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Pea Ae a i, = ae ANGLICA AN INTRODUCTION TO ITS HIST AND PHILOSOPHY 3y W. eat Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey Speaker's Chaplain to the House of Commons. G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS LONDON & NEW YORK First Published November 1925 Made and Printed in Great Britain at the Botolph Printing Works, Gate Street, Kingsway, W.C.2 Contents PAGE I. The Outlook I Anglicanism as a world influence, in the reunion of Christendom, in the interpretation of Anglo-Saxonism, Anglo-Saxon traditionalism, its Anglican expression. II. Roman Internationalism 12 Augustine’s mission. The seclusion of the Saxon Church. Papalism strengthened by the Normans, its continuous clash with the Royal authority. The emergence of the English people, their debt to the Papacy, their growing antagonism to its claims, Henry VIII’s breach, its immediate cause, its deeper significance. Christianity is essentially international, but Papal internationalism is only partly Christian, its Impe1ial parentage, its contribution to European civilisation, comparison with the League of Nations, why it failed. Anglicanism and the movement for the corporate reunion of Christendom. III. Genevan Internationalism 36 Henry VIII’s conservatism, The Edwardine Council, its sordid support of the Calvinist innovators. Their revisions and reconstructions, their unpopularity. Mary’s opportunity and failure. Elizabeth’s pre- dilections checked by the growth of Calvinism, her policy of comprehension within the limits of the traditional system. The un-English mentality of her Scotch successors. The disastrous doctrine of Divine Right. The proscription of Anglicanism and the repudiation of Presbyterianism. Political autocracy and ecclesiastical anarchy. The Restoration settle- ment. The Church’s debt to Calvinism, (1) intellectual, (2) ethical. CONTENTS IV. Rationalism and Sentimentalism The decadence of eighteenth-century Anglicanism, The Rationalist movement, its mathematical origin, its disintegrating influence in Church and State, latitudinarian laxity. The uprising of sentimentalism, its revolutionary outcome, its English expression in Methodism and Evangelicalism, their notable achieve- ments. V. Romanticism The Romantic reaction, its pervasive influence. Tractarianism, its initial character and _ success. Newman’s secession, its exemplary significance. In- stinct and intelligence as interpreters of life. Anglo- Saxon methods and mentality, misunderstood by Latins, but justified by practical results. Their reflec- tion in Anglicanism, its incongruity with Newman’s sentimentalism and rationalism. The dream which attracted him. The set-back to Tractarianism, its recovery under safer leadership, its far-reaching infiuence—revival of antiquarian and architectural interest, ritual and liturgical developments, the preva- lence of sacramentalism. What Anglicanism owes to Tractarianism, VI. Materialism The impressive achievements of the physical sciences, the attempt to apply their methods generally, its failure, the Kantian philosophy, its implicit acknow- ledgment of supernatural agency. The a priori argument against nature miracles no longer tenable. VII. The Higher Criticism The patristic conception of Biblical inspiration. Its medieval modifications. The Protestant theory. Puri- tanism and Methodism, their fortuitous alliance and intimate interaction. Bible Christianity, its implicit assumptions. The challenge of criticism. How met by modernism, its underlying sentimentalism, its inevitable drift. Theultimatedilemma. The Anglican position, its Tractarian restatement, its historical foundations. The Anglican doctrine of inspiration unshaken by the Higher Criticism, PAGE 56 68 o7 108 CONTENTS VIII, Agnosticism The problem of objective validity, all historical assurances dependent on its solution. Are Anglican assurances analogous to others generally accepted ? A crucial instance—Christ’s bodily resurrection, alter- native arguments, their balanced consideration. The exemplary case of St. Paul, his early career, his first misgivings, the arresting voice. Was it Jesus of Nazareth who spoke to him? If so He had main- tained His personal identity through death? How could St. Paul be assured of this? The Christian answer. His protracted investigation and ultimate conviction with its far-reaching implications. How his vision affected his judgment, (1) it predisposed him to acceptance. All historical judgments thus con- ditioned, Christ’s insistence on this, (2) it altered the balance of probability. The character of the external evidence. The exemplary value of St. Paul’s ascent of faith. The evidence which convinced him curtailed by Lutheranism and confused by Romanism, but fully at the disposal of Anglicanism. Its unbroken con- tinuity, its conception of Church authority, its heritage of faith, its historical credentials. IX. Industrialism Anglo-Saxon traditionalism, dynamic as well as static. An illustration from political life. Class warfare im- possible in a normal Anglo-Saxon community. The abnormal conditions produced by Industrialism. The crucial problem of class segregation. Analogy of the Heptarchy. What the Church did then. Can she render similar service now? MHer qualifications for this task. Her limited range of influence. How far are Churchmen responsible for this ? Their traditional heritage. Their failure in its use. The root fault of present-day Churchmanship. PAGE ~156 197 _ a A aie ~~ * se ae a —— ANGLICANISM rg: fete’) oa | iN ov} Chapter i. THE OUTLOOK tae is becoming a factor of im- portance in Christendom. It is emerg- ing from its seclusion and acquiring some measure of world significance. It can no longer be regarded merely as a detached Gut the creation, of ‘an “island* race}: so dominated by their peculiarities of tempera- ment and thought and usage as to be ill- adapted to the religious requirements of other races. Two centuries ago this criticism would have been appropriate, not merely to the Anglican Church but to other charac- teristic English institutions. Voltaire’s gibe that the English people seemed to assume that God Almighty had made a special revelation of Himself for their benefit, was not altogether irrelevant to the circumstances of the times in which he wrote. But since those times the Anglo-Saxon race has ceased to be purely insular. It has established itself in every quarter of the earth and embodied I ANGLICANISM itself in powerful and progressive com- munities, whose mutual reactions and external relationships have produced situations of wide-reaching import and importance. In some of these the Anglican Church may be called to play a prominent part, and much may depend upon the extent to which it proves responsive to that call. Take two examples from several which suggest themselves. An active movement, largely of Anglo-Saxon origin, is in being at the present time, which has for its aim the reunion of Christendom, and more especially the healing of the divisions which took place in the sixteenth century, and have maintained themselves ever since. To the promotion of this movement Anglicanism may render no small service. Guizot, the great French historian, declared that if Christendom is ever reunited it will be through the agency of the Anglican Church. What he had in mind was the fact that that Church, while sensitive to the influences of the Protestant Reformation, maintained its institutional con- tinuity through the Reformation period, and along with it many of the usages and tradi- 2 tad THE OUTLOOK tions and points of view of pre-Reformation Catholicism. It has succeeded, not without difficulty, in retaining within its organised system teachings and practices derived from both these sources, and in establishing between them some measure of mutual accommodation. A Church in which Catholicism and Protes- tantism can thus combine as complementary rather than as contradictory forces, provides an encouraging example to those who are attempting to achieve the same result on a wider scale. If, under the conditions estab- lished by Anglicanism, Catholics and Protes- tants can co-operate with each other, and enhance each other’s usefulness and enrich each other’s thought by doing so, the hope is strengthened that similar co-operation is possible over the length and breadth of Western Christendom, and some luminous guidance is forthcoming as to the lines along which men can work for its achievement. A second example is less directly ecclesi- astical. There can be no doubi as to the emergence and rapid development of what may be called an Anglo-Saxon consciousness, of the growing recognition on the part of » ANGLICANISM men of Anglo-Saxon stock of the determining part which their race is called to play in the oncoming period of the world’s history, of the fact that to them has been assigned a leading place, perhaps the leading place, in the march of civilised progress, and that it is their responsibility to meet the claims which this position involves. This recognition is the inspiring motive of British Imperialism in its nobler aspects. It explains also the energetic efforts which are being made, on both sides of the Atlantic, to establish cordial and fruitful relations between the two chief commonwealths of Anglo-Saxon lineage and tradition. If the movement thus inaugurated is to achieve its true possibilities, if it is to find its sequel in something more than enhanced material power and prosperity, if it is to take its place in the world’s history as an important episode in the upward struggle of the human race, it must be in- vested with religious sanctions and rendered capable of religious expression. To say this is not merely to repeat a catch-word of conventional pietism. The persistence of such a movement depends upon the extent 4 THE OUTLOOK to which it is consciously related with, and receives its conscious inspiration from, those ultimate beliefs and ideals which constitute the religion of its adherents. These are its staying elements; it will be permanent and powerful so far as it is founded upon and fed by them. Here again the Anglican Church may prove capable of rendering invaluable service. Many other religious organisations are in existence in Anglo-Saxon countries, some of them in- cluding largenumbersof adherents. But nearly all of these are of comparatively recent origin, and embody partial movements of thought and feeling, which to a large extent dominate and determine their outlook and activities. The Anglican Church is not equally subject to these limitations. During the earlier and more formative period of its history its life was conterminous and closely intertwined with that of the English people. The in- timate association thus formed has to a large extent been maintained, and has profoundly and permanently affected its inner and outer development, its temper and spirit and in- tellectual and practical attitudes. Present- y) ANGLICANISM day Anglicanism reflects and reproduces the Anglo-Saxon mentality in many of its most distinctive qualities and characteristics—in its common sense, in its predilection for compromise, in its distrust of emotionalism, in its tepid regard for logical consistency, in its tendency to reserve in statement and demeanour, in its capacity for adapting old institutions to new requirements. The position of the Anglican Church is in these respects unique. No other religious organisation has behind it the same informing antecedents, nor has passed through the same illuminating experiences. No other religious organisation can essay with equal advantage the task of interpreting and voicing the religious con- sciousness of the Anglo-Saxon race. Its possibilities from this point of view are far- reaching, and its responsibilities are corre- spondingly great. The effectiveness of its service will depend upon the extent to which its members respond to these responsibilities, and this in turn will depend upon their intelligent appreciation of its historical ante- cedents and its social and spiritual significance. These are important topics, and what has 6 THE OUTLOOK just been said suggests an appropriate starting- point for their consideration. Anglicanism is a creation, not a construction. It is the outcome of a growth which has all along been closely identified with that of the English people, and it must be studied in this context if we are to understand it. Now we English are of very mixed racial origin. In our veins flows blood derived from several different sources—British and Roman and Nordic and Gallic and Flemish. But these successive infusions did not for long retain their separate identities. They quickly intermingled and issued in a joint product with strongly marked characteristics: 1n a very distinctive type of manhood, whose distinctiveness has been accentuated rather than diminished with the passage of time. For many centuries we have lived our own life in our own way, protected from foreign invasion, and largely segregated from foreign influences, by our insular position, self-contained and _ self- sufficient, working out our own problems and developing our own customs and institu- tions with little conscious regard to happenings elsewhere. Not unaffected by them, indeed, 7 B ANGLICANISM for no civilised people can isolate itself from the civilised order to which it belongs. But our response to external influences has generally been unconscious, and nearly always slow and cautious and critical. We have from time to time adapted them to our requirements and absorbed them into the texture of our life, but in no instance have they seriously affected its inner structure and character or changed the main direction of its development. This has maintained itself continuously and without serious break. We cannot hope to understand any funda- mental English institution, the Monarchy, the Legislature, or the Church, if we neglect or underestimate this fact. Some church historians have failed to take it sufficiently into account, and as a result have described Anglicanism in terms which are inadequate and often misleading. They have laid stress on the influence exercised by this or that prominent churchman, or this or that powerful movement. But they have overlooked, or set insufficient store by, the cohesive body of traditional acceptance and practice with which such influence has always found itself con- 8 LHE OUTLOOK fronted, instinctive and often inarticulate, but persistent and pervasive, capable of opposing effective resistance to subversive projects and policies, and of reasserting its power when they had lost theirs. The English people have never shown themselves averse from em- barking on new enterprises, or engaging in new experiments. But they have always insisted on accommodating them to their normal rate of growth, and have in the long run always found means of making their insistence good. Institutional continuity on its outer side, intense traditionalism on its inner—these are master features of English life in all its chief aspects and activities. It is on the latter that chief stress must be laid; the former is its outcome and expression. The Anglican Church has maintained its institu- tional continuity by virtue of its strong traditionalism, by virtue of the instinctive reverence with which its members have all along been disposed to regard the teachings of past experience. They have entrenched that reverence in habits and customs and ways of thought and feeling which have maintained 2 ANGLICANISM themselves through periods of superficial con- vulsion, and have emerged from them modified, it may be, in form, and enriched in content, but unaltered in essential character and direction. Approached from this point of view it is possible to give an account of Anglican- ism which, if not exhaustive, can claim to be illuminating and not inaccurate. It is possible to describe it in the terms of a tenacious traditionalism, which has at the same time been sufficiently vital and flexible and receptive to admit of the assimilating of materials derived from external sources: to describe it as the outcome of a process of continuous development stimulated and nourished by the experiences of a long and eventful history. In the course of this history it has been subjected to a series of spiritual and intellectual invasions, some of which seriously threatened its integrity. It suc- ceeded in repelling each of these in turn, but it was affected by them, in some cases deeply affected. Incorporated in its essential texture are many elements thus derived, which it has adapted to its purposes, and made 10 THE OUTLOOK amenable to its requirements, and invested with its own peculiar quality. Thus enriched and enhanced it has pursued its distinctive course and has now acquired a volume and momentum which, wisely directed, render it capable of notable achievements. But wise direction is necessary, and this is conditional on the extent to which intelligent Anglicans appreciate the nature of the heritage which has descended to them, and the responsibilities which it involves: whence it came and how it should be administered. It is with the former question that the following pages are chiefly concerned: with the development of Anglican traditionalism from its first be- ginnings up to the present time. The subject is of wide range and can only be dealt with here in broadest outline. But this outline will serve a good purpose if it is sufficiently comprehensive and clearly drawn to meet the requirements of more detailed study, and thus to promote the formation of informed opinion, issuing in loyal and _ purposeful action. If Chapter II ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM A i English are an island race which, be- cause of their segregation from Continental Europe, tended from the first to develop along the lines of independent nationalism. But with the coming of Christianity this tendency was met by a counterbalancing force, which increased in volume and intensity as time went on. For one of the main sources from which England received Christianity was the Roman Church, and that Church, the suc- cessor of the Roman Empire and deeply imbued with its tradition, has always, and with increasing persistency, endeavoured to establish throughout Christendom a system of ecclesiastical internationalism, highly cen- tralised and carefully organised, just as the Roman Empire was. The mutual reactions of these two forces of nationalism and inter- nationalism, their conflicts and adjustments, form one of the main themes of the opening chapters of the history of Anglicanism, L2 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM Augustine, on his arrival in England, did not find the island wholly heathen. Its original British inhabitants, dispossessed by their Saxon invaders, and driven into the fastnesses of the west, retained the Christian beliefs of their forefathers. He quickly got into communication with their bishops, and tried to persuade them to accept the supremacy, and conform to the customs, of the Roman See. His efforts were, however, unavailing. Traditional feeling, intensified by racial antipathy and the bitter memories of recent wrongs, interposed an insurmount- able obstacle to successful negotiation. Hence- forth he and his immediate successors devoted themselves to the difficult and dangerous task of subduing the fierce Saxons of the Southern Kingdoms to the allegiance of Christ. Meanwhile a Christian current had entered northern England from a different source. The monks of Iona, the spiritual offspring of the ancient and distinguished Irish Church, zealous, devoted, and often learned men, carried the Gospel message into Northumbria and the surrounding regions, and made numer- ous converts there. These rendered formal T3 ANGLICANISM deference to the Roman See, but did not recognise its authority in any effective manner. Moreover, their ecclesiastical system differed materially from that of the southern Chris- tians, being organised on monastic rather than diocesan lines. Soon the two currents met and began to intermingle, and the question became an acute one which should absorb the other. This was finally settled at the Council of Whitby, in favour of the Roman Christians. The ostensible reasons for this decision may seem to us trivial and even irrelevant, but there can be no doubt that the decision itself was in the direction of progress. Unity and organisation were necessary conditions of the success of the Christian propaganda, and in these respects the Roman system was much superior to that of the Scotch. The way was thus opened for a complete overhauling of the whole ecclesiastical apparatus, and this task, a little later on, was undertaken by Archbishop Theodore, and carried through by him with notable success. By securing the effective recognition of the Primacy of Canterbury, by the subdivision of the existing 14 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM dioceses into sees of manageable size, by the institution of synodical action, by the correc- tion of abuses and the establishment of active centres of education, he reorganised the Church on a permanent and workable basis. He thus rendered an invaluable service to the English people as a whole. They were at the time broken up into a number of independent kingdoms, whose _ internecine jealousies and quarrels stayed the advance of civilised progress. It was a great step forward when those of them who were Chris- tian, and gradually all of them were Christian- ised, became connected with each other in the membership of an organisation which overstepped provincial boundaries, and was to some extent independent of provincial jealousies and claims. The example thus given proved fruitful. It is not too much to say that it provided one of the most powerful influences which made for the welding of the English people into a single common- wealth. The English Church can claim to be the parent of the English State. Ecclesiastical unity showed the way to national unity. I5 ANGLICANISM Ecclesiastical organisation provided useful guidance in the process of political organ- isation. It is to be noticed that though Theodore received his original commission from Rome, his work of reorganisation and reform de- pended little upon external support. He carried it through by the force of his own powerful personality, and very largely through the instrumentality of native-born agents. Its inception and original inspiration came from the outside, but it was in itself of na- tive growth. The Church of England, which came into being under his auspices, owed something to international influences, but it was in essential texture a national Church, intertwined with the life of the people to whom it ministered, sharing their outlook, imbued with their traditions, embarrassed by their faults, chiefly preoccupied with their affairs. So it remained during the Saxon period: loyal to the Roman allegiance, but only slightly affected by Roman influence. Intercourse with Rome was difficult, in- termittent, and seldom intimate. Recorded instances of direct interference from Rome 16 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM with its internal affairs are few and far between. The national aspect of its life seems to have been predominant during this period, the international aspect comparatively subordinate. The coming of the Normans wrought a con- siderable change in this respect. The Norman ecclesiastics who took charge of the different dioceses had been brought up in the atmos- phere of Continental Catholicism, and were deeply imbued with its spirit. Many of them were men of great devotion and energy and ability and learning, under whose auspices notable reforms were effected and notable _ improvements made, in organisation and discipline. The old somewhat sluggish, and not always reputable, Anglo-Saxon ways were replaced by activities of a far more cultured and comprehensive character. These, to a Jarge extent, emanated from Rome, and tended to strengthen the Roman connection and influence. The Papacy thus became a much more important factor in the life of the English than it had hitherto been, and a factor which on the whole made for intellectual and spiritual progress. But it never, even ny ANGLICANISM then, became a dominating factor. The old spirit of nationalism survived, and soon found new and powerful means of expression. The Norman Kings, almost at once, found themselves confronted by an external au- thority which challenged their own, and which, if acknowledged, would seriously limit their prerogatives and power. Hence ensued a struggle which maintained itself for nearly five centuries. Broadly speaking, the fortunes in this struggle varied with the respective personalities of Pope and King. A strong Pope, dealing with a weak or embarrassed King, could enforce his authority effectively, and invest his agents with no small measure of administrative and disciplinary power. A strong King, dealing with a weak or em- barrassed Pope, could assert and maintain a position of virtual independence, could prevent Papal emissaries from entering the country, could veto Papal appointments, could forbid appeals to the Papal courts, could refuse to allow the customary fees and tributes to be paid into the Papal treasury. It is important to notice that in acting thus the English Kings regarded themselves, 18 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM and were regarded by their subjects, as exercising legitimate rights. This is suffi- ciently proved by the fact that their repudi- ations of Papal authority were on a number of occasions invested with the sanction of statu- tory authority. Thus we find, in 27 Edward III, the King described as “ ordinarius supremus,”’ and a later Act of the same reign declares that ‘‘ Kings anointed with the holy oil are capable of spiritual jurisdiction.’”? An Act of 2 Henry IV lays down that the Arch- bishops and Bishops are ‘“ Regis judices spirituales ’’—“‘ the King’s spiritual judges,” and that Papal collectors have no jurisdiction in England. In 2 Richard III it is affirmed that the excommunications and judgments of the Roman pontiff have no force in England. Or, once again, in 10 Henry VII fol. 18 we find a striking statement of the same principle —‘“ Rex est persona mixta cum sacerdote, quia tam ecclesiasticam quam temporalem habet jurisdictionem.”’ The contention that the doctrine of the Royal Supremacy was invented by Henry VIII will not bear his- torical investigation. His manner of apply- ing that doctrine was in some _ respects 19 ANGLICANISM unprecedented, but the main principle in- volved in it had been asserted and applied by several of his predecessors. Popular sentiment sometimes favoured one side, sometimes the other. Sometimes it supported the King in his opposition to Papal ageression and the abuses which often accom- panied it. Sometimes it supported the Pope, or his representatives, as protagonists in the battle against Royal tyranny and oppression. But, as time went on, the body of opinion favourable to the King tended to strengthen itself, at the expense of that favourable to the Pope. For, as time went on, racial dis- tinctions gradually disappeared. Normans and Saxons and Celts intermixed and inter- married, and from their unions emerged a people which, notwithstanding their varied ancestry, or perhaps partly because of it, became more and more conscious of their national distinctiveness, more and more proud of it, and more and more disposed to resent any foreign influence which interfered with its maintenance, or impeded the freedom of its development. It was thus that the English people, 20 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM as history has since known them, came into being. A proud, self-contained, self- confident, self-reliant people, destined to play a leading and forceful part in the world’s drama. The Medieval Papacy made valuable contributions to their early nurture and training. It broadened their outlook, it enriched their thought, it stimulated their intellectual and artistic interests, it brought home to them the importance of ordered discipline and authoritative law, it estab- lished channels of intercourse between them and the chief centres of Continental culture. By the very opposition which it aroused it enhanced their love of liberty and their determination to maintain it. But as the medizeval period neared its close they began to be aware that they had outgrown its tutelage, and to resent with increasing vehemence the assertion of its authority, all the more vehemently because of the gross and sordid dealings which this authority not seldom cloaked. This tendency, as it gathered strength, made for an open breach with Rome, when circumstances became favourable and 21 ANGLICANISM fitting opportunity occurred. Both these conditions were fulfilled in the reign of Henry VIII. On the one hand the Papacy had to a large extent lost its hold on the imagination and veneration of educated Europeans. This was due partly to its own lethargy and corruption, still more, perhaps, to the pagan revival which accompanied the Renaissance movement,’ and tended seri- ously to weaken the foundations of Chris- tian faith and practice. On the other hand the English monarchy had acquired a status and power greater than it had previously possessed. The practical annihilation of the old nobility in the Wars of the Roses had eliminated its most formidable rival. The new nobles were mere creatures and agents of the King, while the country gentlemen and freeholders, later on destined to make their power felt in decisive fashion, were as yet unorganised and largely inarticulate. So it came that Henry found himself in a position which enabled him to assert his personal will without serious let or hindrance from at home or abroad. His earlier attitude towards the Papacy was complacent and even cordial. 22 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM He had no sympathy with the new movement of Protestantism. He wrote against it, and was publicly thanked by the Pope for doing so. But his support of the Papacy was subject to the condition of reciprocal support, and when, in the case of his application for a divorce from his Spanish Queen, this condition was not fulfilled, he repudiated his allegiance and declared himself and his King- dom exempt from all Papal jurisdiction and authority. There are two aspects of this momentous event which should not pass unnoticed. In the first place it is very doubtful whether Henry himself recognised its full import, or foresaw the far-reaching consequences which were to flow from it. The evidence which is forthcoming seems to point to the conclusion that he regarded it as little more than a repetition of similar action taken again and again by his royal predecessors—the reasser- tion in a systematised and emphatic manner of rights and prerogatives which they had always claimed and on occasion enforced. Nor did he seem to have regarded the step he had taken as final and irrevocable. His Zo o ANGLICANISM ancestors again and again had quarrelled with Rome, and had maintained their quarrels for considerable periods of time, but later on had resumed peaceful relationships. It is possible, or even probable, that this was the sequel to which he looked forward—a recon- ciliation on terms consistent with a large measure of national autonomy and _ safe- guarded against invasion of these terms. Then, secondly, it is important to notice that though Henry acted on his own initiative and for his own personal ends, he apparently had the bulk of the nation behind him. The monastic orders, whose connection with Rome had always been more intimate than that of the secular clergy, were, generally speaking, opposed to his action, and, as the Pilgrimage of Grace showed, were able to command a powerful body of popular support. But, taken as a whole, both ecclesiastical and lay Opinion seems to have acquiesced in the new departure. It is significant that most of the bishops agreed with it, and that some of them took an active share in bringing it into effect. Nor can it be fairly said that their agreement was due merely to fear, or to 24 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM promptings of self-interest. When, later on, it became evident that the Royal power was being used to widen the breach with Rome into one with Catholic tradition and practice, bishops like Gardiner and Tunstall, who in Henry’s reign had ranged themselves on his side, transferred their allegiance to the Papal side, and at the cost of deprivation and imprisonment opposed the ecclesiastical policy of his successor. Before proceeding to discuss this policy it is important that we should appreciate clearly the deeper significance of Henry’s quarrel with Rome. Its ostensible occasion was not of a very creditable kind on either side. Henry may have had conscientious qualms with regard to the legitimacy of his first marriage, but they were in unholy alliance with the urgings of his sensual appetites. The Pope may have recognised his responsi- bility as the authoritative guardian of the Catholic marriage law, but it is more than doubtful whether he would have refused Henry’s demands had it not been for the pressure brought to bear on him by the Imperial Court. 25 ANGLICANISM But only a superficial student will de- scribe the rupture which ensued in terms such as these. Much deeper forces had led up to it, much deeper issues were in- volved in it. It was, as has already been said, the consummation of a long continued struggle between the forces of nationalism and internationalism. Thus regarded it might seem that, from the Christian point of view, the victory of nationalism was a retrograde step. For internationalism belongs to the essential texture of the Christian movement. Some of Christ’s statements, indeed, have a nationalistic flavour, but the main trend of His teaching is profoundly international, and St. Paul, the most active and influential of His early disciples, emphasised this quality in unreserved terms. ‘‘ In Christ Jesus,” he declares, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free.”’ There can be no doubt that his ecclesiastical ideal was that of a world society, whose membership is open to all men on equal terms, and whose claims to allegiance transcend those of race loyalty or national patriotism. Papalism includes this ideal, and so far 26 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM can claim to be in accordance with Christ’s will and design. But it has to be borne in mind that it includes also powerful and determining elements of non-Christian origin. It may be described as the offspring of a union between Roman Imperialism and Christian Catholicism, deriving from the former many of its institutions and methods, and along with them no small share of its distinctive spirit and aim. This came about by an almost inevitable process. The early Roman bishops stepped into the place left vacant by the disappearance of the Roman Emperors, and inherited what survived of their traditional prestige. Faced with a momentous task, it was natural that they should take full advantage of the status thus acquired, and that in doing so they should to some extent follow the lines, and imbibe the spirit, of their pagan predecessors. This is What actually occurred. Their organisation of the Western Church reproduced that of the Roman Empire. The Pope was before long acclaimed by the Imperial title of Pontifex Maximus, the Council of Cardinals took the place of the Senate, the Metropolitans that 2/ ANGLICANISM of the Propreetors and Proconsuls, the diocesan bishops corresponded to the Governors of subordinate provinces. The host of civil and military officials who had administered the Imperial system found their successors in the secular clergy and the members of the Mon- astic Orders. The status of Roman citizenship was replaced by that of Church membership, carrying with it valuable rights and privi- Jeges, but involving the obligation of unques tioning obedience to those by whom it had been conferred. The same influence can be traced at a deeper level. It affected the main trend of the Church’s life and contributed to the formation of her leading aims and customary methods. Papalism took over from Roman Imperialism its dream of world dominance, to be attained and maintained by the enforcement of authoritative law and the application of rigid and wunbending discipline. The ecclesiastical system thus established and elaborated was of valuable advantage to the peoples who came under its sway. The reverence with which it was regarded, the zeal and ability with which it was served, 28 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM its closely knit and far-flung organisation, placed it in a position from which it was able to bring powerful influence to bear in every department of life, and this influence on the whole made for peace and justice and orderly progress. Apart from the Papacy and its centralised and pervasive authority, it is difficult to see how the turbulent races of Western Europe could have emerged from the chaos and confusion which followed the break up of the Roman Empire. It was their chief bulwark against the forces of disruption and disintegration. It impressed upon them, with stringent sanctions, the fundamental lessons of respect for spiritual authority and obedience to spiritual law. So long as it served these purposes its maintenance was instinctively recognised as of indispensable importance, and was accorded the support of reverent regard. But the time came when it was no longer indispensable: when the com- munities which had grown up under its guardianship began to organise their own spiritual and material resources on inde- pendent lines, and to chafe against outer 29 ANGLICANISM tutelage. Had the Papacy been sufficiently sensitive to this development and had it adapted itself to its requirements, had it, as a, wise parent does, gradually transformed the regime of the nursery and the schoolroom into one more congruous with the conditions of adolescent manhood, had it mitigated its authoritative insistences, and depended more upon appeals to reason and conscience, the whole course of European history might have been changed, and the international ideal implicit in the Christian movement might by this time have made substantial progress towards realisation. The lurid experiences through which the world has recently passed have re-awakened men’s response to this ideal. The existence of the League of Nations and its vigorous activities bear testimony to this. But the League of Nations has behind it spiritual resources so insufficient, and is opposed by forces so strongly entrenched and powerful, that even its well-wishers have misgivings as to the outcome of its endeavours. Some are anxious lest in at- tempting prematurely to raise human nature 30 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM to a moral level higher than that at which the mass of men are accustomed to move, or are as yet capable of moving, it may not postpone the attainment of the ends it has in view, and perhaps even serve to strengthen and stimulate the disruptive tendencies it seeks to curb. The medieval Papacy essayed a similar task with much greater prospect of success : with the advantage of acknowledged authority, with the prestige of great achievements, and with an organisation at its disposal which placed it in intimate contact with every aspect of the life of its members, and gave it a controlling influence over the directions of its growth. Thus equipped it made con- tributions of indispensable importance to European civilisation in its earlier stages. Its failure later on was largely due to the fact that most of the men who directed its policies were of Latin blood and upbringing, men who did not understand, and had little sympathy with, the uprising aims and aspirations of the Nordic races. Had the Roman Catholic Church retained these races within her fold this defect might, on ANGLICANISM to some extent, have been amended. For the centre of political power was already moving northwards, and the northern king- doms would not for long have remained content with the comparatively meagre repre- sentation allotted to them in the counsels of the Curia. As it was, the schism which took place in the sixteenth century had the effect of enormously strengthening and concen- trating the Latin influence in that part of the Church which remained subject to the Pope, and of stamping Latinism on it in characters well-nigh indelible. The Roman Catholic Church confronts the modern world as the advocate of religious internationalism, but of internationalism of a kind repugnant to the most progressive races, and incongru- ous with their free and democratic instincts and institutions. Organized Christianity must regain its international outlook and objective if it is to be true to its Founder’s intention. But its internationalism must be attained by way of living growth, not by that of mechanical acceptance; it must display itself as the consummation of national- 32 ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM ism, not as its negation. That the corporate reunion of Christendom will one day be effected no one can doubt who believes that Christ is what He declared Himself to be, and that the movement inaugurated by Him is bound to prevail. For internationalism is of the essence of that movement, and its prevalence must mean the union of all nations in an articulated system of mutual service and supply: in a universal society to whose richness of experience all peoples and kindreds will make their distinctive contributions, and with whose organised activities they can co-operate in harmonious freedom. How this will come to pass we cannot predict with any assurance. The conditions which determine the course of future events are too complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. But by careful observation and sympathetic study we can learn enough about these conditions, about the main currents of Christian thought and aspiration, to justify us in forming some estimate of their tendency and trend. It is when placed in this context that the subject we are considering becomes invested with more than local interest and importance. a0 ANGLICANISM For more than a thousand years the Anglican Church formed part of an international re- ligious organisation. She never wholly ac- cepted it, or conformed to its requirements. Internationalism as interpreted by Rome always found itself opposed by English nationalism, and increasingly resented by the English people. But her long-continued association with it impressed upon her an indelible character. It intertwined Catholi- cism, the ecclesiastical expression of inter- nationalism, with her vital texture. When she broke with Rome she claimed her right to develop her own life as a national Church, but she also claimed to do so as a living member of the Catholic Church, carrying on its main traditions, and principles of organ- isation, and devotional observances, and practical methods, and standards of doctrinal belief. The succeeding era brought her into conflict with forces which, had they got the upper hand, would have fundamentally transformed her whole constitution and out- look. They did not get the upper hand, but they affected her deeply and permanently. She had to take account of them, fand to OF ROMAN INTERNATIONALISM come to terms with them, and to adapt herself to their more moderate requirements and claims. Thus it was that when the Anglican Church, after a century of disturb- ance and unrest, attained to some measure of selfconscious stability, she emerged as a Church in which both Protestants and Catho- lics can find a place, and in which the principles for which they stand, though occa- sionally colliding, tend increasingly to react on each other, and to become intertwined in one harmonious whole. It is for this reason, as has already been said, that she can claim a unique position in the movement for the corporate reunion of Christendom. What Anglicanism has achieved tentatively and on a small scale is an encouraging presage of what may be achieved more definitely and on a wider scale. 35 Chapter III GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM ENRY VIII’S repudiation of the Roman | es did not work out to the unmixed advantage of the English people, either in Church or State. It safeguarded the Church against foreign interference, but it opened the way to domestic interference of a very intimate and irritating kind. For, by adding the Papal prerogatives to his own, the King became invested with absolute and uncontrolled ecclesiastical authority, against which there was no right of appeal and, in the existing circumstances, little prospect of suc- cessful resistance. The Royal power thus came to stand above that of the bishops, and could, if occasion arose, supersede it altogether, and transform the Church’s system of Episcopal government into one of irresponsible autocracy. This result did not obtrude itself while Henry lived, for though he used his prerogative freely and drastically, his ecclesiastical policy was on the whole conservative, and the bishops 36 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM readily co-operated with him in carrying it into effect. But the case became very different on the accession of his child successor. ‘The Royal power was put into commission, and wielded by a Council composed for the most part of unscrupulous and rapacious courtiers, whose chief preoccupation was their own enrichment and aggrandisement. Their appe- tite for Church lands had been whetted by the rich spoils of the monasteries, and they looked with greedy eyes on the estates and endowments still attached to the episcopal sees and capitular bodies. It was natural that they should find themselves in sympathy with a religious movement which included in its aims the abolition of the episcopal system, and which, in countries where it had become predominant, had achieved this end. Calvinism had gained a precarious foothold in English life during the later years of the preceding reign, and now, under more favour- able conditions, it attracted an increasing body of adherents. These were comparatively few in number, but they included men of character and zeal and ability, men who looked to Geneva for inspiration and guidance, 37 ANGLICANISM and sincerely believed that the world’s welfare, temporal and eternal, depended upon the prevalence of the theological and ecclesi- astical system which found its headcentre there. The Council proved very sympathetic with their propaganda and projects, which fitted in well with its own predatory designs. Hence they acquired a controlling power in Church affairs altogether out of proportion to their numbers or popular influence. Events developed rapidly. The bishops tried in vain to stem the tide of innovation and depre- dation, but the Council, armed with a weapon which the bishops themselves had helped to forge, made short work of their opposition. One by one they were imprisoned, and later on deprived and replaced by adherents of the new movement. The way was thus left open for extensive confiscatory measures. Chauntries and colleges and hospitals, many of them educational and charitable centres of great public value, were ruthlessly dissolved, and their revenues placed at the Council’s disposal. Nor was it always thought necessary to proceed by way of formal enactment. Church property of all kinds came to be 38 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM regarded as lawful spoil for anyone strong enough to appropriate it. We read, for instance, how Somerset planned to demolish the Westminster Abbey Church in order to use its materials for the erection of his new palace, and how the Abbey authorities had to buy him off by surrendering to him several valuable estates. Or we read again how the neighbouring Church of St. Margaret only escaped a like fate through the armed re- sistance offered by its parishioners to his workmen. It is a sorry and sordid story, this story of the beginning of the Reformation move- ment in England on its secular side; nor is its flavour improved when we remember that many of the men who were chiefly instrumental in these proceedings had no real sympathy with Protestantism, and that some of them on the scaffold declared that they had all along been Catholics at heart. On the religious side the record is more reputable. Some of the divines who led the reforming movement were men of high ideals and disinterested aims, sincerely anxious for the purging of the Church of what they 39 D ANGLICANISM regarded as superstitious beliefs and practices, and for its reconstruction on Calvinistic lines. With this end in view they used their adminis- trative power to effect a drastic simplification of the interior ornaments and decorations of the churches; images and carvings were effaced or removed, altars were demolished and replaced by wooden tables, painted windows were destroyed, illuminated missals were torn up, vestments and frontals were sold and converted to lay uses. They also took in hand the remodelling of the Service Books. This task they attacked cautiously and carefully. Their first revision was of a conservative character, so conservative that the deposed bishops offered no serious objec- tion to the changes they had effected, but declared that they were quite willing to use the new Prayer Book. It did not, however, satisfy their foreign mentors, and at their instigation they proceeded to a further revision and issued a second Prayer Book which, though by no means fully meeting the views of their Geneva friends, was regarded by them with greater approval. It is to be noticed that these changes 40 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM were imposed from above and enforced, so far as they were enforced, by the Royal authority. All the evidence goes to show that the bulk of the English people neither asked for them nor liked them. They were quite willing to support the King in his quarrel with the Pope, but they were not willing that the Royal prerogative should be used to interfere with their time-honoured be- hefs and modes of worship. Their resentment found expression in uprisings in different parts of the country. Some of these were directed against the flagrant misgovernment of the Council—the worst government which England has ever suffered under—some against the religious changes which it tried to enforce. The cry of the Devonshire rebels, for instance, was “ Give us back our Latin Mass.”” The new service, they declared, was little better than a Christmas game. These risings were, however, sporadic and unsuccessful. So long as the King lived the Council was able to maintain its authority, though with increasing difficulty, and only by the aid of foreign mercenaries paid from the spoils of confiscated Church property. ATI ANGLICANISM But when the King died its power came to an abrupt end, and Mary ascended the throne amid the joyful acclamations of all but a handful of her subjects. Had Mary been content to revert to her father’s ecclesiastical settlement there is little doubt that she would have been supported in her action by the great majority of the English people. But a policy under which she and her mother had suffered grievously had no attraction for her. She was, moreover, half a Spaniard by blood, and more than half a Spaniard by upbringing and predilection. She neither understood nor sympathised with the spirit of English nationalism. She was deeply imbued with that of Papal inter- nationalism. She at once proceeded to use the Royal supremacy, which she abhorred, to restore the Papal supremacy, which the English people abhorred. And she used it in the Latin fashion, logically and ruthlessly and heartlessly. The English statute book included drastic laws against heretics, which from time to time had been enforced by her father and his predecessors, but never in the 42 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM cold-blooded systematic manner in which Mary enforced them. The spectacle of a long succession of men and women, many of them of high character and station and reputation, being burnt to death in different English towns, aroused deep-seated indignation and compassion even among those who had little sympathy with their religious views. To this was added distrust of a foreign policy which made English interests subservient to those of Spain, and found its sequel in national humiliation and disaster. So it came that Mary’s popularity quickly waned, and was replaced by increasing resentment and disaffection. The chorus of acclamation which had greeted her accession changed into one of execration before she died. It is an irony of history that one of the most sincerely religious of English Sovereigns should have been one of those most generally hated, and that the cause dearest to her should have suffered more at her hands than at those of any of its open opponents. The popular attitude towards her successor was very different. Elizabeth was a Sovereign after the English people’s own heart. She 43 ANGLICANISM understood their nationalism and was in full sympathy with it. Her dominating aim was to consolidate the English nation, and to enhance its power and prestige. Her ecclesi- astical policy was in accord with this aim. Her own ecclesiastical predilections, such as they were, seem to have been for a restoration of her father’s settlement, for a national Church which, while Catholic in doctrine and ritual, was freed from the entanglements of Papal internationalism. In this she probably in- terpreted truly the preference of the bulk of the English people who, though outraged by Mary’s brutalities, were as yet but little affected by Calvinism, and retained a strong traditional attachment to their forefathers’ ways. But what was possible in her father’s day was no longer possible now. The Calvin- ists had become a formidable party, still comparatively small in numbers, but zealous and determined and aggressive, incited too by the Marian exiles, who came streaming back with their enthusiasm intensified by persecution, and their views accentuated by intercourse with their foreign friends. These men could not be suppressed or silenced, save 44 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM at the cost of a disastrous internecine struggle. If national unity was to be maintained a place must be found for them in the ecclesi- astical system, which must to some extent be adapted to their requirements. Considerations of this kind dictated Eliza- beth’s attitude and action. She tolerated Calvinistic teaching of a mitigated flavour, and allowed Calvinists to hold high eccle- siastical positions, provided that they conformed outwardly to the _ traditional ecclesiastical system. But she placed herself in line with the main current of popular feeling by her insistence on the maintenance of that system. No break was made in its continuity. Its fundamental institutions, its creeds, its form of government, its necessary sacramental observances, were maintained in their integrity. Moreover—and here Elizabeth showed her special wisdom and insight—she took care not to strain the Royal prerogative beyond its just limits. She refused to accept the title of Head of the Church, and substituted for it that of Supreme Governor. Acting in this capacity she held the Bishops accountable for the enforcement of its discipline, refusing 45 ANGLICANISM to allow Parliament to interfere with their action, and only occasionally exercising her own prerogative apart from them. It was a difficult policy to carry through successfully, all the more so because the exigencies of the times made it impossible to man the Episcopal Bench satisfactorily. The Marian Bishops were too deeply com- mitted to Papalism to be _ of service. They were quickly disposed of, but the men available for filling their places were for the most part of a very second-rate type. The new Primate, however, was a conspicuous exception to this rule. In Archbishop Parker Elizabeth found a prelate who co-operated wisely and loyally with her policy, and enabled her gradually to carry it into effect. There is no doubt that this policy was in accordance with the sentiment of the ereat bulk of the English people. At first this sentiment was unorganised and _ in- articulate, but gradually it became self- conscious and began to express itself in literary form. With MHooker’s immortal work Anglicanism entered the _ contro- versial lists with Calvinism on more than 46 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM equal terms, and the principles laid down by him were in the next generation developed by a series of thinkers and writers of con- spicuous intellectual power. Before Elizabeth died Anglicanism had ceased to depend for its maintenance on traditional sentiment and disciplinary regulations. It had taken its place, and made good its claim, as a distinctive and coherent system of thought and practice, the theological and ecclesiastical expression of a continuous national life, firmly rooted in the experiences of the past, and freely responsive to those of the present and the future. The mentality of Elizabeth’s Scotch suc- cessor was very different from hers. Elizabeth knew the English, for she was herself English through and through. She knew how far she could go in the exercise of her royal prerogative, and the point beyond which its exercise became dangerous. James had not learnt this lesson, and he was by temperament and upbringing incapable of learning it. He refused to mitigate or compromise his royal claims, and tried to ride rough-shod over all opposition. He gave the Church his vigorous 47 ANGLICANISM support, and received her whole-hearted al- legiance in return. The Church thus became identified with the royal policy of absolutism, and her loyalty led her to commit herself to a doctrine of divine right, which invested the King’s claims with a religious sanction and made passive obedience to him a religious duty. She suffered grievously in consequence. For opposition grew apace, and the country gentlemen who led it, taking the Church at her own valuation, became increasingly estranged from her, and increasingly disposed to sympathise with her Calvinistic assailants, and to promote their plans. Hence Puri- tanism, the English offspring of Calvinism, came to pose as the protagonist in the struggle for civil and religious liberty. The pose was altogether fictitious. Puritanism aimed at dominance, not freedom. The freedom which it claimed for itself, it was by no means disposed to accord to others. Whenever it got the upper hand it dealt drastically with all who refused to submit to its theocratic sway. No one who reads the early history of the New England Puritan States will consider this an unfair statement. But the 48 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM English Parliamentarians, hard pushed in their encounter, did not yet recognise this outcome of their alliance, did not yet recog- nise, as Milton later on put it, that “* Presbyter is but Priest writ large,”” and they welcomed the aid of a religious zeal and fervour in which they themselves to some extent came to share. So the conflict developed, till in the reign of the second Stuart it culminated in civil war. The Church’s support for some time gave Charles I the upper hand; without it he would have been almost powerless, with it he had, at first, more than half England behind him. But gradually her disastrous commitment to the doctrine of divine nght proved fatal to her influence. Forced to choose between traditional sentiment and attachment, and personal and political liberty, the strongest manhood of England made the latter choice. The King was dethroned and decapitated, the Church disestablished and proscribed. The victory of Calvinism seemed to be decisive. The way was opened for ecclesi- astical reorganisation on Presbyterian lines, 49 ANGLICANISM and Parliament at once took this task in hand. But England would have none of it. It had never accepted Calvinism, and it now refused to be dominated by it. The Presbyterian Parliamentarians could offer no effective resistance to Cromwell and his Ironsides when they turned them out of the legislative chamber and locked the doors against them. Such action would have been impossible had the Presbyterian pro- jects been supported by public opinion. But public opinion was against them. It might acquiesce in the temporary suppression of the traditional Church system, but it was by no means favourable to its replacement by a new system of alien origin. A period of ecclesiastical anarchy en- sued, coincident with one of military autocracy in State affairs. And then the inevitable revulsion came. The Protector died, and England, with practical unan- imity, welcomed the restoration of the exiled King, bringing with it that of the old ecclesiastical order. The House of Commons, which fifteen years before had proscribed the Church, expelled the clergy from their 50 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM benefices, and made it a penal offence to use the prayer book in public worship, now passed a drastic Act of Uniformity which made obedience to the Church’s regulations, and participation in her services and Sacraments, necessary conditions of citizenship. These conditions were mitigated in later years and finally abolished. The full rights of English citizenship are now accorded irre- spective of religious profession or attachment. But no corresponding relaxation has been made in the requirements of ecclesiastical conformity. In all essential respects these remain what they were at the time of the Restoration settlement. Attempts have been made since then to modify them in the direction of greater comprehensiveness, but they have met with no success. The Church's traditionalism interposed a barrier against which they have beaten in vain. It has con- tinued as heretofore to safeguard the main- tenance of her institutional continuity, the preservation of her fundamental system and formularies. The Church’s conflict with Calvinism was in principle a continuation of her previous 51 ANGLICANISM conflict with Romanism. For Calvinism no less than Romanism was inspired by an international ideal. It aimed at the establish- ment of a theocratic world State, a State in which the Saints would rule the earth, in which the elect would discipline the unelect, and do so with a rod of iron no less heavy and unbending than that wielded by Papal absolutism. The Anglican Church, the ecclesi- astical embodiment of English nationalism, emerged from this second encounter intact so far as her outer form was concerned, but her inner quality and character were influenced by it in two important ways. In the first place her efforts to come to terms with Calvinism affected her intellectual out- look potently and permanently. They caused her to formulate some parts of her doctrinal teaching in terms which were designedly ambiguous, in terms which both Catholics and Calvinists could honestly accept. The latitude of interpretation thus allowed was not curtailed when dogmatic Calvinism had spent its force, and had no longer to be taken into serious account. It has maintained itself as a distinctive characteristic of the An- 52 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM glican attitude and atmosphere. Unfriendly critics may speak of it in terms of dis- paragement, may charge it with vague- ness and confusion and lack of logical co- herence. But Anglicans can point in reply to the fact that the Church of their allegiance, while maintaining firmly the essential prin- ciples of Catholic faith and order, has in a conspicuous degree been successful in retaining within the limits of her loyal membership men of very different temperaments and aptitudes, and that the interactions of their thought and practice have done much to bring to light the many-sidedness of the Christian revelation, and its congruity with the varied and intricate workings of the human mind. Limits of comprehension are a necessary condition of all organised social life. Every society must demand from its members loyalty to its fundamental principles and institutions. The question it has to face is which of these are fundamental, and that question the Anglican Church has answered in terms which are worthy of respectful consideration. Anglicanism owes a second debt to Calvinism 53 ANGLICANISM of a different kind. Whatever the defects of its theology may have been, and these from our modern standpoint are too obvious to be worth recording, Calvinism, in its English form, succeeded in developing a type of manhood which compels admiration and re- spect. The Puritans, with all their harshness and uncouthness and intolerance, were dis- tinguished for their self-control, for their probity, for their sense of personal responsi- bility, for their courage and determination and single-minded devotion to what they believed to be right and true. These qualities passed from them into the main currents of English life, and not least into that of Anglican Church life. Analyse the consciousness of the average churchman, and we shall find that his ultimate loyalty is accorded to the law of duty, his ultimate reverence to those who obey that law. Trace the antecedents of this consciousness, and we shall find that its development has been due to no small extent to the fact that for many successive genera- tions the Church’s children have been taught to interpret life in terms of conscience, to regard it as their opportunity for doing their 54 GENEVAN INTERNATIONALISM duty “in that place or station to which it shall please God to call them.’ Seek the power which has maintained and enforced this teaching and we shall find that it is largely derived from the Puritan strain which, like a meshwork of steel, has intertwined itself with the texture of our common life. It is the fashion in certain circles nowadays to disparage Puritanism, but before we join in this disparagement let us remember that to it we are in no small measure indebted for those qualities which have enabled us to build up a stable and orderly state at home, and a mighty empire abroad. The advance of knowledge and culture and artistic apprecia- tion is to be welcomed, but it will render an ill service to the English people if it tends to enervate that power of moral indignation, and that intolerant insistence on the supremacy of the moral law, which they have inherited from their Puritan forefathers, and which has hitherto formed the background and the ultimate motive power of their most dis- tinguished achievements. 55 E Chapter IV RATIONALISM AND SENTIMENTALISM NGLICANISM emerged from the Kestora- tion settlement in a position of great ad- vantage. Puritanism, its rival claimant to the religious allegiance of the English people, was defeated and discredited. The Noncon- formist bodies in which it had organised itself tended to diminish in numbers and influence. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they had become a comparatively negligible factor in the religious life of England. The Anglican Church could then claim to be the almost exclusive representative and embodiment of that life, and had she risen to her opportunity might have established herself permanently in this position. But she did not rise to her opportunity. Her failure to do so was due to two causes. It was due in the first place to her political affiliations. She had in the preceding period committed herself to the theory of 56 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM divine right, and had suffered sorely in consequence. Her continued loyalty to that doctrine soon involved her in further dif- ficulties. Before long it led to the seces- sion of the Non-jurors, and thus deprived her of the services of some of her most learned and saintly and devoted members. Later on it threw her into opposition to the Hanoverian dynasty, and provoked the Han- overian statesmen to retaliatory measures, which had the effect of dislocating and crippling many of her corporate activities. But her decadence during this period was also due to another deeper cause, to an atrophying influence which to a greater or less extent affected all contemporary religious organisations. In every age, mentally alert, some particular intellectual interest, or form of activity, is apt to become pro- minent, and to impose its standards and methods on other interests and activities. During the latter half of the seventeenth Peatury,, and the early, part. ofthe eighteenth, the mathematical sciences occupied this position. The wonderful pro- gress made in them under the leadership ay! ANGLICANISM of such men as Descartes and Leibnitz and Kepler and Pascal and Newton profoundly impressed the European imagination. Mathe- matical modes of thought came to be regarded as the most complete and perfect modes, mathematical trains of reasoning as furnishing the standard to which all correct reasoning should conform. The disposition became pre- valent to insist on the application of this standard in all branches of knowledge, and to disparage and reject all theories and accep- tances which failed to satisfy its requirements. In the Continental countries this rationalising tendency exercised great in- fluence, and found expression in widespread scepticism, political and religious. In English life it was met and mitigated by the prevalent traditionalism, but there too it acquired a foothold. A school of theologians arose in- directly affected by its influence. They did not adopt an openly sceptical attitude, they did not deny any of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian creed, but they were inclined to minimise their importance, to keep them in the background, and to concentrate atten- tion on the ethical aspects of Christian 58 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM teaching, which seemed to them to embody indisputable principles, generally acknow- ledged, and capable of clear statement. The same tendency affected their political attitude. It disintegrated the doctrine of divine right, and thus made it easy for them to enter into friendly relationships with the existing régime. The Hanoverian statesmen, sorely embarrassed by the opposition of Jacobite churchmanship, welcomed their sup- port and used the Crown patronage to fill the higher ecclesiastical positions from their ranks. Many of the ecclesiastics thus pro- moted were cultured and learned men and of benevolent disposition, but they were out of touch with the prevalent trend of Church life, and unsuited by temperament and training for the administration of the affairs of an organisation which depended for its efficient working on sympathetic recognition of the principles of corporate reverence and au- thority. These fell into abeyance. Theo- logical laxity soon found its customary outcome in moral laxity. Men of very inferior quality were admitted freely to Holy Orders —sycophants and roysterers and impecunious 29 ANGLICANISM adventurers. Their vagaries were allowed to pass almost unnoticed by their ecclesiastical superiors, nor do they seem to have been strongly reprobated by current Church opinion. It is a significant fact that the authors of some of the coarsest writings of the time were clergymen occupying recognised positions in ecclesiastical circles, and regarded as eligible for further advancement. Side by side with this deterioration in clerical life a similar trend was apparent in lay life. All sections of the community seem to have become infected with a spirit of coarse worldliness, stimulated and ministered to by increasing material prosperity. Open profligacy and cynical selfishness flaunted unabashed and unrebuked in the upper ranks of society. The middle classes tended to become more and more preoccupied with the pursuit of wealth. The lower classes, living under conditions of increasing hardship and penury, the presage of still harder con- ditions in years to come, were allowed to sink unregarded and unsuccoured into brutality and degradation. The Church as an organised system made 60 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM small effort to arrest this downward drift. She occupied a _ post of commanding influence at the time. She included in her nominal membership all but an incon- siderable fraction of the English people. She had behind her the backing of wealth and learning and political power and social prestige. Well officered and wisely led she might have attracted to her allegiance all the best and noblest energies in English life, and provided them with fitting organs of ex- pression and activity. But she failed to make use of her opportunity. Her time of political triumph found its sequel in a long protracted period of spiritual apathy and sterility. From this she was only aroused by the pressure of spiritual forces which she ought to have harnessed to her service, but which, alienated by her lethargy, repudiated her authority and organised themselves in unfriendly rivalry to her claims. The tragedy of her oncoming experience was that these forces were to a large extent emanations of her own life. Its apathy though widespread had never become univer- sal. Thousands of quiet homes scattered over 61 ANGLICANISM the length and breadth of England maintained the traditional standards of sober and earnest piety which had been handed down to them from their fathers, and were the training- schools of men like Law and Wilson and Samuel Johnson, loyal Churchmen and devout and disciplined Christians. It was from such homes that the Wesleys and many of their friends came, the inaugurators and organisers of a movement pregnant with far-reaching results for the whole English-speaking race. This movement as conceived and inter- preted by its adherents and exponents was altogether religious. But placed in the context of contemporary thought, it connects itself with a wider movement of reaction against the dominence of rationalism. Rationalism is disintegrating but not dynamic. It can destroy traditional loyalties, but it cannot supply others to take their place. Voltaire, its typical representative, showed no dis- position to disturb established institutions. He fared well under them, and had no sufficient substitutes to suggest for them. For a time the Governments and the Church in Western 62 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM Europe maintained themselves by their own vis inerti@, though many of the subjects of the one, and of the members of the other, criticised their credentials and made light of their authority. But human nature cannot for long remain satisfied with mere negations and denials. A powerful positive movement arose, which found in Rousseau an exponent of genius. His theories and ideals disregarded the requirements of historical and philosophical criticism, but they appealed strongly to the imagination and the emotions and generated tumultuous forces which, culminating in the French Revolution, swept away many of the old beliefs and institutions, already under- mined by the preceding movement. Now Methodism, though not a conscious outcome of Rousseauism—its originators and disciples would have repudiated with horror any such ancestry—was in certain respects so similar to it that we are justified in regarding it as the same movement in English guise, and adapted to the conservative conditions of English life. It arose in reaction against the prevalent theological rationalism, its ap- peal was to the emotions rather than to the 63 ANGLICANISM intellect, it took little account of history, and disparaged traditional institutions and beliefs. It is true that it accepted without question the traditional view of the Christian docu- ments, and some of the current interpretations of their contents, and used these as the medium of its appeals. But that it could almost as readily have used a very different medium is shown by the emergence of some- what similar movements under the conditions of Continental Catholicism. John Wesley himself was by upbringing and sympathy a loyal Churchman. To the end of his life he wished to co-operate with the Church rather than to compete with her. It seems lamentable that she should not have found a permanent place for him and his followers within the orbit of her organised activities. But it was inevitable that the Church as then officered should have failed to do so. To the latitudinarian Bishops of the time, and their attitude was that of most of the more highly placed and educated clergy, Methodism was altogether distasteful. Their — tepid intellectualism had no affinities with what they regarded as extravagant emotion- 64 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM alism, nor with ways of life founded upon it and dominated by it. But though Methodism was thus com- pelled to organise itself on independent lines, the forces it embodied maintained their foothold in the Anglican Church, and before long expressed themselves there in a powerful and pervasive manner. The Evangelical movement reproduced the essential characteristics of its parentage. It stressed the importance of the emotional element in the religious life to the disparage- ment of its intellectual and ethical aspects. According to its teaching faith is an emotional episode rather than an intellectual acceptance ; conversion a change of inner attitude and disposition rather than of outer conduct. It fitted this teaching into existing frameworks, into Calvinist theology and Anglican ecclesi- asticism and English morality, and infused into these a new spirit and power. The Calvinist interpretation of the Atonement was used by it as a potent instrument of propaganda, and became intertwined with the inmost religious consciousness of its con- verts. The Anglican ecclesiastical system it 05 ANGLICANISM accepted with explanations and demurtings. It moved somewhat uneasily under the restric- tions imposed by Church order and episcopal authority, and would have moved very un- easily had not the lethargy and laxity preva- lent in episcopal circles made these restrictions little onerous. But the spirit which it gene- rated did much to revive the whole Church system, and found specially effective expression in the field of missionary enterprise. It proved hardly less potent in the province of social effort. Saving faith, as Evangelicalism interpreted it, had no necessary moral ante- cedents or consequences. But a vivid emo- tional experience like that of conversion could not but have reactions in every department of the converted man’s life. When men of sympathetic and philanthropic disposition passed through this experience, their sym- pathies were intensified and their philanthropic instincts transformed into potent incentives to social service. So it came that Evangeli- calism, in principle intensely individualistic, in practice became the inspiring centre of great ameliorative measures such as those of slave emancipation and of the early factory laws. 60 RATIONALISM & SENTIMENTALISM As a tonic, as a stimulant, as an instru- ment of spiritual revival, it rendered valuable service to the Anglican Church. But as a system of thought and conduct it failed to meet her requirements and was incapable of intermingling with the main currents of her life. At a later stage in this discussion it will become apparent why this was so, and how it was proved to be so. Our immediate concern is with the emergence of another movement, also of external origin, but far more congenial with the essential principles of Anglicanism, and destined to influence its development permanently and profoundly. 67 Chapter V ROMANTICISM HE Rationalists had conceived of society (| Be resting on a contractual basis. Rousseau had voiced the uprising against the arid falsity of this conception, and, stressing the impor- tance of the emotional side of man’s nature, had irradiated with his genius an inspiring ideal of mythological origin. The effort to realise this ideal led to dire results. Rous- seauism culminated in the French Revolution and the French Revolution found its sequel in Napoleonic militarism. Then the revulsion came. Men discarded the philosophy which had issued in this catastrophe, which in the name of freedom and fraternity had subjected them to an intolerable tyranny. They ex- amined its credentials and rejected them as illusory. The process of examination brought into prominence the truth that society is an or- ganic growth, not a contractual combination, and that if, therefore, we are to understand 68 ROMANTICISM its existing institutions and activities, and through such understanding to direct their trend, we must learn how they came to be. Hegel voiced this recognition in the province of philosophical speculation. He brought history into that province and secured for it a definite and accredited place there. In the political arena the same recognition displayed itself in a tendency, which soon became dominant, to revert so far as might be to the old order, to rebind the ties of connection with the past, which had been shattered by the revolutionary convulsion. In literature Sir Walter Scott did not stand alone in voicing the same con- ception, but he presented it in a form which secured its widespread influence and accept- ance. Under the magic of his pen the past became a vivid reality, the fountain-source of all that is best and noblest in the present. This third movement was more congenial to English modes of thought and feeling than either of its predecessors, and influenced them more deeply and pervasively. The English people as a whole are intellectually indolent, and outside academic circles are disposed to 69 ANGLICANISM disparage rationalism. They are very senti- mental, but sentimentalism lacks stable his- torical and intellectual foundations and is liable to constant changes in form andcontent. But they are above all else intensely traditional, and they readily responded to a movement which revived traditionalism and emphasised itsclaims. Tractarianism was the most notable and distinctive expression of this response on the ecclesiastical side. Its emergence marks the opening of an important epoch in the history of Anglicanism. Its influence on English Church life has been far-reaching. No one who wishes to understand the present activities of that life, or to anticipate its possibilities of future achievement, can afford to regard the Tractarian movement as other than a factor of primary importance in its development. Its early history has been dealt with by several distinguished writers, notably by Dean Church, who narrates it in language of unsurpassed dignity and lucidity. It will be sufficient for our present purpose to call attention to one or two of its more salient features. The Tractarians began as pure tradition- 7O ROMANTICISM alists. They disclaimed novelty. Their pro- fessed aim was to restate the teaching of their predecessors in the terms of current phrase- ology. They sought to show that the concep- tion of Christianity for which they stood was identical with that held by the great Anglican Divines from the time of Hooker onwards, and that it had been acquired by them from the master thinkers and writers of the Primi- tive Church. So long as they maintained this attitude their success was phenomenal. At first sight it seems surprising that a few young clergymen, of no exalted ecclesiastical or academic status, should have aroused al- most at once the attention and awakened the interest of educated England, and should have attracted to their discipleship many of the most thoughtful and devout of their con- temporaries. The explanation is to be found in the direction indicated. The out- look of Tractarianism was primarily and predominantly historical, and its historical interest made it favourable to learning, and thus put it into sympathetic touch with all forms of intellectual and artistic culture. The same interest affected the character of its 7 AN F ANGLICANISM dogmatic teaching, causing it to give to the doctrine of the Incarnation the prominence which in Evangelicalism had been assigned to that of the Atonement, and thus providing a theological environment in which human nature could move more easily and breathe more freely than in that of Calvinism. Its devotional development was similarly con- ditioned. Turning to the early service books for its devotional phraseology, it inculcated an attitude of reverence in the region of religious experience, and of sober restraint in its expression, very congenial to the best English feeling. But its attractiveness was most of all due to its ethical quality, to its strenuous insistence on self discipline and self abnegation, and on the cultivation of those refined and gracious virtues which distinguish the traditional type of Christian saintliness. Thus Tractarianism in its initial form appealed to some of the deepest and most abiding strains in English Church life. It professed to do no more than to make explicit principles and ideals which were implicitly intertwined with the essential texture of that V2 ROMANTICISM life. It advocated no novel departure, it pointed to no new and untried paths. It called Churchmen to tread the old paths intelligently and determinedly, to take up their rightful heritage and to turn it to the best account, to recognise what their professed Churchmanship meant, what were its essential principles and aims, and to act upon these principles and to move forward towards the accomplishment of these aims. The best and most active minded Churchmen responded in increasing numbers to this call. Young Oxford did so; young England, so far as it was interested in such matters, seemed dis- posed to follow suit. Had the Tractarians maintained their original attitude and pro- ceeded on their original lines it seems likely that before long the Anglican Church would have been dominated by their influence. It would have had no serious rivals to contend with. Latitudinarianism does not attract enthusiasm, and it is its enthusiastic members who in the long run dictate the direction of the development of the community to which they belong. Evangelicalism had seen its best days. Its intellectual and_ historical 73 ANGLICANISM foundations could not bear close scrutiny, and its growing consciousness that this was so weakened the power of its emotional appeals. The field was open for a religious ideal which claimed to be implicit in the structure and tradition of the Anglican Church, and to include all that was best and noblest in her past history and present aspirations. But events shaped themselves differently. Some of the prominent leaders of the movement did not proceed as they had began. John Henry Newman, the most powerful and persuasive of them, one of the greatest intellectual and religious geniuses the English race has produced, very soon turned his face in a different direction, and set out on the journey which culminated in his submission to Rome. His secession was regarded as a disaster by the supporters of Tractarianism, as a deliver- ance by itsopponents. To the former it meant the loss of their most powerful leader, to the latter the removal of a protagonist whose in- creasing influence they disliked and distrusted. Eighty years have passed since then, and it is now possible to view this epoch-making event in a less controversial context, and to form a 74 ROMANTICISM more balanced estimate of its causes and consequences. Its immediate causes are not far to seek. Anglicanism could not but fail to satisfy a man of Newman’s upbringing and mental disposition: he was bound sooner or later to find himself out of sympathy with its peculiar and predominant quality. It is worth while to investigate briefly the nature of this discrepancy, the more so since his predicament was to some extent analogous to that of a good many others before and since his time. It is the function of intelligence to under- stand life, to discern the laws which govern its multitudinous activities, and thus to anticipate, so far as it can, their future direction. But it finds itself baffled by their complications and apparent contradictions. It finds that its generalisations are only approximately valid, that its explanations are only tentatively true, that allowances have to be made, that exceptions have to be admitted, that accuracy can only be attained by abstraction, by concentrating on certain aspects of the facts brought under review, to the exclusion of other aspects perhaps equally 79 ANGLICANISM important. Certitude it must aim at, it cannot be fully satisfied with any less attain- ment. But it is an attainment of the far off future, an ideal to work towards rather than an implement readily available for present use. Hence it comes that in the arena of practical affairs intelligence, while craving certainties, has to content itself with proba- bilities, and to recognise that the guidance it offers in dealing with such affairs has to be supplemented by, often to be subordinated to, that supplied from another source. Anglo-Saxon intelligence has achieved this recognition in an exceptional degree. Our Latin neighbours often profess themselves puzzled by our ways of thought and action and their apparent discrepancies. “‘ You are not an unintelligent people,” they will tell us, “you display some interest in theoretical discussions, you have made notable contri- butions to the development of speculative thought. You profess to set great store by principles, and by the importance of maintain- ing and acting upon them. But when you are confronted by a complex situation, political or social or religious, and have to find your 70 ROMANTICISM way through it, you seem to throw principles and theories to the winds, and to proceed to deal with it along the lines of tentative experiment and opportunist expediency. Con- siderations of logical consistency seem to fall into the background, and to be replaced by those of practical utility. ‘ Will it work ?’ is the master question by which you test any proposal. If an affirmative answer seems to be forthcoming, the fact that the particular proposal embodies principles which you profess to repudiate, or disregards others which you profess to hold in high esteem, does not give you serious pause. You ‘muddle through,’ as you say, by whatever path seems to lead most easily and directly to satisfactory prac- tical results. And it is noticeable that you generally muddle through, and have muddled through, with marked success. Your wealth, your stable social and political system, your far-flung and_ closely-knit Empire, bear eloquent witness to this fact, and are apt to provoke questionings of an _ unfriendly character. Is it possible that your vaunted rectitudes are merely a cloak under which you conceal less worthy motives? Is 77 ANGLICANISM it possible that beneath your high sounding declarations of lofty principle you are at heart self seekers, intent on the promotion of your own selfish ends? You profess to be inspired by disinterested ideals, but in_ working for these ideals you have somehow or another managed to promote your own material wellbeing in a notable degree. Does not this fact carry with it some suspicion of insincerity: some | justification for the accusation that in the make-up of Anglo-Saxon manhood hypocrisy is a factor which has to be taken into prominent account ? ”’ This is an age-long criticism which has caused, and still causes, no small embarrass- ment in our public and private dealings with our Continental neighbours. Itis not, perhaps, altogether unjustified. We are not always as sincere and straightforward in our policies and diplomacies and business transactions as we profess to be. But, without undue self- complacency, we are justified in claiming that insincerity is not one of our distinguishing characteristics, and that the facts on which the charge of hypocrisy is founded are capable 78 ROMANTICISM of a simpler and more worthy explanation. The English people have learned by cen- turies of experience in the arena of practical affairs, that intelligence affords insufficient guidance there: that it has to be supported and not seldom _ super- seded by a faculty quite different in kind but equally fundamental in the constitution of human nature. Wehave found in instinct, trained and informed by constant and con- tinuous use, a guidance which often transcends that provided by speculative reason. And we have come to depend upon this guidance, sometimes perhaps to an undue extent. We are not intentionally insincere in our pro- fessions of principle, nor in our recognition of the importance of sound theory and logical coherence. But we have learnt that the onflow of life brings us up against problems which do not admit of theoretical solution, and in dealing with which considerations of logical consistency have to be subordinated to those of practical efficiency. Doubtless our record of successful achievement in the past may dispose us to overrate the value of instinct, and to underrate that of intelligence. Critical 79 ANGLICANISM situations may arise, charged with new and unexplored forces, in which stupid integrity is not a sufficient qualification for leadership. But our history hitherto goes to show that our so-called ‘‘ muddling through ” methods have been justified by-results, and thus disposes us to remain largely content with their employment. Such are the English people, and the Anglican Church, whose life has been inter- mingled with theirs at every stage of her history, reflects their idiosyncracies. She has all along been confronted with the concrete facts of a complex and continuous national development. She has had to take these into account and to adapt herself to them and to assimilate them, so far as this was compatible with the maintenance of her spiritual and institutional identity. She has thus acquired the English habit of setting store by practical considerations even at the expense of theoretical consistencies, of making compromises and adjustments where these seem desirable and workable, of leaving many disputed questions open, of being tolerant of ambiguities, and sparing in the use of precise statements and definitions, So ROMANTICISM It was this habit, the outcome and expression of her ingrained traditionalism, which made it impossible for her to retain the allegiance of Newman’s complex mentality. He had been born and bred in her communion. He sym- pathised with her traditionalism and clung to it so long as he was able to do so. His early tracts emphasised this characteristic of her life, and made it the basis of their appeals. It was the Church of his forefathers whose claims he advocated, it was her time- tried beliefs and observances which he sought to rehabilitate and revivify. But gradually other deep-seated influences became _pre- dominant in his thought. He had been brought up in Evangelicalism, and had been deeply imbued with its sentimentalism. This influence maintained itself when he had severed his outer connection with the Evan- gelical party, and disposed him to interpret facts in the light of antecedent theories and ideals, and to disparage or explain away their witness when it did not prove amenable to this interpretation. He was moreover by natural bent a rationalist, and this bent had been reinforced by his early academic SI ANGLICANISM associations. Bearing these two characteristics in mind, it is not surprising that he should before long have found himself breathing uneasily in the atmosphere of Anglicanism. He tried to idealise the Anglican Church, to present it to himself and to his followers as the norm of the perfect Christian society, marred indeed by many aberrations and defects, but capable of fulfilling Christ's design and of becoming the fitting abode and instrument of His Indwelling Presence. But the facts of past history and present experience proved intractable to his idealising efforts. Not even his genius could overcome the resistance which they offered, as he tried to mould them to his purpose, and to present them as parts of a symmetrical design. Before long he became conscious of this, and began to look elsewhere for his materials. These he found, or thought he found, in Romanism. Its clear cut theories, its highly articulated system of doctrine and practice, its unqualified claim to be the sole guardian and exponent of absolute truth, impressed and fascinated him. Hehad had no personal experience of its inner working, no first-hand 82 ROMANTICISM knowledge of the subterfuges and suppres- sions and special pleadings on which the maintenance of its outer unity so largely depends. He disregarded or explained away the testimony, writ large on the page of history, that behind its imposing exterior lie prison houses of liberty, and lethal chambers of sincerity. The Roman Church which attracted him, and to which after a long and painful struggle he accorded his allegiance, was largely a creation of his own idealising faculty. Its relation to existing facts was little closer than that of Rousseau’s State of Nature to the facts of primitive life. He sought the city of his dreams in the realm of reality. His quest led him to sever the ties of lifelong friendships, to leave the Oxford which he loved and the religious and academic circles in which he had played such a notable part, and to pass into unfamiliar and unfriendly surroundings. It was a great venture of faith, a noble act of self-renunciation and_ self-sacrifice. What its sequel was in his inner ex- perience we cannot tell. Whether beneath surface storms his soul found rest and 83 ANGLICANISM satisfaction, or whether these were tinged with misgiving and disillusionment, is a question which has been much debated but never conclusively answered. But of the outer circumstances of his life from this time onwards we can speak with more decision. The impression conveyed by their story is one of pathetic tragedy. It is the story of a highly sensitive nature moving uneasily in the companionship of men of meagre souls and ill-furnished minds, of a brilliant intellect confronted with an im- penetrable wall of suspicious obscurantism, of far-seeing projects sterilised by stupid opposition or secret intrigue. It is the story of a great and noble soul passing through a long-continued ordeal of misunderstanding and misrepresentation and calumny and petty persecution and treacherous malevolence. It is true indeed that in the evening of his days he was accorded some measure of acknow- ledgment and official recognition by the Papal authorities. But to the end he remained lonely and secluded, a solitary genius whom neither Anglicanism nor Romanism can claim as its legitimate offspring. 84 ROMANTICISM Those who wish to study Newman’s life story can find it narrated at full elsewhere, and form their own estimate of the impression conveyed by it. Our immediate concern is with its bearing on Anglicanism, with the question how his secession affected the trend of the Tractarian movement, and through it the subsequent development of the Anglican Church. Up to the time of his secession the growth of that movement had been steady and uninterrupted. It had aroused much opposition on the part of the existing ecclesiastical and academic authorities. This is the almost invariable experience of every new movement. But such opposition strengthened rather that weakened its mag- netic hold on the imaginations and intellects of thoughtful and earnest Churchmen of the rising generation. They showed themselves increasingly disposed to sympathise with it, and to identify themselves with its principles and points of view. But now came a rude awakening. The charge of Romanising had been freely levelled against the Tractarians by their opponents, but had been vigorously repudiated by them. Their objective, they 85 ANGLICANISM declared, was not Roman Internationalism, but Anglican Nationalism; not the sur- render of principles which their forefathers had successfully maintained, but the re- statement of those principles and their active application. But what availed their declara- tions and repudiations when confronted with the damaging fact that their most conspicuous leader had himself made this surrender, and that several others of considerable distinction had followed his example, or were about to do so. Along this path the English people would not and could not be led. The anti- Papal sentiment is intertwined with the roots of their life. The crude and blatant forms in which it often finds popular ex- pression are apt to divert attention from its fundamental character and to incline the more educated and refined to regard it as little more than an emanation of antiquated prejudice and foolish fanaticism. But it springs from deeper sources. It is the outcome of the indelible memories of a long continued struggle, extending over many centuries, in which English nationalism combated forces which 86 ROMANTICISM had they prevailed would have been fatal to its free development. It proved victorious in that struggle, and its victory has been a chief determining factor in its subsequent career. England cannot come to terms with Rome, while England remains what she is and Rome remains what she is. A few in- tellectual or emotional specialists may dream otherwise, but men in the central stream of life know that such dreams are vain. The vital question at issue is not one of ceremonial or devotional usage: it is only subordinately one of doctrinal definition. Itis primarily and predominantly one of personal and national liberty ; of the right claimed by a virile and independent people to free growth along the lines dictated by their own endowments and circumstances, and of their age-long an- tagonism to an alien system of thought and conduct persistently claiming dominance in every department of their life. The blow was a serious one, but its outcome was to the ultimate advantage of the move- ment. Had Newman maintained his con- nection with Anglicanism it is more than doubtful whether his powerful influence would 87 G ANGLICANISM have made for its healthy development. His rationalism and his sentimentalism would have been bound sooner or later to clash with its traditionalism, and the process of adjustment would have been disturbing, and might have been dangerous. As it was, the leadership of .the movement fell into the hands of men like Keble and Pusey who had been born and bred in historical Anglicanism, and were deeply imbued with its spirit. They stood firm while many of their hitherto supporters wavered and fled, and round them gathered a band of devoted followers, com- paratively small in numbers, but including men of profound learning and of high in- tellectual and spiritual attainments. Under their auspices the movement main- tained itself and gradually permeated the whole Church. The pervasiveness of its influence is not to be judged by the extent of its declared discipleship at that time or since that time. It is to be looked for rather in the persistent trend of Church life in this country during the last eighty years. The Tractarians were before all else historians. They approached the religious problem from the historical stand- 88 ROMANTICISM point and insisted on it being placed in the historical context and dealt with by historical methods. To the rationalist Christianity is primarily a philosophy: to the sentimentalist itis primarily an emotion. To the Tractarians it was primarily a way of life: the unfolding of a new spiritual power in the form of a corporate movement each successive stage of which springs out of and depends upon the preceding stage. To understand any Christian doctrine or practice it was, in their view, necessary to trace its historical antecedents ; to justify it, it was necessary to show that these antecedents were adequate, and that it was their legitimate outcome. Their in- sistence on the connection of the past with the present, and the dependence of the present on the past, was the distinctive feature of their teaching. They themselves may not have grasped its full significance. Their manner of presenting it would in many respects be difficult of acceptance at the present day. But the teaching itself was altogether congenial to the traditionalism which forms the main strain of Anglican Church life, and found in it ready and powerful response, 89 ANGLICANISM pregnant with far-reaching intellectual and practical results. This was the great achieve- ment of the Tractarians. They revived the historical consciousness of the Anglican Church, and that consciousness once roused became a dominating factor in her activities. To illustrate and justify this statement it it only necessary to compare the prevalent standards and aims of Churchmanship to-day with what they were eighty years ago. Take one or two outstanding instances. At that time slight attention was paid to the care and preservation of our old Cathedrals and Churches. Those of them which were ill attended were allowed to fall into decay. Those of them which answered a useful purpose as places of worship were patched up and often added to in grotesque and unseemly fashion. Tractarianism awakened Churchmen to the real significance of these buildings ; to the fact that in them they had an invaluable heritage, the piety and devotion of their spiritual ancestors enshrined in forms of unsurpassed grace and beauty. This heri- tage must be preserved and passed on intact. It is one of the channels along which the go ROMANTICISM stream of church life flows from the past into the present, and along which its passage from the present into the future must be safeguarded and secured. The tender rever- ence with which we are accustomed to treat our old church buildings at the present day, the trouble we take and the expense we incur in their preservation and restoration, are largely an outcome of Tractarianism, and of the spirit revived and generated by it. We find manifestations of the same spirit in our ecclesiastical architecture. Compare, for instance, the churches of the Georgian era, with those erected or being erected of recent years. The former are for the most part uncouth and ugly edifices, built in any style or no style, their primary intention the comfort and convenience of their congrega- tions, their adornments those of a dwelling house, or of a heathen temple. In the latter, on the other hand, we find a persistent effort to reproduce the creations and symbolisms of the days when the Christian spirit dominated artistic production, and with instinctive facility used sound and colour and shape for the expression of its mysterious and hallowed Ol ANGLICANISM experiences. The effort hitherto has only been partially successful. Our modern Gothic churches still compare unfavourably with their old time prototypes, our painted windows and mural decorations still more unfavourably. But its master motive is unmistakable, and it is the spiritual forces freed by the Tractarian movement which invest this motive with its dynamic power. To the same origin can be traced the trans- formation which has been effected in the externals of public worship. Here again traditionalism has exercised a paramount influence. The changes made have not been new and untried ventures. They have in nearly every case been the outcome of efforts to revert to the ancient usages of the Church, and to revive some of the solemn rites and august and seemly forms in which our fore- fathers, as yet unaffected by the invasion of foreign ideas and influence, joined in rendering their tribute of prayer and praise to their Creator. The Tractarians were them- selves little interested in questions of liturgical ritual. But the ritualistic movement, as it is called, was the natural outcome of their Q2 ROMANTICISM teaching, and the influence of that movement has affected every section of the Anglican Church, and has made itself felt in many of the Nonconformist bodies. But it is in the inner trend and character of the Church’s life, even more than in its outer expressions, that we can trace the influence of Tractarianism. As an illustration of this take one fact of great prominent significance—the manner in which the sacra- mental principle has intertwined itself with the ordinary Church teaching and practice of the present day. It did not do so to at all the same extent in pre-Tractarian days. The earnest Evangelicals who at that time included in their numbers no small proportion of those Anglicans to whom religion was a vital personal reality, conformed to the sacramental system of the Church, and set some store by it. But they were not dependent upon it, they could have dispensed with it without serious devotional detriment. They valued its sym- bolism because of its spiritual suggestiveness, but they did not regard it as belonging to the essential texture of the religious life. This attitude is now exceptional in any 93 ANGLICANISM section of Churchmanship. The prevalent conception of the Christian life is that of a continuous growth, mediated and maintained by inter-connected sacramental ordinances. Low Churchmen may differ from High Church- men, Evangelicals from Catholics, in their doctrinal expositions of the manner in which the Holy Spirit acts through these. But the ordinances themselves they set great store by, and use them as the main medium and im- plement of their pastoral activities. They all alike urge parents to bring their children to Holy Baptism, they see to it that later on they are confirmed, and they are concerned that, when confirmed, they shall become regular and reverent communicants. In prac- tice, if not in theory, the great majority of earnest Churchmen nowadays are Sacrament- alists, and their sacramentalism is one of the signs and outcomes of their traditional con- sclousness, reawakened by Tractarianism. For traditional Christianity, Christianity as history portrays it, is fundamentally and essentially a sacramental movement—the gradual unfolding of the principle under- lying the fact of the Incarnation, the fact that 94 ROMANTICISM God Himself became flesh and dwelt among us, that He manifested Himself under the forms of space and time, using the apparatus of the natural world as the implement of His activities and the vehicle of His life-giving power. Tractarianism restored Anglican Tradition- alism to clear self-consciousness and provided it with effective means of luminous self- expression. Hence came its widespread in- fluence. This has extended far beyond the circle of its declared adherents, and has become a factor which has to be taken into serious account in any estimate of contem- porary Church life. It is not overstating the case to say that the great majority of in- structed and intelligent Churchmen of the present day, whatever their professed affinities or antagonisms, start from Tractarian assump- tions, and accept Tractarian ideals, and ap- proach the consideration of the religious problem from the Tractarian standpoint. They are Jractarians at heart, because they are Traditionalists at heart. If their bent is intellectual they may take an interest in novel theories and rationalistic speculations. 95 Rae ANGLICANISM If their temperament is emotional they may be attracted by appeals and devotional usages of a sentimental flavour. But both their rationalism and their sentimentalism have to fit themselves into a framework of inherited habit and conviction and continuous growth. Tractarianism did not construct this frame- work, nor add materially to it. But it un- covered and explored it and intensified recog- nition of its fundamental character. 96 Chapter VI MATERIALISM AC the time when Tractarianism and the controversies aroused by it were engaging the chief attention of Churchmen, another movement was taking shape outside the Church, and acquiring powerful momentum, which has profoundly influenced the trend of religious thought in this country, and not least that of Anglican thought. If we are to understand present-day Anglicanism we must take this influence into careful consideration. It will, then, be in keeping with the purpose of this volume, if we devote a short chapter to an outline sketch of the movement, of its general character and of the course which it pursued. In a preceding chapter the Rationalistic movement, which swept over Western Europe during the first half of the eighteenth century, was explained as an outcome of the attempt to apply mathematical standards and modes of reasoning to the solution of social and OA ANGLICANISM religious problems. A very analogous situa- tion arose in the middle of the nineteenth century. The natural sciences had at that time acquired the same kind of prestige as that accorded to the mathematical sciences a hundred and fifty years before. The intellectual eminence of their exponents and the brilliancy of their achievements impressed the public imagination, and secured for them a position of commanding influence in educated circles. In their own province there could be no doubt as to the validity of their methods of investigation and proof. For this there | was the testimony of great successes already achieved, and the anticipation of still greater successes on the eve of achievement. Were these methods equally applicable in other provinces ? Could all the facts of experience be systematised on a naturalistic basis, and shown to be subject to the laws which govern the sequence of material phenomena? Are the natural sciences the master sciences, dictating terms to all others, and destined in time to absorb them ? Scientists themselves were, for the most part, disposed to give affirmative answers 98 MATERIALISM to these questions. This was to be ex- pected. They were specialists, their atten- tion concentrated on certain aspects of experience, their sensitiveness to other as- pects dormant or atrophied. We remember the pathetic words in which one of the most distinguished of them acknowledged that this was his own predicament, and regretfully confessed that he had lost all interest in art and literature, that his mind had become little more than a machine for the manu- facture of general laws. They were moreover very successful specialists, elated by the confidence which success brings. This con- fidence proved contagious. Before long it was shared by men of other intellectual interests. They took the weapons which the scientist were wielding to such good effect, and proceeded to use them in dealing with the facts with which they were specially con- cerned. Thus it came that in nearly every department of knowledge a determined at- tempt was made to identify its primal laws with those which goven the material world. In the province of individual ethical ex- perience this attempt found its outcome in 99 ANGLICANISM Hedonism. The mandates of conscience were traced to their antecedents, and declared to be but developed expressions of self-regarding in- stincts, intertwined with the vital texture of the whole animal creation, and themselves capable of resolution into purely mechanical forces, which preceded and originated the emergence of life. In the wider province of social experi- ence the same attempt led to similar results. Thus Macht Politik became the avowed creed of a powerful school of statesmanship. The majority of economists accepted without reserve the doctrine that man’s dominating and determining motive is his desire for material gain. Sociologists, arguing from similar premisses, drew from them conflicting conclusions. Some declared that social progress is the product of free competition: of the survival of the fittest. in an unrestricted struggle for the means of subsistence and wellbeing. Others saw in this struggle the sure precursor of social disaster and dissolution, and sought for salva- tion along the path of State regulation and control. IOO MATERIALISM The same influence made itself felt in the province of historical research. History came to be regarded as a science moulded on the pattern of the natural sciences, using their methods and according full recognition to their assumptions. Among these the most fundamental was that of the universal domin- ance of necessary law. This, applied to the sequence of historical events, ruled out all explanations of such events which implied the action of forces not subject to this law. When Matthew Arnold declared ‘ Miracles do not happen,” he was not speaking contro- versially. He was merely repeating a dictum which those who claimed to lead the advance of enlightened thought regarded as no longer open to serious dispute. This movement of materialism, for such it was in ultimate origin and objective, for a time made great headway. It was bitterly opposed by religionists, but their invectives and denunciations did little to arrest its onward march. They rather tended to accele- rate it, by adding the zest for controversial victory to the desire for the prevalence of truth. But before a generation had passed IOI ANGLICANISM it was met on its own ground by a counter movement, which has since then retrieved much of the territory claimed by it. Materi- alism as a practical cult still exercises an obtrusively powerful influence, but as a philosophy of experience it is largely dis- credited and disowned. Scientists themselves have come tardily to acknowledge that the principle of necessity, however applicable to the movements of inorganic matter, is Incom- petent to explain the phenomena of life. This acknowledgment has been forced upon them in the course of their own special in- vestigations, but it had already been antici- pated and made necessary at a deeper level. For before we can define truth and discrimi- nate it from falsehood and delusion, we must face the question: How is truth of any kind attainable ? How can we know anything? This is the question with which Kant started, and it is not too much to say that his answer to it has revolutionised the whole character and course of philosophical speculation. For it has led to the recognition that life, and notably human life, is an ultimate force, perhaps the ultimate force, free and creative I02 MATERIALISM and self-determining, expressing itself in manifold activities, which manifest their interdependent unity in centres of self- conscious personality, but which are not necessary bound by the requirements of one of its own subordinate and partial categories. It took some time for the Critical Philosophy to establish its foothold in English thought. Its entrance was retarded by the embarrass- ments of a difficult foreign language, and of unfamiliar and subtle modes of exposition. But gradually it has surmounted these obstacles, and consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, has intermingled with all the main currents of our mental activity. Students of different aspects of human life have found in it a means of escape from the restrictions imposed by a sterile formula, and have proceeded to reorganise their researches on a broader basis. Utilitarian ethics has thus been expelled from its strongholds, and driven outside the range of intelligent acceptance. Utilitarian econo- mics has suffered a similar fate and been relegated to a similar position. Macht Politik 103 H ANGLICANISM has ceased to be the openly avowed creed of any reputable statesman. The science of history has been affected in like fashion. It now fully acknowledges that its field of investigation includes the interplay of ultimate forces which transcend the mechanical order, and have proved themselves capable of direct- ing its processes to the fulfilment of their own freely determined purposes. This acknowledgment carries with it that of supernatural agency, if the word natural retains its customary connotation and is used to designate that which is necessarily determined. Man rises to the supernatural level every time he exercises his prerogative of freedom by willing and working for ends other than those dic- tated by natural law. History must move on the same level if it is to understand and interpret the facts with which it professes to deal. The door is thus thrown open for the reconsideration of the vexed question of nature miracles. Scientific historians had been accustomed to brush such miracles aside as unthinkable and therefore unbelievable. “Miracles do not happen,’ they declared, 104 MATERIALISM “because they cannot happen. All happen- ings in the outer world are necessarily pre- determined, in form and content the exclusive product of previous happenings. No breach in this continuity can be admitted. A single such admission, however well attested, would undermine the foundations of scientific know- ledge, and render precarious the stability of its whole structure.” Present-day historians who have ex- amined the premisses of their science— not all present-day historians have done so—express themselves more diffidently. These premisses now include recognition of man as a free agent, and of his capacity as such to interfere with the settled order of nature. History indeed is chiefly concerned with the record of such interferences, and the effort to present them as a connected and continuous process. Civilised progress is largely dependent on the effecting of this process: on man’s increasing mastery over the forces of the natural world. It is in essen- tial character a supernatural movement, the outcome and exhibition of supernatural power. So far the path of acceptance is smooth and 105 ANGLICANISM easy. It becomes more difficult when it brings us up against the record of occurrences of an exceptional and isolated kind: occurrences which seem to break the continuity of the process as hitherto observed, and to require for their explanation the interference of super- human power, acting directly or through human agency. But here again the attitude of scientific history is becoming modified. The demand for evidence is taking the place of dogmatic denial. This demand is insistent and imperative, and rightly so. For the un- wonted character of such occurrences justifies the requirement that the testimony by which they are supported should be exceptionally strong. But given that such testimony is forthcoming it can no longer be excluded from consideration by a barrier of a priori denial. From the Christian point of view this is a great step forward. The Christian movement is the outcome of belief in the actual occur- rence of a series of momentous nature miracles, and its prevalence depends on the main- tenance of that belief. The scientific move- ment on the other hand, so long as it was 106 MATERIALISM dominated by the philosophy of materialism, could not acknowledge the possibility of such occurrences. Science and faith thus found themselves embroiled in a life and death struggle, in which the victory of the one seemed to involve the destruction of the other. But with the emergence of a less superficial philosophy the character of this struggle has been fundamentally transformed. It still continues, but it has been transferred to a different plane, and is being fought with less deadly weapons. Nor are signs wanting that it is drawing to a close, and that before many years have passed it may find its issue in a reconciliation of mutual recognition and respect. 107 Chapter VII THE HIGHER CRITICISM 6 Deis scientific movement in its earlier and cruder stages aroused violent op- position in ecclesiastical circles. This could not have been otherwise. No truce is possible between necessitarianism and any form of spiritual religion. Their antagonism is funda- mental and essential, admitting of no com- promise or adjustment. Thoughtful men on both sides recognised this with varying degrees of clearness, but the attitude of the bulk of Christians was determined by less ultimate considerations. They were only dimly con- scious that the citadel of their faith was menaced: their alarm was caused by attacks on some of its outworks, hitherto regarded as impregnable. Among these none loomed so largely, or caused such consternation, as that directed against the position hitherto assigned to the Canonical Scriptures. These were regarded by nearly all English Christians of the time as the inspired word of God, the 108 THE HIGHER CRITICISM fountain source of revealed truth, the final standard of reference in all questions of doctrine and conduct. The absolute accuracy and authenticity of the facts recorded in them, and the absolute authority of the teachings conveyed by them, were matters which were supposed to lie outside the range of legitimate discussion. The place held by them in the theological province was analogous to that accorded by scientists to the pheno- mena of the natural world. They provided the materials with which theologians had to deal, which it was their function to iInvesti- gate and systematise, but whose validity they were in no wise competent to challenge or deny. The prevalence of this conception calls for explanation, and for this it is necessary to glance at its antecedents. It was by no means identical with that current in the early Church, and expressed or implied in the writings of the great Patristic theologians. They valued the Scriptures highly, and recog- nised fully their inspired character. But their manner of treating them shows clearly that they regarded their inspiration as a derivative quality. They were to them the literary 109 ANGLICANISM products of an inspired society, which had segregated them from the rest of its litera- ture, had placed its imprimatur upon them, and by common consent, gradually accorded, had come to regard them as the epitome and summary of its historical antecedents, and of the essential principles of its life. For their night understanding, then, they must be studied in this context, and serious account must be taken of interpretations of their contents which had been accepted by the society as a whole. In cases where this acceptance was practically unanimous, and had been accorded official recognition, its authority was of a very high order. No individual churchman could, without temerity, question the decisions given by the great Councils, and formulated in the Catholic Creeds. He could not reject any of them without incurring the risk of being convicted of heresy, and the consequent penalty of exclusion from the Christian fellowship. This, broadly speaking, was the accepted view during the formative period of the Christian movement. But in Western Chris- tendom it was gradually modified by the IIO THE HIGHER CRITICISM pressure of a persistent tendency to emphasise and enforce the principle of Church authority, and to extend its range of application. In a preceding chapter some account has been given of the origin of this tendency, and of the circumstances which made for its develop- ment. It displayed itself with increasing strength, not only in the regulation of con- duct but also in that of doctrinal belief. In the latter province the Roman Church gradually came to claim an originative as well as an explanatory function, and to insist not merely on unquestioning acceptance of her interpretations of Holy Writ, but also on that of doctrines for which no Scriptural warrant could plausibly be alleged, but which, she declared, were implicit in the traditions of the Christian society. Advancing intelligence became increasingly restive when confronted with this claim. Resistance to it, moreover, was stimulated by the revolt of conscience against the manifold and flagrant practical abuses which had grown up in connection with the system of Papal administration, and against the moral laxity of many of the Roman III ANGLICANISM Pontiffs themselves. After some premoni- tory rumblings the storm burst in the six- teenth century. Martin Luther, a virile and fearless German monk, voiced a vehement protest against the sale of Papal indulgences, and went on to attack the whole ecclesiastical and doctrinal system which made such scandals possible. His protest elicited immediate and widespread response, and found its outcome in the repudiation of the Papal allegiance by half the peoples of Western Europe, and their association with a religious and ecclesiastical adventure along new and untried lines. The coming to birth of Protestantism was accompanied by widespread unrest, intel- lectual, social, and political, and such con- ditions are not favourable to clear and consistent thinking. Its first protagonists felt intensely the evils of the existing system, and were determined at all costs to shake off its shackles. They saw in the Papal authority the main source and instrument of these evils, and they proceeded to repudiate it absolutely and unreservedly. But what other authority were they to substitute for it? On what foundation were they to build the LIZ I Be « LCI s ON aa OF 6d i LO ROS f new edifice of doctrine and discipline and devotion which was to take the place of that which they disowned ? Luther’s answer to this question was simple and clear. The Bible, he declared, provides this foundation. It is the inspired and infallible word of God, and its ultimate interpreter is the inspired individual. The individual soul, ulumined and guided by the indwelling spirit, can find in its pages all that is needful for its nurture and wellbeing. This conception was not brought into equal prominence in Calvin’s teaching. He came somewhat later into the movement, and was largely preoccupied with the elaboration of his doctrinal and ecclesiastical system. But it underlies it, and is imphed in it. Cross- examined as to its ultimate standard of authority, Calvinism, no less than Luther- ism, has none other to point to than that of the inspired Word of God interpreted and applied by the inspired individual. Later on, indeed, when it had embodied itself in a powerful ecclesiastical organisation, the doc- trines formulated by this organisation, and the observances required by it, became in II3 ANGLICANISM practice the controlling authority to which its members had perforce to submit. But in the initial stages of the Protestant move- ment the appeal to corporate authority was not possible. The first Reformers began by repudiating the authority of the existing Church, and had not yet devised any other to take its place. Their only resource was that which Luther availed himself of—that of describing religion in terms which imply that in its ultimate essence it is a purely individual and private transaction between the individual soul and God, a relationship which, when once established, can develop itself independently of social aids, and un- trammelled by social restrictions. It would be easy to show the inadequacy of this description, to show that the individual intelligence, itself largely a social product, cannot thus isolate itself from other intelli- gences, and that any attempt to do so can only lead to confusion and contradiction and consequent dissension. These results are amply illustrated in the later history of the Protestant movement, which, so far as it has been true to its original principle, has II4 THE HIGHER CRITICISM always made for religious disintegration. Its drift in this direction has, indeed, been corrected, and to some extent arrested, by the influence of the forces of traditionalism, unconsciously exercised even when ostensibly disavowed. The larger Protestant bodies have been specially amenable to influences of this kind. They have taken over many of the old traditions, and formed others of their own, which, in practice if not in theory, determine the religious attitude of the great majority of their members. But their failure openly to recognise the traditional principle, and to come to terms with it, has been to their serious detriment. It has, on the one hand, left them without adequate safeguards against attacks of one-sided and destructive ration- alism. It has, on the other hand, tended to force conservative minds into an attitude of intolerant and often vituperative obscurantism, or to cause them to seek safety behind smoke screens of sentimentalism and emotionalism. Protestantism,spreading into England, found its most distinctive expression in Puritanism, which for over a hundred years endeavoured to dominate Anglicanism and to mould it II5 ANGLICANISM to its requirements. Its effort failed com- pletely on the institutional side. Anglicanism emerged triumphant at the Restoration and organised Puritanism was relegated to the position of a discredited and despised cult. But the Puritan spirit had succeeded in intertwining itself with that of the English people, and in exercising wide-reaching in- fluence over their ethical standards and social habits and modes of worship. Its influence was much enhanced and extended in the following century by its alliance with Methodism. This alliance seems to have been almost fortuitous. Methodism propaganda depended almost solely on emotional appeals, and was often accompanied by emotional extra- vagances of a kind which the old Puritans would have regarded with marked disfavour. The Quakers and Anabaptists, in the Common- wealth days, had found to their cost how little they were disposed to tolerate such exuberances. John Wesley, moreover, at starting, had hardly any Puritan affinities. He had been brought up under the auspices of Anglicanism and to the end of his life he E16 THE HIGHER CRITICISM retained sympathy with its spirit and tradi- tions. It would have been in accordance with expectation had the religious forces which he unloosed used it as their organ of expression. This indeed seems to have been his own original wish. He had no intention of inaugurating a separatist movement. His design was to work inside the Anglican system and to revitalise it from below. But that system at the time had become inert and torpid. It opposed to all his efforts an attitude of contemptuous indifference, gradu- ally hardening into one of arrogant opposition. The attitude of the Puritan sects on the other hand was much more sympathetic. Their declared adherents were few in number, and socially and politically inconsiderable, but the harsh treatment they had been accorded had strengthened their convictions, and in- tensified their assurances. They had, more- over, many sympathisers outside their ranks ; men who had bent to the storm, and become conforming Churchmen, but who retained their inner attachments, and at heart sym- pathised with and respected those who had remained steadfast in the face of obloquy and II7 ANGLICANISM disadvantage. To men of such antecedents and outlook Methodism could not fail to be congenial. Their aggressive individualism re- sponded to its intensely personal appeals, and through the medium of this response imbibed no small share of its characteristic spirit and flavour. Organised Puritanism, thus reinforced, renewed its vitality and vigour, and became once more an impor- tant: factor in the’ ‘religious life’ of }#tie country. Wesley and his followers, on the other hand, were reciprocally influenced. Senti- mentalism cannot establish itself as an effec- tive social power unless it builds upon some basis of authenticated facts and authoritative statements. Rousseau, the arch sentimen- talist, by an effort of imaginative genius, constructed this basis for himself, and suc- ceeded for a time, and with disastrous results, in imposing it upon the credulity of his contemporaries. Methodism, the English off- spring of sentimentalism, found its basis ready to hand in the tenets of the Puritan theology. Among these none answered its purpose better than the Protestant conception 118 THE HIGHER CRITICISM of Biblical inspiration, none was more con- genial to its spirit and method of propaganda than the Protestant assertion of the un- restricted right of private judgment. Its acceptance of these tenets provided it with an inspired book whose contents were in- vested with the quality of infallible inerrancy. It also provided it with interpretations of these contents, and doctrines deduced from them, which furnished its emotionalism with sufficiently suitable instruments of intellectual expression. The leaders of the movement did not stay to examine the credentials of these interpretations and doctrines, to inquire whether the former dealt fairly with their subject matter, whether the latter were logically coherent with their premisses, and with each other. Still less did they criticise the current view of Biblical inspiration or the arguments by which it was supported. These were questions which it did not occur to them to ask, and which, indeed, they were ill-equipped to answer. Their primary and pressing concern was with the reawakening of men’s religious consciousness, with the Ig I ANGLICANISM revival of their religious experiences. It is the task of theology to investigate these latter, and to co-ordinate them with each other and with the whole body of experience —an absolutely necessary task, since only so far as it is accomplished can religion hope to hold an assured place, and to play an effective part in the onward march of specu- lative thought and practical achievement. But the early Methodists were not theologians ; they had to depend for their theology upon others, and the circumstances of their times determined the direction in which they turned. Some of the grimmer doctrines of Calvinism were modified in transmission, others a large section of Methodists refused to accept. But with regard to the particular doctrines we are considering their agreement was unani- mous. The Bible was to them the written Word of God, verbally and infallibly inspired, and converted men and women could, by _ the exercise of their private judgment and independently of any Church authority, in- terpret its contents for themselves, and learn from them all that was necessary for their souls’ salvation. 120 THE HIGHER CRITICISM Methodism spread like a wave of fire over the length and breadth of England. The response accorded to it was phenomenal ; the results achieved by it, social as well as devotional, were far-reaching, and in many respects admirable. It is easy to criticise its crudities and extravagances, but such criticism becomes irrelevant when confronted with the fact that through its medium hope and joy and purposeful faith were kindled in the hearts of great masses of disspirited men and women, crushed down by social and industrial conditions which had hitherto condemned them to lifelong drudgery and degradation. Passing over into the Anglican Church it produced the Evangelical movement, which, notwithstanding the embarrassments of an uncongenial atmosphere and of an _ unre- sponsive system, made good its foothold there, and became for a time the chief attractive and generating centre of devotional fervour and social enthusiasm. But by the middle of the nineteenth century both Methodism and Evangelicalism had ceased to be progressive and had begun to decline. The former had embodied itself in a powerful I21I ANGLICANISM sect, the organised efficiency of which tended to limit the freedom of its spirit, and to debilitate the emotional fervour which was the mainspring of its strength. Evangelicals, on the other hand, now accorded a recognised and respected place in Anglican circles, had become infected with a spirit of unctuous worldliness, and displayed a type of piety which repelled by its narrowness and self- satisfied complacency, and no longer attracted by its self-sacrificing zeal. The movement of religious sentimentalism had spent its force. It had performed its function and made its contribution, and was now passing into decadence. Its exponents and adherents still used their predecessors’ phraseology ; they made the same appeals and held out the same hopes, and thundered the same warnings, and descanted upon the same doctrines, but they no longer elicited the same response. Their growing con- sciousness that this was the case, their further consciousness that the assurance of their utterances was not always justified by the vividness of their own emotional experiences, could not fail to disquiet those of them who 122 THE HIGHER CRITICISM were thoughtful, and to provoke questionings as to the objective foundations of their faith. If these were firmly established all was well. If the Bible is infallibly inspired, its teachings are of eternal validity and must in the long run prevail. Preoccupied with material in- terests and pursuits, men might treat them with indifference for a time, but this was only a transient episode, the passing of a cloud of selfishness and sensualism over the sun of evangelical truth, interrupting the passage of its rays, but in no wise affecting the sacred source from which they emanate. The prevailing spiritual lethargy was indeed deplorable. Still more deplorable was the fact that they were themselves affected by it, that their own experiences and convictions were so much less clearly marked and intense than those which their predecessors described. This was a cause for heart-searching and compunction, but not for discouragement, still less for despair. The testimony of the written Word remained unshaken and un- shakable. On it they could take their stand firmly and fearlessly, and with hopeful con- fidence look forward to the time when men 123 ANGLICANISM would hearken to its message, and find in it the satisfaction of their souls’ desire. But was this confidence justified ? Is the Bible the written Word of God, infallibly and inerrantly inspired? What are the credentials which support this lofty claim ? Where do the Biblical writings come from ? When and by whom were they written ? Are the facts recorded in them well authenti- cated and credible? Are the teachings enunciated by them consistent with each other and with those of secular knowledge and speculation ? In the preceding generation such questions would by general consent have been ruled out of court, would have been stigmatised as irrelevant, and indeed irreverent. But the time had gone by when they could be treated thus. They were being asked with increasing frequency and persistency, and answers were being given to them of a very disturbing character, backed by the authority of many of the most prominent and powerful thinkers and writers of the day. There is no warrant, so it was said, for the claim that the books of the Old and New 124 THE HIGHER CRITICISM Testament should be placed in a class apart from all other books, and exempted from the processes of scientific investigation and criti- cism. But subjected to these processes many facts emerge which seem impossible to reconcile with the character hitherto assigned to them. Some of them were certainly not composed by their reputed authors, but at a much later date and by unknown writers. What then of their authenticity ? Some of the events recorded in them could never have happened, some of the conceptions of the world of nature expressed or implied in them are crude and untenable. What, then, of their infallibility ? Discrepancies, in some cases serious discrepancies, are apparent in their accounts of the same events, or the same teachings. What, then, of their inerrancy ? Moreover, and here the criticism became crucial, the occurrence of nature miracles is assumed in them as a matter of course, and given a prominent and _ indis- pensable place in the revelation unfolded by them. The validity of the New Testament revelation is made to depend on _ occur- rences of this kind, on actual and definite 125 ANGLICANISM interferences with the laws of natural birth and death, on their supersession by other laws which science knows nothing of. But nature miracles do not happen, and cannot happen. Belief in their happening was possible in pre- scientific days, and may have answered a useful purpose then. It is no longer possible now for men of knowledge and enlightenment, and the attempt to maintain it must be reprobated as an obstacle in the path of pro- gressive thought. Christian faith, if it is to survive in any effective form, must disentangle itself from this disastrous association. Whether and how it can do so are questions which it must answer as best it can. But its failure to do so cannot but prove fatal to its persis- tence as a healthy social influence, and must sooner or later lead to its arraignment before the tribunal of reason as a deleterious and demoralising superstition. So the attack opened all along the line, and the adherents of Bible Christianity were hard put to meet it. They had popular feeling and conservative sentiment as their allies, and could depend upon them for vigorous and whole-hearted support. They 126 ae eee hl [lee THE HIGHER CRITICISM could declaim and denounce and vituperate with the assurance of widespread and sym- pathetic response. These were poor weapons with which to encounter an enemy which had invaded the central stronghold of their faith, and which claimed to have made good its footing there. But none others seemed avail- able which would stand the stress and strain of the conflict. The position they sought to defend was proving itself indefensible. Here and there it might be shown that the critics had over-reached themselves, had tried to deny too much, or to prove too much. But their main contentions seemed to be un- answerable, their main line of attack unbroken and apparently unbreakable. The situation may be described in more general terms. The objective validity of any experience is determined by the nature of its relationship to the whole body of systematised experience. Christians had hitherto assumed that the relationship between their own dis- tinctive inner experiences and those which come to them through their outer senses could be satisfactorily established through the medium of a series of documents which Ly ANGLICANISM belong both to the spiritual and the temporal orders: products of man’s natural faculties used by God as instruments of His self- revelation and testifying to this use by the absolute authenticity of the facts recorded in them and the absolute accuracy and con- sistency of the teachings conveyed by them. But this assumption was no longer available. A single instance of historical misstatement or of speculative fallacy rendered it untenable, and numerous such instances were now alleged, which they could neither explain nor explain away. They became conscious that the foundations on which they stood were crumbling beneath their feet, that the Bible Christianity in which they had been nurtured would not bear careful investigation. It might for a time suffice to meet the needs of un- intelligent emotionalism, but the day had gone by when those who acknowledged the claims of intellectual truth could identify themselves with its standpoints or subscribe to its tenets. They must either give up as hopeless the defence of an historical faith, or find some other vantage ground from which to maintain it. 128 ae a es ee THE HIGHER CRITICISM . Some chose the former alternative with greater or less whole-heartedness, and became apostles of the cult which nowadays goes by the name of Modernism. Inspiration, they declared, is independent of the vehicle through which it is conveyed. It can, with almost equal facility, use fact or fiction as its medium, scientific truth or superstitious fable, the record of noble deeds or of ignoble misdeeds. Biblical inspiration is of this character. Its claim for recognition is in no wise affected by the fact that the Biblical writings are interspersed with historical misstatements, and scientific crudities, and logical contra- dictions, and imperfect moral and spiritual precepts. It is to the individual soul that its appeal is addressed, and in the soul’s instinctive response to that appeal it finds the ultimate proof of its validity. The attitude thus assumed claimed to be that of advanced enlightenment. In reality it was that of old-fashioned sentimentalism, freed from unnecessary entanglements. The popular Christianity of the time was not in the ultimate issue dependent on any kind of objective support. Its assumed accordance 129 ANGLICANISM with the teachings of an infallibly inspired book invested it with a flavour of solid security, comforting to its devotees in their times of occasional reflectiveness. But such accordance did not belong to its essential character. This consisted in certain inner personal experiences which carried with them the credentials of their validity. The apostles of enlightenment merely drew attention to this fact, and to its logical implications. They did not themselves accept the latter without demur. Many of them tried to stop half-way, to retain some footholds in the objective order, to designate certain outer happenings, certain historical occurrences and authoritative utterances, as belonging to the essential content of faith, while rejecting others as superfluous and embarrassing. But no such halting-place could permanently be maintained. The religious life as sentimentalism conceived it, is immune to outer criticism. The man who declares that his religion begins and ends in a purely personal relationship between his individual soul and God, that in this inner region experiences 130 THE HIGHER CRITICISM have come to him which carry with them full assurance of their Divine origin and au- thority, makes a statement which scientific criticism is powerless to challenge and is not concerned to deny. He occupies an impregnable position so long as he limits himself to affirmations of this kind. But he exposes himself to attack the moment he tries to claim objective reality for these experiences, and to vindicate that claim by connecting them with those which come to him through the outer organs of sense. If, as in the case we are considering, the medium of connection on which he depends is a series of documents which he declares are infallibly inspired, he must be prepared to make that declaration good, to say how and when they were invested with this quality, and to explain satisfactorily anything in their ante- cedents or contents apparently incongruous with its requirements. This the adherents of Bible Christianity utterly failed to do. Step by step they were driven back from their defence. The stronghold of pure sentimen- talism alone remained, unassailed and un- assallable. To this some of them at once 131 ANGLICANISM betook themselves, and entrenched them- selves there in self-centred security. Others continued, and still continue, to fight a losing battle, changing their weapons from day to day, elaborating new theories, in- venting new disguises, seeking to conciliate their assailants by professions of friendliness, struggling thus to maintain positions which their more clear-headed, or less devout, com- rades had evacuated, and which sooner or later they too must abandon. Modernism cannot stop half-way. There is no point at which it is justified in saying, “Thus far and no further.” The mental attitude connoted by these words is charac- teristic of many so-called liberal-minded Churchmen of the present day. They are willing to surrender certain articles of the Christian creed, but on the retention of the others they set great store. These latter they tell us can be defended at the bar of enlightened thought, and can be shown to include all the essential principles of Christian faith and practice. Building upon the sure foundation thus provided, it is possible to present Christianity in a form acceptable to ae 2 THE HIGHER CRITICISM the spiritual and moral needs of modern life. Brave words these, but not convincing. Not convincing, in the first place, because those who use them are at variance among themselves as to the foundations on which they propose to rebuild; as to what beliefs should be regarded as fundamental and essential, what others may be abandoned as superfluous and embarrassing. Until they amend this default, until they can show that their rejections and retentions are regulated by some intelligible principle, ordinary men will be disposed to regard their leadership as precarious, and their dreams as delusive. Not convincing, in the second place, because they leave the heart of the problem untouched, and concern themselves with its superficial aspects. The real point at issue is the ultimate character of the Christian movement. Is it nothing more than the outcome of previous intellectual and social and spiritual move- ments, of Hellenic philosophy and Hebrew religion, and Roman imperialism? Is it sufficiently explained by the convergence and interaction of these forces in the teaching 133 ANGLICANISM and conduct of a man of exceptional intel- lectual ability, and unsurpassed moral and spiritual power ? Or must we include among its antecedents certain events in the outer world of an unprecedented and unique char- acter ? The Christian Church has from the first committed herself unreservedly to the latter view, and has always made its acceptance a necessary condition of her membership. She has always declared, and continues to declare, that the Christian movement, though in line with previous movements, and deriving much of its content from them, is in itself of in- dependent origin. That it is the outcome of direct Divine intervention in the world’s affairs ; of the fact that at a particular time and in a particular place, God Himself entered the arena of historical happenings and mani- fested Himself there in definite visible form, that He became flesh and dwelt among men, that His fellow-men at the time saw Him with their bodily eyes and heard Him with their bodily ears, and touched Him with their bodily hands. SBeliefin the actual occurrence of these events, of this stupendous nature 134 THE HIGHER CRITICISM miracle, has been the dominating and gen- erating principle of the Christian movement at every stage of its development. Is this belief well-founded? If it is, we cannot dissociate the historical aspect of the move- ment from its inner spiritual character; the two are intertwined and interdependent at every point. If it is not, we are driven to the embarrassing conclusion that one of the greatest and most beneficent movements in the history of mankind has owed its main inspiration and motive power to a delusion, to a widespread and persistent conviction on the part of its supporters that certain events occurred which never could have occurred. This is the dilemma with which we are faced, the ultimate issue which has to be decided. Modernism tries to evade it, to obscure the stringency of the situation in a cloud of high-sounding phrases. The events recorded in the Gospels, it tells us, are ideally true, but it is not necessary to believe that they actually happened ; it is not necessary to believe that the outer circumstances which preceded Christ’s birth, and which succeeded Ts K ANGLICANISM His death, transcended the laws which ordin- arily govern the sequence of external events. The doctrines of the virgin birth, and of the bodily resurrection, need not be accepted as epitomes of actual historical occurrences. They are ideally true but not literally true. Christianity is an historical religion, but its foundations are laid in ideal history, not in history as ordinarily understood ; in happen- ings on the spiritual plane, not in any which have taken place in the outer world of space and time. Brave words again, but what is the con- clusion to which they point ? Reduced to its simplest terms and relieved of all rhetorical superfluities, it is the conclusion that.the Gospel story must be transferred from the department of history to that of mythology, and must be regarded and treated as one of the many attempts which have been made to convey spiritual truths through the medium of symbolical imagery ; perhaps the greatest of such attempts, superior to its predecessors in artistic grace and logical symmetry, but in no wise differing from them in essential principle and character. 136 THE HIGHER CRITICISM Such in its ultimate analysis is the Modernist solution of the problem with which we are concerned. It may be the true solution, but it is well to face the fact that it implies the surrender of Christianity as men have hitherto understood and experienced it, and its replace- ment by a philosophy of doubtful theoretical validity, and of practical utility still more doubtful. But is it the true solution? That is one of the test questions which Anglicanism has to face. Unless it can answer it in sufficient terms, unless it can offer some alternative solution which does not involve this surrender, it fails to vindicate the claim that its presenta- tion of historical Christianity satisfies the conditions and meets the requirements of informed intelligence. The critical onslaught which proved so dis- astrous to Bible Christianity found Anglicanism ill-prepared to meet it. The average devout Anglican Churchman of the time accepted without questioning the: popular view of the Holy Scriptures as the inspired and authori- tative summary of the ultimate principles of faith and conduct. Why he regarded them thus, what inspiration means and what it 137 ANGLICANISM implies, what its credentials are, whether these include guarantees of historical and scientific inerrancy, and of moral and spiritual in- falibility, how, and by whom, inspired utterances are to be interpreted, who is to decide between apparently divergent inter- pretations, such questions, commonplaces of later discussion, it did not occur to him to ask. These, he would have said, are matters for learned theologians to decide. For people like myself, it is sufficient to know that the position of the Bible is generally recognised, that it is accepted by all believing Christians alike as the inspired Word of God, the ground and pillar of the faith. Nor was the attitude of most Anglican theologians widely different. Preoccupied with their own specialised studies, with questions of Biblical exegesis and exposition, of apolo- getics, of Church history, of doctrinal definition, of liturgical investigation and suchlike, they devoted little time or thought to the theory of Biblical inspiration and interpretation. They assumed that the current views were justified. If difficulties in their acceptance were brought to their notice, if, for instance, 138 THE HIGHER CRITICISM their attention was called to certain apparent discrepancies or inaccuracies in the Biblical narrative, they were content to deal with these in detail, and to attempt to harmonise the former or to explain away the latter. But the problem as a whole lay outside the range of their careful consideration. There was, however, one important excep- tion to this rule. The first Tractarians— young men who combined very exceptional ability and character and devotion with no small measure of prophetic insight and vision —were dominated by anticipation of im- pending change and of possible convulsion. They had become acutely conscious that beneath the established order of customary be- liefs and time-honoured institutions, volcanic forces were at work which might at any moment burst forth and involve it in disaster. They were intensely loyal to these beliefs and institutions, and whole-heartedly devoted to their defence. But they recognised that this defence could no longer be conducted on a superficial level, or by arguments which assumed the stability of their foundations. The stress of questioning was no longer 139 ANGLICANISM directed to deductions from acknowledged premisses, to the Biblical authority for this or that doctrine, the Biblical sanction for this or that institution or observance. It was these premisses themselves which were being challenged—the ultimate grounds of all Christian belief, the reasons which justify the acceptance of the Holy Scriptures as the inspired Word of God, the understanding and interpretation of their contents, the nature and seat of the authority which discriminates right understanding from wrong, true inter- pretation from false. The attack had not yet fully developed, but the Tractarians were sensitive to its Imminence, and spared no effort in preparing to meet its stringency. Their method of procedure was at first strictly conservative. It consisted chiefly in investigating and systematising their own acceptances, in stating clearly what these were and how they were related to each other, in defining the position they were called to defend. They thus rendered service of great importance to the Anglican Church, by reawakening its consciousness of that domi- nating traditionalism which has always been 140 THE HIGHER CRITICISM the distinctive and determining characteristic of its life. It was mainly through their means, through the movement inaugurated by them, that intelligent Anglicans, even those of them who were ostensibly out of sympathy with the movement, came to recognise with greater clearness than hereto- fore the principles underlying their member- ship, and the standpoints to which it committed them. This recognition served them in good stead in the critical times which followed. It furnished them with a conception of Biblical inspuation and interpretation far more defensible than that which underlay the popular Bible Christianity of the times. The Anglican Church, when it finally broke with Rome, repudiated the exaggerated view of the Church’s authority which had grown up under the auspices of the Papal supremacy. But it did not identify itself with the Protes- tant view. The position it adopted is expressed or implied in the teachings of the ablest and most representative Anglican theologians since that time, and is clearly forrnulated in its authoritative documents. Take, for instance, the statement contained in the twentieth I4I ANGLICANISM Article of Religion: ‘“‘The Church hath power,” so runs the Article, “‘ to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in the contro- versies of the faith.” The thirty-nine Articles were drawn up at a time when Protestant influences were very powerful in the counsels of the Church, but this statement shows small trace of them. It gives no countenance to the claim of inspired individualism to super- sede corporate authority, or to act indepen- dently of it. Its implication is that the gift of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit who illumines the path to truth, is conferred on the whole Christian society. The inspiration of each individual Christian is mediated by and dependent upon his membership in this society, and cannot be made the basis of any claim to ignore its judgments, or to reject them in favour of his own self-formed theories and interpretations. The principle of Church authority is thus recognised in unequivocal terms. But, on the other hand, the application of this principle is subjected to definite limit- ations. The Church’s function in this pro- vince is declaratory and interpretative, not 142 THE HIGHER CRITICISM originative. She is not empowered to require acceptance of any doctrine for which clear warrant cannot be found in Holy Scripture, which is not explicitly stated there, or which is not a legitimate deduction from premisses provided there. The Bible includes all the essential truths of the Christian revelation, all that it is necessary for man to know in order to his salvation. This is the teaching of the latter part of the Article: “It is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything which 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 keeper of Holy Writ, yet as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.” This was no new conception, devised to meet the exigencies of a controversial situation, and to provide a compromise acceptable to moderate opinion on either side. It is, on the contrary, a very old conception, differing in no essential respect from that expressed 143 ANGLICANISM or implied in the writings of the great Patristic theologians, and which has already been described. The underlying traditionalism of the Anglican Church, aroused into ac- tivity by the tumultuous circumstances of the Reformation times, swept aside the ac- cretions of Romanism and the negations of Protestantism,- and reverted to the position characteristic of the classical and formative period of the Christian movement. It is, moreover, a conception altogether in keeping with what we know of the history of the New Testament documents. Christ, so far as we know, committed none of His teachings to writing. They were conveyed orally, and for the most part to a small body of disciples carefully selected and trained by Him. On these disciples His Spirit descended in the Upper Chamber at Jerusalem, welding them into a living organism, enabling and em- powering them to carry on the movement inaugurated by Him. They issued from that Chamber without any written credentials or authoritative documents. The witness they proceeded to bear was that of the spoken Word, still more that of noble lives lived 144 THE HIGHER CRITICISM and arresting powers displayed. Theoretically it is conceivable that the Christian society might have gone on as it began, and might have dispensed with all literary instruments and aids. Practically this proved impossible. As its first members passed away it became necessary that the facts which they had wit- nessed and the teachings they had received should be recorded in writing, and thus placed at the disposal of new converts, in accurate and authoritative form. As the number of converts increased, which it did very rapidly, and as Christian communities were formed in separated districts, it became necessary that they should be kept in touch with the mission- aries who had been instrumental in their conversion, and with the other leaders of the Church. For this purpose written com- munications were frequently used. Epistles were written dealing with different questions of local or general interest, and some of these were passed on to communities other than those to which they were originally addressed, and thus in time achieved wide circulation. Moreover, the Christian fellowship included men of conspicuous mental and_ spintual 145 ANGLICANISM power, men capable of grasping general principles and discerning and describing pro- phetic visions. Their writings too were cir- culated, and in some instances extensively circulated. Thus before many years were passed the Church became possessed of a considerable literature, historical and doctrinal and apoca- lyptic, of a number of Gospels and Epistles and books of revelation. These were not all esteemed as of equal worth. A process of discrimination is noticeable from the first. Some writings, commended by the pre- eminence of their authors, or by the con- spicuous worth of their contents, seem to have been accepted almost at once, and used for purposes of instruction, and in the public services of the Church. With regard to others the process was more gradual, nor can it be said to have completed itself before the latter part of the third century. But from that time onward agreement has been practically unanimous. The New Testament, as it now stands, has since then been regarded by the whole Church as her sacred book, the auth- orised and authoritative summary of her 146 THE HIGHER CRITICISM historical origins, and of her fundamental principles and ideals and claims. But it has also always been regarded, with equal unanimity, as an inspired book, dis- tinguished by certain qualities of a very special character. What are these qualities, and on what grounds and for what reasons did the Church attribute them to this particular collection of writings ? These questions bring us to the heart of the matter. Can they be answered in terms consistent with the tradi- tional doctrine of inspiration, and at the same time capable of satisfying the require- ments of historical research and _ scientific criticism ? The first fact, and a very important fact, which arrests our attention when we approach the consideration of this momentous subject, is that the New Testament writers themselves did not claim inspiration different in kind, or even in degree, from that possessed by other members of the Christian Church. They did not claim, for instance, as some of the Hebrew prophets did, that at certain times and in certain places the spirit of God had taken pos- session of them and used them as mechanical 147 ANGLICANISM organs of His utterances. That what they said or wrote on such occasions came direct from Him and was stamped with the imprimatur of His infallible authority. One or two of St. Paul’s statements seem to imply some such experience. But they are exceptional, they do not represent his normal attitude. This is that of a Christian addressing his fellow-Christians from the same spiritual level as that on which they moved, claiming no special endowments in which they did not share, appealing to experiences which they had in common. What is true of St. Paul is true of all the New Testament authors. We search their writings in vain for evidence which will justify the view that they regarded themselves as invested with a prerogative of inspiration different from and transcending that with which they were endowed in virtue of their membership in the Christian society. They spoke indeed as inspired men, but they recognised the same quality in those whom they addressed. How did it come about, then, that at an early date the Church recognised these writings as inspired documents in a special and dis- 148 THE HIGHER CRITICISM tinctive sense of the term, and has continued ever since to treat them and reverence them as such ? Only one answer to this question seems to be available which fits in with the facts of the case. This recognition was the outcome of a process analogous to that by which the works of any great artist, of a Raphael, or a Shakespeare, or a Beethoven, acquire a position of unquestioned pre- eminence in the estimation of all men of trained sensibilities and, to some extent, because of their considered judgment, come in time to be regarded with similar reverence by those whose sensibilities are less developed and less informed. It is to be noticed that this process is not primarily analytical or critical. Literary men recognised the genius of Shakespeare, musical men recognised the genius of Beethoven, spontaneously and in- stinctively. The recognition may have been immediate, or it may have been gradual, but in neither case was it the outcome of any conscious train of reasoning. Later on attempts may have been made, with greater or less success, to vindicate it intellectually, to formulate the principles which underly 149 ANGLICANISM it, and the reasons which justify it. But the recognition itself precedes all such efforts ; it is a fact which may be analysed, not a logical outcome of such analysis. It was along very similar lines that the movement developed which eventuated in the formation of the New Testament canon, and the recognition of the writings included in it as the inspired Word of God. The distinctive character of most of these writings was acknowledged immediately and instinc- tively. They were at once accorded a pre- eminent place in the esteem of the Church. Christians recognised in them conspicuous manifestations of the same Spirit whose in- dwelling presence was the dominating fact of their own experience. The act of recognition was spontaneous, like responded to like, deep called back to deep. It was not preceded by, nor did it depend upon, reasoned arguments. Like all ultimate experiences, it carried with it its own credentials of certitude. The writings which elicited this response, quickly became incorporated in the Church’s life as important elements in her apparatus of in- struction and devotion. Constantly and 150 THE HIGHER CRITICISM continuously used for these purposes, and carefully tried and tested by such use, the verdict originally passed upon them was sustained and strengthened by that of suc- cessive generations of Churchmen, and was at length accorded the imprimatur of official and authoritative approval by the whole Church. This process of recognition seems to have effected itself uninterruptedly so far as the Gospels and most of the Epistles are concerned. They were from the first regarded with a reverence which increased and deepened as time went on. But there were other writings, many of them highly esteemed and widely read, towards which the Church adopted an attitude of hesitancy. A few of these were found to satisfy her requirements and were included in the canon. The others were accorded the place in her ordinary literature to which their merits entitled them. The doctrine of inspiration thus outlined, the only doctrine historically or philosophically tenable, is implicit in the traditions of the Anglican Church. It underlies the views expressed in her authoritative formularies and by her most representative theologians, I51 L ANGLICANISM and relates them to each other as elements in a coherent and consistent system. It was not clearly recognised by the great body of Anglican Churchmen at the time when they found themselves confronted with the menace of materialism, but under the stress of the conflict which ensued, and under the guidance and inspiration of the Tractarian theologians, it emerged into explicit con- sciousness and became their chief weapon of controversial defence. How far did it prove sufficient for this purpose? How far was it capable of withstanding the attacks of negative criticism which wrought such havoc with the popular Bible Christianity of those times ? It is possible to answer this question in terms which if not conclusive, are reassuring. The critics had little difficulty in showing that the sacred writings are not invested with the qualities of absolute accuracy and infallibility. But the doctrine just outlined makes no such claim on their behalf. The Holy Scriptures, according to it, are the literary products of an inspired society, which recognised in them notable expressions of its own distinctive endowment, and after 152 PAE TRIGGER GRILICISNM careful and long-continued consideration made its recognition official and authoritative. Their inspiration, then, does not connote the qualities referred to, unless that of the society connotes them. But this the Church, up to the time of the formation of the Canon, never claimed. The consciousness of inspiration pervaded her membership, it was indeed her ultimate and fundamental consciousness, but she did not claim because of it to be inerrant in her knowledge of historical facts and_ scientific truths, or infallible in her moral and spiritual judgments. It is true that a section of the Church made some such claim in later years, and still continues to make it. But the Anglican Church expressly repudiates it, and it is with the attitude of the Anglican Church that we are concerned. The teaching of the nineteenth Article, for instance, is quite explicit with regard to this point. If, then, Christians are told of certain inaccuracies or discrepancies in the Gospel stories, or of certain inconsistencies or apparent contradictions in the teachings of the Epistles, they need not be seriously perturbed. Christ promised His disciples that His indwelling 153 ANGLICANISM Spirit would lead them into all truth. He did not promise that it would straightway reveal to them all truth, in complete and self- consistent form. The Spirit works through human agencies, and is limited by their imperfections. We may expect to find traces of these imperfections even in its most characteristic products. We should be sur- prised if even the written Word, the accredited and authorised literary expression of the Spirit’s activity, were wholly free from them. Doubtless if these imperfections were numerous and serious and pervasive, we should have reason for misgiving. But this is not the case. The discrepancies and inaccuracies and inconsistencies and misconceptions to which criticism calls attention in the Biblical writings are of comparatively minor and subordinate importance. They affect hardly at all the main texture of the Gospel narrative or of the Apostolic teachings. When all allowance has been made for them, that narrative continues to impress us by its veracity and sanity and dependability, those teachings by their cogency and consistency and convincing reasonableness. 154 THE HIGHER CRITICISM The same kind of considerations apply when we are confronted with questions of disputed authorship. Take as an example the fourth Gospel. According to the tradi- tional view this was written by the Apostle St. John. This view is disputed by a con- siderable number of critics, who ascribe it to a different and later authorship. The controversy thus aroused still continues, with a tendency in favour of the traditional contention. But the point at issue, though interesting and important, is not of vital consequence. The claim of the fourth Gospel to be an inspired document does not depend upon its Johannine authorship. It depends primarily on the fact that the Church has from the first recognised it as a notable product and expression of her own inspiration, and has continuously and unanimously re- garded and revered it accordingly. This witness holds good whatever its authorship. It may be argued indeed that it would be strengthened rather than weakened if un- supported by the prestige of a great Apostolic name. 155 Chapter VIII AGNOSTICISM HE Anglican Church has little to fear from informed criticism of her funda- mental documents. She can meet this on its own level and with weapons of equal intellectual potency. She has indeed to a large extent come to terms with it, and through the process of adjustment has widened the range of her thought and enriched its content. It is at a deeper level that her position is challenged, and by arguments of a more searching and fundamental character. For the crucial point at issue is that of objective validity. The doctrine outlined in the preceding chapter finds the ultimate proof of Biblical inspiration in a continuous series of instinctive reactions. According to it, the Church accepts the Scriptural writings as the inspired word of God chiefly because successive generations of Churchmen have from the beginning of the Christian movement testified to a special quality in them identical with 156 AGNOSTICISM that which is characteristic of their own inmost spiritual experiences. Scientific criti- cism is powerless to challenge such acceptance, or the inner assurances derived from it. When a Christian declares “I am sure that the Bible is inspired because its witness is in complete harmony with that of the In- dwelling Spirit,” he makes a statement which hes outside the arena of controversial dis- cussion. But he brings it within that arena if he adds to the certitudes thus attained that of the actual occurrence of certain events in the outer world. For this outer evidence is necessary, and if such evidence is not forth- coming, or can be shown to be historically inadequate or scientifically incredible, no inner experience, however vivid and domi- nating, can take its place. It is here, as has already been shown, that the Lutheran doctrine fails. But is not the Anglican doctrine similarly em- barrassed ? Lutheranism depends’ on the judgment of the inspired individual, Anglicanism on that of the inspired society. The latter dependence doubtless provides much firmer foothold than the former. The 197 ANGLICANISM concurrent and continuous testimony of a long line of witnesses, socially organised, has much greater evidential value than sporadic testimonies of isolated and independent in- dividuals. But such testimony, it may be argued, whether individual or corporate, only holds good within the realm of inner ex- perience: it carries no weight in that of outer happenings, it provides no assurance that the facts recorded in the inspired writings are real facts. Failing such assurance, traditional Christianity interposes no stronger barrier than Bible Christianity to their interpretation as symbolical expressions of spiritual truths. How does Anglicanism meet this challenge ? Unless it can do so in satisfying terms it rests on insecure foundations. It may be discussed as a theory, more or less plausible, or as a pietistic cult, more or less attractive, but it lacks credentials as a world movement, as a generating fact which has to be taken into account in estimating and anticipating the trend of outer events. The question thus opened out is of deter- mining importance. Nor can it be evaded or postponed. It is being urged by the persistent 158 AGNOSTICISM pressure of some of the most powerful currents of modern thought. Its final and conclusive answer is dependent upon that of further questions of a profound and ultimate character. We cannot deal with it, for instance, till we have defined objective validity, and specified the grounds which warrant its ascription to any of our subjective certitudes. We cannot do so, indeed, till we have vindicated belief in the existence of a world external to and independent of our own consciousness, and in the possibility of acquiring real knowledge of what happens there. These are problems which have taxed, and are taxing, the utmost resources of speculative philosophy. Their discussion lies outside the scope of our present inquiry. It is sufficient to say this much with regard to them. The assumption that they have been solved, or are_at any rate capable of solution, is the starting-point of all historical investiga- tion, its guarantee that its subject matter is other than illusory. The investigation of the historical elements intertwined with the funda- mental Christian dogmas is not peculiar in 159 ANGLICANISM this respect. The whole edifice of historical truth is equally affected by arguments which impugn the soundness of its metaphysical foundations. Such arguments must be an- swered before full intellectual security can be claimed for any historical acceptance, but it is not the special responsibility of Christian apologists to .answer them. They share this responsibility with all thinkers who are concerned with the defence of the strongholds of positive knowledge against the attacks of sceptical criticism. The success of these attacks would render objective truth un- attainable in the religious province, but it would have a like effect in all other provinces. The attitude of religious agnosticism can only be maintained on grounds which necessitate one of general agnosticism. For the immediate purposes of this dis- cussion it is not necessary to embark upon these deep waters. But it is necessary to claim for Anglicanism the credentials dis- played by world movements generally acknow- ledged as authentic, to show that its historical foundations are not less secure than theirs, that they have been established by similar 160 AGNOSTICISM processes and are amenable to similar tests. It is necessary in other words to vindicate its right to a place in the system of correlated facts which form the content of accredited knowledge. This is one of the most important and urgent tasks which demand the painstaking consideration of thoughtful Churchmen at the present day. Its adequate treatment cannot be attempted in these pages, but their intention would not be fulfilled if they neglected to suggest a point of view from which the subject can be _ usefully approached, and a line of argument likely to lead to satisfying conclusions. The simplest and clearest method of procedure seems to be that of concrete example: of taking some important event recorded in the Gospel story and trying to trace the processes which have led to its general accept- ance by Christians as an actual occurrence, an objective fact on which they can with confidence build a structure of positive faith and practice. The event which suggests itself as most suitable for this purpose is that which 1601 ANGLICANISM occurred on the first Easter morning. There can be no doubt as to the dominating place which belief in Christ’s bodily resurrection has always held in the consciousness of Christendom. There can be no doubt that St. Paul, for instance, regarded it as an essential and indispensable element in the content of Christian faith. ‘If Christ was not raised,’ he tells his converts, “ our preaching is vain, your hope also is vain,” and it is indisputable that, when he used these words, what he had in his mind was an actual physical transaction in the outer world, of a very unusual and arresting character. Nor did he stand alone in this regard. All the evidence at our disposal goes to show that his attitude was that of the whole contemporary Christian community; that all devout Christians of his time shared in his belief, and in his estimate of its vital importance. Moreover, the same attitude was maintained by Chris- tians of succeeding generations. They were by no means always in agreement with each other. Fierce controversies arose among them with regard to many questions, speculative 162 AGNOSTICISM and practical. But this particular belief was never seriously impugned. It was, and has continued to be, accepted by the whole Church as primary and fundamental, one of the root-beliefs on which the whole edifice of Christian faith and practice has been built up, and on which its stability absolutely depends. Now if, as natural scientists affirmed fifty years ago, nature miracles are impossible and therefore incredible, it is plain that some explanation must be found for the persistent and prevalent character of this belief which does not imply the actual occurrence of this particular nature miracle. Modernist writers have essayed the task of meeting this require- ment, but even they themselves can hardly claim that the results of their efforts are satisfactory. An examination of their different and divergent theories would take us far afield and serve no useful purpose. It is sufficient to say that most of these make demands upon our credulity no less exacting than those made by the traditional explanation; that while rejecting nature miracles they require the acceptance of psychical miracles even 163 ANGLICANISM more out of keeping with ordinary ex- perience. But, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter, the dogma of impossibility is no longer regarded as a fundamental article of scientific faith. Scientists themselves no longer are unanimous in claiming to preclude discussion of the problem by an impenetrable barrier of a priovt denial. The way has thus been opened for its restatement and recon- sideration. On the one side we have to take into account the improbability of an occurrence of this unwonted and unprecedented character, transcending all previous experience and the Jaws by which it is ordinarily interpreted. On the other side we are confronted with the counterbalancing improbability that such a persistent and pervasive belief, productive of such momentous results in the outer world, should have arisen independently of special happenings in that world; that it should have become a powerful and permanent determining factor in the objective order, though itself of purely subjective origin. The choice between these alternatives can- not be decided by any purely intellectual 164 AGNOSTICISM process. It will to a large extent depend upon personal preoccupations and predis- positions, and on the mental and moral atmosphere generated by them. A man whose preoccupations are mainly intellectual will apply standards of judgment quite different from those applied by one whose interests are mainly devotional. In the extreme cases the decision on either side will be instinctive and immediate. The intellectual specialist will push the matter aside as unworthy of serious consideration. “‘ A thing of this kind could not have happened,” he will say. ‘‘ Not even the testimony of my own senses would convince me, still less that of other witnesses, however well accredited.” The devotional specialist, on the other hand, will be equally emphatic in the opposite sense. ‘‘ It must have happened,” he will say. “‘ Even if no contemporary external evidence were forth- coming I should be convinced of this. You cannot explain subsequent happenings other- wise. To say that the Christian movement with its ever-increasing volume of beneficent achievement and inspiring hope, originated in a delusion, and has ever since maintained 165 ANGLICANISM itself on a delusive basis, is all one with saying that the sequence of historical events is incapable of rational explanation or intelligent anticipation.”’ The normally developed man is not a specialist of either kind. He is sensitive to the claims of scientific truth and of spiritual experience, and to the pressing need for their adjustment. How this adjustment is to be effected and maintained is one of the chief problems which he has to face, more especially in the opening stages of his life. Each man must deal with it in his own way and under the conditions dictated by his own circum- stances andendowments. The enterprize may prove difficult, but he can derive encourage- ment in essaying it from the reflection that many others, well equipped mentally and spiritually, have done so with success. He cannot indeed submit his judgment to theirs, he cannot accept any of their solutions of the problem without careful cross-examina- tion, for each man’s predilections and pre- suppositions are different, and arguments which seem convincing to one may leave another unsatisfied. But, allowing for this, 166 AGNOSTICISM the self-revelations of his predecessors, when these are forthcoming, may be of great service to him, for though the mental processes which issue in conviction vary indefinitely in content, in form they are closely analogous, if not identical. If this were not the case no common standard of reference would be available, and reasonable agreement on any question would be unattainable. Now St. Paul may be regarded as fulfilling the conditions of normal development. His writings show him to have been a man of exceptional intellectual power, well trained and well informed. They also reveal spiritual qualities which entitle him to a place among the world’s greatest religious geniuses. He came to accept Christ’s resurrection, not merely as a symbolical expression of certain spiritual truths, but as an historical event of actual occurrence. The words already quoted show clearly that in his thought the two acceptances are indissolubly connected with and dependent upon each other. How did he arrive at this conviction, the dominating conviction of a life of unsurpassed effort and self-sacrifice ? The answer to this question 167 M ANGLICANISM would provide valuable guidance and assurance to men: who are trying to find their way through the region of perplexity from which he emerged so successfully. We cannot hope to answer it fully. The Apostle himself probably could not have done so. A mental process of this subtle and complicated char- acter includes elements, some of them deter- mining elements, which do not rise into clear consciousness and are therefore incapable of complete analysis. But materials are placed at our disposal sufficient to enable us to trace the main outline of the process with some degree of confidence. It is indeed noticeable, and significant of the exemplary value accorded to his conversion by the Christian consciousness, that, with the exception of Christ’s passion and death, no other event is described so carefully and with so much detail by the New Testament writers. It behoves every thoughtful Christian to study carefully the unfolding of this great soul drama. For our im- mediate purposes it will be sufficient to call attention to one or two of its outstanding features. 168 AGNOSTICISM St. Paul, when we first hear of him, was a chief agent in the effort of the Pharasaic party to complete their recent victory over the Christian movement by extirpating its followers. Into this work he threw himself with all the fervour of his zealous and fiery temperament. But before long he seems to have become conscious of deterrent doubts and misgivings. How or when his conscious- ness arose we can only conjecture. It may have been that as he watched the martyred Stephen, his face wlumined with the glory of another world, a ray from that glory had penetrated to him, and brought with it a glimpse of a way of life higher and nobler and more soul- satisfying than that to which he had pledged himself. It may have been that as he harried the peasant followers of the Nazarene prophet, and haled them to prison, their simple con- fident faith aroused questionings whether they had not reached a stratum of truth deeper than that which needed to be guarded by the logic of the schools and the power of penal enactments. But however the awakening came, come it did. The narrative clearly implies this. The words, “ It is hard for thee 169 ANGLICANISM to kick against the pricks,” admit of no other satisfying interpretation. Thus was it with him when he started on his epoch making ride to Damascus. He was conscious, though he did not perhaps acknowledge it, that his old footholds were beginning to shp from beneath him ; he was predisposed, though he himself hardly knew it, to seek for firmer and more durable foundations. The fulness of the times had come for him, the way of the Lord had been prepared, the Lord Himself advances to meet the earnest though misguided soul. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” “Who art thou, Lord?” “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest.’”’ ‘‘ Jesus of Nazareth.” Here is the crucial point at issue. How could he be assured that it was indeed Jesus of Nazareth, a definite historical person, who spoke to him? The apostle, in his epistle to the Galatians, uses words which might seem to imply that this assurance was achieved independently of human testimony. ‘ I make known to you,’ he said, “as touching the Gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it 170 AGNOSTICISM from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” But this interpretation cannot be main- tained. He himself invalidates it in the latter part of the chapter from which the statement is taken, for he there tells us of intimate and protracted conversations which took place between him and two of the chief leaders of the movement, before he definitely embarked on his career as a Christian teacher. Moreover, and this is a very relevant fact, the name Jesus of Nazareth was already well known to him. It was a name of infamy and contempt among his friends and associates, but it was also capable of stirring memories of a very different kind—reports of wonder-working powers dis- played, of boundless sympathy and compassion shown, of soul-stirring sayings penetrating to the very heart of things, of privations and humiliations endured without complaint, of unflinching steadfastness in persecution and betrayal, of calm complacency in the hour of trial, of unswerving dignity and courage in that of death, of nature’s response to this 171 ANGLICANISM tragedy, of the heavens darkened and the veil» of the temple rent.” And’ then Gfeig astonishing and arresting sequel, of the grave found empty on the third day, of the frequent appearances of the Risen Lord clothed in the body which had been laid to rest there, of His communings with His friends, of His far-reaching promises, of the initial fulfilment of these in an Upper Chamber in Jerusalem, of the little band of men and women who had issued thence, thrilling with the con- sciousness of invincible inspiration, of the rapid response accorded to them, of the new movement spreading like a wave of fire, of his own ill-success and that of his associates, in their attempts to suppress it. These were facts, or reputed facts, with which he was already well acquainted. His knowledge of them had been acquired through the ordinary channels of social intercourse. The arresting voice did not inform him of them. But it called his attention to them, it illumined them with a new light, it placed them in a new setting, it invested them with a new meaning, it presented them as inter-connected and 172 AGNOSTICISM interdependent elements in a new _inter- pretation and ideal of life. His response was far more than an act of intellectual assent. It was the response of his whole self to a concrete personality with whom he felt himself essentially akin, and union with whom gave promise of full satisfaction. Its uprising tide overflowed the restrictive barriers of tradi- tional attachment and ecclesiastical entangle- ment and social prejudice. If this was indeed Jesus of Nazareth who was speaking a new vista was opened out to him charged with unfathomed possibilities of fruition and fulfilment. But was it Jesus of Nazareth, or nothing more than a dream-creation of his own imagination? While the first fervour of emotional enthusiasm lasted this question would not be likely to mse into insistent prominence. But in the succeeding period of considerate deliberation it was bound to assert its claims, and by a man of St. Paul’s mentality these would not be ignored. He himself indicates clearly that they were not ignored. He tells us how in answer to his petition for illumination he was told to “ Go 173 ANGLICANISM into the city” and there learn what was required of him. How in obedience to this command he entered into sympathetic com- munication with the nearest body of Christian disciples. How, later on, he spent three years in secluded thought and reflection, and how, emerging from this seclusion, he betook him- self to the head-centre of the Christian move- ment and had intimate converse with two of its most prominent spokesmen and leaders. He tells us in other words of a protracted period of intense mental effort in which his chief subject of deliberation must perforce have been the question with which we are concerned—Was it indeed Jesus of Nazareth who had spoken to him on the road to Damascus? Before he could answer this question with an assured affirmative, many adjustments of thought and sentiment would plainly be necessary, entailing careful ex- amination of Christ’s antecedents, and of His earthly life and teaching and work. But when these adjustments had been made a further and final question had to be faced. If this was indeed Jesus of Nazareth, His personal existence must have maintained its 174 AGNOSTICISM continuity and identity through the ordeal of physical death. What kind of evidence would justify assurance that it had done so, and was such evidence forthcoming? The question was plainly of crucial importance. Unless it could be answered the source of the voice remained conjectural. The subjective validity of his experience was unquestionable, but the link was lacking which connected it indubitably with the order of objective reality. Now the Christians with whom the Apostle conversed met this challenge in direct and unhesitating terms. The kind of evidence to which they pointed was that on which men chiefly depend in establishing the identity of one of their fellow-men—the evidence supplied by the organs of sight and touch and hearing. And such evidence they declared was amply available. Some of them, of unquestioned probity and sanity, affirmed that they had themselves seen and touched and spoken to the Risen Lord, and had thus convinced themselves of His personal identity ; that He Himself had invited and even incited them to apply these tests, and thus to assure 175 ANGLICANISM themselves that it was no mere phantom, the possible creation of their own excited imagina- tion, with whom they were holding -converse. “Handle me and see,’ He had said, “ hath a spirit flesh and bones as ye see me have.” In the case of one of them He had pressed the issue home in terms of special insistence: “ Reach hither thy finger and see my hands: reach hither thy hand and put it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.” It was an amazing story, but if it was true its bearing on the Apostle’s predicament was direct and almost decisive. Placed in its context the occurrence on the road to Damascus was no longer isolated and unique. It could be interpreted as one of a series of similar occurrences, and this interpre- tation was rendered not merely credible but probable by their analogy. Three years of careful investigation and _ reflec- tion convinced the Apostle that it was true, and this conviction became the dominating principle of his thought and conduct. It is difficult to over-state the far-reaching character of this principle, or the range of its applications. If it was true that 176 AGNOSTICISM Christ’s natural body, the physical organism through which His personality had expressed itself during His earthly sojourn, had been taken up into supernatural order, and trans- formed into a completely adaptable instru- ment of spiritual purposes, then the whole material order to which that body belonged is capable of like elevation and transformation. St. Paul did not fail to draw this inference. He made it the basis of his whole theology. Christianity as he henceforth conceived and taught it was far more than a pious cult, far more than a series of personal and private transactions between individual souls and God. It was a movement of world redemption, including all creation within the scope of its beneficent purpose. This was the master . theme of the Gospel which he preached. He could not have preached it had he not been convinced of the actual occurrence of the event with which we are concerned. He himself acknowledges this in emphatic and unequivocal terms. His conviction may have been well or il founded. That is a question of legitimate controversy. But attempts to evade its objective reference 177 ANGLICANISM by interpreting it as the symbolical clothing of a purely subjective experience can find no permanent place in this controversy. We are justified in regarding them as little more than ephemeral ebullitions of mental confusion caused by the clash between the claims of traditionalism or sentimentalism, and those of*a discredited scientific dogma- tism. It is the evident intention of the New Testament writers to present St. Paul’s case as typical and exemplary, and the consensus of Christian opinion has always regarded it thus. How does the case of a convinced Christian of the present day compare with it ? To what extent is his attitude justified by its analogy ? It will, to begin with, supply him with useful guidance in meeting the charge of obscuratism with which he is not infrequently assailed. ‘“‘ You believe,’ he is told by unfriendly critics, “‘ because you want to believe: you approach the facts with a mind prejudiced by antecedent influences, which render it incapable of unbiassed judg- ment. Your conviction is not a legitimate deduction from the premisess; it is a pre- 178 AGNOSTICISM conceived conclusion which you read into them, and into whose mould you force them.” Now there is no doubt that a man’s estimate of any body of evidence largely depends upon the point of view from which he ap- proaches it; upon his personal predisposi- tions and predilections and preoccupations. In St. Paul’s case we find a notable example of this dependence. Substantially the same evidence of Christ’s resurrection was at his disposal before and after his conversion. But before his conversion he regarded it with unfriendly eyes and approached it in an unfriendly spirit and, as a result, so far from being convinced by it, was disposed to regard its acceptance by Christ’s followers as an additional proof of their spiritual obliquity and mental perversity. After his conversion, on the other hand, we find his attitude wholly changed. We find him seeking Christian companionship and engaged in earnest col- loquy with Christian leaders, with the result that a little later on he declared himself completely satisfied with the testimony on which they relied—substantially the same 179 ANGLICANISM testimony which he had previously discarded and disallowed. The only possible explanation is to be found in the dominating spiritual experience through which he passed on the road to Damascus. This in no wise affected the objective character of the facts with which he had to deal, but it affected funda- mentally his manner of dealing with them. It caused him to regard them from a very different standpoint, to judge them by very different standards of value. It is quite true, it is a truth written on the face of the New Testament narrative, that his predis- ‘position to belief was an indispensably im- portant factor in his attainment of belief. But before we stigmatise his final conviction as ill-founded because of this, there are several counter-balancing considerations which have to be taken into account. In the first place, we have to recognise that a similar criticism can be applied to all historical judgments, to all processes of reason- ing dealing with human happenings. We cannot approach them from a completely detached standpoint. Directly or indirectly, 180 AGNOSTICISM consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously, they connect themselves with our own personal experiences, and appeal to our own personal predilections and interests and tastes. It is in this setting that we must consider them. Try as we will to eliminate these personal factors in the determination of our judgments we can never wholly succeed in doing so. A purely dispassionate historical judgment is unattainable, and if attainable, it would be valueless: for the less we feel about any historical occurrence the less capable are we of appreciating and understanding its ante- cedent conditions and subsequent effects. The assumption of some self-styled scientific historians that their judgments are of this character, is out of date. It is one of the aftermaths of the transitory attempt to apply the methods of physical science to the investigation of the phenomena of life. The attempt proved illusory and has been aban- doned save by a few belated specialists. It is now generally acknowledged that these phenomena must be studied from the inside and by methods of analogy with similar phenomena consciously experienced: that 181 ANGLICANISM only life can understand and interpret life, and that the more alive a man is, the deeper and wider his range of interests and sym- pathies and attachments and pursuits, the better equipped is he for the historian’s task. , The convinced Christian, then, need not be seriously perturbed by the charge that he would not have been convinced by the his- torical evidences for Christ’s resurrection had he not approached them with a certain pre- disposition. He must approach them with a predisposition of some kind, and this is bound to affect his estimate of their value. The man whose spiritual faculties are alive and active will recognise in them a significance which the man whose spiritual faculties are sluggish or atrophied will fail to appreciate. To say this is merely to repeat a truism of invariable experience. No evidence however strong will carry religious conviction to an unreligious mind: “if he believe not Moses and the prophets neither will he believe though one rose from the dead.’’ Christianity not merely acknowledges the importance of antecedent conditions to the attainment of 182 AGNOSTICISM certitude ; it insists on their necessity. Christ Himself again and again explicitly declared that it was only men of a certain spiritual quality, men whose soul ears and eyes were open and sensitive, who would appreciate the significance of His words and works. Men of coarser quality were unimpressed by them, in many cases antagonised by them. His experience has been repeated at every period of the Church’s history. The present- day Christian finds no cause for misgiving in the fact that testimony which seems to him quite conclusive and convincing is ignored or disparaged by many men of abiity and learning and character. These qualities do not necessarily connote the spiritual sensitiveness which Christ required, and whose activity is dependent on moral effort rather than on mental training. Nor can he hope to convince such men by any argumentative process, however skilfully presented. He can only testify to them of his own certitude, and tell them that the path to its attainment is that of humble and active loyalty to their best instincts and aspirations 183 N ANGLICANISM and ideals. “If I could only believe as you believe I could act as you act,’ said someone to St. Francis de Sales. “Act as I act and you will believe as I believe,’ was the Saint’s reply. “Will to do the will and you will know,” is the last word of all true Christian apologetic, the first word of all true Christian conversion. ° But no predisposition, however intense and insistent, can transform a fiction into a fact, an imaginary occurrence into a real occur- rence. Christ’s body, revitalised by His Spirit, rose from the tomb, or it dissolved away in corruption. No middle position is tenable between these alternatives. The desire, how- ever ardent, to accept the former, does not in itself add anything to the evidence for its occurrence. But the considerations which arouse this desire may add something of substantial importance. For one of the strong- est arguments against such an occurrence is its exceptional and extraordinary character. Fven allowing the possibility of such a breach in the natural order, experience testifies unani- mously to its improbability. But this testi- mony is no longer unanswerable by anyone 184 AGNOSTICISM who recognises the occasion as exceptional and extraordinary and its outcome as of like character. It was this recognition which St. Paul achieved through his conversion. The heavenly light which blinded his _ bodily eyes revealed to him the vision of God’s purpose working through the ages, of the whole creation groaning and travailing while it waited for its redemption, of the fulness of the times completed, of the emergence in the arena of the world’s conflict of a new and higher power capable of controlling the forces which contended there and destined gradually to harmonise them beneath its beneficent sway. It was in the context of this vision that the Apostle approached the consideration of Christ’s resurrection and weighed the evidence for its actual occurrence. And in that context the argument for prob- ability changed sides, and became an aid rather than an obstacle to acceptance. His acceptance itself was dependent upon external evidence of a convincing character. This was supplied in the first instance by the testimony of men who declared that they 185 ANGLICANISM had themselves seen and spoken to and touched the Risen Lord. It was to them and to their intimate associates that the Apostle betook himself, and his final certitude was the result of prolonged and careful conversations with them. The New Testament gives no detailed account of ‘these conversations, but inci- dental references and the whole tenor of the Apostle’s teaching, indicate with sufficient clearness the nature of the considerations which determined his judgment. These in- cluded not merely the narrative of eye- witnesses, but also the moral and mental outcome of these narratives in the lives of those who accepted them as authentic—the existence of the Christian Church, organised and active and aggressive, its members infused with a spirit which rendered them fearless of outer opposition, and which at the same time bound them to each other in a close fellowship of mutual service and supply, a closely knit and united society producing a type of character which compelled admiration by the delicacy of its quality, and the distinction of its achievements. 186 AGNOSTICISM These were facts which had to be accounted for, which had to be explained and could not be explained away. Christians them- selves were in unanimous agreement as to the explanation to which they pointed. “Christ is risen,’ were the words of their every-day salutation, and on the truth of this statement rested the whole edifice of their faith and hope and love and purposeful and pervasive effort. The Christians with whom St. Paul communed recognised this, and he came to share in their recognition vehemently and decisively. His language was not controversial or argumentative, it was the declaration of a truism of mutual agreement and acknowledgment, when later on he exclaimed, “‘If Christ be not risen our preaching is vain; your hope also is vain.”’ The ascent of Christian faith, thus illus- trated by a classical example, is seldom an explicit process, accompanied by clear con- sciousness of its different episodes and stages. But those who have reached its summit find it convenient to describe it to themselves and to others as a series of successive steps 187 ANGLICANISM in a continuous development. They are indeed almost compelled to do so by the requirements of their logical faculty. Pre- sented in this form it can with confidence challenge critical examination and claim for its final acceptance the highest measure of certitude attainable in the historical province. The further “and deeper witness of inner experience enhances this confidence, in pro- portion to its vividness and pervasiveness, but such experience, so far as it is private and personal, is not available for purposes of argumentative discussion. The line of thought indicated in this chapter may be criticised as a superfluous digression, an excursion into the philosophy of religion out of place, or at any rate out of proportion, in an outline sketch of Anglicanism. The answer is that such a sketch would be mani- festly incomplete if it dealt solely with the superstructure of Christian faith and practice, and was content with assuming the security of its objective foundations. Apart from sufficient assurance that these are firm and sound the whole discussion becomes invested with a fictitious and illusory flavour. 188 AGNOSTICISM St. Paul achieved this assurance, and an attempt has been made to show that the process by which he achieved it satisfies the requirements of intelligent and informed judgment. His case is of great exemplary value to all thoughtful Christians, but it has a special value to those who approach the problem from the Anglican standpoint. For they can claim to have at their disposal all the evidence which he took into account— not merely the testimony of individual eye- witnesses, transmitted sporadically and for- tuitously, but also that testimony enshrined as a germinating centre of a living social organism, of which they are members, whose existence originated in its acceptance, and whose vigorous activity at every stage of its growth has been dependent upon the same condition. Lutheranism, by repudiating corporate ante- cedents and attachments, limited its access to evidence of this latter kind. It could not consistently appeal to the witness of a Church whose authority it spurned, and whose acti- vities it stigmatised as hopelessly perverted and corrupt. It thus deprived itself of one 189 ANGLICANISM of the strongest implements in the armoury of defence against the attacks of historical criticism, and, as a consequence, has shown itself little capable of withstanding these attacks. Romanism, on the other hand, by exagger- ating the principle of corporate authority, and stretching its applications beyond their legitimate limits, has subjected itself to a similar deprivation. A Church which claims not merely to interpret and expound its historical heritage, but also to have the right of adding to it, and of insisting on the acceptance of the additions thus made as a condition of its membership, assumes a position which cannot be defended by the testimony of continuous experience and assent. The apologists of Romanism some- times attempt to bring it within the range of this defence, by declaring that these apparently novel doctrines were implicit in the original deposit of the Church’s faith, and have emerged into explicit con- sciousness at subsequent stages of her cor- porate development. The argument deserves careful consideration ; it cannot be discarded Igo AGNOSTICISM as irrelevant by any intelligent student of the Christian movement, even during the Apostolic period. But it is a dangerous and two-edged weapon, which has to be used very cautiously and considerately. It is not unfair, for instance, to say that the kind of arguments, based on this principle, by which the doctrine of the Papal Infallibility or of the Immaculate Conception may be defended, would be equally applicable to the defence of some of the most revolutionary theories of modernist speculation. Anglicanism occupies a much _ stronger position in this regard than either Lutheranism or Romanism. Its tenacious traditionalism has kept it within the main current of cor- porate Christian life, and safeguarded its participation in all the fundamental forms of that life, institutional, intellectual, and devotional. An Anglican Churchman can claim the full prerogatives and privileges of membership in the Body of Christ, in the Catholic Church as St. Paul knew it and experienced it—no vague super-sensual com- munity, the dream creation of later controver- sial exigencies, but a visible society, occupying IQI ANGLICANISM a definite place, pursuing definite aims, and displaying definite and far-reaching activities, in the arena of historical happenings. He can produce convincing credentials in support of this claim. These include not only consciousness of inner sympathy and affinity—testimony of indispensable import- ance, but difficult to cross-examine and test and appraise. They include also sufficient evidence that the outer links have been unbroken which connect the society to which he belongs with the parent society. He can with confidence appeal to history for proof that all the fundamental institutions and beliefs and observances of the Anglican Church —her ministry, her sacramental ordinances, her creeds, her authoritative documents, her forms of worship—are derived from this source: that all these distinctive outer ex- pressions of her corporate life have been transmitted thence in essential integrity and unbroken continuity. | Churchmen are sometimes criticized for stressing the importance of this principle of institutional continuity. They are told that by doing so they are placing an unnecessary 192 AGNOSTICISM obstacle in the path of union with religious bodies spiritually sympathetic with their own, but of more recent origin and organization. The criticism would be a just one if the Christian religion were only concerned with happenings on the spiritual plane: if its essential content consisted in a series of purely private and personal transactions between individual souls and God. But Christianity as St. Paul taught it, and as the Catholic Church has always continued to teach it, is vitally concerned with happenings on the material plane as well. The Christian movement takes its place among these, and uses them as organs of its expression, declaring that they are suitable for this purpose, and capable of being completely transfused by its spirit, and dominated by its laws. A religion which makes this claim must be sacramental, must use outer and visible means for the manifestation of its inner and spiritual power. The continuity of its life must find expression in that of a visible social organization. Their relation to that society cannot, then, be a matter of indifference to those who claim participation in that life. Their membership 193 ANGLICANISM in the visible church, duly certified and accredited, is a guarantee to themselves and to others that their claim is well founded. To say that such a guarantee is indispensable would be presumptuous, for the spirit bloweth where it listeth, and we can place no limits to the direction or the scope of its ac- tivities. But viewed in the full context of Christ’s purpose and method it is im- possible to ignore it, or to disparage its importance. It is, then, as a member of the household of faith that the Anglican churchman looks out on life—the offspring of a family of distin- guished lineage, born and bred in its home surroundings and imbued with its spirit and traditions. His ways of thought and action, his ideals and standards and points of view, are to a large extent products of these in- herited influences. His fundamental beliefs are invested with the imprimatur of the Church’s authority. But that authority is to him far more than an external power, determining his assent by the reverence it inspires, or the arguments by which it supports its claims. It is to him the activity of a 194 AGNOSTICISM principle intertwined with the texture of his inmost life, the encircling influence of his soul’s appropriate atmosphere. Outer wit- ness and inner witness thus merge into each other, and supplement each other. He is assured that the Church’s beliefs are well founded because they provide him with the principles of effective and purposeful thought and conduct: because of the help they give him in meeting the claims of life, and finding his way through its puzzles and perplexities. He is assured, on the other hand, that his own beliefs are well founded through the achievements of a long line of spiritual ancestors who have been inspired and enabled by them. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The Catholic faith satisfies this test both in the province of inner personal ex- perience, and in that of outer historical happenings. It meets my personal needs of illumination and guidance and strength. The lives they have lived, and the characters they have developed through its acceptance and application testify that it has answered a similar purpose for innumerable others of my spiritual kith and kin. It has been, and se) ANGLICANISM still is, the motive power of the most bene- ficent and progressive movement the world has yet seen. This does not prove the validity of its objective foundations, but it provides presumption of probability that they are valid, and as the movement increases in volume and richness this presumption approxi- mates to one of certainty. 196 Chapter IX INDUSTRIALISM HIS little volume is intended to serve as | ee introduction to the study of Angli- canism—of its history and philosophy. Its aim is to suggest a point of view from which these extensive topics can be usefully approached: to indicate some general con- ception in the context of which they can be viewed as a connected whole, and placed in their due relations to each other. These purposes are served by the principle of traditionalism—a master principle of Anglo- Saxon life in all its different phases and activities. Anglicanism—the main ecclesia- stical expression of that life—falls within the scope of this description. No one can hope to understand its past history, or to estimate its future possibilities, who fails to take its traditionalism into prominent account. Moreover, Anglo-Saxon, and through it Anglican, traditionalism, has a special quality which greatly enhances its explanatory value, 197 ANGLICANISM Every community which maintains its identity through a number of generations develops a distinctive tradition—a body of experience transmitted orally or in written documents, and embodied in institutions and laws and customary usages. The influence of this tradition strengthens as it accumulates, and if undisturbed by outer influences tends to become dominant. Communities which for considerable periods have been secluded and self-centred as a rule display an increasing disposition to dependence on the teachings of the past, and an increasing reluctance to embark upon enterprises for which no clear precedents are forthcoming. They tend, in other words, to become stagnant and stereo- typed and unprogressive. Now Anglo-Saxons for several centuries lived under secluded conditions. They were to a large extent isolated from neighbouring communities, and but slightly and indirectly affected by influences emanating from them. They became, and have since remained, strong traditionalists. But the sequel has not been stagnation. On the contrary Anglo- Saxon communities, all over the world, can 198 INDUSTRIALISM with some justice claim a leading place in the march of civilised progress. Their traditionalism so far from retarding their advance has served to stimulate and pro- mote it. One explanation of this fact, perhaps its chief explanation, is to be found in their composite origin. They are the offspring of several races, each of which brought to this country a tradition ofits own. These became the common heritage of their hybrid descen- dants—a rich heritage, but charged with divergent forces. Anglo-Saxon manhood, when it came to self-consciousness, found itself subject to the sway of these forces: of predilections for several types of life and ideals of attainment. Their interactions made for movement, their persistence made for adjusted and continuous movement. The old time contests and concords of Celts and Norsemen and Normans were reproduced, and are still being reproduced, in the inner experience of their descendants, and to some extent in their outer activities. Anglo-Saxon traditionalism has thus all along been dynamic as well as static: a principle of progress aes 9 ANGLICANISM no Jess than a safeguard of stability. This twofold action accounts for that apparent con- tradiction which is such a strongly marked feature of the typical Anglo-Saxon character— its masterful self-assertiveness on the one hand, its readiness to compromise on the other. Both qualities are inherent in the traditionalism which exercises a controlling | influence over its development. Take a concrete illustration chosen from a department of life with which the writer has some familiarity. Take the case of a young and eager politician entering on his duties as a newly elected member of the House of Commons. He has acquired certain beliefs and principles which dominate his outlook on political life. These are not self- originated. They represent partial aspects or expressions of the tradition of his race, conveyed to him through the medium of his immediate surroundings—of his home life, of his school and college training, of the inter- play of every-day social intercourse. Their partial character has been brought home to him in the course of his candidature. He is aware that outside the circle of his associates 200 INDUSTRIALISM there are many who interpret life differently, and deal with its problems under the guidance of beliefs and principles which do not har- monise with his. This recognition at first arouses his antagonism. It incites to move- ment and to strenuous movement. It makes him more zealous in advocacy and action. He becomes a partizan and perhaps a vehement and bigoted partizan. But other influences are at work, and in the atmosphere of the House of Commons these soon assert themselves in potent fashion. For he there finds himself thrown into daily contact with men whose views and projects he had been accustomed to denounce. He establishes personal relationships with some of them, relationships which gradually merge into those of mutual respect and esteem. He does not regard these as having any bearing on his partizan attitude and activities. It is an axiom of English public life that political differences must not be allowed to preclude personal friendships. But as a matter of fact they cannot but have a very direct bearing. For they call his attention to facts with which he has hitherto been but slightly familiar, 201 ANGLICANISM and to which, on closer acquaintance, he instinctively responds. He is, let us say, a zealous Conservative, his newly made friend is an ardent Socialist. His friend’s theories and proposals irritate and antagonise him. But behind them lies a body of first-hand experience which appeals to his sympathy and’ awakens his sense of respon- sibility—experience of want and hardship and suffering, of dank and dreary surroundings, of monotonous toil, of uncertainty of employ- ment, of depressed and draggled wives, of, children ill-nurtured and ill-clothed and as a consequence ill-prepared to fill their allotted place on the stage of life, and to play their appointed part there. He has heard and read that this state of things exists. But now he is brought into intimate contact with a man who has had first-hand experience of it, and who is the chosen spokesman of a huge class with like experience. To say that such contact leaves his own beliefs and principles unchallenged and undis- turbed, would be all one with saying that he is lacking in elementary intelligence and imagination and humanity. He begins to 202 INDUSTRIALISM understand the attractiveness of proposals which he had been accustomed to stigmatise as wantonly subversive and destructive. He begins to recognise that had he himself been born and bred in the surroundings from which his friend comes he would most likely have responded to their appeal. The proposals themselves he may still regard as mistaken and ill-considered, more likely to increase than to cure the evils with which they profess to deal. But what alternatives have he and his _ associates to suggest ? That has now become for him an insistent question. He satisfies himself, it may be, that it can be answered in assuring terms. That Conservatism properly interpreted is the safest and surest guide along the path of social amelioration. That he can render best service by continuing to act and organise along its lines. But it is to be noticed that his process of interpretation is also one of amplification. The creed for which he makes this claim is not the same as that with which he started. It has become bigger and wider and more elastic. It includes acknowledgments and acceptances and points of view which were not there before, or at any 203 ANGLICANISM rate not in the same prominence and pro- portion. His wider vision does not necessarily affect his party affiliations. The party system, for good or ill, belongs to the recognised apparatus of English public life, and no politician can dissociate himself from it without imperilling his influence and usefulness. Nor does it necessarily alter the flavour of his public utterances. This perhaps continues to be as dogmatic and decisive as heretofore. Over- statement is a frequent habit of youthful English politicians when addressing large audiences, especially if these are composed of their constituents—a regrettable habit, but rendered less harmful by the fact that what is said on such occasions is seldom taken at its full face value. But it does affect his mental outlook and attitude. His primary concern is no longer the maintenance of the estab- lished order. He is at least equally concerned with its progressive improvement: with ridding it of the evils which have grown up under its auspices, and rendering it more adaptable to new needs and claims. The trend of his parliamentary activities bears 204 INDUSTRIALISM witness to this change—the kind of questions in which he displays chief interest, his tolerance of hostile criticism, his readiness to listen to suggestions from whatever quarter they come, and on occasion to find a place for them in his own programmes, his willingness to meet his opponents half way and to deal with contro- versial issues by methods of conciliation and compromise. The House of Commons is in this respect a microcosm of the whole community. We can see the same drama unfolding itself wherever young men of sensitive insight and generous instinct, but of different antecedents and attachments, are brought together under conditions favourable to the growth of social intercourse and personal intimacy. Its inci- dents and scenery vary indefinitely, but its main plot is always the same. Nor is it a peculiar product of contemporary conditions. It is as old as the Anglo-Saxon stock. It began when that stock came into being and found itself subject to the interplay of tradi- tions passed on to it from the races whose intermixture brought it into’ existence. Traditions of conquest—of prowess shown, of 205 ANGLICANISM turbulence subdued, of authority enforced, of orderly government established. Traditions of defeat—of losses incurred, of humiliations suffered, of bitter hardships and privations endured. Traditions derived from ancestors of cold and cautious habit, slow and silent and stubborn. Traditions emanating from others of more’ mobile temperament, quick- witted and vivacious and loquacious and imaginative. All of these, their content increasing in volume and richness through the inflowing of new experience, have played continuous and complementary parts in the moulding of Anglo-Saxon manhood. The relative importance of their contributions at any particular time or place is determined by special circumstances, chiefly by the bias of inner dispositions and the influence of outer surroundings. But this proportion is con- stantly changing. No Anglo-Saxon who mixes freely with his fellows can for long continue to be dominated by one tradition to the exclusion of the others. To a greater or less extent he responds to all of them, and one of the chief problems which he has to face is that of adjusting their claims and giving them 206 INDUSTRIALISM balanced expression in his character and conduct. This is all one with saying that the normal conditions of life in an Anglo-Saxon com- munity preclude the possibility of serious class warfare. Classes whose members and traditions are thus interconnected, and inter- dependent, and to a large extent interchange- able, cannot for long remain mutually hostile. The fact, then, that a gospel of class warfare is being vigorously preached in this country at the present time, and is meeting with some measure of success, points to the existence of abnormal conditions: conditions out of keeping with the true trend of our race life. _ And there is no doubt that these have grown up in connection with the development of the industrial system, and may be regarded as its product. That system has had the effect of creating great centres of homogeneous popu- lation, of herding huge masses of manual workers together in congested areas and of subjecting them there to drudgery and dismal discomfort and not seldom to precarious pen- ury. Such a state of things is highly favour- able to the awakening of class consciousness 207 ANGLICANISM and the growth of class feeling. People so circumstanced easily become obsessed by a single tradition—that of the conquered. They tend to regard the richer classes—capitalists and employers—much as their British fore- fathers regarded the Saxon invaders who had stolen their lands and condemned them to monotonous and debasing servitude. Counter- balancing traditions are unvoiced, and become dormant and ineffective. Resentment grows, and bitter discontent. They respond readily to inflammatory appeals and to violent and subversive proposals. This is already the attitude of considerable sections of the working classes. Its prevalence would imperil the very foundations of social stability and orderly progress. Clear-sighted statesmen are alive to this, and are much preoccupied with the problem of preventing it from becoming prevalent. They can do much by wise legislation and administration. They can improve the machinery of production and distribution, they can make the circumstances of industrial life more agreeable and healthy and secure, they can, by the distribution of mechanical 208 INDUSTRIALISM power, help in arresting the undue concen- tration of population. They can by these and similar means remove or mitigate some of the more obvious incentives to class wartare. But measures of this kind however well devised and successfully applied leave the heart of the matter untouched. Many of the protagonists of this movement are themselves comparatively prosperous and well paid. Sympathy with the privations of their less fortunate fellow workers doubtless contributes something to the vigour of their propaganda. But their master impulse is of a more per- manent and powerful character. They have come to believe that their class has been deprived of its birthright, of the heritage to which it is entitled. It is, in their view, the sole producer of wealth and has therefore the exclusive right to its possession, and to the enjoyment of the amenities which it can purchase. The capitalist classes they regard as invaders and usurpers who have seized their property, and are using the power which it conveys to keep them in subjection. So far from being conciliated by minor concessions 209 ANGLICANISM to their demands—by higher wages and shorter hours and better houses and more agreeable surroundings—they interpret these as signs that their oppressors’ power is weak- ening, and that the time is approaching when it will be possible to expropriate and expel them. It is a crude and fantastic creed, but its advocates are prominent and pugnacious. They have not succeeded as yet in attracting many open adherents. But they have succeeded in diffusing among large sections of the working classes an atmosphere charged with poison germs of antagonism and suspicion and mistrust. It is here that the generating source of mischief lies. This atmosphere must be purified if social health and harmony are to be attained and maintained. The example just given indicates how this purpose is being achieved in individual cases, and suggests the application of the same process on an extended and organised scale. The gulf caused by modern industrialism must be bridged over not merely here and there, but at innumerable points. Highways of free intercommunication must be reopened 210 INDUSTRIALISM between the separated classes, over which their members can pass easily to and fro, bearing with them their own special ideals and interpretations, and carrying these back enriched and enlarged by the inflow of others equally inherent in the common tradition of their race. The contention is not unreasonable that along these lines, perhaps only along them, the problem can be successfully solved. It is ultimately a spiritual problem. Local and economical segregation have found their sequel in widespread spiritual segregation. This is the root evil with which we have to deal. Unless it can be exorcised from its inner strongholds, unless mistrust and sus- picion can be replaced by mutual confidence and respect, we have no sure safeguard against the recurrence of the sordid struggles and virulent controversies of which we have had such bitter experience of recent years. What resources are available for this purpose, and how can these be organised and applied to the best effect ? An episode in the opening chapter of the history of the English people suggests one possible answer to this crucially important oil ANGLICANISM question. They were faced with a predica- ment which bears some analogy to that in which they are involved at the present day. They were broken up into a number of ‘separate communities whose jealousies and conflicting interests issued in constantly recur- ring periods of turbulence and strife. Reference has been made*in a previous chapter to the effective part played by the Church in ameliorating these evils. In her member- ship men otherwise estranged found bonds of union and opportunities for co-operation. In her teachings they found the obligation of union and co-operation enforced by Divine authority and invested with Divine sanctions. In her organisation they found an illuminating and inspiring example of a successful working system of orderly government and authorita- tive law. In her pervasive influence and discipline they found powerful correctives to the urgings of unruly passion and lawless desire. It is not overstating the case to say that the process which culminated in the formation of the English nation and the organisation of the English State was largely dominated and directed by the Church. 212 INDUSTRIALISM Can we not look to her for similar leader- ship under the somewhat analogous circum- stances of the present day? Earnest Churchmen answer this question in terms of enthusiastic affirmation. And from their own point of view they are fully justified in doing so. The Church as they visualise her, the Church of their dreams, the Church as she ought to be and has it in her to be, is fully equipped for this task. She can unite men of different classes and interests by ties of common loyalty and allegiance. She can provide them with a common platform on which they can meet without suspicion or misgiving, and discuss their sectional disagree- ments in an atmosphere of mutual kindliness and goodwill. She can inspire them with an ideal transcending their partial ideals, and revealing them as complementary rather than contradictory. Within the circle of her attached membership she is in many districts achieving these results, quietly and unostenta- tiously, but very effectively. The service she is thus rendering is of invaluable importance. It is pushed into the background by the pressure of novel proposals and flamboyant 213 ANGLICANISM schemes. It is overlooked or disparaged by superficial thinkers and publicists and poli- ticlans. But clear-sighted men of affairs do not adopt this attitude. They recognise that among the forces which make for social concord those emanating from the Church’s activity must be assigned a prominent place ; that things would be much worse than they are if these were weakened, much better than they are if they were strengthened. But the range of these forces is at present very limited. The Church’s direct influence does not extend much beyond her own attached membership, and this includes only a part of the population, only a small part of the city population. There is no blinking the fact that she has lost touch with the great majority of manual workers in this country. They are not as a rule hostile, but they are indifferent and unconcerned. They take little interest in her proceedings, make little use of her ministrations, are little affected by her appeals and monitions. How and why this state of things has arisen are questions calling for more careful investigation than can be accorded to them here. It can doubtless to 214 INDUSTRIALISM some extent be explained by the action of external forces, intellectual and economical and political. But it is also in no small measure due to causes for which Churchmen cannot disclaim responsibility. One of the chief of these is suggested by the line of thought developed in the preceding pages. Anglo-Saxons have inherited, and to a large extent been moulded by, a great tradition inherited from their forefathers and enriched and amplified by centuries of con- tinuous experience. The divisions and dissen- sions which from time to time have arisen among them, and which of recent years have become dangerously acute, have been largely due to the fact that different classes have paid exclusive attention to partial aspects of this tradition, and have failed to appreciate its counterbalancing aspects. But this appreci- ation can always be aroused. Every Anglo- Saxon is amenable to the appeal of that whole body of inherited experience which he shares in common with the other members of his race. Now the Anglican Church is specially well- fitted to voice this appeal. Her life has from 215 P ANGLICANISM the first intermingled with that of the Anglo- Saxon people, and has adapted itself to their growing requirements. She has taken over their traditionalism, and incorporated it in that of the Christian movement. She has thus raised it to the religious plane, investing it with religious sanctions, and using it as a medium for the expression of religious truths. So equipped she can present Christianity in terms to which the deepest strains in Anglo- Saxon manhood respond, and _ through responding are awakened into active conscious- ness. Churchmanship thus interpreted in- cludes in its content the full tradition of the race. It destroys the dominance of any one of its particular aspects. It provides a potent corrective to sectionalism, a secure safeguard against that spiritual segregation which is the fountain source of so many of our ills. Are Anglican Churchmen making due use of the rich resources which are thus placed at their disposal ? The answer to this question is disconcerting. It reveals to us our chief default. It brings home to us our responsi- bility for the state of things which we have to 216 INDUSTRIALISM face at the present time. For only here and there can it be claimed that Church life expresses itself in these broad and inclusive terms. In many districts it is cold and conventional and apathetic and lethargic. In many others, though vigorous and active, it is dominated by sectional influences and chiefly concerned with the promotion of sectional interests and proposals, social or devotional or ecclesiastical. And the result is that Churchmanship as a whole, so far from acting as an unifying agency, conveys to onlookers an opposite impression, and is often stigmatised by them as a fruitful source of contention and controversy, and these with regard to issues which seem to them of minor importance. So long as this impression is prevalent it is not a matter for surprise that organised Christianity plays such a negligible part in the arena of public affairs. It is not a matter for surprise that Statesmen, faced with the exigencies of a critical situation, treat it as a factor which need hardly be taken into account in the construction of their plans and policies. This is the root fault of present day 217 ANGLICANISM Anglicanism. It is not true to itself, it fails to make due use of the resources with which it is endowed, of the rich heritage which has descended to it, and which it is called to administer to the best advantage. Its full tradition invests it with the credentials of leadership, but it cannot expect those creden- tials to be acknowledged so long as within the province of its own organised activities the contents of that tradition are but partially appreciated and applied. Race consciousness and class consciousness, race traditionalism and class traditionalism, these are the two forces whose interaction has been mainly instrumental in moulding Anglo-Saxon manhood, and in creating Anglo- Saxon civilisation. Their contributions are complementary. The former makes for stability, the latter for movement. The dominance of the former leads to stagnation, that of the latter to dissension and disin- tegration. Their combined action is a neces- sary condition of orderly and purposeful progress. Our present troubles are largely due to the fact that our race-consciousness has become dormant and sluggish, and has ceased 218 INDUSTRIALISM to exercise its due pacifying influence in the arena of competing sectional claims. The balance must be restored if social concord is to be attained, and social disaster averted. In the interplay of their corporate and individual activities churchmen can furnish an illuminating and inspiring example of the lines along which this purpose can be achieved. The magnitude of their opportunity measures that of their responsibility. 219 ath i @ ie i Date Due ee a <_ 4 ede a » ~ Te Oy a, . if a A = i ae ibrary ce Prin