed teaches and Scripture has consecrated. And this surely is quite possible. The excellent Mr.
, of , who has lately left , was both a
Calvinist and a strenuous High-Churchman.
You are in the practice of distinguishing between the Visible and Invisible Church. Of course I have no wish to maintain that those who shall be saved here- after are exactly the same company that are under the means of grace here; still I must insist on it, that Scripture makes the existence of a Visible Church a condition of the existence of the Invisible. I mean, the Sacraments are evidently in the hands of the Church Visible; and these, we know, are generally necessary to salvation, as the Catechism says. Thus it is an
44 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
undeniable fact, as true as that souls will be saved, that a Visible Church must exist as a means towards that end. The Sacraments are in the hands of the Clergy; this few will deny, or that their efficacy is independent of the personal character of the adminis- trator. What then shall be thought of any attempts to weaken or exterminate that Community, or that Ministry, which is an appointed condition of the salvation of the elect? But every one who makes or encourages a schism, must weaken it. Thus it is plain, schism must be wrong in itself, even if Scripture did not in express terms forbid it, as it does.
But further than this: it is plain this Visible Church is a standing body. Every one who is baptised, is baptised into an existing community. Our Service expresses this when it speaks of baptised infants being incorporated into God's holy Church. Thus the Visible Church is not a voluntary association of the day, but a continuation of one which existed in the age before us, and then again in the age before that; and so back till we come to the age of the Apostles. In the same sense, in which Corporations of the State's creating are perpetual, is this which Christ has founded. This is a matter of fact hitherto: and it necessarily will be so always, for is not the notion absurd of an unbap- tised person baptising others? which is the only way in which the Christian community can have a new beginning.
Moreover, Scripture directly insists upon the doctrine of the Visible Church, as being of importance. E.g. St. Paul says — "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (Ephes. iv. 5, 6). Thus, as far as the Apostle's words go, it is false and unchristian (I do not mean in degree of guilt, but in its intrinsic sinfulness) to make more bodies than one, as to have many Lords, many Gods, many Creeds. Now, I wish to know, how
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 45
it is possible for any one to fall into this sin, if Dis- senters are clear of it? What t's the sin, if separation from the Existing- Church is not it?
I have shown that there is a divinely instituted Visible Church, and that it has been one and the same by successive incorporation of members from the be- ginning. Now I observe further, that the word Church, as used in Scripture, ordinarily means this actually existing visible body. The possible exception to this rule, out of about a hundred places in the New Testament where the word occurs, are four passages in the Epistle to the Ephesians; two in the Colossians; and one in the Hebrews (Eph. i. 22; iii. 10, 21; v. 23- 32. Col. i. 18, 24. Heb. xii. 23). And in some of these exceptions the sense is at most but doubtful. Further, our Saviour uses the word twice, and in both times of the Visible Church. They are remarkable passages, and may here be introduced, in continuation of my argument.
Matt. xvi. 18: "Upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Now I am certain, any unprejudiced mind, who knew nothing of controversy, considering the Greek word iKK\i](Tia means simply an assembly, would have no doubt at all that it meant in this passage a visible body. What right have we to disturb the plain sense? why do we impose a meaning, arising from some system of our own? And this view is altogether con- firmed by the other occasion of our Lord's using it, where it can only denote the Visible Church. Matt, xviii. 17 : " If he (thy brother) shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican."
Observe then what we gain by these two passages: — the grant of piKver to the Church ; and the promise of permanence. Now look at the fact. The body then begun has continued; and has always claimed and
46 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
exercised the power of a corporation or society. Con- sider merely the article in the Creed, "The Holy Catholic Church;" which embodies this notion. Do not Scripture and History illustrate each other?
I end this first draug"ht of my argument with the text in I Tim. iii. 15, in which St. Paul calls the Church " the pillar and ground of the truth," — which can refer to nothing but a Visible Body ; else martyrs may be invisible, and preachers, and teachers, and the whole order of the Ministry.
My paper is exhausted. If you allow me, I will send you soon a second Letter; meanwhile I sum up what I have been proving from Scripture thus: that Almighty God might have left Christianity as a sort of sacred literature, as contained in the Bible, which each person was to take and use by himself; just as we read the works of any human philosopher or historian, from which we gain practical instruction, but the know- ledge of which does not bind us to be Newtonians, or Aristotelians, etc., or to go out of our line of life in consequence of it. This, I say, He might have done; but, in matter of fact, He has ordained otherwise. He has actually set up a Society, which exists even this day all over the world, and which (as a general rule) Christians are bound to join; so that to believe in Christ is not a mere opinion or secret conviction, but a social or even a political principle, forcing one into what is often stigmatised as party strife, and quite inconsistent with the supercilious mood of those pro- fessed Christians of the day, who stand aloof, and designate their indifference as philosophy.
LETTER II.
I AM sometimes struck with the inconsistency of those who do not allow us to express the gratitude due to
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 47
tlie Church, while they do not hesitate to declare their obligation to individuals who have benefited them. To avow that they owe their views of religion and their present hopes of salvation to this or that distinguished preacher, appears to them as harmless as it may be ill itself true and becoming; but if a person ascribes liis faith and knowledge to the Church, he is thought to fk^rget his peculiar and unspeakable debt to that Saviour who died for him. Surely, if our Lord makes man His instrument of good to man, and if it is possible to be grateful to man without forgetting the source of all grace and power, there is nothing wonderful in His having appointed a company of men as the especial medium of His instruction and spiritual gifts, and in consequence, of His having laid upon us the duty ot gratitude to it. Now this is all I wish to maintain, what is most clearly (as I think) revealed in Scripture, that the blessings of redemption come to us through the \'isible Church ; so that, as we betake ourselves to a Dispensary for medicine, without attributing praise or intrinsic worth to the building or the immediate managers of its stores, in something of the like manner we are to come to that One Society, to which Christ has entrusted the office of stewardship in the distribu- tion of gifts, of which He alone is the Author and real Dispenser.
In the letter I sent you the other day, I made some general remarks on this doctrine; now let me continue the subject.
First, the Sacraments, which are the ordinary means of grace, are clearly in possession of the Church. Baptism is an incorporation into a body; and invests with spiritual blessings, because it is the introduction so invested. In i Cor. xii. we are taught first, the Spirit's indwelling in the \'isible Church or body; I do not say in every member of it, but generally in it; — next, we are told that the Spirit baptises individuals into that body. Again, the Lord's Supper carries evidence of its
48 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
social nature even in its name ; it is not a solitary indi- vidual act, it is a joint communion. Surely nothing is more alien to Christianity than the spirit of Independ- ence ; the peculiar Christian blessing, i.e. the presence of Christ, is upon two or three gathered together, not on mere individuals.
But this is not all. The Sacraments are committed, not into the hand of the Church Visible assembled together (though even this would be no unimportant doctrine practically), but into certain definite persons, who are selected from their brethren for that trust. 1 will not here determine who these are in each succes- sive age, but will only point out how far this principle itself will carry us. The doctrine is implied in the original institution of the Lord's Supper, where Christ says to His Apostles, " Do this." Further, take that remarkable passage in Matt. xxiv. 45-51. Luke xii. 42-46: "Who then is that faithful and wise Steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over His household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, it^hen He comcth, shall find so doing!" etc. Now I do not in- quire ivho in every age are the stewards spoken of (though in my own mind I cannot doubt the line of Bishops is that Ministry, and consider the concluding verses fearfully prophetic of the Papal misuse of the gift ; — by-the-by, at least it shows this, that bad men may nevertheless be the channels of grace to God's "household"), I do not ask who are the stewards, but surely the words, when He cometh, imply that they are to continue till the end of the world. This reference is abundantly confirmed by our Lord's parting words to the eleven; in which, after giving them the baptismal com- mission, he adds, " Lo ! I am with you al-ways, even unto the end of the world." If then He was with the Apostles in a way in which He was not present with teachers who were strangers to their "fellowship" (Acts ii. 42), which all will admit, so, in like manner.
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 49
it cannot be a matter of indifference in any age, what teachers and fellowship a Christian selects; there must be those with whom Christ is present, who are His "Stewards," and whom it is our duty to obey.
As I have mentioned the question of faithfulness and unfaithfulness in Ministers, I may refer to the passage in I Cor. iv. where St. Paul, after speaking of himself and others as "Stewards of the mysteries of God," and noticing that "it is required of Stewards, that a man be found faithful," adds, "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judg- ment . . . X\\Q.rQ.{ort judge nothing before the time."
To proceed, consider the following passage: — " Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves" (Heb. xiii. 17). Again, I do not ask tt'/to these are; but whether this is not a duty, however it is to be fulfilled, which multitudes in no sense fulfil. Consider the number of people, professing and doubtless in a manner really actuated by Christian principle, who yet wander about from church to church or from church to meeting, as sheep without a shepherd, or who choose a preacher merely because he pleases their taste, and whose first movement towards any clergy- man they meet, is to examine and criticise his doctrine; what conceivable meaning do they put upon these words of the Apostle? Does any one ni/e over them? do they in any way sxibniit theviselves? Can these persons excuse their conduct, except on the deplorably profane plea (which yet I believe is in their hearts at the bottom of their disobedience), that it matters little to keep Christ's "least commandments," so that we embrace the peculiar doctrines of His Gospel?
Some time ago I drew up a sketch of the Scripture proof of the doctrine of the Visible Church; which with your leave I will here transcribe. You will observe, I am not arguing for this or that form of Polity, or for the Apostolical Succession, but simply the duties of order, union, ecclesiastical gifts, and ecclesiastical
50 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
obedience; I limit myself to these points, as being per- suaded that, when they are granted, the others will eventually follow.
I. That there was a Visible Church in the Apostles'
day.
1. General texts: Matt. xvi'. i8; xviii. 17. i Tim.
iii. 15. Acts passim, etc.
2. Organisation of the Church.
(r.) Diversity of ranks: i Cor. xii. Eph. iv. 4-12.
Rom. xii. 4-8. i Pet.iv. 10, ir. (2,) Governors: Matt, xxviii. 19. Mark xvi. 15, 16.
John XX. 22, 23. Luke xxii. 19, 20. Gal, ii. 9,
etc. (3.) Gifts: Luke xii. 42, 43. John xx. 22, 23. ^ Matt, xviii. 18. (4.) Order: Acts viii. 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 17; xi. 22,
23; xi. 2, 4; ix. 27; XV. 2, 4, 6, 25; xvi. 4;
xviii. 22; xxi. 17-19, conf. Gal. i. i, 12. i Cor.
xiv. 40. I Thess. v. 14. (5.) Ordination: Acts vi. 6. i Tim. iv. 14; v.
22. 2 Tim. i. 6. Tit. i. 5. Acts xiii. 3, conf.
Gal. i. I, 12, (6.) Ecclesiastical obedience: i Thess. v. 12, 13.
Heb. xiii. 17. i Tim. v. 17. (7.) Rules and discipline: Matt, xxviii. 19. Matt.
xviii. 17. I Cor. v. 4-7. Gal. v. 12, etc. i Cor.
xvi. 1,2. I Cor. xi. 2, 16, etc. (8.) Unity: Rom. xvi. 17. i Cor. i. 10; iii. 3;
xiv. 26. Col. ii. 5. I Thess. v. 14. 2 Thess.
iii. 6.
II. That the Visible Church, thus instituted by the
Apostles, was intended to continue. I. Why should it not? The o?i2(s probandi lies with those who deny this position. If the doctrines and precepts already cited are obsolete at this day, why should not the following texts ?^?.^. i Pet. ii. 13, or e.g. Matt. vii. 14. John iii. 3.
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 51
2. Is it likely so elaborate a system should be framed,
yet with no purpose of its continuing?
3. The objects to be obtained by it are as necessary
now as then. (i.) Preservation of the faith. (2.) Purity of doctrine. (3.) Edification of Chris- tians. (4.) Unity of operation. V'id. Epistles to Tim. and Tit. passim.
4. If system were necessary in a time of miracles,
much more is it now.
5. 2 Tim. ii. 2. Matt, xxviii. 20, etc.
Take these remarks, as they are meant, as mere sug-gestions for your private consideration.
[By J. II. Newman; published 1833.]
TRACT XX.
THE. VISIBLE CHURCH.
Part II.
LETTER III.
You have some misgivings, it seems, lest the doctrine 1 have been advocating " should lead to Popery." I will not, by way of answer, say that the question is not, whether it will lead to Popery, but whether it is in the Bible; because it would bring the Bible and Popery into one sentence, and seem to imply the possibility of a "communion" between " light and darkness." No ; it is the very enmity I feel against the Papistical cor- ruptions of the Gospel, which leads me to press upon you a doctrine of Scripture, which we are sinfully sur- rendering, and the Church of Rome has faithfully retained.
How comes it that a system so unscriptural as the Popish, makes converts ? because it has in it an element of truth and comfort amid its falsehoods. And the true way of opposing it is, not to give up to them that element which God's providence has preserved to us also, thus basely surrendering "the inheritance of our Fathers," but to claim it as our own, and to make use of it for the purposes for which God has given it to us. 1 will explain what I mean.
Before Christ came. Divine Truth was, as it were, a pilgrim in the world. The Jews excepted, men who
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 53
had portions of the Spirit of God knew not their privilege. The whole force and current of the external world was against them, acting powerfully on their imagination, and tempting them to set sight against faith, to trust the many witnesses who prophesied falsehood (as if) in the name of the Lord, rather than the still small voice which spoke within them. Who can undervalue the power of this fascination, who has had experience of the world ever so little ? Who can go at this day into mixed society, who can engage in politics or other active business, and not find himself gradually drifting off from the true Rock on which his faith is built, till he begins in despair to fancy that solitude is the only safe place for the Christian, or (with a baser judgment), that strict obedience will not be required at the last day of those who have been engaged in active life? If such is now the power of the world's enchantments, surely much greater was it before our Saviour came.
Now what did He do for us, in order to meet this evil? His merciful Providence chose means which might act as a counter-influence on the imagination. The visible power of the world enthralled men to a lie; He set up a Visible Church, to witness the other way, to witness for Him, to be a matter of fact, as undeniable as the shining of the sun, that there "tvas such a principle as conscience in the world, as faith, as fear of God ; that there 7ven' men who considered themselves bound to live as His servants. The common answer which we hear made every day to persons who engage in any novel undertaking, is, "You will get no one to join you ; nothing can come of it ; you are singular in your opinion ; you do not take practical views, but are smit with a fancy, with a dream of former times," etc. How cheering it is to a person so circumstanced, to be able to point to others elsewhere, who actually hold the same opinions as himself, and exert themselves for the same objects ! Why ? because it is an appeal to a/ac/,
54 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
which no one can deny ; it is an evidence that the view which influences him is something external to his own mind, and not a dream. What two persons see, cannot be an ideal apparition. Men are governed by such facts much more than by argumentative proof. These act upon the imagination. Let a person be told ten times over that an opinion is true, the fact of its being said becomes an argument for the truth of it — i.e.^ it is so with most men. We see from time to time the operation of this principle of our nature in political matters. Our American colonies revolt ; France feels the sympathy of the event, and is revolutionised. Again, in the same colonies, the Episcopal Church flourishes ; we Churchmen at home hail it as an omen of the Church's permanence among ourselves. On the other hand, what can be more dispiriting than to find a cause which we advocate, sinking in some other country or neighbourhood, though there be no reason for con- cluding that, because it has fallen elsewhere, therefore it will among ourselves. In order then to supply this need of our minds, to satisfy the imagination, and so to help our faith, for this among other reasons Christ set up a visible Society, His Church, to be as a light upon a hill, to all the ends of the earth, while time endures. It is a witness of the unseen world ; a pledge of it ; and a prefiguration of what hereafter will take place. It prefigures the ultimate separation of good and bad, holds up the great laws of God's Moral Governance, and preaches the blessed truths of the Gospel. It pledges to us the promises of the next world, for it is something (so to say) in hand ; Christ has done one work as the earnest of another. And it witnesses the truth to the whole world ; awing sinners, while it enspirits the fainting believer. And in all these ways it helps forward the world to come ; and further, as the keeper of the Sacraments, it is an essential means of the realising it at present in our fallen race. Nor is it much to the purpose, as regards our duty
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 55
towards it, what are the feelings and spiritual state of the individuals who are its officers. True it is, were the Church to teach heretical doctrine, it might become incumbent on us (a miserable obligation !) to separate from it. But, while it teaches substantially the Truth, we ought to look upon it as one whole, one ordinance of God, not as composed of individuals, but as a house of God's building — as an instrument in His hand, to be used and reverenced for the sake of its Maker.
Now the Papists have retained it ; and so they have the advantage of possessing an instrument which is, in the first place, suited to the needs of human nature ; and next, is a special gift of Christ, and so has a blessing with it. Accordingly we see that in its measure success follows their zealous use of it. They act with great force upon the imaginations of men. The vaunted antiquity, the universality, the unanimity of their Church puts them above the varying fashions of the world, and the religious novelties of the day. And truly when one surveys the grandeur of their system, a sigh arises in the thoughtful mind, to think that we should be separate from them ; Ciwi talis esses, iitinam nostcr esses! — But, alas ! a union is impossible. Their communion is infected with hetero- doxy ; we are bound to flee it, as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth ; and, by their claim of immutability in doctrine, cannot undo the sin they have committed. They cannot repent. Popery must be destroyed ; it cannot be reformed.
Now then, what is the Christian to do? Is he forced back upon that cheerless atheism (for so it practically must be considered) which prevailed in the world before Christ's coming, poorly alleviated, as it was, by the received polytheisms of the heathen ? Can we conceive a greater calamity to have occurred at the time of our Reformation, one which the Enemy of man would have been more set on effecting, than to have entangled the whole of the Church Catholic in the guilt o'i heterodoxy.
56 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
and so have forced every one who worshipped in spirit and in truth, to flee out of doors into the bleak world, in order to save his soul ? I do not think that Satan could have desired any event more eagerly than such an alternative — viz., to have forced Christians either to remain in communion with error, or to join themselves in some such spontaneous union among- themselves, as is dissolved as easily as it is formed. Blessed be God ! his malice has been thwarted. I do believe it to be one most conspicuous mark of God's adorable Providence over us, as great as if we saw a miracle, that Christians in England escaped in the evil day from either extreme, neither corrupted doctrinally, nor secularised ecclesiasti- cally. Thus in every quarter of the world, from North America to New South Wales, a Zoar has been pro- vided for those who would fain escape Sodom, yet dread to be without shelter. I hail it as an omen amid our present perils, that our Church will not be des- troyed. He hath been mindful of us ; He will bless us. He has wonderfully preserved our Church as a true branch of the Church universal, yet withal preserved it free from doctrinal error. It is Catholic and Apostolic, yet not Papistical.
With this reflection before us, does it not seem to be utter ingratitude to an astonishing Providence of God's mercy, to be neglectful, as many Churchmen now are, of the gift ; to attempt unions with those who have separated from the Church, to break down the partition walls, and to argue as if religion were altogether and only a matter of each man's private concern, and that the State' and Nation were! not bound to prefer the Apostolical Church to all self-originated forms of Christianity? But this is a point beside my purpose. Take the matter merely in the light of human ex- pedience. Shall we be so far less wise in our genera- tion than the children of this world, as to relinquish the support which the Truth receives from the influence of a visible Church upon the imagination, from the
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 57
energy of operation which a well-disciplined Body ensures? Shall we not foil the Papists, not with their own weapons, but with weapons which are ours as well as theirs ? or, on the other hand, shall we with a melancholy infatuation give them up to them ? Depend upon it, to insist on the doctrine of the Visible Church is not to favour the Papists, it is to do them the most serious injury. It is to deprive them of their only strength. But if we neglect to do so, what will be the consequence ? Break down the Divine Authority of our Apostolical Church, and you are plainly pre- paring the way for Popery in our land. Human nature cannot remain without visible guides ; it chooses them for itself, if it is not provided for them. If the Aris- tocracy and the Church fall, Popery steps in. Political events are beyond our power, and perhaps out of our sphere ; but ecclesiastical matters are in the hands of all Churchmen.
OXKORD,
Pec. 24///, 1833.
[By J. II. NF.WNr.AN.]
TRACT XLVII.
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. Part III.
LETTER IV.
I AM sorry my delay has been so considerable in answer- ing your remarks on my Letters on the Church. Indeed it has been ungrateful in me, for you have given me an attention unusual with the multitude of religious per- sons; who, instead of receiving the arguments of others in simplicity, and candour, seem to have a certain number of types, or measures of professing Christians, set up in their minds, to one or other of which they consider every one they meet with belongs, and who, accordingly, directly they hear an opinion advanced, begin to consider whether the speaker be a No, i, 2, or 3, and having rapidly determined this, treat his views with consideration or disregard, as it may be. I am far from saying our knowledge of a person's character and principles should not influence our judgment of his arguments; certainly it should have great weight. I consider the cry " measures not men," to be one of the many mistakes of the day. At the same time there is surely a contrary extreme, the fault of fancying we can easily look through men, and understand what each individual is ; an arbitrary classing of the whole
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 59
Christian family under but two or three countenances, and mistaking' one man's doctrine for another's. You at least have not called me an Arminian, or a High Churchman, or a Borderer, or one of this or that school, and so dismissed me.
To pass from this subject. Vou tell me that in my zeal in advocating the doctrine of the Church Catholic and Apostolic, I " use expressions and make assump- tions which imply that the Dissenters are without the pale of salvation." So let me explain myself on these points.
You say that my doctrine of the one Catholic Church in effect excludes Dissenters, nay, Presbyterians, from salvation. Far from it. Do not think of me as of one who makes theories for himself in his closet, who governs himself by book-maxims, and who, as being secluded from the world, has no temptation to let his sympathies for individuals rise against his abstract positions, and can afford to be hard-hearted, and to condemn by wholesale the multitudes in various sects and parties whom he never saw. I have known those among Presbyterians whose piety, resignation, cheerful- ness, and affection, under trying- circumstances, have been such, as to make me say to myself, on the thoughts of my own higher privileges, " Woe unto thee Chorazin, woe unto thee Bethsaida!" Where little is given, little will bo required; and that return, though little, has its own peculiar loveliness, as an acceptable sacrifice to Him who singled out for praise the widow's two mites. Was not Israel apostate from the days of Jeroboam ; yet were there not even in the reig^n of Ahab, seven thousand souls who were "reserved," an elect remnant? Does any Churchman wish to place the Presbyterians, where, as in Scotland, their form of Christianity is in occupation, in a worse condition under the Gospel than Ephraim held under the Law? Had not the ten tribes the schools of the Prophets, and has not Scotland at least the word of God ? Yet what
6o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
would be thoug-ht of the Jew who had maintained that Jeroboam and his kingdom were in no guilt ? and shall we, from a false charity, from a fear of condemning the elect seven thousand, scruple to say that Presbyterian- ism has severed itself from our temple privileges, and undervalue the line of Levi and the house of Aaron ? Consider our Saviour's discourse with the woman of Samaria. While by conversing with her He tacitly condemned the Jews' conduct in refusing to hold inter- course with the Samaritans, yet He plainly declared that "salvation was of the Jews," "Ye worship ye know not what," He says; "we know what we wor- ship." Can we conceive His makings light of the differ- ences between Jew and Samaritan ?
Further, if to whom much is given, of him much will be required, how is it safe for us to make light of our privileges, if we have them? is not this to reject the birth-right ? to hide our talent under a napkin ? When we say that God has done more for us than for the Presbyterians, this indeed may be connected with feel- ings of spiritual pride; but it need not. We may, by so saying, provoke ourselves to jealousy; for we dare not deny that, in spite of our peculiar privileges of communion with Christ, yet even higher saints may lie hid (to our great shame) among those who have not themselves the certainty of our especial approaches to His glorious majesty. Was not Elijah sent to a widow of Sarepta ? did not Elisha cure Naaman ? and are not these instances set forward by our Lord Himself as warnings to us "not to be high-minded, but to fear;" and, again, as a gracious consolation when we think of our less favoured brethren ? Where is the narrowness of view and feeling which you impute to me ? Why may I not speak out, in order at once to admonish myself, and to attempt to reclaim to a more excellent way those who are at present severed from the true Church.
And what has been said ot an established Presby-
THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 6i
terianism, is true (in its degree) of dissent, when it has become hereditary, and embodied in institutions.
Further, it is surely parallel with the order of Divine Providence that there should be a variety, a sort of graduated scale, in His method of dispensing His favour in Christ. So far from its being a strange thing' that Protestant sects are not "in Christ," in the same fulness that we are, it is more accordant to the scheme of the world that they should lie between us and heathenism. It would be strange if there were but two states, one absolutely of favour, one of disfavour. Take the world at large, one form of paganism is better than another. The North American Indians are theists, and as such more privileged than polytheists. Mahometanism is a better religion than Hindooism. Judaism is better than Mahometanism. One may be- lieve that long-established dissent affords to such as are born and bred in it a sort of pretext, and is attended with a portion of blessing (where there is no means of knowing better), which does not attach to those who cause divisions, found sects, or wantonly wander from the Church to the Meeting House; — that what is called an orthodox sect has a share of Divine favour, which is utterly withheld from heresy. I am not speaking of the next world, w-here we shall all find ourselves as individuals, and where there will be but two states, but of existing bodies or societies. On the other hand, why should the corruptions of Rome lead us to deny her Divine privileges, when even the idolatry of Judah did not forfeit hers, annul her temple-sacrifice, or level her to Israel ?
I say all this, merely, for the purpose of suggesting to those who are " w^eak," some idea of possible modes in which Eternal Wisdom may reconcile the exuberance of His mercy in Christ to the whole race of man, with the placing of it in its fulness in a certain ordained society and ministry. For myself I prefer to rely upon the simple word of truth, of which Scripture Is the
62 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
depository, and since Christ has told me to preach the whole counsel of God, to do so fearlessly and without doubting- ; not being careful to find ways of smoothing- strange appearances in His counsels, and of obviating difficulties, being aware on the one hand that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor our ways His ways, and on the other, that He is ever justified in His say- ings, and overcomes when He is judged.
Oxford,
The Feast of All Saints [November ist, 1834].
[By J. H. Newman.]
TRACT XV.
ON THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
When Churchmen in England maintain the Apostolical Commission of their Ministers, they are sometimes met with the objection that they cannot prove it without tracing their orders back to the Church of Rome; a position, indeed, which in a certain sense is true. And hence it is argued that they are reduced to the dilemma, either of acknowledging they had no right to separate from the Pope, or, on the other hand, of giving up the Ministerial Succession altogether, and resting the claims of their pastors on some other ground; in other words, that they are inconsistent in reprobating Popery, while they draw a line between their Ministers and those of Dissenting Communions.
It is intended, in the pages that follow, to reply to this supposed difficulty; but first a few words shall be said, by way of preface, on the doctrine itself, which we Churchmen advocate.
The Christian Church is a body consisting of Clergy and Laity: this is generally agreed upon, and may here be assumed. Now, what we say is, that these two classes are distinguished from each other, and united to each other, by the commandment of God Himself; that the clergy have a commission from God Almighty, through regular succession from the Apostles, to preach the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, and guide the Church; and again, that in consequence the people are bound to hear them with attention, receive the Sacra- ment from' their hands, and pay them all dutiful
64 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
obedience. I shall not prove this at length, for it has been done by others, and indeed the common sense and understanding of men, if left to themselves, would be quite sufficient in this case. 1 do but lay before the reader the following considerations: —
1. We hold, with the Church in all ages, that, when our Lord, after His resurrection, breathed on His Apostles and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost, — as My Father hath sent Me, so send I you ; " He gave them the power of sending others with a divine commis- sion, who in like manner should have the power of sending others, and so on even unto the end; and that our Lord promised his continual assistance to these successors of the Apostles in this and all other respects, when He said " Lo, I am with you" (that is, with you, and those who shall represent and succeed you) " alway, even unto the end of the world."
And, if it is plain that the Apostles left successors after them, it is equally plain that the Bishops are these Successors. For it is only the Bishops who have ever been called by the title of Successors ; and there has been actually a perpetual succession of these Bishops in the Church, who alone were always esteemed to have the power of sending other Ministers to preach and administer the Sacraments. So that the proof of the doctrine seems to lie in a very small space.
2. But, perhaps it may be as well to look at it in another point of view. I suppose no man of common sense thinks himself entitled to set about teaching re- ligion, administering Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and taking care of the souls of other people, unless he has in some 7vq}> been called to undertake the office. Now, as religion is a business between every man's own conscience and God Almighty, no one can have any right to interfere in the religious concerns of another with the authority of a teacher, unless he is able to show that it is God that has in some way called and sent him to do so. It is true, that men may as //'tends
THR APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 65
encourasfe and instruct each other with consent of both parties; but this is something very different from the office of a Minister of reliji^ion, who is entitled and called to "exhort, rebuke," and "rule," " with all authority," as well as love and humility.
You may observe that our Lord Himself did not teach the Gospel, without proving' most plainly that His Father had sent Him, He and His Apostles proved their Divine commission by miracles. As miracles, however, have long ago come to an end, there must be some other way for a man to prove his right to be a Minister of religion. And what other way can there possibly be, except a regular call and ordination by those who have succeeded to the Apostles ?
3. Further, you will observe that all sects think it necessary that their Ministers should be ordained by other Ministers. Now, if this be the case, then the validity of ordination, even with them, rests on a succes- sion; and is it not plain that they ought to trace that succession to the Apostles ? Else, why are they ordained at all ? And, anyhow, if their Ministers have a commis- sion, who derive it from private men, much more do the Ministers of our Church, who actually do derive it from the Apostles. Surely those who dissent from the Church have invented an ordinance, as they themselves must allow; whereas Churchmen, whether rightly or wrongly, still maintain their succession not to be an invention, but to be God's ordinance. If Dissenters say \\\ttX order requires there should be some such succession, this is true, indeed; but still it is only a testimony to the mercy of Christ, in having, as Churchmen maintain, given us such a succession. And this is all it shows; it does nothing for t/wm; for, their succession, not professing to come from God, has no power to restrain any fanatic from setting up to preach of his own will, and a people with itching ears choosing for themselves a teacher. It does but witness to a need, without supplying it.
4. I have now given some slight suggestions by way
66 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
of evidence for the doctrine of the Apostolical Succes- sion, from Scripture, the nature of the case, and the con- duct of Dissenters. Let me add a word on the usage of the Primitive Church. We know that the succession of Bishops, and ordination from them, was the invariable doctrine and rule of the early Christians. Is it not utterly inconceivable that this rule should have pre- vailed from the first age, everywhere, and without exception, had it not been given them by the Apostles ?
But here we are met by the objection, on which I propose to make a few remarks, that, though it is true there was a continual Succession of pastors and teachers in the early Church who had a Divine commission, yet that no Protestants can have it ; that we gave it up when our communion ceased with Rome, in which Church it still remains; or, at least, that no Protestant can plead it without condemning the Reformation itself, for that our own predecessors then revolted and separated from those spiritual pastors, who, according to our principles, then had the commission of Jesus Christ.
Our reply to this is a flat denial of the alleged facts on which it rests. The English Church did not revolt from those who in that day had authority by succession from the Apostles. On the contrary, it is certain that the Bishops and Clergy in England and Ireland re- mained the same as before the separation, and that it was these, with the aid of the civil power, who de- livered the Church of those kingdoms from the yoke of Papal tyranny and usurpation, while at the same time they gradually removed from the minds of the people various superstitious opinions and practices which had grown up during the m.iddle ages, and which, though never formally received by the judgment of the whole Church, were yet very prev'alent. I do not say the case might never arise, when it might become the duty of private individuals to take upon themselves the office of protesting against and abjuring the heresies of a corrupt
TIIK APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 67
Church. But sucli an extreme case it is unpleasant and unhealtliy to conteniphite. All I say here is, that this was not the state of thing's at the time of the Reforma- tion. The Church then by its proper rulers and officers reformed itself. There was no new Church founded among us, but the rights and the true doctrines of the ancient existing Church were asserted and established.
In proof of this we need only look to the history of the times. In the year 1534, the Bishops and Clergy oi' England assembled in their respective convocations of Canterbury and York, and signed a declaration that the Pope or Bishop of Rome had iio more jurisdiction in this country by the word of God than any other foreign Bishop ; and they also agreed to those acts of the civil government which put an end to it among us. ^
The people of England, then, in casting off the Pope, but obeyed and concurred in the acts of their own spiritual Superiors, and committed no schism. Queen Mary, it is true, drove out after many years the ortho- dox Bishops, and reduced our Church again under the Bishop of Rome; but this submission was only exacted by force, and in itself null and void; and, moreover, in matter of fact it lasted but a little while, for on the succession of Queen Elizabeth, the true Successors of the Apostles in the English Church were reinstated in their ancient rights. So, I repeat, there was no revolt, in any part of these transactions, against those who had a commission from God; for it was the Bishops and Clergy themselves who maintained the just rights of their Church.
But, it seems, the Pope has ever said that our Bishops were bound by the laws of God and the Church to obey /i///i ; that they were subject to him; and that they had no right to separate from him, and were guilty in doing so; and that accordingly they have involved the people of ICngland in their guilt ; and, and at all events, that //uy
' Fitie Collier: £'i(/. J/is/., vol. ii. p. 9}.
68 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
cannot complain of their flock disobeying and deserting them, when they have revolted from the Pope. Let us consider this point.
Now that there is not a word in Scripture about our duty to obey the Pope, is quite clear. The Papists indeed say that he is the Successor of St. Peter; and that, therefore, he is Head of all Bishops, because St. Peter bore rule over the other Apostles. But though the Bishops of Rome were often called the Successors of St. Peter in the early Church, yet every other Bishop had the same title. And though it be true that St. Peter was the foremost of the Apostles, that does not prove he had any dominion over them. The eldest brother in a family has certain privileges and a prece- dence, but he has no power over the younger branches of it. And so Rome has ever had what is called the primacy of the Christian Churches ; but it has not there- fore any right to interfere in their internal administra- tion; not more of a right than an elder brother has to meddle with a younger brother's household.
And this is plainly the state of matters between us and Rome, in the judgment of tJie Ancient Church also, to which the Papists are fond of appealing, and by which we are quite ready to stand or fall. In early times, as is well known, all Christians thought substantially alike, and formed one great body all over the world, called the Church Catholic, or Universal. This great body, consisting of a vast number of separate Churches, with each of them its own Bishop at its head, was divided into a number of portions called Patriarchates ; these again into others called Provinces, and these were made up of the separate Dioceses or Bishoprics. We have among ourselves an instance of this last division in the Provinces of Canterbury and York, which consti- tute the English Church, each of them consisting of a number of distinct Bishoprics or Churches. The head of a Province was called Archbishop, as in the case of Canterbury and York; the Bishops of those two sees
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 69
being', we know, not only Bishops with Dioceses oi' their own, but liaving-, over and above this, the place of pre- cedence among- the Bishops in the same Province. In like manner, the Bishop at the head of a Patriarchate was called the Patriarch, and had the place of honour and certain privileges over all other Bishops within his own Patriarchate. Now, in the early Christian Church, there were four or five Patriarchates; c.^., one in the East, the Head of which was the Bishop of Antioch ; one in Egypt, the head of which was the Bishop of Alexandria; and, again, one in the West, the Head of which was the Bishop of Rome. These Patriarchs, I say, were the Primates or Head Bishops of their re- spective Patriarchates : and they had an order of precedence among themselves, Rome being the first of them all. Thus the Bishop of Rome, being the first of the Patriarchs in dignity, might be called the honorary Primate of all Christendom.
However, as time went on, the Bishop of Rome, not satisfied with the honours which were readily conceded to him, attempted to gain power over the whole Church. He seems to have been allowed the privilege of arhi- trating in case of appeal from other Patriarchates. If, e.g., Alexandria and Antioch had a dispute, he was a proper referee; or if the Bishops of those Churches were at any time unjustly deprived of their sees, he was a fit person to interfere and defend them. But, I say, he became ambitious, and attempted to lord it over God's heritage. He interfered in the internal management of other Patriarchates; he appointed Bishops to sees, and Clergy to parishes which were contained within them, and imposed on them various relig-ious and ecclesias- tical usages illegally. And in doings so, surely he became a remarkable contrast to the Holy Apostle, who, though inspired, and a universal Bishop, yet suffered not himself to control the proceedings even of the Churches he founded; saying to the Corinthians, "not for that we have dominion over your faith, but
70 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand" (2 Cor. i. 24). This impressive declaration, which seems to be intended almost as a prophetic warning" against the times of which we speak, was neglected by the Pope, who, among other tyrannical proceedings, took upon him the control of the Churches in Britain, and forbade us to reform our doctrine and usages, which he had no right at all to do. He had no pretence for so doing, because we were altogether independent of him ; the English and Irish Churches, though in the West, being exterior to his Patriarchate. Here again, however, some explanation is necessary.
You must know, then, that from the first there were portions of the Christian world which were not included in any Patriarchate, but were governed by themselves. Such were the Churches of Cyprus, and such were the British Churches. This need not here be proved; even Papists have before now confessed it. Now it so hap- pened, in the beginning of the fifth century, the Patriarch of Antioch, who was in the neighbourhood of Cyprus, attempted against the Cyprian Churches what the Pope has since attempted against us — viz., took measures to reduce them under his dominion. And, as a sign of his authority over them, he claimed to consecrate their Bishops. Upon which the Great Council of the whole Christian world assembled at Ephesus, A.D. 431, made the following decree, which you will find is a defence of England and Ireland against the Papacy, as well as of Cyprus against Antioch: —
"An innovation upon the Rule of the Church and the Canons of the Holy Fathers, such as to affect the general liberties of Christendom, has been reported to us by our venerable brother Rheginus, and his fellow Bishops of Cyprus, Zeno, and Evagrius. Wherefore, since public disorders call for extraordinary remedies, as being more perilous, and whereas it is against ancient usage that the Bishop of Antioch should ordain in Cyprus, as has been proved to us in this Council both
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 71
in words and writing", by most orthodox men, We therefore decree, that the Prelates of the Cyprian Churches shall be suffered without let or hindrance to consecrate Bishops by themselves ; and moreover, that the same nilc shall be observed also in other dioceses and provinces everywhere, so that no Bishop shall interfere in another province which has not from the very first been under himself and his predecessors ; and further, that if any one has so encroached and tyrannised, he must relinquish his claim that the Canons of the Fathers be not infringed, nor the priesthood be made an occasion and pretence for the pride of worldly power, nor the least portion of that freedom unawares be lost to us, which our Lord Jesus Christ, who bought the world's freedom, vouchsafed to us when He shed His own blood. Wherefore it has seemed good to this Holy Ecumenical Council, that the rights of eveiy province should be preserved pure and inviolate, which have always belonged to it, according to the usage which has ever obtained, each Metropolitan having full liberty to take a copy of the acts for his own security. And should any rule be adduced repugnant to this decree, it is hereby repealed."
Here we have a remarkable parallel to the dispute between Rome and us ; and we see what was the de- cision of the General Church upon it. It will be observed the decree is passed for all provinces in all future times, as well as for the immediate exigency. Now this is a plain refutation of the Romanists on their own prin- ciples. They profess to hold the Canons of the Primitive Church: the very line they take, is to declare the Church to be one and the same in all ages. Here then they witness against themselves. The Pope has encroached on the rights of other Churches, and violated the Canon above cited. Herein is the differences between his re- lation to us and that of any civil Ruler, whose power was in its origin illegally acquired. Doubtless we are bound to obey the Monarch under whom we are born,
72 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
even though his ancestor were a usurper. Time legitimises a conquest. But this is not the case in spiritual matters. The Church goes hy fixed laws ; and this usurpation has all along been counter to one of her acknowledged standing ordinances, founded on reasons of universal application.
After the Canon above cited, it is almost superfluous to refer to the celebrated rule of the First Nicene Council, A.D. 325, which, in defending the rights of the Patriarchates, expresses the same principle in all its simple force and majesty.
" Lx't the ancient usages prevail, which are received in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, relative to the authority of the Bishop of Alexandria ; as they are observed in the case of the Bishop of Rome. And so in Antioch too, and other provinces, let the prerogatives of the Churches be preserved."
On this head of the subject, I will but notice, that, as the Council of Ephesus controlled the ambition of Antioch, so in like manner did St. Austin rebuke Rome itself for an encroachment of another kind on the liberties of the African Church.
Bingham says: —
" When Pope Zosimus and Celestine took upon them to receive Appellants from the African Churches, and absolve those whom they had condemned, St. Austin and all the African Churches sharply remonstrated against this, as an irregular practice, violating the laivs of unity, and the settled rules of ecclesiastical com- merce; which required, that no delinquent excommuni- cated in one Church should be absolved in another, without giving satisfaction to his own Church that censured him. And therefore, to put a stop to this practice and check the exorbitant power which Roman Bishops assumed to themselves, they first made a Law in the Council of Milevis, that no African Clerk should appeal to any Church beyond sea, under pain of being excluded from communion in all the African Churches.
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 73
And then, afterwards, meetinij- in a i^eneral Synod, they dispatched letters to the Bishop of Rome, to remind him how contrary this practice was to the Canons of Nice, which ordered, That all controversies should be ended in the places where they arose, before a council and the Metropolitan."^
Thus I have shown that our Bishops, at the time of the Reformation, did but vindicate their ancient rights; were but actinj;- as <jrateful, and therefore jealous cham- pions of the honour of the old Fathers, and the sanctity of their institutions. Our duty surely in such matters lies in neither encroaching nor conceding to encroach- ment; in taking our rights as we find them, and using them; or rather in regarding them altogetlier as trusts, the responsibility of which we cannot avoid. As the same Apostle says, " Let every man abide in the same calling, wherein he is called." And, if Lngland and Ireland had a plea for asserting their freedom under any circumstances, much more so, when the corrup- tions imposed on them by Rome even made it a duty to do so.
1 shall answer briefly one or two objections, and so bring these remarks to an end.
I. First, it may be said, that Rome has withdrawn our orders, and excommunicated us ; therefore we cannot plead any longer our Apostolical descent. Now I will not altogether deny that a Ministerial Body might become so plainly apostate as to lose its privilege of ordination. But, however this may be, it is a little too hard to assume, as such an objection does, the very point in dispute. When we are proved to be heretical in doctrine, then will be the time to begin to consider whether our heresy is of so grievous a character as to invalidate our orders ; but, till then, we may fairly and fearlessly maintain that our Bishops are still invested with the power of ordination.
' />/;/^//. Autitj. xvi. i, § 14.
74 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
2. But it may be said on the other hand, that if we do not admit ourselves to be heretic, we necessarily must accuse the Romanists of being- such; and that therefore, on our own ground we have really no valid orders, as having received them from an heretical Church. But even if Rome be so considered now, at least she was not heretical in the primitive ages; no one will say that she was then Antichrist.^ Nay, as to the middle ages, we may say with the learned Dr. Field, ' that none of those points of false doctrine and error which Romanists now maintain, and we condemn, were the doctrines of the Church before the Reformation constantly delivered or generally received by all them that were of it, but doubtfully broached, and devised without all certain resolution, or factiously defended by some certain only, who as a dangerous faction adul- terated the sincerity of the Christian verity, and broug-ht the Church into miserable bondage. "^ Accordingly, acknowledging and deploring all the errors of the middle ages, yet we need not fear to maintain that after all they were but the errors of individuals, thoug-h of large numbers of Christians; and we may safely maintain that they no more interfere with the validity of the ordination received by our Bishops from those who lived before the Reformation, than errors of faith and conduct in a priest interfere with the grace of the Sacraments received at his hands.
' The following is from the life of Bernard Gilpin, vid. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iv. p. 94: — "Mr. Gilpin would often say that the Churches of the Protestants were not able to give any firnie and solid reason of their separation besides this, to wit, that the Pope is Antichrist. . . . The Church of Rome kept the rule of faith intire, until that rule was changed and altered hy ihc Council of Trent, and from that time it seemed to him a matter of necessitie to come out of the Church of Rome, that so that Church which is true and called out from thence might follow the word of God. . . . But he did not these things violently, but by degrees."
- See Field on the Church, Appendix to Book III., where he proves all this. See also Birkbeck's Protestant''s Evidence.
'11 IK APOSTOLICAL SUCCKSSION. 75
3. It may be said that we throw blame on Luther, and others of the foreign Reformers, who did act with- out the authority of their Bishops. But we reply, that it has been always ag^reeable to the principles of the Church, that, if a Bishop tauf^^ht and upheld what was contrary to the orthodox faith, the Clergy and people were not bound to submit, but were obliged to maintain the true religion; and if excommunicated by such Bishops, they were never accounted to be cut off from the Church. Luther and his associates upheld in the main the true doctrine; and though it is not necessary to defend every act of fallible men like them, yet we are fully justified in maintaining that the conduct of those who defended the truth against the Romish party, even in opposition to their spiritual rulers, was worthy of great praise. At the same time it is impossible not to lament, that they did not take the first opportunity to place themselves under orthodox Bishops of the Apos- tolical succession. Nothing, as far as we can judge, was more likely to have preserved them from that great decline of religion which has taken place on the Continent.
[I?y J. H. Newman and William Palmer (see Inlroduction, p. xxi. ); publislied 1S33.]
^TRACT XVIII.
THOUGHTS OX THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM OF FASTING ENJOINED BY OUR CHURCH.
To a person but little accustomed to observe any stated Fasts, the directions given by our Church on this sub- ject would probably occasion two very opposite feel- ing^s. On the one hand, he would be struck by the practical character and thoughtfulness evinced by some of the regulations; on the other, he would probably feel repelled by the number of days, and the variety of occa- sions, which the Church has appointed to be hallowed. Most Christians, who really loved their Saviour (unless prevented by the habits of early education), would prob- ably see something appropriate and affectionate in the selection of the Friday for a weekly commemoration of their Saviour's sufferings, and of humiliation for their own sins which caused them ; or, at all events, they would feel that there was some thoughtfulness in the direction annexed, that this weekly Fast should not interfere with the Christian joyousness brought back by the Festival of their Lord's Nativity when these should in the cycle of years coincide. Again, if they should fail to appreciate the wisdom of appointing certain days to be kept sacred in memory of the holy men who left all to follow Christ, and consequently should be rather deterred than attracted by observing that many of these days w-ere ushered in by a preceding Fast ; still they would hardly fail to be struck by the provision, that this previous Fast should not interfere with the Christian's
THOUGHTS ON lilCNRFITS OK KASTINO. 77
weekly Festival of his Lord's Resurrection, but that " if any of these Feast-days should fall upon a Monday, then the Fast-day should be kept on the Saturday, not upon the Sunday next before it."' Aj^ain, he must observe that durinij certain periods of the Church's year, which are times of especial joy to the faithful Christian, those, namely, which follow the Nativity and the Resurrection, these preparatory Fasts are altogether omitted. Some or other of these reg'ulations would probably strike most thoug-htful minds as instances of consideration and reflection in those who framed them. The Clerg-y, more especially, would appreciate, ab- stractedly at least, the imitation of the Apostolic practice of Fasting-, when any are to be ordained to any holy function in the Church ; and some probably will feel mournfully, that if the Church were now more uniformly to observe those acts of Fastin*^ and Prayer which were thoug^ht needful, before even Paul and Barnabas'- were separated for God's work, we should have more reasonable grounds to hope that many of our Clerg-y would be filled with the spirit of Barnabas and Paul.
On the other hand, it is naturally to be expected that one not accustomed to any outward restraint in this matter would feel indisposed to ordinances so detailed ; that although he could reconcile to himself the one or the other of these observances which most recom- mended themselves to his Christian feelings, he would think the whole a burdensome and minute ceremonial, perhaps unbefitting a spiritual worship, and interfering with the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free. This is very natural ; for we are by nature averse to restraint, and the abuse of some maxims of Pro- testantism, such as the "right of private judgment," has made us yet more so : we are reluctant to yield to
' See Tables prefixed to the Common Prayer Bonk. - Acts xiii. 24, iv. 23.
78 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
an unreasoning- authority, and to submit our wills, where our reason has not first been convinced; and the prevailing maxims of the day have strengthened this reluctance; we have been accustomed to do "every one that which was right in his own eyes," and are jealous of any authority, except that of the direct in- junctions of the Bible: in extolling also the spirituality of our religion, we have, I fear, intended covertly to panegyrise our own, and so, almost wilfully withdraw our sight from those more humbling provisions which are adapted to us, as being- yet in the flesh: in our zeal for the blessed truths of the cross of Christ, and of our sanctification by the Holy Spirit, we have begun in- sensibly to disparage other truths, which bring us less immediately into intercourse with God, to neglect the means and ordinances, which touch not upon the very centre of our faith.
The practical system of the Church is altogether at variance with that which even pious Christians in these days have permitted themselves to adopt ; much which she has recommended or enjoined would now be looked upon as formalism, or outward service: in our just fear of a lifeless formalism, we have forgotten that wherever there is regularity, there must be forms ; that every Christian feeling must have its appropriate vehicle of expression ; that the most exalted act of Christian devo- tion, that our closest union with our Saviour, is de- pendent upon certain forms; that the existence of forms does not constitute formalism ; that where the Spirit of Christ is, there the existence of forms serves only to give regularity to the expression, to chasten what there might yet remain of too individual feeling", to consolidate the yet divided members " in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
Yet, as in every case in which the current of prevail- ing opinions, either in faith or practice, has for some
THOUGHTS ON BENEFirs Ol' KASTING. 7.)
time set in one direction, there have not been uaiilini;- indications that Christians have lelt their system incom- plete; that there was somethini;- in the tranquil piety oi' former days which they would i^-ladly incorporate into the zealous excitement of the present; that althoujjfh relig'ion is in one sense strictly individual, yet in the means by which it is kept alive it is essentially expan- sive and social ; that the only error here to be avoided is a reliance upon forms ; that the forms themselves, as soon as they are employed to realise thing's eternal, and to cherish man's communion with his Saviour, become again spiritual and edifying.
It is accordingly remarkable, in how many cases individuals have of late been led back by their own Christian experience to observances, in some respect similar to those which the Church had before suggested and provided for them. In the more advanced stages of their Christian course, or when, by a period of sick- ness or distress, God has granted them a respite from the unceasing circle of active duty, they have seen the value of those rites, the scrupulous adherence to which they once reg^arded as sig"ns of lifelessness. In either case they would willingly own that the union provided by the Church is not only more ordered, and less liable to exception, than one which individuals could frame; but also, that, as being more comprehensive, it would more effectually realise their objects.
It is granted, then, that the proportion of the Fast Days enjoined by the Church will, to persons unaccus- tomed to observe them, appear over-large, and the variety of the occasions for which they are adapted, over-minute and arbitrary. The question, however, occurs, whether we ought to be influenced by such con- siderations to reject the entire system, or whether we ought not rather to be moved by the indications of a practical character evinced in some regulations, to make the trial of those whose benefit we do not at present discern. Now it would seem plain that, in a pructical
8o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
matter, he who from the traces of wisdom or thoui^ht- fulness in one regulation should infer the probable wisdom and reasonableness of others emanating from the same source, would act more wisely than one who, on account of the apparent unreasonableness and super- fluity of some provisions, should proceed to condemn the whole. For in practical matters the great test of the expediency of any habit, for which we have not direct divine authority, is experience: they only who have tried a line of conduct, or narrowly watched its effects upon others, can speak with certainty as to its result. Of all the lesser courses of action which tend so powerfully to form our moral habits, it would be im- possible probably, for one who had not tried their effect, to predict certainly what that effect would be: or if we could guess the nature of the effect, certainly we should not be able to foresee its degree and amount. With the exception of gross and flagrant sins, whose character and wages we know from authority, there is probably no one line of action with regard to which we might not beforehand prove very plausibly to ourselves, that it would not have the effects to which it is in fact tending, and which we afterwards perceive to have been its natural results. Yet such abstract reasonings about the possibilities or tendencies of things would not be listened to in any other case. When sick, men easily listen to the means, however improbable, by which any disease, resembling their own, was removed. Be it a poison which they are bidden to take, yet if it be proved satis- factorily that, in cases like their own, that poison has been the messenger of health, they would not hesitate. They would listen to no abstract reasonings, that it was improbable that what had been an instrument of death could be their life ; they would look to those whom it had restored to health, and would do the like. The sight of one person, undeniably raised from a state of death to life, would affect men more than any a priori
THOUC.HTS ON BICNICFITS OK FASTINO. 8i
donionstralioii that the iiiediciiie was pernicious or deadly. Much more then, since this medicine has been recommended to us by the ijreat Physician of our souls; since it has been beneficial, wherever it has not been substituted for all other means of restoring- or maintain- ing our spiritual health. The only question open to us, is— not whether Fasting- be in itself beneficial, this has been determined for us by God Himself, but — whether certain regulations concerning it tend to promote or to diminish its efficacy; and in this case the testimony of those who have proved their value, is manifestly ot primary importance; the pre-conceived opinions of such as have not tried them are but mere presumptions. When then, in the regulations preserved in our Church, we find instances of thought which imply that the framers of these rules formed them upon their own experience, or again, w-hen in the histories of these holy men, we see that they habitually practised what they inculcated, we have evidence of the value of their advice, which we may not, without peril of injury to our souls, neglect.
It was in part by some such process as the preced- ing, that the writer of these pages was led to consider what people have come habitually to regard as the less solemn Fasts of the Church, and now ordinarily pay less regard to ; for the first day of Lent, and the annual commemoration of our Saviour's sufferings, are, I suppose, still very commonly observed. As the history of every mind is, under some modifications, the mirror of many others, it may to some be useful to see by what course of reflection or experience an individual was brought to feel the value of the regulations of the Church in this respect.
It will perhaps to some seem strange to find placed among the foremost of these advantages, the Protection thereby afforded — protection against one's self; protec- tion against the habits and customs of the world, which sorely let and hinder one in systematically pursuing
82 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
what one imagines might be beneficial. I speak not, of course, of any known duty; in that case the opinion or practice or invitations of the world were nothing: but with regard to those indefinite duties or disciplines which one thinks may be performed as well at one period as at another, and which on that very account are frequently not performed at all, or at best occa- sionally only, and superficially. No thoughtful Christian will doubt of the propriety and duty of fasting, whatever he may understand by the term. "The bridegroom is taken away from us, and so we must fast in these days:"^ the Apostles were " in fastings often:"'^ in fastings," as well as in suflFerings for the Gospel, or by pureness, by knowledge, by all the graces which the Holy Ghost imparted, they approved themselves the Ministers of God. Our blessed Saviour has given us instructions ho7V we ought to fast,'* and therefore im- plied that His disciples would fast: He has promised that His Father, in the sight of all the Holy Angels, shall reward the right performance of this exercise: how then should it not be a duty? "Our Lord and Saviour," says Hooker,' "would not teach the manner of doing, much less pVopose a reward for doing, that which were not both holy and acceptable in God's sight." And yet, after all the allowances which can be made for that fasting which is known to our Father only who seeth in secret, one cannot conceal from one's self that this duty is in these days very inadequately practised. It is, in fact, a truth almost proverbial, that
^ Matt. ix. 15; Mark ii. 20; Luke v. 35.
^ 2 Cor. xi. 27. These were voluntary l-a>ib; St. Paul had just spoken of involuntary privation, "in hunger and thirst." On c. vi. 5 even Calvin says, " St. Paul doth not mean hunger which arose from want, but the voluntary exercise of abstinence." So Whitby paraphrases V. 4, 5, "constantly enduring all sorts of sufferings, and exercising all kinds of self-denial for the Gospel's sake."
=* Ibid., vi. 5. * Matt. vi. 16-1S.
' Eccl. Pol., b. V. § 72. Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. ii. c. 3, rule O.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 83
a duty which may be performed at any time, is in great risk of being neglected at all times. The early Christians felt this, and appointed the days of our Blessed Saviour's betrayal and crucifixion, the Wednesday and Friday of each week,^ to be days of fasting and especial humilia- tion. Those days, in which especially the bridegroom was taken away, the days, namely, in which He was crucified and lay in the grave, were, besides, early con- secrated as Fasts by the widowed Church. Nor was it because they were in perils, which we are spared ; because they were in deaths oft, that they practised or needed this discipline. Quite the reverse. Their whole life was a F'ast, a death to this world, a realising of things invisible. It was when dangers began to miti- gate, when Christianity became (as far as the world was concerned) an easy profession, it was then that the peril increased, lest their first simplicity should be corrupted, their first love grow cold! Then^ those who had spiritual authority in the Church increased the stated Fasts, in order to recall that holy earnestness of life which the recentness of their redemption, and the constant sense of their Saviour's presence, had before inspired. Fasts were not merely the voluntary discip- line of men, whose conversation was in heaven ; they were adopted and enlarged in periods of ease, of temptation, of luxury, of self-satisfaction, of growing" corruption.
To urge that Fasts were abused by the later Romish Church, is but to assert that they are a means of grace committed to men ; that they would subsequently be unduly neglected was but to be expected by any one who knows the violent vacillations of human im- petuosity. It was then among the instances of calm judgment in the Reformers of our Prayer-Book that, cutting off the abuses which before prevailed, the vain
' See Bingham, Antiq. of the Christian Church, b. xxi. c. 3. - Cassian. CoUat. xxi. c. 30, ap. Bingham, b. xxi. c. i.
84 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
distinctions of meats, the luxurious abstinences, the luc- rative dispensations, they still prescribed Fasting "to discipline the flesh, to free the spirit, and render it more earnest and fervent to prayer, and as a testimony and witness with us before God of our humble submission to His high Majesty, when we confess our sins unto Him, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, bewailing the same in the affliction of our bodies."^
Our Reformers omitted that which might be a snare to men's consciences ; they left it to every man's Christian prudence and experience, how he would fast ; but they prescribed the days upon which he should fast, both in order to obtain a unity of feeling and devotion in the members of Christ's body, and to preclude the temptation to the neglect of the duty altogether. Nor is the interference in this matter any thing insulated in our system, or one which good men would object to, had not our unhappy neglect of it now made it seem strange and foreign to our habits. In some things we are accustomed to perform a duty, which is such inde- pendently of the authority of the Church, in the way in which the Church has prescribed, and because she has so appointed. We assemble ourselves together on the Lord's day, because God has directed us by His Apostle not to forsake such assemblies ; but we assemble our- selves twice upon that day rather than once, not upon any reason of the abstract fitness of so doing, but because the Church has prescribed it. And yet we should rightly think that it argued great profaneness of mind, and a culpable carelessness of our privileges, if we were habitually to neglect this ordinance, on the ground that God has not in His Word directly enjoined it. And probably, at an early period of our lives (per- haps even later, when indisposition or indolence or any prevailing temptation has beset us), there are few amongst us who have not owed their regular persever-
^ First Part of the Homily on Fasting.
THOUr.HTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 85
ance in public worship to this ordinance of the Church : there is no one assuredly who, havin*;- broken this ordi- nance, has afterwards by God's mercy been brou^-ht back to join more uniformly in the public worship of his God and Saviour, who has not been thankful for this restriction. This then is protection.^
Again, to search the Scriptures is a duty expressly enjoined by our Saviour. The Church has stepped in to direct this study, and prescribed that nearly the whole of the O. T. should be read in each year, the N. T. thrice in the same period, the Psalms once every month. Since our Daily Service has been nearly lost, many pious individuals, it is well known, have habitually read just that portion which the Church has allotted. Now, laying" aside certain cases in which this duty will be lifelessly performed (for such there will be under any system), can any one doubt that those who have from childhood been trained to follow this direction of the Church, have read their Bible more reg-ularly and more fully than others? and has not the Word of God often exerted its power even when it has been read simply as an act of duty, and when but for this direction it would not have been read at all?
' " No doubt that penitency is, as prayer, a thing acceptable to God, be it in public or in secret. Howbeit, as in the one, if men were only left to their own voluntary meditations in their closets, and not drawn by laws and orders unto the open assemblies of the Church, that there they may join with others in prayer, it may soon be conjectured what Christian devotion would that way come unto in a short lime; even so in the other, we are by sufficient experience taught how little it >K)oteth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of repentance, and so to leave them altogether to themselves. O Lord, what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed, the best, the perfectcst, the most righteous among us all, and yet clean past them over unsorrowed for, and unrepented of. only because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of discipline, wherein the public ex- ample of all was unto every particular person a most effectual means to put them often in mind, and even in a manner to draw them to that, which now we all quite and clean forgot, as if penitency were no part of a Christian man's duty." — Hooker, 7. c.
i
86 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
The like has undoubtedly taken place even in the celebration of the Supper of our Lord. Individuals have been induced to join, and that beneficially to them- selves, in the Communion even of their Saviour's Body and Blood just so often in the year as their Church has prescribed to them. This is not so unusual a case as it might seem. One cannot doubt that in many cases, where the Holy Communion is celebrated but three times in the year, this is so done, because such is the smallest number of which the Church admits, and the Minister supposes that his flock would not join with him more frequently. Had the Church made no such regu- lation, many probably, who now partake three times a year, might not have joined even thus often; yet it would not be true to say that such persons in all cases partook without real devotion, or any love to their Saviour. Again, where there are opportunities of a monthly Communion, there may be some who would not have desired the privilege, unless the provision had been made for them, and they had been invited by the Church so to do; yet will it not of necessity follow that they partake coldly or unacceptably. A warmer love would indeed lead the one to a more frequent, the other to a more glad Communion ; nor have such persons well understood the principles of their Church; still God for- bid that we should judge that they had not partaken worthily and devotionally.
Here again then is protection: in each case we have a command of God, obeyed in such wise as is prescribed by the Ministers, whom He has made the Stewards of His Word and Sacraments; and since in these cases we admit their regulation, why should we think it strange or incongruous that they have given us their pious admonitions in another ordinance of God?
Nor is it to the undecided, or the timid, or the hesitating, or the novice only, that this protection is beneficial; although no reflecting Christian will speak lightly of the value of any means which tend to
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 87
strengthen the bruised reed or to kindle anew the smouldering- flax. The comparison of our own times with those of the Reformers were proof enough of the benefit of authoritative interposition in these matters. Is human nature changed, or have we discovered some more royal road by which to arrive at the subjugation of the body, the spiritualising of the affections? or have we, even from without, fewer temptations to luxury and self-indulgence? or will not even the more pious and decided Christians among us confess, upon reflection, that they had probably been now more advanced, had they in this point adhered to the Ancient Discipline of our Church? Our Reformers kept and enjoined one hundred and eight days in each year, either entirely or in part, to be in this manner sanctified: two-sevenths of each year they wished to be in some way separated by acts of self-denial and humiliation. Let any one con- sider what proportion of each year he has himself so consecrated, and whether, had he followed the ordi- nances of the Church, his spirit would not probably have been more chastened and lowly, more single in following even what he deems his duty, whether self would not have been more restrained, whether he would not have walked more humbly with his God.
Yet authority is a valuable support against the world, even to minds which yet are not inclined to compromise with the world unlawfully. There are many situations in life in which it were almost impossible to continue, without observation, a system of habitual and regular Fasting, certainly not one, attended with those accom- paniments, which the Feathers of our Church thought it desirable to unite with it. It is true that every F'ast may be made a F'east, and every Feast a Fast ; that as far as self-denial is concerned, if there be a steadfast purpose, the object may perhaps be as well accomplished in the midst of plenty and luxury, as by the purposed spareness of private board ; it is possible also, that the acts might be in some measure concealed; still there are
88 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
very many minds, and those such as one would be the most anxious to protect, to whom the very suspicion that they might be observed, would be matter of pain and a species of profanation ; they would shrink from anything which might be construed into Pharisaic abstinence, or which would seem to pretend to more than ordinary measures of Christian prudence. To such mild and unobtrusive spirits, the recommendation or direction of the Church is an invaluable support; they may now adopt the line of conduct which they love, unimpeded by any scruple, lest their good should be evil spoken of; they are acting under authority; they pretend to do nothing more than the Founders of their Church have deemed expedient for every one; their conduct involves no lofty pretensions; they follow in simplicity and faithfulness an old and trodden track, which has been marked out for them as plain and safe.
The first advantage then which may result from the authoritative interposition of the Church in regulating this duty, is the securing of greater regularity and more uniform perseverance in its performance; not un- doubtedly as in itself an end, but as leading to great and important ends; for as those pious men, who laid so much stress thereon, themselves say, "when it respecteth a good end, it is a good work; but the end being evil, the work is also evil."^ " Fasting is not to be commended as a duty, but as an instrument; and, in that sense, no man can reprove it, or undervalue it, but he that knows neither spiritual acts nor spiritual necessities. "-
But further, it is not even true that all the purposes of Fasting can be attained by mere self-denial in the midst of luxury. For this acquisition of the habit of self-denial, although an important object, is by no
^ First Part of ihe Homily on Fasting. 2 Bishop T.iylor, IVorks, iv. 212.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 89
means the sole end of Fasting'.^ The great purpose, in connection with which it is chiefly mentioned in Holy Scripture, is prayer. The influences of Society, rightly chosen, may dispose the mind to more fervent (possibly only more excited) prayer; it is solitude generally, or communion with a single friend, which brings us to a humble, contrite, lowly intercourse with our God. In the present day, the first paramount evil which destroys its tens of thousands, is probably self-indulgence; the second, which hinders thousands in their progress heavenwards, is the being "busy and careful about many things," whether temporal or spiritual. "We have kept the vineyards of our mother's children, but our own vineyards have we not kept." The tendency of the age is to activity, and we have caught its spirit; if we be but active about our Master's calling, we deem ourselves secure; we think not, until we are precluded from active exertion, "how much activity belongs to some (ag-es and some) natures, and that this nature is often mistaken for grace."- Meanwhile an activity
• "Much hurt hath grown to the Church of God through a false imagination that Fasting standeth men in no stead for any spiritual respect, but only to take down the frankness of nature, and to tame the wildness of the flesh. Whereupon the world being too bold to surfeit, doth now blush to fast, supposing that men, when they fast, do rather bewray a disease, than exercise a virtue. I much wonder what they, who are thus persuaded, do think, what conceit they have concerning the Fasts of the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself." — Hooker's Eccl. Pol., b. v. § 72.
"If the Church intend many good ends in the Canon, anyone is sufficient to tie the law upon the conscience, because, for that one good end, it can be serviceable to the soul; and indeed Fasting is of that nature, that it can be a ministry of repentance by the affliction, and it can be a help to prayer, by taking off the loads of flesh and a full stomach ; and it can be aptly ministerial to contemplation. Now, because every one is concerned in some one or more of these ends of Fasting, all people are included within the circles of the law, unless by some other means they be exempted." — Bp. Taylor, Rule of (Conscience, b. iii. c. 4, rule 19. See also Hammond's Practical Catechism, b. iii.
§3-
- A Fragment, written in illness by the Rev. Richard Cecil.
90 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
which leads us not inwards, has taken place of that tranquil retiring meditation on the things of the unseen world which formed the deep, absorbing, contemplative piety of our forefathers: even the conception of the joys of heaven, which very many of us form, is but a glorified transcript of our life here; we look, when through God's mercy in Christ we shall be delivered from the burden of the flesh, to be like the "Ministers of His who do His pleasure"; but we look not, comparatively at least, to that which our Fathers longed for, to be with Christ, and to see Him as He is. Our age is in general too busy, too active, for deep and continued self-observa- tion, or for thoughtful communion with our God. It would not be too broad or invidious a statement to say, that for real insight into the recesses of our nature, or for deep aspirations after God, we must for the most part turn to holy men of other days: our own furnish us chiefly with that which they have mainly cherished, a general abhorrence of sin ; they guide us not to trace it out in the lurking corners of our own hearts ; they teach us to acknowledge generally the corruption of our nature, the necessity of a Redeemer, and the love we should feel towards Him ; but they lead us not to that individual and detailed knowledge of our own personal sinfulness, whence the real love of our Redeemer can alone flow. A religious repose and a thoughtful con- templation would be a second advantage of complying in this respect with the instructions of our Church.^
Braced and strung by retirement into ourselves, and tranquil meditation upon God, we should return to our
^ "It is best to accompany our Fasting with the retirements of re- ligion and the enlargements of charily; giving to others what we deny to ourselves.'" — Bishop Taylor, Works, iii. I02.
"Fasting, saith Tertullian, is an act of reverence towards God. The end thereof, sometimes elevation of mind ; sometimes the purpose thereof clean contrary. The reason why Moses in the mount did so long fast, was mere divine speculation; the reason why David, humilia- tion."— Hooker, /. c.
Our Church recognises the union of these objects both in her homilies
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 91
active duties with so much more efficiency, as we iHirselves had become holier, humbler, calmer, more abstracted from self, more habituated to refer all ihinijs to God. Were human activity alone eng-aged on both sides, then might we the rather justify the prevailing- notions of the day, that energy is to be met by counter-energy alone: but now, since " we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," it especially behoves us to look wherein our great strength lies, and to take heed that "the weapons of our warfare be not carnal." It is tempting to adopt into the service of God the weapons or the mode of warfare which in the hands of His enemies we see to be efficacious ; but the faithful soldier of Christ must not go forth with weapons which he has not proved ; the Christian's armoury, as the Apostle goes on to describe it, is mainly defensive ; and when he has urged his brethren to assume it, he exhorts them to add that whereby alone it becomes eflFectual — a duty in which again we appear to ourselves to be inactive — "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Fasting, retirement, and prayer, as they severally and unitedly tend to wean us from ourselves and cast us upon God, will tend to promote singleness of purpose, to refine our busy and over-heated restless- ness into a calm and subdued confidence in Him, in whose strength we go forth. Nor shall we, until the day of Judgment, know how much of the victory was granted to those who in man's sight took no share in the conflict; how far the " unseen strength " of Fasting, humiliation, prayer, put forth by those of whom the
and in the 72nd Canon, which forbids " Ministers of their own authority alone, to appoint or keep any solemn Fasts, either publicly or t/i private houses;" thereby implying that the acts of abstinence were accompanied with devotional exercises.
92 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
world took no account, was allowed by God to prevail. The world saw only that the Apostle whom they had imprisoned, escaped their power; they knew not that the prayer of the Church had baffled their design.^ In the present conflict throughout the world, in which the pride of human and Satanic strength seems put forth to the utmost, humility and a chastened dependent spirit would seem to have an especial efficacy. On these, as the graces most opposed to the world's main sin, we might look the more cheerfully for God's blessing; thus shall we at least be saved from augmenting the evil we would oppose. "Fasting directly advances towards chastity, and by consequence and indirect powers to patience, humility, and indifference. But then it is not the fast of a day that can do this; it is not an act, but a state of fasting, that operates to mortification."^
A third benefit, which might be hoped to result from the more assiduous practice of this duty, would be a more self-denying extensive charity. " Fasting without mercy, is but an image of famine; Fasting without works of piety, is only an occasion of covetousness: "'^ and an Apostolic Father'* gives us this excellent instruc- tion, "A true Fast is not merely to keep under the body, but to give to the widow, or the poor, the amount of that which thou wouldest have expended upon thy- self; that so he who receives it may pray to God for thee."
It may perhaps seem strange to some that the present age should be thought wanting in self-denying charity. And yet let men but consider with themselves not what they give only, but what they retain ; let them inquire a little further, not only what wants are relieved, but what remediable misery remains unabated ; or let them but observe generally the glaring contrasts of extremest
^ Acts xii. 5. 2 Bishop Taylor, Works, iii. 97.
^ Chrysologus Serm. 8, de Jejun. ap. Bingham, b. xxi. c. I, § 18. * Hermas Pastor, 1. iii. c. 3, p. 105, ed. Coteler. Fasting without almsgiving, says Augustine, is a lamp without oil.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 93
luxury and softness, and pinching" want and penury ; between their own ceiled houses, and the houses of God which He waste ; or let them only trace out one sing^le item in the mass of human wretchedness, disease, insanity, relig^ious ignorance, and picture to themselves what a Christian people might do, what the primitive Christians would have done, to relieve it, — and then turn to what is done, to what themselves do, and say whether means to promote self-denying charity can well be spared.
A further important object of the stated and frequent recurrence of the prescribed Fasts of our Church, is the public recognition of the reality of things spiritual. Here also very many have felt (and it is a feeling whose strength is daily increasing) that some public protest is needed against the modes of acting tolerated (would one must not say, reigning!) in our nominally Christian land: that the Church, or the body of believers, ought to have some recognised modes of distinguishing them- selves from those who manifest by their deeds, that although "amongst us, they are not of us"; and who, on the principles of our Church, ought to have gone out or to have been removed from us. It has been with a right view of what the ideal of the Christian Church should be, its holiness, and its purity, although not, I must think, with a just conception of the nature of the Church, that men, jealous for the honour of their God and their Redeemer, have in some measure formed Churches within the Church. The plan has, I think, been defective, sacred and praiseworthy as was the object contemplated. It is true that the mere union in the celebration of the weekly festival of our Lord's Resurrection does not, as things now are, furnish a sufficient condemnation of the maxims and offences of the World; that the Church and the world are too much amalgamated; that while the light of the Church has in part penetrated the gross darkness of the World, there is yet danger, lest that light itself should be
94 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
obscured. Yet the remedy for this, under God's blessing-, is not to be sought in rescuing or concentrat- ing some scattered rays of that Church, while the Church herself is abandoned to the World. Her own Ordinances afford the means of her restoration. Not to speak of those ulterior and fearful powers committed to her (and which other Communions exercise) of ejecting from her bosom "the wicked person," the observance of her own other institutions would virtually eject them. Not indeed at once (as indeed God Himself has thought fit to allow even His own Blessed Spirit but gradually to leaven our corrupted mass), not at once (for at present, long continuance in opposed habits would prevent many from receiving the Ordinances of the Church), but yet, one should trust, steadily and increasingly ; the mists which now encircle the Church would disperse, and its glorious elevation on Zion's hill would more effectually be seen. Those whom the easy Service of the Lord's Day repels not, who would fain serve God on the seventh day, and Mammon on the remaining six, would by these severer or more con- tinuous services be brought to some test of what spirit they were; more frequent Communions, more constant Worship, more regular Fasting, would show men whether they belonged to the Church or to the World: and if the Church, like Him who is its Head, and because joined to that Head, becomes a stone of stum- bling, if some shall more openly fall back unto perdition, still it will have performed its office ; many, one may be sure (for our assurance rests on God's word), would also be awakened from their lethargy of death ; and if it be to some a "savour of death," it will, by God's mercy, be to many more a "savour of life, unto life." Yet the result of any system, sanctioned by God's Word, belong-s to us. Were the consequences of more Apostolic practice a great apparent defection and desola- tion, we dare not hesitate. " It must be made manifest that they are not all of us." Meanwhile a beacon will
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 95
be held out by those who would wish to see their path: the Church would, in example, as well as in her theory and directions, hold up a higher standard of perform- ance: she, in theory the most perfect, would no longer be in proportion the least influential;^ the plea, that every show of religion, which the world tolerates not, is the mere excess and badge of a party, could no longer be held: those who shrink from what might seem a voluntary or ostentatious forwardness, would no longer be deterred from uniting in observances, which, if authorised, they would love: and there might again be no separation but between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. The world has seen that its own principles are leading to its own destruction: it acknowledges that its increased laxity has fearfully increased its corruption; offences, which even it abhors, are multiplied; vices, which disturb even its peace, stalk more openly; yet while it reaps the bitter fruits of its own ways, it dares not strike the root.
The Fasts appointed by our Church appear eminently calculated, not in truth as a panacea of all evil, but as one decided protest against the " corruption which is in the world by lust," as one testimony to the conviction of men of the reality of things eternal.
Men may " fast for strife and to smite with the fist of wickedness," as they may also " for pretence make long prayers": yet men will not, in general, submit to in- convenience and privation, — except for a real and substantial object: the world has easier paths for its followers ; he who suffers hardship for an unseen reward, at least gives evidence to the world of the sincerity and rootedness of his own conviction ; he attests that he is a pilgrim journeying to a better country, and however men may for a while neglect his testimony, yet if it be consistent and persevering, it cannot be silenced.
^ See Knox " On the Situation and Prospects of the Established Church," Remains, vol. i. p. 51.
96 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Such are some of the advantages which a recurrence to the system of our Church in respect of Fasting- might, in dependence upon God's blessing, tend to realise: a more uniform, namely, and regular observ- ance of an injunction of our Blessed Saviour; a deeper humiliation, and a more chastened spirit in carrying on His will; a more thorough insight into ourselves, and a closer communion with our God; a more resolute and consistent practice of self-denying charity ; a more lively realising of things spiritual; a warning to the world of God's truth and its own peril. I have spoken with reference to prevailing habits and general character only, partly because they are these habits which the regulations of a Church must mainly contemplate ;^ in part also, because, in whatever degree, they will probably form a portion of our own. The evil or defective character of any period is not formed by, nor will it exist in those only who are evil; it encompasses us, is within us: we also contribute in our degree to foster and promote it; nay, it is from us probably that it receives its main countenance and support. Our own standard is insensibly lowered by the evil with which we are environed. A self-indulgent age is not a favourable atmosphere for the growth of self-denial; nor an age of busy and self-dependent activity for that of a calm and abiding practical recognition, that every- thing is in God's hands; nor a period absorbed in the things of sense for thoughtful meditation on things eternal. The predominant evils will indeed appear in the Christian in a subdued form ; yet whether the temp- tation be to an unconscious compliance with them, or unwittingly to oppose evil with evil, the danger lies nearer here than in any other part of duty. And if the salt in any wise lose its savour, wherewith shall the self-
1 "We must observe all that care in public Fasts which we do in
private; knowing that our private ends are included in the public, as our persons are in the communion of saints, and our hopes in the common inheritance of sons." — Bishop Taylor, Works, iv. 103.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 97
corrupting^ world be preserved ? wherewith the salt itself be salted ?
The benefits above named are such as depend on the increased degree of Fasting, exercised in compliance with the directions of the Church, independently of the consideration of the days or seasons selected for that purpose. The results to be anticipated from a more general adherence to these rules appear, however, to be heightened by that selection. The general objects of the Church were — i. To impress upon the mind and life the memory of her Saviour's sufferings; 2. To prepare the mind for different solemn occasions, which recur in her yearly service. The first, or the Friday's Fast, as above stated, was universally adopted in the early Church, and in all probability was coeval with the Apostles; it was continued uninterruptedly, alike in the Eastern and the Western Church, and preserved in our own, through the respect which she bore to primitive antiquity, and the experience of the elder Church. It was perhaps at the first adopted, as the natural expres- sion of sorrow for the loss of their Lord and for His bitter sufferings. With this would soon connect itself, almost to the exclusion of the former, sorrow for the sins which caused those sufferings. " We do not fast,"^ says Chrysostom, " for the Passion or the Cross, but for our sins; — the Passion is not the occasion of fasting or mourning, but of joy and exultation. — We mourn not for that, God forbid, but for our sins, and therefore we fast." As then the Lord's day was the weekly festival of their Saviour's resurrection, a weekly memorial of our rising again, in Him and through Him, to a new and real life; so was the Friday's Fast a weekly memorial of the death to sin which all Christians had in their Saviour died, and which, if they would live
' Ap. Bingham, b. xxi. c. I, § 14. Chrysostom is there speaking of the Lent fast, but the application is the same.
98 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
with Him, they must continually die. Thus each re- volving- week was a sort of representation of that great week in which man's redemption was completed: the Church never lost sight of her Saviour's sufferings; each week was hallowed by a return of the "Good Friday."^ One need scarcely insist upon the tendency of such a system deeply to impress on men's hearts the doctrine of the Atonement, by thus incorporating it into their ordinary lives, and making them by their actions confess this truth. In the early Church its efficacy was without doubt increased by the accession of the Fast of the Wednesday, or fourth day of the week ; so that no portion of the week was without some memorial of the Saviour of our Church. There is however another object which, althoug-h not originally contemplated, was in fact attained by this institution, the holier cele- bration, namely, of our most solemn day, that of our Saviour's death. Most Christians, probably, who have endeavoured to realise to themselves the events of that day have been painfully disappointed in so doing: instead of
" Touching' the heart with softer power For comfort than an angel's mirth,"
it has been to them an oppressive day: its tremendous
1 " Forasmuch as Christ hath foresignified that when Himself should be taken from them, His absence would soon make them apt to fast, it seemed that even as the first Festival Day appointed to be kept of the Church was the day of our Lord's return from the dead, so the first sorrowful and mournful day was that which we now observe, in memory of His departure out of this world. It came afterwards to be an order, that even as the day of Christ's resurrection, so the other two, in memory of His death and burial, were weekly. The Churches which did not observe the Saturday's fast, had another instead thereof, for that when they judged it meet to have weekly a day of humiliation, besides that whereon our Saviour suffered death, it seemed best to make their choice of that day especially, whereon the Jews are thought to have first contrived their treason, together with Judas, against Christ."— Hooker, /. c.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTINi;. 99
truths overwhelmed rather than consoled ; it was so unlike all other days that the mind was confounded by its very greatness: it seemed unnatural to do anything- which one would do even on any other holy day, and the heart was equally unsatisfied with what it did or did not do. Something- of this kind has taken place in very many minds; and the reason probably was, that the solemnity of that day was too insulated; that (if one may use the expression) it was out of keeping- with the religious habits of the rest of the year. This then the weekly Fast and solemn recollection recommended by the Church are calculated to remedy ; as indeed, had they been observed, these feelings would never have found place. In whatever degree its advice is adhered to, Good Friday becomes a day of more chastened, and yet of intenser feeling; it is connected with a train of the like emotions, affections, and resolves; insulated no longer, but the holiest only among the holy. " Neither in moral or religious, more than in physical and civil matters," says a very acute observer of human nature, "do people willingly do anything suddenly or upon the instant; they need a succession of the like actions, whereby a habit may be formed; the things which they are to love, or to perform, they cannot conceiv^e as insulated and detached; whatever we are to repeat with satisfaction, must not have become foreign to us."^
■ Goethe atis meinem Lehen, lorn. iii. p. 179. The author is there lamenting "the nakedness which, Jeremy Taylor says, the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to be amongst themselves," and which our own happily avoided. In the contrast there drawn, it is not a little remarkable to see that the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, which has of late been by some regarded as cold and unpractical, is put forward as that which gives to the Romish Sacraments a warmth which the Lutheran Church does not possess. He sums up thus: "All these spiritual miracles spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil ; there can they neither be sown, nor planted, nor nurtured. One must obtain them by prayer from another country; and this cannot every one do, nor at all times. Here then we are met by the highest of these symbols derived from an old venerable tradition. We hear that one man can be favoured, blessed, consecrated from above, more than
II
loo THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
The principle is of important application in the whole range of our duties; nor could it be too often repeated, in warning, " That what is not practised frequently, can never be performed with delight." We are sensible of the value of habits in moral action, and are not sur- prised that one who makes only desultory efforts should never succeed in acquiring any habit; we feel it in some degree in our public worship of God, and think it natural that one who does not diligently avail himself of all his opportunities of attending it should join in it but coldly and lifelessly ; it is strange to him, and there- fore at best a stiff and austere service ; and yet, in other matters, we act in defiance of this maxim ; we have allowed our Fasts to become rare, and therefore it has come to pass that so many never fast at all : our holy days have passed for the most part into neglect, and therefore the few that remain excite but little com- parative feeling; our daily service is well-nigh disused, and therefore our weekly is so much neglected; we
others, ^'et, in order that this may appear no mere natural gift, this high favour, united as it is with a weight of duty, must be transmitted from one commissioned individual to another; and the greatest good which man can attain, and yet cannot possess liimself of by any exertions or power of his own, must be preserved and perpetuated upon earth by a spiritual inheritance. Nay, in the consecration of the Piiest, everything is united which is necessary for effectually joining in those other holy ordinances, whereby the mass of Believers is benefited, without their having any other active share therein, than that of faith and unconditional confidence. And thus the Priest is enrolled in the succession of those who Lave preceded or shall come after him, and in the circle of those anointed to the same office, to represent Him from whom all blessings flow; and that the more gloriously, because it is not himself whom we respect, but his office; it is not before his bidding that we bow the knee, but before the benediction which he imparts, and which seems the more sacred, the more immediately derived from Heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot, by any sinfulness or viciousness of his own weaken it, or render it powerless." The author manifestly speaks of the value of the Sacraments with the feelings with which a spectator might be inspired, but still as one in whom great power of observation could supply everything but the warmth of actual experience.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. loi
have diminished the frequency of our communions, and therefore so many are strangers to the Lord's Table, so many formal partakers. Not so the Apostles, nor the Primitive Church, nor our own in its Principles, or in its most Apostolic days: they knew human nature better; or, rather, actinj^ from their own experience and self-knowledge, they ordained what was healthful for men of like nature with themselves; what was a duty at any period of the year must needs be performed throughout ; each portion had its Festivals and its F'asts, and the varying circle formed one harmonious whole of Christian humiliation and Christian joy. ^
The Church was in those days consistent ; its ministers derived their commission not of man, but of God, who called them inwardly by His Spirit, and outwardly through those to whom, through His Apostles, He had delegated this high office. The admission into Holy Orders was no mere outward con- secration or ceremony, but an imparting of God's Spirit to those who were separated to this work, through the prayers of the congregation, and the delegated authority of the Bishop. Christian edification was not left to each man's private judgment, but each was taught by those who had authority and experience what was good and expedient for his soul's health. We also have been in these days becoming consistent; if we fast, we fast for ourselves; if we keep a holy day, or select a portion of the weekly service, it is because we of our own minds deem it convenient; we have become in all things the judges of the Church, instead of rever- ently obeying what has been recommended to us ; we judge beforehand what will be useful to us, instead of ascertaining by experience whether the system recom- mended by elder Christians be not so.
Yet I would fain hope that there will not long be this
' " We are more apt to Calendar Saints' than sinners' days, therefore there is in the Church a care not to iterate the one alone, but to have frequent repetition of the other." — Hooker, /. c.
102 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
variance between our principles and our practice ; but that instead of examining^ what is the present practice of any portion of our Church, and inquiring- how this may be amended, men would first investigate, in the Canons and the Rubrics,^ what the real mind of the Church is, and see whether adherence to these would not remove the reg'retted defect.
One only objection can, I think, be raised by any earnest-minded Christian to this weekly Fast, namely, that the means employed, mere self-denial in so slig-ht a matter as one's food, is so petty and trifling a thing that it were degrading the doctrine of the Cross to make such an observance in any way bear upon it. One respects the feeling of such a person and his love for the Cross ; but the objection probably proceeds from inexperience in the habit of fasting. For let any one consider, from his childhood upwards, by what the greater part of his habits have been formed, and by what they are continued: not by any great acts or great sacrifices (as far as anything might be relatively great), but by a succession of petty actions whose effect he could not at any time foresee, or thought too minute to leave any trace behind them, and which have in fact, whether for good or for evil, made him what he is. Practice will universally show that the motive ennobles the action, not that the action dishonours the motive. "True it is," says Bishop Taylor,- "that religion snatches even at little things; and as it teaches us to observe all the great commandments and significations of duty, so it is not willing to pretermit anything which, although by its greatness it cannot of itself be
' In respect to the ordinance of Fasting, it might contribute to regularity if Clergymen were to observe the direction of their Church as contained in the Rubric after the Nicene Creed, "to declare unto the people what holy-days or fasting days are in the week following to be observed."
■^ " Life and Death of the Holy Jesus," M'^orks, t. iii. p. 96 of Fasting.
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 103
considerable, yet by its smallncss it may become a testimony of the greatness of the affection, which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty." He who pronoimced a blessing- upon the g'ift of a cup of cold water to a disciple in His name will also bless any act of sincere self-denial practised in memory of Him. Only let us not mock God, let us deny ourselves in somethings which is to us really self-denial; let us, in whatever deg'ree we may be able to bear it without diminishing- our own usefulness, put ourselves to some incon- venience, in sorrow and shame for those sins, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," which made our Saviour a man of sorrows, and exposed Him to shame, and we shall not afterwards think the practice degrading- to Him, or without mean- ing". The fast of the early Christians during- Lent was an entire abstinence until ev'ening-, on the Wednesday and Friday, until three o'clock: unused as we for the most part are to any such discipline, many of us would at the first not be well able to endure it; the difference also of climate mig-ht render that degree of abstinence oppressive to us which in more southern latitudes would recruit only and refresh the spirit:^ the weak and sickly agfain have always been exempt from those more rigid abstinences: they mig-ht not beneficially be able to deprive themselves of an early or an entire meal: yet doubtless many of them will have been enabled to trace in themselves the evils of even a necessary softness and indulg-ence of the body; and the mind which shall have
' Ye(, in what seems to have been standing "orders for the Fast" in our Church in the seventeenth century (at least the orders during the plague in 1636 and 1665 agree to the very letter) the most rigid of the Fasts of the early Church was prescribed. The direction is — 2. "All persons (children, old, weake, and sicke folkes, or the like excepted) are required to eat upon that day but one competent Meal, and that towards night, after Evening Prayer, observing sobrietie of diet, without superfiuitie of riotous fare, respecting necessitie and not voluptuousnesse." This additional Fast was ordered to "bee held everie week upon the Wednesday."
I04 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
become alive to these will not be slow in discovering" some mode of "keeping- under the body, and bring^ing- it into subjection." The early Church, besides its more rigid Fasts, admitted also of the substitution of less palatable and of diminished nourishm.ent ; and our own has, in insulated directions accompanying- her occasional Fasts, recognised the same principle: in general, she has left the mode of observing her Fasts free to the conscience of each ; only let them consist in real self- denial, and be accompanied by charity, retirement, and prayer.
The early Church acted, as it supposed, upon our Blessed Saviour's own authority in connecting these acts of bodily abstinence with the memory of His death. The Bridegroom was taken away! Yet if any one should find in himself any abiding repugnance to associate matters, necessarily humiliating, with the doctrine of the Cross, let him not endeavour to force his feelings: the Church wished to lay no yoke upon her members; let him perform the acts in mere com- pliance with the advice of the Church, and the experience of elder Christians : when we shall have attained the habit of self-denial and self-humiliation, the doctrine of the Cross will, without effort, connect itself with each such performance.
The other Fasts of the Church require the less to be dwelt upon, either because, as, in Lent, her authority is yet in some degree recognised, although it be very imperfectly and capriciously obeyed ; or, as in the case of the Ember Weeks, the practice has direct Scriptural authority; or in that of the other Festivals, because when we shall again value the privilege of having the blessed examples of Martyrs and Saints set before us to
". . . Remind us, how our darksome clay May keep the ethereal warmth our new Creator brought,'
we shall feel also the advantage of ushering in each
THOUGHTS ON IJENRFITS OF FASTING. 105
such day by actions which may impress upon us how they entered into their i^'lory, by taking- up their Saviour's cross and following- Him.'
Only with regard to the Fmber Weeks, it may be permitted to observe how this institution yet more fully embraces the objects which some good men are en- deavouring, by voluntary association, to attain. For the solemn period of the four Ember Weeks is obviously calculated for prayer, not for those only who are to be ordained to any holy function, but for all who shall have been so called, that God "would so replenish them with the truth of His doctrine, and endue them with innocency of life, that they may faithfully serve Him;" and thus, not only some few individuals, more nearly known to each other, but all the Ministers and all the people of Christ should, with one mind and one mouth, implore a blessing upon the Ministry which He has appointed.
And this also is an especial privilege of the whole system of regular Fasting- prescribed by our Church, beyond the voluntary discipline adopted by individuals, that it presents the whole Church unitedly before God, humbling themselves for their past sins, and imploring Him not to give His heritage to reproach. The value of this united humiliation and praj'er God only knoweth; yet since He hath promised to be present where two or three are gathered together in His name, how much more when His Church shall again unite before Him "in weeping, fasting, and praying"; how much more shall He spare, though we deserve punishment, and in His wrath think upon mercy! He who spared the Ninevites, how much more may we trust that He will spare us, for whom He has given His well-beloved Son!
" Let us, therefore, dearly beloved, seeing there are many more causes of fasting- and mourning in these our
' The only case in which the preparatory Fast is omitted (besides ihose already alluded to, p. 76) is the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels, in which this ground for the Fast also ceases. See Wheatly.
io6 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
days than hath been of many years heretofore in any one ag-e, endeavour ourselves both inwardly in our hearts, and also outwardly with our bodies, diligently to exercise this godly exercise of fasting, in such sort and manner as the holy prophets, the apostles, and divers other devout persons for their time used the same. God is now the same God that He was then ; God that loveth righteousness, and that hateth iniquity ; God which willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live; God that hath promised to turn to us, if we refuse not to turn to Him: yea, if we turn our evil works from before His eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek to do right, relieve the oppressed, be a right judge to the fatherless, defend the widow, break our bread to the hungry, bring the poor that wander into our house, clothe the naked, and despise not our brother which is our own flesh : T/ien shah thoii call, saith the prophet, and the Lord shall ansiver; thou shall cry, and He shall say. Here am I: yea, God, which heard Ahab, and the Ninevites, and spared them, will also hear our prayers, and spare us, so that we, after their example, will unfeignedly turn unto Him: yea, He will bless us with His heavenly bene- dictions, the time that we have to tarry in this world, and, after the race of this mortal life, He will bring us to His heavenly kingdom, where we shall reign in ever- lasting blessedness with our Saviour Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen." — Homily on Fasting, part 2.
" Lord, have mercy upon us, and give us grace, that while we live in this miserable world, we may through Thy help bring forth this and such other fruits of the Spirit, commended and commanded in Thy Holy Word, to the glory of Thy name, and to our comforts, that after the race of this wretched life, we may live ever- lastingly with Thee in Thy heavenly kingdom, not for the merits and worthiness of our works, but for Thy
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING 107
mercies' sake and the merits of Tiiy dear Son Jesus Christ, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all laud, honour, and g^lory, for ever and ever. Amen." — Homily on Fasting, part i.
POSTSCRIPT.
In the preceding remarks, the observance of the Fasts enjoined by the Church has been recommended on the ground of the practical wisdom and spiritual experience of the Holy Men by whose advice they were adopted, rather than on that of the direct authority of the Church. And this has been done, not because the writer doubted of the validity of that authority in this instance, but because it involved a question which would to many appear distant and abstract ; whether, namely, the Church's Laws on this subject were by long disuse virtually abrogated. For I am persuaded that many excellent men, who would shrink from contravening a distinct command of their Church, do in fact neglect these, from some notion that the Church herself has tacitly abandoned them. This notion does indeed appear to me to rest on a wrong supposition.
For, first. Since the Church has not annexed any cen- sures to the neglect of this Ordinance (which may correspond to the penal provisions of a civil law), the mere silence of the Church, or of her Spiritual Authorities, is no proof of her acquiescence in the breach of her directions.
2nd. It would be admitted in any other case that the mere multitude of those who broke any law did not alone abrogate that law; that the intrinsic sanctity of the law cannot depend upon the obedience which men may yield to it; that the laxity or remissness of men, at one period, cannot annihilate the authority by which that remissness was to be controlled. The disobedience of others, be they many or few, nay, though they should
io8 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
be even the majority, can have no force hi absolvuig us from the law by which we are in common bound. It is true that observances, which the Church has at one time on her own authority ordained, she may at another abrogate ; yet, until she do this, it is to be presumed that she wishes them to be retained in force. And it has already happened that ordinances have for a time fallen into disuse which yet were never allowed to be abrogated, and which afterwards have been very beneficially revived. It is within the memory of man that the yearly Commemoration of our Blessed Saviour's death was in country congregations very generally omitted. This solemn day is now, I trust, almost uni- versally observed ; nor is there any apparent reason why this other ordinance of the Church, whereby we humble ourselves for the sins which caused that Death, should not, if men once came seriously to consider it, be promptly, and with very wholesome results, restored. I doubt not that if the question were formally proposed to the Spiritual Authorities of our Church, whether they would think it advisable that our stated Fasts should be abolished, they would earnestly deprecate it. Their silence therefore on this subject is rather to be ascribed to the supposed hopelessness of attempting to bend our modern manners to Ancient Discipline, than to any disparagement of the institutions themselves. Our institutions in many cases sleep, but are not dead; nay, one has reason to hope that, although the many neglect them, a faithful few have ever been found who have experienced and could testify the value of those which the world seems most entirely to neglect.
One might refer, in proof, to the practice of a daughter Church — the Episcopal Church of the United States. Sprung from our Church and supplied by her with Ministers, until the State was separated from us, they carried with them her principles, as they had been modified by the habits and feelings and practice of the period which had elapsed since her Reformation. She
THOUGHTS ON BENEFITS OF FASTING. 109
may be regarded then as representing the then state of opinions amongst us. \'et formerly reconsidering the subject of the Church's Fasts, they omitted only the \'igils; while they retained the weekly Friday Fast, those of Lent, the Ember and Rogation Days, as days " on which the Church requires such a measure of abstinence as is more especially suited to extraordinary acts and exercises of Devotion."^
Yet, although these grounds of Church authority appear to myself perfectly valid, and I doubt not that many others will feel their weight as soon as they shall reflect upon them, the other argument drawn from the practical wisdom and experience oi the enactors of these regulations seems to lie nearer to men's con- sciences. The argument lies in a narrow compass. Regular and stated Fasts formed a part of the Dis- cipline by which, during almost the whole period since the Christian Church has been founded, all her real sons, in every climate, nation, and language, have subdued the flesh to the spirit, and brought both body and mind into a willing obedience to the Law of God. They thought this Discipline necessary as an expression and instrument of repentance, as a memorial of their Saviour, to " refrain their souls and keep them low," to teach them to "trust in the Lord," and seek communion with Him. To this system our own Church during all her happier times adhered. The value of this remedy for sin has come to us attested by the experience, and sealed by the blood, of Martyrs; who having learned thus to endure hardships, like good soldiers of Christ, at last resisted to the blood, striving against sin. Shall we, untried, pronounce that to be needless for ourselves which the Glorious Company of the Apostles, the Goodly Fellowship of Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs, the Holy Church throughout the world, found needful? I can hardly anticipate other than one answer. Only
' Book of Common I'rayer, I'hiladelphia.
no THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
let not any one be deterred by the irksomeness, or perplexities, or harassing doubts which every one must find in resuming- a neglected portion of duty. It were scarcely a discipline if its practice brought with it an immediate reward ; and \\'e have besides to pay the penalty of our sloth and diseased habits. " Patiently to lack what flesh and blood doth desire, and by virtue to forbear what by nature we covet, this no man attaineth unto, but with labour and long practice."^ And if it be that blessed instrument of holiness which they who have tried it assure us, it will not be w'ithout some struggle with our spiritual enemy that we shall recover the ground which we have lost. Only let us persevere, not elated wdth the first petty victories over ourselves, which may be perhaps conceded to us in order to produce over-confidence and carelessness ; nor dejected by the obstacles which a luxurious and scoffing age may oppose ; not by the yet greater difficulties from within, in acquiring any uniform or consistent habit. Men, aided by God, have done the like; and for us also, His grace will be sufficient.
Oxford,
The Feast of St. Thomas {^December 21 st, 1833].
[By Edward Bouverie Pusey.] ^ Hooker, /. c.
TRACT XIX.
ON ARGUING CONCERNING THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
Men are sometimes disappointed with the proofs oflfered in behalf of some important doctrines of our religion ; such especially as the necessity of Episcopal Ordination, in order to constitute a Minister of Christ. They con- sider these proofs to be not so strong as they expected, or as they think desirable. Now, such persons should be asked whether these arguments they speak of are in their estimation weak as a guide to their own practice, or weak in controversy with hardheaded and subtle disputants. Surely, as Bishop Butler has convincingly shown, the faintest probabilities are strong enough to determine our conduct in a matter of duty. If there be but a reasonable likelihood of our pleasing Christ more by keeping than by not keeping to the fellowship of the Apostolic Ministry, this of course ought to be enough to lead those who think themselves moved to undertake the Sacred Office to seek for a licence to do so from it. It is necessary to keep this truth distinctly in view, because of the great temptation that exists among us to put it out of sight. I do not mean the temptation which results from pride — hardness of heart — a profane disregard of the details and lesser commandments of the Divine Law — and other such-like bad principles of our nature which are in the way of our honestly con- fessing it. Besides these, there is a still more subtle temptation to slight it which will bear insisting on here,
112 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
arising- from an over-desire to convince others, or, in other words, a desire to out-arg-ue others, a fear of seeming- inconclusive and confused in our own notions and arguments. Nothing-, certainly, is more natural, when we hold a truth strong-ly, than to wish to persuade others to embrace it also. Nay, without reference to persuasion, nothing- is more natural than to be dis- satisfied in all cases with our own convictions of a principle or opinion, nay, suspicious of it, till we are able to set it down clearly in words. We know that, in all matters of thought, to write down our meaning is one important means of clearing our minds. Till we do so, we often do not know what we really hold, and what we do not hold. And a cautious and accurate reasoner, when he has succeeded in bringing the truth of any subject home to his mind, next begins to look round about the view he has adopted, to consider what others will say to it, and try to make it unexceptionable. At least we are led thus to fortify our opinion w'hen it is actually attacked ; and if we find we cannot recom- mend it to the judgment of the assailant, at any rate we endeavour to make him feel that it is to be respected. It is painful to be thought a weak reasoner, even though we are sure in our minds that we are not such.
Now, observe how these feelings will affect us as regards such arguments as were alluded to above — viz., such as are open to exception, though they are sufficiently strong to determine our conduct. A friend, who diflfers from us, asks for our reasons for our own view. We state them, and he sifts them. He observes that our conclusions do not necessarily follow from our premises. E.g. , to take the argument for the Apostolical Succession derived from the ordination of St. Paul and St. Barnabas (Acts xiii. 2, 3), he will argue that their ordination might have been an accidental rite, intended merely to commission them for their Missionary journey, which followed it, in Asia Minor ; again, that St. Paul's direction to Timothy (i Tim. v. 22) to "lay hands
THE ArOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 113
suddenly on no man," tnay refer to confirmation, not ordination.
We should reply (and most reasonably too), that, considering the undeniable fact that ordination has ever been thought necessary in the Church for the Ministerial Commission, our interpretation is the most probable one, and therefore the safest to act upon ; on which our friend will think a while, then shake his head, and say that " at all events this is an unsatisfactory mode of reasoning, that it does not convince /?/>«, that he is desirous of clearer light," etc.
Now, what is the consequence of such a discussion as this on ourselves ? Not to make us give up the doctrine, but to make us afraid of urging it. We grow lukewarm about it ; and, with an appearance of judg- ment and caution (as the world will call it), confess that "to rest the claims of our Clergy on an Apostolical Descent is an unsafe and inexpedient line of argument ; that it will not convince men, the evidence not being sufficient ; that it is not a practical way of acting to insist upon it," etc. — whereas the utmost that need be admitted is, that it is out of place to make it the subject of a speculative dispute, and to argue about it on that abstract logical platform which virtually excludes a reference to conduct and duty. And, indeed, it would be no unwise caution to bear about us, wherever we go, that our first business, as Christians, is to address men as responsible servants of Christ, not as anta- gonists ; and that it is but a secondary duty (though a duty) to " refute the gainsayers."
And as, on the one hand, it continually happens that those who are most skilled in debate are deficient in sound practical piety, so on the other it may be profit- able to us to reflect that doctrines which we believe to be most true, and which are received as such by the most profound and enlarged intellects, and which rest upon the most irrefragable proofs, yet may be above our disputative powers, and can be treated by us only
114 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
with reference to our conduct. And in this way, as in others, is fulfilled the saying- of the Apostle that " the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolish- ness ; but unto us, who are saved, it is the power of God. . . . Where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world ? . . . The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is strongfer than men."
ON RELUCTANXE TO CONFESS THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
If a Clergyman is quite convinced that the Apostolical Succession is lost, then of course he is at liberty to turn his mind from the subject. But if he is not quite sure of this, it surely is his duty seriously to examine the question, and to make up his mind carefully and deliberately. For if there be a chance of its being preserved to us, there is a chance of his having had a momentous talent committed to him, which he is burying in the earth.
It cannot be supposed that any serious man would treat the subject scoffingly. If any one is tempted to do so, let him remember the fearful words of the Apostle : " Esau, a profane person, who for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright."
If any are afraid that to insist on their commission will bring upon them ridicule, and diminish their use- fulness, let them ask themselves whether it be not cowardice to refuse to leave the event to God. It was the reproach of the men of Ephraim that, though they were "harnessed and carried bows," they "turned themselves back in the day of battle."
And if any there be who take upon them to contrast
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 115
one doctrine of the Gospel with another, and preach those only which they consider the more essential, let them consider our Saviour's words, "These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
Oxford, December zyd, 1833.
[By J. II. Newman; published 1833.]
12
/tract XXIII.)
THE FAITH AND OBEDIENCE OF CHURCHMEN THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH.
"And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living- God. And Jesus an- swered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee. That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the. gates of hell shall not prevail against it." — Matt. xvi. 16-18.
The rock, then, upon which the Church is built, is the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God ; a truth set forth and shadowed by the Prophets, but openly and plainly taught by the Apostles. St. Paul uses a similar expression when he speaks of the body of Christians being *■'■ built upon the founda- tion of the Apostles and Prophets" {i.e. resting in the sound and true doctrine which they taught); "Jesus Christ Himself being the chief coxn^x -stone'' (Ephes. ii. 20) ; our very spiritual existence depending upon our adherence to this great truth, that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, God and Man, the promised Saviour of the world; — He, who by taking man's nature upon Him in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, fulfilled the prophecy that the Saviour should be of the seed of Abraham, in whom "all the nations of the earth should be blessed" (Gen. xxii. 18), and the seed
FAITH AND OBEDIENCE. it;
of the woman, who should " bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15); and who, inasmuch as He was "the Only-begotten Son of God "(John iii. 18), "God of God," "Very God of very God" (Nicene Creed), ful- filled the prophecy that the Saviour should be "the mighty God" (Isaiah ix. 6); — He of whom it was said, " Let all the Angels of God worship Him" (Heb. i. 6); — and of whom it was likewise said, "Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever " (Ps. xlv. 6).
I said that our very spiritual existence depends upon our adhering- to this great and fundamental truth ; and this I said not of us as individuals only, but as members of the Church of Christ, and of that portion of Christ's Church in this kingdom which is usually called the Church of England. It is true of us individually, as appears by the words of St. John: " He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life" (r John v. 12); by which we learn that as long as we slight or disbelieve or deny this sacred truth, we have no spiritual life in us. It is also true of us, as Members of the Church of Christ, and of that portion of Christ's Church in this kingdom which is usually called the Church of England, as appears from the passage before us: "Upon this rock" (i.e., upon this firm confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God) " I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." For from this we learn that the Church, and any given portion of that Church, is only then able to defy the assaults of the Devil, that she can only then look forward with confidence to get the victory, so long as she adheres firmly to this faith and belief in Christ. When she departs from that foundation, then she ceases to have a claim for the continuance of the promised aid. This is a matter which it behoves Christians at all times to place before their eyes, and to keep in remembrance; but especially, at the present time, does it behove us, who are Members of the
iiS THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Church of Christ in England, to do so; because of the unceasing- endeavours which are being made by men who are either careless of religion altogether, or who have embraced false views of it, to overthrow our Church : endeavours which we have reason to regard either with fear, or not, according as we have reason, or not, to suppose that the Members of the Church have de- parted from the true faith and fear of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is reason to believe that many or most of the Members of our Church are re- gardless of that true faith, and of the honour of Him in whom we believe, that by their lips, or by their lives, they set at nought His Majesty, neglect His Sacra- ments, despise His Word, forsake His Worship, obey not His Voice, or look for redemption and salvation by any other means than by His Cross and Blood, then we have every reason to fear that these endeavours of our enemies will be successful; that the light of God's presence will be withheld from us; and that, as He withdrew from the Jews when they neglected Christ, the Lord of Glory, so He will withdraw from our Nation also, and leave it to the wretchedness of its own chosen ways ; to the enjoyment of those idols, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, for which it will have forsaken the Holy One of Israel, and refused to hearken to the Voice of the Lamb of God, who died to take away the sins of the world. But if not, if we have reason to hope that there are many true servants of God still to be found ; that there are man}- who, not with their lips only, but in their hearts and with their lives, acknowledge Him the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent; acknowledge Him so as to obey His voice, and keep and do \vhat He has commanded; then may we regard the attempts of our enemies without dismay; then may we have firm and steadfast hope that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us: that though it may please God that we should suffer for a while; — as we suffered, together
FAITH AND OBEDIENCE. 119
with good King Charles, at the hands of the Dis- senters; as we suffered in the days of bloody Queen Mary, at the hands of the Roman Catholics; as we suffered during the first three hundred years after Christ, at the hands of the Heathens and the Jews; — yet that eventually triumph will await us; that He will bring our Church out of the trial, like gold out of the fire, more pure and of greater worth ("I will purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin" — Isa. i. 25), that "all things will work together for good" to us; and that the purpose aimed at by the affliction is, that He "may present our Church to Himself as a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Ephes. v. 27).
It will hence appear that it is in the power of every individual, by a holy and religious life in the true faith and fear of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, to promote not only his own salvation, but the welfare and stability of the Church of Christ; or by an unholy, careless, and irreligious life, not only to secure his own damnation, but to assist the enemies of God and Man, who are purposed to overthrow that Church.
If times of confusion and trouble shall come, where can we seek for comfort but in the love of Christ, in the love of God to man for Christ's sake? But how can we then take comfort in that love, if ucnv we take no account of it? Let me entreat you, then, Christian Brethren, while the days of peace are vouchsafed to you, to give more and more heed to religious duties. The days may come when your Churches will be shut up, or only filled by men who will not teach the whole truth as it is in Jesus; when you will be deprived of Ministers of Religion ; or have only such as are desti- tute of God's Commission. Do not, I beseech you, by your neglect now add to your misery then the bitter- ness of self-reproach, when you will have to say, " I had once the opportunity of worshipping God aright,
i2o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
but I neglected it, and He now has withheld it from me. I had once the means of receiving the Body and Blood of my Saviour, at the hands of His own Minister; but I refused it, and now He has placed it out of my power."
Oxford,
The Fcasl of the Epiphany \Janitary 6th^ 1834].
[By A. r. Perceval.]
•^
TRACT XXIX
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY; OR, WHY SHOULD WE BELONG TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND?
BY A LAYMAN. PART I.
"He that receivelh you, rcceiveth Mc; and he that rcceivelh Mc, receiveth Him that sent Me.
" He that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward." — Matt. x. 40, 41.
John Evans was walking along" the lane between his own house and the common, when just at the place where the lane makes a turning, he suddenly met Dr. Spencer, the Rector of his parish. John was not particularly pleased at thus meeting his Pastor, for several reasons. He had formerly been a most regular attendant at the parish church, from which he had lately chosen to absent himself, with his family. Not that he stayed away from idleness, or from any inten- tional disregard of the commands of God; he felt, as he imagined, the same reverence for the Divine Will as ever; it was, indeed, rather a mistaken zeal than any- thing else, which had led to his change of conduct. He had been induced, one Sunday, by a friend who
122 THE OXFORD MOVEiMENT.
oelonged to a dissenting' congregation, to go with him to the meeting-house; and when he was there, there was something in the energy of the preacher's manner, in the vehement action by which his teaching was accompanied, and his seeming earnestness in the holy cause of God, which, as it was quite new to John, was particularly striking to him. Compared with the fervour of this man, the quiet but sound discourses of his Rector seemed spiritless and tame; and John came out of the meeting under the influence of such enthusiastic feelings as led him to resolve to visit it again the first oppor- tunity. And thus he was led on to go again and again, till at last he made up his mind to become a regular attendant there. Thither he accordingly took his family, Sunday after Sunday; and deserted, of course, the old parish church, the venerable building in which he and his had received the holy rite of Baptism; in which, as each of them in turn outgrew their infancy, they had heard for the first time the solemn sound of congrega- tional prayer; and in which those who had arrived at a proper age had frequently received from Christ's authorised Ministers, the symbols of His sacred Body and Blood.
It will be seen from what follows that in making this change upon such grounds as have been described, John Evans did not understand that he was disobeying the God whom he was trying to serve, and putting a slight upon that Saviour whose disciple he not only professed himself, but in good earnest desired to be. Yet though he did not enter into this view of the matter; though he knew not that he had shown dis- respect to Christ, in His Minister; still he felt as though he had not been behaving with perfect respect to the Doctor, whom he loved on his own account, as he had indeed every reason to do. So what with his fear of a rebuke on this ground; a rebuke which he dreaded the more from the mildness of the language in which he knew that it would be clothed; what with the irksome-
I
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 123
iiess of having to avow opinions which must be dis- agreeable to one whom he so highly respected; and moreover, the suspicion which he could not help feeling, that in these new ways of his, so different from what he had been used to revere, and so suddenly taken up, he might possibly be wrong; for all these various reasons he met his Pastor with a downcast and half-guilty look, very different from the open, honest smile with which he had till then ever greeted the good Clergy- man.
Dr. Spencer, however, took no notice of the differ- ence. "Well, John," said he, *' I am glad to see you. I was on my way to have a little conversation with you, and should have been sorry to have missed you."
John thought it best to be bold, and come out at once with his defence of himself. " I believe, sir," said he, " that I can guess what it is you were wishing to talk with me about. I have taken a step which I fear ... I know . . . must be displeasing to you, sir. I trust, however, that in exercising my Christian Liberty in the choice of my spiritual teacher, and joining the meeting instead of going to Church, I shall not seem to have acted from disrespect to you, sir, who have so long been a good friend to me and mine."
Dr. By no means, John; do not suppose either that I feel personally offended at your conduct, or that I do not regard you with feelings as friendly as ever. But, as to the Christian Liberty you speak of, we perhaps understand that matter rather differently ; and it w^as because I thought you were in some mistake about it, that I was coming to see you to-day. I have missed yourself and family for some Sundays past in Church, and understood you had joined the meeting. Is not this the case?
John. It is, sir; and, as I have already said, without the slightest notion of showing you disrespect.
Dr. Say no more about that, John; I know you too well to suspect you for a moment of such a feeling as
124 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
that. Speak to me as to your sincere friend and well- wisher, in perfect candour: and do not fear that I shall be offended at anything" you say, while you tell me fairly your reasons for this chang^e in your conduct.
J. I am sure, sir, that in the old Church I never heard anything- from you but what was good; and I never thought, till the other day, that I could pray better in any other words than in those of the Church Service. But there is something so fine in the prayers without book, as they are offered at meeting, and
Dr. And something perhaps in the manner and lan- guage of the preacher, who preaches there without a book also. But let me ask, had you no other reasons than these, and such as these, for leaving the Church ?
J. None, sir, but such as these; at least, none that I am aware of.
Dr. You did not consider that either the Church Prayer-Book, or my Sermons, taught doctrines contrary to the great truths revealed in God's Word ?
J. God forbid, sir.
Dr. You had then, perhaps, some such notion as this: you thou^^ht that in the Church you could pray well, but at meeting you could pray rather better ?
J. Just so, sir.
Dr. And you thought that you were doing God service, then, by joining that worship which touched you most?
J. And surely, sir, 1 was right in that thought, at least.
Dr. You would have been right, if God had not chosen a Minister for you. In that case, perhaps, you might have used your Christian Liberty, as you call it, and joined any congregation and worship you pleased. But His having given a clear command alters the case, and makes that which would otherwise have been a matter of indifference, an act of disobedience and sin.
/. But if I may be so bold as to ask, sir, when did
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 125
God g'ive this command, and where is it to be found? I am not so ready with the Bible as learned people, yet I know it in my own way. That was the very thin^ I heard Mr. Tims, who preaches at the meetings, ask last Sunday. He said, "Where is the Church of England spoken of in the Bible? name chapter and verse where we are bid belong- to it." And then he went on to say, that the new heart is everything, and that we shall not be asked at the last day whether we were Churchmen or Dissenters, but what the state of our heart is.
Dr. We shall be asked at the last day whether we have obeyed God's commandments; now, one of those commandments is that we should belong to the Church, as I will soon show you. But, first, you shall tell me what has been your reason, till lately, for going to Church.
J. I was born of Church-going parents, and that made me a regular Church-goer in my youth. And when I grew up I always, at least till the other day, thought that I had the best of reasons for keeping regular to Church. In the first place, the Church was the Law Church; and that of itself would be a reason, even if there were no other, for good subjects keeping to it; and then, I knew it had been in the country many, many years, whereas all the meetings about are (so to say) of yesterday, and, in one sense, upstarts. And then I had heard from you, sir, that in former times it had Saints and Martyrs, such as were when our Lord was on earth. And I thought it therefore far more likely to be right, and had a stronger claim on me, than any other religion ; and especially since I was a pretty regular reader of my Bible, and never found the teaching which I heard at Church different from that which I thus picked up at home.
Dr. All good reasons as far as they went ; but I see that I was right in supposing the chief claim the Church has on all Christians is unknown to you. Our Church
126 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
is sprung' from that very Church which Christ set up at Jerusalem when He came upon earth ; and none of the Sects have this great gift. It is a branch of that Holy Church which Christ promised to be with, " even to the end of the world." You must surely often have met in the Bible with mention of '* the Church "; what did you suppose the word to mean ?
J. I do not know, sir, that I had any very clear idea what it meant; but I rather thought it meant, all sincere Christians in all parts of the world, to whatever Church or sect they might belong-.
Dr. Then it seems you did not understand the word " Church " to signify a body of men, bound by the same laws, acting together, speaking the same thing, attend- ing the same worship, reverencing the same Pastors and Teachers, and receiving at their hands the Sacraments which Christ has ordained. Yet it is quite certain that this is what our Lord meant when He spoke of His Church. He meant a Church such as the Church of England. This will be clear to you from Matthew xviii. 15, 16, 17. In these verses Christ speaks of the Church ; in the last of them He bids His disciples regard any one who should in certain cases refuse to " hear the Church," as a heathen and a publican ; as an opposer of His authority, and an outcast from His sacred fold. Thus it appears the Church He speaks of is not a mere number of good people scattered over the world, who may or may not have communion with each other (which was your notion of the word), but one public, orderly, visible body, consisting of Ministers and people, such as the Church of England. To be sure, the Church of England happens to have wealth and honour, and that first Church had not ; but this is but an accidental difference between them. If the Church of England were to lose its wealth and honour, it would not, could not, thereby cease to be a branch of the true Church ; and by comparing the text just given you with Matthew xvi. 18, 19, you will see that it was to this visible Church
CHRISTIAN LinERTV. 127
that the promise was made, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it.
J. If you would kindly write down these texts for me, I will turn them out of my own Bible, and think over them. There is one thing, however, sir, which comes into my mind to ask you. Even supposing all Christians ought to join together in one, yet they do not. There are a good many religions among us, and how is a plain unlearned man like me to know which is the real Church spoken of in these passages?
Dr. The matter is not so difficult as you imagine, even to the most unlearned. The true Church of Christ ynust possess, as I will now show you, certain marks; to which not even a pretence is made by the numerous sects of Dissenters with which our country, from different unfortunate circumstances, abounds. Let me go back to the time when the Gospel was first preached, and converts made by the Apostles. Many of these be- lievers, we find, acknowledged in the Apostles the authority which Christ had given them over the flock, and were followers of them even as they were of Christ (i Cor. xi. i), remembering them in all things, and keeping the ordinances which they had delivered to the congregation in each place ; and for this conduct the Corinthians received the inspired praise of St. Paul {ibid. 2). But there were others, who called themselves Christians, who caused divisions among the brethren (i Cor. ii. 18, 19), forming parties of their own, and setting at nought the Apostolical Authority. To these St. Paul spoke in vain when he said, " I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment" (i Cor. i. 10). They slighted the Lord's accredited Minister, and said that his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible (2 Cor. x. 10). Many of the sects which these men formed, fell, as was
128 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
to be expected, into follies and heresies; but even with- out reference to this fact, even if we suppose them to have taught the great doctrines of Christianity with the same purity as the Apostles did, could a reasonable man entertain a moment's doubt, granting- Christ had indeed founded a Church on earth, which that Church was ; whether the name of Church belonged to the company of Christians which obeyed His Apostles ; or, on the other hand, to any one of the sects which vilified and despised them ?
J. Certainly not; that is, there could be no doubt, as long as the Apostles were alive, that the Christians whom they governed must have made up the true visible Church of Christ.
Dr. But, John, it is plain you see, that there were a great number of sects then as there is now; so that a man who wished to do his duty would have to look about him carefully, and would be in danger of doing wrong if he joined the first body of so-called Christians which he met with! — a great number of sects, I repeat, even though the Apostles were alive; so that it is not the mere circumstance of the Apostles being dead which makes a search necessary to find the true Church.
J. I see what you would say, sir.
Dr. Now then to proceed. You are disposed to doubt whether one Church was truer than another after the Apostles' death. Surely is it not plain that the Church would still be the true one, which they had governed? Now you will find (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20) that our Lord promised to be with His Apostles in their character of teachers and baptisers of the nations^ alway, even iinto the end of the world. What did he mean by that ?
J. He could not mean that Peter, James, or John, or their brethren, were to live for ever on earth; for we know that they are long since dead.
Dr. Certainly not ; and we must therefore ascribe to
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 129
His words the only other meaning- which they can reasonably bear. As He could not have spoken of the persons oi the .Apostles, He must have spoken of their offices. He must have meant that thouij^li Peter, James, and John should be taken from the world the true Church should never be left without Apostles, but be guided by their successor to the end of time.
John Evans had all this while been retracing with Dr. Spencer the way he had lately come, and had now arrived at the door of his own house. The good clergy- man thinking he had given him matter enough to cast in his mind, took this as a fit moment to break off the conversation, determining to resume it some early day. He therefore merely went into his parishioner's house, to turn out for him the texts he had referred to, and then wished him good evening.
The next Sunday John was at Church; and after the service was over, he kept lingering in the path which led to the Doctor's house, in hopes of being overtaken by his Rector. He was not disappointed. Dr. Spencer soon joined him, and the argument between them was resumed.
J. If, sir, as you were saying, our Lord meant that there should be teachers and rulers of the Church, to stand in the place of the Apostles after their death, how is it we hear nothing of these Successors, so to call them, in Scripture?
Dr. On the other hand I affirm, we hear a great deal about them in Scripture, as you will agree with me. Surely you recollect the Apostles solemnly laying their hands on others, or, as it is called, ordaining- them, to act as their assistants and fellows; and this they did when Christians became too numerous for them to attend to them all by themselves. Such a person was Timothy, whom St. Paul thus consecrated by the putting on of his hands (i Tim. i. 6), to bear rule over that branch of the Church which was established at Ephesus in Asia; such Titus (Tit. i. 5), whom he left with
I30 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
authority over the Church in the island of Crete, "to set in order the things that were wanting"; and such Epaphroditus, whom he sent to the Philippians as his "brother, and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, but their messenger," or Apostle (Phil. ii. 25). Now in the absence of the Apostles, what do you suppose would have been the conduct of all true Christians to these whom the Apostles had appointed ?
J. Of course they would have shown them all honour and obedience, in order to show their respect for the Apostles themselves.
Dr. Certainly; as reverencing St. Paul, they would have attended to his plain doctrine: " Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow-helper concerning you; or our brethren [i.e. Luke and another sent to act jointly with Titus) be inquired of, they are the Apostles of the Churches,^ and the glory of Christ. Wherefore show ye to them and before the Churches the proof of your love, and of our boasting on your behalf" (2 Cor. viii. 23, 24). On the other hand, how do you think these new Apostles would have been treated by those v/ho slighted the authority of St. Peter and St. Paul ?
J. Those who set at nought the Apostles themselves, would also set at nought those who stood in their place.
Dr. You see, then, that had we lived in the days of the Apostles, we should have had one plain test among others, for discovering the true Church, in spite of all counterfeits of it. The true Church was that Christian body which was governed by men commissioned by the Apostles; and those who were perverse towards St. Peter and St. Paul, would have been disobedient towards them. But let us now go a step further. Do you suppose that Timothy, for instance, ceased to be an Apostle, such as St. Paul had made him, on the death of St. Paul? * Apostles and Messengers are the same word in the original Greek.
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. i;,t
/. I i.\o not sec why he should; but I should like to know whetiicr there is proof from Scripture that he did not ?
Dr. When St, Paul was just goiiii,'- to be put to death for the sake of the Gospel, he writes thus to Timothy: "Preach the Word! be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-- suffering- and doctrine. . . . Watch //loii in all thing's, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For /am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course" (2 Tim. iv. 2-'j),
J. From these words it is certainly clear that St. Paul intended Timothy, whom he had appointed to act as his brother and fellow-labourer while he lived, to act as his successor when he should be no more.
Dr. And all true Christians, who have reverenced Timothy as if really St. Paul, when that Apostle was removed from them for a time by distance^ would no less reverence him as such, when the Apostle was removed once for all by death.
J. They could do no less.
Dr. It follows, then, that even when the Apostles had all entered into their rest — i.e. in the second age of the Gospel, we might still have used the test I have given, to distinguish the Church of Christ from sects falsely claiming that name. We should have found the one set of Christians reverently sitting at the feet of the successors of Apostles; all the others, so called, openly rejecting their rightful authority.
J. It is true; even while these successors of the Apostles lived, all who professed to obey Christ were bound to pay them, and would have paid them, a rever- ence which the false sects would not have paid ; so that in those times there would certainly have been no diffi- culty in finding which was the Church which it was our duty to join.
«3
132 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Dr. And when Timothy, Titus, or Epaphroditus, as exercising- the same full authority which had been exer- cised by St. Paul, themselves appointed fellow-labourers and successors, committing, as the Apostle had enjoined one of them to do, the things which they had heard to faithful men who might be able to teach others also (2 Tim. ii. 2); would not these faithful men be rever- enced by all true Christians, for the very same reasons which led them to reverence those who appointed them ?
J. They would so, no doubt. As long as a direct line was continued from the Apostles themselves on- wards, all consistent Christians must have paid them reverence. And such a succession might hav'e gone on for a long while, — a hundred years or more.
Dr. What if it have now gone on for eighteen hundred years? What if, by the good providence of God, the line which began with the Apostles Peter and Paul should have continued even to this very day? so that there are men who stand in the place of the Holy Saints and Martyrs of Scripture up to this very hour, under the great and eternal Head of the Church? You look surprised, but such is the fact ; and if such persons do really exist, and if we find one community of Christians acknowledging and obeying, and ruled by them, while every other body of professing- Christians in our island disclaims and rejects them, you will see that this test will enable the most simple-minded and unlearned per- son to discriminate between the true Church of Christ and the unauthorised sects which called themselves Christ's followers now, almost as clearly as he could had he lived in the days of the Apostles themselves.
J. Yes: the body of Christians, which reverences and is guided by the successors of the Apostles, must be the true Church of Christ. But who are these suc- cessors of the Apostles in our country? though, to be sure, I think I know what answer you will give me.
Dr. The Bishops of the Church of England are they.
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 133
There is not one of them who caiinol trace his rij^-ht to ^^•uide and ^'•overn Christ's Church, and to ordain its Ministers, throug'h a long line of predecessors, up to the favoured persons who were consecrated by the layinjj on of the holy hands of St. Peter and of St. Paul. This is a fact which dissenters from the Church of Eng^land do not, and cannot deny ; nor do they profess that the authority of those whom they call their ministers, to teach and to administer the Sacraments, rests at all on such grounds as these.
J. I understand you, sir; but I have one remark to make, if you will please to hear it. Bishops do not work miracles, as the Apostles did: nor can you mean that we are to look upon their teaching" and writings now, as dictated by immediate inspiration, and consequently in- fallible, like the New Testament. How then are they successors of the Apostles?
Dr. You are bringing me to a large subject, John ; which we will discuss some other time, not on a Sunday evening, when you have your young ones at home, waiting to say their verses to you; and I had rather rest than argue after the Services of the day. We will have some further talk when occasion offers; mean- while, in answer to your inquiry, I will but bid you compare John xx. with Acts ii. The tniracnlous gifts were sent down upon the Apostles on the day of Pente- cost; but the commission to preach, teach, and ordain, was given, quite independently of all such extraordinary endowments, be/ore our Saviour ascended into heaven. One word at parting — You have had a good education ; your mind has been opened to enter into arguments, to see objections, and answer questions: your understand- ing has been sharpened. This is a talent which may be used rightly, or abused; to the unwary all gifts are temptations. As riches betray men into selfishness and an evil security, so does a sharp wit tend to make them self-confident, arrogant, and irreverent. Look at the advantages which God has given you, not as a cause
134 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
of boasting" and selt-gratification, but seriously and anxiously, as a treasure of which you are steward for God, and concerning^ which you must one day give account to Him.
Oxford,
The Feast of Chc Aniiuncialion \March 2^th, 1S34].
[By John W. Bowdkn.]
TRACT XXX.
CHRISTIAN LIRERTY; OR, WHY SHOULD WE BELONG TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND?
BV A LAYMAX. PART II.
"lie thai receiveih you, receiveth Me; and he tliai receiveth Me, receiveih Him thai sent Me.
"lie that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name of a rij^hteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward," — Mail x. 40, 41.
John Evans did not fail to look out in his Bible the texts to which Dr. Spencer had referred him ; and he saw clearly that the miraculous powers with which it pleased God to endue the Apostles, were by no means necessarily connected with the commission which those Apostles had previously received from our Lord ; the commission, we mean, to teach and baptise all nations. John was seen again on the next Sunday at his accustomed place in church. The Doctor preached from the text, Mark xvi. 17, 18: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and thev shall recover,"
136 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
He pointed out to his congregation the beautiful regularity which pervades the works of God ; the settled laws, the established order with which our Maker guides the course of things around us; the cer- tainty with which the stars rise and set, the moon waxes and wanes, the flower follows the bud, and the seed the flower. He reminded his hearers how truly, from the times of the Flood, God's promise has been fulfilled: and seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night have not ceased. (Gen. viii. 8.) "And surely," said he, "we see in these things the proofs that God is a God of order; that He would not lightly or without important reasons change the system which He has established, the laws which He has framed. If then we were to hear that the Almighty had on a certain occasion broken through these laws, and violated by miracles the established order of nature, we should have the strongest reason to suppose, firstly, that He had only done so in order to accomplish something which could not conceivably have been accomplished without such interpositions ; and secondly, that He would discontinue these interpositions as soon as they became no longer necessary.
" Now both these conclusions," continued the Doctor, "we find to agree alike with the Bible and with the recorded history of mankind. It was necessary that the doctrines of Christianity should be known to be the infallible truth of God ; that what the Apostles said or wrote on the subject should be received as the words of God Himself speaking to mankind. Now this authority, as far as we can see, can be given to mortal man only by God's visibly interfering in his support ; and such interferences are what we call miracles. We see then, that for the establishment in the world of Christianity, and of the authority of those sacred books which form the New Testament, miracles were necessary ; and we find from Scripture that miracles were then vouchsafed. But when the inter-
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 137
ference had been fully proved, when evidence of it could be handed down by ordinary means to following' genera- tions ; and when no more divine truth was to be revealed, miracles were needed no longer ; and the history of the world informs us that they have ceased for seventeen hundred years."
And while the Doctor, in conclusion, pointed out on the one hand the folly of expecting a recurrence of such marvels in our own days, an expectation which amounts to an acknowledgment that Christianity is as yet im- perfect, and that we are to look for a more complete revelation ; he dwelt with much earnestness on the danger of imagining that God's peculiar protection of Christianity, God's peculiar inward gifts to believers, ceased with the cessation of the outward signs and wonders which at first accompanied the revelation of His Word.
John listened with great attention ; and, when the Service was over, he thought long and deeply upon what had been said. He looked out also the different texts which the Doctor had mentioned in his Sermon; and in so doing he came to one which rather puzzled him. It was John xiv. 16. " It is strange," said he to himself: " our Lord promised that the Comforter, whom He would send, should abide with his followers for ever; I really do not see why this promise should be given, if the greatest and most striking gifts which that Comforter was to bestow were to cease at the end of one, or at most of two generations."
That evening, as he was strolling in the fine summer twilight along the banks of the river, he met the Doctor, who had walked that way to enjoy the fineness of the season, and to refresh himself after the holy labours of the day. He told him his difficulty, nearly in the words in which we have expressed it; and the Doctor, smiling good-naturedly, thus replied.
Dr. Are you quite sure, John, that you have stated your case aright ? Is it perfectly certain that miracu-
138 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
lous powers were the greatest gifts which the Eternal Spirit was commissioned to bestow upon mankind?
J. It certainly appeared to me that they were; such marked, such striking instances of God's favour were surely greater boons than anything else which we can conceive to be given to mortals in this present life. I think, sir, that I have heard you yourself call these gifts of the Spirit, as opposed to others. His extra- ordinary gifts.
Dr. You may very probably have heard me so call them; but "extraordinary" only means "unusual"; and it does not always follow that what is unusual is more important than what is of frequent occurrence. But tell me, John, in the case in which one thing is done in order to prepare for the doing of some other thing, which is the more important of the two ; the first of these things or the last ; the means or the end ?
J. The end, of course, is more important than the means ; no man would venture to call the scaffolding which is raised that the house may be built more im- portant than the house itself.
Dr. Now think a moment, John, before you answer me; why were the miraculous powers bestowed on the Apostles ?
J. To make men believers in Christ.
Dr. To prepare the way, that is, for their receiving those inward gifts of the Spirit, in which true believers now participate as fully as those who lived in the days of the Apostles.
/. I see, sir; the extraordinary gifts might be com- pared to the scaffolding, the ordinary ones to the house.
Dr. Exactly so, John; marvellous and striking as were the signs and wonders of the Apostolic age, we should ever recollect that they were not greater gifts, or even gifts so great, as those inward ones which are our evangelical inheritance, as well as that of the primitive Christians. When the doctrine of the Holy
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 139
Ghost, and of His inward influence, was new to the world, it pleased God to confirm it, and to show that the influence was real, by permitting^, in some cases, those on whom it descended to perform works which they could not have done had not God been with them. Thus the real importance, even then, of these miracu- lous g^ifts consisted in their bearing witness to the inward and unseen ones which God still showers upon His Church.
J. And which we dare not suppose to have ceased merely because the outward signs of them did, when God Himself had promised that they should last for ever.
Dr. Well ; the promise of support to the Apostles, in the performance of their ministerial duties, was equally perpetual; Christ was to be with them, we have seen, as the teachers and baptisers of all nations, "alway, even unto the end of the world." The reality of their powers, and, among- others, of their power of conferring the Holy Ghost on others, was attested at first by miracles. (Acts viii. 17, 18.) But we have no more reason for supposing that the true powers of the ministry ceased with the outward signs, in the case of the Apostles, than we have for supposing, in the case just mentioned of the gifts of common believers, that from the moment miracles were no longer vouchsafed, the Holy Spirit withdrew Himself from the guidance of the Church for ever. That God has bestowed Apostolic gifts upon Apostles, and the regenerating influences of His Holy Ghost upon other believers, we know from the recorded testimony of those who witnessed the miracles by which the reality of those gifts and influ- ences was at first established. That those gifts and influences will be alike perpetual in the Church, we are bound to believe upon the solemn word of Him who gave them.
J. Miracles, then, performed in one age, and handed down by history to others, form the standing proofs of
I40 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
the reality of those gifts which were given to the Church for ever; and one of those gifts was undoubtedly the Apostolic power ; which we must believe, upon this evidence, to be still existing.
Dr. Exactly so; and infallibility of doctrine, itself a miracle, ceased with miracles in general. We cannot see any reason for the continuance of such a gift to the successors of the Apostles, when the Apostles them- selves have recorded all things necessary to salvation in those sacred Scriptures which have come down to our times, and to which we can all refer. Nor have we the slightest ground for doubting the permanence of those Apostolic privileges which were of perpetual necessity, merely because a miraculous gift, evidently no longer necessary, has been discontinued.
J. This, sir, I understand; but there is one difficulty which occurs to me. As the rulers of the true Church are no longer infallible, what is to prevent their all fall- ing together into error, and thus leading astray the whole Church committed to their care?
Dr. We may infer from Christ's promise already mentioned that this will never happen to the whole Church at once; that some true Apostles will be found on earth in every age, until that last period of the world's history which shall witness His coming. But that with regard to particular branches of His Church this may happen, and has happened, is a melancholy truth. There is one simple test, however, by which we may at once assure ourselves that the Church of England has not so fallen away, or, as it is called, apostatised, from the faith of her Lord and Master.
J. And what is that, sir?
Dr. As the eternal truth of God is contained in His revealed word the Bible, no Church, whatever may be the errors of her individual members, can be said, as a Church, to have fallen away, and consequently to have lost her claim to the obedience of Christ's true disciples, while she still reverences that Bible; — while she puts it
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 141
into the hand of each of her followers, and bids him read it, and seek there, and there only, the proofs of the doctrine which she inculcates; and while she de- clares, as the Church of England does in her sixth Article, that " Holy Scripture containeth all thing-s necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be re- quired of any man that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation."
J. Then according to you, sir, the Church of England is not only the true, but the original Church of Christ established in this kingdom. — Now, Sam Jones, the Catholic, who attends the Popish Chapel in the next parish, tells me that his is the original Church, and that the Church of England is a new one.
Dr. That which is truly the Catholic Church is indeed the oldest; but though we in a common way call the Papists, or followers of the Pope, Catholics, yet it is we who are the true Catholics ; for the term only means members of Christ's universal Church. The history of the Papists is this. Many centuries ago, strange and corrupt notions and practices prevailed in many of the Churches in Europe. Among others, people thought the Pope or Bishop of Rome was gifted with authority from Heaven to control all the branches of the Church on earth, and that his word was to be of more weight than even the Holy Scriptures themselves. But about three hundred years ago, the Bishops of the Church of England saw these errors in their true light; they saw that the Pope's authority was not founded on Scripture, and they consequently refused to acknow- ledge it, while they at the same time corrected, upon Scriptural principles, the other errors and evil practices which I have alluded to. These changes did not make the Church of England a new Church, nor prevent that body which was Christ's true and original Church before from being Christ's true and orisrinal Church still.
142 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Some Bishops of that day, it is true, disapproved of these changes, and refused to accede to them ; but as, when they died, they providentially appointed no suc- cessors, there has never since been any real ground for doubt which was the true Church of Christ in this favoured land. The Bishops of the Church of England, and they only, are the representatives by succession of those who, more than a thousand years ago, planted the Gospel on our shores.^
J, But there are persons whom the Papists call their Bishops — whence do they come ?
Dr. They derive what they call their right from their appointment by foreign Bishops in an unauthorised manner. The Pope and his followers would by no means acknowledge the changes which had taken place in England; they declared that our Church had apos- tatised from the faith, and refused to communicate with us, till we should return to all our ancient errors. They have since, upon the alleged ground that our line of Bishops was extinct, given commission from time to time to different persons to exercise episcopal authority here ; but as the ground was false, the commission was of course void. We acknowledge the Pope and his Bishops in foreign countries to be, by station, ministers of the Church, though we admit and lament the fact that they have led the branches of it over which they preside into apostasy and shame ; yet we feel that in sending their representatives hither, to act in defiance of the Church already established, they are exceeding the limits of their authority. We feel that God, who is
^ In the same manner it may be shown that the established Church of Ireland alone represents that Church which the labours of St. Patrick, in the fifth century, planted in that island. Those who preside over the Romanists have received consecration from Rome, at a very recent period. And the corruptions which prevail in their religion, and which distingui>h it from ours, became prevalent long after that Saint's death. Our doctrines therefore approach more nearly to his than theirs do; and our Church is the true and original Church of Christ in Ireland, in every sense which the words will bear.
CHRISTIAN LIBKKTV. 143
not the autlior ul contusion, but of pc;ice, in all churches of the saints (i Cor. xiv. 23)> cannot sanction the intru- sion of one Bishop, however duly consecrated, into the See of another, with a view to the usurpation of his name and office, and to the orj^anising" a systematic opposition to his authority. We are compelled there- fore to reg-ard those who are ordained, as Popish Priests are by these intruding- Bishops, as unauthorised and schismatical ministers of religion, and as violators, like the other dissenters around them, of the laws of Christ's Church, and of the unity of His fold.
/. I thank you, sir, for g^iving- me so g^ood an answer to Sam when next I meet him. And I thank you, too, deeply and sincerely do I thank you, for teaching- me the nature of one g-reat branch of Christian duty which I never understood before. I seem now to see that there is a sin of which a Christian may be guilty of which I never before thought ; the sin, I mean, of refusing obedience to the command of our Redeemer to hear His Apostles; to demean ourselves as dutiful members of the Church which those holy persons founded, and over which He Himself, invisibly, pre- sides ; a sin of which they are deeply guilty who separate themselves from that Church altogether, and join one or other of the many sects which reject her authority. Pray, sir, by what name is such a sin properly called ?
Dr. It is called "schism," from a Greek word sig- nifying "division." A man may forfeit the privileges enjoyed by him as a member of Christ's Church in two ways: — either on account of "heresy," of his adopting opinions opposed to the great truths of the Word of God; or through schism, through a disregard of Church authority, and a notion that so long as his doctrine is pure, he may join what sect he pleases, or even set up one for himself. The exercise of such a privilege I have heard some people call "Christian Liberty."
/. {smiling). I understand you, sir; but you shall
144 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
hear me use the words in this improper sense no more. The true Hberty wherewith Christ has made us free is theirs alone who, in reverencing His ministers, walk in the way of His commandments. Admitting, as I now do, the force of what you have said ; convinced, as I now am, that the Church of England is, to us, the Apostolic Church of Christ, established by our Lord Himself, I cannot but see that their sin is indeed great who wilfully reject and despise it.
Dr. Such persons would do well to consider our Saviour's words to those Ministers whose successors they slight. *' He that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me " (Luke X. i6).
J. They would indeed, sir; and I thank God that you have shown me the meaning of this text before I had completely separated myself from the Church to which my Saviour has commanded me to belong. God knows, I meant to do no such thing when first my curiosity led me to the meeting.
Dr. 1 know it, John ; but let this show you the danger of making the first step, of yielding to the first temptation. Curiosity led you to a place to which, if you understood your duty, you had no business to go ; you were pleased, and tempted to repeat your visit, and might soon have been led to unite yourself entirely to that unauthorised congregation; in defiance, as I have now shown you, of the solemnly declared will of the Almighty.
J. Well, sir, I will, by God's blessing, keep myself from such temptations for the future. I trust that on each succeeding Sunday, while life and health are spared me, I shall be found in my old accustomed seat at Church, and kneel in the sacred spot where my forefathers knelt before me: and God grant that no temptation may ever again lead me astray, or induce me to separate from the holy Church of my Redeemer.
Dr. It gives me, John, the sincerest pleasure to hear
CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. MS
you express such sentiments as these. One i^ood effect will, throug^h God's y^race, result even t'roin this your temporary wanderint^ from the fold. You will now know better than you did what we mean when in the words of our Liturtfy we pray for "the good estate of the Catholic Church"; and you will be enabled, I trust, to join more fully than heretofore in the beautiful prayer, "that it may be so g-uided and g-overned by God's good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians, may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life."
y. 1 hope, sir, that I shall: I hope that I shall ever feel duly thankful for the blessing of being called into Christ's Church, thus happily established among us; and I trust that when in the name of the congregation you put up the prayer for protection "against false doctrine, heresy, ant/ sc/n'sm,'' my heart and soul may accompany my lips in the response — "Good Lord, deliver us!"
Oxford,
T/ig Feast of the Anniiiuiation [Manh 2^//i, 1S34].
[By John W. Ugwdln.]
TRACT XXXIV. RITES AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHURCH.
'O ix,€V ovv TTterros, a)s XP'?) ''''■' ippoinivos ovbt deirai \uyov /cat airias, virep wv ac ETrtrax^j, dW apKeirai. rrj irapadbati /xovrj.
Chrysost. in I Cor. Hont. 26.
He who is duly strenglhened in faith, does not go so far as to require argument and reason for what is enjoined, but is satisfied with the tradition alone.
The reader of ecclesiastical history is sometimes sur- prised at finding- observances and customs generally received in the Church at an early date, which have not express warrant in the Apostolic writings — e.g.^ the use of the cross in baptisin. The following pages will be directed to the consideration of this circumstance ; with a view of suggesting from those writings them- selves, that a minute ritual was contemporaneous with them, that the Apostles recognise it as existing and binding, that it was founded on religious principles, and tended to the inculcation of religious truth. Not that any formal proof is attainable or conceivable, considering the brevity and subjects of the inspired documents ; but such fair evidence of the fact, as may recommend it to the belief of the earnest and single- minded Christian. It is abundantly evident that the Epistles were not written to prescribe and enforce the Ritual of religion ; all then we can expect, if it existed in the days of the Apostles, is an occasional allusion to it in their Epistles as existing, and a plain acquiescence in it : and thus much we find.
RITKS AND CUSTOMS. 147
Let us consider that remarkable passage (i Cor. xi. 2-16), wiiich, I am persuaded, most readers pass over as if they could get little instruction from it. St. Paul is therein blaming- the Corinthians for not adhering to the ciisfoni oi the Church, which prescribed that men should wear their hair short, and that women should have their head covered during divine service ; a custom apparently most unimportant, if any one ever was, but in his view strictly binding on Christians. He begins by implying that it is one out of many rules or traditions (TTtt/ad^cKrci?) which he had given them, and they were bound to keep. He ends by refusing to argue with any one who obstinately cavils at it and rejects it : "If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God." Here then at once a view is opened to us which is quite sufficient to remove the surprise we might otherwise feel at the multitude of rites, which were in use in the Primitive Church, but about which the New Testament is silent ; and further, to command our obedience to such as come down to us from the first ages, and are agreeable to Scripture.
In accordance with this conclusion is the clear and forcible command given by the Apostle {2 Thess. ii. 15), " Brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."
To return. St. Paul goes on to give the reason of the usage, for the satisfaction of the weak brethren at Corinth. It was, he implied, a symbol or develop- ment (so to say) of the principle of the subordination of the woman to the man, and a memorial of the history of our creation ; nay, it was founded in ^^ nature''' — i.e., natural reason. And lastly, it had a practical object: the woman ought to have her head covered " because of the angels." We need not stop to inquire ivhat this reason was ; but it was a reason of a practical nature which the Corinthians understood, though we may not. If it mean, as is probable, " becaus* she is in the sight
14
148 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
of the heavenly angels" (i Tim. v. 21), it gives a still greater importance to the ceremonies of worship, as connecting them with the unseen world.
It would seem indeed as if the very multiplicity of the details of the Church ritual made it plainly impossible for St. Paul to write them all down, or to do more than re?>ii/id the Corinthians of his way of conducting religious discipline when he was among them. " Be ye foUoivers of me," he says ; " I praise you that ye remember vie in all things." It is evident there are ten thousand little points in the working of any large system which a present instructor alone can settle. Hence it is cus- tomary at present, when a school is set up, or when any novel manufacture in trade, or extraordinary machinery, is to be brought into use, to set it going by sending a person fully skilled in its practical details. Such was St. Paul as regards the system of Christian discipline and worship ; and when he could not go himself, he sent Timothy in his place. He says in the fourth chapter : "I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ivays which be in Christ as I teach everyivhere in every Church." Here there is a like reference to a uniform system of discipline — whether as to Christian conduct, worship, or Church government.
Another important allusion appears to be contained in the 22nd verse of the chapter above commented on. "What, have ye not houses to eat and drink in? or despise ye the Church of God?" This is remarkable as being a solitary allusion in Scripture to houses of prayer under the Christian System, which nevertheless we know from ecclesiastical history were used from the very first. Here then is a most solemn ordinance of primitive Christianity, which barely escapes, if it escapes, omission in Scripture.
A passing allusion is made in another passage of the same Epistle to the use of the word Amen at the con-
RITRS AND CUSTOMS. 149
elusion of the Eucharlstical prayer, as it is preserved after it and all other prayers to this day. Thus the ritual of the Apostles descended to minutia), and these so invariable in their use, as to allow of an appeal to them.
In the original institutioii of the Eucharist, as recorded in the Gospels, there is no mention of consecrating the cup; but in i Cor. x. 16, St. Paul calls it "the cup of blessing which ive d/ess." This incidental information, vouchsafed to us in Scripture, should lead us to be very cautious how we put aside other usag-es of the early Church concerning this Sacrament, which do not happen to be clearly mentioned in Scripture — as e.g. the solemn offering of the elements to God by way of pleading His mercy through Christ, which seems to have been universal in the early Church.
As regards the same Sacrament, let us consider the use of the word \(.irovpyov\TMv, ministering i^^c\.\!> xiii. 2); a word which, dropped (so to say) by accident, and interpreted, as is reasonable, by its use in the services of the Jewish Law (Luke i. 23 ; Heb. x. 11), remarkably coincides with the Xnrovpyia of the Primitive Church, according to which the offering of the Altar was inter- cessory, as pleading Christ's merits before the throne of grace.
Again, in i Cor. xv. 29, we incidentally discover the existence of persons who are styled "the baptised for the dead." Perhaps it is impossible to determine what is meant by this phrase, on which little light is thrown by early writers. However, anyhow it seems to refer to a custom of the Church, which was so usual as to admit of an appeal to it, which St. Paul approved, yet which he did not in the Epistle directly enforce, and but casually mentions.
In I Cor. i. 16, St. Paul happens to inform us that he baptised the household of Stephanas. It has pleased the Holy Spirit to preserve to us this fact; by which is detected the existence of a rule of discipline for which
I50 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
the express doctrinal parts of Scripture afford but indfreet warrant — viz., the custom of household baptism. [Vid. also Acts xvi. 15, 33.) This accidental disclosure accurately anticipates the after practice of the early Church, according- to which families, infants included, were baptised, and that on a weighty doctrinal reason — viz., that all men were born in sin and in the wrath of God, and needed to be individually translated into that kingdom of grace, into which baptism is the initiation.
These instances, then, not to notice others of a like or a different kind, are surely sufficient to reconcile us to the complete ritual system which breaks upon us in the writing's of the Fathers. If any parts of it indeed are contrary to Scripture, that is of course a decisive reason at once for believing them to be additions and corruptions of the original ceremonial ; but till this is shown, we are bound to venerate what is certainly primitive, and probably is apostolic.
It will be remarked, moreover, that many of the religious observances of the early Church are expressly built upon words of Scripture, and intended to be a visible memorial of them, after the manner of St. Paul's directions about the respective habits of men and women, which was just now noticed. Metaphorical or mystical descriptions were represented by a corresponding literal action. Our Lord Himself authorised this procedure when He took up the metaphor of the prophets con- cerning the fountain opened for our cleansing (Zech, xiii. i) and represented it in the visible rite of baptism. Accordingly, from the frequent mention of oil in Scrip- ture as the emblem of spiritual gifts (Is, Ixi, 1-3, etc), it was actually used in the Primitive Church in the ceremony of admitting catechumens, and in baptising. And here again they had the precedent of the Apostles, who applied it in effecting their miraculous cures, (Mark vi. 13, James v. 14.) And so from the figurative mention in Scripture of salt, as the necessary prepara- tion of everv religious sacrifice, it was in use in the
RITES AND CUSTOMS. 151
Western Cluirch, in the ceremony of admitting' converts into the rank of catechumens. So again from Phil, ii. 10, it was customary to bow the head at the name of Jesus. It were endless to multiply instances of a similar pious attention to the very words of Scripture, as their custom of continual public prayer from such passages as Luke xviii. 7 ; or of burying the bodies of martyrs under the altar, from Rev. vi. 9 ; or of the white vest- ments of the officiating ministers, from Rev. iv. 4.
Two passages on the subject from the Fathers shall now be laid before the reader, by way of further illus- tration, and first from TertuUian :
" Though this observance has not been determined by any Scripture, yet it is established by custom, which doubtless is derived from tradition. For how can a usage ever obtain, which has not first been given by tradition ? But you say, even though tradition can be produced, still a written (Scripture) authority must be demanded. Let us examine, then, how far it is true, that a tradition itself, unless written in Scripture, is inadmissible. Now I will give up the point at once, if it is not already determined by instances of other observances, which are maintained without any Scripture proof, on the mere plea of tradition, and the sanction of consequent custom. To begin with baptism. Before we enter the water, we solemnly renounce the devil, his pomp, and his angels, in church in the presence of the Bishop. Then we are plunged in the water thrice, and answer certain questions over and above what the Lord has determined in the written gospel. After coming out of it, we taste a mixture of milk and honey; and for a whole week from that day we abstain from our daily bath. 'Ihe sacrament of the Eucharist, though given by the Lord to all and at supper-time, yet is celebrated in our meetings before daybreak, and only at the hand of our presiding ministers. . . . We sign our forehead with the cross whenever we set out and walk, go in or out, dress, gird on our sandals, bathe, eat, light our lamps, sit or lie down to rest, whatever we do. If you demand a Scripture rule for these and such-like observances, we can give you none; all we say to you is, that tradition directs, usage sanctions, faith obeys. That reason justifies this tradition, usage, and faith, you will soon yourself see, or will easily learn from others; meanwhile you will do well to believe that there is a law to which obedience
152 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
is due. I add one instance from the old dispensation. It is so usual among the Jewish females to veil their head, that they are even known by it. I ask where the law is to iDe found; the Apostle's decision of course is not to the point. Now if I nowhere find a law, it follows that tradition introduced the custom, which afterwards was confirmed by the Apostle when he explained the reason of it. These instances are enough to show that a tradition, even though not in Scripture, still binds our conduct, if a continuous usage be preserved as the witness of it." — TertuUian, de Coron.^ ^ 3-
Upon this passage it may be observed, that TertuUian, flourishing" a,d. 200, is on the one hand a very early witness for the existence of the general doctrine which it contains, while on the other he gives no sanction to those later customs which the Church of Rome upholds, but which cannot be clearly traced to primitive times.
St. Basil, whose work on the Holy Spirit, § 66, shall next be cited, flourished in the middle of the fourth century, 150 years after TertuUian, and was of a very different school ; yet he will be found to be in exact agreement with him on the subject before us — viz., that the ritual of the Church was derived from the Apostles, and was based on religious principles and doctrines. He adds a reason for its not being given us in Scripture, which we may receive or reject as our judgment leads us — viz., that the rites were memorials of doctrines not intended for publication except among baptised Christians, whereas the Scriptures were open to all men. This at least is clear, that the ritual could scarcely have been given in detail in Scripture, without imparting to the Gospel the character of a burdensome ceremonial, and withdrawing our attention from its doctrines and precepts.
"Of those articles of doctrine and preaching which are in the custody of the Church, some come to us in Scripture itself, some are conveyed to us by a continuous tradition in mystical deposi- tories. Both have equal claims on our devotion, and are received by all, at least by all who are in any respect Church-
RITES AND CUSTOMS. 153
men. For, should we attempt to supersede the usages which are not enjoined in Scripture as if unimportant, we should do most serious injury to Evangelical truth: nay, reduce it to a bare name. To take an obvious instance: which Apostle has taught us in Scripture to sign believers with the cross? Where does Scripture teach us to turn to the east in prayer.' Which of the saints has left us recorded in Scripture the words of invocation at the consecration of the bread of the Eucharist, and of the cup of blessing.' Thus we are not content with what Apostle or Evangelist has left on record, but we add other rites before and after it, as important to the celebration of the mystery, receiving them from a teaching distinct from Scripture. Moreover, we bless the water of baptism, and the oil for anointing, and also the candidate for baptism himself. . . . After the example of Moses, the Apostles and Feathers who modelled the Churches were accustomed to lodge their sacred doctrine in mystic forms, as being secretly and silently con- veyed. . . . This is the reason why there is a tradition of observances independent of Scripture, lest doctrines, being e.xposed to the world, should be so familiar as to be des- pised. . . . We stand instead of kneeling at prayer on the Sunday; but all of us do not know the reason of this. . . . Again, every time we kneel down and rise up, we show by our outward action that sin has levelled us with the ground, and the loving mercy of our Creator has recalled us to heaven."
The conclusion to be drawn from all that has been said in these pag^es is this : — That rites and ordinances, far from being- unmeaning, are in their nature capable of impressing our memories and imaginations with the great revealed verities ; far from being superstitious, are expressly sanctioned in Scripture as to their principle, and delivered to the Church in their form by tradition. Further, that they varied in different countries, according to the respective founder of the Church in each. Thus e.g., St. John and St. Philip are known to have adopted the Jewish rule for observing Easter-day; while other Apostles celebrated it always on a Sunday. Lastly, that, although the details of the early ritual varied in importance, and corrupt additions were made in the middle ages, yet that, as a whole, the
154 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Catholic ritual was a precious possession ; and if we, who have rid ourselves of those corruptions, have lost not only the possession, but the sense of its value, it is a serious question whether we are not like men who recover from some grievous illness with the loss or injury of their sight or hearing" ; — whether we are not like the Jews returned from captivity, who could never find the rod of Aaron or the Ark of the Covenant, which, indeed, had ever been hid from the world, but then was removed from the Temple itself.
Oxford,
The Feast of St. Philip and St. James.
[By J. H. Newman; published 1834.]
TRACT XXXVIII.
VIA MEDIA.
No. I.
Laicus. Will you listen to a few free questions from one who has not known you long enough to be familiar with you without apology? I am struck by many things I have heard you say, which show me that, somehow or other, my religious system is incomplete : yet at the same time the whole world accuses you of Poper}-, and there are seasons when I have misgivings whither you are carrying me.
Clcricus. I trust I am prepared, most willing I certainly am, to meet any objections you have to bring against doctrines which you have heard me maintain. Say more definitely what the charge against me is.
L. That your religious system, which I have heard some persons style the Apostolical, and which I so name by way of designation, is like that against which our forefathers protested at the Reformation.
C I will admit it, i.e. if I may reverse your state- ment, and say, that the Popish system resembles it. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, seeing that all corruptions of the truth must be like the truth which they corrupt, else they would not persuade mankind to take them instead of it ?
L. A bold thing to say, surely; to make the earlier system an imitation of the later?
C. A bolder, surely, to assume that mine is the later,
156 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
and the Popish the earUer. When think you that my system (so to call it) arose? — not with myself?
L. Of course not ; but whatever individuals have held it in our Church since the Reformation, it must be acknowledged that they have been but few, though some of them doubtless eminent men.
C. Perhaps you would say {i.e. the persons whose views you are representing), that at the Reformation the stain of the old theology was left among us, and has shown itself in its measure ever since, as in the poor, so again in the educated classes ; — that the peasantry still use and transmit their Popish rhymes, and the minds of students still linger among the early Fathers ; but that the genius and principles of our Church have ever been what is commonly called Protestant.
L. This is a fair general account of what would be maintained.
C. You would consider that the Protestant principles and doctrines of this day were those of our Reformers in the sixteenth century; and that what is called Popery now, is what was called Popery then.
L. On the whole ; there are indeed extravagances now, as is obvious. I would not defend extremes ; but I suppose our Reformers would agree with moderate Protestants of this day, in what they meant by Pro- testantism and by Popery.
C. This is an important question, of course; much depends on the correctness of the answer you have made to it. Do you make it as a matter of history, from knowing the opinions of our Reformers, or from what you consider probable?
L. I am no divine. I judge from a general know- ledge of history, and from the obvious probabilities of the case, which no one can gainsay.
C. Let us then go by probabilities, since you lead the way. Is it not according to probabilities that opinions and principles should not be the same now as they were
VIA MEDIA. 157
300 years since? that though our professions are the same, yet we should not mean by them what the Reformers meant? Can you point to any period of Church history in which doctrine remained for any time uncorrupted? Three hundred years is a long' time. Are you quite sure we do not need a second reformation ?
L. Are you really serious? Have we not Articles and a Liturgy, which keep us from deviating from the standard of truth set up in the sixteenth century?
C. Nay, I am maintaining no paradox. Surely there is a multitude of men all around us who say the great body of the Clergy has departed from the doctrines of our Martyrs at the Reformation? I do not say I agree with the particular charges they prefer; but the very circumstance that they are made is a proof there is nothing extravagant in the notion of the Church having departed from the doctrine of the sixteenth century.
Z. It is true; but the persons you refer to bring^ forward, at least, an intelligible charge; they appeal to the Articles, and maintain that the Clergy have de- parted from the doctrine therein contained. They may be right or wrong; but at least they give us the means of judging for ourselves.
(. \ This surely is beside the point. We were speak- ing of probabilities. What change actually has been made, if any, is a further question, a question oi fact. But before going on to examine the particular case, I observe that change of opinion was probable; probable in itself you can hardly deny, considering^ the history of the universal Church; not extravagantly improbable, moreover, in spite of Articles, as the extensively pre- vailing opinion to which I alluded, that the clergy have departed from them, sufficiently proves. Now consider the course of religion and politics, domestic and foreign, during the last three centuries, and tell me whether events have not occurred to increase this probability almost to a certainty; the probability, I mean, that the
158 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
members of the Eng-lish Church of the present day differ from the pruiciples of the Church of Rome more than our forefathers differed. First, consider the his- tory of the Puritans from first to last. Without pro- nouncing any opinion on the truth or unsoundness of their principles, were they not evidently farther re- moved from Rome than were our Reformers? Was not their influence all on the side of leading the English Church farther from Rome than our Reformers placed it? Think of the fall of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Reflect upon the separation and extinction of the Non- jurors, upon the rise of Methodism, upon our political alliances with foreign Protestant communities. Con- sider especially the history and the school of Hoadley. That man, whom a high authority of the present day does not hesitate to call a Socinian,^ was for near fifty years a bishop in our Church.
L. You tell me to think on these facts. I wish I were versed enough in our ecclesiastical history to do so.
C. But you are as well versed in it as the generality of educated men ; as those whose opinions you are now maintaining. And they surely ought to be well ac- quainted with our history, and the doctrines taught in the different schools and eras, who scruple not to charge such as me with a declension from the true Anti-popish doctrine of our Church. For what the doctrine of the Church is, what it has been for three centuries, is a matter of fact which cannot be known without reading.
L. Let us leave, if you please, this ground of prob- ability, which, whatever you may say, cannot convince me while I am able to urge that strong objection to it which you would not let me mention just now. I repeat, we have Articles; we have a Liturgy; the dispute lies in a little compass, without need of his-
^ " It is true he was a Bishop, though a Socinian." — Bp. Blomfield's Letter to C. Butler, Esq., 1825.
VIA MEDIA. 159
torical reading-: — do you mean to say we have departed from them ?
(\ I am not willing- to follow you a second time, and will be explicit. I reply, we have departed from them. Did you ever study the Rubrics of the Prayer Book ?
Z. But surely they have long been obsolete; — they are impracticable!
(\ It is enough; you have answered your own ques- tion without trouble of mine. Not only do we not obey them, but it seems we style them impracticable. I take your admission. Now, I ask you, are not these Rubrics (I might also mention parts of the Services themselves which have fallen into disuse) such as the present day would call Popish? and, if so, is not this a proof that the spirit of the present day has departed (whether for good or evil) from the spirit of the Refor- mation?— and is it wonderful that such as I should be called Popish, if the Church Services themselves are considered so?
L. Will you give me some instances?
C. Is it quite in accordance with our present Pro- testant notions that unbaptised persons should not be buried with the rites of the Church? — that every Clergy- man should read the Daily Service morning" and evening at home, if he cannot get a congregation? — that in college chapels the Holy Communion should be administered every week? — that Saints' Days should be observed? — that stated days of fasting should be set apart by the Church? Ask even a sober-minded really serious man about the observance of these rules; will he not look grave, and say that he is afraid of formality and superstition if these rules were attended to?
Z. And is there not the danger?
C. The simple question is, whether there is more danger now than three centuries since? was there not far more superstition in the sixteenth than in the nine- teenth century? and does the spirit of the nineteenth
i6o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
move with the spirit of the sixteenth, if the sixteenth commands and the nineteenth draws back?
Z. But you spoke of parts of the Services them- selves as laid aside?
C. Alas! . . .
What is the prevailing opinion or usag"e respecting the form of absolution in the office for Visiting" the Sick? What is thought by a great body of men of the works in which the Priesthood is conveyed? Are there no objections to the Athanasian Creed? no murmurs against the Commination Service? Does no one stumble at the word "oblations," in the Prayer for the Church Militant? Is there no clamour against parts of the Burial Service? No secret or scarcely secret complaints against the word regeneration in the Baptismal? No bold protestations against reading the Apocrypha? Now do not all these objections rest upon one general ground — viz.. That these parts of our Services savour of Popery? And again, are not these the popular objections of the day?
L. I cannot deny it.
C. I consider then that already I have said enough to show that Churchmen of this day have deviated from the opinions of our Reformers, and become more opposed than they were to the system they protested against. And therefore, I would observe, it is not fair to judge of me, or such as me, in the off-hand way which many men take the liberty to adopt. Men seem to think that we are plainly and indisputably proved to be Popish if we are proved to differ from the generality of Churchmen nowadays. But what if it turn out that they are silently floating down the stream, and we are upon the shore?
Z. All, however, will allow, I suppose, that our Reformation was never completed in its details. The final judgment was not passed upon parts of the Prayer Book. There were, you know, alterations in the second edition of it published in King Edward's time; and
VIA MEDIA. i6i
these tended to a more Protestant doctrine than that which had first been adopted. F^or instance, in King lid ward's first book the dead in Christ were prayed for; in the second this commemoration was omitted. A<;;^ain, in the first book the elements of the Lord's Supper were more distinctly offered up to God, and more for- mally consecrated than in the second edition, or at present. Had Queen Mary not succeeded, perhaps the men who effected this would have gone farther.
C. I believe they would ; nay indeed they did at a subsequent period. They took away the Liturgy alto- gether, arid substituted a Directory.
Z. They? the same men?
C. Ves, the foreign party : who afterwards went by the name of Puritans. Bucer, who altered in King Edward's time, and the Puritans, who destroyed in King Charles's, both came from the same religious quarter.
Z. Ought you so to speak of the foreign Reformers? to them we owe the Protestant doctrine altogether.
C. I like foreign interference as little from Geneva as from Rome. Geneva at least never converted a part of England from heathenism, nor could lay claim to patriarchal authority over it. Why could we not be let alone, and suffered to reform ourselves?
Z. You separate then your creed and cause from that of the Reformed Churches of the Continent?
C. Not altogether; but I protest against being brought into that close alliance with them which the world nowadays would force upon us. The glory of the English Church is, that it has taken the via media, as it has been called. It lies be/iveen the (so-called) Reformers and the Romanists; whereas there are re- ligious circles, and influential too, where it is thought enough to prove an English Clergyman unfaithful to his Church if he preaches anything at variance with the opinions of the Diet of Augsburg, or the Confes- sions of the Waldenses. However, since we have been
i62 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
led to speak of the foreign Reformers, I will, if you will still listen to me, strengthen my argument by an appeal to them.
L. That argument being, that what is now considered Protestant doctrine is not what was considered such by the Reformers.
C. Yes ; and I am going to offer reasons for thinking that the present age has lapsed, not only from the opinions of the English Reformers, but from those of the foreign also. This is too extensive a subject to do justice to, ev^en had I the learning for it; but I may draw your attention to one or two obvious proofs of the fact.
Z. You must mean from Calvin ; for Luther is, in some points, reckoned nearer the Romish Church than ourselves.
C. I mean Calvin, about whose extreme distance from Rome there can be no doubt. What is the popular opinion now concerning the necessity of an Episcopal Regimen?
L. A late incident has shown what it is ; that it is uncharitable to define the Catholic Church as the body of Christians in every country as governed by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; such a definition excluding pious Dissenters and others.
C. But what thought Calvin? "Calvin held those men worthy of anathema who would not submit them- selves to truly Christian Bishops, if such could be had."^ What would he have said then to the Wes- leyan Methodists, and that portion of the (so-called) Orthodox Dissenters which co-operates, at present, with the Church? These allow that we, or that numbers among us, are truly Christian, yet make no attempts to obtain Bishops from us. Thus the age is more Protestant now than Calvin himself.
Z. Certainly in this respect ; unless Calvin spoke rhetorically under circumstances.
^ Vide The Churchman^ s Mamtal, p. 13.
VIA MEDIA. 163
C. Now tor a second instance. The followiiii,^ is his statement concerning the Lord's Supper: — " I under- stand what is to be understood by the words of Christ; that he doth not only offer us the benefits of His death and Resurrection, but His very body, wherein He died and rose again. I assert that the body of Christ is really (as the usual expression is), that it is truly given to us in the Sacrament, to be the saving- food of our souls." . . . "The Son of God offers daily to us in the Holy Sacrament the same body which He once offered in sacrifice to His Father, that it may be our spiritual food." . . , "If any one ask me con- cerning the manner, I will not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too high for my reason to com- prehend, or my tongue to express."^ Now, if I were of myself to use these words (in spite of the qualifica- tion at the end, concerning the manner of His presence in the Sacrament), would they not be sufficient to con- vict me of Popery in the judgment of this minute and unlearned generation?
L. You speak plausibly, I will grant ; yet surely, after all, it is not unnatural that the Reformers of the sixteenth century should have fallen short of a full Reformation in matters of doctrine and discipline. Light breaks but gradually on the mind: one age begins a work, another finishes.
C I am arguing about a matter of fact, not defend- ing the opinions of the Reformers. As to this notion of their but partial illumination, I am not concerned to oppose it, being quite content if the persons whom you are undertaking to represent are willing to admit it. And then, in consistency, I shall beg them to reproach me not with Popery but with Protestantism, and to be impartial enough to assail not only me, but "the Blessed Reformation," as they often call it, using words they do not understand. It is hard, indeed, that when
' Vide Tracts for the Times, p. 27.
15
i64 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
I share in the opinions of the Reformers, 1 should have no share of their praises of them.
L. You speak as if you really agreed with the Re- formers. You may say so in an argument, but in sober earnest )'ou cannot mean to say you really agree with the great body of them. Neither you nor I should hesitate to confess they were often inconsistent, saying at one time what they disowned at another.
C. That they should have said different things at different times is not wonderful, considering they were searching into Scripture and Antiquity, and feeling their way to the Truth. Since, however, they did vary in their opinions, for this very reason it is obvious I should be saying nothing at all in saying that I agreed with them, unless I stated explicitly at what period of their lives, or in which of their writings. This I do state clearly: I say I agree with them as they speak in the formularies of the Church ; more cannot be re- quired of me, nor indeed is it possible to say more.
L. What persons complain of is, that you are not satisfied with the formularies of the Church, but add to them doctrines not contained in them. You must allow there is little stress laid in the Articles on some points, which are quite cardinal in your system, to •udge by your way of enforcing them.
C This is not the first time you have spoken of this supposed system of ours. I will not stop to quarrel with you for calling it ours, as if it were not rather the Church's; but explain to me what you consider it to consist in.
Z. The following are some of its doctrines: that the Church has an existence independent of the State ; that the State may not religiously interfere with its internal concerns ; that none may engage in ministerial works except such as are episcopally ordained; that the consecration of the Eucharist is especially entrusted to Bishops and Priests. Where do you find these doc- trines in the formularies of the Church; that is, so
VIA MEDIA. 165
prominently set forth as to sanction you in urg'ing' them at all, or at least so strong-ly as you arc used to urg'e them?
C. As to urging them at all, we might be free to urge them even though not mentioned in the Articles; unless indeed the Articles are our rule of faith. Were the Church first set up at the Reformation, then indeed it might be right so to exalt its Articles as to forbid to teach "whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby." I cannot consent, I am sure the Reformers did not wish me, to deprive myself of the Church's dowry, the doctrines which the Apostles spoke in Scripture and impressed upon the early Church. I receive the Church as a messenger from Christ, rich in treasures old and new, rich with the accumulated wealth of ages.
L. Accumulated?
C. As you will yourself allow. Our Articles are one portion of that accumulation. Age after age, fresh battles have been fought with heresy, fresh monuments of truth set up. As I will not consent to be deprived of the records of the Reformation, so neither will I part with those of former times. I look upon our Articles as in one sense an addition to the Creeds; and at the same time the Romanists added their Tridentine articles. Theirs I consider unsound; ours as true.
L. The Articles have surely an especial claim upon you; you have subscribed them, and are therefore more bound to them than to other truths, whatever or wherever they be.
C. There is a popular confusion on this subject. Our Articles are not a body of divinity, but in great measure only protest against certain errors of a certain period of the Church. Now I will preach the whole counsel of God, whether set down in the Articles or not. I am bound to the Articles by subscription ; but I am bound, more solemnly even than by subscription, by my bap- tism and by my ordination, to believe and maintain the
i66 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ivholc Gospel of Christ. The grace given at those seasons comes through the Apostles, not through Luther or Calvin, Bucer or Cartwright. You will presently agree with me in this statement. Let me ask, do you not hold the inspiration of Holy Scripture?
Z. Undoubtedly.
C. Is it not a clergyman's duty to maintain and con- fess it?
Z. Certainly.
C. But the doctrine is nowhere found in the Articles; and for this plain reason, that both Romanists and Re- formers admitted it; and the difference between the two parties was, not whether the Old and New Testament were inspired, but whether the Apocrypha was of canonical authority.
Z. I must grant it.
C. And in the same way, I would say, there are many other doctrines unmentioned in the Articles, only because they were not then disputed by either party ; and others, for other reasons, short of disbelief in them. I cannot indeed make my neighbour preach them, for he will tell me he will believe only just so much as he has been obliged to subscribe; but it is hard if I am therefore to be defrauded of the full inheritance of faith myself. Look at the subject from another point of view, and see if we do not arrive at the same conclu- sion. A statesman of the last century is said to have remarked that we have Calvinistic Articles, and a Popish Liturgy. This of course is an idle calumny. But is there not certainly a distinction of doctrine and manner between the Liturgy and the Articles? And does not what I have just stated account for it — viz., that the Liturgy, as coming down from the Apostles, is the depository of their complete teaching; while the Articles are polemical, and except as they embody the creeds, are only protests against certain definite errors? Such are my views about the Articles; and if in my teaching, I lay especially stress upon doctrines only
VIA MEDIA. 167
indirectly contained in them, and say loss about those which are therein put forth most prominently, it is because times are chang-ed. We are in danger of un- belief more than of superstition. The Christian minister should be a witness against the errors of his day.
L. I cannot tell whether on consideration I shall agree with you or not. However, after all, you have said not a word to explain what your real differences from Popery are ; what those false doctrines were which you conceive our Reformers withstood. You began by confessing that your opinions and the Popish opinions had a resemblance, and only disputed whether yours should be called like the Popish, or the Popish like yours. But in what are yours different from Rome?
C Be assured of this — no party will be more op- posed to our doctrine, if it ever prospers and makes noise, than the Roman party. This has been proved before now. In the seventeenth century the theology of the divines of the English Church was substantially the same as ours is; and it experienced the full hostility of the Papacy. It was the true Via Media; Rome sought to block up that way as fiercely as the Puritans. History tells us this. Did I not fear to incur the guilt of railing against other branches of Christ's Church, I would, before we separated, attempt a few words in explanation of my irreconcilable differences with the system of Rome, as it is; but, on the whole, I feel it better to stop at the point to which we have come.
Z. Thank you for this conversation ; from which I hope to draw matter for reflection, though the subject seems to involve such deep historical research, I hardly know how to find my way through it.
Oxford, • The Feast of St. James [/uly 2StA, 1834].
[Hy J. H. Nkwman.]
TRACT XLI. VIA MEDIA.
No. II.
Laiciis. I am come for some further conversation with you ; or rather, for another exposition of your views on Church matters. I am not well read enough to argue with you; nor, on the other hand, do I profess to admit all 30U say: but I want, if you will let me, to get at your opinions. So will you lecture if I give the subjects ?
Clericus. To lecture, as you call it, is quite beyond me, since at best I have but a smattering of reading in Church history. The more's the pity; though I have as much as a great many others: for ignorance of our historical position as Churchmen is one of the especial evils of the day. Yet even with a little knowledge, I am able to see certain facts which seem quite inconsis- tent with notions at present received. For my practice, I should be ashamed of myself if I guided it by any theories. Here the letter and spirit of the Liturgy is my direction, as it is of all classes of Churchmen, high and low. Yet, though I do not lay a great stress on such views as I gather from history, it is to my mind a strong confirmation of them, that they just account for and illustrate the conclusions to which I am led by plain obedience to my ordination vows.
L. If you onl}' wish to keep to the Liturgy, not to change, what did you mean the other day by those
VIA MEDIA. 169
ominous words, in which you sug-gested the need of a second Reformation ?
C. Because I think the Church has in a measure forgotten its own principles, as declared in the sixteenth century; nay, under stranger circumstances, as far as I know, than have attended any of the errors and corruptions of the Papists. Grievous as are their declensions from primitive usage, I never heard in any case of their practice directly contradicting" their Services; — whereas we go on lamenting once a year the absence of discipline in our Church, yet do not even dream of taking anyone step towards its restoration. Again, we confess in the Articles that excommunication is a solemn duty of the Church under certain circumstances, and that the excommunicated person must be openly recon- ciled by penance, before he is acknowledged by the faithful as a brother; yet excommunication, I am told, is now a civil process, which takes place as a matter of course, at a certain stage of certain law proceedings. Here a reformation is needed.
L. Only of discipline, not of doctrine.
C. Again, when the Church, with an unprecedented confidence, bound herself hand and foot, and made herself over to the civil power, in order to escape the Pope, she did not expect that infidels (as it has lately been hinted) would be suffered to have the absolute disposal of the crown patronage.
L. This, again, might be considered matter of discip- line. Our Reformation in the sixteenth century was one in matters oi faith: and therefore we do not need a second Reformation in the same sense in which we needed it first.
C. In what points would you say the ChurcWs fiit/i was reformed in the sixteenth century?
L. Take the then received belief in purgatory and pardons, which alone was a sufficient corruption to call for a reformation.
('. I conceive the presumption of the Popish doctrine
I70 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
on these points to lie in adding to the means of salvation set forth in Scripture. Almighty God has said His Son's merits shall wash away all sin, and that they shall be conveyed to believers through the two Sacraments; whereas, the Church of Rome has added other ways of gaining heaven.
L. Granted. The belief in purgatory and pardons disparages the sufficiency, first of Christ's merits, next of His appointed sacraments.
C. And by "received" belief, I suppose you mean that it was the popular belief, which clergy and laity acted on, not that it was necessarily contained in any particular doctrinal formulary.
L. Proceed.
C. Do you not suppose that there are multitudes both among clergy and laity at the present day who dispar- age, not indeed Christ's merits, but the Sacraments He has appointed? and if so, is not their error so far the same in kind as that of the Romish Church — the preferring Abana and Pharpar to the waters of Jordan ? Take the Sacrament of Baptism. Have not some denominations of schismatics invented ?^ rite of dedication instead of Baptism ? and do not Churchmen find them- selves under the temptation of countenancing this Papist-like presumption ? — Again, there is a well-known sect which denies both Baptism and the Lord's Supper. A Churchman must believe its members to be altogether external to the fold of Christ. Whatever benevolent works they maj- be able to show, still, if we receive the Church's doctrine concerning the means "generally necessary to salvation," we must consider such persons to be mere heathens, except in knowledge. Now would there not be an outcry raised, as if I were uncharitable, did I refuse the rites of burial to such a one ?
Z. This censure would not proceed from the better informed, or the rulers of our Church.
C. Happily, we are not as yet so corrupted as at the era of the Reformation. Our Prelates are still sound,
VIA MEDIA. 171
and know the dift'erence between what is modern and what is ancient. Yet is not the mode of viewing- the subject I refer to, a i^nKvi)tg one ? and how does it differ from the presumption of the Papists ? In both cases, the power of Christ's Sacraments is denied ; in the one case by the unbelief of restlessness and fear, in the other by the unbelief of profaneness,
L. Well, supposing- I grant that the Church of this day is in a measure faulty in faith and discipline; more or less, of course, according to the diocese and neigh- bourhood. Now, in the next place, what do you mean by your Reformation ?
C. I would do what our reformers in the sixteenth century did: they did not touch the existing documents of doctrine — there was no occasion — they kept the creeds as they were; but they added protests against the corruptions of faith, worship, and discipline, which had grown up round them. I would have the Church do the same thing now, if I could: she should not change the Articles, she should add to them: add protests against the erastianism and latitudinarianism which have incrusted them. I would have her append to the Catechism a section on the power of the Church.
L. You have not mentioned any corruptions at present in ivorship ; do you consider that there are such, as well as errors of faith and discipline ?
C. Our Liturgy keeps us right in the main, yet there are what may be considered such, though for the most part occasional. To board over the altar of a Church, place an orchestra there of playhouse singers, and take money at the doors, seems to me as great an outrage as to sprinkle the forehead with holy water, and to carry lighted tapers in a procession.
L. Do not speak so harshly of what has often been done piously. George the Third was a patron of concerts in one of our Cathedrals.
i\ Far be it from my mind to dare to arraign the actions of that reliijious kine: ! The same deed is of a
172 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
different nature at different times and under different circumstances. Music in a Church may as reverentially subserve the feelings of devotion as pictures of archi- tecture ; but it may not.
L. You could not prevent such a desecration by adding- a fortieth article to the thirty-nine.
C. Not directly: yet though there is no article directly condemning religious processions, they have nevertheless been discontinued. In like manner, were an article framed (to speak by way of illustration) declaratory of the sanctity of places set apart to the worship of God and the reception of the saints that sleep, doubtless Churchmen would be saved from many profane feelings and practices of the day which they give into unawares, such as the holding vestries in Churches, the flocking to preachers rather than to sacraments (as if the servant were above the Master, who is Lord over His own house), the luxurious and fashionable fitting up of town Churches, the proposal to allow schismatics to hold their meetings in them, the off-hand project of pulling them down for the conveni- ence of streets and roads, and the wanton preference (for it frequently is wanton) of unconsecrated places, whether for preaching to the poor, or for administering sacred rites to the rich.
Z. It is visionary to talk of such a reformation: the people would not endure it.
(\ It is; but I am not advocating it, I am but raising a protest. I say this ought to be, "because of the angels,"^ but I do not hope to persuade others to think as I do.
L. I think I quite understand the ground you take. You consider that, as time goes on, fresh and fresh articles of faith are necessary to secure the Church's purit}', according to the rise of successive heresies and errors. These articles are all hidden, as it were, in the Church's bosom, from the first, and brought out into 1 I Cor. xi. lo.
VIA MKDIA. 173
form according- to the occasion. Such was the Nicene explanation against Arius; the English Articles against Popery: and such are those now called for in this Age of schism, to meet the new heresy, which denies the holy Catholic Church — the heresy of Hoadley, and others like him.
C. Ves — and let it never be forgotten that, whatever were the errors of the Convocation of our Church in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it expired in an attempt to brand the doctrines of Hoadley. May the day be merely delayed !
Z. I understand you further to say, that you hold to the Reformers as far as they have spoken out in our formularies, which at the same time you consider as incomplete; that the doctrines which may appear want- ing in the Articles, such as the Apostolical Commission, are the doctrines of the Church Catholic ; doctrines which a member of that Church holds as such, prior to subscription; that, moreover they are quite consistent with our Articles, sometimes are even implied in them, and sometimes clearly contained in the Liturgy, though not in the Articles, as the Apostolical Commission in the Ordination Service ; lastly, that we are clearly bound to believe, and all of us do believe, as essential, doctrines which nevertheless are not contained in the Articles, as e.g., the inspiration of Holy Scripture.
C. Ves — and further I maintain that, while I fully concur in the Articles, as far as they g^o, those who call one Papist, do not acquiesce in the doctrine of the Liturg)-.
Z. This is a subject I especially wish drawn out. Vou threw out some hints about it the other day, though I cannot say you convinced me. I have mis- g-ivings, after all, that our Reformers only began their own work. I do not say they saw the tendency and issue of their opinions; but surely, had they lived, and had the opportunity of doing more, they would have given into much more liberal notions (as they are
/
174 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
called) than you are disposed to concede. It is not by producing- a rubric, or an insulated passage from the services, that you can destroy this impression. Such instances only show they were inconsistent, which I will grant. Still, is not the genius of our formularies to- wards a more latitudinarian system than they reach ?
C. I will cheerfully meet you on the grounds you propose. Let us carefully examine the Liturgy in its separate parts. I think it will decide the point which I contended for the other day — viz., that we are more Protestant than our Reformers.
L. What do you mean by Protestant in your present use of the word ?
C. A number of distinct doctrines are included in the notion of Protestantism: and as to all these, our Church has taken the Via Media between it and Popery. At present I will use it in the sense most apposite to the topics we have been discussing — viz., as the religion of so- called freedom and independence, as hating superstition, suspicious of forms, jealous of priestcraft, advocating heart-worship; characteristics which admit- of a good or a bad interpretation, but which, understood as they are instanced in the majority of persons who are zealous for what is called Protestant doctrine, are (I maintain) very inconsistent with the Liturgy of our Church. Now let us begin with the Confirmation Service.
L. Will not the Baptismal be more to your purpose ? In it regeneration is connected with the formal act of sprinkling a little water on the forehead of an infant.
C. It is true; but I would rather show the general spirit of the Services, than take those obvious instances which, it seems, you can find out for yourself. Is it not certain that a modern Protestant, even though he granted that children were regenerated in Baptism, would, in the Confirmation Service, have inserted some address to them about the necessity of spiritual renova- tion, of becoming new creatures, etc.? I do not say such warning has not its appropriateness; nor do I
VIA MEDIA. 175
propose to account for our Church's not t^ivin<^ it; but is it not quite certain that the present prcvuifiiii^ temper in the Church would have given it, judg-in*; from the prayers and sermons of the day, and that the Liturgy does not ? Were that day like this, would it not have been deemed formal and cold, and to argue a want of spiritual-mindedness, to have proposed a declaration, such as has been actually adopted, that "to the end that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it . . . none hereafter shall be confirmed but such as can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments," etc.; nothing being said of a change of heart, or spiritual affections ? And yet, upon this mere external profession, the children receive the imposition of the Bishop's hands, "to certify th^m by this sign, of God's favour and gracious goodness towards them."
L. From the line you are adopting, I see you will find Services more Anti-Protestant (in the modern sense of Protestant) than that for Confirmation.
C. Take, again, the Catechism. What can be more technical and formal (as the persons I speak of would say) than the division of our duties into our duty to- wards God and our duty towards our neighbour? In- deed, would not the very word duty be objected to by them, as obscuring the evangelical character of Christianity? Why is there no mention oi newness of heart, of appropriating the mercies of redemption, and such-like phrases, which are now common among so-called Protestants ? Why no mention of justifying faith ?
Z. F'aith is mentioned in an earlier part of the Catechism.
C. Yes, and it affords a remarkable contrast to the modern use of the word. Nowadays, the promineut notion conveyed by it regards its properties, whether spiritual or not, warm, heart-felt, vital. But in the Catechism, the prominent notion is that of its object^
176 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
the believing- "«// the Articles of the Christian faith," according to the Apostle's declaration, that it is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
L. I understand ; and the Creed is also introduced into the service for Baptism.
C. And still more remarkably into the Order for Visiting the Sick: more remarkably, both because of the season when it is introduced, when a Christian is drawings near his end, and also as being a preparation for the Absolution. Most comfortable, truly, in his last hour, is such a distinct rehearsal of the great truths on which the Christian has fed by faith, with thanksgiving all his life long; yet it surely would not have suggested itself to a modern Protestant. He would rather have instituted J some more searching- examination (as he would call it) of the state of the sick man's heart ; whereas the whole of the minister's exhortation is what the modern school calls cold and formal. It ends thus: — "I require you to examine yourself and your estate, both toward God and man ; so that, accusing and condemning yourself for your own faults, you may find mercy at our heavenly Father's hand for Christ's sake, and not be accused and condemned in that fearful judgment. Therefore, I shall rehearse to you the Articles of our Faith, that you may kntna whether you believe as a Christian man should^ or no.^^
L. You observe the R.ubric which follows : it speaks of a further examination.
C. True ; still it is what would now be called formal and external.
L. Yet it mentions a great number of topics for examination: — "Whether he repent him truly of his sins, and be in charity with all the world; exhorting him to forgive, from the bottom of his heart, all persons that have offended him; and, if he hath offended any other, to ask them forgiveness; and where he hath done injury or wrong to any man, that he make amends
VIA MEDIA. 177
to the uttermost of his power. And, if he hath not before disposed of his ^oods, let him llieii be admonished to make liis will, and to declare his debts, what he oweth, and what is owing- to him; for the better dis- charg-ing- of his conscience, and the quietness of his executors. Here is an exhortation to repentance, charity, forgiveness of injuries, humbleness of mind, honesty, and justice. What could be added?
6'. Vou will be told that worldly and spiritual matters are mixed together; and, besides, not a word said of looking to Christ, resting on Him, and renovation of heart. Such are the expressions which modern Pro- testantism would have considered necessary, and w^ould have inserted as such. They are good words; still they are not those which our Church considers the words for a sick-bed exiwiimition. She does not give them the prominence which is now given them. She adopts a manner of address which savours of what is now called formality. That our Church was no stranger to the more solemn kind of language which persons now use on every occasion, is evident from the prayer "for a sick person, when there appeareth small hope of recovery," and "the commendatory prayer"; still she adopts the other as her ordinary manner.
L. I can corroborate what you just now observed about the Creed, by what I lately read in some book or books, advocating a revision of the Liturgy. It was vehemently objected to the Apostles' Creed, that it contained no confession of the doctrine of the atone- ment, nor (I think) of original sin !
C. It is well to see persons consistent. When they go full lengths, they startle others, and, perhaps (please God), themselves. Indeed, I wish men would stop a while, and seriously reflect whether the mere verbal opposition which exists between their own languag^e and the language of the Services (to say nothing of the difference of spirit), is not a sort of warning to them, if they would take it, against inconsiderately proceeding
173 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
in their present course. But nothing" is more rare at this day than quiet thought. Every one is in a bustle, being bent to do a g-reat deal. We preach, and run from house to house; we do not pray or meditate. But to return. Next, consider the first exhortation to the Communion: would it not be called, if I said it in discourse of my own, "dark, cold, and formal"? " The way and means thereto [to receive worthily] is, — First, to examine your lives and conversations by the rule of God's Cotnmandmejits, etc. . . . Therefore, if any of you be a blasphemer of God, a hitiderer or slanderer of His word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins," etc. Now this is what is called, in some quarters, by a great abuse of terms, " mere morality."
Z. If I understand you, the Liturg}^, all along, speaks of the Gospel dispensation, under which it is our blessedness to live, as being, at the same time, a moral laiv; that this is its prominent view; and that external observances and definite acts of duty are made the means and the tests of faith.
C. Yes ; and that, in thus speaking, it runs quite counter to the innovating spirit of this day, which proceeds rashly forward on large and general views, — sweeps along, with one or two prominent doctrines, to the comparative neglect of the details of duty, and drops articles of faith and positive and ceremonial observances, as beneath the attention of a spiritual Christian, as monastic and superstitious, as forms, as minor points, as technical, lip-worship, narrow-minded, and big"oted. — Next, consider the wording of one part of the Commination Service: — "He was wounded for our offences, and smitten for our wickedness. Let us, therefore, return unto Him, who is the merciful receiver of all true penitent sinners ; assuring ourselves that He is ready to receive us, and most willing to pardon us, if we come unto Him with faithful repentance; if we will submit ourselves unto Him, and from Jienceforth
VIA MEDIA. 179
ivalk in His ways; If we will take Ilis easy yoke and light burden upon us, to follow Him in /o7v/iness, patienee, and charity, and be ordered by the gfovernance of His Holy Spirit; seeking- always His glory, and serving Him duly in our vocation with thanksgiving': This {five do, Christ will deliver us from the curse of the law," etc. Did another say this, he would be accused by the Protestant of this day of interfering with the doctrine of justification by faith.
L. You have not spoken of the daily service of the Church or of the Litany.
C. I should have more remarks to make than I like to trouble you with. First, I should observe on the absence of what are now called, exclusively^ the great Protestant doctrines, or, at least, of the modes of expression in which it is at present the fashion to con- vey them. For instance, the Collects are summaries of doctrine, yet I believe they do not once mention what has sometimes been called the articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae. This proves to me that, true and important as this doctrine is in a controversial state- ment, its direct mention is not so apposite in devotional and practical subjects as modern Protestants of our Church would consider it. Next, consider the general Confession, which prays simply that God would grant us "hereafter to live a godly, righteous, and sober life." Righteous and sober! alas! this is the very sort of words which Protestants consider superficial; good, as far as they go, but nothing more. In like manner, the priest, in the Absolution, bids us pray God "that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy." But I have given instances enough to explain my meaning about the Services generally : you can con- tinue the examination for yourself. I will direct your notice to but one instance more, — the Introduction of the Psalms into the Daily Service. Do you think a modern Protestant would have introduced them into it?
16
i8o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Z. They are inspired ?
C. Yes, but they are also what is called Jewish. I do certainly think, I cannot doubt, that had the Liturgy been compiled in a day like this, but a selection of them, at most, would have been inserted in it, though they were all used in the primitive worship from the very first. Do we not hear objections to using them in singing, and a wish to substitute hymns? Is not this a proof what judgment would have been passed on their introduction into the Service, by reformers of the nineteenth century ? First, the imprecatory Psalms, as they are called, would have been set aside, of course.
L. Yes; I cannot doubt it; though some of them, at least, are prophetic, and expressly ascribed in the New Testament to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
C. And surely numerous other passages would have been pronounced unsuitable to the spiritual faith of a Christian. I mean all such as speak of our being rewarded according to the cleanness of our hands, and of our walking innocently, and of the Lord's doing well to those that are good and true of heart. Indeed, this doctrine is so much the characteristic of that heavenly book, that I hardly see any part of it could have been retained but what is clearly predictive of the Messiah.
L. I shall now take my leave, with many thanks, and will think over what you have said. However, have you not been labouring superfluously? We know all along that the Piiritans of Hooker's time did object to the Prayer Book: there was no need of proving that.
C. I am not speaking of those who would admit they were Puritans ; but of that arrogant Protestant spirit (so called) of the day, in and out of the Church (if it is possible to say what is in and what is out), which thinks it takes bold and large views, and would fain ride over the superstitions and formalities which it thinks it sees in those who (I maintain) hold to the old Catholic faith;
VIA MEDIA. i8i
and, as seeing that tliis spirit is coming" on apace, I cry out betimes, whatever comes of it, that corruptions are pouring in, which, sooner or later, will need a second Rcfonntition.
Oxford,
The Feast of St. Bartholomew \^Au^ut i^th, 1S34]. [By J. H. Newman.]
ADVERTISEMENT TO VOLUME II.
In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to a change which has taken place in them since the date of its commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged in ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent peril to which all that is dear to them has since been exposed has naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward on its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on points which had long remained undisturbed; and, though numbers continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two main theories in which the question issues, and others, again, have deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-protestant alternative, yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and in- telligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the efforts of those who desire to excite attention to the subject (in which num- ber the writers of these Tracts are to be included), it will not be inappropriate briefly to state in this place what it is conceived is the present position of the great body of Churchmen with reference to it.
While we have cause to be thankful for the sounder
ADVERTISEMENT TO VOLUME II. 183
and more accurate language which is now very generally adopted among well-judging men on ecclesiastical sub- jects, we must beware of over-estimating what has been done, and so becoming sanguine in our hopes of success, or slackening our exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, namely, of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter into it. This is to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all religious teaching that words are imparted before ideas. A child learns his Creed or Catechism before he under- stands it ; and in beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, X.\\q prhiia facie force of the argument, or the authority of our celebrated writers, have all had their due and extensive influence in furthering the reception of the doctrine, when once it was openly maintained; to which must be added the prospect of the loss of State protection, which made it necessary to look out for other reasons for adherence to the Church besides that of obedience to the civil magistrate. Nothing, which has spread quickly, has been received thoroughly. Doubtless there are a num- ber of seriously-minded persons who think they admit the doctrine in question much more fully than they do, and who would be startled at seeing that realised in particulars which they confess in an abstract form. Many there are who do not at all feel that it is capable of a practical application: and, while they bring it forward on special occasions, in formal expositions of faith, or in answer to a direct interrogatory, let it slip from their minds almost entirely in their daily conduct or their religious teaching, from the long and inveterate habit of thinking and acting without it. We must not then at all be surprised at finding that to modify the principles and motives on which men act is not the work of a day; nor at undergoing disappointments, at wit- nessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden disgusts, and.
1 84 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with greater warmth than discernment.
And in the next place, it will be found that much more has been done in awakening Churchmen to the truth of the Apostolical Commission as a fact, and to the admission of it as a duty, than to the enjoyment of it as a privilege. If asked what is the use of adhering to the Church, they will commonly answer, that it is commanded that all acts of obedience meet with their reward from Almighty God, and this in the number; but the notion of the Church as the storehouse and direct channel of grace, as a Divine Ordinance, not merely to be maintained for order's sake, or because schism is a sin, but to be approached joyfully and expectantly as a definite instrument, or rather the appointed means, of spiritual blessings — as an Ordinance which conveys secret strength and life to every one who shares it, unless there be some actual moral impediment in his own mind — this is a doctrine which as yet is but faintly understood among us. Nay, our subtle Enemy has so contrived, that by affixing to this blessed truth the stigma of Popery, numbers among us are effectually deterred from profiting by a gracious provision, in- tended for the comfort of our faith, but in their case wasted.
The particular deficiency here alluded to may also be described by referring to another form under which it shows itself — viz., the a priori reluctance in those who believe the Apostolical Commission to appropriate to it the power of consecrating the Lord's Supper; as if there were some antecedent iinprobability in God's gifts being lodged in particular observances, and distributed in a particular way; and as if the strong wish, or moral worth, of the individual could create in the outward ceremony a virtue which it had not received from above. Rationalistic, or (as they may be more properly called) carnal notions concerning the Sacraments, and, on the
ADVERTISEMENT TO VOLUME II. 185
other hand, a superstitious apprehension of resting in them, and a slowness to beheve the possibihty of God's having" hterally blessed ordinances with invisible power, have, alas ! infected a large mass of men in our com- munion. There are those whose "word will eat as doth a canker"; and it is to be feared that we have been over-near certain celebrated Protestant teachers, Puritan or Latitudinarian, and have suffered in conse- quence. Hence we have almost embraced the doctrine that God conveys grace only through the instrumentality of the mental energies — that is, through faith, prayer, active spiritual contemplations, or (what is commonly called) communion with God, in contradiction to the primitive view, according to which the Church and her Sacraments are the ordained and direct visible means of conveying to the soul what is in itself supernatural and unseen. For example, would not most men maintain, on the first view of the subject, that to administer the Lord's Supper to infants, or to the dying and apparently insensible, however consistently pious and believing in their past lives, must be, under all circumstances, and in every conceivable case, a superstition? and yet neither practice is without the sanction of primitive usage. And does not this account for the prevailing indisposition to admit that Baptism conveys regenera- tion ? Indeed, this may even be set down as the essence of Sectarian Doctrine (however its mischief may be restrained or compensated, in the case of individuals), to consider faith, and not the Sacraments, as the proper instrument of justification and other gospel gifts; instead of holding that the grace of Christ comes to us alto- gether from without (as from Him, so through externals of His ordaining), faith being but the sine qua non, the necessary condition on our parts for duly receiving it.
It has been with the view of meeting this cardinal deficiency (as it may be termed) in the religion of the day, that the Tract on Baptism, contained in the latter part of this volume, has been inserted; which is to be
i86 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
reg-arded, not as an inquiry into one single or isolated doctrine, but as a delineation, and serious examination of a modern system of theology, of extensive popularity and great speciousness, in its elementary and character- istic principles.
Oxford,
The Feast of All Saints November \st\ 1835.
TRACT XC.
REMARKS ON CERTAIN PASSAGES IN THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES.
[The alterations in Editions subsequent to the first are put in brackets.]
Introduction.
It is often urged, and sometimes felt and granted, that there are in the Articles propositions or terms incon- sistent with the CathoHc faith ; or, at least, when persons do not go so far as to feel the objection as of force, the}' are perplexed how best to reply to it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how groundless the objection is, and further of approximating towards the argumenta- tive answer to it, of which most men have an implicit apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the Ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day, no one can deny ; but the statements of the Articles are not in the number; and it m^^ be right at the present moment to insist upon this. If in any quarter it is supposed that persons who profess to be disciples of the early Church will silently concur with those of very opposite sentiments in furthering a relaxation of sub- scriptions which, it is imagined, are galling to both parties, though for different reasons, and that they will do this against the wish of the great body of the
i88 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Church, the writer of the following pages would raise one voice, at least, in protest against any such anti- cipation. Even in such points as he may think the English Church deficient, never can he, without a great alteration of sentiment, be party to forcing the opinion or project of one school upon another. Religious changes, to be beneficial, should be the act of the whole body ; they are worth little if they are the mere act of a majority.^ No good can come of any change which is not heartfelt, a development of feelings spring- ing up freely and calmly within the bosom of the whole body itself. Moreover, a change in theological teach- ing involves either the commission or the confession of sin; it is either the profession or renunciation of erroneous doctrine, and if it does not succeed in proving the fact of past guilt, it, ipso facto ^ implies present. In other words, every change in religion carries with it its own condemnation, which is not attended by deep repentance. Even supposing then that any changes in contemplation, whatever they were, were good in them- selves, they would cease to be good to a Church in which they were the fruits not of the quiet conviction of all, but of the agitation, or tyranny, or intrigue of a few; nurtured not in mutual love, but in strife and env3ing; perfected not in humiliation and grief, but in pride, elation, and triumph. Moreover it is a very serious truth, that persons and bodies who put them- selves into a disadvantageous state, cannot at their pleasure extricate themselves from it. They are un- worthy of it; they are in prison, and Christ is the keeper. There is but one way towards a real reforma- tion,— a return to Him in heart and spirit, whose sacred truth they have betrayed ; all other methods, however fair they may promise, will prove to be but shadows and failures.
' This is not meant to hinder acts of Catholic consent, such as occurred anciently, when the Catholic body aids one portion of a particular Church against another portion.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 189
On these grounds, were there no others, the present writer, for one, will be no party to the ordinary political methods by which professed reforms are carried or com- passed in this day. We can do nothing well till we act "with one accord"; we can have no accord in action till we agree together in heart; we cannot agree with- out a supernatural influence ; we cannot have a super- natural influence unless we pray for it; we cannot pray acceptably without repentance and confession. Our Church's strength would be irresistible, humanly speak- ing, were it but at unitv with itself: if it remains divided, part against part, we shall see the energy which was meant to subdue the world preying upon itself, according to our Saviour's express assurance, that such a house "cannot stand." Till we feel this, till we seek one another as brethren, not lightly throw- ing aside our private opinions which we seem to feel we have received from above, from an ill-regulated, untrue desire of unity, but returning to each other in heart, and coming together to God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, no change can be for the better. Till [we her children] are stirred up to this religious course, let the Church^ [our Mother] sit still ; let [us] be content to be in bondage : let [us] work in chains ; let [us] submit to [our] imperfections as a punishment; let [us] go on teaching [through the medium of indeterminate state- ments]- and inconsistent precedents, and principles but partially developed. We are not better than our fathers ; let us bear to be what Hammond was, or Andrews, or Hooker; let us not faint under that body of death,
^ "Let the Church sit still; let her he content to be in bondage," etc. — 1st edition. [The author has lately heard that these words have been taken as spoken in an insulting and reproachful tone; he meant them in the sense of the lines in the Lyra Apostolica —
" Bide thou thy time ! Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime ; Sit in the gate and be the heathen's jest, Smiling and self-possest," etc.] - " With the stammering lips." — 1st edition.
I90 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
which they bore about in patience : nor shrink from the penalty of sins, which they inherited from the age before them.^
But these remarks are beyond our present scope, which is merely to show that, while our Prayer Book is acknowledged on all hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also, the offspring of an uncatholic age, are, through God's good providence, to say the least, not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being catholic in heart and doctrine. In entering upon the proposed examination, it is only necessary to add, that in several places the writer has found it convenient to express himself in language recently used, which he is willing altogether to make his own.- He has dis- tinguished the passages introduced by quotation marks.
§ I. — Holy Scripture and the Authority of the Church.
Articles vi. and xx. — " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. . , . The Church hath [power to decree (statuendi) rites and ceremonies, and] authority in con- troversies of faith ; and yet it is not lawful for the Church to [ordain (instituere) anything that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it] so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet [as it ought not to decree (decernere) anything against the same, so] besides the
' " We, thy sinful creatures," says the Service for King Charles the Martyr, " liere assembled before Thee, do, in behalf of all the people of this land, humbly confess, that they were the crying sins of this nation, which brought down this judgment upon us " — i.e. King Charles's murder.
- [The passages quoted arc the author's own writing on other occasions. ]
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 191
same, ought it not to enforce (obtrudere) anything- to be beheved for necessity of salvation."^
Two instruments of Christian teaching are spoken of in these Articles — Holy Scripture and the Church.
Here then we have to inquire, first, what is meant by Holy Scripture; next, what is meant by the Church; and then, what their respective offices are in teaching revealed truth, and how these are adjusted with one another in their actual exercise.
1. Now, what the Church is, will be considered below in Section 4.
2. And the Books of Holy Scripture are enumerated in the latter part of the Article, so as to preclude question. Still two points deserve notice here.
First, the Scriptures or Canonical Books are said to be those "of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." Here it is not meant that there never was any doubt in portions of the Church or particular Churches concerning certain books, which the Article includes in the Canon; for some of them, — as, for instance, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse — have been the subject of much doubt in the West or East, as the case may be. But the Article asserts that there has been no doubt about them in the Church Catholic; that is, at the very first time that the Catholic or whole Church had the opportunity of forming a judgment on the subject, it pronounced in favour of the Canonical Books. The Epistle to the Hebrews was doubted by the West, and the Apocalypse by the East, only while those portions of the Church investigated separately from each other, only till they compared notes, interchanged sentiments, and formed a united judgment. The phrase must mean this, because, from the nature of the case, it can mean nothing else.
^ The passages in brackets relate to rites and ceremonies, which are not here in question. [From brackets marking the Second Edition, must be excepted those which occur in quotations.]
192 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
And next, be it observed that the books which are commonly called Apocrypha, are not asserted in this Article to be destitute of inspiration or to be simply human, but to be not canonical ; in other words, to differ from Canonical Scripture, specially in this respect — viz., that they are not adducible in proof of doctrine. "The other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." That this is the limit to which our disparagement of them extends is plain, not only because the Article mentions nothing beyond it, but also from the rever- ential manner in which the Homilies speak of them, as shall be incidentally shown in Section ii. [The com- patibility of such reverence with such disparagement is also shown from the feeling towards them of St. Jerome, who is quoted in the Article, who implies more or less their inferiority to Canonical Scripture, yet uses them freely and continually, as if Scripture. He distinctly names many of the books which he considers not canonical, and virtually names them all by naming what are canonical. For instance, he says, speaking of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, "As the Church reads Judith, Tobi, and the Maccabees, without receiving them among the Canonical Scriptures, so she reads these two books for the edification of the people, not for the confirmation of the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines." {Prcef. in Libr. Satom.) Again, "The Wisdom, as it is commonly st\-led, of Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd, are not in the Canon." {Pra/. ad Reges.) Such is the language of a writer who never- theless is, to say the least, not wanting in reverence towards the books he thus disparages.]
A further question may be asked concerning our received version of the Scriptures, whether it is in any sense imposed on us as a true comment on the original text; as the Vulgate is upon the Roman Catholics. It
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 193
would appear not. It was made and authorised by royal command, which cannot be supposed to have any claim upon our interior consent. At the same time every one who reads it in the Services of the Church, does, of course, thereby imply that he considers that it contains no deadly heresy or dangerous mistake. And about its simplicity, majesty, gravity, harmony, and venerableness there can be but one opinion.
3. Next we come to the main point, the adjustment which this Article effects between the respective offices of the Scripture and Church: which seems to be as follows : —
It is laid down that, (i) Scripture contains all neces- sary articles of the faith; (2) either in its text, or by inference; (3) the Church is the keeper of Scripture; (4) and a witness of it; (5) and has authority in contro- versies of faith ; (6) but may not expound one passage of Scripture to contradict another; (7) nor enforce as an article of faith any point not contained in Scripture,
From this it appears, first, that the Church expounds and enforces the faith; for it is forbidden to expound in a particular way, or so to enforce as to obtrude ; next, that it derives the faith wholly fro?n Scripture; thirdly, that its office is to educe an harmonious interpretation of Scripture. Thus much the Article settles.
Two important questions, however, it does not settle — namely, whether the Church judges, first, at her sole discretion^ next, on her sole responsibility ; — i.e. first, what the media are by which the Church interprets Scripture, whether by a direct divine gift, or catholic tradition, or critical exegesis of the text, or in any other way; and next, who is to decide whether it inter- prets Scripture rightly or not; — what is her method, if any? and who is her judge, if any? In other words, not a word is said, on the one hand, \n favour of Scrip- ture having no rule or method to fix interpretation by, or, as it is commonly expressed, being the sole rule of faith; nor on the other, of the private judgtnent of the
194 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
individual being the ultimate standard of interpretation. So much has been said lately on both these points, and indeed on the whole subject of these two Articles, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon them; but since it is often supposed to be almost a first principle of our Church that Scripture is " the rule of faith," it may be well, before passing on, to make an extract from a paper, published some years since, which shows, by instances from our divines, that the application of the phrase to Scripture is but of recent adoption. The other question, about the ultimate judge of the inter- pretation of Scripture, shall not be entered upon.
" We may dispense with the phrase ' Rule of Faith,' as applied to Scripture, on the ground of its being ambiguous; and, again, because it is then used in a novel sense; for the ancient Church made the Apostolic Tradition, as summed up in the Creed, and not the Bible, the Regiila Fidei, or Rule. Moreover, its use as a technical phrase seems to be of late introduction in the Church — that is, since the days of King William the Third. Our great divines use it without any fixed sense, sometimes for Scripture, sometimes for the whole and perfectly-adjusted Christian doctrine, sometimes for the Creed; and, at the risk of being tedious, we will prove this, by quotations, that the point may be put beyond dispute.
" Ussher, after St. Austin, identifies it with the Creed; — when speaking of the Article of our Lord's Descent to Hell, he says —
" ' It having here likewise been further manifested, what different opinions have been entertained by the ancient Doctors of the Church, concerning the determinate place wherein our Saviour's soul did remain during the time of the separation of it from the body, I leave it to be considered by the learned, whether any such controverted matter may fitly be brought in to expound the Rule of Faith, which, being common both to the great and small ones of the Church, must contain such varieties only as are generally agreed upon by the common consent of all true Christians.' — A?is-ci>ertoaJesuif,Tp. 362.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 195
"Taylor speaks to the same purpose: 'Let us see with what constancy that and the following ages of the Church did adhere to the Apostles' Creed, as the suffi- cient and perfect Rule of Faith.'' — Dissuasive, part 2, i. 4, p. 450. Elsewhere he calls Scripture the Rule: 'That the Scripture is a full and sufficient Rule to Christians in faith and manners, a full and perfect declaration of the Will of God, is therefore certain, because we have no other.' — Ibid., part 2, i. 2, p. 384. Elsewhere, Scrip- ture and the Creed: ' He hath, by His wise Providence, preserved the plain places of Scripture and the Apostles' Creed, in all Churches, to be the Rule and Measure of Faith, by which all Churches are saved.' — Ibid., part 2, i. I, p. 346. Elsewhere he identifies it with Scripture, the Creeds, and the first four Councils: ' We also [after Scripture] do believe the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene, with the additions of Constantinople, and that which is commonly called the symbol of St. Athanasius; and the first four General Councils are so entirely admitted by us, that they, together with the plain words of Scrip- ture, are made the Rule and Measure of judging heresies among us.' — Ibid., part i, i. p. 131.
"Laud calls the Creed, or rather the Creed with Scripture, the Rule: ' Since the Fathers made the Creed the Rule of Faith; since the agreeing sense of Scripture with those Articles are the Z'wo Regular Precepts, by which a divine is governed about his faith,' etc. — Conference imth Fisher, p. 42.
" Bramhall also: 'The Scripture and the Creed are not two different Rules of Faith, but one and the same Rule, dilated in Scripture, contracted in the Creed.' — Works, p. 402. Stillingfleet says the same {Grounds, i. 4, 3); as does Thorndike {De Rat. fin. Controv., p. 144, etc.). Elsewhere, Stillingfleet calls Scripture the Rule {Ibid., \. 6, 2); as does Jackson (vol. i. p. 226). But the most complete and decisive statement on the subject is contained in Field's work on the Church, from which shall follow a long extract: —
17
196 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
"'It remained to show,' he says, 'what is the rule of that judgment whereby the Church discerneth between truth and falsehood, the faith and heresy, and to whom it properly per- taineth to interpret those things which, touching this Rule, are doubtful. The Rule of our Faith in general, whereby we know it to be true, is the infinite excellency of God. ... It being pre- supposed in the generality that the doctrine of the Christian Faith is of God, and containeth nothing but heavenly truth, in the next place, we are to inquire by what Rule we are to judge of particular things contained within the compass of it.
'"This Rule is, i. The summary comprehension of such prin- cipal articles of this divine knowledge, as are the principles whence all other things are concluded and inferred. These are contained in the O'ccd of the Apostles.
" ' 2. All such things as every Christian is bound expressly to believe, by the light and direction whereof he judgeth of other things, which are not absolutely necessary so particularly to be known. These are rightly said to be the Rule of our Faith, because the principles of every science are the Rule whereby we judge of the truth of all things, as being better and more generally known than any other thing, and the cause of knowing them.
"'3. The analogy, due proportion, and correspondence that one thing in this divine knowledge hath with another, so that men cannot err in one of them without erring in another; nor rightly understand one, but they must likewise rightly conceive the rest.
" ' 4. Whatsoever Books were delivered unto us, as written by them, to whom the first and immediate revelation of the divine truth was made.
" ' 5. Whatsoever hath been delivered by all the saints with one consent, which have left their judgment and opinion in writing.
"'6. Whatsoever the most famous have constantly and uni- formly delivered as a matter of faith, no one contradicting, though many other ecclesiastical writers be silent, and say nothing of it.
"'7. That which the most, and most famous in every age constantly delivered as a matter of faith, and as received of hem that went before them, in such sort that the contradictors and gainsayers were in their beginnings noted for singularity, novelty, and division, and afterwards, in process of time, if they persisted in such contradiction, charged with heresy.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 197
" 'These three latter Rules of our Faith we admit, not because they are equal with the former, and originally in themselves contain the direction of our Faith, but because nothing can be delivered, with such and so full consent of the people of God, as in them is expressed; but it must need be from those first authors and founders of our Christian profession. The Roman- ists add unto these the decrees of Councils and determination of Popes, making these also to be the Rules of Faith; but because we have no proof of their infallibility, we number them not with the rest.
" ' Thus we see how many things, in several degrees and sorts, are said to be Rules of our Faith. The infinite excellency of God, as that whereby the truth of the heavenly doctrine is proved. The Articles of Faith, and other verities ever expressly known in the Church as the first principles, are the Canon by which we judge of conclusions from thence inferred. The Scripture, as containing in it all that doctrine of Faith which Christ the Son of God delivered. The uniform practice and consenting judgment of them that went before us, as a certain and undoubted explication of the things contained in the Scrip- ture. ... So, then, we do not make Scripture the Rule of our Faith, but thai other things in their kind are Rules likewise; in such sort that // is not safe, without respect had unto them, to judge things by the Scripture alone,' etc. — iv. 14, pp. 364, 365.
' ' These extracts show not only what the Anglican doctrine is, but, in particular, that the phrase ' Rule of Faith ' is no symbolical expression with us, appro- priated to some one sense; certainly not as a definition or attribute of Holy Scripture. And it is important to insist upon this, from the very great misconceptions to which the phrase gives rise. Perhaps its use had better be avoided altogether. In the sense in which it is com- monly understood at this day, Scripture, it is plain, is not, on Anglican principles, the Rule of Faith."
§ 2. — -Justification by Faith only.
Article xi. — " That we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine."
198 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
The Homilies add that Faith is the sole means, the sole instrument of justification. Now, to show briefly what such statements imply, and what they do not.
I. They do not imply a denial of Baptism as a means and an instrument of justification ; which the Homilies elsewhere affirm, as will be shown incidentally in a later section.
"The instrumental power of Faith cannot interfere with the instrumental power of Baptism; because Faith is the sole justifier, not in contrast to all means and agencies whatever (for it is not surely in contrast to our Lord's merits, or God's mercy), but to all oXhQV graces. Well, then, Faith is called the sole instrument, this means the sole internal instrument, not the sole instru- ment of any kind.
"There is nothing' inconsistent, then, in Faith being the sole instrument of justification, and yet Baptism also the sole instrument, and that at the same time, because in distinct senses; an inward instrument in no way interfering with an outward instrument, Baptism may be the hand of the giver, and Faith the hand of the receiver."
Nor does the sole instrumentality of Faith interfere with the doctrine of Works being a mean also. And that it is a mean, the Homily of Alms-deeds declares in the strongest language, as will also be quoted in Section 1 1.
"An assent to the doctrine that Faith alone justifies, does not at all preclude the doctrine of Works justifying also. If, indeed, it were said that Works justify in the same sense as Faith only justifies, this would be a con- tradiction in terms; but Faith only may justify in one sense — Good Works in another: — and this is all that is here maintained. After all, does not Christ only justify? How is it that the doctrine of Faith justifying does not interfere with our Lord's being the sole Justifier? It will, of course, be replied, that our Lord is the meri- torious cause, and Faith the means; that Faith justifies
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 199
in a different and subordinate sense. As, then, Christ justifies in the sense in which He justifies alone, yet Faith also justifies in its own sense; so Works, whether moral or ritual, may justify us in their own respective senses, though in the sense in which Faith justifies, it only justifies. The only question is, What is that sense in which Works justify, so as not to interfere with faith only justifying- ? It may, indeed, turn out on inquiry that the sense alleged will not hold, either as being unscriptural, or for any other reason ; but, whether so or not, at any rate the apparent inconsistency of lan- g^uage should not startle persons ; nor should they so promptly condemn those who, though they do not use their language, use St. James's. Indeed, is not this argument the very weapon of the Arians in their warfare against the Son of God ? They said, Christ is not God, because the Father is called the ' Onlv God.'"
2. Next we have to inquire in ivhat sense Faith only does justify. In a number of ways, of which here two only shall be mentioned.
First, it is the pleading or impetrating principle, or constitutes our title to justification ; being analogous among the graces to Moses lifting up his hands on the Mount, or the Israelites eyeing the Brazen Serpent — actions which did not merit God's mercy, but asked for it. A number of means go to effect our justification. We are justified by Christ alone, in that He has pur- chased the gift; by Faith alone, in that Faith asks for it; by Baptism alone, for Baptism conveys it; and by newness of heart alone, for newness of heart is the life of it.
And secondly. Faith, as being the beginning of perfect or justifying righteousness, is taken from what it tends towards, or ultimately will be. It is said by anticipa- tion to be that which it promises; just as one might pay a labourer his hire before he began his work. Faith working by love is the seed of divine graces, which in
200 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
due time will be brought forth and flourish — partly in this world, fully in the next.
i; 3. — Works before and after Jtistificatiou.
Articles xii. and xiii. "Works done before the g"race of Christ, and the inspiration of His Spirit [' before justification,' title of the Arti'c/e], are not pleasant to God (minime Deo g^rata sunt); forasmuch as they spring' not of Faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make man meet to receive grace, or (as the school authors say) deserve grace of congruity (merentur gratiam de con- gruo) ; yea, rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin. Albeit good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification (justificatos sequuntur), cannot put away (expiare) our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment, yet are they pleasing and f.cceptable (grata et accepta) to God in Christ, and do spring out neces- sarily of a true and lively Faith."
Two sorts of works are here mentioned — works before justification, and works after; and they are most strongly contrasted with each other.
1. Works before justification are done "before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of His Spirit."
2. Works before " do not spring of Faith in Jesus Christ"; works after are " the fruits of Faith."
3. Works before "have the nature of sin"; works after are "good works."
4. Works before "are not pleasant (grata) to God"; works after " are pleasing and acceptable (grata et accepta) to God."
Two propositions, mentioned in these Articles, remain, and deserve consideration. First, that works before justification do not make or dispose men to receive grace, or, as the school writers say, deserve grace of
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 201
congTuity; secondly, that works after "cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judg'ment."
I. As to the former statement— to deserve de congriw, or of congruity, is to move the divine reg"ard, not from any claim upon it, but from a certain fitness or suitable- ness; as, for instance, it might be said that dry wood had a certain disposition or fitness towards heat which green wood had not. Now, the Article denies that works done before the grace of Christ, or in a mere state of nature, in this way dispose towards grace, or move God to grant grace. And it asserts, with or without reason (for it is a question of historical fact, which need not specially concern us), that certain schoolmen maintained the affirmative.
Now, that this is what it means is plain from the following passages of the Homilies, which in no respect have greater claims upon us than as comments upon the Articles :-<-
" Therefore they that teach repentance luithout a lively faith in our Saviour Jesus Christ, do teach none other but Judas's re- pentance, as all the schoolmen do, which do only allow these three parts of repentance — the contrition of the heart, the con- fession of the mouth, and the satisfaction of the work. But all these things we find in Judas's repentance, which, in outward appearance, did far exceed and pass the lepentance of Peter . . . This was commonly the penance which Christ enjoined sinners, 'Go thy way, and sin no more'; which penance we shall never be able to fulfil, without the special grace of Him that doth say, 'Without Me, ye can do nothing.'" — On Re- pentance, p. 460.
To take a passage which is still more clear: —
"As these examples are not brought in to the end that we should thereby take a boldness to sin, presuming on the mercy and goodness of God, but to the end that if, through the frail- ness of our own flesh, and the temptation of the devil, we fall into the like sins, we should in nowise despair of the mercy and
202 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
goodness of God: even so must we beware and take heed that we do in nowise think in our hearts, imagine, or beheve iluit ive are able to 7-epent aright or to turn effectually lot'.o the Lord by our 07im might a?id strength." — Ibid., part i. fin.
The Article contemplates these two states — one of justifying- grace, and one of the utter destitution of grace ; and it saj-s that those who are in utter destitu- tion cannot do anything to gain justification; and, indeed, to assert the contrary would be Pelagianism. However, there is an intermediate state, of which the Article says nothing, but which must not be forgotten, as being an actually existing one. Men are not always either in light or in darkness, but are sometimes be- tween the two; they are sometimes not in a state of Christian justification, yet not utterly deserted by God, but in a state something like that of Jews or of Heathen, turning to the thought of religion. They are not gifted with habitual grace, but they still are visited by divine influences, or by actual grace, or rather aid; and these influences are the first-fruits of the grace of justification going before it, and are intended to lead on to it, and to be perfected in it, as twilight leads to day. And since it is a Scripture maxim that " he that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much"; and "to whosoever hath, to him shall be given "; therefore it is quite true that works done tvith divine aid, and in faith, before justification, do dispose men to receive the grace of justification; — such were Cornelius's alms, fastings, and prayers, which led to his baptism. At the same time it must be borne in mind that, even in such cases, it is not the works themselves which make them meet, as some schoolmen seem to have said, but the secret aid of God, vouchsafed, equally with the "grace and Spirit," which is the portion of the baptised, for the merits of Christ's sacrifice.
[But it may be objected that the silence observed in the Article about a state between that of justification
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 203
and grace, and that of neither, is a proof that there is none such. This argument, however, would prove too much; for in like manner there is a silence in the Sixth Article about a judge of the scripturalness of doctrine, yet a judge there must be. And, again, few, it is sup- posed, would deny that Cornelius, before the angel came to him, was in a more hopeful state than Simon Magus or Felix. The difficulty then, if there be one, is common to persons of whatever school of opinion.]
2. If works before justification, when done by the influence of divine aid, gain grace, much more do works after justification. They are, according to the Article, "grata," "pleasing to God"; and they are accepted, "accepta"; which means that God rewards them, and that of course according to their degree of excellence. At the same time, as works before justification may nevertheless be done under a divine influence, so works after justification are still liable to the infection of original sin; and, as not being perfect, " cannot expiate our sins," or " endure the severity of God's judgment."
§ 4. — The Visible Chiireh.
Article xix. — "The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men (coetus fidelium), in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same."
This is not an abstract definition of a Church, but a description of the actually existing One Holy Catholic Church diffused throughout the world; as if it were read, "The Church is a certain society of the faithful," etc. This is evident from the mode of describing the Catholic Church, familiar to all writers from the first
204 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ages down to the age of this Article. For instance, St. Clement of Alexandria says, " I mean by the Church, not a place, but the congregation of the elect." Origen: "The Church, the assembly of all tJie faithful." St. Ambrose: " One congregation, or\^Q\).wrz\\.'''' St. Isidore: "The Church is a congregation of saitits, collected on a certain faith, and the best conduct of life." St. Augustin : " The Church is the people of God through all ages." Again: "The Church is the vndtitude which is spread over the whole earth." St. Cyril: "When we speak of the Church, we denote the most holy mnltitndc of the pious." Theodoret: "The Apostle calls the Church the assembly of the faithful." Pope Gregory: "The Church, a multitude of the faithful collected, of both sexes." Bede: "The Church is the congregation of all saints." Alcuin: "The Holy Catholic Church, — in Latin the coJigregation of the faithful." Amalarius: "The Church is tJie people called together by the Church's ministers." Pope Nicolas I.: " The Church, that is, the congregation of Catholics." St. Bernard: " What is the Spouse but the congregation of the just?" Peter the Venerable: "The Church is called a con- gregation, but not of all things, not of cattle, but of men, faithful, good, just. Though bad among these good, and just among the unjust, are revealed or con- cealed, yet it is called a Church." Hugo Victorinus: "The Holy Church, that is, the university of the faithful." Arnulphus: "The Church is called the congregation of the faitJiful." Albertus Magnus: "The Greek word church means in Latin convocation ; and whereas works and callings belong to rational animals, and reason in man is inward faith, therefore it is called the congregation of the faithful." Durandus: "The Church is in one sense material, in which divers offices are celebrated; in another spiritual, which is the col- lection of the faitJiful." Alvarus: "The Church is the multitude of the faitJiful, or the university of Christians." Pope Pius II.: "The Church is the multitude of tJie
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 205
faithful dispersed through all nations."^ [And so the Reformers, in their own way; for instance, the Con- fession of Augsburgh. "The one Holy Church will remain for ever. Now the Church of Christ properly is the congregation of the members of Christ, that is, of saints who truly believe and obey Christ; though with this congregation many bad and hypocrites are mixed in this life, till the last judgment " (vii.) And the Saxon: " We say then that the visible Church in this life is an assembly of those who embrace the Gospel of Christ and rightly use the Sacraments," etc. (xii.)]
These illustrations of the phraseology of the Article may be multiplied in any number. And they plainly show that it is not laying down any logical definition of ivhai a Church is, but is describing, and as it were pointing to the Catholic Church diffused throughout the world ; which being but one, cannot possibly be mis- taken, and requires no other account of it beyond this single and majestic one. The ministration of the Word and Sacraments is mentioned as a further note of it. As to the question of its limits, whether Episcopal Succession or whether intercommunion with the whole be necessary to each part of it, — these are questions, most important indeed, but of detail, and are not ex- pressly treated of in the Articles.
This view is further illustrated by the following passage from the Homily for Whitsunday: —
"Our Saviour Christ, departing out of the world unto His Father, promised His Disciples to send down another Com- forter, that should continue with them for ever, and direct them into all truth. Which thing to be faithfully and truly performed, the Scriptures do sufficiently bear witness. Neither must we think that this Comforter was either promised, or else given, only to the Apostles, but also to the universal Chinxh of Christ, dispersed through the ^uhole 7vorld. For, unless the Holy Ghost had been always present, governing and preserving the Church from the beginning, it could never have suffered so
^ These instances are from Launoy.
2o6 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
many and great brunts of aftliction and persecution, with so little damage and harm as it hath. And the words of Christ are most plain in this behalf, saying, that 'the Spirit of Truth should abide with them for ever'; that ' He would be with them always (He meaneth by grace, virtue, and power), even to the world's end.'
"Also in the prayer that He made to His Father a little before His death. He maketh intercession, not only for Himself and His Apostles, but indifterently for all them that should bclic7)c in Him through their words, that is, to wit, for His whole Church. Again, St. Paul saith, ' If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is not His.' Also, in the words following: 'We have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' Hereby, then, it is evident and plain to all men that the Holy Ghost was given, not only to the Apostles, but also to the whole body of Christ's conf^regatioji, although not in like form and majesty as He came down at the feast of Pentecost. But now herein standeth the controversy, — whether all men do justly arrogate to themselves the Holy ( ihost, or no. The Bishops of Rome have for a long time made a sore challenge thereto, reasoning with themselves after this sort: 'The Holy Ghost,' say they, 'was promised to the Church, and never forsaketh the Church. But we are the chief heads and the principal part of the Church, therefore we have the Holy Ghost for ever: and whatsoever things we decree are undoubted verities and oracles of the Holy Ghost.' That ye may perceive the weakness of this argument, it is needful to teach you, first, what the true Church of Christ is, and then to confer the Church of Rome therewith, to discern how well they agree together. The true Church is a ii?nve?-sal congiegaiion or fclloiL'sJnp of God's faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone. And it hath always three notes or marks, whereby it is known : pure and sound doctrine, the Sacraments ministered according to Christ's holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline. This description of the Church is agreeable both to the Scriptures of God and also to the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, so that none may justly find fault therewith. Now, if you will compare this with the Church of Rome, not as it was in the beginning, but as it is at ' present, and hath been for the space of nine hundred years and odd ; you shall well perceive the state thereof to be so far wide from the nature of the Church, that nothing can be more."
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 207
This passage is quoted, not for all it contains, but in that respect in which it claims attention — -viz., as far as it is an illustration of the Article. It is speaking of the one Catholic Church, not of an abstract idea of a Church, which may be multiplied indefinitely in fact; and it uses the same terms of it which the Article does of '* the visible Church." It says that " the true Church is a tiniversal congregation or fellowship of God's faithful and elect people," etc., which as closely corresponds to the coetus fideliuni, or "congregation of faithful men" of the Article, as the above descriptions from Fathers or Divines do. Therefore, the ccetus fideliinn spoken of in the Article is not a definition which kirk, or con- nexion, or other communion may be made to fall under, but the enunciation of a fact.
§ 5. — General Councils,
Article xxi. — ^" General councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred, in things pertaining to God."
That great bodies of men, of different countries, may not meet together Avithout the sanction of their rulers is plain from the principles of civil obedience and from primitive practice. That, when met together, though Christians, they will not be all ruled by the Spirit or Word of God, is plain from our Lord's parable of the net, and from melancholy experience. That bodies of men, deficient in this respect, may err, is a self-evident truth, — unless, indeed, they be favoured with some divine superintendence, which has to be proved before it can be admitted.
General councils then may err \as such; — may err],
2o8 THE OXFORD xMOVEMENT.
miless in any case it is promised, as a matter of express supernatural privileg^e, that they shall ?ioi err; a case which [as consisting in the fulfilment of additional or subsequent conditions] lies beyond the scope of this Article, or at any rate beside its determination.
Such a promise, however, does exist, in cases when general councils are not only gathered together accord- ing to "the commandment and will of princes," but in the Navie of Christy according to our Lord's promise. The Article merely contemplates the human prince, not the King of Saints. While councils are a thing of earth, their infallibility of course is not guaranteed; when they are a thing of heaven, their deliberations are overruled, and their decrees authoritative. In such cases they are Catholic councils; and it would seem, from passages which will be quoted in Section ii, that the Homilies recognise four, or even six, as bearing this character. Thus Catholic or CEcumenical Councils are general councils, and something more. Some general councils are Catholic, and others are not. Nay, as even Romanists grant, the same councils may be partly Catholic, partly not.
If Catholicity be thus a quality, found at times in general councils, rather than the differentia belonging to a certain class of them, it is still less surprising that the Article should be silent about it.
What these conditions are, which fulfil the notion of a gathering "in the Name of Christ," in the case of a particular council, it is not necessary here to determine. Some have included among these conditions the sub- sequent reception of its decrees by the universal Church; others a ratification by the pope.
Another of these conditions, however, the Article goes on to mention — viz., that in points necessary to salvation a council should prove its decrees by Scripture,
St. Gregory Nazianzen well illustrates the con-
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 209
sistency of this Article with a belief in the infallibility of CEcumenical Councils by his Ovvn language on the subject on different occasions.
In the following- passage he anticipates the Article: —
" My mind is, if I must write the truth, to keep clear of every conference of bishops, for of conference never saw I good come, or a remedy so much as an increase of evils. For there is strife and ambition, and these have the upper hand of reason." — Ep. 55.
Yet, on the other hand, he speaks elsewhere of "the Holy Council in Nicaea, and that band of chosen men whom the Holy Ghost brought together." — Orat. 21.
§ 6. — Purgatory^ Pardons, Images, Relics, Invocation of Saints.
Article xxii. — " The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons (de indulgentiis), worshipping (de veneratione) and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing (res est futilis) vainly (inaniter) invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant (contradicit) to the Word of God."
Now the first remark that occurs on perusing this Article is, that the doctrine objected to is " the Romish doctrine." For instance, no one would suppose that the Calvinistic doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, and image-worship is spoken against. Not every doctrine on these matters is a fond thing, but the Romish doctrine. Accordingly, the Primitive doctrine is not condemned in it, unless, indeed, the Primitive doctrine be the Romish, which must not be supposed. Now there ivas a primitive doctrine on all these points, — how far Catholic or universal is a further question,- — but still so widely received and so respectably sup- ported that it may well be entertained as a matter of
2IO THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
opinion by a theolog"ian now; this, then, whatever be its merits, is not condemned by this Article.
This is clear without proof on the face of the matter, at least as regards pardons. Of course the Article never meant to make light of every doctrine about pardons, but a certain doctrine, the Romish doctrine [as indeed the plural form itself shows].
And [such an understanding of the Article is sup- ported by] some sentences in the Homily on Peril of Idolatry, in which, as far as regards relics, a certain "veneration" is sanctioned by its tone in speaking of them, though not of course the Romish veneration.
The sentences referred to run as follow: —
" In the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History, the Ninth Book, and Forty-eighth Chapter, is testified, that 'Epiphanius, being yet alive, did work miracles; and that after his death, devils being expelled at his grave or to/nb, did roar.' Thus you see what authority St. Jerome (who has just been mentioned), and that most ancient history, give unto the holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius."
Aofain: —
"St. Ambrose, in his Treatise of the Death of Theodosius the Emperor, saith ' Helena found the Cross, and the Title on it. .She worshipped the King, and not the wood, surely (for that is an heathenish error and the vanity of the wickedj, but she worshipped Him that hanged on the Cross, and whose Name was written on the title,' and so forth. See both the godly empress's fact, and St. Ambrose's judgment at once ; they thought it had been an heathenish error and vanity of the wicked to iiave 7uorshipped t/te Cross itself, ivhich ivas embriicd with our Saviour Christ's own precious blood." — Peril of Idolatry, part 2, circ. init.
In these passages the writer does not positively commit himself to the miracles at Epiphanius's tomb, or the discovery of the true Cross, but he evidently wishes the hearer to think he believes in both. This he
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 211
would not do, if he thought all honour paid to relics wrong.
If, then, in the judgment of the Homilies, not all doctrine concerning veneration of relics is condemned in the Article before us, but a certain toleration of them is compatible with its wording; neither is all doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, images, and saints condemned by the Article, but only "the Romish."
And further, by " the Romish doctrine" is not meant the Tridentine [statement], because this Article was drawn up before the decree of the Council of Trent. What is opposed is the received doctrine of the day, and unhappily of this day too, or the doctrine of the Roman schools; a conclusion which is still more clear, by con- sidering that there are portions in the Tridentine [statements] on these subjects which the Article, far from condemning, by anticipation approves, as far as they go. For instance, the Decree of Trent enjoins concerning purgatory thus: — "Among the uneducated vulgar let difficult and subtle questions, which make not for edification, and seldom contribute aught toward piety, be kept back from popular discourses. Neither let them suffer the public mention and treatment of uncertain points, or such as look like falsehood." (Session 25.) Again, about images: " Due honour and venera- tion is to be paid unto them, not that we believe tJiat any divinity or virtue is in them, for which they should be worshipped (colendae), or that we should ask anything of them, or that trust should be reposed in images, as formerly was done by the Gentiles, which used to place their hope on idols." [Ibid.)
If, then, the doctrine condemned in this Article concerning purgatory, pardons, images, relics, and saints be not the Primitive doctrine, nor the Catholic doctrine, nor the Tridentine [statement], but the Romish, doctrina Romanensium, let us next consider •sohat in matter of fact it is. And,
18
212 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
I. As to the doctrine of the Romanists concerning Purgatory. Now here there 7vas a primitive doctrine, whatever its merits, concerning the fire of judgment, which is a possible or a probable opinion, and is 7iol condemned. That doctrine is this: that the con- flagration of the world, or the flames which attend the Judge, will be an ordeal through which all men will pass; that great saints such as St. Mary will pass it unharmed ; that others will suff"er loss ; but none will fail under it who are built upon the right foundation. Here is one [purgatorian doctrine] not " Romish."
Another doctrine, purgatorian, but not Romish, is that said to be maintained by the Greeks at Florence, in which the cleansing, though a punishment, was but a poeria dmnni, not a poena sensus; not a positive sensible infliction, much less the torment of fire, but the absence of God's presence. And another purgatory is that in which the cleansing is but a progressive sanctification, and has no pain at all.
None of these doctrines does the Article condemn ; any of them may be held by the Anglo-Catholic as a matter of private belief ; not that they are here advocated, one or other, but they are adduced as an illustration of what the Article does not mean, and to vindicate our Christian liberty in a matter where the Church has not confined it.
[For what the doctrine which is reprobated is, we might refer, in the first place, to the Council of Florence, where a decree w^as passed on the subject, were not that decree almost as vague as the Tridentine — viz., that deficiency of penance is made up by pawnee piirgatorice?\
" Now doth St. Augustine say, that those men which are cast into prison after this life, on that condition, may in nowise be holpen, though we would help them never so much. And why? Because the sentence of God is unchangeable, and cannot be revoked again. Therefore, let us not deceive ourselves, thinking
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. ' 213
that either we may help others, or others may help us, by their good and charitable prayers in time to come. For, as the preacher saith, ' Where the tree falleth, whether it be toward the south, or toward the north, in what place soever the tree falleth, there it lieth ' : meaning thereby, that every mortal man dieth either in the state of salvation or damnation^ according as the words of the Evangelist John do plainly import, saying, ' He that believeth on the Son of God hath eternal life ; but he that believeth not on the Son, shall never see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him,' — where is then the third place which they call purgatory? Or where shall our prayers help and profit the dead .-* St. Augustine doth only acknowledge two places after this life, heaven and hell. As for the third place, he doth plainly deny that there is any such to be found in all Scripture. Chrysostom likewise is of this mind, that unless we wash away our sins in this present world, we shall find no comfort afterward. And St. Cyprian saith that, after death, repentance and sorrow of pain shall be without fruit, weeping also shall be in vain, and prayer shall be to no purpose. There- fore he counselleth all men to make provision for themselves while they may, because, when they are once departed out of this life, there is no place for repentance^ nor yet for satisfaction." — Homily concernitig Prayer, pp. 282, 283.
Now it [would seem] from this passage, that the Purgatory contemplated by the Homily was one for which no one will for an instant pretend to adduce even those Fathers who most favour Rome — viz., one in which our state would be changed, in which God's sentence could be reversed. "The sentence of God," says the writer, "is tinchangeahle, and cannot be re- voked again; there is no place for repentance." On the other hand, the Council of Trent, and Augustin and Cyprian, so far as they express or imply any opinion approximating to that of the Council, held Purgatory to be a place for believers, not unbelievers, not where men who have lived and died in God's wrath may gain pardon, but where those who have already been pardoned in this life may be cleansed and purified for beholding the face of God. The Homily, then, and therefore the Article [as far as the Homily may be
214 ' THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
taken to explain it], does not speak of the Tridentine purgatory.
The mention of Prayers for the dead in the above passage affords an additional illustration of the limited and [relative] sense of the terms of the Article now under consideration. For such prayers are obviously not condemned in it in the abstract, or in every shape, but, as offered to resciie the lost from eternal fire.
[Hooker, in his Sermon on Pride, gives us a second view of the " Romish doctrine of Purgatory," from the schoolmen. After speaking of the po'na daynni, he says — ■
"The other punishment, which hath in it not only loss of joy but also sense of grief, vexation, and woe, is that whereunto they give the name of purgatory pains, /;/ nothing different fr'oni those very infernal torments which the souls of castaways^ together with damned spirits, do endure, save only in this, there is an appointed term to the one, to the other none; but for the time they last they are equals — Vol. iii. p. 798.]
Such doctrine, too, as the following may well be included in that which the Article condemns under the name of *' Romish."
The passage to be quoted has already appeared in these Tracts.
"In the 'Speculum Exemplorum' it is said that a certain priest, in an ecstasy, saw the soul of Constantius Turritanus in the eaves of his house, tormented with frosts and cold rains, and afterwards climbing up to heaven upon a shining pillar. And a certain monk saw some souls roasted upon spits, like pigs, and some devils basting them with scalding lard; but a while after they were carried to a cool place, and so proved purgatory. But Bishop Theobald, standing upon a piece of ice to cool his feet, was nearer purgatory than he was aware, and was convinced of it when he heard a poor soul telling him that under that ice he was tormented : and that he should be delivered, if for thirty days continual he would say for him thirty masses. And some such thing was seen by Conrade and Udalric in a pool of water; for the place of purgatory was not
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 215
yet resolved on, till St. Patrick had the key of it delivered to him, which when one Nicholas borrowed of him, he saw as strange and true things there as ever Virgil dreamed of in his purgatory, or Cicero in his dreams of Scipio, or Plato in his (Jorgias or Phaedo, who indeed are the surest authors to prove ])urgatory. But because to preach false stories was forbidden by the Council of Trent, there are yet remaining more certain arguments, even revelations made by angels, and the testimony of St. Odilio himself, who heard the devil complain (and he had great reason surely) that the souls of dead men were daily snatched out of his hands, by the alms and prayers of the living; and the sister of St. Damianus, being too much pleased with hearing of a piper, told her brother that she was to be tormented for fifteen days in purgatory.
'• We do not think that the wise men in the Church of Rome believe these narratives; for if they did, they were not wise; but this we know, that by such stories the people were brought into a belief of it, and having served their turn of them, the master builders used them as false arches and centres, taking them away when the parts of the building were made firm and stable by authority." — Jer. Taylor, IP^or^s, vol. x. pp. 151, 152.
Another specimen of doctrine, which no one will attempt to prove from Scripture, is the following: —
" Eastwardly between two walls was a vast place of pur- gatory fixed, and beyond it a pond to rinse souls in that had waded through purgatory, the water being salt and cold beyond comparison. Over this purgatory St. Nicholas was the owner.
"There was a mighty bridge, all beset with nails and spikes, and leading to the mount of joy; on which mount was a stately church, seemingly capable to contain all the inhabitants of the world, and into which the souls were no sooner entered but that they forgot all their former torments.
"Returning to the first church, there they found St. Michael the Archangel and the Apostles Peter and Paul. St. Michael caused all the white souls to pass through the flames, unharmed, to the mount of joy; and those that had black and white spots, St. Peter led into purgatory to be purified.
" In one part sate St. Paul, and the devil opposite to him with his guards, with a pair of scales between them, weighing all such souls as were all over black; when upon turning a soul, the scale turned towards St. Paul, he sent it to purgatory, there
2i6 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
to expiate its sins; when towards the devil, his crew, with great triumph, plunged it into the flaming pit. . . .
"The rustic Hkewise saw near the entrance of the town-hall, as it were, four streets ; the first was full of innumerable furnaces and cauldrons filled with flaming pitch and other liquids, and boiling of souls whose heads were like those of black fishes in the seething liquor. The second had its cauldrons stored with snow and ice, to torment souls with horrid cold. The third had thereof boiling sulphur and other materials, affording the worst of stinks, for the vexing of souls that had wallowed in the filth of lust. The fourth had cauldrons of a most horrid salt and black water. Now sinners of all sorts were alternately tormented in these cauldrons." — Purgatory proved by Miracle by S. Joh)ison^ pp. 8-10.
[Let it be considered then, whether, on the whole, the " Romish doctrine of Purgatory," which the Article condemns, and which was generally believed in the Roman Church three centuries since, as well as now, viewed in its essence, be not the doctrine, that the punishment of unrighteous Christians is temporary, not eternal, and that the purification of the righteous is a portion of the same punishment, together with the superstitions, and impostures for the sake of gain, consequent thereupon.]
2. Pardons, or Indulgences.
The history of the rise of the Reformation will interpret "the Romish doctrine concerning pardons," without going further. Burnet thus speaks on the subject: —
" In the primitive church there were very severe rules made, obliging all that had sinned publicly (and they were afterwards applied to such as had sinned secretly) to continue for many years in a state of separation from the Sacrament, and of penance and discipline. But because all such general rules admit of a great variety of circumstances, taken from men's sins, their persons, and their repentance, there was a power given to all Bishops, by the Council of Nice, to shorten the time, and to relax the severity of those Canons, and such favour as they saw cause to grant, was called indulgence. This was just and
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 217
necessary, and was a provision without which no constitution or society can be well governed. But after the tenth century, as the Popes came to take this power in the whole extent of it into their own hands, so they found it too feeble to carry on the great designs that they grafted upon it.
"They gave it high names, and called it a plenary remission, and the pardon of all sins; which the world was taught to look on as a thing of a much higher nature, than the bare excusing of men from discipline and penance. Purgatory was then got to be firmly believed, and all men were strangely possessed with the terror of it: so a deliverance from purgatory and by consequence an immediate admission into heaven, was believed to be the certain effect of it. Multitudes were, by these means, engaged to go to the Holy Land, to recover it out of the hands of the Saracens; afterwards they armed vast numbers against the heretics, to extirpate them: they fought also all those quarrels which their ambitious pretensions engaged them in, with emperors and other princes, by the same pay; and at last ihey set it to sale with the same impudence, and almost with the same methods, that mountebanks use in venting of their secrets.
" This was so gross, even in an ignorant age and among the ruder sort, that it gave the first rise to the Reformation: and as the progress of it was a very signal work of God, so it was in a great measure owing to the scandals that //«j shameless practice had given the world." — Burnet on Article XIV., p. 190.
"The virtue of indulgences is the applying the treasure of the Church upon such terms as Popes shall think fit to prescribe, in order to the redeeming souls from purgatory, and from all other temporal punishments, and that for such a number of years as shall be specified in the bulls; some of which have gone to thousands of years; one I have seen to ten hundred thousand: and as these indulgences are sometimes granted by special tickets, like tallies struck on that treasure; so sometimes they are affixed to particular churches and altars, to particular times, or days, chiefly to the year of jubilee; they are also affixed to such things as may be carried about, to Agnus Deis, to medals, to rosaries, and scapularies; they are also affixed to some prayers, the devout saying of them being a mean to procure great indulgences. The granting these is left to the
21 8 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Pope's discretion, who ought to distribute them as he thinks may tend most to the honour of God and the good of the Church; and he ought not to be too profuse, much less to be too scanty in dispensing them.
"This has been the received doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome since the twelfth century: and the Council of Trent in a hurry, in its last session, did in very geticral words approve of the practice of the Church in this matter, and decreed that indulgences should be continued; only ihey re- strained some abuses^ in particular that of selling them." — Burnet on Article XX 11.^ p. 305.
Burnet gfoes on to maintain that the act of the Council was incomplete, and evaded. If it be necessary to say more on the subject, let us attend to the follow- ing" passage from Jeremy Taylor: —
" 1 might have instanced in worse matters, made by the Popes of Rome to be pious works, the condition of obtaining indulgences. Such as was the bull of Pope Julius the Second, giving indulgence to him that meeting a Frenchman should kill him, and another for the killing of a Venetian. ... I desire this only instance may be added to it, that Pope Paul the Third, he that convened the Council of Trent, and Julius the Third, for fear, as I may suppose, the Council should forbid any more such follies, for a farewell to this game, gave an indulgence to the fraternity of the Sacrament of the Altar, or of the Blessed Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of such a vastness and un- reasonable folly, that it puts us beyond the question of religion, to an inquiry, whether it were not done either in perfect distrac- tion, or with a worse design, to make religion to be ridiculous, and to expose it to a contempt and scorn. The conditions of the indulgence are, either to visit the Church of St. Hilary of Chartres, to say a 'Pater Noster' and an 'Ave Mary' every Friday, or, at most, to be present at processions and other divine service upon ' Corpus Christi day.' The gift is — as many privileges, indults, exemptions, liberties, immunities, plenary pardons of sins and other spiritual graces, as were given to the fraternity of the Image of our Saviour 'ad Sancta Sanctorum'; the fraternity of the charity and great hospital of St. James in Augusta, of St. John Baptist, of St. Cosmas and Damianus; of the Florentine nation; of the hospital of the Holy Ghost in Saxia; of the order of St. Austin and St. Champ; of the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 219
fraternities of the said city; of the churches of our Lady 'de populo et verbo'; and all those that were ever given to them that visited these churches, or those which should ever be given hereafter; — a pretty large gift! in which there were so many pardons, quarter-pardons, half-pardons, true pardons, plenary pardons, quarantines, and years of quarantines; that it is a harder thing to number them than to purchase them. I shall remark in these some particulars to be considered.
" I. That a most scandalous and unchristian dissolution and death of all ecclesiastical discipline, is consequent to the making all sin so cheap and trivial a thing; that the horrible demerits and exemplary punishment and remotion of scandal and satis- factions to the Church, are indeed reduced to trifling and mock penances. He that shall send a servant with a candle to attend the Holy Sacrament when it shall be carried to sick people, or shall go himself; or, if he can neither go nor send, if he say a ' Pater Noster' and an 'Ave,' he shall have a hundred years of true pardon. This is fair and easy. But then,
"2. It would be considered what is meant by so many years of pardon, and so many years of true pardon. I know but of one natural interpretation of it; and that it can mean nothing, but that some of the pardons are but fantastical, and not true; and in this I find no fault, save only that it ought to have been said that all of them are fantastical.
"3. It were fit we learned how to compute four thousand and eight hundred years of quarantines, and a remission of a third part of all their sins; for so much is given to every brother and sister of this fraternity, upon Easter-day, and eight days after. Now if a brother needs not thus many, it would be considered whether it did not encourage a brother or a frail sister to use all their medicine and sin more freely, lest so great a gift become useless.
" 4. And this is so much the more considerable, because the gift is vast beyond all imagination. The first four days in Lent they may purchase thirty-three thousand years of pardon, be- sides a plenary remission of all their sins over and above. The first week of Lent a hundred and three-and-thirty thousand years of pardon, besides five plenary remissions of all their sins, and two third parts besides, and the delivery of one soul out of purgatory. The second week in Lent a hundred and eight-and- fifty thousand years of pardon, besides the remission of all their sins, and a third part besides; and the delivery of one soul. The third week in Lent, eighty thousand years, besides a
2 20 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
plenary remission, and the delivery of one soul out of purgatory. The fourth week in Lent, threescore thousand years of pardon, besides a remission of two-thirds of all their sins, and one plenary remission, and one soul delivered. The fifth week, seventy-nine thousand years of pardon, and the deliverance of two souls: only the two thousand seven hundred years that are given for the Sunday, may be had twice that day, if they will visit the altar twice, and as many quarantines. The sixth week, two hundred and five thousand years, besides quarantines, and four plenary pardons. Only on Palm Sunday, whose por- tion is twenty-five thousand years, it may be had twice that day. And all this is the price of him that shall, upon these days, visit the altar in the church of St. Hilary. And this runs on to the Fridays, and many festivals and other solemn days in the other parts of the y&ax"—Jer. Taylor, vol. xi. pp. 53-56.
[The doctrine then of pardons, spoken of in the Article, is the doctrine maintained and acted on in the Roman Church, that remission of the penalties of sin in the next life may be obtained by the power of the Pope, with such abuses as money payments consequent thereupon.^]
3. Veneration and worshipping- of Images and Relics.
That the Homilies do not altogether discard reverence towards relics, has already been shown. Now let us see what they do discard.
" What meaneth it that Christian men, after the use of the Gentiles idolaters, cap and kncci before images? which, if they had any sense and gratitude, would kneel before men, car- penters, masons, plasterers, founders, and goldsmiths, their makers and framers, by whose means they have attained this honour, which else should have been evil-favoured, and rude lumps of clay or plaster, pieces of timber, stone, or metal, without shape or fashion, and so without all estimation and honour, as that idol in the Pagan poet confesseth, saying, ' I was once a vile block, but now I am become a god,' etc. What a fond thing is it for man, who hath life and reason, to bow him-
^ " The pardons, then, spoken of in the Article, are large and reckless indulgences from the penalties of sin obtained on money payments." — 1st cd.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 221
self to a dead and insensible image, the work of his own hand! Is not this stooping and kneeling before them, which is for- bidden so earnestly by God's v/ord ? Let such as so fall down before images of saints know and confess that they exhibit that honour to dead stocks and stones, which the saints themselves, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, would not to be given to them, being alive; which the angel of God forbiddeth to be given to him. And if they say they exhibit such honour not to the image, but to the saint whom it representeth, they are convicted of folly, to believe that they please saints with that honour, which they abhor as a spoil of God's honour." — Homily on Peril of Idolatry^ p. 191.
Ag^ain : —
"Thus far Lactantius, and much more, too long here to write, of candle lighting in temples before images and idols for religion; whereby appeareth both the foolishness thereof, and also that in opinion and act we do agree altogether in our candle religion with the Gentiles idolaters. What meaneth it that they, after the example of the Gentiles idolaters, burn incense^ offer up gold to images, hang up crutches, chains, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and women of wax, before images, as though by them, or saints (as they say) they were delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity, or shipwreck? Is not this 'colere imagines,' to worship images, so earnestly forbidden in God's word? If they deny it, let them read the eleventh chapter of Daniel the Prophet, who saith of Antichrist, 'He shall worship God, whom his fathers knew not, with gold, silver, and with precious stones, and other things of pleasure': in which place the Latin word is coletP . . . " To increase this madness, wicked men, which have the keeping of such images, for their great lucre and advantage, after the example of the Gentiles idolaters, have reported and spread abroad, as well by lying tales as written fables, divers miracles of images: as that such an image miraculously was sent from heaven, even like the Palladium, or Magna Diana Ephesiorum. Such another was as miraculously found in ihe earth, as the man's head was in the Capitol, or the horse's head in Capua. Such an image was brought by angels. Such a one came itself far from the East to the West, as Dame Fortune fled to Rome. Such an image of our Lady was painted by St. Luke, whom of a physician they have made a painter for that purpose. Such a one a hundred yokes of oxen could not move, like Bona Dea, whom the ship could not carry; or
222 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Jupiter Olynipius, which laughed the artificers to scorn, that went about to remove him to Rome. Some images, though they were hard and stony, yet, for tender heart and pity, wept. Some, Hke Castor and PoUux, helping their friends in battle, sweat, as marble pillars do in dankish weather. Some spake more monstrously than ever did Balaam's ass, who had life and breath in him. Such a cripple came and saluted this saint of oak, and by-and-by he was made whole ; and, lo ! here hangeth his crutch. Such a one in a tempest vowed to St. Christopher, and 'scaped; and behold, here is a ship of wax. Such a one, by St. Leonard's help, brake out of prison ; and see where his fetters hang." . . . "The Relics we must kiss and offer unio, specially on Relic Sunday. And while we offer (that we should not be weary, or repent us of our cost) the mtisic and minstrelsy goeth merrily all the offertory time, with praising and calling upon those saints whose relics be then in presence. Yea, and the water also wherein those relics have been dipped, must with great reverence be reserved, as very holy and effectuous." ..." Because Relics were so gainful, few places were there but they had Relics provided for them. And for more plenty of Relics, some one saint had many heads, one in one place, and another in another place. Some had six arms, and twenty-six fingers. And where our Lord bare His cross alone, if all the pieces of the relics thereof were gathered together, the greatest ship in England would scarcely bear them; and yet the greatest part of it, they say, doth yet remain in the hands of the Infidels; for the which they pray in their beads-bidding, that they may get it also into their hands, for such godly use and purpose. And not only the bones of the saints, but everything appertaining to them, was a holy relic. In some places they offer a sword, in some the scabbard, in some a shoe, in some a saddle that had been set upon some holy horse, in some the coals wherewith St. Laurence was roasted, in some place the tail of the ass which our Lord Jesus Christ sat on, to be kissed and offered unto for a relic. For rather than they would lack a relic, they would offer you a horse bone instead of a 7'irgin's arm, or the tail of the ass to be kissed and offered unto for relics. O wicked, impudent, and most shame- less men, the devisers of these things! O silly, foolish, and dastardly daws, and more beastly than the ass whose tail they kissed, that believe such things!' . . . "Of these things already rehearsed, it is evident that our image maintainers have not only made images, and set them up in temples, as did the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 223
Gentiles idolaters their idols; but also that they have had the same idolatrous opinions of the saints, to whom they have made images, which the Gentiles idolaters had of their false gods ; and have not only worshipped their images with the same rites, ceremonies, superstition, and all circumstances, as did the Gentiles idolaters their idols, but in many points have also far exceeded them in all wickedness, foolishness, and madness." — Homily on Peril 0/ Idolatry, pp. 193-197.
It will be observed that in this extract, as elsewhere in the Homilies, it is implied that the Bishop or the Church of Rome is Antichrist; but this is a statement bearing on prophetical interpretation, not on doctrine; and one besides which cannot be reasonably brought to illustrate or explain any of the positions of the Articles: and therefore it may be suitably passed over.
In another place the Homilies speak as follows:
" Our churches stand full of such great puppets, wondrously decked and adorned; garlands and coronets be set on their heads, precious pearls hanging about their necks; their fingers shine with rings, set with precious stones; their dead and stiff bodies are clothed with garments stiff with gold. You would believe that the images of our men-saints were some princes of Persia land with their proud apparel; and the idols of our women- saints were nice and well-trimmed harlots, tempting their para- mours to wantonness : whereby the saints of God are not honoured, but most dishonoured, and their godliness, soberness, chastity, contempt of riches, and of the vanity of the world, de- faced and brought in doubt by such monstrous decking, most differing from their sober and godly lives. And because the whole pageant must thoroughly be played, it is not enough thus to deck idols, but at last come in the priests themselves, like- wise decked with gold and pearl, that they may be meet servants for such lords and ladies, and fit worshippers of such gods and goddesses. And with a solemn pace they pass forth before these golden puppets, and fall down to the ground on their marrow-bones before these honourable idols; and then rising up again, offer up odours and incense unto them, to give the people an example of double idolatry, by worshipping not only the idol, but the gold also, and riches, wherewith it is garnished. Which thing, the most part of our old Martyrs, rather than they would
224 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
do, or once kneel, or offer up one crumb of incense before an image, suffered most cruel and terrible deaths, as the histories of them at large do declare." . . . "O books and scriptures, in the which the devilish schoolmaster, Satan, hath penned the lewd lessons of wicked idolatry, for his dastardly disciples and scholars to behold, read, and learn, to God's most high dis- honour, and their most horrible damnation ! Have we not been much bound, think you, to those which should have taught us the truth out of God's Book and his Holy Scripture, that they have shut up that Book and Scripture from us, and none of us so bold as once to open it, or read in it ? And instead thereof, to spread us abroad these goodly carved and gilded books and painted scriptures, to teach us such good and godly lessons ? Have not they done well, after they ceased to stand in pulpits themselves, and to teach the people committed to their instruc- tion, keeping silence of God's Word, and become dumb dogs (as the prophet calleth them) to set up in their stead, on every pillar and corner of the church, such goodly doctors, as dumb, but more wicked than themselves be ? We need not to complain of the lack of one dumb parson, having so many dumb devilish vicars (I mean these idols and painted puppets) to teach in their stead. Now in the mean season, whilst the dumb and dead idols stand thus decked and clothed, contrary to God's law and commandment, the poor Christian people, the lively images of God, commended to us so tenderly by our Saviour Christ, as most dear to Him, stand naked, shivering for cold, and their teeth chattering in their heads, and no man covereth them, are pined with hunger and thirst, and no man giveth them a penny to refresh them; whereas pounds be ready at all times (con- trary to God's word and will) to deck and trim dead stocks and stones, which neither feel cold, hunger, nor thirst." — Homily on Peril of Idolatry, pp. 219-222.
Again, with a covert allusion to the abuses of the day, the Homilist says elsewhere, of Scripture —
"There shall you read of Baal, Moloch, Chamos, Melchom, Baalpeor, Astaroth, Bel, the Dragon, Priapus, the brazen Serpent, the twelve signs, and many others, unto whose images the people, with great devotion, \r\\QX\\.^di pilgrimages, precious decki?ig and censing them, kneeling down and offering to them, thinking that an high merit before God, and to be esteemed above the precepts and commandments of God." — Homily on Good Works, p. 42.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 225
Again, soon after—
"What man, having any judgment or learning, joined with a true zeal unto God, doth not see and lament to have entered into Christ's religion, such false doctrine, superstition, idolatry, hypocrisy, and other enormities and abuses, so as by little and little, through the sour leaven thereof, the sweet bread of God's holy Word hath been much hindered and laid apart? Never had the Jews, in their most blindness, so many pilgrimages unto images, nor used so much kneeling^ kissing, and censijtg of them, as hath been used in our time. Sects and feigned religions were neither the fortieth part so many among the Jews, nor more superstitiously and ungodly abused, than of late years they have been among us: which sects and religions had so many hypo- critical and feigned works in their state of religion, as they arrogantly named it, that their lamps, as they said, ran always over, able to satisfy not only for their own sins, but also for all other their benefactors, brothers, and sisters of religion, as most ungodly and craftily they had persuaded the multitude of ignorant people; keeping in divers places, as it were, marts or markets of merits, being full of their holy relics, images, shrines, and works of overflowing abundance, ready to be sold; and all things which they had were called holy^holy cowls, holy girdles, holy pardons, holy beads, holy shoes, holy rules, and all full of holiness. And what thing can be more foolish, more superstitious, or ungodly, than that men, women, and children should wear a friar's coat to deliver them from agues or pesti- lence; or when they die, or when they be buried, cause it to be cast upom them, itt hope thereby to be saved? Which supersti- tion, although (thanks be to God) it hath been little used in this realm, yet in divers other realms it hath been, and yet is, used among many, both learned and unlearned." — Hontily on Good Works, pp. 45, 46.
[Once more —
"True religion then, and pleasing of God, standeth not in making, setting up, painting, gilding, clothing, and decking of dumb and dead images (which be but great puppets and babies for old fools in dotage, and wicked idolatry, to dally and play with), nor in kissing of them, capping, kneeling, offering to them, in censing of them, setting up of candles, hanging up of legs, arms, or whole bodies of wax before them, or praying or asking
226 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
of them, or of saints, things belonging only to God to give. But all these things be vain and abominable, and most dam- nable before God." — Homily o?i Peril of Idolatry^ p. 223.]
Now the veneration and worship condemned in these and other passages are such as these: kneeling- before images, lighting candles to them, offering them incense, going on pilgrimage to them, hanging up crutches, etc., before them, lying tales about them, belief in miracles as if wrought by them through illusion of the devil, decking them up immodestly, and providing incentives by them to bad passions; and, in like manner, merry music and minstrelsy, and licentious practices in honour of relics, counterfeit relics, multiplication of them, absurd pretences about them. This is what the Article means by "the Romish doctrine," which, in agreement to one of the above extracts, it calls '* a fond thing," resfiitilis; for who can ever hope, except the grossest and most blinded minds, to be gaining the favour of the blessed saints, while they come with unchaste thoughts and eyes, that cannot cease from sin ; and to be profited by "pilgrimage-going," in which "Lady Venus and her son Cupid were rather worshipped wantonly in the flesh, than God the Father, and our Saviour Christ His Son, truly worshipped in the Spirit?"
Here again it is remarkable that, urged by the truth of the allegation, the Council of Trent is obliged, both to confess the above-mentioned enormities in the venera- tion of relics and images, and to forbid them.
" Into these holy and salutary observances should any abuses creep, of these the Holy Council strongly [vehementer] desires the utter extinction; so that no images of a false doctrine, and supplying to the uninstructed opportunity of perilous error, should be set up. ... All superstition also in invocation of saints, veneration of relics, and sacred use of images, be put away; all filthy lucre be cast out of doors; and all 'wa7itomiess be avoided; so that images be not painted or adorned with an immodest beauty ; or the celebration of Saints and attendance on Relics be abused to revelries and drunkenness; as though
THE THlRTV-NlNli ARTICLES. 227
festival days were kept in honour of saints by luxury and /iiscivioiisness." — Sess. 25.
[On the whole, then, by the Romish doctrine of the ^ eneration and worshipping of images and relics, the article means all maintenance of those idolatrous honours which have been and are paid them so com- monly throughout the Church of Rome, with the superstitions, profanities, and impurities consequent thereupon.]
4. Invocation of Saints.
By "invocation" here is not meant the mere circum- stance of addressing beings out of sight, because we use the Psalms in our daily service, which are frequent in invocations of Angels to praise and bless God. In the Benedicite too we address " the spirits and souls of the righteous."
Nor is it a "fond" invocation to pray that unseen beings may bless us; for this [Bishop Ken does in his Evening Hymn: —
" O may my Guardian, while I sleep, Close to my bed his vigils keep. His love angelical instil, Stop all the avenues of ill," etc.]^
On the other hand, judging from the example set us in the Homilies themselves, invocations are not cen- surable, and certainly not " fond," if we mean nothing definite by them, addressing them to beings which we kii07V cannot hear, and using them as interjections. The Homilist seems to avail himself of this proviso in a passage which will serve to begin our extracts in illustration of the superstitiotis use of invocations.
"We have left Him neither heaven, nor earth, nor water, nor country, nor city, peace nor war to rule and govern, neither
^ [A passage here occurred in first edition upon Rev. i. 4, in which the author still thinks that "the seven spirits" are seven created angels.]
19
228 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
men, nor beasts, nor their diseases to cure; that a godly man might justly, for zealous indignation, cry out, O heaven O earth, and scas^ what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into! What dishonour do the creatures to their Creator and Maker! And if we remember God sometimes, yet, because we doubt of His ability or will to help, we join to Him another helper, as if He were a noun adjective, using these sayings: such as learn, God and St. Nicholas be my speed: such as neese, God help and St. John: to the horse, God and St. Loy save thee. Thus are we become like horses and mules, which have no understanding. For is there not one God only, who by His power and wisdom made all things, and by His providence governeth the same, and by His goodness maintaineth and saveth them? Be not all things of Him, by Him, and through Him? Why dost thou turn Jroni the Creator to the creatures? This is the manner of the Gentiles idolaters: but thou art a Christian, and therefore by Christ alone hast access to God the Father, and help of Him only." — Homily on Peril of Idolatry, p. 189.
Again, just before —
"Terentius Varro sheweth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time: there were no fewer Veneres and Dianje: we had no fewer Christophers, Ladies, and Mary Magdalens, and other saints. Qinomaus and Hesiodus shew that in their time there were thirty thousand gods. I think we had no fewer saints, to whom we gave the honour due to God. And they have not only spoiled the true living God of his due honour in temples, cities, countries, and lands, by such devices and inven- tions as the Gentiles idolaters have done before them: but the sea and waters have as well special saints with them, as they had gods with the Gentiles, Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, and such other: in whose places be come St. Christopher, St. Clement, and divers other, and specially our Lady, to whom shipmen sing, 'Ave, maris stella.' Neither hath the fire escaped their idolatrous inventions. For, instead of Vulcan and \'esta, the Gentiles' gods of the fire, our men have placed St. Agatha, and make litters on her day for to quench fire with. Every artificer and profession hath his special saint, as a peculiar god. As for example, scholars have
1 "O cuclum, O leria, O maria Nepluni." — Teicnt. Adclph. v. 3.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 229
St. Nicholas and St. Gregory; painters, St. Luke; neither lack soldiers their Mars, nor lovers their Venus, amongst Christians. All diseases have their special saints, as gods the curers of them; . . . the falling-evil St. Cornelio, the toothache St. Apollin, etc. Neither do beast nor cattle lack their gods with us; for St. Loy is the horse-leech, and St. Anthony the swine- herd."—/^zVi'., p. 188.
The same subject is introduced in connection with a lament over the falling off of attendance on religfious worship consequent upon the Reformation :
" God's vengeance hath been and is daily provoked, because much wicked people pass nothing to resort to the Church, either for that they are so sore blinded that they understand nothing of God and godliness, and care not with devilish example to offend their neighbours; or else for that they see the Church altogether scoured of such gay gozing sights as their gross fantasy was greatly delighted with, because they see the false religion abandoned, and the true restored, which seemeth an unsavoury thing to their unsavoury taste; as may appear by this, that a woman said to her neighbour, 'Alas, gossip, what shall we now do at church, since all the saints are taken away, since all the goodly sights we were wont to have are gone, since we cannot hear the like piping, singing, chanting, and playing upon the organs, that we could before ?' But, dearly beloved, we ought greatly to rejoice, and give God thanks, that our churches are delivered of all those things which displeased God so sore, dixidjilthily deJUedWxs house and his place of prayer, for the which He hath justly destroyed many nations, according to the saying of St. Paul: ' If any man defile the temple of God, God will him destroy.' And this ought we greatly to praise God for, that superstitious and idolat7Vus manners as were utterly naught, and defaced God's glory, are utterly abolished, as they most justly deserved: and yet those things that either God was honoured with, or his people edified, are decently retained, and in our churches comely practised." — On the Place and Time of Prayer, pp. 293, 294.
Again —
" There are certain conditions most requisite to be found in every such a one that must be called upon, which if they be not
230 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
found in Him unto whom we pray, then doth our prayer avail us nothing, but is altogether in vain.
"The first is this, that He, to whom we make our prayers, be able to help us. The second is, that He will help us. The third is, that He be such a one as may hear our prayers. The fourth is, that He understand better than ourselves what we lack, and how far we have need of help. If these things be to be found in any other, saving only God, then may we lawfully call upon some other besides God. But what man is so gross, but he well understandeth that these things are only proper to Him who is omnipotent, and knoweth all things, even the very secrets of the heart; that is to say, only and to God alone? Whereof it followeth that we must call neither upon angel nor yet upon saint, but only and solely upon God, as St. Paul doth write: 'How shall men call upon Him, in whom they have not believed ?' So that invocatioji or p7ayer may not be made without faith in Him on whom they call, but that we must first believe in Him before we can make our prayer unto Him, where- upon we must only and solely pray unto God. For to say that we should believe in either angel or saint, or in any other living creature, were most horrible blasphemy ^.g&\ns\ God and his holy Word; neither ought this fancy to enter into the heart of any Christian man, because we are expressly taught in the Word of the Lord, only to repose our faith in the blessed Trinity, in whose only name we are also baptised, according to the express commandment of our Saviour Jesus Christ, in the last of St. Matthew.
" But that the truth thereof may better appear, even to them that be most simple and unlearned, let us consider what prayer is. St. Augustine calleth it a lifting up of the mind to God; that is to say, an humble and lowly pouring out of the heart to God. Isidorus saith, that it is an affection of the heart, and not a labour of the lips. So that, by these plans, true prayer doth consist not so much in the outward sound and voice of words, as in the inward groaning and crying of the heart to God.
"Now, then, is there any angel, any virgin, any patriarch, or prophet, among the dead, that can understand or know the meaning of the heart? The .Scripture saith, 'It is God that searcheth the heart and reins, and that He only knoweth the hearts of the children of men.' As for the saints, they have so little knowledge of the secrets of the heart, that many of the ancient fathers greatly doubt whether they know anything at all, that is commonly done on earth. And albeit some think they
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 231
do, yet St. Augustine, a doctor of great authorit)-, and also anti- quity, hath this opinion of them: that they know no more what we do on earth than we know what they do in heaven. For proof whereof, lie allegeth the words of Isaiah the prophet, where it is said, 'Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel knoweth us not.' His mind therefore is this, not that we should put any religion in ivorsliippiiig them, ox praying unto them; but that we should honour them by following their virtuous and godly life. For, as he witnesseth in another place, the martyrs, and holy men in time past, were wont, after their death, to be remenihereii^ and 7iavied of the priest at divine service; but never to be invocaied ox called iipo}i. And why so ? Because the priest, saith he, is God's priest, and not theirs: whereby he is bound to call upon God, and not upon them. . . . O but I dare not (will some men say) trouble God at all times with my prayers; we see that in kings' houses, and courts of princes, men cannot be admitted, unless they first use the help and means of some special nobleman, to come to the speech of the king, and to obtain the thing that they would have.
" Christ, sitting in heaven, hath an everlasting priesthood, and always prayeth to His Father for them that be penitent, ob- taining, by virtue of His wounds, which are evermore in the sight of God, not only perfect remission of our sins, but also all other necessaries that we lack in this world; so that this Holy Mediator is sufficient in heaven, and needeth no others to help Him.
" Invocation is a \\-\\x\% propet- imio God, which if we attribute unto the saints, it soundeth unto their reproach, neither can they well bear it at our hands. When Paul healed a certain lame man, which was impotent in his feet, at Lystra, the people would have do7ic sacrifice unto him and Barnabas; who, rending their clothes, refused it, and exhorted them to iL'orship the true God. Likewise in the Revelation, when St. ]ohr\ fell before the angel's feet to worship hini^ the angel would not permit him to do it, but commanded him that he should worship God. Which examples declare unto us, that the saints and angels in heaven will not have us to do any honour unto them, that is due and proper unto God" — Homily on Prayer, pp. 272-277.
Whereas, then, it has already been shown that not all invocation is wrongs, this last passage plainly tells us what kind of invocation is not allowable, or what is meant by invocation in its exceptionable sense — viz., " a
232 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
thlngf proper to God," as beings part of the "honour that is due and proper unto God." And two instances are specially g^iven of such callings and invocating — viz., sacrificing, and falling doiim in iwrship. Besides this, the Homilist adds, that it is wrong- to pray to them for "necessaries in this world," and to accompany their services with "piping, singing", chanting, and playing" on the organ, and of invoking saints as patrons of particular elements, countries, arts, or remedies.
Here again, as before, the Article gains a witness and concurrence from the Council of Trent. " Though," say the divines there assembled, "the Church has been accustomed sometimes to celebrate a few masses to the honour and remembrance of saints, yet she doth not teach that sacrifice is offered to them, but to God alone, who crowned them ; wherefore neither is the priest wont to say, / offer sacrifice to thee, O Peter, or O Paul, but to God." (Sess. 22.)
Or, to know what is meant by fond invocations, we may refer to the following passage of Bishop Andrews' Answer to Cardinal Perron : —
"This one point is needful to be observed throughout all the Cardinal's answer, that he hath framed to himself five distinc- tions:— (i.) Prayer rt'/Vvr/, and prayer i'i^//^//'^, or indirect. (2.) Prayer absolute, and prayer relative. (3 ) Prayer so7<ereign, and prayer subaltern. (4.) Viayer final, and prayer transitorf. (5.) Vra.yer sacrfieial, and prayer out of, ox from the sacrifice. Prayer direct, absolute, final, sovereign, sacrificial, that must not be made to the saints, but to God only ; but as iox prayer oblique, rclati^'c, transitory, siduiltern, front, or out of the sacrifice, that (saith he) we may make to the saints.
" For all the world like the question in Scotland, which was made some fifty years since, whether the Pater noster might not be said to saints? For then they in like sort devised the dis- tinction of — (i.) Ultimate, et non ultimate. (2.) Principaliier, et fninus principaliter. (3.) Pri marie et secundarie: Capiendo stride et capiendo large. And as for ultimate, principaliter, pritnarie et capiendo stride, they conclude it must go to God ;
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 233
but von ttltimaie^ 7niniis p^ificipaliier, sccimdarie, et capiendo large^ it might be allowed saints.
"Yet it is sure, that in these distinctions is the whole sub- stance of his answer. And whensoever he is pressed, he flees straight to h'\s pmyei' rciafi^'c ?iX\^ prayer iransitoiy j as \{ prier pour prier were all the Church of Rome did hold : and that they made no prayers to the saints, but only to pray for them. The Bishop well remembers, that AI aster Casaubon more than once told him, that reasoning with the Cardinal, touching the invocation of saints, the Cardinal freely confessed to him that he had never prayed to saint in all his life., save only when he happened to follo7a the procession j and that then he sung Ora pro tiobis with the clerks indeed, but else not.
"Which cometh much to this opinion he now seemeth to defend : but wherein others of the Church of Rome will surely give him over, so that it is to be feared that the Cardinal will be shent for this, and some censure come out against him by the Sorbonne. For the world cannot believe that oblique relative prayer is all that is sought; seeing it is most evident, by their breviaries, hours, and rosaries, that they pray directly, abso- lutely, and finally to saints, and make no mention at all of prier pour prier, to pray to God to forgive them ; but to the saints, to give it themselves. So that all he saith comes to nothing. They say to the blessed Virgin, ' Sancta Maria,' not only 'Ora pro nobis': but ' Succurre miseris, juva pusillanimes, resolve flebiles, accipe quod offerimus, dona quod rogamus, excusa quod timemus,' etc., etc.
"All which, and many more, show plainly that t\\& practice of the Church of Rome, in this point of invocation of saints, is far otherwise than Cardinal Perron would bear the world in hand : and thai prier pour prier is not all, but that 'Tu dona ccelum, Tu laxa, Tu sana, Tu solve crimina, Tu due, conduc, indue, perdue ad gloriam ; Tu serva, Tu fer opem, Tu aufer, Tu confer vitam,' are said to them {totidcm verbis): more than wJiich can- fiot be said to God himself. And again, ' Hie nos solvat a pec- catis, Hie nostros tergat reatus. Hie arma conferat, Hie hostem fuget, Ha;c gubernet. Hie aptet tuo conspectui;' which if they be not direct and absolute, it would be asked of them what is absolute or direct?''' — Bishop Andrews' Answer to Chapter XX. of Cardinal Pei-ron's Reply, pp. 57-62.
Bellarmine's admissions quite bear out the principles laid down by Bishop Andrews and the Homilist; — -
234 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
" It is not lawful," he says, "to ask of the saints to grant to us, as if they were the autJiors of divine benefits, glory or grace, or the other means of blessedness. . . . This is proved, first, from Scripture, 'The Lord will give grace and glory' (Psalm Ixxxiv.) Secondly, from the usage of the Church ; for in the mass-prayers, and the saints' offices, we never ask anything else, but that at their prayers benefits may be granted to us by God. Thirdly, from reason ; for ivJiat ive need surpasses the powers of the creature, and therefore even of saints ; therefore we ought to ask nothing of saints beyond their impetrating from God what is profitable for us. Fourthly, from Augustine and Theodoret, who expressly teach that saints are not to be invoked as gods, but as able to gain from God what they wish. However, it must be observed, when we say, that nothing should be asked of saints but their prayers for us, the question is not about the words, but the sense of the words. For, as far as words go, // is lawful to say: ' St. Peter, pity me, save me, open for me the gate of heaven;' also, 'give me health of body, patience, fortitude,' etc., provided that we mean ' save and pity me by p7-ayi}ig for 7nef 'grant me this or that by thy prayers and merits' For so speaks Gregory Nazianzen, and many others of the ancients, etc." — De Sanct. Beat. i. 17.
[By the doctrine of the invocation of Saints then, the article means all maintenance of addresses to them which intrench upon the incommunicable honour due to God alone, such as have been, and are in the church of Rome, and such as, equally with the peculiar doctrine of purg-atory, pardons, and worshipping- and adoration of images and relics, as actually taug^ht in that church, are unknown to the Catholic Church.]
§ 7. — The Sacraments.
Art. XXV.- — "Those five, commonly called Sacraments, that is to say. Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matri- mony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being- such as have grown, partly of the corrupt following (pravA imitatione) of the Apostles, partly from states of life allowed in the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 235
Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of sacraments (sacramentorum eandem rationem), with Baptism and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God."
This Article does not deny the five rites in question to be sacraments, but to be sacraments in the sense in which Baptism and the Lord's Supper are sacraments; "sacraments of the Gospel,^' sacraments ivith an out- ward sig7i ordained of God.
They are not sacraments in aiiy sense, nn/ess the Church has the power of dispensing- grace through rites of its own appointing, or is endued with the gift of blessing and hallowing the "rites or ceremonies," which, according to the twentieth article, it "hath power to decree." But we may well believe that the Church has this gift.
If, then, a sacrament be merely an outward sign of an invisible grace given nnder it, the five rites may be sacraments ; but if it must be an outward sign ordained by God or Christ, then only Baptism and the Lord's Supper are sacraments.
Our Church acknowledges both definitions ; in the article before us, the stricter; and again in the Cate- chism, where a sacrament is defined to be " an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace, given unto us, ordained by Christ himself." And this, it should be remarked, is a characteristic of our formularies in various places, not to deny the truth or obligation of certain doctrines or ordinances, but simply to deny (what no Roman opponent now can successfully main- tain) that Christ for certain directly ordained them. For instance, in regard to the visible Church, it is sufficient that the ministration of the sacraments should be "according to Christ's ordinance." Art, xix. — And it is added, "in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." The question entertained is, what is the least that God requires of us. Again, " the
236 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
baptism of young children is to be retained, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ." Art. xxvii. — Again, "the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped." Art. xxviii. — Who will maintain the paradox that what the Apostles "set in order when they came" had been already done by Christ? Again, "both parts of the Lord's sacrament, hy Christ's ordi- nance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christian men alike." Art. xxx. — Again, "bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded hy God's laiv either to vow the estate of single life or to abstain from marriage." Art. xxxii. — [In making this distinction, however, it is not here insinuated, though the question is not entered on in these particular articles, that ever\- one of these points, of which it is only said that they are not ordained by Christ, is justifiable on grounds short of His appointment.]
On the other hand, our Church takes the wider sense of the meaning of the word sacrament in the Homilies, observing —
" In the second Book against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, he [St. Augustine] calleth sacraments holy signs. And writing to Ronifacius of the baptism of infants, he saith, ' If sacraments had not a certain similitude of those things whereof they be sacraments, they should be no sacra-.nents at all. And of this similitude they do for the most part receive the names of the self-same things they signify.' By these words of St. Augustine it appeareth that he alloweth the common description of a sacrament, which is, that it is a 7'isible sign oj an invisible grace J that is to say, that setteth out to the eyes and other outward senses the inward working of God's free mercy, and doth, as it were, seal in our hearts the promises of God." — Homily on Covwion Prayer and Sacraments, pp. 296, 297.
Accordingly, starting with this definition of St. Augustine's, the writer is necessarily carried on as follows : —
TPIR THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 237
"You shall hear how many sacraments there be that were instituted by our Saviour Christ, and are to be continued, and received of every Christian, in due time and order, and for such purpose as our Saviour Christ willed them to be received. And as for the number of them, if they should be considered accord- ing to the exacf signification of a sacrament, namely, for visible signs expressly commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the promise of free forgiveness of our sins, and of our holiness and joining in Christ, there be but two — namely, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. For although absolution hath the promise of forgiveness of sin ; yet by the express word of the New Testament, it hath not this promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. For this visible sign (I mean laying on of hands) is not expressly com- manded in the New Testament to be used in absolution, as the visible signs in Baptism and the Lord's Supper are: and there- fore absolution is no such sacrament as Baptism and the Com- munion are. And though the ordering of ministers hath this visible sign and promise ; yet it lacks the promise of remission of sin, as all other sacraments besides the two above named do. Therefore neither it, nor any of/ier sacrament else, be such sacraments as Baptism and the Communion are. But in a general acception, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to anything, whereby a holy thing is signified. In which understanding of the word, the ancient writers have given this name, not only to the other five, commonly of late years taken and used for supplying the number of the seven sacraments; but also to divers and sundry other ceremonies, as to oil, wash- ing of feet, and such-like ; not meaning thereby to repute them as sacraments, in the same signification that the two forenamed sacraments are. And therefore St. Augustine, weighing the true signification and exact meaning of the word, writing to Januarius, and also in the third Book of Christian Doctrine, affirmeth that the sacraments of the Christians, as they are most excellent in signification, so are they most few in number, and in both places maketh mention expressly of two, the sacra- ment of Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. And although there are retained by order of the Church of England, besides these two, certain other rites and ceremonies, about the institu- tion of ministers in the Church, Matrimony, Confirmation of Children, by examining them of their knowledge in the Articles of the Faith, and joining thereto the prayers of the Church for them, and likewise for the Visitation of the Sick; yet no man
238 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ought to take these for sacraments, in such signification and meaning as the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ; but either for godly states of life, necessary in Christ's Church, and therefore worthy to be set forth by public action and solemnity, by the ministry of the Church, or else judged to be such ordinances as may make for the instruction, comfort, and edification of Christ's Church." — Homily on Couiinon Player and Sacramcjiis^ pp. 298-300.
Another definition of the word .sacrament, which equally succeeds in limiting" it to the two principal rites of the Christian Church, is also contained in the Cate- chism, as well as alluded to in the above passage: — " Two only, as generally necessary to salvation, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." On this subject the fol- lowing- remark has been made: —
"The Roman Catholic considers that there are seven [sacraments] ; we do not strictly determine the number. We define the word g-enerally to be an ' outward sign of an inward g^race,' without saying to how many ordinances this applies. However, what we do determine is, that Christ has ordained two special sacraments, as generally necessary to salvation. This, then, is the char- acteristic mark of those two, separating them from all other whatever; and this is nothing else but saying in other words, that they are the only justifying rites, or instruments of communicating the Atonement, which is the one thing- necessary to us. Ordination, for instance, gives po^ver, yet without making- the soul acceptable to God ; Confirmation gives light and strength, yet is the mere completion of Baptism ; and Absolution may be viewed as a negative ordinance removing the harrier which sin has raised between us and that grace, which by inheritance is ours. But the two sacraments ' of the Gospel,' as they may be em- phatically styled, are the instruments of inward life, according to our Lord's declaration, that Baptism is a new birth, and that in the Eucharist we eat the living bread."
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 239
§ 8. — Transuhstantiation.
Article xxviii. — "Transuhstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine, in the supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but is re- pugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions."
What is here opposed as "Transuhstantiation" is the shocking doctrine that "the body of Christ," as the Article goes on to express it, is not "given, taken, and eaten, after a heavenly and spiritual manner, but is carnally pressed with the teeth;" that It is a body or substance of a certain extension and bulk in space, and a certain figure and due disposition of parts, whereas we hold that the only substance such, is the bread which we see.
This is plain from Article xxix., which quotes St. Augustine as speaking of the wicked as "carnally and visibly pressing with their teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ," not the real substance, a statement which even the Breviary introduces into the service for Corpus Christi day.
This is plain also from the words of the Homily: — " Saith Cyprian, ' When we do these things, ive need not whet our teeth, but with sincere faith we break and divide that holy bread. It is well known that the meat we seek in this supper is spiritual food, the nourishment of the soul, a heavenly refection, and not earthly ; an invisible meat and not a bodily: a ghostly substance, and not carnal. ' "
Some extracts may be quoted to the same effect from Bishop Taylor. Speaking of what has been believed in the Church of Rome, he says: —
"Sometimes Christ hath appeared in His own shape, and blood and flesh hath been pulled out of the mouths of the com-
240 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
municants ; and Plegilus, the priest, saw an angel, showing Christ to him in form of a child upon the altar, whom first he took in his arms and kissed, but did eat Him up presently in his other shape, in the shape of a wafer. ' Speciosa certe pax nebu- lonis, ut qui oris prtebuerat basium, dentium inferret exitium,' said Berengarius: ' It was but a Judas' kiss to kiss with the lip, and bite with the teeth.'" — Bp. Taylor^ vol. x. p. 12.
"Yet if this and the other miracles pretended, had not been illusions or directly fabulous, it had made very much against the present doctrine of the Roman Church : for they represent the body in such measure, as by their explications it is not, and it cannot be: they represent it broken, a finger, or a piece of flesh, or bloody, or bleeding, or in the form of an infant ; and then, when it is in the species of bread : for if, as they say, Christ's body is present no longer than the form of bread re- mained, how can it be Christ's body in the miracle, when the species being gone, it is no longer a sacrament ? But the dull inventors of miracles in those ages considered nothing of this ; the article itself was then gross and rude, and so were the instruments of probation. I noted this, not only to show at what door so incredible a persuasion entered, but that the zeal of prevailing in it hath so blinded the refiners of it in this age, that they still urge those miracles for proof, when, if they do anything at all, they reprove the present doctrine." — Bp. Taylor's Works, \o\. ix. p. 411. ■•
Again: the change which is denied in the Article is accurately specified in another passage of the same author: —
" I will not insist upon the unworthy questions which this carnal doctrine introduces . . . neither will I make scrutiny concerning Christ's bones, hair, and nails; nor suppose the Roman priests to be such Ko.px'^pboovTc^, and to have such ' saws in their mouths': these are appendages of their persuasion, but to be abominated by all Christian and modest persons, who use to eat not the bodies but the flesh of beasts, and not to devour, but to worship the body of Christ in the exaltation, and now in union with His divinity."— 0« the Real Presence., 11.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 241
And again: —
" They that deny the spiritual sense, and affirm the natural, are to remember that Christ reproved all senses of these words that were not spiritual. And by the way let me observe, that the expressions of some chief men among the Romanists are so rude and crass, that it luill be impossible to excuse them from the understanding the words in the sense of the men of Caper- nautn: for, as they understood Christ to mean His 'true flesh, natural and proper," so do they : as they thought Christ intended they should tear Him with their teeth and suck His blood, for which they were offended ; so do these men not only think so, but say so, and are not offended. So said Alanus, 'Assertissime loquimur, corpus Christi vere a nobis contrectari, manducari, circumgestari, dentibus teri [ground by the teeth\ sensibiliter sacrificari [sensibly sacrificed^ non minus quam ante consecra- tionem panis' [not less than the bread before consecration] ... I thought that the Romanists had been glad to separate their own opinion from the carnal conceit of the men of Caper- naum and the offended disciples . . . but I find that Bellar- mine owns it, even in them, in their rude circumstances, for he affirms that ' Christ corrected them not for supposing so, but reproved ih&mfor not believi7ig it to be so.' And indeed him- self says as much: 'The body of Christ is truly and properly nuinducated or chewed \\\i\\ the bread in the Eucharist;' and to take off the foulness of the expression, by avoiding a worse, he is pleased to speak nonsense: 'A thing may be manducated or chewed, though it be not attrite or broken.' . . . But Bellar- mine adds, that if you will not allow him to say so, then he grants it in plain terms, that Christ's body is chewed, is attrite or broken with the teeth, and that not tropically, but properly. . . . How? under the species of bread, and invisibly." — Ibid. 3.
Take again the statement of Ussher : —
" Paschasius Radbertus, who was one of the first setters forward of this doctrine in the West, spendeth a large chapter upon this point, wherein he telleth us that Christ in the Sacra- ment did show himself 'oftentimes in a visible shape, either in the form of a lamb, or in the colour of flesh and blood; so that while the host was a breaking or an offering, a lamb in the priest's hands, and blood in the chalice should be seen as it were flowing from the sacrifice, that what lay hid in a mystery
242 'I'HE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
might to them that yet doubted be made manifest in a miracle.' . . . The first [tale] was ... of a Roman matron, who found a piece of the sacramental bread turned into the fashion of a finger, all bloody; which afterwards, upon the prayers of St. Gregory, was converted to its former shape again. The other two were first coined by the Grecian liars. . . . The former of these is not only related there, but also in the legend of Simeon Metaphrastes (which is such another author among the Grecians as Jacobus de Voragine was among the Latins) in the life of Arsenius, . . . how that a little child was seen upon the altar, and an angel cutting him into small pieces with a knife, and receiving his blood into the chalice, as long as the priest was breaking the bread into little parts. The latter is of a certain Jew, receiving the sacrament at St. Basil's hands, converted visibly into true flesh and blood." — Ussher's Answer to a Jesuit, pp. 62-64.
Or the following' : —
" When St. Odo was celebrating the mass in the presence of certain of the clergy of Canterbury (who maintained that the bread and wine, after consecration, do remain in their former substance, and are not Christ's true body and blood, but a figure of it) : when he was come to confraction, presently the fragments of the body of Christ which he held in his hands, began to pour forth blood into the chalice. Whereupon he shed tears of joy; and beckoning to them that wavered in their faith, to come near and see the wonderful work of God : as soon as they beheld it they cried out, ' O holy Prelate ! to whom the Son of God has been pleased to reveal Himself visibly in the flesh, pray for us, that the blood we see here present to our eyes, may again be changed, lest for our unbelief the Divine vengeance fall upon us.' He prayed accordingly; after which, looking in the chalice, he saw the species of bread and wine, where he had left blood. . . .
"St. Wittekundus, in the administration of the Eucharist, saw a child enter into every one's mouth, playing and smiling when some received him, and with an abhorring countenance when he went into the mouths of others; Christ thus showing this saint in His countenance, who were worthy, and who un- worthy rQct\\Qts.''^/ohnsoii's Miracles of Saints^ pp. 27, 28.
The same doctrine was imposed by Nicholas the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 243
Second on Berengarius, as the confession of the latter shows, which runs thus : —
"I, Berengarius . . . anathematise every heresy, and more particularly that of which I have hitherto been accused ... I agree with the Roman Church . . . that the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are, after consecration, not only a sacrament, but even the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that these are sensibly, and not merely sacramentally, but in truth, handled and broken by the hands of the priest, and ground by the teeiJi of the faithful.'' — Bozudcn^s Li^e of Gregory VII., vol. ii. p. 243.
Another illustration of the sort of doctrine offered in the Article may be g-iven from Bellarmine, whose con- troversial statements have already been introduced in the course of the above extracts. He thus opposes the doctrine of introsusception, which the spiritual view of the Real Presence naturally suggests : —
He observes, that there are "two particular opinions, false and erroneous, excogitated in the schools: that of Durandus, who thought it probable that the substance of the body of Christ in the Eucharist was ivifhoiit magnihide ; and that of certain ancients, which Occam seems afterwards to have followed, that though it has magnitude (which they think not really separable from substance), yet every part is so penetrated by every other, that the body of Christ is ivithoiit figure, without distinction and order of parts." With this he contrasts the doctrine which, he maintains, is that of the Church of Rome as well as the general doctrine of the schools, that "in the Eucharist whole Christ exists with magnitude and all accidents, except that relation to a heavenly location which He has as He is in heaven, and those things which are concomitants on His existence in that location ; and that the parts and members of Christ's body do not penetrate each other, but are so distinct and arranged one with another, as to have ?l figure and order suitable to a human bod}'." — Dc En char. iii. 5,
20
244 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
We see then, that by transubstantiation, our Article does not confine itself to any abstract theory, nor aim at any definition of the word substance, nor in rejecting- it, rejects a word, nor in denying a " mutatio panis et vini," is denying every kind of change, but opposes itself to a certain plain and unambiguous statement, not of this or that council, but one generally received or taught both in the schools and in the multitude, that the material elements are changed into an earthly, fleshly, and organised body, extended in size, distinct in its part, which is there where the outward appear- ances of bread and wine are, and only does not meet the senses, nor even that always.
Objections against "substance," "nature," "change," "accidents," and the like, seem more or less questions of words, and inadequate expressions of the great oflFence which we find in the received Roman view of this sacred doctrine.
In this connection it may be suitable to proceed to notice the Explanation appended to the Communion Service, of our kneeling at the Lord's Supper, which requires explanation itself, more perhaps than any part of our formularies. It runs as follows : —
"Whereas it is ordained in this office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the com- municants should receive the same kneeling (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy communion, as might otherwise ensue) ; yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ig-norance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved, — It is hereby declared, that thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 245
Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians) ; and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here ; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one."
Now it may be admitted without difficulty — i. That " no adoration ought to be done unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received." 2. Nor " unto any corporal {i.e., carnal) presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood," 3. That "the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances." 4. That to adore them "were idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians"; and 5. That "the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven."
But "to heaven" is added, ^'' and not here." Now, though it be allowed that there is no " corporal pres- ence " \i.e., carnal] of "Christ's natural flesh and blood " here, it is a further point to allow that " Christ's natural body and blood" are '■'•not here." And the question is, how can there be any presence at all of His body and blood, yet a presence such as not to be here? How can there be -a-ny presence, yet not local?
Yet that this is the meaning of the paragraph in question is plain, from what it goes on to say in proof of its position : "It being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." It is here asserted then — i. Generally, "no natural body can be in more places than one" ; therefore, 2, Christ's natural body cannot be in the bread and wine, or there where the bread and wine are seen. In other words, there is no local presence in the Sacrament. Yet, that there is a presence is asserted in the Homilies, as quoted above, and the question is, as just now stated, " How can there be a presence, yet not a local one ? "
246 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
Now, first, let it be observed, that the question to be solved is the truth of a certain philosophical deduction, not of a certain doctrine of Scripture. That there is a real presence, Scripture asserts, and the Homilies, Catechism, and Communion Service confess ; but the explanation before us adds, that it is philosophically impossible that it should be a particular kind of presence, a presence of which one can say *' it is here," or which is "local." It states then a philosophical deduction ; but to such deduction none of us have subscribed. We have professed, in the words of the Canon, "That the Book of Prayer, etc., containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God.'' Now, a position like this may not be, and is not, " contrary to the Word of God," and yet need not be true — e.g.^ we may accept St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, as containing- nothing contrary to Scripture, nay, as altogether most scriptural, and yet this would not hinder us from rejecting the account of the Phoenix — as contrary, not to God's Word, but to matter of fact. Even the in- fallibility of the Roman See is not considered to extend to matters of fact or points of philosophy. Nay, we commonly do not consider that we need take the words of Scripture itself literally about the sun's standing still, or the earth being fixed, or the firmament being- above. Those at least who distinguish between what is theological in Scripture and what is scientific, and yet admit that Scripture is true, have no ground for wondering at such persons as subscribe to a paragraph, of which at the same time they disallow the philosophy; especially considering they expressly subscribe it only as not "contrary to the Word of God." This then is what must be said first of all.
Next, the philosophical position is itself capable of a very specious defence. The truth is, we do not at all know what is meant by distance or intervals absolutely, any more than we know what is meant by absolute time. Late discoveries in geology have tended to make
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 247
it probable that time may under circumstances go inde- finitely faster or slower than it does at present ; or in other words, that indefinitely more may be accomplished in a given portion of it. What Moses calls a day, geologists wish to prove to be thousands of years, if we measure time by the operations at present effected in it. It is equally difficult to determine what we mean by distance, or why we should not be at this moment close to the throne of God, though we seem far from it. Our measure of distance is our hand or our foot ; but as an object a foot off is not called distant, though the interval is indefinitely divisible ; neither need it be distant either, after it has been multiplied indefinitely. Why should any conventual measure of ours — why should the perceptions of our eyes or our ears, be the standard of presence or distance ? Christ may really be close to us, though in heaven, and His presence in the Sacrament may but be a manifestation to the wor- shipper of that nearness, not a change of place, which may be unnecessary. But on this subject some extracts may be suitably made from a pamphlet published several years since, and admitting of one or two verbal correc- tions, which, as in the case of other similar quotations above, shall here be made without scruple : —
*' In the note at the end of the Communion Service, it is argued, that a body cannot be in two places at once ; and that therefore the Body of Christ is not locally present, in the sense in which we speak of the bread as being locally present. On the other hand, in the Communion Service itself, Catechism, Articles, and Homilies, it is plainly declared, that the Body of Christ is in a mysterious way, if not locally, yet really present, so that we are able after some ineffable manner to receive it. Whereas, then, the objection stands, ' Christ is not really here, because He is not locally here,' our formularies answer, ' He is really here, yet not locally.'
" But it mav be asked, What is the meaning of
248 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
saying- that Christ is really present, yet not locally? I will make a suggestion on the subject. What do we mean by being present? How do we define and measure it? To a blind and deaf man, that only is present which he touches : give him hearing, and the range of things present enlarg-es ; everything is present to him which he hears. Give him at length sight, and the sun may be said to be present to him in the day- time, and myriads of stars by night. The presence, then, of a thing is a relative word, depending-, in a popular sense of it, upon the channels of communication between it and him to whom it is present; and thus it is a word of degree.
" Such is the meaning- of presence, when used of material objects; — very different from this is the con- ception we form of the presence of spirit with spirit. The most intimate presence we can fancy is a spiritual presence in the soul; it is nearer to us than any material object can possibly be ; for our body, which is the organ of conveying to us the presence of matter, sets bounds to its approach towards us. If, then, spiritual beings can be brought near to us (and that they can, we know, from what is told us of the influences of Divine grace, and again of evil angels upon our souls), their presence is something sui generis, of a more perfect and simple character than any presence we commonly call local. And further, their presence has nothing to do with the degrees of nearness; they are either present or not present, or, in other words, their coming is not measured by space, nor their absence ascertained by distance. In the case of things material, a transit through space is the necessary condition of approach and presence; but in things spiritual (whatever be the condition), such a transit seems not to be a condition. The condition is unknown. Once more: while beings simply spiritual seem not to exist in place, the Incarnate Son does; according to our Church's statement already alluded to, that ' the natural body and blood of our
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 249
Saviour Christ are in heaven and not here, it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one.'
"Such seems to be the mystery attending our Lord and Saviour; He has a body, and that spirittial. He is in place; and yet, as being a spirit. His mode of approach — the mode in which He makes Himself present here or there — may be, for what we know, as different from the mode in which material bodies approach and come, as a spiritual presence is more perfect. As material bodies approach by moving from place to place, so the approach and presence of a spiritual body may be in some other way, — ^probably is in some other way, since in some other way (as it would appear) not gradual, progressive, approximating, that is, locomotive, but at once, spirits become present, — may be such as to be consistent with His remaining on God's right hand while He becomes present here, — that is, it may be real yet not local, or, in a word, is mysterious. The Body and Blood of Christ may be really, literally present in the holy Eucharist, yet not having become present by local passage, may still literally and really be on God's right hand; so that, though they be present in deed and truth, it may be impossible, it may be untrue to say that they are literally in the elements, or abont them, or in the soul of the receiver. These may be useful modes of speech according to the occasion; but the true determination of all such questions may be this, that Christ's body and Blood are locally at God's right hand, yet really present here, — present here, but not here in place, — because they are spirit.
"To assist our conceptions on this subject, I would recur to what I said just now about the presence of material objects, by way of putting my meaning in a different point of view. The presence of a material object, in the popular sense of the word, is a matter of degree, and ascertained by the means of apprehend-
250 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ing it which belong' to him to whom it is present. It is in some sense a correlative of the senses. A fly may be as near an edifice as a man ; yet we do not call it present to the fly, because it cannot see it ; and we call it present to the man because he can. This, how- ever, is but a popular view of the matter: when we consider it carefully, it certainly is difficult to say what is meant by the presence of a material object relatively to us. It is in some respects truer to say that a thing is present, which is so circumstanced as to act upon us and influence us, whether we are sensible of it or not. Now this is what the Catholic Church seems to hold concerning our Lord's Presence in the Sacrament, that He then personally and bodily is with us in the way an object is which we call present: how He is so, we know not, but that He should be so, though He be millions of miles away, is not more inconceivable than the influence of eyesight upon us is to a blind man. The stars are millions of miles off^, yet they impress ideas upon our souls through our sight. We know but of five senses: we know not whether or not human nature be capable of more ; we know not whether or not the soul possesses anything analogous to them. We know nothing to negative the notion that the soul may be capable of having Christ present to it by the stimulating of dormant, or the development of possible energies.
"As sight for certain purposes annihilates space, so other unknown capacities, bodily or spiritual, may annihilate it for other purposes. Such a practical annihilation was involved in the appearance of Christ to St. Paul on his conversion. Such a practical an- nihilation is involved in the doctrine of Christ's ascen- sion; to speak according to the ideas of space and time commonly received, what must have been the rapidity of that motion by which, within ten days. He placed our human nature at the right hand of God? Is it more mysterious that He should ' open the heavens,' to
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 251
use the Scripture phrase, in the sacramental rite; that He should then dispense with time and space, in the sense in which they are daily dispensed with, in the sun's warming- us at the distance of 100,000,000 of miles, than that He should have dispensed with them on occasion of His ascending- on high? He who showed what the passage of an incorruptible body was ere it had reached God's throne, thereby suggests to us what may be its coming back and presence with us now, when at length glorified and become a spirit.
" In answer, then, to the problem, ho7o Christ comes to us while remaining on high, I answer just as much as this, — that He comes by the agency of the Holy Ghost, m and by the Sacrament. Locomotion is the means of a matefial Presence; the Sacrament is the means of His spiritual Presence. As faith is the means of our receiving It, so the Holy Ghost is the Agent and the Sacrament the means of His imparting It; and therefore we call It a Sacramental Presence. We kneel before His heavenly Throne, and the distance is as nothing: it is as if that Throne were the Altar close to us.
" Let it be carefully observed that I am not proving or determining anything ; I am only showing how it is that certain propositions which at first sight seem contradictions in terms, are not so, — I am but pointing out one w'ay of reconciling them. If there is but one way assignable, the force of all antecedent objection against the possibility of any at all is removed, and then of course there may be other ways supposable though not assignable. It seems at first sight a mere idle use of words to say that Christ is really and literally, yet not locally, present in the Sacrament; that He is there given to us, not in figure but in truth, and yet is still only on the right hand of God. I have wished to remove this seeming impossibility.
"If it be asked, why attempt to remove it, I answer that I have no wish to do so, if persons will not urge it
252 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
ag'ainst the Catholic doctrine. Men maintain it as an impossibiHty, a contradiction in terms, and force a believer in it to say why it should not be so accounted. And then when he g-ives a reason, they turn round and accuse him of subtleties, and refinements, and scholastic trifling^. Let them but believe and act on the truth that the consecrated bread is Christ's body, as He says, and no officious comment on His words will be attempted by any well-judging mind. But when they say ' this cannot be literally true, because it is impossible'; then they force those who think it is literally true, to explain how, according to their notions, it is not impossible. And those who ask hard questions must put up with hard answers."
There is nothing, then, in the Explanatory Para- graph which has given rise to these remarks, to interfere with the doctrine elsewhere taught in our formularies, of a real super-local presence in the Holy Sacrament.
§ 9. — Masses.
Article xxxi. — " The sacrifice (sacrificia) of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remis- sion of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits (perniciosse imposturae)."
Nothing can show more clearly than this passage that the Articles are not written against the creed of the Roman Church, but against actual existing errors in it, whether taken into its system or not. Here the sacrifice of the Mass is not spoken of, in which the special question of doctrine would be introduced ; but "the sacrifice of M^asscs,'' certain observances, for the most part private and solitary, which the writers of the Articles knew to have been in force in time past, and saw before their eyes, and which involved certain opinions and a certain teaching. Accordingly the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 253
passage proceeds, "in which it ii'us co7fimofi/y said"; which surely is a strictly historical mode of speaking.
If any testimony is necessary in aid of what is so plain from the wording of the Article itself, it is found in the drift of the following passage from Burnet : —
" It were easy from all the rituals of the ancients to show, that they had none of those ideas that are now in the Roman Church. They had but one altar in a Church, and probably but one in a city: they had but one communion in a day at that altar: so far were they from the many altars in every church, and //le many masses at every altar, that are now in the Roman Church. They did not know what solitary 7)iasses were, without a communion. All the liturgies and all the writings of ancients are as express in this matter as is possible. The whole con- stitution of their worship and discipline shows it. Their worship always concluded with the Eucharist: such as were not capable of it, as the catechumens, and those who were doing public penance for their sins, assisted at the more general parts of the worship ; and so much of it was called their mass, because they were dismissed at the conclusion of it. When that was done, then the faithful stayed, and did partake of the Eucharist; and at the conclusion of it they were likewise dis- missed, from whence it came to be called the mass of the faithful."— ^^/;/-«^/ c>;/ tiie XXXIst Article, p. 482.
These sacrifices are said to be " blasphemous fables and pernicious impostures." Now the "blasphemous fable " is the teaching that there is a sacrifice for sin other than Christ's death, and that masses are that sacrifice. And the "pernicious imposture" is the turning this belief into a means of filthy lucre.
I. That the "blasphemous fable" is the teaching that masses are sacrifices for sin distinct from the sacrifice of Christ's death, is plain from the first sentence of the Article. "The offering of Christ oiicc made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the ivliole world, both original and achial. And t/iere is none other satisfaction for sin, but t/iat alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of
254 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
masses, etc." It is observable too that the heading' of the Article runs, " Of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross," which interprets the drift of the statement contained in it about masses.
Our Communion Service shows it also, in which the prayer of consecration commences pointedly with a declaration, which has the force of a protest, that Christ made on the cross, "by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a fnll, perfect^ and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
And again in the offering of the sacrifice: "We entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, most humbly beseeching Thee to grant that hy the vierits mid death of Thy Son fesns Christ, and through faith in His blood, we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remis- sion of our sins and all other benefits of His passion."
[And in the notice of the celebration: " I purpose, through God's assistance, to administer to all such as shall be religiously and devoutly disposed, the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ ; to be by them received in remembrance of His meritorious Cross and Passion ; ivhercby alone we obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven."]
But the popular charge still urged against the Roman system, as introducing in the Mass a second or rather continually recurring atonement, is a sufficient illustra- tion, without further quotations, of this part of the Article.
2. That the "blasphemous and pernicious imposture" is the turning the Mass into a gain, is plain from such passages as the following : —
" With what earnestness, with what vehement zeal, did our Saviour Christ drive the buyers and sellers out of the temple of God, and hurled down the tables of the changers of money, and
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 255
the seats of the dove-sellers, and could not abide that a man should carry a vessel through the temple. He told them, that they had made His Father's house a den of thieves, partly through their superstition, hypocrisy, false worship, false doctrine, and insatiable covetousness, and partly through con- tempt, abusing that place with walking and talking, with worldly matters, without all fear of God, and due reverence to that place. What dens of thieves the Churches of England have been made by the blasphemous buying and selling the most precious body and blood of Christ in the Mass, as the world was made to believe, at dirges, at months minds, at trentalls, in abbeys and chantries, besides other horrible abuses (God's holy name be blessed for ever), which we now see and understand. All these abominations they that supply the room of Christ have cleansed and purged the Churches of England of, taking away all such fulsomeness and filthiness, as through blind devotion and ignorance hath crept into the Church these many hundred years." — 0?t Repairing and Keeiing Clean of Churches, pp. 229, 230.
Other passag-es are as follow : —
" Have not the Christians of late days, and even in our days also, in like manner provoked the displeasure and indignation of Almighty God ; partly because they have profaned and defiled their Churches with heathenish and Jewish abuses, with images and idols, with numbers of altars, too superstitiously and intolerably abused, with gross abusing and filthy corrupting of the Lord's holy Supper, the blessed sacrament of His body and blood, with an infinite number of toys and trifles of their own devices, to make a goodly outward show, and to deface the homely, simple, and sincere religion of Christ Jesus; partly, they resort to the Church like hypocrites, full of all iniquity and sinful life, having a vain and dangerous fancy and persuasion, that if they come to the Church, besprinkle them with holy water, hear a mass, and be blessed with a chalice, though they understand not one word of the whole service, nor feel one motion of repentance in their heart, all is well, all is sure?" — On the Place and Time of Prayer, p. 293.
Again —
"What hath been the cause of this gross idolatry, but the ignorance hereof.'' What hath been the cause of this munimish
256 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
massing^ but the ignorance hereof? Yea, what hath been, and what is at this day the cause of this want of love and charity, but the ignorance hereof? Let us therefore so travel to under- stand the Lord's Supper, that we be no cause of the decay of God's worship, of no idolatry, of no dumb massing^ of no hate and malice; so may we the bolder have access thither to our comfort." — Honily coticerniiig the Sacrament^ pp. 377, 378.
To the same purpo.se is the following passage from Bishop Bull's Sermons : —
"It were easy to show how the whole frame of religion and doctrine of the Church of Rome, as it is distinguished from that Christianity which we hold in common with them, is evidently designed and contrived to serve the interest and p7-oJit of them that rule the Church, by the disservices, yea, and ruin of those souls that are under their government. . . . What can the doctrine of men's playing an aftergame for their salvation in purgatory be designed for, but to enhance the price of the pries fs masses and dirges for the dead ? Why must a solitary mass, bought for a piece of money ^ performed and participated by a priest alone, in a private corner of a church, be, not only against the sense of Scripture and the Primitive Church, but also against common sense and grammar, called a Communion, and be accounted useful to him that iDuys it, though he never himself receive the sacrament, or but once a year; but for this reason, that there is great gain ^ but no godliness at all, in this doctrine?" — Bp. Bull's Sermons, p. 10.
And Burnet says—
"Without going far in tragical expressions, we cannot hold saying what our Saviour said upon another occasion, ' My house is a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.' A trade was set up on this foundation. The world was made believe, that by the virtue of so many masses, which 7uere to he purchased by great endowments, souls were redeemed out of purgatory, and scenes of visions and apparitions, sometimes of the tormented, and sometimes of the delivered souls, were pub- lished in all places: which had so wonderful an effect, that in two or three centuries, e7idowments increased to so vast a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the statutes of mortmain on the other, had not restrained the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 257
profuseness that the world was wrought up to on this account, it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone; perhaps to an entire subjecting of the temporahty to the spirituaHty. The practices by which this was managed, and the effects that followed on it, we can call by no other name than downright impostures; worse than the making or vending false coin : when the world was drawn in by such arts to plain bargains, to redeevi their own souls, and the souls of their ancestors and posterity, so inatiy masses were to be said, and forfeitures were to follow upon their not being said: thus the masses were really the price of the lands." — On Article XXII., pp. 303, 304.
The truth of these representations cannot be better shown than by extracting the following- passage from the Session 22 of the Council of Trent : —
" Whereas many things appear to have crept in heretofore, whether by the fault of the times or by the neglect and wicked- ness of men, foreign to the dignity of so great a sacrifice, in order that it may regain its due honour and observance, to the glory of God and the edification of His faithful people, the Holy Council decrees that the bishops, ordinaries of each place, diligently take care and be bound to forbid and put an end to all those things, which either avarice, which is idolatry, or irreverence, which is scarcely separable from impiety, or super- stition, the pretence of true piety, has introduced. And to say much in a few words, first of all, as to avarice, let them alto- gether forbid agreements, and bargains of payuient of whatever kind, and whatever is given for celebrating new masses; more- over importunate and mean extortion, rather than petition of alms, and such-like practices, which border on simoniacal sin, certainly on filthy lucre. . . . And let them banish from the church those musical practices, when with the organ or with the chant anything lascivious or impure is mingled; also all secular practices, vain and therefore profane conversations, promenad- ings, bustle, clamour; so that the house of God may truly seem and be called the house of prayer. Lastly, lest any opening be given to superstition, let them provide by edict and punishments appointed, that the priests celebrate it at no other than the due hours, nor use rites or ceremonies and prayers in the celebration of masses, other than those which have been approved by the Church, and received on frequent and laudable use. And let them altogether remove from the Church a set number of certain
258 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
masses and candles, which has proceeded rather from super- stitious observance than from true rehgion, and teach the people in what consists, and from whom, above all, proceeds the so precious and heavenly fruit of this most holy sacrifice. And let them admonish the same people to come frequently to their parish churches, at least on Sundays and the greater feasts," etc.
On the whole, then, it is conceived that the Article before us neither speaks against the Mass in itself, nor against its being [an offering, though commemorative]^ for the quick and the dead for the remission of sin [(especially since the decree of Trent says that "the fruits of the Bloody Oblation are through this most abundantly obtained ; so far is the latter from detracting in any way from the former)]; but against its being viewed, on the one hand, as independent of or distinct from the Sacrifice on the Cross, which is blasphemy; and, on the other, its being directed to the emolument of those to whom it pertains to celebrate it, which is imposture in addition.
^ \o.— Marriage oj Clergy.
Article xxxii, " Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage,"
There is literally no subject for controversy in these words, since even the most determined advocates of the celibacy of the clergy admit their truth. [As far as clerical celibacy is a duty, it] is grounded not on God's law, but on the Church's rule, or on vow. No one, for instance, can question the vehement zeal of St. Jerome in behalf of this observance, yet he makes the following admission in his attack upon Jovinian: —
^ " An offerins f<'r the quick," etc. — First edition.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 259
"Jovinian says, ' You speak in vain, since the Apostle ap- pointed Bishops and Presbyters, and Deacons, the husbands of one wife, and having children.' But, as the Apostle says, that he has not a precept concerning virgins, yet gives a counsel, as having received mercy of the Lord, and urges throughout that discourse a preference of virginity to marriage, and advises wliat he does not command, lest he seem to cast a snare, and to impose a burden too great for man's nature; so also, in ecclesiastical order, seeing that an infant Church was then forming out of the Gentiles, he gives the lighter precepts to recent converts, lest they should fail under them through fear." — Adv. Jovinian^ i. 34.
And the Council of Trent merely lays down —
" If any shall say that clerks in holy orders, or regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, can contract matrimony, and that the contract is valid in spite of ecclesiastical lazu or vow, let him be anathema." — Sess. 24, Can. 9.
Here the observance is placed simply upon rule of the Church or upon vow, neither of which exists in the English Church; "therefore," as the Article logically proceeds, " it is lawful for them, as for all other Chris- tian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness." Our Church leaves the discretion with the clergy; and most persons will allow that, under our circitnistances, she acts wisely in doing so. That she has poiver, did she so choose, to take from them this discretion, and to oblige them either to marriage [(as is said to be the case as regards the parish priests of the Greek Church)] or to celibacy, would seem to be involved in the doctrine of the following extract from the Homilies; though, whether an enforcement either of the one or the other rule would be expedient and pious, is another matter. Speaking of fasting, the Homily says —
"God's Church ought not, neither may it, be so tied to that or any other order now made, or hereafter to be made and devised
21
26o THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
by the authority of man, but that // may linvfuU}\ for just causes, alter, change, or niilii^ate those ecclesiastical decrees and orders, yea, recede wholly from them, and break them, when they tend either to superstition or to impiety; when they draw the people from God rather than work any edification in them. This authority Christ Himself used, and left it to his Church. He used it, I say, for the order or decree made by the elders for washing ofttimes, which was diligently observed of the Jews; yet tending to superstition, our Saviour Christ altered and changed the same in His Church into a profitable sacrament, the sacrament of our regeneration, or new birth. This authority to mitigate laws and decrees ecclesiastical, the Apostles prac- tised, when they, writing from Jerusalem unto the congregation that was at Antioch, signified unto them that they would not lay any further burden upon them but these necessaries : that is, ' that they should abstain from things offered unto idols, from blood, from that which is strangled, and from fornication'; notwithstanding that Moses's law required many other ob- servances. This authority to change the orders, decrees, and constitutions of the Church was, after the Apostles' time, used of the fathers about the manner of fasting, as it appeareth in the Tripartite History. . . . Thus ye have heard, good people, first, that Christian subjects are bound even in conscience to obey princes' laws, which are not repugnant to the laws of God. Ye have also heard that Christ's Church is not so bound to observe any order, law, or decree made by man, to prescribe a form in religion, but that the Church hath full power and authority from God to change and alter the same, when need shall require; which hath been showed you by the e.xample of our Saviour Christ, by the practice of the Apostles, and of the fathers since that time." — Hoviily on Fasting, pp. 242-244.
To the same effect the 34th Article declares, that —
" It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be ui all places one, and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be cha7iged a.ccord\v\g io diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Whosoever, through his private Judgment, will- ingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and cere- monies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly." — Article XXXIV.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 261
§ II. — The Homilies.
Art. XXXV. — "The second Book of Homilies doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies."
This Article has been treated of in No. 82 of these Tracts, in the course of an answer given to an op- ponent, who accused its author of not fairly receiving the Homilies, because he dissented from their doctrine, that the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist, and that re- generation was vouchsafed under the law. The passage of the Tract shall here be inserted, with some abridgment.
" I say plainly, then, I have not subscribed the Homi- lies, nor was it ever intended that any member of the English Church should be subjected to what, if con- sidered as an extended confession, would indeed be a yoke of bondage. Romanism surely is innocent, com- pared with that system which should impose upon the conscience a thick octavo volume, written flowingly and freely by fallible men, to be received exactly, sentence by sentence : 1 cannot conceive any grosser instance of a Pharisaical tradition than this would be. No: such a proceeding would render it impossible (I would say) for any one member, lay or clerical, of the Church to remain in it, who was subjected to such an ordeal. For in- stance: I do not suppose that any reader would be satisfied with the political reasons for fasting, though indirectly introduced, yet fully admitted and dwelt upon in the Homily on that subject. He would not like to subscribe the declaration that eating fish was a duty, not only as being a kind of fasting, but as making provisions cheap, and encouraging the fisheries. He would not like the association of religion with earthly politics.
" How, then, are we bound to the Homilies? By the Thirty-fifth Article, which speaks as follows: — 'The
262 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
second Book of Homilies . . . doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Ho7nilies.^ Now, observe, this Article does not speak of every statement made in them, but of the 'doctrine.' It speaks of the view or cast or body of doctrine contained in them. In spite of ten thousand incidental propositions, as in any large book, there is, it is obvious, a certain line of doctrine, which may be contemplated continuously in its shape and direction. For instance: if you say you disapprove the doctrine contained in the Tracts for the Times, no one supposes you to mean that every sentence and half- sentence is a lie. I say then, that in like manner, when the Article speaks of the doctrine of the Homilies, it does not measure the letter of them by the inch, it does not imply that they contain no propositions which admit of two opinions; but it speaks of a certain determinate line of doctrine, and moreover adds, it is ' necessary for tJiese tivies.^ Does not this, too, show the same thing? If a man said, the Tracts for the Times are seasonable at this moment, as their title signifies, would he not speak of them as taking a certain line, and bearing in a certain way? Would he not be speaking, not of phrases or sentences, but of a ' doctrine ' in them tending one way, viewed as a whole? Would he be inconsistent, if after praising them as seasonable, he continued, ' yet I do not pledge myself to every view or sentiment ; there are some things in them hard of digestion, or overstated, or doubtful, or subtle?'
" If anything could add to the irrelevancy of the charge in question, it is the particular point in which it is urged that I dissent from the Homilies — a question concerning the fulfilment of prophecy; viz., whether Papal Rome is Antichrist! An iron yoke indeed you would forge for the conscience, when you oblige us to assent, not only to all matters of doctrine which the Homilies contain, but even to their opinion concerning the fulfilment of prophecy. Why, we do not ascribe
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 263
authority in such matters even to the unanimous con- sent of all the fathers.
" I will put what I have been saying in a second point of view. The Homilies are subsidiary to the Articles; therefore they are of authority so far as they bring out the sense of the Articles, and are not of authority where they do not. For instance, they say that David, though unbaptised, was regenerated, as you have quoted. This statement cannot be of authority, because it not only does not agree, but it even disagrees, with the ninth Article, which translates the Latin word ' renatis ' by the English 'baptised.' But, observe, if this mode of viewing the Homilies be taken, as it fairly may, you suffer from it; for the Apocrypha, being the subject of an Article, the comment furnished in the Homily is binding on you, whereas you reject it.
"A further remark will bring us to the same point. Another test of acquiescence in the doctrine of the Homi- lies is this: — Take their table of contents; examine the headings; these surely, taken together, will give the substance of their teaching. Now I hold fully and heartily the doctrine of the Homilies, under every one of these headings: the only points to which I should not accede, nor think myself called upon to accede, would be certain matters, subordinate to the doctrines to which the headings refer — matters not of doctrine, but of opinion, as, that Rome is the Antichrist; or of historical fact, as, that there was a Pope Joan. But now, on the other hand, can^'o/^ subscribe the doctrine of the Homilies under every one of its formal headings ? I believe you cannot. The Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion is, in many of its elementary principles, decidedly uncongenial with your sentiments."
This illustration of the subject may be thought enough; yet it may be allowable to add from the Homi- lies a number of propositions and statements of more or less importance, which are too much forgotten at this day, and are decidedly opposed to the views of certain
264 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
schools of religion, which at the present moment are so eager in claiming the Homilies to themselves. This is not done, as the extract already read will show, with the intention of maintaining that they are one and all binding on the conscience of those who subscribe the Thirty-fifth Article; but since the strong language of the Homilies against the Bishop of Rome is often quoted, as if it were thus proved to be the doctrine of our Church, it may be as well to show that, following the same rule, we shall be also introducing Catholic doctrines, which indeed it far more belongs to a Church to profess than a certain view of prophecy, but which do not approve themselves to those who hold it. For instance, we read as follows: —
1. "The great clerk and godly preacher, St. John Chrysostom." — i B. i. i. And, in like manner, mention is made elsewhere of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Hilary, St. Basil, St. Cyprian, St. Hierome, St. Martin, Origen, Prosper, Ecumenius, Photius, Bernardus, Anselm, Didymus, Theophylactus, Tertullian, Athana- sius, Lactantius, Cyrillus, Epiphanius, Gregory, Irenaeus, Clemens, Rabanus, Isidorus, Eusebius, Justinus Martvr, Optatus, Eusebius Emissenus, and Bede.
2. " Infants, being baptised, and dying in their in- fancy, are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins . . . and they, which in act or deed do sin after this baptism, when they turn to God unfeignedly, they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice," etc. — i B. iii. i. init.
3. *' Our office is, not to pass the time of this present life unfruitfully and idly, after that we are baptised or justified," etc. — i B. iii. 3.
4. " By holy promises we be made lively members ot Christ, receiving the sacrament of Baptism. By like holy promises the sacrament of Matrimony knitteth man and wife in perpetual love." — i B. vii. i.
5. " Let us learn also here [in the Book of Wisdom]
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 265
by the infallible and luideceivable Word of God, that," etc. — I B. X. I.
6. "The due receiving of His blessed Body and Blood, under the forrn of bread and wine." — N'ote at end ofB. i.
7. '* In the Primitive Church, which 7vas most holy and godly . . . open offenders were not suffered once to enter into the house of the Lord . . . until they had done open penance . . . but this was practised, not only upon mean persons, but also upon the rich, noble, and mighty persons, yea, upon Theodosius, that pnissant and mighty Emperor , whom . . . St. Ambrose . . . did . . . excommunicate." — 2 B. i. 2.
8. " Open offenders were not . . . admitted to common praver, and the use of the holv sacraynents." — Ibid.
9. " Let us amend this our negligence and contempt in coming to the house of the Lord; and resorting thither diligently together, let us there . . . celebrating also reverently the Lord's holy sacraments, serve the Lord in His holy house." — Ibid. 5.
10. " Contrary to the . . . most manifest doctrine of the Scriptures, and contrary to the usages of the Primi- tive Church, ivhich ivas most pure and nncorrupt, and contrary to the sentences and judgments of the most ancient, learned, and godly doctors of the Church." — 2 B. ii. I. init.
11. " This truth . . . was believed and taught by the old holy fathers, and most ancient learned doctors, and re- ceived by the old Primitive Church, which was most un- corrupt and pure.'' — 2 B. ii. 2. init.
12. " Athanasius, a very ancient, holy, and learned bishop and doctor." — Ibid.
13. '* Cyrillus, an old and holy doctor." — Ibid.
14. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamine, in Cyprus, a very holy and learned man." — Ibid.
15. "To whose (Epiphanius's) judgment you have ... all the learned and godly bishops and clerks, yea.
266 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
and the whole Church of that age" [the Nicene], "and so upward to our Saviour Christ's time, by the space of about four hundred years, consenting and agreeing-." — Ibid.
i6. " Epiphanius, a bishop and doctor of such antiquity, holiness, and authority." — Ibid.
17. "St. Augustine, the best learned of all ancient doctors."— /o'/V/.
18. "That ye may know why and when, and by whom images were first used privately, and afterwards not only received into Christian churches and temples, but, in seclusion, worshipped also; and how the same was gainsaid, resisted, and forbidden, as well by godly bishops and learned doctors, as also by sundry Christian princes, I will briefly collect," etc. [The bishops and doctors which follow are]: "St. Jerome, Serenus, Gregory, the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis."
19. " Constantine, Bishop of Rome, assembled a Council of bishops of the West, and did condemn Philippicus, the Emperor, and John, Bishop of Con- stantinople, of the heresy of the Monothelites, not with- out a cause indeed, but very justly.'' — Ibid.
20. "Those six Councils, which tvere allowed a7id re- ceived of all men.'" — Ibid.
21. "There were no images publicly by the space of almost seven hundred years. And there is no doubt but the Primitive Church, next the Apostles' times, was most pure.'' — Ibid.
22. " Let us beseech God that we, being warned by His holy Word . . . and by the writings of old godly doctors and ecclesiastical histories," etc. — Ibid.
23. " It shall be declared, both by God's Word, and the sentences of the ancient doctors, and judgment of the Primitive Church," etc. — 2 B. ii. 3.
24. "Saints, whose souls reign in joy with God." — Ibid.
25. "That the law of God is likewise to be under- stood against all our images . . . appeareth further by
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 267
the judgment of the old doctors and the Primitive Church." — Ibid.
26. "The Primitive Church, which is specially to be followed, as most incorrupt and pure."^ — Ibid.
27. "Thus it is declared by God's Word, the sen- tences of the doctors, and \}c\q. judgment of the Primitive Church."— /dz^.
28. " The rude people, who specially, as the Scripture teacheth, are in danger of superstition and idolatry; viz.. Wisdom xiii. xiv." — Ibid.
29. "They [the 'learned and holy bishops and doctors of the Church ' of the eight first centuries] were the preaching bishops. . . . And as they were most zealous and diligent, so were they of excellent learning and godliness of life, and by both of great authority and credit with the people." — Ibid.
30. "The most virtuous and best learned, the most diligent also, and in number almost infinite, ancient fathers, bishops, and doctors . . . could do nothing against images and idolatry." — Ibid.
31. " As the Word of God testifieth. Wisdom xiv." — Ibid.
32. "The saints, wow reigning in heaven with God." —Ibid.
33. "The fountain of our regeneration is there [in God's house] presented unto us." — 2 B. iii.
36. " Somewhat shall now be spoken of one particu- lar good work, whose commendation is both in the Law and in the Gospel [fasting]," — 2 B. iv. i.
37. " If any man shall say . . . we are not now under the yoke of the Law, we are set at liberty by the freedom of the Gospel: therefore these rites and customs of the old law bind not us, except it can be showed by the Scriptures of the New Testament, or by examples out of the same, that fasting, now under the Gospel, is a restraint of meaty drink, and all bodily food and pleasures from the body, as before : first, that we ought to fast, is a trutli more manifest, then it should here need
268 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
to be proved. . . . Fasting, even by Christ's assent, is a withholding- meat, drink, and all natural food from the body," etc. — /bid.
38. "That it [fasting] was used in the Primitive Church, appeareth most evidently by the Chalcedon Council, one of the Jirst four general cou?ici/s. The fathers assembled there . . . decreed in that council, that every person, as well in his private as public fast, should continue all the day without meat and drink, till after the evening prayer, . . . This Canon teacheth how fasting was used in the Primitive Church." — Ibid. [The Council was a.d. 452.]
39. " Fasting, then, by the decree of those 630 fathers, grounding their determinations in this matter upon the sacred Scriptures . . . is a withholding of meat, drink, and all natural food from the body, for the determined time of fasting." — Ibid.
40. "The order or decree made by the elders for washing ofttimes, tending to superstition, our Saviour Christ altered and changed the same in His Church, into a profitable sacrament, the sacrament of our re- generation or ncii) birth.''' — 2 B. iv. 2.
41. "Fasting thus used with prayer is oi great efficacy , and weigheth much with God, so the angel Raphael told Tobias. " — Ibid.
42. "As he" [St. Augustine] " witnesseth in another place, the martyrs and holy men in times past, were wont after their death to be remembered and named of the priest at divine service ; but never to be invocated or called upon." — 2 B. vii. 2.
43. " Thus you see that the authority both of Scripture and also of Augustine, doth not admit that we should pray to them." — Ibid.
44. " To temples have the Christians customably used to resort from time to time as to most meet places, where they might . . . receive His holy sacra- ments ministered unto them dul}' and purely." — 2 B. viii. I.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 269
45. "The which thing both Christ and His apostles, with all the rest of the holy fathers, do sufficiently declare ^o:'—Ibid.
46. "Our ^o6\y predecessors, and the ajicient fathers of the Primitive Church, spared not their goods to build churches." — Ibid.
47. " If we will show ourselves true Christians, if we will be followers of Christ our Master, and of those godly fathers that have lived before us, and now have received the reward of true and faithful Christians," etc. —Ibid.
48. " We must . . . come unto the material churches and temples to pray . . . whereby we may reconcile ourselves to God, be partakers of His holy sacraments, and be devout hearers of His holy Word," etc. — Ibid.
49. " It [ordination] lacks the promise of remission of sin, as all other sacraments besides the two above named do. Therefore neither it, nor any other sacra- ment else, be such sacraments as Baptism and the Communion are." — 2 Honi. ix.
50. " Thus we are taught, both by the Scriptures and ancient doctors, that," etc. — Ibid.
51. "The holy apostles and disciples of Christ, . . . the godly fathers also, that were both before and since Christ, endued ivithout doubt with the Holy GJiost, . . . they both do most earnestly exhort us, etc. . , . that we should remember the poor. ... St. Paul crieth unto us after this sort. . . . Isaiah the Prophet teaches us on this wise. . . . And the holy father Tobit giveth this counsel. And the learned and godly doctor Chrysostom giveth this admonition. . . , But what mean these often admonitions and earnest exhortations of the prophets, apostles, fathers, and holy doctors?" — 2 B. xi. i.
52. " The holy fathers. Job and Tobit." — Ibid.
53. "Christ, whose especial y«^w<r we may be assured by this means to obtain" [viz., by almsgiving]. — 2 B. xi. 2.
54. " Now will I . . . show unto you how profitable
2 70 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
it is for us to exercise them [alms-deeds] . . . [Christ's saying] serveth to . . . prick us forwards ... to learn • . . how we may recover our health, if it be lost or im- paired, and how it may be defended and maintained if we have it. Yea, He teacheth us also therefore to esteem that as a precious medicine and an inestiviahle jewel, that hath such strength and virtue in it, that can either procure or preserve so incomparable a treasure." —Ibid.
55. "Then He and His disciples were grievously accused of the Pharisees, . . . because they went to meat and washed not their hands before. . . . Christ, answering their superstitious complaint, teacheth them an especial reinedy how to keep clean their souls. . . . Give alms," etc. — Ibid.
56. "Merciful alms-dealing is profitable to pui'gc ihQ soul from the infection and filthy spots of sin.'' — Ibid.
57. " The same lesson doth the Holy Ghost teach in sundry places of the Scripture, saying, ' Mercifulness and alms-giving,' etc. [Tobit iv.]. . . . The wise preacher, the son of Sirach, confirmeth the same, when he savs, that ' as water quencheth burning fire,' " etc. — Ibid. '
58. " A great confidence may they have before the high God, that show mercy and compassion to them that are afflicted." — Ibid.
59. "If ye have by any infirmity or weakness been touched or annoyed with them . . . straightway shall mercifulness wipe and wash them away, as salves and remedies to heal their sores and grievous diseases." — Ibid.
60. "And therefore that holy father Cyprian ad- monisheth to consider "how wholesome And profitable it is to relieve the needy, etc. ... by the which we may purge our sins and heal our ^founded souls." — Ibid.
61. " We be therefore washed in our baptism from the filthiness of sin, that we should live afterwards in the
pureness of life." — 2 B. xiii. i.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 271
62. " By these means [by love, compassion, etc.] shall we 7nove God to be viercifuL to our sins." — Ibid.
63. "'He was dead,' saith St. Paul, 'for our sins, and rose ag"ain for our justification.' . . . He died to destroy the rule of the devil in us, and He rose again to send down His Holy Spirit to rule in our hearts^ to [endow] us with perfect righteousness." — 2 B. xiv.
64. "The ancient CatJwUc Fathers" [in marg.] Irenaeus, Ignatius, Dionysius, Origen, Optatus, Cyprian, Athanasius, ..." were not afraid to call this supper, some of them, the salve of iinnwrlality and sovereign preservative against death; other, the sweet dainties of our Saviour, the pledge of eternal health, the defence of faith, the hope of the resurrection ; other, the
food of immortality, the healthful grace, and the con- servatory to everlasting life." — 2 B. xv. i.
65. "The meat we seek in this supper is spiritual food, the nourishment of our soul, a heavenly refection, and not earthly; an invisible meat, and not bodily; a ghostly substance, and not carnal."— /62V/.
66. "Take this lesson ... of Emissenus, a godly father, that . . . thou look up with faith upon the holy body, and blood of thy God, thou marvel with reverence, thou toucli it with thy mind, thou receive it with the hand of thy heart, and thou take it fully with thy inward man." — Ibid.
67. "The saying of the holy martyr of God, St. Cyprian." — 2 B. xx. 3.
Thus we see the authority of the fathers, of the first six councils, and of the judgments of the Church generally, the holiness of the Primitive Church, the inspiration of the Apocrypha, the sacramental character of Marriage, and other ordinances, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the Church's power of excommunicating kings, the profitableness of fasting, the propitiatory virtue of good works, the Eucharistic commemoration, and justification by a righteousness [within us],^ are
' " Uy inhtrenl righteousness." — First edilioit.
272 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
taught in the HomiUes. Let it be said ag-ain, it is not here asserted that a subscription to all and every of these quotations is involved in the subscription of an Article which does but g-enerally approve the Homilies: but they who insist so strongly on our Church's holding that the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist because the Homilies declare it, should recollect that there are other doctrines contained in them beside it, which they [them- selves] should be understood to hold, before their argu- ment has the force of consistency.
§ 12. — T}ie Bishop of Rome.
Article xxxviii. — "The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England."
By " hath " is meant " ought to have," as the Article in the 36th Canon and the Oath of Supremacy show, in which the same doctrine is drawn out more at length. "No foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or poten- tate hath, or ought to have, anj' jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm."
This is the profession which every one must in con- sistency make, who does not join the Roman Church. If the Bishop of Rome has jurisdiction and authority here, why do we not acknowledge it, and submit to him? To say then the above words, is nothing more or less than to say "I am not a Roman Catholic"; and whatever reasons there are against saying them, are so far reasons against remaining in the English Church. They are a mere enunciation of the principle of Anglicanism.
Anglicans maintain that the supremacy of the Pope is not directly from revelation, but an event in Providence. All things may be undone by the agents and causes by which they are done. What revelation gives, revela- tion takes away; what Providence gives. Providence
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 273
takes away. God ordained by miracle, He reversed by miracle, the Jewish election; He promoted in the way of Providence, and He cast down by the same way the Roman Empire. "The powers that be, are or- dained of God," -ivhilc they be, and have a claim on our obedience. When they cease to be, they cease to have a claim. They cease to be, when God removes them. He may be considered to remove them when He undoes what He had done. The Jewish election did not cease to be, when the Jews went into captivity; this was an event in Providence ; and what miracle had ordained, it was miracle that annulled. But the Roman power ceased to be when the barbarians overthrew it; for it rose by the sword, and it therefore perished by the sword. The Gospel Ministry began in Christ and His Apostles; and what they began, they only can end. The Papacy began in the exertions and passions of man; and what man can make, man can destroy. Its jurisdiction, while it lasted, was "ordained of God"; when it ceased to be, it ceased to claim our obedience; and it ceased to be at the Reformation. The Reformers, who could not destroy a Ministry which the Apostles began, could destroy a Dominion which the Popes founded.
Perhaps the following passage will throw additional light upon this point: —
"The Anglican view of the Church has ever been this: that its portions need not otherwise have been united together for their essential completeness, than as being descended from one original. They are like a number of colonies sent out from a mother-country. . . . Each Church is independent of all the rest, and is to act on the principle of what may be called Episcopal independence, except, indeed, so far as the civil power unites any number of them together. . . . Each diocese is a perfect independent Church, sufficient for itself; and the communion of Christians one with another, and the unity of them altogether, lie, not in a
274 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
mutual understanding-, intercourse, and combination, not in what they do in common, but in what they are and have in common, in their possession of the Succession, their Episcopal form, their Apostolical faith, and the use of the Sacraments. . . . Mutual intercourse is but an accident of the Church, not of its essence. . . . Intercommunion is a duty, as other duties, but is not the tenure or instrument of the com- munion between the unseen world and this; and much more the confederacy of sees and churches, the metro- politan, patriarchal, and papal systems, are matters of expedience or of natural duty from long- custom, or of propriety from gratitude and reverence, or of necessity from voluntary oaths and eng-agements, or of ecclesiastical force from the canons of Councils, but not necessary in order to the conveyance of grace, or for fulfilment of the ceremonial law, as it may be called, of unity. Bishop is superior to bishop only in rank, not in real power; and the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic world, is not the centre of unity, except as having a primacy of order. Accordingly, even granting for argument's sake that the English Church violated a duty in the sixteenth century, in releasing itself from the Roman supremacy, still it did not there- by commit that special sin which cuts off from it the fountains of grace, and is called schism. It was essen- tially complete without Rome, and naturally independent of it; it had, in the course of years, whether by usurpa- tion or not, come under the supremacy of Rome ; and now, whether by rebellion or not, it is free from it: and as it did not enter into the Church invisible by joining Rome, so it was not cast out of it by breaking from Rome. These were accidents in its history, involving, indeed, sin in individuals, but not affecting the Church as a Church.
"Accordingly, the Oath of Supremacy declares 'that no foreign prelate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, pre-eminence, or authority within this realm.'
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 275
In other words, there is nothing- in the ApostoHc system which gives an authority to the Pope over the Cliurch, such as it does not give to a Bishop. It is altogether an ecclesiastical arrangement ; not a point de fide, but of expedience, custom, or piety, which cannot be claimed as if the Pope ought to have it, any more than, on the other hand, the King could of Divine right claim the supremacy; the claim of both one and the other resting, not on duty or revelation, but on specific engagement. We find ourselves, as a Church, under the King now, and we obey him ; we were under the Pope formerly, and we obeyed him. ' Ought' does not, in any degree, come into the question."
Conclusion.
One remark may be made in conclusion. It may be objected that the tenor of the above explanations is anti- Protestant, whereas it is notorious that the Articles were drawn up by Protestants, and intended for the establishment of Protestantism; accordingly, that it is an evasion of their meaning to give them any other than a Protestant drift, possible as it may be to do so grammatically, or in each separate part.
But the answer is simple:
1. In the first place, it is a dxity which we owe both to the Catholic Church and to our own, to take our re- formed confessions in the most Catholic sense they will admit ; we have no duties towards their framers. [Nor do we receive the Articles from their original framers, but from several successive convocations after their time; in the last instance, from that of 1662.]
2. In giving the Articles a Catholic interpretation, we bring them into harmony with the Book of Common Prayer, an object of the most serious moment to those who have given their assent to both formularies.
3. Whatever be the authority of the [Declaration]
276 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
prefixed to the Articles, so far as it has any weight at all, it sanctions the mode of interpreting them above given. For its injoining the "literal and grammatical sense," relieves us from the necessity of making the known opinions of their framers a comment upon their text; and its forbidding any person to " affix any ;/('«' sense to any Article," was promulgated at a time when the leading men of our Church were especially noted for those Catholic views which have been here advocated.
4. It may be remarked, moreover, that such an in- terpretation is in accordance with the well-known general leaning of Melancthon, from whose writings our Articles are principally drawn, and whose Catholic tendencies gained for him that same reproach of popery which has ever been so freely bestowed upon members of our own reformed Church.
"Melancthon was of opinion," says Mosheim, "that, for the sake of peace and concord, many things might be given up and tolerated in the Church of Rome which Luther considered could by no means be endured. . . . In the class of matters indifferent, this great man and his associates placed many things which had appeared of the highest importance to Luther, and could not of consequence be considered as indifferent by his true disciples. For he regarded as such the doctrine of justification by faith alone; the necessity of good works to eternal salvation; the number of the sacraments; the jurisdiction claimed by the Pope and the Bishops; extreme unction; the observation of certain religious festivals, and several superstitious rites and cere- monies."—CV«/. XVI.^ § 3, part 2, 27, 28.
5. Further: the Articles are evidently framed on the principle of leaving open large questions, on which the controversy hinges. They state broadly extreme truths, and are silent about their adjustment. For instance, they say that all necessary faith must be proved from Scripture, but do not say ivho is to prove it. They say that the Church has authority in controversies, they do not say ivhat authority. They say that it may enforce nothing beyond Scripture, but do not say ivkere the
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 277
remedy lies when it does. They say that works be- fore g^race a7id justification are worthless and worse, and that works after grace a7id justification are accept- able, but they do not speak at all of works zvith God's aid, d^r^ justification. They say that men are lawfully called and sent to minister and preach, who are chosen and called by men who have public authority given them in the cong-regation to call and send; but they do not add by ivho?n the authority is to be given. They say that councils called by princes may err; they do not determine whether councils called in the name of Christ will err,
[6. The variety of doctrinal views contained in the Homilies, as above shown, views which cannot be brought under Protestantism itself, in its widest com- prehension of opinions, is an additional proof, consider- ing the connection of the Articles with the Homilies, that the Articles are not framed on the principle of excluding those who prefer the theology of the early ages to that of the Reformation; or rather since both Homilies and Articles appeal to the Fathers and Catholic antiquity, let it be considered whether, in interpreting them by these, we are not going to the very authority to which they profess to submit themselves.]
7. Lastly, their framers constructed them in such a way as best to comprehend those u'ho did not go so far in Protestantism as themselves. Anglo-Catholics then are but the successors and representatives of those moderate reformers; and their case has been directly anticipated in the wording of the Articles. It follows that they are not perverting, they are using them, for an express purpose for which among others their authors framed them. The interpretation they take was intended to be admissible ; though not that which their authors took themselves. Had it not been pro- vided for, possibly the Articles never would have been accepted by our Church at all. If, then, their framers have gained their side of the compact in effecting the
278 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
reception of the Articles, let Catholics have theirs too in retaining- their own Catholic interpretation of them.
An illustration of this occurs in the history of the 28th Article. In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a paragraph formed part of it, much like that which is now appended to the Communion Service, but in which the Real Presence was denied in ivords. It was adopted by the clergy at the first convocation, but not published. Burnet observes on it thus: —
"When these Articles were first prepared by the convocation in Queen Elizabeth's reign, this paragraph was made a part of them; for the original subscription by both houses of convoca- tion, yet extant, shows this. But the design of the goz'ernnieiif was at that time much turned to the draiving over the body of the natioti to the Reformat ioti, in whom the old leaven had gone deep; and no part of it deeper than the belief of the corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament; therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a definition in this matter; in which the very word Real Presence was rejected. It might, perhaps, be also suggested that here a definition was made that went too much upon the principles of natural philo- sophy; which, how true soever, they might not be the proper subject of an article of religion. Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this paragraph; though it was a part of the Article that was subscribed, yet it was not published, but the paragraph that follows, ' The Body of Christ,' etc., was put in its stead, and was received and published by the next convocation; which upon the matter was a full explanation of the way of Christ's presence in this Sacrament; that 'He is present in a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that faith is the mean by which He is received.' This seemed to be more theological; and it does indeed amount to the same thing. But howsoever we see what was the sense of the first convocation in Queen Elizabeth's reign, it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's time: and therefore though this paragraph is now no part of our Articles, yet we are certain that the clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the truth of it; we are sure it was their opinion; since they subscribed it, though tliey did not thin/c fit to publish it at first; and though it was afterwards changed for another, that was the same in sense." — Burnet on Article XXVJII., p. 416.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 279
What has lately taken place in the political world will aflFord an illustration in point. A French minister, desirous of war, nevertheless, as a matter of policy, draws up his state papers in such moderate lang-uage that his successor, who is for peace, can act up to them without compromising his own principles. The world, observing this, has considered it a circumstance for congratulation ; as if the former minister, who acted a double part, had been caught in his own snare. It is neither decorous, nor necessary, nor altogether fair, to urge the parallel rigidly; but it will explain what it is here meant to convey. The Protestant Confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics; and Catholics now will not be excluded. What was an economy in the reformers, is a protection to us. What would have been a perplexity to us then is a perplexity to Protestants now. We could not then have found fault with their words; they cannot now repudiate our meaning.
Oxford,
The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paid, {January 25///], 184I.
[By J. H. Newman. This is a reprint of the Fourth Edition.]
THE END.
THE WALTEK SCOTT fUBLISHlNG CO., LTD., FELLING-ON-TVKF.
Great Writers
A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES.
Edited by ERIC ROBERTSON and FRANK T. MARZIALS.
A Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by J. P. Anderson, British Museum, London.
Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price if. dd. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED. LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By Professor Eric S. Robertsom. LIKE OF COLERIDGE. By Hall Caine. LIFE OF DICKENS. By Frank T. Marzials. LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL By J. Knight. LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. By Colonel F. Grant. LIFE OF DARWIN. By G. T. Bettanv. LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE. By A. Birrell. LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. By R. Garnett, LL.D. LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. Haldane, M.P. LIFE OF KEATS. By W. M. Rossetti. LIFE OF SHELLEY. By William Sharp. LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By David Hannay. LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. By Austin Dobson. LIFE OF SCOTT. By Professor Yonge. LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor Blackie. LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. By Frank T. Marzials. LIFE OF EMERSON. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. LIFE OF GOETHE. By James Simk. LIFE OF CONGREVE. By Edmund Gosse. LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon Venables. LIFE OF CRABBE. By T. E. Kebbel. LIFE OF HEINE. By William Sharp. LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. Courtney. LIFE OF SCHILLER. By Henry W. Nevinsow. LIFE OF CAPTAIN M.\RRYAT. By David Hann.'iy. LIFE OF LESSING. By T. W. Rolleston. LIFE OF MILTON. By R. Garnett, LL.D. LIFE OF BALZAC. Bv Frederick Wedmore. LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. By Oscar Browning. LIFE OF JANE AUS lEN. By Goldwin Smith. LIFE OF BROWNING. By William Sharp. LIFE OF BYRON. Bv Hon. Roden Ncel. LIFE OF HAWTHORNE. By Monclre D. Conway. LIFE OF SCHOPENHAUER. By Piofe sor Wallace. LIFE OF SHERIDAN. By Llovu Sanders. LIFE OF THACKERAY. By Herman Merivale and Frank T.
Marzials. LIFE OF CERVANTES. By H. E. Watts, LIFE OF VOLTAIRE. By Francis Espinasse. LIFE OF LEIGH HUNT. By Cosmo Monkhouse. LIFE OF WHITTIER. By W. J Linton. LIFE OF RENAN. By Francis Espinasse. LIFE OF TUOREAU. By H. S. Salt.
LIBRARY EDITION OF 'GREAT WRITERS,' Demy 8vo, «. 6d.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE.
NEW ENGLAND LIBRARY.
GRAVURE EDITION.
PRINTED ON ANTIQUE PAPER. 2s. 6d. PER VOL. Each Volume with a Frontispiece in Photogravure.
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
THE SCARLET LETTER.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.
THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE.
TANGLEWOOD TALES.
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS.
OUR OLD HOME.
MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE.
THE SNOW IMAGE.
TRUE STORIES FROM HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
THE NEW ADAM AND EVE.
LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE.
By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. ELSIE VENNER.
By HENRY THOREAU.
ESSAYS AND OTHER WRITINGS. WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE
THE WORLD'S LITERARY MASTERPIECES.
The Scott Library.
Maroon Cloth, Gilt. Price Is. net per Volume.
VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED—
1 MALORY'S ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR AND THE
iiMMt of the Holy Grail. Edited by Ernest Bhys.
2 THOREAU'S WALDEN. WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE
by WUl H. Dircks.
3 THOREAU'S "WEEK." WITH PREFATORY NOTE BY
Will H. Dircks.
4 THOREAU'S ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRO-
duction, by Will H. Dircks.
5 CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, ETC.
By Thomas De Quincey. With Introductory Note by William Sharp.
6 LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. SELECTED,
with Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.
7 PLUTARCH'S LIVES (LANGHORNE). WITH INTRO-
ductory Note by B. J. Snell, M.A.
8 BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, ETC. WITH INTRO-
duction by J. Addington Symonds.
9 SHELLEY'S ESSAYS AND LETTERS. EDITED, WITH
Introductory Note, by Ernest Rhys.
10 SWIFT'S PROSE WRITINGS. CHOSEN AND ARRANGED,
with Introduction, by Walter Lewin.
11 MY STUDY WINDOWS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
With Introduction by K. Garnett, LL.D.
12 LOWELL'S ESSAYS ON THE ENGLISH POETS. WITH
a new Introduction by Mr. Lowell.
13 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
With a Prefatory Note by Ernest Rliys.
14 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. SELECTED FROM
Cunningham's lAves. Edited by William Sharp.
Thk Vi'alte:' Scott Puci.ishing Company, Limiif.d, london and fe!.i.ing-on-tynr.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY-continued.
15 BYRON'S LETTERS AND JOURNALS. SELECTED,
with Introduction, by Mathilde Blind.
16 LEIGH HUNT'S ESSAYS. WITH INTRODUCTION AND
Notes by Arthur Symons.
17 LONGFELLOW'S "HYPERION," "KAVANAGH," AND
"The Trouveres." With Introducti<in by \V. Tirebuck.
18 GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS. BY G. F. FERRIS.
Kdited, with Introduction, by Mrs. William Sharp.
19 THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. EDITED
by Alice Zimmern.
20 THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS. TRANSLATED FROM
the Greek, with Introduction and Notes, by T. W. Rolleston.
21 SELECTIONS FROM SENECA, WITH INTRODUCTION
by Walter Clode.
22 SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA. BY WALT WHITMAN.
Revised by the Author, with fresh Preface.
23 DEMOCRATIC VISTAS, AND OTHER PAPERS. BY
\\ alt Whitman. (Published by arrangement with the Author.)
24 WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. WITH
a Preface by Richard Jeft'eries.
25 DEFOE'S CAPTAIN SINGLETON. EDITED, WITH
Introduction, by H. Halliday Sparling.
26 MAZZINI'S ESSAYS: LITERARY, POLITICAL, AND
Religious. With Introduction by William Clarke.
27 PROSE WRITINGS OF HEINE. WITH INTRODUCTION
by Uavelock Ellis.
2S REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. WITH INTRODUCTION by Helen Ziniuiern.
29 PAPERS OF STEELE AND ADDISON. EDITED BY
Walter Lewin.
30 BURNS'S LETTERS. SELECTED AND ARRANGED,
with Introduction, by J. Logie Robertson, M.A.
31 VOLSUNGA SAGA. Wii.mam Morris. WITH INTRO-
Uuctiou by 11. U. Sparling.
Tiiii Walter Scott Plki.ishing Company, Limiteli,
LO^DON A.ND FELLING-ON-TV.NE.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY— continued.
32 SARTOR RESARTUS. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. WITH
Introduction by Ernest Ehys.
33 SELECT WRITINGS OF EMERSON. WITH INTRO-
duction by Percival Chubb.
34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LORD HERBERT. EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Will H. Dircks.
35 ENGLISH PROSE, FROM MAUNDEVILLE TO
Thackeray. Chosen and Edited by Arthur Galton.
36 THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY, AND OTHER PLAYS. BY
Uenrik Ibsen. Edited, with an Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.
37 IRISH F.\IRY AND FOLK TALES. EDITED AND
Selected by W. B. Yeats.
38 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL
Introduction and Notes by Stuart J. Reid.
39 ESSAYS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. SELECTED AND
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Frank Carr.
40 LANDOR'S PENTAMERON, AND OTHER IMAGINARY
Conversations. Edited, with a Preface, by H. Ellis.
41 POE'S TALES AND ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH INTRO-
duction, by Ernest Rhys.
42 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Edited, with Preface, by Ernest Ehys.
43 POLITICAL ORATIONS, FROM WENTWORTH TO
Macaulay. Edited, with Introduction, by William Clarke.
44 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
45 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY OLIVER
Weudell Holmes.
46 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
47 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON.
Selected, with Introduction, by Charles Sayle.
48 STORIES FROM CARLETON. SELECTED, WITH INTRO-
duction, by W. Yeats.
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, i^imited, london and felling-on-tyne.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY— continued.
49 JANE EYRE. BY CHARLOTTE BRONTfi. EDITED BY
Clement K. Shorter.
50 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. EDITED BY LOTHROP
Withington, with a Preface by Dr. FuralTalL
51 THE PROSE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DAVIS. EDITED
by T. W. RoUeston.
52 SPENCE'S ANECDOTES. A SELECTION. EDITED,
with an Introduction and Notes, by John Underbill.
53 MORE'S UTOPIA, AND LIFE OF EDWARD V. EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Maurice Adams.
54 SADI'S GULISTAN, OR FLOWER GARDEN. TRANS-
lated, with an Essay, by James Koss.
55 ENGLISH FAIRY ANp FOLK TALES. EDITED BY
E. Sidney Hartland.
56 NORTHERN STUDIES. BY EDMUND GOSSE. WITH
a Note by Ernest Rhys.
57 EARLY REVIEWS OF GREAT WRITERS. EDITED BY
E. Stevenson.
58 ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. WITH GEORGE HENRY
Lewes's Essay on Aristotle prefixed.
59 LANDOR'S PERICLES AND ASPASIA. EDITED, WITH
an Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.
60 ANNALS OF TACITUS. THOMAS GORDON'S TRANS-
lation. Edited, with an Introduction, by Arthur Galton.
61 ESSAYS OF ELIA. BY CHARLES LAMB. EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys.
62 BALZAC'S SHORTER STORIES. TRANSLATED BY
William Wilson and the Count Stenbock.
63 comf:dies of de musset. edited, with an
Introductory Note, by S. L. Gwynn.
64 CORAL REEFS. BY CHARLES DARWIN. EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Dr. J. W. Williams.
63 SHERIDAN'S PLAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRO- duction, by Rudolf Uircks.
Tub Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited, lonuo.n a-nd felling-on-1 y^e.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY— continued.
66 OUR VILLAGE. BY MISS MITFORD. EDITED, WITH an Tntroiluction, by Ernest llhys.
€7 MA'^TER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK, AND OTHER ST0RIE3. By Charles Dickens. With Introduction by Frank T. Marzials.
68 OXFORD MOVEMENT, THE. BEING A SELECTION
from "Tracts for the Times." EJited, with an Introduction, by William G. Hutchison.
69 ESS.AYS AND PAPERS BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. EDITED
by Walter Jerrold.
70 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. BY
Mary Wollstonecraft. Introduction by Mrs. E. Robins I'ennell.
71 "THE ATHENIAN ORACLE." A SELECTION. EDITED
by John Underbill, with Prefatory Note by Walter Cesant.
72 ESS.WS _ OF SAINTE-BKUVE. TRANSLATED AND
Edited, with an Introduction, by Elizabeth Lee.
73 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO. FROM THE TRANS-
laticn of Sydenham and Taylor. Edited by T. W. Rolleston.
74 HEINE'S ITALIAN TRAVEL SKETCHES, ETC. TR.AN3-
lated by Elizabeth A. Sharp. W ith an Introduction from the French of Theophile Gautier.
75 SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS. TRANSLATED,
with an Introduction, by Major-General f atiick Maxwell.
76 SELECTIONS FROM SYDNEY SMITH. EDITED, \VITII
an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys.
77 THE NEW SPIRIT. BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.
78 THE BOOK OF MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES. FROM
the "Morte d'Arthur." Edited by Ernest Rhys, [This, together Willi No. 1, forms the complete "Morte d'Arthur."J
79 ESSAYS AND APHORISMS. BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS.
With an Introduction by E. A. Helps.
So ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. SELECTED, WITH A Prefatory Note, by Percival Chubb.
81 THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON. BY W. I.I, Thackeray. Edited by F. T. Marzi.-ils.
S2 SCHILLER'S WITXIA.M TELL. TRANSLATED, WITH an Ii. production, by Major-General Patrick Maj^well.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD, LONDON AND FET.LING-GN TYNH
THE SCOTT LIBRARY-continued.
83 CARLYLE'S ESSAYS ON GERMAN LITERATURE.
With an Introduction by Ernest Rhys.
84 PLAYS AND DRAMATIC ESSAYS OF CHARLES LAMB.
Edited, with an Introduction, by Rudolf Dircks.
85 THE PROSE OF WORDSWORTH. SELECTED AND
Edited, with an Introdaction, by Professor William Knijiht.
86 ESSAYS, DIALOGUES, AND THOUGHTS OF COUNT
Giacomo Leopardi. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Major-General Patrick Maxwell.
87 THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL. A RUSSIAN COMEDY.
By Nikolai V. Gogol. Translated from the original, with an Introduction and Notes, by Arthur A. Sykes.
88 ESSAYS AND APOTHEGMS OF FRANCIS, LORD BACON.
Edited, with an Introduction, by John Buchan.
89 PROSE OF MILTON. SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH
an Introduction, by Richard Gamett, LL.D.
90 THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. TRANSLATED BY
Thomas Taylor, with an Introdaction by Theodore Wratislaw.
91 PASSAGES FROM FROISSART. WITH AN INTRO-
duction by Frank T. Marzials.
92 THE PROSE AND TABLE TALK OF COLERIDGE.
Edited by Will H. Dircks.
93 HEINE IN ART AND LETTERS. TRANSLATED BY
Elizabeth A. Sharp.
94 SELECTED ESSAYS OF DE QUINCEY. WITH AN
Introduction by Sir George Douglas, Bart.
95 VASARI'S LIVES OF ITALIAN PAINTERS. SELECTED
and Prefaced by Havelock Ellis.
96 LAOCOON, AND OTHER PROSE WRITINGS OF
LESSING. A new Translation by W. B. Ronnfeldt.
97 PELLEAS AND MELISANDA, AND THE SIGHTLESS
Two Plays by Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated from the French by Laurence Alma Tadema.
9S THE COMPLETE ANGLER OF WALTON AND COTTON. Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Hill Dick.
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited, london and felling-on-tvne.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY— continued.
99 LESSING'S NATHAN THE WISE. TRANSLATED BY Major-General Patrick Maxwell.
loo THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES, AND OTHER Essays of Ernest Renan. Translated by W. G. Hutchison.
loi CRITICISMS, REFLECTIONS, AND MAXIMS OFGOETHE. Translated, with an Introduction, by W. B. Ronnfeldt.
102 ESSAYS OF SCHOPENHAUER. TRANSLATED BY
Mra. Rudolf Dircks. With an Introduction.
103 RENAN'S LIFE OF JESUS. TRANSLATED, WITH AN
Introduction, by William G. Hutchison.
104 THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Arthur Symons.
105 THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS IN LITERATURE.
By George Henry Lewe.s. Edited by T. Sharper Knowlson.
106 THE LIVES OF DR. JOHN DONNE, SIR HENRY WOTTON,
Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert, and Dr. Robert Sanderson. By Izaac Walton. Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Hill Dick.
107 POLITICAL ECONOMY: EXPOSITIONS OF ITS
Fundamental Doctrines. Selected, with an Introduction, by W. B. Robertson, M.A.
108 RENAN'S ANTICHRIST. TRANSLATED, WITH AN
Introduction, by W. G. Hutchison.
109 ORATIONS OF CICERO. SELECTED AND EDITED,
with an Introduction, by Fred. W. Norris
1 10 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
By Edmund Buike. With an Introduction by George Sampson.
111 THE LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. SERIES I.
Translated, with an Introductory Essay, by John B. Firth, B.A., Late Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford.
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limitkd, london and felling-on-tynb.
THE SCOTT LIBRARY— continued.
12 THE LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. SERIES II.
Translated by John B. Firth, B.A.
13 SELECTED THOUGHTS OF BLAISE PASCAL. TRANS-
lated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Gertrude Burford Eawlini(5.
14 SCOTS ESSAYISTS: FROM STIRLING TO STEVENSON.
Edited, with an Introduction, by Oliphant Smeaton.
15 ON LIBERTY. BY JOHN STUART MILL. WITH AN
Introduction by W. L. Courtney.
16 THE DISCOURSE ON METHOD AND METAPHYSICAL
Meditations of Ren6 Descartes. Translated, with Introduction, by Gertrude B. Bawlings.
17 KALIDASA'S SAKUNTALA, Etc. EDITED. WITH A.V
Introduction, by T. Holme.
18 NEWMAN'S UNIVERSITY SKETCHES. EDITED, WITH
Introduction, by George Sampson.
19 NEWMAN'S SELECT ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH AN
Introduction, by George Sampson.
20 RENAN'S MARCUS AURELIUS. TRANSLATED, WITH
an Introduction, by William G. Hutchison.
21 FROUDE'S NEMESIS OF FAITH. WITH AN INTRO-
duction oy William G. Hutchison.
22 WHAT IS ART? BY LEO TOLSTOY. TR.\NSL.\TED
from the Original Russian MS., with Introduction, by Alymer Maude.
13 HUME'S POLITICAL ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH AN Introduction, by W. B. Robertson.
24 SINGOALLA: A MEDLEVAL LEGEND. BY VIKTOR
Rydberg.
25 PETRONIUS— TRIMALCHIO'S BANQUET. TRANS-
lated by Michael J. Ryan.
OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited london and felling-on-tyne.
Crown 8vo, Cloth, Richly Gilt. Price js. 6 J.
Musicians' Wit, Humour, and Anecdote :
BEING
ON BITS OF COMPOSERS, SINGERS, AND INSTRUMENTALISTS OF ALL TIMES.
By FREDERICK J. CROWEST,
Author of "The Great Tone Poets," "The Story of British Music"; Editor of "The Master Musicians" Series, etc., etc.
Profusely Illustrated with Quaint Drawings by J. P. Donne.
WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY.—
" It is one of those delightful medleys of anecdote of all times, seasons, and persons, in every page of which there is a new speci- men of humour, strange adventure, and quaint saying." — T. P. O'Connor in T. P.'s Weekly
"A remarkable collection of good stories which must have taken years of perseverance to get together." — Morning Leader.
"A book which should prove acceptable to two large sections of the public — those who are interested in musicians and those who have an adequate sense of the comic." — Globe.
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limitkd, london and felling-on-tyne.
^Ihe Makers of British Art,
A NEW SERIES OF MONOGRAPHS OF BRITISH PAINTERS.
Each volume illustrated with Twenty Full-page Reproductions and a Photogravure Portrait.
Square Crown Svo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Deckled Edges, y. 6d. net.
VOLUMES READY.
LANDSEER, Sir Edwin. By James A. Manson. REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua. By Elsa d'Esterre-Keeling.
TURNER, J. M. W. By Robert Chigxell, Author of "The Life and Paintings of Vicat Cole, R.A."
ROMNEY, George. By Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., F.R.S, M.R " Likely to remain the best account of the painter's life." — Alhetiiinm.
"WILKIE, Sir David. By Professor Bayne. CONSTABLE, John. By the Earl of Plymouth. RAEBURN, Sir Henry. By Edward Pinnington. GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas. By A. E. Fletcher. HOGARTH, William. By Prof. G. Baldwin Brown. MOORE, Henry. By Frank J. Maclean. LEIGHTON, Lord. By Edgcumbe Staley. MORLAND, George. By D. H. Wilson, M.A., LL.M. WILSON, Richard. By Beaumont Fletcher.
IN PREPARATION.
MILLAIS, Etc.
Thr Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited, london and felling-on-tyne.
Crown 8vo, about 350 pp. each, Cloth Cover, 2/6 per Vol.; Half-Polished Morocco, Gilt Top, 55.
Count Tolstoy's Works.
The following Volumes are already issued —
A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR.
THE COSSACKS.
IVAN ILYITCH, AND OTHER
STORIES. MY RELIGION. LIFE.
MY CONFESSION. CHILDHOOD, BOYHOO6,
YOUTH. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF WAR. ANNA KAR^NINA. 3/6.
Uniform with the above —
IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA. Ey Dr. Georg Brandes,
Post 4to, Cloth, Price is.
PATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
To which is appended a Reply to Criticisms of the Work.
By Count Tolstoy.
WHAT TO DO?
WAR AND PEACE. (4 vo!s.)
THE LONG EXILE, EIC.
SKVASTOPOL.
THE KREUTZER SONATA, AND
FAMILY HAPPINESS. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
WITHIN YOU. WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE
LIGHT. THE GOSPEL IN BRIEF.
I
Booklets by Count Tolstoy.
Bound in White Grained Boards, with Gilt Lettering.
WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD
IS ALSO. THE TWO PILGRIMS, WHAT MEN LIVE BY.
THE GODSON.
IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE,
YOU DON'T PUT IT OUT. WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN ?
2/- Booklets by Count Tolstoy.
NEW EDITIONS, REVISED.
Small 12 mo, Cloth, with Embossed Design on Cover, each containing
Two Stories by Count Tolstoy, and Two Drawings by
H. R. Millar. In Box, Price 2s. each.
Volume I. contains — WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD
IS ALSO. THE GODSON.
Volume II. contains —
WHAT MEN LIVE BY. WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN?
Volume III. contains —
THE TWO PILGRIMS. IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE, YOU DON'T PUT IT OUT.
Volume IV. contains —
MASTER AND MAN.
Volume V. contains — TOLSTOY'S PARABLES.
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited, london and kblling-on-tyne.
Crown Zvo, Cloth, 3J. dd. each; some vols., 6s.
The
Contemporary Science Series,
Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Illustrated Vols, between 300 and 400 pp. each.
EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Professors Gkddes and Thomson. 6s.
ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. By G. W. dk Tunzblmann.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. By Dr. Taylor.
PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. By P. Mantkgazza,
EVOLUTION AND DISEASE. By J. B. Sutton.
THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY. By G. L. Gomme.
THE CRIMINAL. By Havelock Ellis. New Edition. 63.
SANITY AND INSANITY. By Dr. C. Mkrcier.
HYPNOTISM. By Dr. Albert Moll (Berlin).
MANUAL TRAINING. By Dr. Woodward (St. Louis).
SCIENCE OF FAIRY TALES. By E. S. Hartland.
PRIMITIVE FOLK. By Elie Reclus.
EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE. By Ch. Letournkao.
BACTERIA AND THEIR PRODUCTS. By Dr. Woodhead.
EDUCATION AND HEREDITY. By J. M. Guyad.
THE MAN OF GENIUS. By Prof. LoMBROSO.
PROPERTY : ITS ORIGIN. By Ch. Lbtourneau.
VOLCANOES PAST AND PRESENT. By Prof Hull.
PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEMS. By Dr. J. F. Sykes.
MODERN METEOROLOGY. By Frank Waldo, Ph.D.
THE GERM-PLASM. By Professor Weismann. 6s.
THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. By F. Houssay
MAN AND WOMAN. By Havelock Ellis. 6s.
The Walter Scott Pubi ishing Company, Limited, london and fblling-on-tyne.
CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES— con/inued.
MODERN CAPITALISM. By John A. Hobson, M.A. 6s.
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. By F. Podmore, M.A.
C0MPAR.-\TIVE psychology. B) Prof.C. L. Morgan, F.R.S. 6s.
THE ORIGINS OF INVENTION. By O. T. Mason.
THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN. By H. H. Donaldson.
EVOLUTION IN ART. By Prof. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S.
HALLUCINATIONS AND ILLUSIONS. By E. Parish. 6s.
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMOTIONS. By Prof. Ribot. 6s.
THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY. By Dr. E. W. Scripture. 6s.
SLEEP: Its Physiology. By Marie de Manaceine.
THE N.\TURAL HISTORY OF DIGESTION. By A. Lockhakf Gillespie, M.D., F.R.C.P. Ed., F.R.S. Ed. 6s.
DEGENERACY: Irs Causes, Signs, and Results. By Prof. Eugene S. Talbot, M.D., Chicago. 6s.
THE HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. By R. F. ScHARFF, B.Sc, Ph.D., F.Z.S. 6s.
THE RACES OF MAN. By J. Deniker. 6s.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION. By Prof. Starbuck. 6s.
THE CHILD. By Alexander Francis Chamberlai.n, M. A., Ph.D. 6s.
THE MEDITERRANEAN RACE. By Prof. Sergi. 6s.
THE STUDY OF RELIGION. By Morris Jastrow, Jun., Ph.D. 6s.
HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. By Prof. Karl Alfred von Zittel, Munich. 6s.
THE MAKING OF CITIZENS : A Study in Comparative Educa- tion. By R. E. Hughes, M.A. 6s.
MORALS : A Treatise on the Psycho-Sociological Bases of Ethics. By Prof. G. L. Duprat. 63.
EARTHQUAKES, A STUDY OF RECENT. By Prof. Charles Davison, D.Sc, F.G.S 6s.
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. By Dr. Charles A. Keane. 6s. The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited,
LONDON and FELLING-ON-TYNE.
SPECIAL EDITION OF THE
CANTERBURY POETS.
Square 8z'<3, Cloth^ Gilt Top Elegant^ Price 2s. Each Volume with a Frontispiece in Photogravure.
CHRISTIAN YEAR. With Portrait o( John Keule.
LONGFELLOW. With Portrait of Longfellow.
SH KLLEY. With Portrait of Shelley.
WURD.SWORTH. With Portrait of Wordsworth.
WHI ITIER. With Portrait of Whittier.
BURNS. Song3 \With Portrait of Burns, and View of "Th(J
BURNS. Poems/ Auld Brig o' Doon."
KEATS. With Portrait of Keats.
E.M ER.=;ON. With Portrait of Emerson.
SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY. Portrait of P. B. Marston.
WHITMAN. With Portrait of Whitman.
LOVK LETTERS OF A VIOLINIST. Portrait of Eric Mack'jy.
SCOTT. Lady of the Lake.'V With Portrait of Sir Walter Scott,
etc. I and View of " The Silver
SCOTT. Marmion, etc. J Strand, Loch Katrine." CHILDREN OF THE POETS. With an Engraving of "The
Orphans," by Oainsboroueh. SONNETS OF EUROPE. With Portrait of J. A. Symondi SYDNEY DOBELL. With Portrait of Sydney DobeU. H ERRICK. With Portrait of Herrick. BALLADS AND RONDEAUS. Portrait of W. E. Henley. IRISH MINSTRELSY. With Portrait of Thomas Davis. PARADISE LOST. With Portrait of Milton. FAIRY MUSIC. Engraving from Draw ng by C. E. Brock. GOLDEN TREASURY. With Emrraving of Virein Mother. AMERICAN SONNETS. With Portrait of J. B. I.oweU. IMITATION OF CHRIST. With Kngraving, "EcceHomo." PAINTER POETS. With Portrait of Walter Crane. WO.MEN POETS. With Portrait of Mrs. Browning. POEMS OF HON. RODEN NOEL. Portrait of Hon. B. NoeL AMERICAN HUMOROUS VERSE. Portrait of Mark Twain. SONGS OF FREEDOM. With Portrait of William .Morris. SCOTTISH MINOR POETS. With Portrait of R. Tannahill. CONTE.MPORARY SCOTTISH VERSE. With Portrait oi
Robert Louis Stevenson. PARADISE RKGAINED. With Portrait of Miltoi CAVALIER POETS. With Portrait of Suckling. HUMOROUS POEMS. With Portrait of Hood. HKRBERT. With Portrait of Herbert. POE. With Portrait of Poe.
OWEN MEREDITH. With Portrait of late Lord Lyttoa. LOVE LYRICS. With Portrait of Raleigh OER.MAN BALLADS. With Portrait of Schiller. CAMPBELL. With Portrait of Campbell. CANADIAN POEMS. With View of .Mount Stephen. EARLY ENGLISH POEIRY. With Portrait of iiarl of Surrey. AI LAN RAMSAY. With Portrait of Rumsay. SPENSEH. With Portrait of Speuser.
The Walter Scott Publishi.ng Company. Limit eu, london and felling-on-tyne.
CHATTKETON. With Engraring, " The Death of Chatterton."
COWPKR. With Portrait of Cowper.
CHAUCER. With Portrait of Chaucer.
COLKBIDG E. With Portrait of Coleridge.
POPE. With Portrait of Pope.
BYRON. Miacellaneous \ w.-»h t>/,.^,.u.. «» ti»./>. BYRON. Don Juan | With Portraits of Byron.
JACOBITE SONGS. With Portrait of Prince Charlie.
BORDER BALLADS. With View of Neidpath Caatle.
AUSTRALIAN BALLADS. With Portrait of A. L. Gordon.
HOGG. With Portrait of Hogg.
GOLDSMITH. With Portrait of Goldsmith.
MOORK With Portrait of Moore.
DORA OREENWKLL. With Portrait of Dora GreenwelL
BLAKE. With Portrait of Blake.
POEMS OF NATURE. With Portrait of Andrew Lans.
PRAED. With Portrait.
SOUTHEY. With Portrait.
HUGO. With Portrait.
GOETHE. With Portrait.
BERANGER. With Portrait
HEINE. With Portrait.
SEA MUSIC. With View of Corbi^re Rocks, Jersey.
SONG-TIDE. With Portrait of Philip Bourke Marston,
IjLDY of LYONS. With Portrait of BuWer Lytton.
SHAKESPEARE : Songs and Sonnets. With Portrait.
BEN JONSON. With Portrait
HORACE. With Portrait
CRABBE. With Portrait.
CRADLE SONGS. With Engraying from Drawing by T. E. Macklln.
BALLADS OF SPORT. Do. do.
MATTHEW ARNOLD. With Portrait
AUSTINS DAYS OF THE YEAR. With Portrait
CLOUGH'S BOTHIE, and other Poems. With Vicw.
BROWNING'S Pippa Pa.ises, etc. "| '
BROWNING'S Blot in the 'Scutcheon, etc. V With Porniit
BROWNING'S Dramatic Lyrics. )
MACKAY'S LOVER'S MISSAL. With Portrait
KIRKE WHITES POE.MS. With Portra't.
LYRA NICOTIANA. With Portrait
AURORA LEIGH. With Portrait of E. B. Browning.
NAVAL SONGS. With Portrait of Lord Nelson.
TE.VNVSON : In Memoriam, Maud, etc. With Portrait
TENNYSON : English Idyls, The Princess, etc. With View of
Farringford House.
WAR SONOS With Portrait of Lord Roberts.
JAMES THOMSON. With Portrait
ALEXANDER SMITH. With Portrait.
PAUL VERLAINE. With Portrait
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. With Portrait
The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited,
hOtiUON AND FELLING-ON-TVNE.
T'he Music Story Series.
A SERIES OF LITERARY-MUSICAL MONOGRAPHS.
Edited by FREDERICK J. CROWEST,
Author of "The Great Tone Poets," etc., etc.
Illustrated with Photogravure and Collotype Portraits, Half-tone and Line Pictures, Facsimiles, etc.
Square Crown 8vo, Cloth, js. 6d. net. VOLUMES NOW READY.
THE STORY OF ORATORIO. By ANNIE W. PATTER- SON, B.A., Mas. Doc.
THE STORY OF NOTATION. By C. F. ABDY WILLIAMS, M.A., Mus. Bac.
THE STORY OF THE ORGAN. By C. F. ABDY WILLIAMS, M.A., Author of "Bach" and "Handel" ("Master Musicians' Series ").
THE STORY OF CHAMBER MUSIC. By N. KILBURN,
Mus. Bac. (Cantab.).
THE STORY OF THE VIOLIN. By PAUL STOEVING,
Professor of the Violin, Guildhall School of Music, LondorL
THE STORY OF THE HARP. By WILLIAM H. GRATTAN
FLOOD, Author of " History of Irish Music."
THE STORY OF ORGAN MUSIC. By C. F. ABDY WILLIAMS, M.A.,*Mus. Bac.
THE STORY OF ENGLISH MUSIC (1604-1904): being the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Lectures.
THE STORY OF MINSTRELSY. Bv EDMONDSTOUNE DUNCAN.
IN PREPARATION.
THE STORY OF THE PIANOFORTE. By ALGERNON S.
ROSE, Author of "Talks with Bandsmen."
THE STORY OF MUSICAL SOUND. By CHURCHILL
SIBLEY, Mus. Dec.
THE STORY OF CHURCH MUSIC. By THE EDITOR.
ETC., ETC., ETC.
Thb Waltfr Scott Publishi.sg Company, Limited, london and fellinc.-on-tyn k
CO
m
R.G. T
Tracts for the Times The Oxford Movement