Columbia (Hnitierje^ttp THE LIBRARIES Crown 8vo. 7.«. Od. net. THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT E^^amined in the Light of History and Law. Wfth an fntroductory Letter to the Right Hon. Sir William Vernon Harcourt, MP. By the Rev. MALCOLM MacCOLL, D.D. Canon Residentiary of Ripon. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. London, New York, and Bombay. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ' Canon MacColl attains a remarkable success in proving that the principles which High Churchmen have inherited from the Caroline divines fall in with the modern and, in ihe best sense, liberal theology and with the science of to-day.' — Guardian. ' ' We hasten to add our tribute of cordial respect to the general conception of Canon MacColl's book, and to the courage, vigour, and thoroughness with which he has carried it out. . . . Having demonstrated the historic width and the present-day reasonableness of Anglican liberty in the realm of Sacramental teaching. Canon MacColl is not less concerned to exhibit the injustice of ;he attempt to suppress the Ritual by which "High"' OPINIONS OF THE PRESS views are symbolised and set forth. And, in particular, he deals at length, and very effectively indeed, with the judgments of the Judicial Committee on points connected with the Ornaments Rubric. ... He places beyond reasonable doubt the fact that the plain meaning of the rubric by which the ornaments of the Church and of its ministers were deliberately regulated at the last revision of the Prayer-book, which, of course, has Parliamentary as well as Synodical authority, was set aside by the Judicial Committee, and a wholly non-natural meaning read into it and made of penal obligation. . . . Another point of great importance on which, as it seems to us. Canon MacCoU achieves special success is his demonstration of the unhistoric character of the claim, put forward by Sir William Harcourt in his most aggressive manner, that the Crown and Parliament have a right to determine the doctrine, discipline and ceremonial of the Church of England. . . . We may not agree with all Canon MacColl's conclusions, but we must congratulate him on having produced a book which is calculated to promote sound thinking on the relations between Church and State, and to dissuade the candid reader from participation in efforts towards a reduction of the ancient and clearly established liberties of the Anglican clergy.'— Spectator. ' A contribution of solid value towards the enlighten- ment of the public mind at a moment fraught with i^TRve issues to the welfare of religion in this country.' Observer. ' A formidable armoury of weapons for use in the present controversy.' — Echo. OPINIONS OF THE PBESS * A book written for the present crisis, but very superior to the ordinary party manifesto.' Manchester Guardian. * For dignity, vigour, and incisiveness it is worthy of the author of the " Letters of Junius." ' Chukch Times. ' His arguments and evidence are now generally re- cognised to be so good in any case he takes in hand that they cannot be disregarded. Royal Supremacy, Confes- sion, Ecclesiastical Courts, and all the topics of this controversy he handles with masterly skill.' Liverpool Post. ' No one who has followed wath any interest the course of the recent ecclesiastical controversy can afford to miss so lucid, moderate, and well presented a state- ment of the case. ... In a succession of closely rea- soned chapters, which bristle with evidences of profound study and research, Canon MacColl takes up, one by one, the questions which have most stirred the parties to the recent dispute, and examines them in the light of history and law, making his constant appeal to the acts and writings of the English reformers, and to the records of the Reformation period. All parties to the contro- versy, whatever their prepossessions, will agree in ac- knowledging the literary strength displayed in a w^ork which, for all its erudition, is never dull or abstruse, and in appreciating the unexceptionable tone and temper brought by the author to the consideration of theological moot points which, unfortunately, are too often discussed in a very different spirit.' — World. OPINIONS OF THE PBESS ' Dr. MacColl is an experienced and most dexterous controversialist. We have seldom seen anything better ot its kind than his Introductory Letter to Sir William Harcourt. ... It can hardly be questioned that Dr. MacColl has made out his case.' — Chitic. * Canon MacColl is a practised and energetic contro- versialist, and it is impossible to read his new volume without admiration for his skill of fence and his sturdy adroitness of attack. ... It is a clever and penetrating criticism of many modern fallacies, political, historical, religious, and it is a criticism which boldly carries the war into the enemy's country. . . . Dr. MacColl's cri- ticism, too, of the " Ecclesiastical Courts and the Orna- ments Rubric " question will be found almost conclusive.' Literature. • The author has studied his subject with great care, and we believe with impartiality. . . . What we think is clearly proved is that the High Church party has a far stronger case from the historical point of view than the extreme Protestant agitators would admit. ... In short, from the political and historical point of view, we should say that Canon MacColl comes off a comparatively easy victor. . . . There is much else in this able and interest- ing volume which is full of interest.'— Daily Chronicle. * Canon MacCoU's book is undoubtedly able, and, so far as it helps to clear the issue, it is of service to all parties.' Westminster Gazette. 'Canon MacColl introduces his examination of the questions with which the Established Church is aflare OPINIONS OF THE PRESS with a Letter to that doughty champion of State as- cendency, Sir WilUam Harcourt. The two men are well matched : they are both hard hitters ; they are abundantly convinced: and they are equally masters of an abrupt, virile style of appeal. . . . Mr. MacCoU's book covers all the questions at issue.' — Academy. ' The book bears marks of haste, but it is bright and easy reading, in spite of all the technicalities.' Morning Leader. ' Canon MacColl deserves the best thanks of the public for his interesting and instructive book.' Sunday Times. ' Canon MacColl's book on this subject is full of information, and is well ^yorth reading.' The Christian Million. * As a first-class fighting defence of the High x\nglican position, we recommend the book, more especially as there is not, from the first page to the last, one word of bitterness, and nothing but appreciation of the labours and merits of Nonconformists.' — Methodist Times. ' These quotations may suffice to set Churchmen and others on reading this book, to the cogency of which a quite unusual testimony is forthcoming. . . . Not the least interesting part is the seventy-page Introductory Letter to Sir William Harcourt, in which, as is his wont. Dr. MacColl is at least as amusing as he is persuasive. Without entering upon details, it is safe to say that Dr. MacColl has rendered it necessary for objectors to Catholic doctrine and practice within the Established Church to look elsewhere than to OPINIONS OF TEE PRESS legal interpretations of the Book of Common Prayer for relief. The ultra vagaries of extreme High Churchmen will perhaps be put down, but the system of which they are the excrescences will remain until Protestant English- men repudiate it as a national system by effecting Dis- establishment.' — Literary World. ' Protestants will find Canon MacColl's book of value because of the admissions he makes.' The Christian World. After some unfavourable criticism : — * At least two of the twelve chapters were well worth writing, and we can quite imagine that they produced an effect on the minds of impressionable Members of Parliament ; we mean those on *' Auricular Confession " and the " Ornaments Rubric." The latter is a well-sustained and fairly complete review of a subject upon which the last word has certainly not been said, and of which the more investigation the better. On the ci'iix of Confession the Canon's views are so far temperate that he seems to us to answer himself. All that loyal Churchmen are entitled to demand is that the regulations of the Prayer Book shall not be so abused as " to generate a morbid scrupulosity and blunt the sense of personal responsibility." ' — Times. ' The book is clever and interesting, but most unsatis- factory. . . . Canon MacColl gives himself away on almost every page. . . . But if Canon MacColl is occasionally egotistic, there is a tone of true religious earnestness in many parts of the volume, and his chapters on " The Propinquity of the Spiritual World " and on " The Inter- mediate State " are singularly suggestive, though their OPINIONS OF THE PBESS high religions tone seems somewhat out of harmony with the controversial purpose and the air of special pleading tliat pervades all the rest of the book.' — Daily News. ' Canon MacColl is an acute and distinguished combatant in many fields. He sustains his high reputation in the substantial volume which he has contributed to the for- midable mass of polemical literature which has grown out of the " Crisis in the Church." We desire to say at once and plainly the value we attach to this book. It is timely, learned, extremely interesting, and — consider- ing the circumstances of its composition— remarkably moderate. It has, we are informed, already exercised a salutary influence in political circles : we think it is competent to do much good, to clear away many delusions, and facihtate a juster and wiser discussion of Church questions. We state this at the outset in order to leave ourselves free, without risk of miscon- ception, to call attention to points in which we find ourselves compelled to join issue with the author. [The Eeviewer supports Professor Maitland's thesis as to the Canon Law, and " Canon MacColl' s lengthy discussion of the Ornaments Rubric does not altogether satisfy " him.] We have left ourselves no space to notice the vigorous and incisive letter with which the book is prefaced. Sir W. Harcourt will appreciate with amused surprise the tribute paid to his sincerity at the expense of his knowledge, Lis prudence, and his fair play. The concluding chapters on •* Anglican and Roman Orders," and " The Prisoner of the ^'atican : a Chapter of Secret History,' have but an indirect connection with the thesis of the book, but in themselves are both valuable and interesting. Canon OPINIONS OF THE PBESS MacColl does well to recall the character of the antagonism between the Churches of England and Rome ; for among the consequences of domestic controversy not the least probable or the least pernicious is the unreasoning disgust with their own communion which it breeds in the minds of devout Anglicans. Such disgust is the best condition in the world for the projects of the Romanisers.' Saturday Review. ' In this ably written volume we have a vindication of the position of the High Church party. ... In short, I>r. MacCoU's book, while no doubt controversial, is in effect a plea for toleration on broad grounds in the present so-called " Crisis in the Enghsh Church," especially, perhaps, in view of the claims of the Vatican ; and as such it deserves study by the leaders on both sides. The "Introductory Letter" to Sir William Harcourt is exceedingly interesting and able.' — Liverpool Mercury. * To us the most interesting portion of the work is that very large, and perhaps predominating element, which has little or nothing to do with the subject of his work, such as " The Propinquity of the Spiritual World." ' Weekly Register. ' Puts in a powerful plea for the grant of a Catholic University for Ireland.' — Tablet. * Weighty and learned.' —Scotsman. * It is not too much to say that the anti-ritual judg- ments of the Privy Council have never before been subjected to so damaging a piece of criticism.' Phcenix (by Professor Shuttleworth). THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Sixth Edition. Crown ^vo. 65. CHRISTIANITY IN EELATION TO SCIENCE AND MORALS. Second Edition. Rerispd. Croitn 8f£>. 7s. 6'i. LIFE HERE AND HEREAFTER ; Seru.ons preached in Puipon Cathedral and elsewhere. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. LONDON, NEW YoFlK. AND BOMBAY. THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT EXAMINED IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY :AInD ht^W WITH AX INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR WILLIAM VERNON HARCOURT, M.F BY THE EEV. MALCOLM MacCOLL, D.D. CANON KESIDENTIABY OF RIPON SIXTH IMPRESSION LONGMANS, G E E E N, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1899 All rights reserred »'t . € ' 331 >a. PBEFACE THE THIED EDITION I MAKE the following important quotation from the Guardian s report of the recent proceedings at Lambeth : — The Archbishop of Canterbury said he had been asked to put this to Mr. Lacey. In the Act of Elizabeth, in the proviso, section 13, the words used were : — ' And provided always and be it enacted that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use as was in the Church of England.' Hovv' did he explain the use of the word ' was ' in the singular ? Had he any account to give of it at all ? Mr. Lacey had no suggestion to make about that, but he referred to the gloss, which said, ' as were in use.' The Archbishop of Canterbury. — That is the rubric. Mr. Lacey said that was the gloss ; the rubric regarded as a gloss. The Archbishop of Canterbury. — But I mean that appeared in the Book of Common Prayer without authority, as you say. Mr. Ijacey.^ — Yes. The Archbishop's question goes to the root of the matter and, in my humble judgment, settles the controversy. The expression w^hich puzzled the iv THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Primate is not * ungrammatical,' as Mr. Lacey declared : it is only elliptical, and is explained by the contemporary Latin version of the Act of Uni- formity : — Provisum atque statutum sit, quod talia ecclesiastica ornamenta et ministrorum eiusdem conservabuntur, et Usui subservient, quemadmodum mos erat in hac ecclesia Anglicana ex authoritate Parliamenti in anno secundo Eegni Eegis Edwardi Sexti. This is plain beyond controversy. All ornaments were to be * retained and be in use as was the custom in this Church of England by Parliamentary authority in the second year of Edward VI.' That cannot refer to anything enjoined by Edward's First Prayer Book. Legislation fresh and warm from the Parliamentary anvil cannot be described as ' mos,' which necessaril}^ implies pre-existing usage. This reconciles the Act with Sandys' statement : — The Parliament draweth towards an end. The last book of service is gone through with a proviso to retain the ornaments which were used in the tirst and second year of King Edward, &c. Sandys was not likely to make so fundamental a mistake as to confuse, as Mr. Dibdin suggests, the first and second year of Edward with the second and third 3^ear. He was the leader and representative of the Puritans in the Commission appointed to revise the Hook of 155'2, and it was mainly througli his influence that the Eubric forbidding the Euchar- istic vestments was allowed to remain in the revised PREFACE TO THE THIKD EDITION v copy of the Book. But the Queen insisted on the cancelling of that Eubric and on the insertion of the present Ornaments lUibric as well as the Ornaments Section in the Act of Uniformity. Therefore Sandys, of all men, was not likely to make any mistake about the date. His words, moreover, are inconsistent with Mr. Dibdin's suggestion. For the ornaments which were specifically prescribed by the First Prayer Book could not have been legally used in the second year, even granting that the Prayer Book itself came into legal being that year. For it did not come into legal use till the following year. But why, in that case, asks Mr. Dibdin, did not Ehzabeth's Act refer to ' the end of the reign of Henry VIII.' instead of referring to the second year of Edward? The answer seems to me obvious. There was no regular Book of Common Prayer, with sacramental and other offices, at the end of Henry's reign ; and it is on record that the Queen strove hard to restore Edward's First Book. Evidently she did not acquiesce in her first failure. She restored some of the Fu'st Book in the Latin Prayer Book ; and she provided herself with legal power to make ' further ' additions, and did so, to the indignation of the Puritans, by the restoration of wafer bread. Under the circumstances, therefore, it was surely more natural that she should start from the beginning of Edward's reign than from the end of Henry's. She did not wish to exasperate the Puritans more than was absolutely necessary. But to pass over Edward VI. vi THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT and go back to Henry VIII. would have been wantonly to wave the red flag of Popery in the face of the Puritans. Elizabeth was far too astute for any folly of that sort. She wisely went back to the beginning of the reign of Edward — the idol of the Puritans, their 'pious Josiah.' My second point is the fact that in the various Forms for Consecrating Churches which were preva- lent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries censers are among the ornaments solemnly blessed and placed on the altar together with chalices and patens. But no ornaments were thus dedicated except such as were used for liturgical purposes. Th^ dedication of censers, therefore, proves that, however they might be used for fumigating purposes on occasion, their primary use w^as liturgical. And the costly material of which they were usually made confirms this view of the matter. Vessels which were intended to be used for menial purposes solely would neither have been solemnly dedicated, nor made of costly material and sometimes of beautiful and artistic workmanship. Nor can any inference against the use of incense be drawn from the wholesale destruction of censers, for they were destroyed among a number of other things of which the legality is undisputed — e.g. crosses, candlesticks, chalices, painted windows, surplices. And, moreover, the destruction of some of these things does not necessarily mean that they were regarded in the abstract as illegal even by PEEFACE TO THE THIED EDITION vii the Puritans. Every ornament, however legal in genere, was destroyed if it had ever been used in the service of the Latin Mass. Grindal, for example, ordered (1572), a universal destruction throughout the province of York of all church ornaments, including stoles, censers, chalices, chasubles, copes, candlesticks, crosses, crucifixes, * or any profane cup or glass heretofore used at Mass.' Also ' all altars in churches or chapels ' were * ordered to be taken down and clean removed, even to the founda- tion, and the place where they stood paved, and the wall whereunto they joined whited over.' But all this ruthless barbarism was utterly illegal. I respectfully submit, therefore, that the evi- dence is decidedly against the argument which Mr. Dibdin elaborated w^ith so much ingenuity and ability, and I trust that the Archbishops will see their way to affirm the legality of the liturgical use of incense. If they do this, I have no doubt that, once the principle is admitted, there will be a uni- versal obedience to any orders which their Graces may issue for the control and direction of this, as of other usages. To condemn the religious use of incense would be the first departure since the Kefor- mation from the rule laid down by the Church of England herself : namely, that she desired to depart from the doctrines and usages of Christendom in nothing which was sanctioned by the Church of the Qj^cumenical Councils. Incense certainly comes under that rule. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introductory Letter ix I. The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist II. The Eucharistic Sacrifice .... III. The Reformation : its Causes and Results IV. The Testimony of Anglican Divines y. Propinquity of the Spiritual World YI. Sacerdotalism VII. Auricular Confession VIII. The Reformation and Confession . IX. The Intermediate State .... X. Ecclesiastical Courts and the Ornaments Rubric XL Anglican and Roman Orders Xll. The Prisoner of the Vatican : a Chapter of Secret History .'320 Index 5;j;3 1 89 80 114 177 19;) 217 260 29t) :]81 460 INTEODUCTOEY LETTEB Dear Sir William Harcourt, My recent correspondence with yourself and others in the ' Times ' has brought upon me such a mass of private letters from friends and strangers, that I shall find it easier to address to the public what I have to say than to reply to my numerous correspondents individually. And I venture to introduce myself to the public under the shadow of your name, both because you are Kar s^oxh^ the protagonist of those whose opinions and policy I am about to examine in the following pages, and also, I frankly own, because the association of your name with my opusculwm is likely to secure for it a degree of attention which its intrinsic merits would hardly attract. In an interesting private letter which you were so good as to write to me last August, you said : * As you know, my convictions on this subject are not of yesterday.' Yes, I know it. You have given abundant proof of your sincerity — first, when in union with Mr. Disraeli you strenuously supported the Public Worship Eegulation Bill twenty-four X THE EEFOEMATIOX SETTLEMENT j-ears ago in opposition to a political chief whom you greatly admired ; and now, when a statesman of your ability, knowledge, and experience must have foreseen the probable risks to your own pohtical interests which you are running in this crusade. That you have looked these risks in the face and deliberately discounted them in obedience to your sense of duty is, in my humble opinion, much to your credit. Nor do I believe that you would alter your course if I were able to persuade you that the risks which you are running are even greater than you realise. A large portion of the public is always prone to look with some degree of suspicion on the dis- interestedness of political leaders in a minority who start a new cry, and their suspicion is increased if the cry be of a religious character. In this contro- versy, however, your loss seems to me so much more probable than your gain, that I cannot understand how any one who considers the matter seriously can doubt your conscientiousness. But a heated con- troversy is not favourable to reflection, and I will therefore give some reasons which must, I think, convince the inost sceptical that you can have no interested motives in the course on which you have entered with so much zeal and ardour. I gather from your letter in the ' Times ' of December 5 that what you contemplate eventually is some summary process for depriving of their benefices all clergy who shall be proved guilty of persisting in disobeying rubrics. On the probable INTRODUCTORY LETTER xi consequences of such legislation I may offer some remarks later. Meanwhile, I will observe that the omens do not seem propitious for a policy of Parlia- mentary repression in the domain of religion. It has been attempted on three conspicuous occasions within the last half-century, and the result in each case has been failure of the purpose aimed at, damage to the authority of Parliament, and disaster to the party which has appealed to the country for a mandate to retrench the bounds of reasonable toleration. Encouraged by the unpopularity of the very mild Pvitualism of that day, and by the explosion which shook the nation on the establish- ment of the Eoman CathoHc hierarchy in England, Lord John Kussell wrote his famous Durham Letter denouncing Puseyism and Eomanism, and followed it up with his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which he carried rapidly through Parliament by overwhelming majorities. He was opposed in the House of Commons by a small band of Peelites and Kadicals led by Mr. Gladstone, and including such names as Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. John Bright. But Lord John Kussell and Mr. Disraeli united their forces, and the second reading was carried by 438 against 95. 'We are a minority,' said Mr. Gladstone in his splendid peroration, ' in- significant in numbers. We are more insignificant because w^e have no ordinary bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you but the conviction that we have on our side the principle of justice, and the conviction that we shall soon have xii THE KEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT uu our side the course of public opinion ? ' Mr. G-ladstone's foresight was speedily verified. Lord John Russell's Government was soon driven from office, and it fell to Mr. Gladstone's own lot twenty years later to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill without a dissentient voice. It is a curious fact that, with all his genius and Parliamentary skill, Lord Beaconsfield was seldom able to feel the pulse of the nation. He understood the House of Commons, and could sometimes out- manoeuvre his great rival. But he never was fairly in touch with the country. The only election in which he expected a serious disaster, that of 1874, was the only election which he won. He expected good majorities in 1868 and in 1880, and he met on both occasions the greatest Parliamentary disasters of his life. He was always mistaking the opinion of London society and Parliamentary lobbies for the opinion of the country. I once heard Mr. Glad- stone say, after hstening to great praise of Mr. Disraeli's tact during the debates on the Eeform Bill of 1867, ' My opinion is that he has no tact. AMiat he has in a rare degree is extremely acute observation.' It is a true distinction, and in virtue of his keen observation Mr. Disraeli could sometimes give points to Mr. Gladstone in the House of Com- mons. But tact implies touch, and especially the faculty of placing oneself in moral sympathy with human beings in the mass in matters which appeal to instincts common to the race. That gift Lord Beaconsfield lacked, and ^Ir. Gladstone possessed in INTRODUCTORY LETTER xiii a high degree. None but he could have turned the apparently irreparable disaster of 1886 into the victory of 189'2. x\nd he did it by his constant appeals to what is best in human nature : its pity, its sense of justice, its generosity, its love of freedom, its hatred of oppression. I am not discussing here whether Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy satisfied those aboriginal instincts of humanity. I am merely pointing out that it was his fellow-feeling with these instincts that gave him his marvellous power over men in the aggregate. It was, on the other hand, Lord Beaconsfield's lack of this gift that made the consummate tactician of the House of Commons fail so often to feel the pulse of the nation. One appealed to the nation's fears and prejudices ; the other to its passiori for justice and generous impulses ; and when the two are pitted against each other in this country the latter will always win. It was because Lord Beaconsfield did not understand this that he was so slow to learn from experience. Unprejudiced himself, he believed, even after repeated failure, that the Protestant cry was still a potent factor in a general election. And so it happened that he neglected the lesson which he ought to have learnt from the ignominious fiasco that followed the fleeting triumph of the Eccle- siastical Titles Bill. Hence his futile attempt to defeat Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy in 1867-8 by waving the Protestant flag. He accused Mr. Glad- stone in the House of Commons of being at the head of ' a band of Bomanists and Eitualists ' who were xiv THE KEFOBMATION SETTLEMENT plotting against the Church of England, and had nefarious designs even on the throne. And he issued a manifesto on the eve of the General Election in which he declared that the triumph of Mr. Glad- stone at the polls would mean the ruin of Pro- testantism, and would be, in fact, a calamity ' more disastrous than pestilence and famine.' Mr. Glad- stone, on the other hand, made his appeal to the Briton's love of justice, and returned to Parliament with a majority of 118. Yet, undeterred by this sharp lesson, Mr. Dis- raeli repeated his blunder in 1874. He denounced * the Mass in masquerade,' and announced his intention to 'put down Eitualism.' And in his Mansion House speech at the end of the Session he put the Public Worship Kegulation Act in the very front of his legislative achievements. So secure in- deed did he feel in the success of his poHtical strategy that he thought he could afford to affront the ablest of his colleagues who had opposed him on this question ; and he declared that he ' had Mr. Gladstone under his feet for the rest of his life.' But it was all in vain. Again Mr. Gladstone returned from the constituencies with a majority of over a hundred. The fact is, the No-Popery cry has ceased to be a calculable force in a general election. It is quite as likely to damage as to serve the man or party which adopts it. The middle classes, where its chief strength lay, are not the least afraid of falling under the dominion of Popery in any of its phases ; and the working classes do not trouble their heads INTEODUCTORY LETTER xv about it. When the day of reckoning comes the vast majority of voters will be thinking of other things than Transubstantiation and kindred logo- machies. They will demand the opinions and inten- tions of candidates on subjects which touch their hearts and hearths ; as, indeed, you once recognised yourself when you said : ' We are all Socialists now.' The man who satisfies them on questions which are related to their daily lives and political aspirations may, for all they care, worship his Maker how he pleases ; nor, on the other hand, will Protestantism of the purest water make up, in their estimation, for a candidate's ignorance or languid appreciation of their hopes and ideals. Two months after these words were WTitten a remarkable confirmation of them appeared in the * Sunday Chronicle' (February 19). This new^spaper is published in Manchester, and is regarded in the North, I understand, as representing the views of the great majority of the working classes. It is there- fore interesting to know what this influential organ thinks of our ecclesiastical ' crisis.' A few extracts will show : — The anti-Ritualist agitation of the passing moment is an excellent instance of that lack of sense of proportion which is the bane of newspaper editors and the plague of politicians. To judge by external signs alone, a foreigner visiting England just now might well be led to believe that our country was being shaken by the premonitory spasm of a volcanic religious upheaval; that we were on the eve of a new Reformation. Every daily paper, every weekly journal and monthly review, is devoting a a xvi THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT goodly portion of its space to ' the crisis,' and scarcely any member of Parliament ventures to address his con- stituents without delivering his opinion on the ' Eoman- ising tendencies ' in the National Church. And, however widely the writers in the press and the speakers on the platform may differ in their theological views, they all agree as to the ' seriousness ' of the situation. The House of Commons has been sitting only a few days, but it has given up one of those sittings to a discussion (a futile discussion, of course) of the enthralling question. But brawlers of the Kensit calibre are scarce adequate to the making of even such a stir as this, and it is pro- bable that the whole thing would have fizzled out in a fort- night had Sir William Harcourt been on speaking terms with Lord Rosebery. Then follows some disparaging criticism on your- self, which I will not quote, because I do not agree with it. But here is the writer's opinion of the agitation : — The whole thing is as hollow as a company promoted by Mr. Hooley and directed by the noble lords who accepted his ' presents.' The only curious or interesting feature of it is that it should have succeeded in persuad- ing editors and politicians that it has something in it. We wish to cast reflections upon no man's honesty. We would always much liefer think a fellow-creature to be a fool than a rogue. But it does strike us as being a little suspicious, to say no more, that while agitations that have been supported by hundreds of thousands of working people throughout the United Kingdom have been dis- posed of by editors in a paragraph, and by politicians in a sentence, this hubble-bubble, got up by a . . . statesman out of a job, and backed by a handful of shop- keepers half a dozen retired colonels and an inappre- INTRODUCTORY LETTER xvil ciable number of paid lecturers, should have been raised to the dignity of a National movement. Against Ritualism in the Anglican Church ten thousand people can be got into the Albert Hall. Let us admit it ; but what then ? Again and again, to demonstrate in favour of an eight hours' working day a hundred thousand London workmen and their friends have assembled in Hyde Park. And yet the eight hours' movement is thought unworthy of a quarter column in a newspaper, or a division in the House of Commons ! Such is the sense of proportion of our men of light and leading. The ' Sunday Chronicle ' stands aloof from all rehgions denominations, and therefore the following passage is interesting : — The High Church party in the Anglican Church is at present stronger in numbers, more vigorous and vital, fuller of enthusiasm, more united in sympathy, than it has been at any time since the days of Laud. We do not say that the majority of Church-goers are extreme Ritualists. The majority of Church-goers never are extreme anything. But that majority is beyond all question favourable to beautiful music and decorative and more or less ornate ceremonial. As to the mystic signi- ficance of that ceremonial, it knows very little and cares less. The ordinary Church-goer likes what he calls * a good service,' and he sees that he gets it. If you are dubious on that point spend the next few Sundays in looking in at the various churches within easy reach of your home, and you will find in the ' Low ' churches empty pews, and in the ' High ' crowded aisles. The Ritualist movement is not a thing of yesterday ; it has been growing and gathering strength quietly and surely for the last quarter of a century and more. Nor is it entirely a religious, a theological movement. It is a part a 2 xviii THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT of that general raising of the level of taste, of that stirring of the aesthetic sense, of that awakening of the love of beauty, which, most happily, is characteristic of our time. The writer asks whether the result of the agita- tion is going to be Disestablishment and Disendow- ment, and here is the answer : — In point of fact, of course, we are not going to do anything of the sort. In this matter of ' The Crisis in the Church ' we are going to do just nothing at all but gabble, and write silly letters to the new^spapers. The Ritualist movement will continue, and wall flourish ; first, because it is the outward expression of a real living tendency in modern religious and social thought ; and second, because its clerical adherents are the most active, able, and devoted spirits in the Anglican body. Mistaken they may be ; that is neither here nor there ; but they are strenuous and determined, and they swim wnth the flowing tide. Against the flowing tide of thought Acts of Parliament and letters to the * Times ' are as impotent as children's sand castles against the oceanic rush of the Atlantic waves. But we shall not have any Acts of Parliament. Nor shall we disestablish or disendow just yet ; for our time is valuable, and we have much more important things to do. Political candidates and wire-pullers are under a serious misapprehension if they imagine that the ' Church Crisis ' moves the great mass of the working classes to any other feeling than that of indifference tempered with contempt. That able and well-known publicist, Mr. "W. E. Greg, said, more than twenty years ago, that the High Church and Eitualist INTEODUCTORY LETTER xix clergy were the clergy who had most influence with our w^orking classes in towns. That is much more the case now. To say all this to you is like carrying owls to Athens. But it is not for your benefit that I say it, but for the purpose of proving even to those who differ from you most in this controversy that they have to reckon with a man who is not likely to be turned from his purpose by motives of political expediency. And if any should still question the disinterestedness of your zeal, there is one argument which proves it to demonstration. The Liberal party must face the question of Home Kule for Ire- land. There seem to be two main currents of opinion in the party on that question, one of which would keep Home Kule in the front of the Liberal programme, w^hile the other would keep it on the programme, but would postpone any attempt to legislate on it till the Local Government Act has had a fair trial. A third and smaller section would rele- gate Home Kule to the Greek Kalends. The second section I take to be the most numerous ; but all seem to agree as to the prudence in any case of post- poning the Parliamentary revival of Home Kule till some other Liberal measures have been passed into law. This policy will be extremely distasteful to the Irish party, and therefore nothing short of an irre- sistible sense of duty could at this moment induce a Liberal leader to head a religious agitation which must of necessity wound deeply some of the most XX THE REFOKMATION SETTLEMENT cherished convictions of the Koman CathoHc voters. It is impossible to conduct an agitation against Transubstantiation, Auricular Confession, and Sacer- dotalism without distressing the Koman Catholic body. I do not forget your conciliatory answer to Mr. Eedmond's indignant protest in the House of Commons. But, while entirely accepting the good faith of your answ^er, I believe you will find it quite impossible so to direct your artillery as to hit the liitualists without wounding your Eoman Catholic allies. Why do you denounce the Eitualists ? Not merely because the doctrines and practices which you condemn are in your opinion illegal in the Church of England, but because you think them irrational and demoralising in addition. You have yourself pointed to Italy, and Spain, and France as warning examples of this demoralising influence. Now, if even you, with all your dialectical skill and all your anxiety to spare the feelings of Eoman Catholics, have found it impossible to maintain in practice the distinction which you have drawn in theory between the mischief or innocence of certain doctrines and practices according as they exist in the Anglican or Eoman Catholic Church, much less can the mass of those who agree with you succeed where you have failed. The multitude are not skilled in the subtle- ties of political casuistry ; and in the turmoil of a general election, if the issue is to be a religious one, Popery will be denounced as Popery, and not merely because it is alleged to lurk among a small section of the Anglican clergy. You have doubtless observed INTRODUCTORY LETTER xxi already that Roman Catholics have been prominent among the disturbers of Mr. Kensit's meetings. Nor is this the only risk which you deliberately face. You are a convinced Home Euler, and do not, I am sure, intend to haul down that flag, whatever tactics you may consider best for the purpose of winning the goal. But a flag with ' Home Kule ' on one side and ' No Sacerdotalism ' on the other would indeed be ' a banner with a strange device ; ' and certainly a good deal more likely to bring down ' the awful avalanche ' than to earn for its bearer the right to cry ' Excelsior ! ' Your Protestant followers and political opponents will ask you in imperative tones whether you mean to hand Ireland over to a priesthood that, on your own admission in the House of Commons, has an unhampered right to preach and practise all that you consider so ruinous to the morals and well-being of a nation. If what you are so anxious to banish from the Church of England is so pernicious when patronised by a comparatively small number of clergy in positions of little influence, it must be much more pernicious when flourishing under the sanction and patronage of a powerful and zealous ecclesiastical hierarchy. Now if I, who am no politician, can see these things so plainly, much more must j-ou, with j'our wider experience and better means of information. And, indeed, an important and influential portion of your political supporters among the Nonconform- ists have openly given you warning that your xxii THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT crusade against Eitualism, though gratifying to their rehgious feeHngs, disquaHfies you, in their opinion, for the leadership of the Liberal party. The recognised official organ of the Congregational- ists is the ' Independent and Nonconformist,' and in its issue of November 10 its editor, Dr. Guinness Kogers, wrote as follows in his editorial capacity : — I fully appreciate the service which Sir William Harcourt has done by his most valuable contributions to the present Eitualist controversy, nor can I believe that his action has been due to political ambition. For, in the first place, it is in perfect consistency with his previous action. In 1874 he risked his position in the Liberal party by taking similar ground in opposition to Mr. Gladstone, and defending it with a vehemence which many of the great statesman's admirers have never for- gotten. He is an Erastian, and speaks as such. But Erastianism will not make him popular as a Liberal leader,^ and there could be no worse policy than any attempt to commit the party to an Erastian measure, even though conceived in the interests of Protestantism. On every ground the intrusion of these religious questions into the political arena is greatly to be deprecated. Of course, its first effect would be to make an entirely new hue of party demarcation. Then it would certainly take sacred things and cast them to the dogs, and, whatever the result, would be even more objection- able on rehgious than on political grounds. We, as Non- conformists, would assuredly be false to all our principles were we to lend ourselves to any endeavour to strengthen ' In the Contemporary Review of March, 18<)0, Dr. Guinness Ro^'ers says : ' Wherever Erastianism is, it is a blight upon all spiritual life, which sooner or later must rob the Church of all vitality and power.' INTRODUCTORY LETTER xxiii a creed — even though it were one with which we are in hearty accord — by Act of Parhament. We shall resist all attempts to Romanise the Establishment — that is, we shall do our utmost to prevent the present compromise from being altered in a sacerdotal direction. But that can never be the permanent foundation for a political party. I do not approve of your policy in this matter, for reasons which will appear as I proceed ; but that you should persist in that policy with such manifest risk to your political interests deserves the unstinted recognition of all who value sincerity m our pubhc men. Yet, while freely offering you this tribute of respect, there is a reason in no way connected with the Church of England which makes me deplore that you should at this particular time do so much to fan the flames of religious bigotry. I hasten to acquit you of any such intention. But men are seldom masters of the consequences of their actions, nor can they control at their discretion the tempest which they have raised. Home Eule being for the present in abeyance, there is all the more reason why the Imperial Parliament should prove to Ireland that it is not only willing but zealous to give Ireland equal justice. Has Ireland equal justice in the matter of higher education ? I answer emphatically ' No ; ' and I repudiate the shallow sophistry which would persuade us that the Eoman Catholics of Ireland have equal justice because they can avail themselves of the education offered them in colleges not belonging to their own communion. xxiv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Would Protestants who urge that argument agree to have their children educated in Koman Catholic colleges even in secular subjects '? Would they not object that in history, philosophy, logic, ethics, physical science, anthropology, a Roman Catholic lecturer or professor could hardly avoid sometimes giving a theological bias to his instruction ? And is it justice to be scrupulously tender tov^ards the Protestant conscience and brutally indifferent towards the scruples of the Roman Catholic con- science ? How hard it is to do unto others as we would have them do to us ! In truth, the Protestant conscience, as represented by the Orange faction, the * Junto,' as Burke with scornful indignation called it, has been the curse of Ireland. x\ll the evils of Ireland originated within itself. . . . English Goverument has farmed out Ireland, without the reservation of a peppercorn rent in power or influence, public or individual, to the little narrow faction that domineers there. Through that alone they see, feel, hear^ or understand everything relative to that kingdom. Nor do they any way interfere, that I know of, except in giving their countenance and the sanction of their name to whatever is done by that Junto. • It was with sincere regret that I read the other day an address, supporting this Protestant bigotry, by a man whose ability I admire, whose honesty I respect, and to whom I feel grateful for his zealous advocacy of justice to the Christians of Turkey : I ' See Burke on Irish Affairs, edited by Mr. Matthew Arnold, pp. 37G-42:^. INTKODUCTORY LETTER xxv mean Mr. Hugh Price Hughes. Is justice a geo- graphical expression ? I have alwaj'S thought it my duty to apply my doctrine of justice all round : to the Christians of Turkey certainly, but not less certainly to unjust wars against Zulus or Afghans, or the denial of just rights to Indian Musulmans. And am I to draw the line at the Irish Channel, and deny to the Eoman Catholics of Ireland what I would concede to the natives of India '? We do not think that our Christianity is at stake because we respect the revenues of Buddhist and Mohammedan institutions in India and Ceylon ; yet the cry of * Protestantism in danger ' has been raised wdienever it has been proposed to sanction — yes, even without a farthing of Imperial taxes — a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. Lord Palmerston made an attempt to grant a bare charter to a Roman Catholic University in Dublin, and even that slight boon was defeated by the purblind Protestantism of Great Britain and Ulster. But, like the Sibyl's books, the demands of Ireland have always risen with each foolish repulse ; and now^ Ireland demands not only a charter for a Roman Catholic University, but some provision for the maintenance of its staff. A just demand, as it seems to me. But leading Nonconformists denounce the proposal, and blandly tell the Roman Catholics of Ireland that they are w^elcome to their University, but they must pay for it out of their own pockets, and not expect the British taxpayer to contribute a farthing towards it. Yet I do not find that these xxvi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Protestant zecalots object to the imposition of taxes, for the maintenance of School Boards, on the Koman CathoHcs of the United Kingdom. But there is another answer, and to my mind a more potent one. This is not a question of justice, but of reparation to Ireland. It is to English tyranny and bigotry that Ireland owes her financial ruin and educational poverty. Let me recall the means by which the economic ruin of Ireland was brought about, in the language of two men of great eminence — one of them a Protestant Irishman of distinguished public service ; the other an Enghshman who has certainly given the Irish Koman Catholics no cause to love him. In a pamphlet pubhshed in 1867 Lord Dufferin writes as follows : — From Queen Elizabeth's reiga until the Union the various commercial confraternities of Great Britain never for a moment relaxed their relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one each of our nascent industries was either strangled in its birth or handed over, gagged and bound, to the jealous custody of the rival interest in England, until at last every fountain of wealth was her- metically sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have perished through desuetude. The owners of England's pastures had the honour of opening the campaign. As early as the commencement of the sixteenth century the beeves of Roscommon, Tipperary, and Queen's County undersold the produce of the English grass counties in their own market. By an Act of the 20th Elizabeth, Irish cattle were declared ' a nuisance,' and their importation prohibited. Forbidden to send our beasts alive across the Channel, we killed them at home, and began to supply the sister country INTEODUCTORY LETTER XXvii with cured provisions. A second Act of Parliament imposed prohibitory duties on salted meat. The hides of the animals still remained ; but the same influence put a stop to the importation of leather. Our cattle trade abolished, we tried sheep-farming. The sheep-breeders of England immediately took alarm, and Irish wool was declared contraband by Charles II. Headed in this direction, w^e tried to work up the raw material at home ; but this created the greatest outcry of all. Every maker of fustian, flannel, and broadcloth in the country rose up in arms, and by an Act of William III. the woollen in- dustry of Ireland was extinguished, and 20,000 manu- facturers left the island. The easiness of the Irish labour market and the cheapness of provisions still giving us an advantage, even though w^e had to import our materials, w^e next made a dash at the silk business ; but the silk manufacturer, the sugar refiner, the soap and candle maker (who especially dreaded the abundance of our kelp), and every other trade or interest that thought it worth its while to petition, was received by Parliament with the same partial cordiality, until the most searching scrutiny failed to detect a single vent through which it was possible for the hated industry of Ireland to respire. But, although excluded from the markets of Great Britain, a hundred harbours gave her access to the universal sea. Alas ! a rival commerce on her own element was still less welcome to England, and as early as the reign of Charles II. the Levant, the ports of Europe, and the oceans beyond the Cape of Good Hope were forbidden to the flag of Ireland. The Colonial trade alone was in any manner open, if that can can be called an open trade, which for a long time precluded all exports whatever, and excluded from direct importation to Ireland such im- portant articles as sugar, cotton, and tobacco. What has been the consequence of such a system, pursued xxviii THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT with relentless pertinacity for 250 years? This — that, debarred from every other trade and industry, the entire nation flung itself back upon the land with as fatal an impulse as when a river whose current is suddenly im- peded rolls back and drowns the valley it once fertilised. Mr. Fronde shall continue the tragic tale : — With their shipping destroyed by the Navigation Act, their woollen manufactures taken from them, their trade in all its branches crippled and confined, the single resource left to those of the Irish who still nourished dreams of improving their unfortunate country was agriculture. The soil was at least their own, which needed only to be drained, cleared of weeds, and manured, to produce grass crops and corn crops as rich as the best in England.^ Here was employment for a population three times more numerous than as yet existed. Here was a prospect, if not of commercial wealth, yet of substantial comfort and material abundance. But, alas ! the English garrison in Ireland, with a blind infatuation, completed the industrial ruin which the English Parliament began. Mr. Froude proceeds : — The tenants were forbidden in their leases to break or plough the soil. The people, no longer employed, were driven into holes and corners, and eked out a wretched existence by potato gardens, or by keeping starving cattle of their own on the neglected bogs.^ Nor did the ingenuity of English misrule, in- spired and fostered by the Ulster Junto, end there. > ' As far as I can form an idea of the soil of the two kingdoms, Ireland has much the advantage.' — Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland ii. 12. - The English in Ireland, i. 430. INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE xxix It had in its armoury a subtler engine still for com- passing the ruin of Ireland. It was not enougli to starve the body : the mind, too, must be starved, lest it should dream of freedom and hope for better things. Let me give one illustration, again in the language of Burke's terrible indictment. After touching on the importance of education as an instrument of civil government, and dwelling on the exclusion of the Roman Catholics of Ireland from all the avenues of public instruction, Burke proceeds : — Lest they should be enabled to supply this defect by private academies and schools of their own, the law has armed itself with all its terrors against such a practice. Popish schoolmasters of every species are proscribed by those Acts, and it is made felony to teach even in a private family ; so that Papists are entirely excluded from all education in any of our authorised establishments for learning at home. In order to shut up every avenue to instruction, the Act of King William in Ireland has added to this restraint by precluding them from all foreign education. This Act is worthy of attention, on account of the singularity of its provisions. Being sent for education to any public school or college abroad, upon conviction, incurs (if the party sent has any estate of inheritance) a kind of unalterable and perpetual outlawry. The tender and incapable age of such a person, his natural subjection to the will of others, his necessary, unavoidable ignorance of the laws, stands for nothing in his favour. He is disabled to sue in law and equity ; to be guardian, executor, or administrator ; he is rendered incapable of any legacy or deed of gift ; he forfeits all his goods and chattels for ever, and he forfeits for his life all his lands, hereditaments, offices, and estates of freehold, and all trusts, powers, or interests therein. All persons XXX THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT concerned in sending them or maintaining them abroad, by the least assistance of money or otherwise, are involved in the same disabilities, and subjected to the same penalties. Ally one unversed in the history of Ireland might naturally suppose that this v^ould have sufficed to reduce the Eoman Catholics of Ireland to a state of barbarous servitude. But the resources of tyranny are not so easily exhausted. There was one more instrument of torture in the arsenal of the Junto to break the heart of the Irish people. Laws were made for the very purpose of dividing Koman Catholic households into dens of intestine hatred and strife ; children were set against their parents, wives against their husbands. ' The dominion of children over their parents,' says Burke, ' was extended universally throughout the whole Popish part of Ireland.' A child, even a minor, on informing against his father as a Papist, and proclaiming him- self a Protestant, could dispossess his father and enter on his inheritance. And this could be repeated ad libitum in the event of the father inheriting or acquiring fresh property. So that, as Burke observes : — This Act expressly provides that he shall have no respite from the persecution of his children but by totally abandoning all thoughts of improvement and acquisition. This is going a great way surely, but the laws in question have gone much farther. Not satisfied with calling upon children to revolt against their parents, and to possess themselves of their substance, there are cases where the withdrawing of the child from his father's obedience is INTRODUCTORY LETTER xxxi not left to the option of the chihl himself ; for if the wife of a Roman Catholic should choose to change her religion, from that moment she deprives her husband of all man- agement and direction of his children, and even all the tender satisfaction which a parent can feel in their society, and which is the only indemnification he can have for all his cares and sorrows ; and they are to be torn for ever at the earliest age from his house and family ; for the Lord Chancellor is not only authorised, but he is strongly required, to take away all his children from such Popish parent, to appoint where, in what manner, and by whom they are to be educated ; and the father is compelled to pay, not for the ransom, but for the deprivation of his childi'en, and to furnish such a sum as the Chancellor thinks proper to appoint for their education to the age of eighteen years. The case is the same should the husband be the Conformist.^ Well may Mr. Matthew Arnold speak of ' that penal code, of which the monstrosity is not half known to Englishmen, and may be studied by them with profit.' Could the ingenuity of man have in- vented a system better calculated to confuse the colours of good and evil, to undermine the founda- tions of morality, to make the sacred name of religion a weapon for destroying family life and polluting the sanctities of home, to dissolve the bonds of civil society, to render the very name of English law hateful in Ireland, and to turn the gentry of Ireland into improvident spendthrifts? And this awful persecution, on which the Spanish Inquisition would find it hard to improve, existed when a few^ ' Mr. Avnokl's edition of Edmund Burke on Irish Affairs, ch. i. b xxxii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT persons still livin<^ were born. Yet men who con- sider themselves hmnane and enlightened Protestants imagine that they are acting generously and mag- nanimously when they say that if the Irish Eoman Catholics want a University they are welcome to it — it is not long since even that boon was denied them — but they must pay for it out of their own pockets — out of the material and intellectual penury, that is, which Anglo-Ulster Protestantism inflicted upon them ! Can it be that those who reason thus have indeed read the history of Ireland ? Can it be that they are really opposed to Home Eule if they have ? Por of all the arguments for Home Kule none surely can be more effective than an argument founded on our refusal, after all that has passed, to offer a helping hand to the Eoman Catholics of Ireland in building up the educational system of which we, with more than Machiavellian craft, deprived them. But bigotry is always stupid, and its stupidity takes many forms. Not only do the opponents of Home Eule undermine their case in resisting all offers of State aid to the establishment of a University for Irish Eoman Catholics, but they are thereby doing their best to cherish and perpetuate the very characteristics which they allege as the justification of their alarm against the grant of increased power to the Irish priesthood. A University education would tend inevitably to diminish, instead of in- creasing, the power of the priesthood, in the sense in which it is objectionable. The seminarist must of INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE xxxiii necessity be more narrow-minded and less liberal than the man of University education. If you want to open out a man's mind, to smooth down sharp angles, to lift him out of narrow grooves, to pare away the feeling of professional caste, send him to a University, where he will be obliged to rub against all sorts and conditions of men and will be forced to find his level. Why have the Eoman Catholic clergy of Germany and Austria-Hungary held their own with so much credit and distinction among the laity but because they have frequented the same seats of learning as the laity ? The Irish bishops, I understand, are ready to make the most liberal con- cessions to English prepossessions, and even to Enghsh prejudices. They are willing, among other things, that the professional staff of their University shall consist predominantly, if not exclusively, of laymen. It is hardly credible that a proposal which is commended by the most elementary conceptions of justice and of reason can be defeated by a recru- descence of obsolete bigotry.^ But why, my dear Sir William Harcourt, do I address these observations to you who, I am sure, are in full agreement and sympathy with me on this subject ? It is because I fear that if you succeed in rousing the ' sleeping dogs ' of Protestantism against the Eitualists they will play the part of Actaeon's hounds and turn to rend yourself, when you advocate ' All this was written six weeks before the publication of Mr. Balfour's masterly letter on the subject of a University for the Koman Catholics of Ireland. b 2 xxxiv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT justice to Ireland in the matter of Irish education or any other question that is hkely to disturb their skmibers. For myself, indeed, I do not believe that the power of Protestant bigotry in this matter is at all commensurate with the noise w^iich it makes, and I have no doubt that a courageous pohcy on the part of the Government will prove in the end the best policy. The great bulk of the Liberals are bound in honour to support it, and when the battle is over even Ulster will think twice before it jumps from the frying-pan into the fire to vex the Govern- ment. * Because barely a dozen grasshoppers under a fern,' says Burke, ' make the field ring with their im- portunate chink, whilst thousands of cattle, reposing beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those w^ho make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field ; that of course they are many in number ; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.' ^ How slow mankind is to learn from experience ! And Ireland is the paramount example of it in the history of the British Empire. Elsewhere we are great in the art of government ; not greatly loved perhaps, but admired, respected, appreciated as loving justice and hating oppression and wrong. What malign influence is it that has made our Governments for centuries such failures in Ireland ? Spenser long ago asked that question, and wondered ' Burke's Woi-ks, iy. 220. INTRODUCTORY LETTER xxxv whether this evil destiny came 'from the stars.' We have fits of periodical remorse for the sins of our fathers, and then go and repeat them in another form. We 'garnish the sepulchres' of the past victims of British rule, and straightway make more victims of our own ; neither governing Ireland equitably ourselves, nor letting the Irish try their hands when we have failed. 'We are very un- corrupt and tolerably enlightened judges,' says Burke, ' of the transactions of past ages ; when no passion deceives, and when the whole train of cir- cumstances, from the trifling causes to the tragical event, is set in an orderly series before us. Few are the patrons of past tyranny ; and this retrospective wisdom and historical patriotism are things of wonderful convenience, and serve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between speculation and practice.' ^ Before I end this letter it may be well to make my own position in this controversy clear. And I begin by admitting at once that, in my humble opinion, you have not been without provocation in the course which you have adopted. I know, indeed, that much of the evidence on which you naturally reHed in the early stages of this contro- versy is entirely untrustworthy. That observation applies in particular to that adroit compilation called ' The Secret History of the Oxford Move- ment.' I have examined it in the light of the author's evidence, and, while giving him credit for I Works, iii. 201. xxxvi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT good faith, I say without hesitation that his evidence in tlie bulk crumbles to pieces under cross-examina- tion. He deals, for instance, at great length and with portentous solemnity with the ' Order of Corporate Keunion ' — a society which has been ah initio insignificant alike in numbers and importance, having never, I believe, emerged numerically out of its teens~at least as regards its clerical members ; denounced by Eome, and treated by AngHcans as a harmless plaything. Yet this society has been treated as a formidable conspiracy in secret league with Eome for the overthrow of the Eeformation ! More absurd still is another of Mr. Walsh's mare's nests, ' The Order of the Eedeemer.' I never heard of it till I found it in his pages, and I find on inquiry that it is so shadowy a thing as almost to suggest a hoax to test the gullibility of some Protestant gohe- moiiclies. ' Brother Andrew ' or ' Brother Eichard ' writes a silly letter in some suburban print, and this is gravely quoted as damning evidence against the whole High Church party ; not against a few extreme men, but against the men represented by the Oxford Movement — Newman, Pusey, Keble, Church, Palmer, Hugh James Eose, and, of a later generation, Liddon and the like. Garbled quotations, pure fiction, silly utterances by irresponsible persons, and a ridiculous travesty of real facts : this makes up for the most part the contents of ' The Secret History of the Oxford Movement.' Let me give an illustration of what I mean by ' a ridiculous travesty of real facts.' I have got a sight of the rules of one INTRODUCTOEY LETTER xxxvii of Mr. Walsh's terrible secret societies. Neither are the rules publicly advertised, nor is the list of members. Why ? Because there are, among others, rules for rising at a certain hour in the morning, for intercessory prayer, for fasting, and so forth. It may surprise Mr. Walsh, but there really are people who, without being conspirators, don't care to parade their rules of private devotions before the pubhc. I remember Dr. Moriarty, Eoman Catholic Bishop of Kerry, a most agreeable and cultivated man, telling Dr. Liddon and myself the following story at his hospitable table at Killarney. Father Burke, the eloquent Dominican preacher — as famous for his humour as for his oratory — began saying his * Office ' one day as he sat on the roof of a London omnibus. Presently an indignant Protes- tant sitting by his side began to think aloud. ' I can't abide these Papists,' said he. ' They are just like the Pharisees of old, saying their prayers in the streets to be seen of men. I obey my master, and shut my door, and say my prayers at home, knowing that my Father which seeth in secret will reward me openly.' 'Yes,' said Burke quietly, 'and then you go on the top of an omnibus and proclaim it to the world ! ' Mr. Walsh's method of proving the existence of secret societies in the English Church reminds me of an incident which happened in Constantinople when I was there five years ago on board a la- mented friend's yacht. Perhaps Mr. Walsh may like to use it in his next edition to illustrate the pre- xxxviii THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT valence of these dangerous secret societies in all churches whose Protestantism is not above suspicion. The story was told at dinner one evening by a friend of mine who happens to be the doyen of the inter- national Bar at Constantinople. One day a Greek gentleman came to my friend in great distress. He was a member of a Friendly Society of Greeks resident in Constantinople, who had occasion to make a few alterations in their little booklet of rules. As one of the members of the Society was coming out of the printer's office one evening with a proof of the altered rules in his hand, he was pounced upon by a Turkish policeman and carried off to a police cell. Some days passed before his friends dis- covered what had become of him. The charge against him was that he was a member of a most dangerous secret society. My friend went straight to the Chief of the Police, a well-known Pasha, hoping to get the man out at once on explaining the facts. But the Pasha shook his head and looked grave. ' It's a very serious matter,' said he — ' a very serious matter indeed. This man is a member of a most dangerous secret society.' ' But I know the society quite well,' said my friend. ' It has no political aims whatever. It is purely benevolent, and its sole purpose is to help poor Greeks who may be in distress.' ' See how clever these Greeks are ! ' answered the Pasha. ' That is the story they tell you. But I know better. Look at that,' handing the proof of the rules to my friend. ' Well,' observed my friend, * I see nothing like a secret conspiracy here.' INTKODUCTORY LETTER xxxix * That is because you don't know all,' said the Pasha, pointing to the motto which headed the rules : ' " Let us do good to all men, especially to them who are of the household of faith " (Galat. vi. 10), Paulos.' * I have been making inquiry,' continued the Pasha, * and ril tell you what I'll do : you are a friend of mine, and I should like to oblige you. Probably this man in prison is a harmless tool, so I will let him out, to please you, on his revealing to me the hiding-place of the chief of the secret society.' * Have you any idea who he is ? ' asked my friend. ' Only his name,' said the Pasha. ' There it is — Paulos.' My friend burst out laughing, and ex- claimed, as soon as he could control himself : ' But Paulos is a Christian Apostle, dead and buried more than eighteen centuries ago.' ' There again ! ' replied the Pasha. ' So these conspirators tell you. Don't you see this Paulos lives at Galata ? But the rascals have given a false number. I have been there and there is no such number as vi.-lO.' And my friend was actually obliged, before he could get the prisoner released, to produce two witnesses known to the Pasha, to make an afBdavit to show that the incrimi- nating words w^ere a quotation from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians ! Beally that is no bad illustration of Mr. Walsh's method of proving the existence of his ' secret societies.' I no more doubt his honesty than I doubt the honesty of the Chief of the Police of Stamboul in the case which I have described. In- deed, I am inclined to think that Mr. Walsh would xl THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT rapidly rise to high rank in the Turkish service. His book reminds me on ever}^ page of a report by a Turkish Commission, which invariably proves by plausible evidence that all the massacres that take place in Turkey are the work of secret societies of Christian revolutionists. I do not believe that all Turkish of&cials are in every case deliberate liars. But they are eager to accept, without sifting, any evidence, however monstrous, that tells against the Christians ; and persons so disposed are sure to receive any amount of evidence to support their foregone conclusions. False evidence is a regular profession in Turkey, and indeed in all Musulman lands. I remember that excellent official, the late Mr. Edward Fairfield, giving me an amusing illustration of this. It fell to his lot, on some occasion, to analyse the returns of a rough census that had been taken of the population in a certain Mohammedan district in India. Among some curious professions which the census disclosed was that of a householder who described himself as ' hereditary false witness.' It was the family trade, practised from generation to generation till, I suppose, the obligation of veracity, and even the nature of truth, had been effaced from the mind. I am almost tempted to think that tra- ditional prejudice of any kind is capable of so blunt- ing the mind to the sacredness of truth and the heinousness of its violation that those who are slaves of the prejudice become colour-blind as to the difference between truth and falsehood. A lie is more than the telling of what we know at the moment to INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE xli be untrue. It is tlie Imii^ry seizure of an injurious story just because it is injurious, just because it will help to injure the person, or party, or creed which we dislike ; the hope that it is true ; the fear that it may turn out to be untrue ; the closing of the eyes and ears to any evidence that serves to discredit it. That is in its essence the spirit of lying, the diabolic temper, the opposite of His who prayed for His enemies and promised His benediction to the peacemakers. ' For every idle word that men shall speak (Trai/ prjijia apyov), they shall give account in the day of judgment.' In the original the word is stronger than our ' idle.' It includes more ; every w^ord that is aimless, with- out a purpose, yielding no profit, like the talent of the unprofitable servant. If heedless words cast carelessly on the air are thus charged with a regis- tered responsibility to be disclosed at the day of doom, what shall we say of envenomed words, uttered on purpose to wound some victims of pre- judice, and to poison minds against them ? Poisoning the wells is as barbarous in civilised controversy as in civilised warfare. I have no acquaintance with Mr. Walsh ; but I have no doubt that he means well, and thinks that he is doing God service. But good intentions do not justify violation of the Ninth Commandment. In a letter to the ' Times,' dated September 6, 1898, Dr. Sanday, Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford, says of Mr. Walsh's book that 'it is the most really mischievous and misleading element in the whole of the present situation.' And he has xlii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT given his reasons in a sermon preached before the University, and pubhshed in a vohime of sermons. Dr. Sanday adds : ' Mr. Walsh is quite mistaken in describing: me as a High Chm'chman.' He is a pro- nounced Broad Churchman. With Mr. Samuel Smith I have had some pleasant and friendly correspondence, begun by himself. Of his sincerity, and honesty, and love of truth, I have not a doubt. But both Mr. Walsh and Mr. Smith must see, on reflection, that it is an imperative Christian duty to sift, before publishing, statements and stories which, if not true, are gross slanders. Only a few wrecks ago Mr. Smith declared publicly, on his personal knowledge, that three Roman Catho- lics had been ordained priests in the Church of England in collusion with the Roman authorities. If Mr. Smith had proof of so scandalous a proceeding, he ought to have published it. If he had not proof, he ought not to have published the story. For my- self, though giving Mr. Smith credit for entire con- scientiousness, I refuse to give the smallest credence to the story. There is not, I am convinced, the slightest foundation for it. Now is it right that stories like this should be scattered broadcast with- out any verifiable evidence of their truth ? For the moment they may injure those at whom they are thrown ; but they are sure to recoil with much more damaging effect on the cause which uses them.' ' In the debate on the Address in the House of Commons this month (February 1800) Mr. Smith made, in all good faith, a most slanderous accusation against the theological college at Ely, for INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE xliii But, as regards your own part in this controversy, I have admitted that it has not been without provoca- tion. Undoubtedly some of the clergy — I believe a comparatively small number, and of small influence outside their own parishes — have been acting in what may be called a lawless spirit ; sometimes on their own initiative, more often probably from im- portunity on the part of their congregations. A clergyman, or perhaps some influential members of his congregation, observe in course of travel a ceremony or custom which attracts them, which is possibly beautiful in its symbolism, or historj^, or local associations, and which appears to edify the congregation. Forthwith it is transplanted into an English parish, where it may take root and do no which he was obliged to make a pubHc apology. He excused him- self on the plea— a very venerable one, dating from the Fall of Man — that the Church Association beguiled him. In the same speech Mr. Smith denounced Dr. Pusey's Truth and Office of the Church as a Popish book. I assume that the Church Association supplied him with that information also. In matter of fact, the book is one of the most formidable assaults ever made on the Church of Rome. So formidable indeed was it considered by that Church, that Newman came into the arena to reply to it. The perusal of it, he said, was ' like a bad dream ' to him ; and he playfully accused his old friend of ' discharging his olive-branch as if from a catapult.' The Times, too, honoured the book on its appearance with a long and laudatory review. Mr. Smith, moreover, made a quotation from the Priesfs Frayer Book which I cannot find there. The book was compiled by two clergymen, neither of them holding any cure of souls or even curacy ; both decidedly anti-Roman, and one the author of some volumes against the Roman Church, published under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and widely circulated. The Priest's Prayer Book is in no sense a Romanising book. xliv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT harm, if it do no good ; but where also it may do harm, being misunderstood, and ]Dut a stumbhng- block in the way of simple souls. I observe that the clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, while dutifully obeying their bishop, are grieved by having to give up, among some other accessories of their customary ritual, the legend of St. Veronica among the Stations of the Cross. It is a beautiful legend, and surely a harmless one ; but in these matters one has to think not of one's own edification or emotions, but of the good of others. Self-sacrifice is the law of Christian life, and the essence of self-sacrifice is the surrender of what we love, and may even find useful, for the sake of helping others. There is sometimes a subtle selfishness even in the edifying gratification of religious feelings when that edification may cast a stumbling-block in the way of those to whom certain forms of devotion are strange and misleading. It is natural that clergy who are absorbed in the work of their parishes, and have no time or thought for things outside, should be apt to overlook the effect of what they do upon the Church at large. One of the great laws of Christianity, now dis- covered to pervade even the whole universe of matter, is that we are not isolated units, but members one of another, so that ' if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.' The Church is described by her Founder and first teachers as a ' body,' an organism ; and an organism is kept alive and in health by the harmonious circulation of the blood, ' which is the Hfe thereof,' through the whole body. INTRODUCTORY LETTER xlv Too much development in one part of the body, or even of the mind, is hkely to impoverish and dwarf other organs wdiich are equally necessary for the full proportions of the organism as a w^hole. Assum- ing, then, for argument's sake, that all the develop- ments in ritual which have taken place in some parishes are in themselves law^ful, and in those parishes edifying in addition, it does not follow that it was therefore wise in all cases to introduce them. * All things are lawful to me,' says the great Apostle of the Gentiles, ' but all things are not expedient.' He was ready to abstain from eating animal food for the rest of his life rather than offend an ignorant religious prejudice. Nay, more ; in a moment of sublime self-sacrifice he was willing, like Moses before him, that his own name should be blotted out of the Book of Life if so be that Israel might be restored to their lost spiritual heritage. Surely it is in this spirit that progress in doctrine and ritual should be made. The Church should be regarded as a whole, and any advance here and there which is calculated to throw the whole Church back should be avoided. In arguing thus I am endeavouring to put myself mentally in the position of some clergy, like those of St. Alban's, Holborn, who are called upon to give up devotions and practices which long- habit has endeared to them. The clergy of St. Alban's have set an admirable example not only by their loyalty to their bishop, but by the manner of their obedience ; giving up what they prize because they have been asked to do so by one who has a xlvi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT right to command, and because they recognise that in such a case ' to obey is better than sacrifice.' I remember an instructive Httle incident of my visit in 1876, in company with Dr. Liddon, to that remarkable man, remarkable as a great prelate, a great politician, and the greatest living orator in classical Latin, Strossmayer, the great protagonist in the Vatican Council against Papal Infallibility. He had just finished a grand cathedral which he had built, adjoining his palace. He had a number of Eoman artists employed in frescoing the interior of the building, and he called our attention to the fact that all the subjects were, without exception, from the Old and New Testaments. The Stations of the Cross were there, but not the legend of St. Veronica, or any other legend. Strossmayer thought there was danger in the Eoman Church of overlaying Holy Scripture with legendary lore, not all edifying. So he determined to have none but Scriptural sub- jects on the walls of his fine cathedral. I may add that the first thing that struck me in my first visit to the beautiful Cathedral of Monreale, above Palermo, was the Scriptural character of its fresco paintings. I submit, then, that clergy like those of St. Alban's do not come under the denomination of law- less men, even granting that they have been doing unlawful things. Lawlessness denotes a temper more than an act, and is not applicable to the man who obeys lawful authority when called upon to do so. But I am obliged to admit that some of the clergy — very few, I hope and believe — have been dis- INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE xlvii posed to exhibit a distinctly lawless temper. To give one example. At a meeting m a Northern town not long ago a clergyman made a speech in which he seemed to me to repudiate obedience to the Church of England altogether. Of the Church of England as distinct from the Catholic Church he professed to know nothing, and to her he would recognise no allegiance. The Catholic Church he would obey, but not the Church of England when she differed from the Catholic Church. And he was to be him- self the sole judge where his obedience was due and where it was not. That is sheer nonsense, and very mischievous nonsense too. Even when Christendom was all one, local Churches possessed and exercised the right of regulating their own discipline and modes of worship. Even within the limits of this island, and before the Eeformation, there were great varieties in the ceremonial and ritual of divine wor- ship ; and the modern Church of Kome, in my humble opinion, has acted very unwisely in making ruthless war on local usages throughout the Koman obedience, and reducing all varieties to the one Procrustean pattern prescribed in Kome. But, how- ever that may be, it is the mark of a lawless and rebellious temper on the part of an English clergy- man to deny the right of the Church of England ' to ordain rites and ceremonies ' as she may think right. It is perfectly within the competence of the Church of England, in lawful synod assembled — though I think it would be most unwise — to ordain, for example, that there should be no ceremonial use c xlviii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT of incense and no reservcation of the Sacrament for the sick. Of course she could not enforce her decrees without the sanction of the State — a quaHfi- cation, let it be added, which existed before the Eeformation, and has existed under Catholic Govern- ments since. But it is possible to push a sound doctrine from one extreme to its opposite, and, if you will forgive me for saying so, I think you have done so in the following passage in your speech in the House of Commons on June 21 last : — There was another speaker (the Rev. A. Cocks) who was received with a great deal of applause, and I desire to read what he said. In the presence of dignitaries of the Church of England, of deans and canons and dignified clergymen, he said this — I read from what I beheve is the recognised organ of that particular body, the ' Church Times ' — ' Speaking on behalf of the clergy, they held that they were ordained, not as members of the Church of England, but as priests of the CathoHc Church of God.' Not as members of the Church of England ! This is a declaration made, not condemned, but applauded by the assembled clerg}' in the Church House. I am glad that I have had the opportunity of reading this passage in the House of Commons, because I hope that, being read in the House of Commons, it will be made known to the people of England. ' Speaking on behalf of the clergy, they held that they were ordained, not as members of the Church of England, but as priests of the Catholic Church of God.' What is the meaning of this contrast between members of the Church of England and priests of the Catholic Church ? The country will know the meaning of that distinction. He adds that ' he lays emphasis on INTRODUCTORY LETTER xlix that because underlying it there lay the whole purport of the resolution.' And mark these words : * It was incom- petent for the Church of England as the Church of England to take on herself to say that she had departed from anything which was the lawful custom of the whole Catholic Church.' What is that but a denunciation of the Reformation ? If the Church of England is not competent to depart from anything which was at that period the lawful custom of the whole Cathohc Church, what was the meaning of the Reformation ? It was nothing else than the departure of the Church of England from that which was the custom, at that time, of the whole Catholic Church. Now, I want to ask — for I am speaking in the presence of English gentlemen who know what honour means — is it consistent with what we understand by honour that a man who holds the emolu- ments and preferment, who exercises the authority w^hich belongs to an ordained priest of the Church of England, should stand up, amidst the applause of surrounding ecclesiastics, and declare on behalf of the clergy that they were ordained not as priests of the Church of England — ' they held they were ordained, not as priests of the Church of England, but as priests of the Cathohc Church of God ' ? ... I will not endeavour to expound these sentiments. I will leave it to men of ordinary intelhgence and common sense, and I will express my opinion that for a clerg^^man of the Church of England to stand up and use language like that to which I have referred is misconduct inconsistent with truth and inconsistent with honour. Well, Sir, it is difficult to appreciate the frame of mind of such men, except that one does see in eccle- siastical affairs that standards of honour are different from those which are apparently binding upon ordinary men. Now the simple truth is that the words which 1 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT have thus excited your fierce indignation express an innocent commonplace of theology. I have read other words spoken by the same clergyman, which seem to me unwise and indefensible, and I think the words which you have quoted are put in an unneces- sarily aggressive form. But, taken with their con- notation, there is nothing outrageous in them. Suppose a soldier were to say, ' I was not enhsted as a private in the Dorsetshire regiment, but as a soldier of the British army ; ' or a Canadian, ' I was not simply born as a member of the Canadian Dominion, but as a subject of the British Empire ; ' would not both of these men be expressing a mere truism ? ' The Catholic Church ' to which we express our loyalty in the Creeds is neither the Church of England nor the Church of Kome, but ' the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth,' as one of our prayers has it. The language of Mr. Cocks is the language of the Prayer Book. The words said to him when he was ordained were : * Keceive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.' Similarly, when a child is baptized, he is baptized into the Catholic Church, not simply into the Church of England. And the Church of England has herself declared, in the 80th Canon of 1G03, that she departed fi-om the Church of Kome only in those things in which that Church had departed from the undivided Church of Christ. And now may I, with all courtesy, venture to INTRODUCTORY LETTER li point out the bearing of your denunciation of the Rev. A. Cocks on the vexed question of Ecclesiastical Courts ? If you had not forsaken the lav^ for politics, you would doubtless ere now have occupied and adorned the woolsack. In that capacity it might have fallen to your lot to preside over the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in a case which would have involved the very points in your speech which I am presuming to criticise. Is it not evident that you would have decided wrongly, in perfect good faith, but with imperfect knowledge of the subjects on which you were sitting in judgment ? I humbly think that the clergy have good cause of complaint against a tribunal, not a single member of which need be in communion with the Church of England, or know anything whatever about the literature, history, or technical phraseology of the matters on which the Court is empowered to adjudicate. Ability, integrity, and general knowledge are not sufficient. ' Every man to his art ; ' and just as I would prefer the opinion of a shoemaker on the merits of a shoe, or of a scientific soldier on the merits of a new gun, before that of all the judges on the bench, so I would take the opinion of a trained theologian or liturgiologist before that of all the members of the Judicial Com- mittee on a question of theology or ritualism. But I will not labour that point here, for I intend to deal with it in detail in the body of this work. Another thing which has done much harm and needs correction is the unauthorised publication of manuals and catechisms, laying down, with the lii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT airs of dogmatic authority, doctrines and practices which are irreconcilable with loyalty to the Church of England. It is to be hoped that this abuse has proceeded from ignorance, and that we shall hear no more of it. But I do not confine my objection to statements of dubious or unsound doctrine. There is another evil which is still more repellent to me : I mean the habit of some of the clergy, in those catechetical instructions, of pointing the moral of ecclesiastical offences, such as schism, against Dissenters. I have never seen Gace's notorious catechism, and I suppose that, but for the accident of a copy of it falling into the hands of an official of the Liberation Society, it would never have emerged out of the obscurity of its author's rural parish. But its offen- sive language towards Dissenters has been scattered all over the country to the injury of the Church at large. I have observed with regret similar language in one or two of the catechisms lately quoted in the 'Times.' To show that this is no new-born feeling on my part, I quote the following passage from a volume which I published eight years ago : — Let me say at once that I have no sort of sympathy with accusations of ' schism ' and ' hostihty to the Church ' made by Churchmen against Nonconformists. To me it seems absurd to charge the sin of schism against English Nonconformists, considering their history in all its bear- ings. As a Churchman I am grateful to them for having done so much for Christianity during periods of apathy INTRODUCTORY LETTER liii and supineness on the part of the Church of England. And the more of the privileges of the Church of England they are allowed to share, so long as no principle is sacrificed on either side, the more do I rejoice. Nor do I feel any resentment against Nonconformist hostihty to the Church. The existence of Nonconformity implies of course antagonism to the EstabUshed rehgion, and Church- men have no right to blame Nonconformists for being consistent and loyal to their own principles. The Christian who does not believe in the superiority of his own communion has no excuse for Separation.^ I have come much in contact with Noncon- formists, more especially in works of charity and justice in defence of the oppressed Christians of Turkey, and I have learned to appreciate and honour their admirable zeal and labours of love. In the City parish, too, of which I have had charge for a number of years, I found the Nonconformists of the parish among my w^armest supporters in improving the structural arrangements of the church and beautifying its services. I never concealed my doctrines and principles, nor they theirs. But I Bever called them schismatics, or any other offensive names, and I found that in every advance of friendly dealing on my part they w^ere more than ready to meet me halfway. I am glad that they have been allowed to bury their dead in our churchyards with their own rites, and I resent not only as an offence against Christian charity, but as petty and contemp- ' Christianity in Belation to Science and Morals, sixth edition, p. 280, liv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT tible in addition, the isolated attempts of a small misguided fraction of the clergy to put an indignity on a concession which the law obliges them to make ; such, for instance, as admitting Nonconformist funerals into the churchyard through a different entrance from that used by Churchmen. That is not the way to w^in Dissenters back to the Church. The Churchman who beheves himself to be in pos- session of higher spiritual privileges than Dissenters ought to feel abased when he finds them sometimes not only abreast of his own zeal and self-sacrifice in the cause of religion, but it may be in advance of him. I could name parishes, happily diminishing, where most of the religious work is done by Dis- senters, the parish priest hardly ever visiting his flock or school, and satisfying the rehgious aspira- tions of his parishioners by two cold services on Sunday, with a perfunctory celebration of the Holy Communion once a month, and, in some cases, not even on Christmas and Ascension Day. There are some who fall below even this standard. Whose fault is it that Dissent abounds in such parishes ? And what right have such clergy to inveigh against Dissenters and fling about accusations of schism? The Nonconformists of our day have inherited their position, and the Church is by no means free of responsibility in the matter. Who can deny that the chief blame for the Wesleyan schism, for ex- ample, as well as for the secession of men like Newman, lies at the door of the Church, which did not know how to use the gifts of sons w^ho desired INTRODUCTORY LETTER Iv nothing better than to dedicate them loyally to her service V But viewing the present controversy in all its bearings, it seems to me — if I may take the liberty of saying so to you, who have taken so distinguished and leading a part in it — that the alarm caused by the doings and sayings of a comparatively small number of clergy is out of all proportion to the bare facts. It is characteristic of all movements that derive their impetus from zeal, and enthusiasm, and earnest endeavour, to make ' much of what may be termed proud flesh ' — to quote a happy phrase of Mr. Gladstone — ' a sign of ungoverned effort, and of life indeed, but of somewhat crude and disordered life.' Men who are profoundly moved by harrowing visions of sin, and misery, and sorrow, and devote their lives to the almost hopeless task of ameliora- tion, are apt to be impatient of any legal or con- ventional trammels that seem to obstruct their work. If a dying man, whose sands of life have nearly run out, desires to partake of his Master's last legacy of love before he enters the Dark Valley, that Master's minister will probably be more intent on satisfying the dying man's yearning than in considering the literal requirements of some ambiguous rubric, which was intended for different times and circumstances. So it was with the old Evangelical Movement. Some of its best men were prone to ' transgress the traditions of the elders,' to ' kick over the traces,' as we say ; and they gave dire offence thereby to the decorous, and prosperous, and fashionable society Ivi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT of their day. And so the genius, and enthusiasm, and energy of Wesley were lost to the Church, and his followers are now, like the American Colonies in the political sphere, a mass of powerful energy, working sometimes in harmony, sometimes in con- flict, with the short-sighted mother that drove them from their home. Then came the Oxford Movement, which was treated even worse, as I shall show presently. Its leaders were either driven needlessly out of the Church, like Newman, and Oakley, and Manning, and the rest ; or despised and neglected and reviled, like Keble, and Pusey, and Palmer and a host of others. Of the treatment which Wesley and later Evangelicals received from the Bishops and educated society of that day Coleridge wrote as follows : — There seems to me at present to be a curse upon the English Church, and upon the governors of all institutions connected with the orderly advancement of national piety and knowledge : it is the curse of prudence, as they call it ; in fact, of fear. And who can read even now without emotion the pathetic words in which Newman bade adieu to the ungrateful mother who disowned him and harried him out of her communion ? O my Mother, whence is this with thee, that thou hast good things poured upon thee and canst not keep them, and bearest children yet darest not own them ? Why hast thou not the skill to use their services, nor the heart to rejoice in their love? How is it that whatever is generous in purpose, and tender or deep in devotion, thy INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ivii flower and thy promise, falls from thy bosom and finds no home within tliine arms ? Who hath put this note upon thee, to have a ' miscarrying womb and dry breasts ' ? to be strange to thine own flesh, and thine eye cruel towards thy little ones? Thine own offspring, the fruit of thy womb, who love thee and would toil for thee, thou dost gaze upon with fear, as though a portent, or thou dost loathe as an offence ; at best thou dost but endure, as if they had no claim but on thy patience, self-possession and vigilance, to be rid of them as easily as thou mayest. Thou makest them ' stand all the day idle ' as the very condition of thy bearing with them ; or thou biddest them be gone where they will be more welcome ; or thou sellest them for nought to the stranger that passes by. And what wilt thou do in the end thereof ? Later still we hear the same wail from the gifted Eobertson, of Brighton, against whom also bigotry hurled its anathema. People vvere warned against going to his chmxh, and Exeter Hall sent its hired emissaries to Brighton to lecture against Robertson's * Neologianism.' And the lecturers attracted large and enthusiastic audiences. It would need some research now to discover the names of those lecturers and their patrons ; but Eobertson lives in the truths to w^hich he gave eloquent expression. Truth has a perennial life, and will ever survive its persecutors and detractors, how^ever completely they may seem to prevail for the moment. The tragedy of Calvary is ofttimes repeated in the followers of Him Whose life's work appeared to perish in the gloom, the earthquake, and the mockery of men. Yet that hour of darkness was but the prelude of a glorious dawn. Iviii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT And the victory is none the less certain because the loyal disciple, like the prophet in the Cave of Horeb, is himself unaware of it. Wesley passed av^^ay with- out knowing to what dimensions the movement which he started would grow in the providence of God, though not within the constitutional pale of the Church, as he intended. When Newman left the Church of England, sore at heart because he thought that all was lost for which he had fought, he little foresaw that his bodily eyes would yet behold the triumph of the cause of which he had despaired.^ • In a note to one of his last sermons in the English Church, Newman plainly avows that it was the violent attacks on the Trac- tarian Movement, which really meant the whole High Church party, that drove him and his friends into the Church of Eome. The position which he claimed for the Church of England was that of a ' via media ' between Romanism and ultra-Protestantism. The pendulum would swing now to one side and now to the other ; but so long as the bishops gave fair play no harm would happen ; the forces of action and reaction would counteract and balance each other. But at the era of Tract No. 90 the bishops threw their united weight into the Protestant scale with an extraordinary vio- lence of language, which seemed to excommunicate the High Church party in a body. Newman notes that the secessions to Piome then began, and gives this explanation as regards himself : — ' That in the course of his exposition of Anglican principles, statements or views were evolved which have become a disposing cause of certain tendencies to Eome, now existing, he does not deny ; but theological principles and doctrines have little influence on the mind holding them without the stimulus of external circumstances. Many a man might have held an abstract theory about the Catholic Church to which it was difficult to adjust our own, . . . yet never have been impelled onwards, had our rulers preserved the quies- cence of former years ; . . . ; it has been the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who had long been tolerant of Protestant error, which have given to inquiry and to theory its force and its edge.' Had Newman's sensitive nature allowed him to hold on till ' this INTRODUCTORY LETTER lix And Robertson died oscillating between hope and fear for the future of the Church which he had bravely served. Some words of his are worth quoting : — I wish to God we had a little soldier's spirit in our Church ! . . . But no ! the Church of England will endure no chivalry, no dash, no effervescing enthusiasm. She cannot turn it to account as Rome turns that of her Loyolas and Xaviers. We have nothing but sober, prosaic routine ; and the moment any one with heart and nerve fit to be a leader of a forlorn hope appears, we call him a dangerous man, and exasperate him by cold, unsympathising reproofs till he becomes a Dissenter and a demagogue. . . . Well, I suppose God will punish us,, if in no other way, by banishing from us all noble spirits, like Newman and Manning in one direction, and men like Kingsley in another, leaving us to flounder in the mud of commonplace, unable to rise or sink above the dead level. You will remember some striking remarks by Macaulay on this lack of elasticity on the part of the Anglican Episcopate as contrasted with the tyranny was overpast,' he might have found in the energetic resur- rection of the principles for which he had been contending the strongest proof of the continuing presence in the Church of England of Him Who promised that ' the gates of hell should not prevail against' His commissioned servants so long as they manfully fought His battle. Ten righteous men would have saved the Cities of the Plain from ruin. Jerusalem of old might have been saved if only one man could be found ' that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth ' (Jer. v. 1). Newman himself, after he left us, called attention: to the fact that in the flood of Arianism which threatened to over- whelm Christendom the Episcopate in the mass betrayed the Church,, which was saved by 'the faith, zeal, courage, and constancy' of the.- faithful laity. — The Avians of the Fourth Century, 3rd ed. p. 454. Ix THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT wisdom of the Church of Eome. A man like Bmiyan, he says, finds no scope for his gifts in the Church of England. ' He has been at no college ; he cannot construe a Greek author or write a Latin theme ; and he is told that, if he remains in the communion of the Church, he must do so as a hearer ; and that if he is resolved to be a teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. His choice is soon made. He harangues on Tower Hill or in Smith- field. A congregation is formed. ... In a few w^eeks the Church has lost for ever a hundred famihes, not one of which entertained the least scruples about her Articles, her Liturgy, her govern- ment, or her ceremonies.' And then the brilliant essayist draws his moral : — Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiast whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy and, whatever the polite and learned may think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character, and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, not exactly in the style of a Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers ; and all his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace of the Quirinal. In this way INTKODUCTORY LETTER Ixi the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strenfijth of Estcahlishment and all the strength of Dissent . . . Even for female agency there is a place in her system. To devout women she assigns spiritual functions, dignities, and magistracies. In our country, if a noble lady is moved by more than ordinary zeal for the pro- pagation of religion, the chance is that, though she may disapprove of no doctrine or ceremony of the Established Church, she will end by giving her name to a new schism. If a pious or benevolent woman enters the cell of a prison to pray with the most unhappy and degraded of her own sex, she does so without any authority from the Church. No line of action is traced out for her ; and it is well if the Ordinary does not complain of her intrusion, and if the Bishop does not shake his head at such irregular benevolence. At Rome the Countess of Huntingdon would have a place in the calendar as St. Selina, and Mrs. Fry would be foundress and first Superior of the Blessed Order of Sisters of the Gaols. Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain to become the head of a formidable secession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be the first general of a new society devoted to the interests and honour of the Church. Place St. Theresa in London. Her restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, not untinctured with craft. Place Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds an Order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the Church : a solemn service is consecrated to her memory : and her statue, placed over the holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger who enters St. Peter's.^ Our bishops have grown wiser since Macaulay sketched this damaging contrast, and — I am afraid ' Essays, iii. 131-4. Ixii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT you will not agree with me when I add— in my hum- ble opinion, they show their wisdom most by their reticence and self-restraint during the recent some- what unmeasured attacks upon them. Their pre- decessors in the time of Newman, and later, lost their hold on the Tractarians and earlier Eitualists by charging and speechifying against them in language which, in some cases, touched the verge of Billingsgate. They forgot, as men are always so apt to forget, that reforming movements, as I have already observed, are always marked by zeal out- running discretion, and sometimes exhibiting itself in foHies and eccentricities, which will disappear with larger knowledge and more mature experience, leaving what was sohd and good in the movement as a precious heritage, which would have been lost by summary suppression of the movement. The succeeding generation then enjoys the fruit, and forgets the strife that brought it forth. ' A prophet is not without honour save in his own country,' and the children of one generation deck the tombs of the prophets whom their fathers slew. This is true especially of reforming movements, be they social, poHtical, or religious. Eeformers are apt to be regarded by the mass of their contemporaries as lawless persons, revolutionists, troublers of Israel. And this is quite natural for two reasons. In the first place, the prosperous and comfortable classes of society are precisely those who least feel the need of reform. In the second place, reformers must necessarily aim at making an impression, and this INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ixiii they can only do by dealing in general and sweeping statements ; statements which are true in the abstract, but which require qualification in practice. If the reformer were to stop to explain and qualify every general proposition with all the necessary reservations which belong to it, the result would be that he would make no progress at all. His general principles would be lost in the multitude of his explanations ; his hearers would be unable to see the end for the process. From the nature of the case, therefore, all great reforms are certain to be more or less characterised by something of extrava- gance. They are a recoil, and can hardly avoid rebounding towards the opposite extreme before they settle in the ' golden mean.' Renovation implies a wrong state of things out of which it grew — a decay, or a w'eakness, or an obliquity, or an excrescence. Whatever is amiss and requires mending necessarily impairs the tone of the amendment itself : the restoration still retains a connection with the old state, just because it is a restoration. As supplying a defect or providing a counterpoise, it is still correlative to the former state and must correspond to it in some degree, even in its faultiness ; the action and reaction, though contrary, requiring to be equal ; too much answering to too little, the over-prominent to the overlooked. The crooked stick, to quote Aristotle's familiar illustration, can only be straightened by bending it towards the opposite extreme. No reform that goes to the root of the evil that d Ixiv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT it seeks to cure can escape this disadvantage. Christianity did not escape it. Its Founder was dehvered over to prison and to death, as a ' male- factor ' and 'perverter of the nation,' and His Apostles shared the fate of their Master. ' These men,' said the Jews of Thessalonica of Paul and Silas, * that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.' What is the Sermon on the Mount, in large part, hut the assertion in an extreme and naked form of the neglected side of great truths? But perhaps the aptest illustration of the point I am insisting on is the treatment of the mutual relation of faith and works by the Apostles Paul and James respectively. ' Man is justified by faith and not by works,' says the former. ' Man is justified by works and not by faith,' says the latter. And both appeal to the example of Abraham, by way of illustration. Of course, ice see that the opposition between the two statements is only verbal, each being merely the unqualified assertion of a neglected truth. Ours is not that epicurean deity that in delicious repose occupies its templa serena Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre Errare, atque viam palantes qua>rere vita'.' In a world of error the progress of truth is commonly not in a straight line, but zigzag ; by action and reaction ; now inclining to this extreme, and then to that ; sometimes giving one of its sides a promi- nence, and anon another, according as the exigencies ' Lucretius, De rcntm Natura lib. ii. 7. INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ixv of the strife and the needs of men require it. And thus it frequently happens that what one generation regards as revolutionary innovations become the truths of the next, and the truisms of that which follows. The Evangelicals of the present day are, for example, a great deal more * Ritualistic ' in their public worship than the Tractarians were forty years ago. It is now, indeed, the fashion to pat the Trac- tarians on the back, praise their ' moderation,' glorify them as the ' old historical High Church party,' and then contrast them with the dreadful Ritualists. Very different is the language that was applied to them forty years ago and later ; indeed the difference is so striking that it may be instructive, and can hardly fail to be amusing, to call attention to it in some detail. In a leading article in the * Times ' of December 31, 1844, I read as follows : — Throughout the whole of this unhappy contest the laity have behaved with consistency ; they have stood their ground firmly ; they have made known, intelligibly enough, over and over again, their strong repugnance to the introduction of the obnoxious novelties ; they have respectfully requested the removal of them ; to be allowed to worship as their fathers worshipped, and to observe the same ritual to which they have been accustomed from their infancy. . . . The year, it appears, is to close over this fiery controversy of which no one can tell the final issue. . . . We look upon it as a strife, not of words, but of principles, and therefore the more lasting and important in its effects. These are the words with which the ' Times ' d2 Ixvi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT rings out the year 1844. There was a fierce ' con- test,' ' not of words but of principles ; ' and the laity- were maintaining a desperate fight against 'the introduction' of ' obnoxious novelties.' The area of the strife extended during the following year, and so, unfortunately, did its bitterness. The ' Times ' had reporters — war correspondents they might be more fitly called — to watch and describe the develop- ment of events. One of these, writing from Exeter on January 20, 1845, opens his description of the fray as follows : — After the disgraceful exhibition of Sunday last at the church of St. Sidwell's — the excitement and irritation shown in the church— the hootings and yellings in the streets by an indignant population at the Rev. Mr. Courtenay for continuing observances and ceremonies in the service of the church to which the parishioners had expressed their repeated and decided objection— it was hoped by many that a regard for the decorous observance of the Sabbath, and for the quieting of men's minds, would have induced that gentleman to yield. But ' that gentleman ' apparently was proof even against the soothing influences of the Sabbath, and performed accordingly the service in a way which led to results described as follows by the ' Times ' correspondent : — On leaving the church the congregation mingled with a crowd of 700 or 800 people who were assembled outside, and waited for the appearance of Mr. Courtenay. He left the church in the centre of a dozen gentlemen, headed by the churchwardens, and was received by the crowTl with hootings and yellings, which continued as he and his INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ixvii friends rapidly made their way through, protected by pohcemen. This was in the morning. In the evening [continues the reporter], although it rained in torrents, the church of St. Sidwell's was densely crowded. It was a strange and unbecoming scene of excitement. Again Mr. Courtenay preached in his surplice, following all the same objectionable observances as in the morning. On his entering the pulpit the congregation appeared all to rise from curiosity ; many went out ; the church porch and lobby were densely crowded ; and so great a noise prevailed that the opening prayer before the sermon was scarcely audible. . . . The service ended, the scene outside the church beggars description. It rained in torrents ; yet the streets were like a fair. About two thousand persons w^ere assembled to hoot Mr. Courtenay as he left the church. Gibes, and shouts, and laughter rang through the air. The rev. gentleman was again surrounded by a party of his friends to protect him as he left the church. A strong body of the police made a lane through the crowd for him, and then formed in close file round him to keep off the crowd. . . . The indignation of the people is certainly excusable, for the cause of all the mischief was Mr. Courtenay and a white gown. It was generally rumoured that the Mayor had called on Mr. Courtenay before the afternoon service, and represented to him the danger to the peace of the tow^n, and the great probability of a fight with the police if he persevered, and had put it to him as a clergyman if he thought it proper to run the risk of such a result by persisting in the line of conduct he was pursuing. Let us now leap over three years. Poor Mr. Courtenay was worried into his grave in the interval, Ixviii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT and the Rev. J. Ingle appears as the hero of the scene which is thus described in the ' Times ' of November (3, 1848 :— A Riot in Church. — On Sunday, the 29th ult., the church of St. Sidwell's, in the city of Exeter, was the scene of a disgraceful riot during the time of the evening service in consequence of the Rev. J. Ingle entering the pulpit in his surplice. . . . The uproar commenced with a general ' coughing down.' Several persons then moved towards the door, making a great noise in their progress ; a young woman went off in a fit of hysterics, uttering loud shrieks, whilst a mob outside besieged the doors of the building. A cry of ' Fire ! ' was raised, followed by an announcement that the church doors were closed, and a rush was made to burst them open. Some persons cried, ' Turn him out ! ' ' Put out his lights ! ' In the galleries the uproar was at its height, whistling, the noise of cat-calls, and such cries as are heard in theatres, hurrahing, &c., echoed throughout the edifice. Mr. Ingle still persisted to read his text, but was quite inaudible, and the row increased, some of the congregation waving their hats, standing on the seats, jumping over the seats, bawling, roaring, and gesticulating, like a mob at an election. These doings were in the far West. Let us now^ see how matters stood in the metropolis. On March 15, 1845, there was an excited meeting held in the parish of St. George's-in-the-East, London. The chairman of the meeting was the senior church- warden of the parish, who bore the ill-omened name of Liquorish. But the orator of the occasion was a certain Mr. Baddeley, of whom history as far as I know, records nothing more. INIr. Baddeley made a INTEODUCTORY LETTER Ixix speech which appears to have evoked much applause, and which, no doubt, expressed the genuine feehng of the man and of those Vi^ho cheered him. The following extracts will give some idea of his line of argument : — It was lamentable that a parish consisting of upwards of 43,000 souls should be disturbed to its centre at the will of one individual, who at his mere pleasure disturbed and deranged the beautiful and solemn ceremonial of church service which had been handed down to us un- changed for more than two centuries. These were not the days to trifle with the laity. Men could not now be dragooned into a belief or compelled to a ceremonial. Fortunately there was an organ of incalculable power and extent to preserve and support the creed of their fore- fathers : the ' Times ' was that powerful organ. . . . Their Rev. Rector talked of peace while he was at the very time fomenting discord by introducing a Jim Crow sort of buffoonery into the peculiarly solemn and impressive decencies of our simple and affecting church service. Until this innovation was palmed upon them there was not a more happy or united parish in the whole kingdom ,than theirs. Other speakers followed in a similar strain, and then the ' Times ' reporter relates a pathetic inci- dent : — Several old parishioners, some of whom were affected even to tears, came forward to protest against practices which drove them from the church where their fathers had worshipped, and where healing memories of holy things soothed, while they sanctified, their Sabbath visits. All this, they said, was changed by the practice of their rector. The son passed by the grave of his Ixx THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT father ; the widower, of his wife ; the mother, of her child, — to seek in some remote and unaccustomed house of worship that spiritual sustenance which the novel practices of their new rector had rendered unacceptable at his hands. Scarcely less pathetic w'as the declaration of a gentleman at a meeting at Hurst, in Berkshire, This gentleman is described as ' the owner of Hurst House,' and here is his tale of woe — tinged, however, you will be happy to observe, with one ray of pensive satisfaction : — Alluding to his aunt, who attained the great age of 100 years, he observed that it was a satisfactory reflection to him and his brother that the latter days of their excellent aunt were not embittered by such proceedings as had lately taken place in the parish, and that she had not hved to be driven, by the mistaken course which had been pursued, from the church which she had so many years attended. The fate from which the Angel of Death had mercifully snatched this good old lady was that of witnessing the collection of an offertory and hearing the Church Mihtant Prayer on Sundays on which the Holy Communion was not celebrated. All this was very sad. But what were these * novel practices,' the * Jim Crow sort of buffoonery,' which had wrought such dire havoc in a once peace- ful and happy parish? Spectatum admissi visum teneatisj amici ? ' The very head and front of ' the Kector's ' offending ' was that he preached in the surpHce, turned to the East at the recital of the INTRODUCTOEY LETTER Ixxi Creed, and that ' the responses after the Command- ments, which are prayers for mercy, and not songs, are usually chanted.' In 1859-60 there was a recurrence of these dis- graceful riots in St. George's-in-the-East, and I remember an amusing anecdote which I once heard the late Dean of Westminster relate in connection with them. The Dean had gone one Sunday evening to see for himself the cause of the riots. The church was filled with an excited congregation, but the service went on with tolerable decorum till the officiating clergyman retired into the vestry before the sermon. There were a few moments of nervous silence, with craning of necks in the direction of the vestry. Presently the door of the vestry was opened, and an excited female, in front of Dean Stanley, clapped her hands and exclaimed, ' Thank God ! it's black.' The Rector had agreed to a compromise, and the preacher appeared arrayed in a black gown. If that worthy female is still alive, she may often have had cause since then to exclaim, ' Thank God ! it's white.' These extracts will serve as fair specimens of the intensity, bitterness, and widespread excitement and alarm, lasting from 1844 to about 1861, and all caused by the use of the surplice in the pulpit, chanting of the Psalms and responses after the Commandments, the offertory in the Communion Service when there was no celebration of the Sacra- ment, and such like trivialities, as we should all call them now. Ixxii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT The riots and public meetings culminated at last in a series of petitions to Parliament, which led to a lively debate in the House of Lords. Lord Fortescue presented these petitions in a tolerably moderate speech, and the drift of the documents may be gathered from the following alleged grievance, viz. : — That certain ancient and conflicting laws and regula- tions of the Church exist which, being incompatible with the condition and Protestant feelings of the people, had, with the tacit consent of bishops, clergy, and laity, long fallen into disuse. The petitioners accordingly deprecate the revival of ' these obsolete laws and regulations,' and suggest ' such a revision and alteration of the rubric, canons, and laws of the Church as shall establish uniformity adapted to the present times.' Earl Fortescue took the same line in his speech. He pleaded earnestly for lawlessness — that is, for violation of the rubrics — on behalf of the Evangelical party. It will be observed that the High Church clergy of that day were not accused of lawlessness or of disobedience to Bishops, but of over-scrupulosity in carrying out the law and yielding a too thorough obedience to the Bishops. Your accusation now is that the High Church party violate the rubrics both by omission and com- mission. This reminds me of the ancient ordeal for witches in Scotland. The suspected witch was flung into the sea or into a deep pool. If she sank and was drowned she was declared innocent. If she floated on the surface she was taken out and burnt. INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ixxiii So that the difference to her between guilt and innocence was the difference between burning and drowning. The High Church party seem to me to be in much the same pitiable plight. Our fathers drenched their zeal for the rubrics with copious douches of cold water, and now you roast them for their neglect of the rubrics. E ^jzrr si miiove. People can no more stop the laws which govern the movements of social and rehgious forces than they can stop the motion of the planets or the tides. Controversy serves the purpose of exposing weak places and pruning away unhealthy growths ; but it also serves the purpose of stimulating inquiry and dissipating clouds of prejudice and ignorance. In a free country no party which deserves to live ever suffers in the long run from the fierce Hght that beats upon it from the keenest and most searching controversy. You have yourself scrutinised the High Church party with your Eontgen rays, and if you have succeeded in pointing out any foreign substances lodged in its system, you have done the party good service. Nor do I greatly resent the occasional fierceness of your denunciations, for, like Death itself, you are no respecter of persons. Your cudgel descends with equal impartiality on the skull of the Primate and on that of the humblest curate in his diocese, or the silliest of anonymous clerics who chooses to air his folly in some obscure print. You have but a poor opinion, I fear, of the intellectual calibre of the clergy generally, particularly of those whose opinions and practices you dislike. That is Ixxiv THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT natural, for antipathy is a bad conductor of adequate appreciation. You cannot think more meanly of the High Church clergy of to-day than was thought by able men of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. When Newman was at the zenith of his fame the journal which stood next in influence and importance to the ' Times ' not only denounced his doctrines, but despised his intellect. ' There is not a particle,' it said, ' of true intellectual vigour, or manhood, or candour in his [Newman's] whole sect.' And that w'as said of a party which included not only Newman, but Keble, and Pusey, and H. J. Kose, and Glad- stone, and Hope Scott, and Koundell Palmer, and Dr. Ward, and a host of others who made their mark upon their generation in various walks of life. So blinding is the effect of prejudice even on honest and able minds. Very different was the judgment of the ' Times,' which for four years struggled gallantly against the stream of abuse and calumny which beat against the leaders of the Tractarian party. This is what it said in 1841 in reply to the scornful judgment passed upon the Tractarians by the journal from which I have just quoted : — No man, however widely differing from them, can open any of their publications without perceiving that they write with learning, ability, forbearance and courtesy of language towards their adversaries. No man can know anything of their lives without being aware that they act consistently with their professions. But the ' Times ' yielded at last to the force of INTRODUCTORY LETTER Ixxv the current, and turned its batteries on the Trac- tarian party. It was the insistence on the weekly offertory with or without the Holy Communion that alienated it. And I am bound to say that the ' Times ' seems to me to have had the best of the argument. The Tractarian movement— like most earnest and enthusiastic movements — had its * fads ' and puerilities. It elevated the weekly offertory into a kind of sacrament. ' For himself,' said Bishop Blomfield to a deputation on this subject, ' he at once declared that he would not preach in any church in his diocese where the ceremony regarding the offertory was not observed.' This seems to me as extravagant as the proposal to refuse institution to such clergy as decline to submit to tests beyond what the law requires. The line the ' Times ' took was that the offertory was an adjunct to the cele- bration of the Holy Communion, and that the weekly revival of the one ought to involve the weekly revival of the other. If the Bishop of London [it said] chooses to hold to the decision of antiquity, he must first restore weekly Communion, and then the weekly offertory is sure to come. . . . Let the clergy, especially the younger ones, remember that as words are the signs of ideas, so forms and ceremonies are but the outward expressions and features of a vast spiritual soul. The Church revivers may be right or they may be wrong in wishing to get back the old system ; but if we were their enemies, we could not recommend them a more pernicious course than that which some are pursuing. To introduce bits and frag- ments—and under present circumstances the weekly Ixxvi THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT offertory without Communion is but a contemptible scrap — of an ancient system, without first having saturated them- selves and their flocks with a ' primitive ' life and doctrine, is a puerility. That is common sense and sound doctrine, and it was gross folly to alienate so powerful an organ of public opinion in defence of a crotchet. You have more than once twitted the Bishop of London for advising Mr. Kensit to go to another church if he did not like the services at St. Ethel- burga's in the City ; and Dr. Guinness Kogers repeats the reproach in the ' Contemporary ' of March as follows : ' He [Mr. Kensit] is a Churchman w^ho claims his right to have a service in his own parish church in accordance with the law^ of the land. It was no answer at all to tell him that he could have it elsewhere.' But no such answer was ever made to him. Mr. Kensit's parish is in Hoxton, where, I presume, the services are to his taste, for he has not been guilty of brawling there. St. Ethel- burga's is not his parish except by a faggot qualification. In conjunction with a friend he hired a room in the parish which he did not occupy except sporadically for the purpose of bra wiling. That I state on the authority of the churchwardens, who made the statement at a public meeting of the parish- ioners. Now you are strongly opposed to faggot votes in politics and a strenuous advocate of ' one man, one vote ; ' and I am sure that when you know the facts you wall agree w^ith me that ' one man, one parish ' is as good a formula in the ecclesiastical INTRODUCTOEY LETTER Ixxvii sphere as ' one man, one vote ' is in the pohtical. Mr. Kensit has constituted himself a peripatetic parishioner whenever the spirit moves him to dis- turb a congregation. It seems to me that the Bishop of London dealt very mildly with this intolerable lawlessness in advising Mr. Kensit to attend his own parish church. I now proceed to discuss the various questions which you have raised in your letters to the ' Times.' I shall consider them first in the light of reason, and next in that of the formularies and representative divines of the Church of England ; and lastly, in the light of the law. My own belief has for a long time been that no small part of our disputes on these questions is caused by mutual misunderstandings. In hitting out at each other we are often beating the air : one side attacking what the other does not defend, and vice versa. ' Half the controversies in the world,' says Cardinal Newman in one of his Oxford sermons, * are verbal ones, and could they be brought to a plain issue they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. , . We need not dispute, we need not prove, we need but to define. At all events let us, if we can, do this first of all, and then see who are left for us to dispute with, what is left for us to prove. Contro- versy, at least in this age, does not lie l^etween the hosts of heaven, Michael and his angels on the one side, and the powers of evil on the other ; but it is Ixxviii THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT a sort of night battle, where each fights for himself, and friend and foe stand together. When men understand what each other means, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either hopeless or superfluous.' ' I shall endeavour in the following pages to pursue the line of reasoning here suggested by one of the most brilhant controversialists of our own or of any time, and also one of the most single-minded of men. I do not despair of convincing even yourself that not a few of your arrows have sped wide of the mark. But in any case I think I can promise that I shall not write a word calculated to wound the most sensitive reader. With many apologies for inflicting upon you the longest letter, I fear, which it has ever been your misfortune to receive, I remain. Dear Sir William Harcourt, Yours very truly, Malcolm MacColl. January 7, 1899. ' University Sermons, p. 192. TPIE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT CHAPTER I THE TRESEXCE OF CHRIST IX THE EUCHARIST The Primate has in his recent Charge given us, with admirable clearness, an exposition of the various aspects of the doctrine of the Eucharist which, in his opinion, have been held at different times in Eastern and Western Christendom. I. There is, first, the Zwinglian view, according to which ' the Sacrament, in fact, differs from prayer in degree, but not in kind.' His Grace admits that this view ' softens, purifies, elevates, kindles ; ' but it is only as a memory of a past sacred event, kindling devotion as a Trafalgar or Waterloo banquet may kindle patriotism. This view, excel- lent as far as it goes, he rejects as inadequate. II. There is, next, the doctrine of a ' mysterious gift, uniting us to Christ in a special manner and degree, giving new power, new cleansing, new life, B 2 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT and even new insight into spiritual things, leavening the whole being with a heavenly infection. This gift is something far beyond the natural working of our own minds.' And ' this mysterious gift,' which theologians call the res sacra nienti, results from the consecration of the bread and wine in the way ordained by the Church. It is, therefore, indepen- dent of the communicant. Between the Zwinglian doctrine and this ' there can be no question at all that the Church holds the latter,' in common with ' the early Christians ' uni- versally, and with ' the Greek and other Churches in the East ' to-day, as well as with ' the Eomans and the Lutherans.' III. But now comes a subdivision of opinion. The Koman Church defines the manner of the Presence by the word Transubstantiation, which the Church of England rejects as going beyond our Lord's revelation, and ' overthrow^ing the nature of a sacrament ' in addition. Others, like Hooker, ' maintain that the Pieal Presence should not be looked for in the consecrated elements, but in the receivers.' ' The Church certainly teaches Hooker's doctrine,' which is indeed inseparable from belief in a Peal Presence. Yet Hooker's doctrine does not exhaust the Church's teaching, which implies ' the further doctrine that there is a Real Presence in some way attached to the elements at the time of consecration and before the reception.' If there bo no Real Presence until the reception, it may be asked what is the effect of consecration, and may PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 3 not the consecration be omitted ? The answer is obvious. On the theory that the Real Presence is bestowed in the reception and not before, then the effect of the prayer of consecration is to attach to the elements, not a presence, but a promise. The bread has been blessed according to our Lord's command, and the Lord's promise is that when the communicant partakes of the bread, so blessed, he shall be a partaker of the Lord's Body. But this does not, even on the admission of the Judicial Committee in the Bennett case, ' exclude the other opinion, namely, that in some mysterious way there is a Presence attached to the elements from the moment of their consecration.' ' It is difficult,' the Primate thinks, ' if not impossible, really to distinguish between this doctrine and the laitheran doctrine commonly called Consubstantia- tion, and it is important that it should be clearly understood that it is not unlawful to hold it and to teach it within the Church of England.' That is, I believe, an accurate epitome of wdiat the Archbishop of Canterbury has laid down as the doctrine of the Real Presence sanctioned by the Church of England. It has evoked a good deal of criticism, more particularly in regard to the doctrine of Hooker and that of Consubstantiation. On these two points I shall have something to say presentl}-. But there is so much misconception on the general subject that it may be useful to explain, as far as possible, what the doctrine of the Real Presence connotes in the minds of those who hold it, without any attempt or desire to define the mode of the B 2 4 THE REFOR^^rATION SETTLEMENT Presence. My own belief, based on considerable experience, is that the controversy is largely a verbal one, some denying what others do not affirm. The truth is that human language is totally in- adequate to express the verities of the spiritual world. It is always more or less symbolical, and never comes up to the reality. It is the clothing, not the skin, of thought, and never, even at its best, fits its contents accurately. This is true of ordinary ideas. But all that relates to the being and mode of working of the infinite Creator must necessarily be beyond the compass of mundane speech. St. Paul tells us that when he was ' snatched up into Para- dise ' in some mysterious way above his comprehen- sion he ' heard unutterable utterances, which it is impossible for man to put into speech ' {cipprjra pi]/iaTa, a ovfc e^ov avOpoiiKp XaXrjcrai). Who can doubt that the Nicene Creed itself, with all the skilled precision bestow^ed on its terminology by the united experts of Christendom in the most supple and plastic of languages, gives but a most imperfect expression to the truths which it enshrines? And thus it sometimes happens that what seem to be contradictory statements are in fact only different aspects of the same truth. Hooker's language about the Eucharist is, I believe, a case in point. His meaning is by no means exhausted by the oft- quoted sentence : — The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament. PEESENCE OF CHEIST IN THE EUCIIAIUST 5 An isolated quotation may bear a very different meaning when restored to its context. Let mc therefore quote what precedes and follows this famous passage in Hooker : — The bread and cup are His Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of His Body and Blood ensueth. For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth. Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it. Our souls and bodies, quickened to eternal life, are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ. His Body and Blood are the true wellspring out of which it floweth. So that His Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life, not only by effect or operation, even as the influence of the heavens is in plants, beasts, men, and in every thing which they quicken, but also by a far more Divine and mystical kind of union, which maketli us one with Him even as He and the Father are one. Then follows the passage in dispute, which Hooker proceeds to explain and amplify. And what he is plainly anxious to show is that the Sacraments have in themselves no inherent virtue ; that they were ordained for a purpose, and that they have no efficacy beyond or apart from that purpose ; that the Eucharist was ordained in order to incorporate us into Christ, and that we have no right to look for Christ's presence in the Sacrament except in connec- tion with that purpose. The fruit of the Eucharist is the participation of the Body and Blood of Christ. There is no sentence of Holy 6 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Scripture which saith that we cannot by this Sacrament be made partakers of His Body and Blood except they' be first contained in the Sacrament, or the Sacrament con- verted into them. ' This is My Body ' and ' This is My Blood,' being words of promise, sith we all agree that by the Sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform His promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions whether by Consubstantiation or else by Transubstantiation the Sacrament itself be first possessed with Christ, or no ? A thing which no w^ay can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand, l)ecause our participation of Christ ill this Sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of His omnipotent power, which maketh it His Body and Blood to us, whether with change or without alteration of the element, such as they imagine, we need not greatly to care noi' inquire. Take therefore that wherein all agree, and then consider by itself what cause why the rest in question should not rather be left as superfluous than urged as necessary. It is on all sides plainly confessed, first, that this Sacrament is a true and real participation of Christ, who thereby imparteth Himself, even His w^holc entire Person as a mystical Head, unto every soul that receiveth Him ; and that every such receiver doth thereby incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member of Him, yea, of them also whom He ac- knowledgeth to be His own ; secondly, that to whom the Person of Christ is thus communicated, to them He giveth by the same Sacrament His Holy Spirit to sanctify them as it sanctifieth Him which is their Head ; thirdly, that what merit, force, or virtue soever there is in His sacrificed Body and Blood, we freely, fully, and wholly have it by this Sacrament ; fourthly, that the effect thereof in us is a real transmutation of our souls and bodies from sin to righteousness, from death and corrup- PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCPIARIST 7 tion to immortality and life ; fifthly, that because the Sacrament, being of itself but a corruptible and earthly creation, must needs be thought an unlikely instrument to work so admirable effects in man, we are therefore to rest ourselves altogether upon the strength of His glorious power, who is able and will bring to pass that the bread and cup which He giveth us shall be truly the thing He promiseth. It seemeth, therefore, much amiss that against them whom they term Sacramentarians, so many invective discourses are made, all running upon two points : that the Eucharist is not a bare sign or figure only ; and that the efficacy of His Body and Blood is not all we receive in this Sacrament. For no man, having read these books and waitings which are thus traduced, can be ignorant that both these assertions they plainly confess to be most true. They do not so interpret the words of Christ as if the name of His Body did import but the figure of His Body, and to be was only to signify His Blood. They grant that these holy mysteries, received in due manner, do instrumentally both make us partakers of the grace of that Body and Blood which w^ere given for the life of the world, and, besides, also imports into us in true and real though mystical manner, the very Person of our Lord Himself, whole, perfect, and entire, as hath been showed.^ This quotation gives a complexion, different from the common interpretation, to the passage so often quoted from Hooker. He rejects peremptorily the Zwinglian view of * a bare sign or figure only,' and the Calvinistic viev^ of a presence merely of ' efficacy.' He also rejects as presumptuous and untenable such 1 Bk. V. Ixvii. 5-8. 8 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT definitions as Transubstantiation and Consubstantia- tion, which, however, he is in his charity wiUing to leave in the category of philosophical opinions, pro- vided they are not made articles of faith or obtruded into the sphere of dogmatic theology. But while rejecting any definition of the manner of Christ's pre- sence in the Eucharist, he insists emphatically on the objective reality of the presence ; the presence, that is, of ' the very Person of our Lord Himself, w^hole, perfect, and entire,' and ' imparted unto every soul that receiveth Him ' instrumentally through the Sacrament. But he is jealous of any attempt to localise the heavenly gift or subject it to temporal conditions. Avoid, he says in effect, curious ques- tions as to time and place. Let it suffice for you to know that if you receive the Sacrament duly prepared, you receive not a bare sign or figure, and not an efficacious influence only, but Christ Him- self in the fulness of His theanthropic Presence. This doctrine Hooker unfolds elsewhere as fol- lows : — It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else but only thcat the self-same nature, which maketh us to be men, is in Him, and maketh Him man as we are. For what man in the world is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ ? It is not this tliat can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of tlic mystery of our coherence with Jesus Christ (John xiv. 19 ; Ephes. v. 23). The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam. Yea, by grace we are every one of us in Christ and in His Church, as by nature wc are in those our PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 9 first parents. God made Eve of the rib of Adam. And His Church He frameth out of the very flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man. His Body crucified and His blood shed for the life of the world are the true elements of that heavenly being, which maketh us such as Himself is of whom we come. For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly words of Christ concerning His Church : ' flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bones,' a true native extract of mine own body. So that in Him, even according to His Manhood, we, according to our heavenly being, are as branches in that root out of w^hich they grow. To all things He is life, and to men light, as the Son of God : to the Church both life and light eternal by being made the Son of Man for us, and by being in us a Saviour, whether we respect Him as God or as Man. x\dam is in us as an original cause of our nature, and of that corruption of nature which causeth death ; Christ as the cause of original restoration to life. The person of Adam is not in us, but his nature and the corruption of his nature derived into all men by propagation. Christ, having Adam's nature as we have, but incorrupt, deriveth not nature but incorruption, and that immediately from His Person, into all that belong unto Him. As therefore we are really partakers of the body of sin and death received from Adam, so except we be truly partakers of Christ, and as really possessed of His Spirit, all we speak of eternal life is but a dream. These things St. Cyril duly considering, reproveth their speeches which taught that only the Deity of Christ is the vine whereupon we by faith do depend as branches, and that neither His Flesh nor our bodies are comprised in this resemblance. For doth any man doubt but that even from the Flesh of Christ our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which they are already accounted parts of His blessed 10 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT Body ? Our corruptible ])odies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His Body which is incorruptible, and that His is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing through the death and merit of His own Flesh that w^iich hindered the life of ours. Christ is therefore both as God and as Man that true Vine whereof we both spiritually and corporeally are l)ranches. Hooker does not hesitate to say that, in virtue of this sacramental union with Christ, *God hath deified our nature.' ^ These grand passages show what a lofty view Hooker took of the sacramental system, a view as far removed from that of those who would regard the Sacraments as bare figures and symbols as of those who would fall into the gross error of the people of Capernaum and ask, ' How can this Man give us His flesh to eat ? ' AVe have in Keble's ' Christian Year ' an exact parallel to the passage so often quoted to prove that Hooker believed in a mere subjective presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In his poem on * Gun- powder Treason' Keble writes : — O come to our Communion Feast : There present in the heart. Not in the hands, th' eternal Priest \\i\\ His true Self impart. Take these words by themselves, and they are a more explicit denial of an objective presence of ' Bk. V. liv. 5 ; Ivi. 7, 'J. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 11 Christ in the Eucharist than Hooker's words ; yet we know that no one taught more emphatically than Keble did the doctrine of an objective presence. His treatise ' On Eucharistical Adoration ' is based on that belief. For instance, the dispute about Eucharis- tical adoration, he says, ' raises evidently the whole question of that which is denominated " the real objective presence" of Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist.' And then he proceeds to argue in favour of that doctrine. In the course of his argument he naturally discusses the doctrine of Hooker, of whose w^orks his own edition is the standard one, and con- cludes : ' Therefore let no person apprehend that in teaching, and magnifying the Eucbaristic sacrifice he is really contradicting this great authority ; any more than, to name a kindred point, he need think him- self departing in principle from Hooker's mind by maintaining the Eeal objective Presence after conse- cration.' ^ I shall presently endeavour to explain the sense in which the Church, as I understand the matter, wishes her children to believe in the doctrines of the Keal Presence and Eucharistic Sacrifice — a sense very different from the misconceptions of popular Protestantism. The point which I am now pressing is that the ordinary interpretation of the classical passage on the Keal Presence in Hooker is not consistent with his teaching as a whole, which plainly insists on a Presence independent of the faith of the recipient. What he was solicitous about was that people should not think that the Eucharistic > On Eucharistical Adoration, pp. 57, 71. 12 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Presence was inherent in the consecrated elements as a qiiahty jDroper to them. He insists therefore that, alth()u,i,^h the Sacrament is hy Divine appointment the cause instrumental for putting us in communica- tion with our Incarnate Lord, yet the Presence must be sought in the recipient and not in the conduit through which the gift passes. Peception of the gift is conditional on reception of the Sacrament where that is possible, just as the cure of Naaman's leprosy was contingent on his dipping seven times in Jordan ; but in each case the elhcient cause must be sought in the will of God. He can attach what condition He pleases to the bestowal of His gifts, and we have no right to expect them if we wilfully neglect the conditions; but the gifts themselves exist quite independently of our views about them or our attitude towards them. The Eucharistic Presence is quite independent of the faith of the recipient. Faith creates nothing. Its province is not to create but to receive a gift external to it and offered to it. Faith is sometimes compared to an eye. But the eye does not create the light. It receives it and transmits it to the brain and intellect. But a man may injure his eyes, so that they cease to be accurate conductors to the soul. The vision is thus blurred and distorted. Or he may destroy his eyes altogether, and then the whole realm of light, with all its en- trancing visions, is shut out from the soul. But the light is there all the same. It embraces the blind man in its radiance, but can find no avenue into his soul, since he has destroyed his organs of vision. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 13 The light is there, but no longer for him. Yet it impinges on his blind eyes. It touches the optic nerves. But there is no response, for the organ of apprehension is gone. And this is true of all our senses ; the function of each is to receive an impres- sion, an impact from an external object charged with its appropriate virtue. And philosophers may discuss, and have discussed, whether the gift is in the external object or in the recipient of the impact ; whether the sweetness is in the sugar or in the palate ; wdiether the beauty is in the sunset or in the percipient mind. The sunset prints the same image on the eye of the brute as on the human eye ; but there is no corresponding res sacramcnti, if I may so express myself. For indeed Nature is a sacrament, as the old Fathers loved to think ; ' an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual ' Presence energising through all her operations and phenomena. But however philosophers may dispute, we all agree that our bodily senses are our organs of com- munication w^ith external facts, and that our sensa- tions are no mere subjective impressions, but im- pressions resulting from contact with objective realities. The senses do not create the impres- sions. They only receive and convey them. So with faith. It no more causes the Presence in the Eucharist than the eye causes the sunset. The Presence is objective — that is, outside of it and independent of it. If faith be lacking, the Presence has no more access to the soul than the glory of the setting sun has through sightless eyeballs. Want of 14 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT faith in the people of Capernaum incapacitated them for the reception of their Saviour's gifts. ' He could do no mighty work there because of their unbehef.' Yet He was there, close to them, touching them. Thus we see that, alike in the Kingdom of Nature and of Grace, the Presence that nourishes the soul nmst be objective before it can become subjective. And there is also in each case a process of transmu- tation on reception of the gift. As Hooker says of the Sacrament of the altar, so we may say of the Sacrament of nature, that the gift ' is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament.' If he is not worthy, the gift can find no entrance in either case ; but let it find an entrance, and immediately it begins to energise and to transform the recipient of it. Our Church repu- diates the transubstantiation of the sacramental ele- ments ; but she asserts the transubstantiation of the recipient of the Sacrament. Thus, says Hooker, ' God hath deified our nature.' Just as we assimilate material food and transubstantiate it into the sub- stance of our bodies, so the Presence of Christ, sacra- mentally received, is designed to transubstantiate us spiritually into the redeemed and deified Humanity of Christ , making us, as the Apostle says, ' partakers of the Divine nature.' ' The doctrine of those who make the faith of the communicants the cause of Christ's Presence is exposed to a fatal objection. For it follows— as may surely happen — that if all the communicants lack ' 2 ret. i. 4. PKESENCE OF CIIiUST IN T11J-: KUCIIAKIST 15 faith there is no sacrament at all : there is only an empty ceremony without any result, ' an outward and visihle sign ' without any corresponding- reality. This, notless than Transuhstantiation, 'overthroweth the nature of a sacrament.' The former ahroo-ates the heavenly part ; the latter, the (earthly. The primitive and Catholic view^ maintains both. And now let us see what the primitive and Catholic doctrine is, disengaged from materiahsm, on the one hand, and what, for lack of a better word, I will venture to call psilochristism, on the other. Our Lord, says the ' Te Deum,' ' hath opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all behevers.' How? We have the answer in the Epistle to the Hebrews : ' Having therefore, brethren, a sure confidence for entrance into the Holies in the blood of Jesus, which entrance He hath made for us anew — a hving way fresh opened sacrificially through the veil, that is His flesh.' ^ What are we to understand by this preg- nant passage ? It is impossible to give the compact and suggestive meaning of the original except in peri- phrasis. Our Lord's Incarnation is the medium of communication between the natural life and the spiritual. It is, in the first place, the copula that unites the creation with the Creator. ' He took not on Him the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He layeth hold.' Had He assumed angelic nature, the chasm that divides the Creator from His creation would have remained unbridged. By taking human nature, the Eternal Son bridged the gulf. . • Heb; x. 20. 16 THE refoe:mation settlement For human nature consists of body (crw/xa), soul (yfrvxv), and spirit {irvsvixa) ; and these embrace the whole creation : inorp^anic matter, vegetable, animal and spiritual life. Thus only can we fully under- stand the profound language of St. Paul. The atone- ment which he preached was a truth infinitely deej^er and higher and wider than a mere forensic satisfaction for sin. It embraced the universe by uniting it with the Almighty and all-loving Creatqj. ' For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fulness {-rrav TO 7rXy]po)iJia) dwell ; and tlu-ougli Him to reconcile all things {ra iravra) to Himself through the blood of His Cross ; through Him, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens.' ^ And the same Apostle, in another place, represents ' the whole creation ' as ' groaning and travailing in pain with us until now,' and awaiting with us ' the redemption of the body ' ^ which aUies us to the material universe. The Incarnation thus embraces the whole uni- verse of being. Next, it is, in a more restricted sense, a fresh source of purified life to the fallen race of Adam. ' For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' "^ How do all men die in Adam? By deriving from him a nature biased towards evil by the now recognised law of heredity ; a nature not so much evil in itself, as disorganised, out of joint, going after wrong objects, nourished on deleterious food, and thus become - Col. i. 10, 20. - Rom. viii. 22, 23. ■' 1 Cor. XV. 22. PRESENCE OF CilElST IN T^HE EUCHARIST 17 iiiuuniic, needing a fresh supply of liealthy blood to form gradually a new nature to take the place of the old. This is the ' new and living way ' which Christ opened for mankind through the veil of His flesh — that is, of His deified humanity. Zwcra is here the antithesis of that which is lifeless, and therefore powerless. The way into the sanctuary of the Old Dispensation was a lifeless pavement trodden by the high priest alone with the blood of slain beasts for which there was no resurrection — sacrifices, therefore, ' which could never take away sin,' and were efficacious only as shadows cast before of the one prevailing ' Sacrifice for ever ' of the 'Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' The way opened by Jesus Christ is new and unique ; and it is living, for it is His own Humanity, over which death ' hath no more dominion.' The veil, ' that is His flesh,' is rent asunder, opening the holy of holies ' to all believers,' never again to be closed till His mediatorial work, which embraces all creation, is finished, and death is swallowed up in victory, and all this visible scene of fleeting phe- nomena gives place to the ' new heavens and the earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.' Let us try to enter into the full meaning of this glorious revelation, this ' new and living way ' into the spiritual realm, Bia tov KaraTrsraafjiaTos tout scTTiv crapKoy avrov. While our Incarnate Lord was on earth fulfilling the conditions of fallen humanity during the period of His Kenosis — -that is, while He held His uncreated glory and Divine c 18 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT citti-ibutcs in abeyance— His mortal flesh Imng like the Temple curtain between Himself and His people. But death rent the veil, and at the same moment ' the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.' He laid aside the Adamite conditions of His manhood, and passed with it, transfigured and glorified, under the reign of the laws which are proper to spiritual being. And thus He reconciled {aTTOKarrjWa^sv) us in the body of His flesh through death (Col. i. 22), so that the flesh should no longer be a wall of partition either between His Humanity and the spiritual world, or between God and man ; but, on the contrary, a bond of union bridging the 'great gulf fixed' till then between the human and the Divine, the finite and the Infinite. Thus it is that He has made a new way for us {heKalvLosv) through the veil of His flesh, opened out a new^ mode of access to God, so that the Divine Kature is now approachable by the human. What a flood of light this view of the Incarnation casts upon sundry passages of Holy ^Yrlt ; such, for instance, as our Lord's words to Mary Magdalene : ' Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.' It was no longer the ' flesh ' which she had known and handled under its temporal con- ditions, but that flesh spiritualised and glorified, and to be approached henceforth ' in a new and living way,' and by other organs than the bodily senses. And now let us see how this doctrine bears on our sacramental union with Christ as expounded by PEESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCIIAllIST 10 St. Paul, and also by our Lord Himself, especially in the great sacramental discourse recorded in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel. ' For as in Adam all die,' says the Apostle, 'even so (ovrro Kai) shall all be made alive.' All men die in Adam through the law of heredity ; by deriving from the progenitor of the race— not indeed an utterly depraved nature, as some have supposed, but — a tainted nature ; a nature with a germ of evil in it ; a nature with the equilibrium of its parts destroyed, so that the animal bias is apt to master the spiritual. And this evil inheritance with which we are all born is due to our organic connection with the head of our fallen race. Thus ' in Adam we all die.' How are we ' made alive in Christ ' ? The Apostle tells us that it is by an identical process — i.e. by organic connection. ' Even so ' — just in the same way — ' in Christ shall all be made alive.' He contemplates humanity as subsisting under two heads, the ' First Adam ' and the ' Second Adam,' ' the Old Man ' and ' the New Man.' From the one we derive a vitiated life, an impoverished nature. Into the other we are ' grafted ' by sacramental union in order to have a new and untainted life injected into our wounded nature. In baptism, our Church Catechism tells us, we are ' made members of Christ.' And the Catechism does but follow^ the stronger language of St. Paul, who compares the connection between Christ and Christians with that between Adam and his wife, who was made ' bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.' Christians, he says, 20 THE REFOEMATIOX SETTLEMENT * are limbs of His body, out of His flesh and His bones.' And elsewhere : ' The first man Adam was made a living &oul ; the Last Man was made a life^ giving (^cooTTotovp) spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural • and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earth}'' ; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have Ijorne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.' These words can bear but one meaning, namely, that the connection with ' the Last Adam ' is just as real as the connection with the first. Our Lord Himself conveys the same idea under the image of the life-giving Vine and its branches ; and still more emphatically in that wonderful discourse in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel. There He calls Him- self ' the Bread of life,' ' the living Bread which came down from heaven.' And then more plainly : * The Bread that I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' And when His hearers questioned the possibility of such a gift. He repeated the startling assertion with a solemn as- severation : ' Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have no Hfe in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 21 . . . Many therefore of His disciples, when the}^ heard this, said, Tliis is an liard saying ; who can hear it? . . . h'rom tliat time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.' And He let them go rather than water down His ' hard saying.' He was even willing that His ' little flock ' of twelve should follow the rest rather than let them believe that He meant less than He said. There is pathos, but also unflinching determination in His question: ' Will ye also go away?' It were well if they who still stumble at the doctrine would ponder Simon Peter's answer : ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.' Our Lord's words are *an hard saying' still. Shall we call them figurative ? All language is in a sense figurative. It is never the exact embodiment of the idea w^hich it seeks to express. But it is, let us remember, always less than the truth. In that sense our Lord's language here is figurative. He does not mean flesh and blood in the sense in which we ordinarily use these words ; but He means something much deeper, grander, more real. He means His essential Humanity. Throughout the sacrificial system of Israel the blood represents the life, the totality of individual being. Hence the prohibition to eat it. ' For the life of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls ; for it is tlie blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.' ^ It was thus in the language of their own law that ! Lev. xvii, 11. 22 THE KEFORMATTON SETTLEMENT our Lord expounded His Eucharistic doctrine to. the people of Capernaum ; and they ought to have understood Him and followed His reasoning. But their minds remained on the low level of gross materialistic conceptions, and they asked incredu- lously, ' How can this man gi\e us His flesh to eat ? ' He tried to explain : ' The spirit is the life-producer ; the flesh profiteth nothing. The subject of My dis- course is spirit and life.' ^ That is to say, when He spoke of giving His Flesh and Blood as the food of His people, He did not mean by flesh and blood any- thing that the bodily senses could apprehend or a chemist could analyse into its elements. In that sense our Lord's Flesh and Blood are certainly not present in the Eucharist, or indeed anywhere. It is true that He called on His disciples to testify to His ' flesh and bones ' after His Eesurrection. But it is also true that the normal condition of His risen body was that of spirit. What we call flesh and bones is a consolidation of gases which are subject to disinte- gration and dissolution, and this is warded off for a time by the assimilation of congenial nutriment to repair the unceasing waste of tissue. But our Lord's risen body subsists without food and is independent ' The form of the original is somewhat lost in the Englisli version, especially the second clause of the verse (G3) : Ta p-f^fiara a eyu \a\u) vjxlv Tri/evud iaTi Koi ^ojt; iariu. This is inadequately rendered by ' The v/ords that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.' The word f>vfjt.a in Hebraistic Greek, both in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, came to signify the subject of the words, and not the mere words themselves. It was of the realities enshrined in His words that our Lord declared that they are .spirit and life ; not dead matter like ' flesh and blood ' in ordinary speech. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 23 of the laws of physics. He passed through the rock-closed tomb, for the angels rolled back along its groove the heavy stone door to let the pious women in, not to let the risen Saviour out. Similarly He passed afterwards through the closed door, and appeared and disappeared at will, sometimes recog- nisable, sometimes not, according to the spiritual receptivity of those He visited. The truth is that His humiHation, His self-emptying, was always on His part a voluntary act. He chose to be subject to the conditions of fallen human nature ; to learn to walk and read, stumbhng as He learnt; to 'grow in wisdom and stature,' His mind developing |:)flri 2K(ssu with His body ; to need sleep and food like weary and decaying mortals ; to sit fatigued by the well of Jacob and crave for a refreshing draught of cool water ; to feel keenly the desertion of friends and the pain of wounds ; to have a tender human pity for the widow who was following the bier of an only son ; to shed tears at the grave of Lazarus as He heard the sobs of the dead man's sisters ; to die upon the cross by a royal act of will, not through the violence of men ; for it was ' with a loud voice,' not with the gasp of dying men, that ' He yielded up the ghost.' But all this was a voluntary subjection, not a necessity laid upon Him by an unavoidable destiny. And to show this He occasionally freed Himself even before His death from the domination of physical conditions and laws. He dispensed w^ith food for forty days and forty nights, contrary to the ordinary 24 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT experience of men . He walked upon the waves against the law of gravity. He made Himself invisible to the multitude at Capernaum contrary to the laws of optics. He was transfigured on the Mount beyond the skill of mortals. Before His Eesurrection there- fore the normal condition of His body was what St. Paul calls psychical and our English Yei^sion calls ' natural ; ' that is to say, He chose to submit to the ordinary conditions of fallen humanity, but retained the power of retiring on occasion within the domain of spiritual law^s, and was _2;?'0 tanto released from the reign of natural laws. Conversely, after the Resurrection the normal condition of His body was that of spirit. His habitat, if I may use the expression, was the spiritual world, from which He emerged at will, moving freely and unimpeded among natural laws ; availing Himself of them when He chose, and dis- pensing with them at His pleasure. He appeared in human form, though the form varied, and almost invariably required the opening of a spiritual organ in the percipient to recognise it. To convince the incredulous Thomas, He materialised His spiritual body and exhibited it with the stigmata of the Passion. And He spoke with an audible voice and ate with them on the shore of the lake. On the other hand, He passed through solid substances as if they did not exist. And although this fact has so often furnished the sceptic and the scoffer with objections and gibes against Christianity, physical PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 2j science itself has now come to the aid of an affronted creed, and discomfited its assailants. We now know that even a pliysical substance like electricit}' can pass through solid substances as if they did not exist ; through masses of tissue, and wood, and even rock. What is possible to a material substance can, a fortiori, present no difticulty to a spiritual sub- stance, which is so much subtler than the most ethereal of earthly entities. Though I accept the intention conveyed by the Black Bubric — to use the common solecism— at the end of the Communion Oftice, I cannot accept its philosophy when it affirms that ' the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here ; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.' Christ, as we have seen, has no ' natural body ' at all in the sense of the rubric. For ' flesh and blood,' as the Apostle assures us, ' cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrupiion.' ^ Our Lord's risen body is ' spiritual,' not ' natural,' as the same Apostle also assures us, and has therefore no relation to place. ' Christ sits at the right hand of God,' says a most able and learned Danish Protestant divine, ' but the right hand of the Father is everywhere.' He is careful, however, to guard himself against the Lutheran perversion of the doctrine of the Communicatio Idiomatum, which endows Christ's Humanity with ' I Cor. XV. 50, 26 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT the ubiquity of His Divine Person.' Hooker takes much the same view : — To conckide, we hokl it in regard of the fore-alleged proofs a most infallil)le truth that Christ as T^Ian is not everywhere present. There are which think it as infalh- l)ly true that Christ is everywhere present as Man, which peradventure in some sense may be well enough granted. His human substance in itself is naturally absent from the earth, His soul and body not on earth but in heaven only. Yet because this substance is inseparably joined to that personal Word which by His very essence is present with all things, the nature which cannot have in itself universal presence hath it after a sort - by being noichere severed from that which everywhere is present. For inasmuch as that infinite Word is not divisible into parts, it could not in part but must needs be wholly incarnate, and consequently wheresoever the Word is it hath with it manhood, else should the Word be in part or somehow God only and not Man, wliich is impossible. For the Parson of Christ is whole, perfect God and per- fect Man w^heresoever, although the parts of His Man- hood being finite, and His Deity infinite, w^e cannot say that the tuhole of Christ is simply everywhere, as we may say that His Deity is, and that His Person is by force of Deity. For Somewhat of the Person of Christ is not everywhere in that sort, namely. His Manhood, the only conjunction whereof with Deity is extended as far as Deity, the actual jw.sz7/o?j restrained and tied to a certain place ; yet presence by way of conjunction is in some sortr presence. Again, as the Manhood of Christ may after a sort be everywhere said to be present, because that Person is ' Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, p. 325. - The italics are Hooker's in all this quotation. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 27 everywhere present from whose Divino substance man- liood nowhere is severed ; so tlie same universahty of presence may Hkewise seem in another respect apphcable thereunto, namely, co-operation with Deity, and that in all tliimjs} There is scarcely a greater name in the history of philosophy than Leibnitz, a man of universal geniuS; sound judgment, and master of all the learn- ing of his time in addition. A sincere Protestant himself, he was a sincere believer in the doctrine of the Eeal Presence in the Sacrament, and he meets as follows one of the current objections to it : — As I have been the first to discover that the essence of a body does not consist in extension but in motion, and hence that the substance or nature of a body, even ac- cording to Aristotle's definition, is the principle of motion (eVreXexeta) and that this principle or substance of the body has no extension, I have made it plain how God can be clearly and distinctly understood to cause the sub- stance of the same body to exist in many different places.^ Even of material substance w^e must admit that w-e know^ nothing but as it is manifested in certain qualities. We cannot think of any quality except as inhering in some underlying substance as its basis. But substance itself eludes our last analysis.^ Ahke in philosophy and in theology if we try to run beyond ' Eccl. Pol. V. Iv. 7, 8. - Brieficechscl siciscJicii Leibnitz, Arnauld, n. Ernst v. Hesse- PJieinfcls, p. 14o, ^ ' Quid sit rei alicujus substantia minime cognoscimus. Videmus tantum corporum figuras et colores ; audimus tantum sonos ; tan- gimus tantum superficies externas ; olfacimus odores solos ; et gus- tamus sapores : iutimas substantias uullo sensu, nulla actione 23 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT our tether we end in upsetting ourselves. Our inquiry leads us at last to a mystery which sense and intellect fail to penetrate. The doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence is a matter of revelation and of faith, and the mode of it is past our comprehen- sion. So true is Sir William Hamilton's dictum that ' no difficulty emerges in theology which had not previously emerged in philosophy.' For the philosopher equally with the theologian the safe rule is, ' Crede ut intelligas,' not ' IntelHge ut credas.' ' ' Mysteries are revealed unto the meek,' says the wise son of Sirach. And a greater than he has taught us that the key which opens the secret of His mysteries is a teachable will. ' If any one hath the will to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.' ^ Let us then, in this spirit, see whether we cannot understand at least the drift of our Lord's discourse at Capernaum. He declares Himself to be the food of His people. He promises to give them His Flesh and Blood for their sustenance, and solemnly afhrms that unless men eat His Flesh and drink His Blood they have no life in them. But He adds that they are not to understand His words in a gross natural sense appreciable by the bodily senses. It is not man's perishable body that He promises to feed, and by feeding make partaker of His own Eternal Life, but reflexa, cognoscimus.' {Principia, Schol. lit.) Cf. Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy, pp. ()04-o. ' See Is. vii. 9, in the LXX version : Kal \b.v jui] inaTeva-riTf o^/St ^7/ avvriTf. - ^\, John vii. 17. PEESENCE OF CHEIST IN THE EUCHARIST 29 man's true self, liis spirituiil substance, ^vhicll re- mains constant amidst the unceasing mutations of its earthly integument. ' It is the spirit that quickeneth,' not flesh and blood that the senses can scrutinise. Impoverished humanity must be placed in communication with afresh spring of life to arrest the decay of the old perishing nature and transform it into the nature of the Incarnate Son. * It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh pro^ fiteth nothing.' In these words our Lord lays down a truth applicable to all life. Even in material things it is not the gross mass of palpable particles that ' profiteth,' but the spirit, the hidden essence, wdiich is too subtle for the apprehension of the senses, too ethereal for the skill of science. ' It is the spirit that quickeneth ' throughout the realm of nature. Matter in all its forms is an evolution from a spiritual cause which has its source in the Divine Will. ' In Him we live, and move, and have our being,' and apart from Him there is and can be no life. In this sense the whole universe of created being may be said with exact truth to feed upon its God. Its life is derivative, not independent. ' The eyes of all wait upon Thee, Lord, and Thou givest them their meat in due season.' No life can exist for a moment, from that of an archangel to that of a blade of grass, apart from the Almighty Creator and Universal Sustainer. In the spiritual world, as far as we are given to know, all created life is sustained immediately by the will of God. On earth it is sus- tained sacramentally — that is by means of secondary 30 TIIl^ EEFOHMATIOX SETTLEMENT^ causes. This rule prevails universally in our world. It is the law of all life in the vep^etable and animal kingdoms, and it is the law of human life both on its material and spiritual side. It was the law of Paradise. However we interpret the narrative of man's innocence and fall, it is plain that it describes a sacramental system : ordinary food proper for man's bod}', and spiritual food for his spiritual nature, imparted through material channels, till man's sin interposed a barrier. All nature may thus be regarded as a sacramental feystem, ' an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace ' energising within it ; and the Sacraments of the Church are but an example in one department of the Divine Providence, as manifested on earth, of the rule which He has ordained through- out the realm of nature. By the ' hard saying ' which shocked the people of Capernaum, and many others since their day, we are to understand Christ's Incarnate life. He would have us believe that this is the source and nutriment of our spiritual, that is our true, our real life. But how^ can our Lord's Humanity be thus dis- seminated germinally among the millions of His members? To which 1 answer: J low can the flesh and blood — that is, the essential humanity -of Adam be disseminated among the millions of his descendants ? We know that it is so : the fact is undisputed. And shall we declare that to be im- possible to the Second Adam, whose Person is Divine, which is an admitted fact in the case of the l^HliSl^NCE 0¥ CUEIST IN THE EUCHARIST ;jl first Adam ? Shall the first Adam be capable of propagating his perverted nature among all the human beings who have sprung from his loins? And shall the Second Adam, 'the Lord from heaven,' be unable to impart His life-giving Humanity through the channels of His own ap- pointment ? There is a real presence of Adam, in no figure of speech but in stern truth, in all his children. We are indeed partakers of his flesh and blood ; and yet, again, not in the gross sense understood by the people of Capernaum, but in a far more real sense. But there is a fundamental diiierence between Adam's presence through the long line of his offspring, and Christ's Sacramental Presence. Adam is present in his nature, through the mys- terious process of natural generation, in all his descendants. But he is not present personally, for his person, being human, is limited and circum- scribed. Christ's human nature is communicated sacramentally, and He is thus, Hke Adam, present humanly in the process of communicating it ; but He is also present personally, for His Person, being Divine, is inseparable from His Humanity, and is in fact onmipresent. The fact is, the impugners of the Sacramental system of the Church take too contracted a view of God's relation to the material universe. They find it hard to believe that spiritual energy can be imparted through material channels, such as water, and bread and wine. But surely this is in strict 32 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT analogy with His operations in nature and among men. Does any of His gifts reach us except through some material agency ? What were the prophets of old? What is the Bihle ? What is prayer? Are not all these and the hke material organs of communication between God and man? Let us purge our minds of carnal notions and rise above the grovelling literahsm of the people of Capernaum, who imagined that the Flesh and Blood with which Jesus offered to feed them meant portions of pon- derable matter. ' They are spirit and they are life,' and all the more real on that account. It may be well, before passing away from this subject, to take note of the Primate's reference to Consubstantiation in his recent Charge. * It is diffi- cult, if not impossible,' he says, 'really to distinguish between this doctrine [of the Keal Presence] and the Lutheran doctrine commonly called Consubstantia- tion, and it is important that it should be clearly understood that it is not unlawful to hold and teach it within the Church of England.' I suppose that his Grace understands by Con- substantiation the co-existence of the substance of the bread and wine with the substance of the Lord's Body. It is not quite clear what the Lutheran doctrine really is. The explanations of it are not always consistent. Luther himself explains it as follows in his letter to Henry YHI. : — The Body of Christ is (the bread still existing) in the Sacrament, as fire is in iron, the substance of the iron existing; and God in man, the human nature existing; PRESENCE OP CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 3.^ the substances in each case being so united that eacli i-etains its own operation and proper nature, and yet they constitute one thing. Yet on other occasions Luther, while strongly insisting on the reality of the Sacramental Presence, deprecates any attempt to define the mode. The Lutheran Confessions, however, carefully avoid definition while affirming the fact. The Augsburg Confession says : ' De Cocna Domini docent quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi vescentibus in Coena Domini.' The Saxon Confession says : * Docentur etiam homines sacramenta esse actiones divinitus institutas, et extra usum institutum res ipsas non habere rationem sacramenti, sed in usu institute in hac communione vere et substantialiter adesse Christum, et vere ex- hibere sumentibus corpus et sanguinem Christi.' The Wiirtemberg Confession says : ' Cum de pane dicitur Hoc est corpus meiim, non est necesse ut substantia panis mutetur in substantia,m corporis Christi ; sed ad veritatem sacramenti sufficit quod corpus Christi vere sit cum pane prsesens, atque adeo necessitas ipsa veritatis sacramenti exigere videtur, ut cum vera prsesentia corporis Christi verus panis maneat.' We may therefore say that Lutheranism is not committed to the doctrine of Consubstantiation, and the English Church certainly is not. The great divines of the seventeenth century reject equally ' a trans and a con ' as definitions of the mode of the Presence ; and the divines of the Tractarian move- D 31 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT inent are equally emphatic on the point. And with good reason. For the word 'Consubstantiation ' lends itself to more than heterodox meaning. Luther himself, misled by the word, sometimes used lan- guage which implied impanation, and also Euty- chianism. The word may mean not only the co- existence of heterogeneous substances, but also their possession of a common nature, as when the Nicene Creed says that Christ is consubstantial with the Father. Our divines therefore have done wisely to avoid a word which has never been naturalised even in Lutheran theology, and which has never obtained a footing in our Church. In fine, try as we may, we arc not likely to im- prove on Queen Elizabeth's profession of faith iii the l\eal Presence : — He was the ^Yol•d that spake it ; He took the bread and brake it ; And what that Word did make it, I do believe and take it.' So much as to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Disengaged from popular mis- conceptions and crude materialistic notions, surely it must be admitted to be in complete harmony with the teaching of our Lord aiid with St. Paul's ' These lines have soinetinies been altribiited to Donne : but the balance of evidence is in favour of tluiv Elizabethan authorship when the queen was in confinement as Trincess Elizabeth. They arc not in the first edition of Donne, and were published for the first time as his in lGo4, thirteen years after his death. Some other poems, confessedly not his, were published in the edition of 1054. PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 35 doctrine of our I'elatioii to the two Adams, and of the Eucharist being our bond of union with Christ.' We shall presently see how the Church of England regards it. But let me first endeavour to explain the sense in which I understand the Eucharist to be a sacrifice. For undoubtedly that term has been applied to it in the earliest Liturgies, and by those ' Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops ' to whose doctrine the English nation, in its ecclesiastical and lay capacity, appealed at the time of the Beformation as a model for the teaching and practice of its clergy. The primary appeal was to Scripture, but to Scripture as interpreted by the undivided Church of the first centuries of Chris- tianity. The Canon of 1571 concerning Preachers enjoins the clergy ' never to preach anything to be religiously held and believed by the people except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or Xew Testament, or which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from that doctrine.' ^ An Act of Parliament, passed thirteen years previously,^ declares emphatically that * nothing is to be adjudged heresy but that which heretofore has been adjudged by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, or the first four General Councils, or ' 1 Cor. X. 10. - ' In primis videbunt Coiicionatores, nequid unquam doceant pro concione quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinre Veteris aut Novi Testamenti, quodque ex ilia ipsa doctrina Catholici Patres et veteres Episcopi colligerint.' ^ 1 Eliz. cap. i. a.d. 1558, § xxxvi. d2 36 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT some other General Council, wherein the same hath been declared heresy by the express word of Scrip- ture ; or such as shall be termed heresy by the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the clergy in Convocation.' Bishop Pearson is a standard Anglican authority, whose classical work on the Creed is one of the books which candidates for Holy Orders are re- quired to master. He was, moreover, one of the divines who presided over the last revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and was also one of the divines who took part in the Savoy Conference. Baxter says ' he was their [Church of England] true logician and disputant. . . . He disputed accurately, soberly, and calmly, being but once in a passion, breeding in us [the Puritans] a great respect for him.' He also calls him ' the strength and honour of that [Church of England] cause.' In a sermon in praise of the Keformation preached before the University of Cambridge in 16(39 during his tenure of the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity, Pearson says : — Sacros igitur imprimis Scripture codices [Reformatio] tanquam -basin religionis instaurandoe posuit, et omnibus propalavit. Sed ne mala feriata hominum ingenia tam tremenda mysteria violarent, sapientissime pra^cepit * ne quis populo quicquani tanquam ad salutem necessarium praedicaret, quod antiquissimi Patres ex eisdem ante non collegerunt.' Tria praeterea Symbola, certissima antiqua? fidei criteria, admisit ; admonuit etiam, ' Vere generalia Concilia esse sine controvcrsia adniittcnda, et quicquid PEESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST 37 lis contrarium doceretiu* ac pervivaciter defenderetur, pro haeresi puniendum esse.' Sacros ordines, ab ipsis Apostolis institutes, proiuovit ; disciplinam vetustissimam, aut adhuc obtinenteni retinuit, aut ante collapsam restitutuni iri exoptavit.' Here then we have this eminently representative divine of the Church of England taking his stand on the authoritative declarations of the Church and State of England at the period of the Keformation, and laying down the following cardinal principles of the Keformation : first, the appeal, on all disputed points, to Scripture as interpreted by the Church of the first four centuries ; secondly, the conservation of the organic constitution of the Church as it came down from Apostolic times ; thirdly, the retention of what still remained of the ancient order of Divine worship, and the restoration of wdiat had collapsed in the turmoil of party passions and prejudices. We have probably in this passage a side light on the Ornaments Kuhric by one of its framers. The ornaments there prescribed were to be retained for use wliere circumstances allowed their restoration. Grotius also refers in terms of high praise to the Canon of 1571.^ The thirtieth Canon of 1603 enters more fully into the rationale of the Canon of 1571. After defending against the Puritans the use of the sign of the Cross in baptism, the Canon pro- ceeds to lay down as follows the general principle ' Minor Theological Works, i. 43G. - Non possum non laudere prfcclarum Anglife canonem, ' Imprimis,' &c. Dc Im^jerio Sum, Pot. circa Sacra, vi. 8. 38 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT underlying the appeal of the English Church to antiquity : — Thirdly, it must be confessed that in process of time the sign of the Cross was greatly abused in the Church of Rome, especially after that corruption of Popery had once possessed it. But the abuse of a thing doth not take away the lawful use of it. Nay, so far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such-like Churches, in all things which they held and practised, that, as the Apology of the Church of England confesseth, it doth with reverence retain those ceremo- nies, which do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men ; and only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their ancient integrity, and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders. Lastly, the use of the sign of the Cross in Baptism, being thus purged of all Popish superstition and error, and reduced in the Church of England to the primary institution of it, upon those true rules of doctrine con- cerning things indifferent, which are consonant to the Word of God and the judgment of the ancient Fathers, we hold it the part of every private man, both minister and other, reverently to retain the use of it prescribed by public authority. With this rule of interpretation to guide us, let us now consider what is meant by the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 39 CHArTia; IT THE EUCHAlUSTrC SACTiIFICE I SAY it with all respect, Init those who condemn the doctrine of the Encharistic Sacrifice appear to me not only to misunderstand what they censm^e, but to take an inadequate and jejune view^ of the Sacrifice of Christ. They seem to fasten down its significance to what logicians call its inseparable accident, and to regard it as beginning and ending on Calvar}-. What a poor notion such a view gives of the doctrine of the Atonement and of our Lord's condescension and love ! To us, with our limited vision and sense of guilt, death appears a great calamity. It puts an end to all our plans, tears us from a thousand endearing associations, and dis- misses us to an unknown world and an uncertain destiny. To Him death was but a temporal in- cident in a hfelong sacrifice. He ' drank of the brook in the way ' and passed to His mediatorial throne to offer Himself as a perpetual sacrifice.^ The essence of sacrifice is in the surrender of the will. That done, the sacrifice is complete as far as ' Heb. X. 12, Both the argument and the sense require that ej"$ Tw SjTjj/cKes in this verse should be connected with -npoa^viyKas, 40 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the sufferer is concerned, though circumstances re- quire its consummation in tlie death of the victim. Abraham's self-sacrifice was complete, and Isaac's also, when the Father of the faithful raised his arm to slay his child ; and the Church has always con- ceded the crown of martyrdom to those whose niartyrdom was only in will. God has been sacri- ficing Himself from eternity. He is self-suflicing through the eternal harmony of a threefold Perso- nality in an indivisible substance. He needs nothing from without, and when He broke the silence of eternity with the sights and sounds of created life it was because His nature, like His name, is love, and it is of the essence of love to share its happiness. To Him this perpetual self-sacrifice involves no pain, because His love is * perfect,' having no disturbing elements, and none of that ' fear ' which St. John tells us 'hath torment.' But when the Eternal Son laid aside His uncreated glory, ' emptied Himself ' for a time of His regal dignity b}^ voluntary abasement, circumscribing for a purpose His infinitude by the limitations of humanity, the pain that is latent in the love of all finite natures became manifest in the ' strong crying and tears ' of His human nature. He found the outpourings of His self-sacrifice re- pelled on all sides. ' He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief,' and His human soul felt the pangs of baffled love. The best of men That ere wore earth about Him was a sufferer ; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; The first true gentleman that ever breathed. THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 41 We may, therefore, say that in self-sacrifice hes the happiness of God : first, in the relations of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity to each other ; then in the sphere of created life. The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery which transcends, without con- tradicting, human reason. But one precious truth it does disclose ; namely, the existence of social qualities in the Godhead. It was not at the birth of a Virgin's child in Bethlehem that God became a Pather. Fatherhood is an eternal attribute of His nature, as Sonship is an eternal attribute of the Second Person of the Trmity. Hence the emphasis with which our Lord ahvays calls Himself * the Son of man,' implying thereby in Him the prerogative of another Sonship which differentiated Him from all other men. This unique expression arrested the attention of Kenan. ' It is probable,' he says, ' that from the first He regarded His relationship with God as that of a son towards his father. This was His great act of originality ; in this He had nothing in common with His race.' This important truth is expressed with much force and clearness by the late Mr. R. H. Hutton in his profound essay on the ' Incarnation and Principles of Evidence.' His treatment of the subject may be gathered from the following quotation : — If Christ is the Eternal Son of God, God is indeed and in essence a Father ; the social nature, the spring of love, is of the very essence of the Eternal being ; the communication of His Hfe, the reciprocation of His affec- tion, dates from beyond time — belongs, in other words. 42 THE REFOET^IATION SETTLEMENT to the very being of God. Now some persons think that such a certainty, even when attained, has very httle to do with human hfe. * \Yhat does it matter,' they say, ' what the absolute nature of God is, if we know w^hat He is to us ; how can it concern us to know what He was befoi'e our race existed, if we know what He is to all His creatures now ? ' These questions seem plausible, but I believe they point to a very deep error. I can answer for myself that the Unitarian conviction that God is — as God and in His eternal essence — a single and, so to say, solitary personality, influenced my imagination and the whole colour of my faith most profoundly. Such a con- viction, thoroughly realised, renders it impossible to identify any of the social attributes with His real essence — renders it difficult not to regard power as the true root of all other Divine life. If we are to believe that the Father was from all time, w^e must believe that He was as a Father — that is, that love was actual in Him as well as potential ; that the communication of life and thought and fulness of joy w^as of the inmost nature of God, and never began to be if God never began to be. For my own part, I am sure that our belief, whatever it may be, about the ' absolute ' nature of God, influences far more than any one supposes our practical thoughts about the actual relation of God to us. Unitarians eagerly deny, I once eagerly denied, that God is to them a solitary Omnipotence. Nor is He. But I am sure that the conception of a single eternal will as originating, and infinitely antecedent to, all acts of love or spiritual communion with any other, affects vitally the temper of faith. The throne of heaven is to them a lonely one. The solitude of the eternities weighs upon their imagina- tions. Social are necessarily postponed to individual attributes ; for they date from a later origin — from creation — while power and thought are eternal. Neces- THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 43 sarily, therefore, God, though spoken of and \vorshipped as a Father to us, is conceived iwhnarihj as imagining and creating ; secondarily only, as loving and inspiring. But any being whose thoughts and resolves are con- ceived as in any sense deeper and more personal than his affections, is necessarily regarded rather as benignant and compassionate than as affording the type of that deepest kind of love which is co-ordinate with life ; in short, rather as a beneficence whose love springs out of power and reason, than as one whose power and reason are grounded in love. I am sure that this notion of God as the Absolute Cause does tincture deeply even the highest form of Unitarian faith, and I cannot see how it could be otherwise. If our prayers are addressed to One whose eternity we habitually image as unshared, we necessarily for the time image the Father the Omniscient and Omnipotent Genius of the universe. If, on the other hand, we pray to One who has revealed His own eternity through the Eternal Son ; if in the spirit of the liturgies. Catholic and Protestant, we alternate our prayers to the eternal originating love, and to that filial love in which it has been eternally mirrored, turning from the ' Father of heaven ' to the ' Son, Redeemer of the world,' and back again to Him in whom that Son for ever rests — then we keep a God essentially Social before our hearts and minds, and fill our imagination with no sohtary grandeur. ' And as the happiness of God springs from His self-sacrifice, from His outpom^ing of Himself, as far as that is possible, in the sphere of created life, this also is true of man. ' Whosoever will save his life will lose it ; and w^hosoever will lose his life for My * Esmys, Theological and Literary, ii. 246-248. 44 THE REF0R:\IATI0X SETTLEMENT sake shall find it.' We must, therefore, be somehow partakers of Christ's sufferings. We must be brought into some kind of connection with His all-sufficing and enduring Sacrifice. This idea underlies St. Paul's teaching on the Sacrifice of Christ, e.g. Col. i. 24 : ' Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up {(LvravairXripo)) on my part what is lacking {ra varspy/jLara) of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His Body's sake, which is the Church.' How are we to understand this language? Cer- tainly not in the sense that Christ's Sacrifice was incomplete in itself. He died for all, and once for all, and there can be no addition to that Sacrifice, nor can there be anything lacking to its complete- ness. And yet lack of some sort there must be, for the Apostle says so very distinctly ; and lack, more- over, which it is the duty and privilege of Christians to * fill up on their part.' It is a pregnant word, occurring nowhere else in the New Testament, and not at all in the Septuagint. The avri has for its primary meaning the idea of supply from an opposite quarter to make up a deficiency. There is a clear antithesis of two sufferers, the one filling from his side something that had been left for him as his share of the affliction. But that implies co-operation, and thus identity in the work of redemption between Christ and His followers, between the Head and His members. We may therefore paraphrase the passage as follows. When Adam fell, he involved his race in his ruin. As yet he had no child, and mankind there- fore, viewecj as a race, fell with liim. But the race THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE io became individiuilly partakers of the catastrophe by process of natural generation. Christ's Sacrifice on Calvary reversed the calamity of Eden, and thus saved the race quel race. But the race becomes individually partaker of the Kedemption by process of spiritual regeneration. The lacking part of the remedy, which they are to ' fill up on their side,' is individual participation in the new life and all- sufficing Sacrifice which He has offered, and this through the means which He has Himself appointed for that purpose. The Fall has two aspects. It was an injured and guilty ^ nature which Adam passed on to his offspring and descendants. It is a restored and sinless Kature that died on Calvary, and by His death made satisfaction for an attainted race. Thus Christ came, not as ' the Desire of all nations ' merely, nor merely as the infallible Teacher and perfect Example of men, but, above all, as the Healer and Saviour of our race. He came, not to develop our old nature, but to make it anew ; to reconstruct it from the foundation ; to place a new organic force at its centre, which should gradually transform the members into the likeness of the Head. Humanity had been perverted from its true end ; but it was still Divine, else the Son of God could not have clothed Himself in it even by a Virgin birth. The very misery of man, as Pascal has observed, proves his grandeur, and denotes his ' Guilty in the sense in which the descendants of an attainted man inherit the consequences of their ancestor's crime. 46 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT lineage as not of earth. There is an unearthly melody in his song, and something more than mortal mingles in his wail. Natures inferior to his may be miserable ; but they are not conscious of their misery. The knowledge of his misery adds poignancy to man's sorrow^ but also bears witness to the high estate from which he fell. He is like a royal exile, bearing about him in his retributive wanderings the lineaments of his Divine origin. The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we conic From God, \Yho is our home. It was one of the fundamental errors of the leaders of the Keformation on the Continent that they peremptorily denied that man ' trailed ' any ' clouds of glory ' from his heavenly home. They taught that the Fall vitiated human nature at the very core, making it altogether corrupt, so that God could find nothing in it but what was abominable and hateful. In his ' Institutes ' Calvin has a chapter entitled Ex cumtptd naturd liominis nihil nisi damnahilc jyrodirc, and the following quotation will give a fair idea of his doctrine : — Let us grasp this unquestionable trutli, which no opposition can ever shake, that the mind of man is so completely ahenated from the righteousness of God that it conceives, desires, and undertakes everything that is THE r.UCHARlSTlC SACRIFICE! 47 Impious, perverse, l);ise, flaj^itioiis ; tluit his heart is so thoroughly infected by the poison of sin that it cannot produce anything but what is corrupt ; and that if at any time men do anything apparently good, yet the mind always remains involved in hypocrisy and deceitful obliquity, and the heart remains enslaved by its inward perverseness. . . » In vain do We look in our nature for anything that is good.^ Again : — Man cannot 1)0 excited or biased to anything but eviL If this is so, there is no impiety in affirming that he is under the necessity of sinning.^ Further on he does not hesitate to assert that ' nuin, by a just impulse, does what is wrong.' Melanchthon and Zwingli teach the same doc- trine. The former maintains that the virtues of good heathens, the constancy of Socrates, the chas- tity of Xenocrates, the temperance of Zeno, were not virtues at all, but must be considered as vices ; and that in fact ' all their w^orks and all their endeavours are sinful.' ^ Like Calvin, he accepts the full consequences of his premisses, and does not scruple to make God the direct author of sin, giving as an example the adultery of David and his assas- sination of Uriah. For obvious reasons I must leave the passage in its coarse Latin vesture : — Quod Deus facit libere facit, alienus ab omni affectu noxio, igitur et absque peccato, ut adulterium David, quod ' Inst. lib. ii. c. o, § 10, § o. ' ' Non debent pro veris viitutibus sed pro vitiis liaberi.' — Loci Theologici, p. 22. 48 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ad auctorem Deiim pertinet, non magis Deo sit peccatum qiiam cum taurus totum arnientum inscendit et implet. Zwingli teaches the same doctrine, and uses th(3 same ihustration. God, he says, is ' the author, mover, and impeller ' of the sins of men.' Luther went quite as far. He said that ' it is the nature of man to sin ; sin constitutes the essence of man ; the nature of man since the Fall is become quite changed ; original sin is the very offspring of father and mother.' Man is thus reduced to what Hallam calls ' a sordid, grovelling, degraded Caliban.' - But men tire often better than their creeds, and I imagine that most of those who would now call themselves Calvinists and Lutherans would recoil from the crude and cruel doctrine of their spiritual ancestors. Nevertheless it colours the theology of many who would repudiate its naked statements. Even so gentle and truly Christian a spirit as the late Pro- fessor Henry Drummond accepted the fundamental tenet of the Calvinistic creed, and his acceptance of it vitiates the argument of his (in man}^ ways) charming and suggestive volume on ' Natural Law ' * Unum igitur iitque idem facinus, puta adulteriuiii aut homici- dium, quantum Dei auctoris, motoris, impulsoris, opus est, crimen non est, quantum autem hominis est crimen ac scelus est.'— Dc Provid, c. vi. ♦ Sic autem agit [Deus] per ilia instrunienta, ut non tantum sinat ilia agere, nee tantum moderetur eventum, sed etiam incitet, impellat, moveat, regat, atque adeo quod omnium est maximum, et creat, ut per ilia agat quod constituit.' — Aphor, xxii, - Hist, of Lit. iii. p. 284. THE EUCPIARTSTIC SACRIFICE 49 in the Spiritual World.' In that book he repre- sents man as dead by nature. Spiritually he belongs, he says, to the inorganic kingdom, and cannot pass over to the organic except through the miraculous process of conversion. The natural corollary of this doctrine of the Fall was the figment of an 'imputed righteousness' — a cloak, not a cure, for the sins of humanity. ' God,' says Luther, ' sent His Son into the world, and laid upon Him all the sins of all men, saying, " Be Thou Peter, that denier ; Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor ; David, that adulterer ; be Thou that sinner that ate the apple in Paradise ; that thief which hung upon the Cross ; in short, be Thou the Person .who has committed the sins of all men. See therefore that Thou pay and satisfy them." . . . Therefore wdien sins are seen and felt they are no longer sins.' To say that faith without works was dead and unprofitable he pronounced ' a devilish and blasphemous doctrine,' and naturally therefore cha- racterised the Epistle of St. James as ' an Epistle of straw.' This view of the Fall and the Atonement is responsible for a great deal of the scepticism and agnosticism of the day. Men who take the trouble to reason seriously on these matters, identifying, as they naturally do, Christianity with a representation of it which outrages their moral sense, reject what they believe to be Christianity, but is really a pernicious perversion of it. I have dealt with this subject at 50 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT length in a work from which I will venture to make a long quotation here. ' Now what do we mean hy the doctrine of the Atonement ? Various views have heen put forward on this subject, but I do not think it necessary to discuss more than two of them. One view represents the doctrine of the Atonement somewhat as follows : That when man fell he brought com- plete ruin on his race ; that human nature was entirely and absolutely vitiated by the Fall ; that it was not merely disorganised — its bond of unity being broken by the severance of the human will from the ]j)iyii^e — but that it became w^hohy and absolutely evil, not a single element of good being left in it. And not only so, but, in addition, all men became criminals through Adam's guilt, and the successive generations w^ho are thus born into the world are justly liable to an immortality of torture ; all except a comparatively small number w^ho have been pre- destinated to eternal happiness, and for whom alone Jesus Christ made atonement. This doctrine, more- over, represents God the Father as a Being whose majesty was so offended by Adam's sin that nothing would appease Him but the death of His own inno- cent Son. A ransom had to be paid of a value beyond anything that man could offer, and the Eternal Son accordingly offered Himself to His offended Father as a substitute for guilty man ; and for His sake, thus dying in man's stead, God was satisfied, and an atonement was made for the elect. ' Surely this is a doctrine very derogatory co the THE EUCHAEISTIC SACRIFICE 51 nature of Almighty God. It represents human nature as wholly and completely evil in consequence of Adam's fall. But that is not the doctrine of the Bible, which represents the Divine Image in fallen man as marred, but not entirely effaced. St. Paul says that " we have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" come short, you see, not entirely lost. Had man's nature become wholly sinful, God the Son could not have become incarnate ; He could not have taken a nature wholly sinful into union with His Divine Person. ' Next, the doctrine on which I am commenting implies a difference of moral character in the Trinity. God the Father is represented as so offended with the human race that He could only be reconciled by the voluntary sacrifice of His Son : as if the Father and Son had contrary feelings towards mankind ; the . Father, a severe Sovereign Who would not forgive without a ransom ; the Son, a compassionate Saviour Who offered His life to redeem humanity. The Father would thus be less loving than the Son, which of course is heresy. God the Father is, moreover, represented as indifferent to the guilt or innocence of the victim, provided only that the pay- ment be equivalent to the debt. The innocent suffered for the guilty, and His righteousness is im- puted CO sinful man, who is thus accounted, not made, righteous. The righteousness which man obtains through Christ does not enter into the tissue of his own being, does not become part of him, does not circulate through his spiritual veins as the sap K 2 52 THE PvEFOPv^rATIOX SETTLEMENT of a healtliy tree circulates through the fibres of the sickly sprout which is grafted upon it. It is an external garment which *' skins and films the ulcer- ous sore/' leaving the putrid matter still festering within. But what man needs is to have the sore healed, to have the poison rooted out, to have his nature renewed, to be placed in communication with a fresh and pure fountain of life. He requires to be made, not simply to be accounted, righteous. It is with no mere imputed sin and guilt that he comes into the world, but with a real heritage of woe — a will biased to evil, and a conscience which bears witness to ancestral guilt. It is, therefore, by no mere imputed righteousness that he can be saved. Christ's Atonement is not a substitution for man's righteousness, but the source of it, bringing him into organic relation with the redeemed humanity of God the Son. So much then as to that view of the Atonement which regards human nature as wholly evil and the righteousness of Christians as imputed, not organic ; an external endowment, not an internal principle of sanctity. I believe the view which I have been criticising to be as false as it is certainly comparatively modern. * What, then, is the true view of the Atonement ? It embraces, as I conceive, tw^o ideas : first, the union of the creation as a whole with the Creator — the bridging of the chasm that had divided the finite from the Infinite ; secondly, the reconciliation of mankind, sinful and exiled, to their heavenly Father. Let us glance— for there is no space for more — at THE EUCHABISTIC SACRIFICE 0.3 these two ideas respeetivel}'. Atoneiiieiit, as we know, means at-one-nient, bringing into hannony again, into unison and agreement, persons or parties who were at variance and apart. How does this apply to the reconciliation of the Creator with His creation ? By what atonement can they be brought together? Let us think. One of the most striking facts revealed to us by modern science is the wonder- ful and mysterious unity which pervades the universe and binds all its parts together. There is nothing isolated. All the forces of nature are correlated. The stellar systems that fill infinite space are bound together in all their parts, and are ceaselessly acting upon and influencing each other : planets revolving round their suns, satellites revolving round their planets, and vast solar systems, with their separate hierarchies of planets, moving and controlling each other. Nor is it only in the interdependence of the huge masses of the universe that we find this law of unity, this mutual action and counteraction, prevail- ing ; it binds together the minutest atoms, regardless of distance and intervening obstacles. Every atom in the universe is so closely connected with every other atom, and is so affected by it, that we may say there is a kind of cognisance of each other, a sort of mutual sympathy. Man longs to be independent, but it is a vain dream. There is no independence in the universe. All its parts are correlated, and the whole is sustained by the reciprocal services of the parts. " One deep calleth another," and one atom attracts another on opposite sides of the globe. This o4 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT is not a figure of speech, but a literal matter of fact. Let me quote one of our leading men of science": '' To gravity," he says, " all media are, as it were, absolutely transparent, nay non-existent, and two particles at opposite points of the earth affect each other exactly as if the globe were not between. To complete the apparent impossibiliiy, the action is, so far as we can observe, absolutely instantaneous, so that every particle of the universe is at every moment in separate cognisance, as it were, of the relative position of every other particle throughout the universe at the same moment of absolute time." ^ * This great law of the mutual interdependence and reciprocal action of the various parts of the universe was present to the mind of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, only he looked behind material forces to the spiritual Power which wields and controls them. In St. Paul's view matter was no dead tiling, having no kind of relation to man or God ; on the contrary, he regarded the universe as one vast whole, difterentiated by hierarchies of being, from inorganic matter up to angelic life, and all embraced in the Atonement of the God-Man. In the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Komans he pictures " the whole creation " as " groaning and travailing in pain together until now," and waiting to share in the redemption of the human race. You will find a still more striking passage in the first cliapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, where the Apostle represents the whole creation, angelic, human, ' Jevons'B Principles of Science, h. 144. THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 55 animate and inanimate, as having a part in Christ's atoning sacrifice. You must have the v^hole passage before you in order to appreciate its meaning in all its range and depth. He speaks of God the Father as having " delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in v^hom we have redemption through His Blood, even the forgiveness of sins : Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation : for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the Church : Who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead ; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should ah fulness dwell ; and having made peace through the Blood of His Cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Him- self ; byHiili, I say, whether they be things inearth, or things in heaven." * Try to follow out St. Paul's argument in that passage. God the Father, you will observe, is not represented as an angry Deity between whose wrath and the guilty race of man the Divine Son interposes as an adequate victim. On the contrary. Father and Son are portrayed as co-operating in loving harmony for the redemption of man and the atonement of all creation. The initiative in this work is given to the Father as the fount of Deity — the initiative not in 56 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT time, but in the internal relations of the Trinity. It is God the Father AVho " hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," and " Who hath delivered us from the power of dark- ness." And this He has done through the mediation of the Son of His love. The Father is personally invisible. He is to be seen only in the Son, " Who is the image of the invisible God," and " the Firstborn of all creation," as being the efficient and formal cause whereby the creation was born into a Divine adoption. The Apostle then goes on to show how Christ, by means of His creative and mediatorial office, has brought the whole creation, " visible and invisible," within the sphere of His atoning work ; not ''thrones" merely, or "dominions, or principali- ties, or powers," or "the Church," but " all things," " whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.'" " For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell "—that the Son, in other words, should by His Incarnation comprehend in Himself the whole universe of being. ' Let us see how this can be. And let us begin by considering man's relation to the rest of created life. Man came last in the order of creation ; in that the conclusion of science agrees with the Mosaic cosmogony. Man was thus intended to be the copula that should unite the lower creation with the highest form of created life, namely, the angelic. He was in touch with all — with inorganic matter, with vege- table and animal life, and with the nature of angels. Physiologists tell us that man in the early stages of THE EUCHAEISTIC SACRIFICE 67 his (levelopinont passes through all the forms of life; inferior to his own. His hody is allied to the dust of the ground. He takes up vegetahle and animal life and transmutes them into his own higher hfe, and the lower types of Hfe are thus represented parabo- hcally, as it were, in the human embryo. Now look for a moment at the typical characteristics of the different strata of life. The lower the life is, the more material are its gratifications. In vegetables the material appetite is everything. The vegetable fulfils the end of its being best when it most freely takes and uses all the matter it can assimilate. xAnimals possess a higher life than vegetables. They have a kind of spontaneity, possess an inferior form of soul endowed with emotion, and have a limited and circumscribed intelligence. Their life is chiefly material, and they live mainly for the gratification of their appetites ; but not altogether. They have an inchoate soul which needs a higher kind, of life to change animal into person. Man, as I have said, is related through his body to inorganic matter, and to vegetable and animal life ; but he is still more closely related to animal life through his soul. So far as man consists of body and soul only his life is merely that of the brute. But God " breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul " — a being endowed with reason, conscience, capa- city of self-sacrificing love — the " perfect love which casteth out fear." Through His spirit man is related to the angelic order, and is enabled to hold commu- nion with God. Man was thus created to be the 58 THE REFOiniATIOX SETTLEMENT nexus between the highest and lowest forms of created Hfe. The animals were brought to him in Paradise, and he classified them. Dominion was given him over the lower creation, and if he had kept his innocence and perfected his character by self-conscious discipline, the Son of God would still have become Incarnate, but without need of Cross or Passion. When man fell, however, he broke the unity and harmony of creation, and the lower elements of his nature soon began to triumph over the higher. The animal soul, with its brutal appetites, '' pressed down the incorruptible spirit," as the son of Sirach says. Intellectual development was of no avail when spirit was dethroned, for the intellect became enlisted in the service of the animal appetites.^ ' Xow let us go back to the great passage on the Atonement in St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, to which I have already referred. Just as the innu- merable worlds which are scattered through infinite ' I quote an impartial witness in ratification of this statement: *' Intellect is not a power, but an instrument -, not a thing ^Yhich itself moves and works, but a thing which is moved and worked by forces from behind it. To say that men are ruled by reason is as irrational as to say that they are ruled by their eyes. Eeason is an eye — the eye through which the desires see their way to gratifica- tion. And educating it only makes it a better eye ; gives it a vision more accurate and more comprehensive ; does not at all alter the desires subserved by it. However far-seeing you make it, the passions will still determine the directions in which it shall be turned, the objects on which it shall dwell. Just those ends which the instincts or sentiments propose will the intellect be employed to accomplish : culture of it having done nothing but increase the ability to accomplish them."— Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, p. 382. THE EUCIiARlSTIC SACRIFICE oO space are not isolated and independent of each other, but, on the contrar}^ correhited, so that they are ceaselessly acting and reacting on each other, not only in the mass, but in all their particles ; so neither are the realities of the spiritual world, its thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, isolated facts ; they are intimately related, and are being brought back to the primal unity through the Incarnation of the Eternal Word energising through the Church, which is His I)ody. So transcendent a fact as the Incarnation of God could not be limited and ex- hausted by man's needs ; it affected the universe and was independent of man's Fall, although that event had been foreseen and provided for. The angelic world was interested in the Incarnation, and so was inanimate nature, all-unconscious as it was of its discords and its share in the universal adoption. Let us look at the matter a httle more closely. Our Lord took a human body the same as ours in all its constituent elements ; a body, therefore, related to inorganic matter and to vegetable and animal life. He possessed, like other men, an animal soul which, apart from spirit, leaves man a brute. He took a human spirit, including all that we mean by intel- lectual and moral qualities. And all this was in Him united to a Divine personality. In this way He made atonement for the whole of creation, which He united with Himself, and through Himself with the Triune Godhead. *' He took not on Him the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He layeth hold." Had He taken angelic nature into union with Himself, the 60 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT rest of creation would not have been affected tliereby. But by taking- human nature He embraced the whole universe of life in the fulness of His Atonement. And we find creation in its typical representatives celebrating His birth ; the manger receiving His infant form ; the cold air of a winter's night warmed by the breath of cattle, kinder to Him, though they knew it not themselves, than the highly favoured race for whom He came to suffer and to die ; and the choir of angels proclaiming His birth, not to the kings and nobles of the earth, but to the gentle shepherds of Bethlehem. We have some foregleams of this comprehensive character of the Atonement in the Old Testament ; for example, in the twenty-third verse of the fifth chapter of Job. Kef erring to man's redemption, Eliphaz the Temanite says, " For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be in league with thee." Similarly in Hosea ii. 18 : *' And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground ; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely." * But does this view of the Atonement exhaust the meaning of the doctrine ? Evidently not. It would have done so had there been no sin. But sin is a fact and involves guilt — the feeling of outraged justice and impending retribution. The sense of un- worthiness to hold direct connnunication with God is one of the deepest feelings in our nature. A\'e have THE EUCnARTSTIC SACRIFICE 01 examples of it in the liistories of the saints of the Old and New Testaments, and all along the course of history. The traditions of heathendom testify to the same truth, and also the universal prevalence of the doctrine of sacrifice. What, then, do we mean by the doctrine of the Atonement in this more specific sense ? It is easy enough to understand that we come into the world with a disorganised nature, a nature that has lost its principle of harmony, and in which the animal predominates over the spiritual. Hereditary evil, both moral and physical, is a fact too plain to be disputed. But hereditary guilt ? Can guilt really be hereditary ? Let us think. Have we anything of the same kind in secular life ? A nobleman rebels against his sovereign. What is the consequence ? He forfeits his life. Is that all ? No ; he forfeits also his nobility, his possessions, and his privileges, and not for him- self only but for his posterity. Guilt therefore may in a sense be hereditary in civil life, but only m a negative sense. To put a child, still more a remote descendant, to death for an ancestral crime would be held a monstrous perversion of justice, re- volting to the moral sense. Surely then we cannot ascribe to Almighty God conduct which we should regard as immoral on the part of man. Our conscience rebels against the notion that God w^ould consign to endless torment any human being for a sin committed by a remote ancestor. In matter of fact God condemns no one to endless torment. He inflicts no arbitrary punishment on any one. '' The soul that sinneth, it shall die." " God will have all men to be saved and G2 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT come unto the knowledge of the truth.'' But what do we mean hy heing saved ? Not simply the remission of punishment. So far from it, the man who has a real sense of his own guilt has no wish to escape due punishment. He seeks, on the contrary, to make reparation for the wrong. God cannot make us happy by simply forgiving us and imputing to us a righteous- ness which belongs to another. Our conscience is burdened rather than relieved by learning that an innocent person has borne the punishment which we deserved. Do you suppose you could make all the criminals in this kingdom happy by a general gaol delivery ? Par from it, unless you had previously reformed their characters and rooted their evil habits out of their nature. You must not believe that God is keeping any one in a place of torment against that person's will. " The kingdom of heaven," said our Lord on one occasion, '' is within you." The kingdom of hell is also within the sinner's own breast, in the anarchy and tormenting appetites of a ruined consti- tution. Men are not punished arbitrarilj^ in the spiritual world for what they have done here, but for what they continue to do there as the inevitable consequence of the habits formed in this world. Pain does not assail the drunkard to-day as an arbitrary infliction apart from the excess of yester- day ; it is the excess of yesterday continued in its results and impelling him to a repetition of the cause of his misery. Death makes no breach in the continuity of human character. ]\Ian carries with him into the spiritual world precisely that character THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 63 which he bore in this Hfe. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy still." The punishment of the lost is no arbitrary infliction from without, but a torment springing from within ; from raging animal appetites or fiendish passions which de- vour the wretched creatures who have become their im- potent slaves. So long as sin remains in man's nature he must of necessity be miserable, for he cherishes in his bosom the scorpion from wliich comes his pain. God strives to root out sin from our nature because He knows that pardon is otherwise useless. God loves us, and there is nothing so inexorable as love when it is genuine. There is no weakness in it. It will inflict present anguish to save from future misery. And thus God never passes over the sins of those He loves. He will not leave them alone, will not abandon them to themselves. He takes away the desire of their eyes, sends them cruel disappointments, forces them into the narrow thorny way, desolates their homes and leaves their idols all shivered around them, that they may learn where their true happiness lies. As gold is put into the furnace to separate the dross from the pure ore, so God flings men into the furnace of afllic- tion, that He may separate the sin which He hates from the soul which He loves. That is why He is called in the Old and New^ Testament '' a consumino- fire." Fire does not destroy, does not annihilate : it disintegrates, separates substances which are foreign to each other. God pursues us with the fire of His 04 THE REFORMATTOX SETTLEMENT love, seeking to melt and mould us into conformity with His will, because that is the only way in which He can make us happy. But He is never vindictive, never unwilling to forgive, never requires a victim, like a pagan deity, to appease offended majesty. ' What then do we mean by the Atonement when we use it in the sense of propitiation? Now re- member, to start with, that the barrier to reconcilia- tion lies always in the will of man, never in the will of God. Atonement means making at one again persons who have been sundered. How are they to be brought together? Analyse your own feelings. When you have wronged, deeply hurt, one who has been kind to you, vrhat is your first feeling ? A longing to make reparation. Forgiveness would be painful to you without reparation on your part. Your conscience tells you of a law of compensation which forbids complete reconciliation, entire atone- ment, till the law of compensation has been satisfied. Even a child will yearn to offer some gift, purchased perhaps with the parent's own money, to expiate its faults. There is an innate sense of justice in the breast of man which is a reflex of the Divine justice. But what do we mean by the Divine justice ? We mean simply Divine love at war with sin, which is the contradiction of all that is truly lovable.^ The ' ' Giustizia mosse '1 mio alto fattore : Fecemi la divina potentate, La somma sapienza e '1 primo amove.' Inferno, canto iii. We may acknowledge the profound truth which underlies this THE EUCHAEISTIC SACRIFICE 0.5 law of compensation or retribution pervades the universe. In the beginning God made everything " verj^ good," and He so ordered the work of His hands that it should inevitably avenge on the trans- gressor, sooner or later, every violation of the Divine order. Man's happiness is therefore contingent on his conformity to the will of God, and every viola- tion of that will must entail suffering, which is thus a finger-post set up by the Eternal Love to warn the unwary from dangerous paths. God wills the happiness of every form of created life, and it is probable that in the world of life below man happi- ness predominates so largely as to reduce conscious suffering almost to zero. To the animal mere exis- tence is a joy. Its life is ever in the present. No regrets haunt it from the past, and coming events do not cast their shadows before. And when death overtakes it, either by natural process or violence, there is probably little or no suffering, as we under- stand the word. It is when man appears upon the scene that suffering really begins, and justice is the form which the Divine love takes to drive man into the ways of happiness. It is therefore a paralogism to contrast Divine love and Divine justice as if they were opposite, or even different, attributes. Love always gives happiness to those who conform to its laws ; in the form of justice it inflicts pain on the sinner, and must continue to do so while he sins. ' But it may be objected that it is not the sinner explanation of the origin of the cittcl dolente without necessarily adopting all Dante's views on Eschatology. F 6G THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT who always suffers, but very often the innocent. In matter of fact the sinner always does suffer, though the sutYering may be long delayed and he may fail to recog- nise its cause when it comes. J^ut it is undoubtedly true that the innocent do suffer for the sins and errors of others. How is this to be reconciled with the Divine justice which I have called the offspring of Divine love ? The answer is that mankind is an organic unity, a moral organism, so that injury done to a part is in fact done to the whole.' This view is enforced all through the Bible, and by none more emphatically than by St. Paul, as in the following passages : '' For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and seve- rally members one of another." And these several members have need of each other, so " that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." Human language bears witness to this doctrine — in such words, for example, as " fellow-feeling " and " sympathy ; " and the history of the race furnishes abundant illustration of it. Even physically one member may affect injuriously a • ' See Dr. Kedney's CJirisfian Doctrine Harmonised and its nalionalUi/ Vindicated, i. 2()5. A striking and profound book, which has come under my notice as these sheets have been passing tlirough the press, and wliich I have not been able as yet to read tln-ough— indeed, to read at all with tlie care which it evidently deserves:' Tliis note was written nine years ago. THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 67 whole community — may propagate a germ of disease which vitiates the hves of all. Spiritual influences, being much more subtle, are consequently much more contagious. We are constantly throwing out moral influences on each other by word, look, gesture ; and the law of vicarious suffering is thus seen to pervade the human race. But there is no injustice, inasmuch as the race is one, a real organism, moral, intellectual, and bodily; no injustice more than there is, according to St. Paul's analogy, in the members of the human body being severally affected by each other's pains. ' The Eternal Son of God, then, having become Incarnate, having taken human nature in its integrity, with the hereditary proclivities of the Fall cut off by His miraculous Conception, and having, in St. Paul's language, thus ''recapitulated " humanity in His reconstruction of it, it follows that He also bore and suffered for its sins. " He was made sin for us Who knew no sin," and thereby made an atonement for the whole race. ' Now we all awake, wdien we begin to reason about these things, to the consciousness of our un- worthiness to appear before God. We have a feeling of guilt on our conscience, which bears witness to our organic membership of an attainted race. But, in truth, there is no need to puzzle ourselves about in- herited guilt. We have sins enough of our own to humble us and to make us exclaim with Peter : " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord." The natural impulse of fallen man is to hide himself F 2 GS THE REFORTylATION SETTLEMENT like Adam, from the presence of his Maker. Hmnan nature therefore needs an atonement, and has always cried aloud for it ; needs some way of access back to God, some means whereby the alienation that has subsisted between man's nature and God's shall be removed. And this was done by the Incarnation of the Divine nature in Jesus of Nazareth. By that transcendent condescension the Son of Man " opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers " — to all, that is, who choose to avail themselves of the restored heritage of humanity. God the Son took human nature in its integrity, and thus learnt experimen- tally what sin entailed. Through His humiliation, suffering, and death He fulfilled the law of retribu- tion which ordains that morally every wrong must be righted ; that sin is sure to find the sinner out sooner or later ; that humanity, collectively and regarded as a moral entity, must pay the debt of its transgression ; that an offence against Eternal Love must be undone. So, you see, the atonement made by Christ is in a manner the j^ayment of a ransom or debt ; but a ransom, not to appease a vengeful Divine Father, but to liberate mankind from the thraldom of a disorganised nature. For in sad truth man unredeemed is in real bondage : bondage to Nature, which has become his master and tyrant instead of being his servant ; bondage to ancestral tendencies towards physical and moral degenera- tion ; bondage to an obliquity of vision and infirmity of purpose which make him an easy prey to tempta- tion. To break the spell of these malign influences ; THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 60 to place at the centre of human nature a new principle of life from which men may make a fresh start: — tliis surely is in a very real sense to pay a ransom for fallen man ; to break his bonds ; to open the door of his prison and enable him to regain his liberty. And this is what Christ did by His atoning sacrifice — a sacrifice begun when He " emptied Himself " of His Divine glory, and consummated when He died on the Cross. Had our Lord been a mere man He could not have made an atofiement. His acts could have affected none but Himself ; they could have had no influence on the destiny of the race. But the Humanity of Christ is not that of any particular man ; it is universal humanity, humanity in the abstract, humanity viewed germi- nally. His Manhood therefore reaches to every member of the race. He is the pure Vine of which all human beings may become branches ; the Well of Living Water out of which all may drink and imbibe eternal life. Man may now approach His Maker without shame or fear, for he may approach Him in the nature of the Second Adam, in the very manhood which God Himself now wears. Humanity is thus made, as St. Peter does not hesitate to express it, ''partaker of the Divine nature."' An atonement has been made which is adequate to all the require- ments of the case. Look again at the first chapter ' (pvais, not ovaia, i.e. the attributes of God, which are in part communicable, not His incommunicable essence. It was of the (pvais, not the ovaia, that the Word emptied Himself, *' economically," when He became man. 70 THE REFOE^^IATIOX SETTLEMENT of the Epistle to the Colossians in the light of the explanations which I have given, and you will see what a depth of meaning and moral grandeur is concentrated in the Apostle's terse statement of the doctrine of the Atonement as an all-emhracing dispensation existing eternally in the Divine inten- tion, and not as an isolated fact in time to meet an unforeseen emergency. It is in the light of that great truth that St. Paul's references to predestination must he understood. And it is in that sense that one of our own Articles of Keligion explains the matter when it tells us that *' we must receive God's promises [of salvation] in such wise as they he generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture." " Generally set forth ; " that does not mean set forth for the most part or in a general way, but set forth generically — that is, as applicable to the entire race. The word in the Latin version of the seventeenth Article indi- cates this interpretation. This universality of the Atonement as covering the whole of creation had strong hold of St. Paul's mind. He states it as follows in Eph. i. 9-12 : " Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself : that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one [the essential idea of atonement] all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in Him : in AVhom also we have obtained an inheritance, beingpre- destinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will : THE EUCIIARISTIC SACEIEICE 71 that we should be to ilie praise of His glory, who lirst trusted in Christ." The word translated " gather together in one," means '' recapitulated," summed up and reduced to harmonious unity under one Head through the Incarnation. That is the leading idea of the Atonement in St. l^uil's teaching ; and the predestination he speaks of is simply that of pre-emi- nence in a world-wide process. ' And it is this view of it which has made the doctrine of the Atonement so attractive and subduing, revolutionising man's ideas not only towards God, or even towards man, but towards all creation, investing it with a mystery and sanctity it never had inspired before. God, as depicted in the Old Testament, says Arthur Hallam — and w^e may add still more so as He is exhibited in the Incarnation — *' was a manifold everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling — a desire for human affection. Love is not asked in vain from generous dispositions;" and Infinite Love condescending to sue for the love of man becomes irresistible to all minds who believe in the Incarna- tion and have not polluted their affections. A striking illustration of this is given in a letter from a Christian native in one of the South Sea Islands, who had been a cannibal. He went up to the altar one day to receive the Holy Communion, and I will relate in his own words what followed : " When I approached the table I did not know beside whom I should have to kneel. Then suddenly I saw beside me a man who some years ago slew my father, and drank his blood, whom I then swore I would kill the 72 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT first time I should see him. Xow think what I felt when I suddenly knelt beside him. It came upon me with terrible power, and I could not prevent it, and so I went back to my seat. Arriving there I sarw in the spirit the upper sanctuary, and seemed to hear a voice saying, ' Hereby shall all men know- that ye are IMy disciples, if ye have love one to another.' That made a deep impression on me, and it seemed to me in thought that I saw another sight, a cross, and a man nailed thereon, and I heard him say : ' Father, forgive them, for they know^ not what they do.' Then I went back to the altar." ' Another illustration still more remarkable is supplied by the famous passage reported from Napoleon's conversations at St. Helena — a passage that cannot be quoted too often. '' I have been accustomed to put before me the examples of Alexander and Csesar, with the hope of rivalling their exploits, and living in the minds of men for ever. Yet, after all, in what sense does Alexander, in what sense does Ctesar, live '? Who knows or cares anything about them ? , . . But, on the con- trary, there is just one Name in the world that lives. It is the Name of One Who passed His years in obscurity, and Wlio died a malefactor's death. Eighteen hundred years have gone since that time, but still it has its hold upon the human mind. It has possessed the world, and it maintains possession. Amid the most varied nations, under the most diver- sified circumstances, in the most cultivated, in the rudest races and intellects, in all classes of society, THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 78 the Owner of that great Name reigns. High and low, rich and poor, acknowledge Him. Millions of souls are conversing with Him, are venturing on His Word, are looking for His presence. Palaces, sumptuous, innumerable, are raised to His honour ; His image, as in the hour of His deepest humiha- tion, is triumphantly displayed in the proud city, in the open country, in the corners of streets, on the tops of mountains. ... It is worn next the heart in life ; it is held before the failing eyes in death. Here, then, is One Who is not a mere name. Who is not a mere fiction. He is dead and gone, but still He lives — lives as the living energetic thought of successive generations, as the awful motive powder of a thousand great events. He has done without effort what others with lifelong struggles have not done. Can He be less than Divine ? AVho is He but the Creator Himself, Who is Sovereign over His own works, towards Whom our eyes turn instinc- tively because He is our Father and our God? " ' ^ Nothing is clearer from the teaching both of the Old Testament and the New than the necessity of two factors in the process of man's salvation — God's grace and man's co-operation. Neither is operative without the other. The obedience of nature is mechanical. 'He hath given them a law which shall not be broken. They continue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee.' This is true of all organic hfe below man. » Christianity in Bclation to Science and Morals, sixth edition, pp. 153-180. 74 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMI-^XT It is true even of the animal world. They follow their nature, a law of mechanical necessity. ' I will inform thee and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go, and I will guide thee with mine eye.' That is the rule laid down for man. It is one test of a good portrait that its eye should follow you, should be fixed upon you, from whatever part of the room you examine the picture. God's eye follows us wheresoever we may wander. * Thou art about my path, and about my bed, and spiest out all my ways.' He appeals to our reason, to our emotions, to our innate love— if our nature had fair play— of what is true and beautiful and noble, and to our instinctive loathing of what is mean, impure, and false. But His method is that of persuasion, never of irresistible force. For He made man in His own image, and endowed him with personahty, which implies the awful gift of a free will, and therefore the power to obey or disobey his Creator. The law imposed on the lower creation is different. They cannot choose but to obey. And therefore the Psalmist goes on, after the verse quoted above : ' Be ye not like to horse and mule, which have no understanding ; whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle lest they come near unto thee.' ' ' Bit and bridle ' for the brute creation ; for man the eye of the ' understanding ' and the purity of heart, to which is promised the vision of God : this is his only guide, inasmuch as he is — to (juote Bacon's phrase — ' a kind of god ' on earth, a ' Ps. xxxii. •>, 10. THE EUCHAEISTIC SACRIFICE 75 vicegerent of the Most High among inferior creatures. He alone is endowed with power of origination, and even with some delegated power of creation. A great poem, or statue, or picture, or masterpiece of music, is not each of these a creation, a bringing into being something which existed before only in the rude material, if indeed even in that ? A great poem is a real creation out of nothing. And the statue came out of the mind of the sculptor as truly as Adam, according to Genesis, came out of the mind of His Maker. And a composition by Handel, or Beethoven, or Mozart, what is it but a creation, the circumambient air being but the medium for giving expression to the musician's ideas in the sphere of sound ? And there is another sense, too, in which man is truly ' a kind of god.' It is his province and his privilege to enable natures inferior to his own to reach their ideal perfection. ' The eyes of all wait upon Thee, God,' exclaims the Psalmist. The eyes of many lower organisms wait upon man. Birds, quadrupeds, fishes, flowers, wait upon man to lift them out of their natural state and endow them with attributes which by their own striving they could never acquire. And when he withdraws his hand they all relapse to their original state. In this way men are, as the Apostle tells us, ' fellow- workers with God,' ^ alike in the natural and spiritual life. It is a mystery, yet a fact, that God's works are often left imperfect and in- ' 2 Cor. vi. 1. 76 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT complete because man will not do his part ; and God's intentions are thus frustrated because man rejects the glorious privilege of being a fellow- worker with his Maker. And in man's own salvation this human factor is as necessary as the Divine. Luther relied on St. Paul especially, as his great authority for his doctrine of salvation by faith only. But St. Paul is equally emphatic as to the necessity of works as the fruit of a true faith. Indeed, faith itself belongs to the category of works, for it is a human energy. Never was there a more profitless and needless controversy than that between faith and works. St. Paul condenses the whole matter into a single sentence : ' Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.' ' The cure of Xaaman's leprosy is a parable of God's method as revealed to us alike in the kingdom of nature and of grace. ' Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and move his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? May I not wash in them, and be clean ? So he turned and went away in a rage.' Naaman had reason on his side, the reason of ' rhil. ii. 12, 13. THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 77 the natural man. The Jordan contained no curative virtue to cleanse the leper. No test that the skill of man could apply v^ould have been able to find any property in the Jordan to heal the smitten Syrian, and Abana and Pharpar, coming down from snowy Lebanon, looked fairer to the eye. But God had appointed the thirty miles' journey to the Jordan and the sevenfold bath in its turbid stream to cure Naaman, and that made all the difference. And Naaman's noble nature, after his outburst of anger at what he deemed an exhibition of superstitious ceremonialism, listened to the saner reason of his slaves, and received his reward. Men often reason like Naaman now, and the vice of all that kind of reasoning is the unconscious presumption of dictating to Almighty God the terms on which they wall condescend to receive His gifts. Our part is simply to find out what conditions He has in matter of fact ordained in each case, and act accordingly. Now let us apply this to the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Of course there is no question as to the completeness of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross, no question of any repetition of that sacrifice, no impious question of any further mactation. But, on the other hand, our part remains to be done, namely, to ' fill up on our side the lacking afflictions of Christ.' Now^ in the view of all Christian antiquity, the Eucharist is in a special manner the Divinely appointed means for placing Christians en rapport w^ith the Sacrifice of Christ at once in its vivifying and mediatorial aspects. That Sacrifice is 78 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT going on now. He is Priest at once and Victim in heaven. It is in His sacrificial aspect that He appears to the disciple whom He loved all through the Apocalypse. He appears as ' a Lamb standing as though slain ' (wy ho-cj^ayfisvop) ; standing because He ' is alive for evermore,' and it is the office of a priest to stand while offering ; but also ' as a Lamb sacrificiaUy slain,' to indicate the perpetuity of His Sacrifice as well as of His priesthood ; bearing on His glorified Humanity the marks of His victorious passion. Twenty-nine times is He thus described in His sacrificial character in the Apocalypse. He is the Lamb ' in the midst of the throne, standing as though slain.' The four and twenty elders ' fall down before the Lamb.' The saints sing, ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.' We read also of ' the wrath of the Lamb ; ' the diminutive apvLov indicating His gentleness ; yet a gentleness that can never make a compromise with sin, and hence ' the wrath of the Lamb.' The robes of the saints are ' made white in the blood of the Lamb.' And we read of ' the song of Moses and the Lamb,' and ' the marriage of the Lamb,' and the ' marriage supper of the Lamb,' and ' the bride, the Lamb's wife,' and ' the Lamb' as 'the light' of the heavenly city, and 'the throne of God and of the Lamb.' In this Book, and all through the New Testa- ment, the Church on earth and the Church in Para- dise are regarded as one : the one militant, the other triumphant ; the one enjoying the repose and the oi lord on of victory, the other still on foreign service and THE EUCHAEISTIC SACEIFICE 79 engaged in unceasing warfare. Yet it is but one army, one society, ' the whole family in heaven and earth,' as St. Paul calls it. And the Eucharist is the great bond of union, the nexus between the Church visible and invisible, uniting both ' in one communion and fellowship in the mystical death ' of the Lamb. And so we do our feeble best here to join our Eucharistic adoration with the song of the Lamb : * Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name ; evermore praising Thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory : Glory be to Thee, Lord most High.' It was this view of it that made the ancient un- divided Church speak of the Eucharist in accents of awe, calling it by such names as ' the holy sacrifice,' ' the unbloody sacrifice,' ' the tremendous sacrifice.' Their thought was not on Calvary. That was but a past incident in the sacrificial life of the Lamb. Their gaze was not backward, but forward and upward. Through Christ's own appointed 'Mystery,' as they also called the Eucharist, they felt that they came within the penumbra of the worship in heaven ; ' forgetting,' like St. Paul, ' those things wdiich are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before.' So much, then, as to the rationale of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. And now let us see what our own representative divines say upon the doctrine of the Beal Presence, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice, its correlative* 80 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT CHAPTEPv III THE REFORMATION : ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS In considering the testimony of the Anghcan divines, especially those of the sixteenth century, on the subject of the Eucharist, the first thing that is likely to strike one is the fact that both sides in the con- troversy are wont to appeal to them with equal confidence. But there is, after all, nothing surpris- ing in this when we regard the circumstances. At the time of the Keformation our Church and nation were engaged in a death-struggle with a politico- religious polity, the most marvellous creation of human craft and literary forgeries that the world has ever seen.' Historians the least friendly to sacerdotal claims, like Guizot and Hallam, have freely admitted the immense debt rendered to the cause of political ' After the Vatican Council Dr. Dollinger began the study of the history of the Papacy afresh, and he told me some years afterwards that much as he knew about the system of forgeries on which the Papacy had been gradually reared, he was not in the least prepared for the mass of cumulative evidence which his special study of the subject had revealed to him. He was engaged in arranging his materials for a great work on the subject when death overtook him. Of course, a whole series of writers, Aquinas included, accepted these forgeries in good faith as authentic history. REFOEMATION causes and results 81 progress and of civilisation in general by the Latin Church of the Middle Ages. But it is a fallacy to credit the Papacy with all this service. Some of the Popes, no doubt, deserve all the praise that their most zealous admirers can bestow upon them ; but it is certainly open to (piestion w^hether the Papacy, as a system and in the long run, has not done more to rfetard than to advance the civilisation of Christendom. In defending the liberties of the Church against the encroachments of a licentious and tyrannical feudal- ism, some great prelates were undoubtedly champions of the cause of freedom in the State as well as in the Church. But if the Papacy gave a languid support to Anselm in his contest with William Kufus, it instigated and supported King John in his con- spiracy against the rights and liberties of the Church and State of England in the interest of the Papacy, and suspended the patriotic Langton from the primacy for his share in securing the Great Charter. It has been the rule of Papal policy always to support either the cause of freedom or of despotism according as either seemed likely to further the aggrandise- ment of the Papacy. So that even its contributions to the cause of freedom have generally proceeded rather from the calculations of an astute selfishness than from any spontaneous love of freedom for its own sake. At the period of the Keformation the Papal power, though shaken, was still, both in religion and politics, the most formidable in Europe ; and it was apparently prepared to stick at nothing in compass- 82 THE REFOEMATiON SETTLEMENT ing its ends. This is a strong statement, which ought not to be made without convincing proof. Unfortunately the evidence is abundant and incontro- vertible. It will suffice here to quote the following from an authentic and unsuspected source. • On May 3, 1583, the Papal Nuncio wrote from Paris to the Cardinal of Coino, Secretary of State under Gregory XIII. : — The Duke of Guise and the Duke of Mayenne liave told me that they have a plan for killing the Queen of England by the hand of a Catholic, though not one out- wardly, who is near her person and is ill affected towards her for having put to death some of his Catholic relations. This man, it seems, sent word of this to the Queen of Scotland,- but she refused to attend to it. He was, however, sent hither, and they have agreed to give him, if he escape, otherwise his sons, 100,000 francs, as to which he is satisfied to have the security of the Duke of Guise for 50,000 and to see the rest deposited with the Archbishop of Glasgow in a box, of which lie will keep a key, so that he or his sons may receive the money, should the plan succeed ; and the Duke thinks it may. The Duke asks for no assistance from our Lord [the Pope] in this affair ; but when the time comes he will go to a place of his near the sea to await the event, and then cross over on a sudden to England. As to putting to death that wicked woman, I said to him that I will not write about it to our Lord [the Pope], nor should I, nor tell your most illustrious Lordship to inform him of it ; because, though I believe our Lord [the Pope] would be glad that God ' Namely, Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, edited by the Fathers of the Congregation of the London Oratory, with an Historical Introduction by Thomas Francis Knox, D.D. - Then a prisoner in England. REFOE^[ATIOX CAUSr.S AXD Kl-SULTS rt3 should punish in any way whatever that enemy of his, still it would be unfitting that His Vicar should procure it by these means. The Duke was satisfied ; but later oh he added that for the enterprise of England, which ih this case would be much more easy, it will be necessary to have here in readiness money to enlist some troops to follow him, as he intends to enter England immediately in order that the Catliolics may have a liead. He asks for no assistance for his own passage. But as the Duke of Mayenne must remain on the Continent to collect some soldiers to follow him [the Duke of Guise] (it being probable that the heretics, who hold the treasure, the fleet, and the ports, will not be wanting to themselves, so that it will be necessary to make a fight for it), he wishes that for this purpose 100,000 or at least 80,000 scudi should be ready here. I let him know the agreement there is betw^een our Lord the Pope and the Catholic King with regard to the contribution, and I told him that on our Lord the Pope's part he may count on every possible assistance when the Catholic King does his part. The Agent of Spain believes that his King will gladly give this aid, and therefore it will be well, in conformity wdth the provisions so often made, to consider how to provide the sum, which will amount to 20,000 scudi from our Lord the Pope, when the Catholic King gives his 60,000 scudi. God grant that with this small sum that great kingdom may be gained. The Queen of Scot- land wrote the other day that she liad won over the Earl ' ' Eail of Shrewsbury. Few who came in contact with her could resist the charm of the unfortunate Mary Stuart. One is <;\a<\ to learn that she scorned to listen to any proposal to murder Elizabeth, cruelly as she was treated by that sovereign. Whatever her faults — and considering her upbringing and her social and political environ- ment the wonder is they were so few— few princesses, with so many temptations to the contrary, have exhibited so much generosity and magnanimity. M THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT who has her in custody, and that she is sure of beiiig able to free herself when she pleases, but that she wishes to wait for a good opportunity. Independently of this plan, the Duke of Guise expects in a few days informa- tion from four gentlemen of rank [princijmU signori] in England, and he will let me know the result. Meanwhile he has nothing of moment from Scotland or England to tell me. The Cardinal Secretary of State answered this despatch on May '23 as follows :— I have reported to our Lord the Pope that your Lord- ship has written to me in cipher about the affairs of Eng- land, and since his Holiness cannot but think it good that that kingdom should in some way or other be relieved from oppression and restored to God and our holy rehgion, his HoUness says that, in the event of the matter being effected, the 80,000 will be, as your Lordship says, very well employed. His Holiness will therefore make no difficulty about paying his fourth when the time comes, if the Agents of the Catholic King do the same with their three -fourths : and as to this point, the Princes of Guise should make a good and firm agreement with the Catholic Agent on the spot. With regard to our 20,000, since your Lordship has already in hand 4,000, and to send the rest without knowing for certain that there will be any result would l^e to take trouble for nothing, while not to send them might injure the affair, if l)y chance it should l)ccomc necessary to pay them, his Hohness thinks it ])est that in case of need your Lordship should take up the whole or part where you are by a l3ill of exchange on the credit of some Itahan merchant, or other person, which his Hohness will not fail to meet innnediately it is due : I say the whole or a part because it is not likely that it will all be needed at once, since it is more probable EEFORMATION CAUSES AND RESULTS 80 that it will liave to bo spent in two or three months rather than in one, in which case your Lordship will easily supply the first advance with the 4,000 you have already in your hand, and will have time to write here fov the rest. Nevertheless, if necessity requires it, your Lordship can adopt the expedient which I have mentioned of raising the money there ; and do not stop on this account from doing good. But God grant that this may not prove like so many other promises w^hich have never had any result.' ^ There is a long and interesting memorandum in Spanish from Father Persons (sometimes spelt Parsons), written from Eome, June 30, 1597, to Don Juan de Ydraquez, which confirms this and other attempts on the life of Elizabeth, all inspired from Kome or by the Jesuits.- The poHcy of the Jesuits, which they moved heaven and earth to carry out, was to procure an invasion of England by ' Letters and MemoriaU of Cardinal Allen, pp. xlvi-xlviii. A most valuable collection of documents, which no student of the Eeformation can aftord to neglect. - E.g : ' Hecieron otra traycion que fue quemientras que estavan tratando con el Duque de Guysa y con Alano y Personio de procurar y aguardar algunas fueryas de Espafia, de las quales ya avia mucha probabilidad que vendrian presto, los dos embiaron secretamente a Ynglaterra un cierto espia que avia sido muchos arios de la Eeyna Ynglaterra en Italia y otras partes, llamado Guilielmo Parry ; el qual descubrio luego a la Eeyna todo lo que passava, come se save por sus confessiones que estan impresas, y mas, la dixo como tenia commission para matar tam bien a ella a su tiempo para llevantar a la Eeyna de Escocia y para prevenir la invasion Espanola, la que los Jesuitas pretendian : y aunque por entonces la Eeyna le agradecio y regalo, toda via despues le hizo ahurcar ; y este fue el fin del doctor Parry.' — Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, pp. 387-8. 86 Tin: PvEFOR:^rATIOX SETTLE:\rENT Philip 1 1., who was to rule JMioland either directly or through a member of his family ; and eventually Scotland, Elizabeth having been either assassinated, executed, or deposed. Mary Stuart was to be restored to liberty, and to the throne of Scotland, on condition of agreeing to the supersession of her son on account of his heresy — a device by which Philip and the Jesuits hoped to unite England and Scotland in one kingdom under the Spanish crown. The King of France, on the other hand, and the French and Scotch Catholics, were opposed to the Hispano- Jesuit enterprise, preferring the restoration of the Pope's supremacy by an expedition from France, aided by a Scotch invasion and an English Koman Catholic insurrection, wdiicli should place both Scot- land and England under the sovereignty of Mary. They strove, therefore, to anticipate the Jesuits' plan by the assassination of Elizabeth. Hence the plot described above, in wdiich the principals were the Pope (Gregory XIII.) , the Papal Nuncio in Paris, the Duke of Guise, and the Poman Catholic Arch- bishop of Glasgow. I should have thought that the Fathers of the London Oratory, while pleading perhaps the moral perturbations caused by the political ethics and stress of circumstances of that time, would never- theless have reprobated those repeated attempts on the life of Queen Elizabeth. On the contrary, I found, to my great surprise, an elaborate defence of them. The gist of the argument may be found in tJie following extract from Father Knox's interesting REFORMATION CAUSES AND RF.STTLTS S7 and remarkably frank * Historical Introduction.' ^ The foundation of his argument is the following quotation from the Corpus Juris of the Roman Church : — If a temporal lord, after having been required and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to cleanse his land from heretical defilement, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. And if he shall through contempt fail to give satisfaction within a year, let this be signified to the Sovereign Pontiff, that he may thereupon declare his vassals absolved from allegiance to him, and offer his land for seizure by Catho- lics, that they may, after expelhng the heretics, possess it by an incontestable title, and keep it in the integrity of the faith : saving the right of the principal lord, provided he puts no obstacle in the way of this and oppose no hin- drance ; the same law being nevertheless observed with regard to tliose who have no principal lords. On this Father Knox observes : — This decree, by its insertion in the Corpus Juris, became part of the ordinary statute law of the Church. It had not been abrogated by desuetude in the sixteenth century ; for Allen and Persons appeal to it as in full force in a memorandum drawn up for Philip II. ; and St. Pius V. acted in accordance with it when he issued his bull deposing Queen Ehzabetli. . . . - ' Father Knox died while tlie proof sheets of his Introduction were passing through the press, and the book was pnblislied by the Fathers of the Oratory. - The arrogance and insolence of that bull may be judged from its opening paragraph : ' llegnans in excelsis cui data est oninis in cado et in terra potestas, unam sanctam, catholicam, et apostolicam ecclesiam, extra quam nulla est salus, loii soli in teriis, videlicet 88 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT This Pontifical act was not a mere empty protest. Its effect was tliat Elizabeth ceased to be Queen de jure, while she remained Queen dc facto as before. But she was a usurper, and must be got rid of as soon as an opportunity presented itself. No such opportunity occurred during the Pontificate of Paul V. It was far, however, from the desire of Gregory XIII. [who succeeded Sixtus V.] that the bull should remain without execution. He saw too clearly the ruin to innumerable souls which resulted from Elizabeth's continuance on the throne. As spiritual pastor of these souls, he was bound to use all lawful means to save them from perishing. Hence, not content with aiding by his munificent gifts the purely spiritual work of conversion which was carried on by the colleges of Douay and Rome, the latter being his own foundation, he left nothing undone to impel Philip II. of Spain to overthrow EHzabeth by force of arms. Thus in 1577, when it had been arranged that Don John of Austria, after pacifying Flanders, should undertake the conquest of England and place ^lary Queen of Scots on the English throne, Gregory XIII. sent Mgr. Sega as his Nuncio to Don Jolni apostolorum principi Petro, Petrique successori Eomano pontifici, in potestatis plenitudine tradidit gubernandam. Hunc unmn suijcr omnes gentes et omnia regna jyrincipem constitiiit, qui evellat, de- struat, dissipet, disperdat, plantet, et aedificet, ut fidelem populum, mutuffi charitatis nexu constrictum, in imitate spiritus contineat, salvumque et incolumem suo exhibeat salvatori.' This bull comes within the definition of Papal infallibility laid down by the Vatican Council, and is therefore ' irreformable ' — an immutable article of the creed of the Roman Church, binding the members of that Church to believe that the Pope alone is by Divine appointment prince over all nations and kingdoms,' and in that capacity rightfully deposed C^ueen Elizabeth, and handed her over to any one who chose to slay her REFOEMATION CAUSES AND RESULTS 89 with 50,000 ducats in aid of tlie proposed expedition. The ill-fated expedition under Sir Thomas Stukely, which was equipped by Gregory XIII. and sent by him to Ireland, but whicli, by the treachery of its commander, was diverted from its destination, and perished with Sebastian, King of Portugal, at Alcazar in Morocco, August 4, 1578, is a further proof of the Pope's zeal in the same cause.' And as to the various attempts to assassinate Elizabeth, Father Knox suggests the following apology :— Let me begin by putting a possible case. In a country w^here the executive is pow^erless and might prevails over right, the chief of a band of robbers has seized an unoffending traveller and keeps him a close prisoner until he pays for his ransom a sum which is quite beyond his power to obtain. Now wdio can deny that under these circumstances the prisoner might law^- fully kill the robber, if by so doing he could secure his escape ? And if he might do it himself, any one, much more a friend and kinsman, might do it for him, or he might hire another to do it in his stead. The violent death of the robber could not in this case be justly regarded as a murder : it w^ould simply be the result of an act of self-defence on the part of the innocent man whom he w^as holding captive. . . . Thus the parallel is complete betw^een the bandit chief and Queen Elizabeth. Both detain wdth equal injustice the prisoner who has fallen into their hands. Both have the powder and the will to murder their prisoner if circumstances make it advisable. Both prisoners are unable to persuade their captors to release them. If, then, it be no sin in the captive, either by his own hand or the hand of others, to kill the bandit chief and so escape, why was it a sin to ' Pp. xxvii xxix, 90 THE REFOR^rATIOX SETTLE:NrKXT kill Elizabeth, and by so doing to save from a lifelong prison and impending death her helpless victim, the Queen of Scots ? If the one act is a laudable measure of self-defence, ^vhy is the other branded with the names of murder and assassination ? In a word, if there is no real disparity between the cases, why should we not use the same weights and measures in judging of them l)oth ? ' ' Certainly this is a startling doctrine, propounded in the year of grace 1882 by ' the Fathers of the Congregation of the London Oratory.' In virtue of the Pope's bull of excommunication Queen Elizabeth is to be regarded as ' the chief of a band of robbers,' a ' bandit chief,' who may justly be privately poniarded, or shot, or poisoned. The Fathers declare that ' there is no proof ' that Mary was privy to these projects of assassination ; but any friend or kinsman might think himself justified in secretly taking the life of Elizabeth, and the Pope did well to aid and bless the deed. But, in matter of fact, the attempts on Elizabeth's life were not made for the purpose of liberating Queen Mary, but for the purpose of restoring the authority of the Pope over the realm of England. Father Knox had first admitted that the Pope had ' left nothing undone to overthrow Elizabeth by force of arms ' through a foreign invasion ; and his Holiness had himself equipped an expedition to ' undertake the conquest of England and place ^Nlary Queen of Scots on the English throne.' ' r. li. REFORMATrON CAUSl-iS AND RESULTS 01 But even if the chief ohject of these persistent conspiracies and projects of assassination had been — as it certainly was not — to liberate Queen Mary, are they to be excused on that plea? Here is the case, as stated by the Papal Nuncio at Paris for the information of the Pope. ' A Catholic, though not outwardly ' — that is, who pretends to be a Protestant — and ' who is near the person ' of the Queen, desires to murder her out of revenge for the judicial execu- tions of some relations. But he w^ishes to turn his revenge to profitable account. He offers the Queen of Scotland to take the hfe of Queen Eliza- beth for the sum of 100,000 francs. On Mary's refusal, he betakes himself to the Duke of Guise and Duke of Mayenne. The Duke of Guise is willing to find the money, which the Koman Catholic Arch- bishop of Glasgow agrees to hold ' in a box, of which he will keep the key,' till the deed is done, when the money is to be paid over to the assassin if he escapes, and to his sons in the event of his capture. In the confusion which was to follow the assassination of the Queen, the Duke of Guise is to land in England with an army in order to put a Koman Catholic sovereign on the English throne, and thereby restore the Pope's supremacy. Of all this the Pope is confidentially informed, and is asked if he will con- tribute ' 100,000 or at least 80,000 crowns ' to the cost of the expedition in case the assassin succeeds in accomplishing his purpose. The Cardinal Secre- tary of State, after consultation with the Pope, repHes that ' since his Holiness cannot but think it 92 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT good that this kingdom [of England] should be in some way or other relieved from oppression and restored to God and our holy religion, his HoHness says that, in the event of the matter being ef!'ected, there is no doubt that the 80,000 crowns will be, as your Lordship [the papal Nuncio] says, very well em- ployed.' It was, therefore, no question of the release of a captive from ' the bandit chief ' [Elizabeth]— the fate of the captive was a very secondary consideration — but the restoration over the realm of England of the intolerable yoke of an Italian prelate claiming more than regal power. To achieve this, the Pope is wilhng to hire the stiletto or the poison of an assassin who desires to avenge a private quarrel by murder. Comment is useless. But even if the case were as Father Knox puts it, I cannot accept his ethics. I will not admit that any Christian, still less one who claims to be the Vicar of Him who bade Peter sheath his sword because He would not save His own precious life by violence, would be justified in hiring an assassin to murder even a ' bandit chief ' in order to deliver a captive. Now when we remember that there were bands of Seminarists from liome and Douay and Spain scattered all over England in various disguises, preaching sedition, and teaching that Elizabeth was a usurper and * bandit chief,' outlawed by the Pope, and therefore obnoxious to death by the hand of any one who would thereby do God service, we cannot feel surprise at the natural revolt against all con- EEiFORMATlON CAUSES AND RESULTS 93 tiection with the Papacy.^ It was not a theological so much as a poUtical revolt, the uprising of a free nation against the domineering insolence and inter- meddling of a foreign priest in our domestic affairs. Transubstantiation was eventually made a test, but of civil loyalty rather than theological orthodoxy. It was the cHmax of a struggle that had been going ^ on for centuries, a struggle between the Crown of England and the Tiara of Eome. It is a popular error to suppose that the struggle began with Henry VIII. He inherited it from a long line of pre- decessors. It will suthce to give the following summary of 16 Richard II. cap. 5 ; and Richard was by no means the first Enghsh king who resisted the Pope's encroachments. This early Statute of Prseumunire declares that the Crown of England has been free at all times ; that it has been under no earthly subjection, but immediately subject to God in all things touching the regahty of the same Crown, and of none other. That no submission should be made to the Pope, who aimed at the perpetual de- struction of the King, his crown, his regality, and all his realm, which God defend. The Commons, and the Lords spiritual and temporal, pledged themselves to the defence of the liberties of the Church of England and of the Crown as against the pretensions, ' The Roman Catholic laity of England in the mass had no sympathy with these Roman intrigues against the liberties of England and the life of the Queen, as their loyal conduct in the crisis of the Spanish Armada proved. As for the clergy, they con- formed to the Elizabethan n'giDLe, except about t^Y0 hundred, till the ^ bull of excommunication forbade them. 94 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT claims, and usurpations of the Pope, ^^'ith respect to sentences of excommunication, and the Pope's appointment to bishoprics and benefices, or any other interference with the rights and hberties of the Church of England. And all persons getting aliV bull from Pome containing any matter whatsoever, or publishing or putting the same in use, were to be judged traitors to the King and Pealm ; and being thereof lawfully indicted and attainted, according to the course of the laws of the Eealm, would suffer pains of death, and to lose and forfeit all their lands, hereditamentSj tenements, goods, and chattels, as in cases of high treason, by the laws of this Pealm. This internecine struggle between the Papal Power and the Pealm of England — in its ecclesias- tical as well as civil character, be it remembered — reached its crisis in the reign of Elizabeth. We ought, therefore, to expect in that reign, as in all crises, the development of the two antagonistic principles in their most extreme forms. And this is what, in matter of fact, we do find. The Puritan exiles returned soured, embittered, hating all forms and ceremonies, and scorning all authority in Church and State ; rcpul)licans in politics ' and ' Elizabeth's leading courtiers countenanced the Puritans up to the point where they expected to profit, as we shall see further on, from the qualified triumph of Puritanism. On Burleigh's osten- tatiously claiming credit one day for the care with which the courtiers looked after ' the State ecclesiastical,' Archbishop Parker wrote to tell him privately, ' that he doubted when his Lordship used those words, whether he might have smiled or lamented to think that he would offer it to their contemplation (who knew so EEFORMATION CAUSES AND RESULTS 90 anarchists in religion. If they had liad their way then, they would have anticipated the Common- wealth and abolished both Church and Monarchy* But Elizabeth and her able ministers were too strong for them, and the result was a compromise by which the orthodox rule of doctrine and ritual was laid down, with a minimum of observances to which the recalcitrants were required, to conform, leaving the rest to carry out the maximum. The Puritan clergy roundly accused the Elizabethan bishops of accepting what their consciences condemned for the sake of promotion, and then forcing a detested ritual on their clergy to save their own dignity. One of the ablest spokesmen of the Puritans writes thus some years after Elizabeth's succession : — These [the returned exiles] at first began to oppose the ceremonies ; but afterwards, when there was no hope otherwise of obtaining a bishopric, they yielded, and, as one of them openly acknowledged, undertook the office against their consciences. In the meanwhile they comforted their brethren, whom they perceived to be still struggling against these things, by promising them free liberty in the government of their churches ; and for some years they kept this promise. On the obtaining of which liberty they dihgently purified their churches well that it was quite otherwise) that were driven quite out of regard.' ' To which I may join,' adds Strype, ' what the same Archbishop said another time to the same Lord : " That how secure soever the nobility were of these Puritans, and countenanced them against the bishops, they themselves might rue it at last. And that all that these men tended towards was to the overthrow of all honourable quality, and the setting afoot a commonwealth, or, as he called it, a popularity.'''' ' — Life of Parker, ii. 323. 96 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT from all the blemishes and defilements of Popery; Others ^vho had yielded, incited by their example, began to reform their churches in like manner.' Here we see in epitome the process by which the ritual and ceremonial sanctioned by, the Orna- ments Eubric were so ruthlessly abolished in the dioceses of the Puritan bishops. It was by no pro- cess of law, but by a gross violation of the law. The leaders of the returned Puritans conformed, for the sake of episcopal preferment, to the minimum of ritual enforced upon them, but silenced the reproaches of their clergy by promising them a free hand in the matter of ritual and * the government of their churches,' which they immediately proceeded to strip of all legal ornaments — crosses, crucifixes, candlesticks, roodscreens, vestments, and painted window^s. The Queen at last interfered to stop the vandalism, giving the Puritan bishops their choice of obedience to the law and enforcing it on the clergy, or the resignation of their sees. They obeyed sullenly ; but much of the mischief was irreparable. The self-regard of the bishops smoothed the path of obedience for them, as one of their Puritan censors takes care to record, ' But when the bishops perceived that the number and influence of these parties was increasing among the people, they thought their dignity would come to nought unless they compelled the inferior clergy to adopt the same usages as they did themselves. They took up the matter therefore at the Queen's command. ' Zurich Letters, ii. 161. REFOEMATION CAUSl^.S AND RESULTS ^1 They deprived Samson, a most learned man,' and * more than thirty ' other defiant clerci^y in London/ The spirit of toleration was not known in those days. The party that was up invariably persecuted the party that was down, and there was not much to choose between them. And the clergy, it is lamentable to say^ were generally more intolerant than the laity. Cooper, successively Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester, urged on Walsingham the policy of forcing all Roman Catholics to receive the Sacrament in the Established Church or go to prison. But the statesman rejected the advice of the bishop. On another occasion he proposed to the Privy Council that some two hundred Eoman Catholics, ' lustie men, strong and well able to labour,' should be transported into penal servitude, while the feebler, w^ho remained behind, should be ' put in some fears, probably by means of the rack.' But the Privy Council was more merciful than their spiritual adviser, who spared neither sex.- Nor was it Roman Catholics alone whom the Puritan bishops persecuted. One of them condemned to the stake a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, for heterodox opinions on the Trinity and Atone- ment, while another burnt ' a poor half -crazy Arian.' And to their intolerance most of them added rapacity in its most odious forms, combined in some cases with simony, alienating for their own use the properties of their sees. One of them, says Mr. ' Zurich Letters^ ii. KU-'i. •- White's Elimhethaii Bishoi>^, pp. (iO, 190-1, 19(5. H DS THE REFORMAT tOX SETTLEMENT "White in his dispassionate and instruetive vohunc, ' fleeced rather than fed his flock, and was probably the greatest pluralist that the Protestant Church has ever known. At the time of his consecration he held one Archdeaconry and ten other benefices, all of which he held '' in commendam." He after- wards added six more, thus making a total of sixteen, nine of which were sinecures. . . . His incomings were unrighteously great, and his outgoings w^ere scandalously small. He entirely neglected hospir tality and charity ; for the better sort were not entertained at his table, and the w^ants of the poor went unrelieved. Indeed, he was oblivious of common honesty, for though it was his bounden duty to keep the chancel of his cathedral in repair, his successor, Morgan, found it roofless. He left behind him a large fortune, which he bequeathed to his only daughter.' I own that I feel but small respect for zeal against chasubles, or even crucifixes, on the part of prelates of w^hom such things can be justly written. In truth, none of the Elizabethan bishops inspires admiration, and very few of them respect. Parker was the best of them ; yet even him his successor accuses of gross simony. • The judicial and dispassionate Hallam confirms this view of the character of the Puritan bishops of this reign : — The Ijisliops of this reign do not appear, with some, distill finished exceptions, to have reflected so much ' White'., Elimbcthun Bit>ho2>s. pp. 71, '.>3-4, IGO, 190, I'.tG, 209. REFORMATION CAUSES AND RESULTS 99 honour on the EstahHshed Church as those who attach a superstitious reverence to the age of the Reformation ai-e apt to conceive. In the phmdel* that went forward they took good care of thelnselves. Charges against them of simony, corruption^ covetousness, and especially destruction of their Church estates for the benefit of their lamiliesj are Very common — sometimes no doubt unjust, but too frequent to be absolutely wdthout foundation. Tlie Council often wTote to them, as well as concerning them, with a sort of asperity which would astonish one of their successors. And the Queen never restrained herself in treating them on any provocation with a good deal of rudeness, of w^hich I have just mentioned an egregious example.^ And we have similar complaints of leading Reformers in the reign of Edw^ard VI. It is the latitudinarian Burnet who writes as follows : — The irregular and immoral lives of many of the professors of the Gospel gave their enemies great advan- tages to say, they ran away from confession, penance, fasting, and prayers, only that they might be under no restraint, but indulge themselves in a licentious and dissolute course of life. By these things, that were but too visible in some of the more eminent among them, the people were much alienated from them : and as much as they w^ere formerly prejudiced against Popery, they grew to have kinder thoughts of it, and to look on all the changes that had been made as designs to enrich some vicious courtiers, and to let in an inundation of vice and wickedness upon the nation. Some of the clergy that promoted the Reformation were not without very visible blemishes : some indiscretions, both in their marriages and in their behaviour, contributed not a little to raise a ' Hallam's Constitutional History, i. 304. H 2 loo THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT general aversion. It is true that there were great and shining lights among them . . . ; but they were feiv in comparison with the dudii/ bad.^ Xor were the laity who took a leading part in the Keformation one whit behind the leading divines in the very mundane motives which quickened their zeal for reformation. I appeal again to the judicial Hallam : — Nor could the people repose much confidence in the judgment and sincerity of their governors, whom they had seen submitting without outward repugnance to Henry's schemes of religion, and whom they saw every day enriching themselves with the plunder of the Church they affected to reform. There was a sort of endowed colleges or fraternities, called chantries, consisting of secular priests, whose duty was to say daily masses for the founders. They were abolished and given to the King by Acts of Parhament in the last year of Henry and the first of Edward. It was intimated in the preamble of the latter statute that their revenues should be converted to the erection of schools, the augmentation of the universities, and the sustenance of the indigent. But this was entirely neglected, and the estates fell into the hands of the courtiers. Nor did they content themselves with this escheated wealth of the Church. Almost every bishopric was spoiled by their ravenous power in this reign, either through mere alienations, or long leases, or unequal exchanges. Exeter and Llandaff, from being among the richest sees, fell into the class of the poorest. Lichfield lost the chief part of its lands to raise an estate ' Hist, of the Bef. iii. 378-9. The italics arc in the original. The editor dots some of Burnet's i's : e.g. a scandal ' between the Archbishop of York and one Norman, who claimeth the same bishop's wife to be his.' REFORMATION CAUSES AND RESULTS 101 for Lord Paget, London, Winchester, and even Canter- bury, suffered considerably. The Duke of Somerset was much beloved; yet he had given no unjust offence by pulling down some churclies in order to erect Somerset House with the materials. He had even projected the demolition of Westminster Abbey ; but the chapter averted this outrageous piece of rapacity, sufficient of itself to characterise that age, by the usual method, a grant of some of their estates. Again : — I have mentioned in another place how the bishoprics were impoverished in the first Reformation under Edward VI. The Catholic bishops w^ho follow^ed made haste to plunder from a consciousness that the goods of their Church were speedily to pass into the hands of heretics. Hence the alienation of their estates had gone so far that in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign statutes were made, disabling ecclesiastical proprietors from granting away their lands except on leases for three lives, or twenty-one years. But an unfortunate reservation was introduced in favour of the Crown. The Queen, therefore, and her courtiers, continued to prey upon their succulent victim. . . . The documents of that age contain ample proofs of their rapacity. Thus Cecil surrounded his mansion-house at Burleigh with estates once belong- ing to the See of Peterborough. Thus Hatton built his house in Holborn on the Bishop of Ely's garden. After giving other examples, including Elizabeth's ov^n custom of keeping bishoprics vacant for years — in one case eighteen years — in order to appropriate the revenues, and in some cases alienate Church property, the impartial historian adds : ' These transactions denote the mercenary and rapacious 102 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT spirit which leavened ahiiost all Elizabeth's courtiers.' ' I have already referred to the spirit of bigotry and intolerance which characterised the leading Reformers in Elizabeth's reign, and have given two examples, out of several, of persons burnt at the stake for heterodoxy. The two Primates - — the mild Parker, and the somewhat truculent Sandys — clamoured for the death of the Scottish Queen on the sole ground of her being a Roman Catholic. Sandys, in a letter to Burleigh, urged the Lord Treasurer ' furthwith to cutte of the Scottish Queene's head.' ' Persecution,' says Ilallam, ' is the deadly original sin of the Reformed Churches ; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause in proportion as his reading becomes extensive.' Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglican Reformers in the reign of Edward VL, he goes on to show, are just as amenable to the accusation as the Roman Cathohcs whom they denounced. And with less excuse. ' In men hardly escaped from a similar peril [like Cranmer], in men who had nothing to plead but the right of private judgment, in men who had defied the prescriptive authority of past ages and of established power, the crime of persecution assumes a far deeper hue, and is capable of far less extenuation, than in a Roman inquisitor.' •' Several men indicted for heresy in the reign of Edward VI. Const. Hist. i. 120, 303. - Parker Corrcs2). p. 31)8. ^ Const. Hist. i. 130-2. REFORMATION CAUSES AND Rl-.SFLTS 103 were bidden peremptorily to choose between recanta- tion and death, and a Baptist of the name of Joan Boucher was tried ])y a commission, of which Cranmer and Eidley were members, and condemned to the stake. The yonii,^- \\\ut.\uc.\i. ' Innoc. III. /A' ^fl/st. Miss. 1. 4, c. 7. Cf. Baswiige's Ilistoire de VEglisCy torn. ii. p. 1()28. - Istoria del Concih di Tmilo, 1. 12, c. 7, p. 1)88. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 131 I have already referred to the gross superstitions Which grew out of the doctrine of Transubstantia- tion, and if the reader wishes to see additional illus- trations of these ghastly profanities, he will find several in the work of a sober and learned Koman Cathohc divine, Dr. Kock's ' Church of Our Fathers.' ' Assuredly our Church is more than justified in saying that the Tridentine doctrine of Transub- stantiation ' is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.' The voluminous and fierce discussions which it has caused cannot be read without pain and shrinking by any reverent mind. As if a Divine gift offered to our faith and love by the Saviour of mankind were intended as an exercise in intellectual gymnastics ! But the real leaders and guides of the Keforma- tion settlement under Elizabeth, with true charity, avoided on their side the fatal error made by the Church of Rome. So long as Transubstantiation was held as a mere opinion of the schools, and the term was not obtruded on others, they ' did not like ' — to quote again the striking phrase in the Bacon- Walsingham State paper — ' to make w^indows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts or affirmations.' In harmony with this policy the Convocation which revised the Thirty- nine Articles in 1562 persuaded some members, who hesitated about some of them, to subscribe them in ' Vol. i. c. i. § viii. K 2 132 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT their own sense. ^ They acted on the view after- wards formulated by the Carohne divines, that the Articles were not so much articles of faith as * articles of religion,' or of ' peace ; ' - not a creed, but a concordat, affording a basis of intercom- munion for persons to whose minds divine truth presented itself under different forms and aspects. For, indeed, different minds are not capable of receiving the very same image of the truth, and our varying representations of what we behold are thus often due to differences in the mental construction of individuals, or to separate environment or habitude. The image of the truth is inevitably coloured by that of the mind which receives it. "We should therefore have patience with each other, and not too hastily conclude that those wdio may differ from us in their language must necessarily differ from us also in ideas which language can never adequately clothe. That the Thirty-nine Articles are not dogmas of faith is evident from the fact that they are not binding on the laity, or, indeed, on the clergy either, except as conditions of office. I will now give a few extracts from some of the Caroline divines to show the position which they held in the Koman controversy of their day, especially as regards the Eucharist. And I will begin with Archbishop Bramhall, whose ofiice as an Irish prelate would naturally dispose him to take up an antagonistic attitude towards Eome. Yet, as a ' Heylin's Hist. p. 1511. - Bramhall's Works, ii. 47G, 5"J3. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINER 133 matter of fact, we find this eminent Anglican divine, a man of great moderation, and by no means extreme in his theology, writing in a strain which would have exposed him to the fierce and scornful invective of Sir Wilham Harcourt, if that distin- guished controversialist had lived in those days. The reaction against the violence and bigotry of Puritanism on the one hand, and the insufferable pretensions and intrigaes of Eome on the other, had the effect of causing a rapprochement between moderate Anglicans and moderate Eoman CathoHcs, and disposed them to look for points of agreement rather than of difference. In an interesting des- patch to his Government on that subject the Venetian Ambassador in London whites : — In sum, they [Anglicans] believe all that is taught by the Church, but not by the Court, of Eome. . . . Both the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of persons likely to im^ peach and hinder reconciliation, to wit, the Puritans amone: the Protestants, and Jesuits among Cathohcs.^ Heylin bears similar testimony.- 'It was the petulancy of the Puritans on the one side,' he says, ' and the pragmaticalness of the Jesuits on the other, which made the breach' so difficult to heal. * And had those hot spirits on both sides been calmed awhile, moderate men might possibly have ' Somers's Tracts, third collection, vol. i. pp. 388-9. - Life of Land, p. 413. 134 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT agreed upon such equal terms as would have laid q, sure foundation for the -pence of Christendom.' Thorndike was one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century, not only as a divine, but as a man of letters and Oriental scholarship. His writings were so moderate that the Puritans re- joiced in his nomination as a member of the Savoy Conference. His influence and great learning made themselves felt later in the last revision of the Prayer Book. Everybody who knows anything about the subject would now recognise him as one of the most eminent of that ' historic High Church School,' to which even Sir WiUiam Harcourt con- cedes a legitimate place in the Church of England. Thorndike's general position may be gathered from the following quotations : — Though I sincerely blame the imposing of new articles upon the faith of Christians, and that of positions which I maintain not to be true ; yet I must and do freely profess that I find no position necessary to salvation prohibited, none destructive to salvation enjoined to be believed by it [i.e. Roman Church]. And therefore must I necessarily accept it for a true Church ; as in the Church of England I have always known it accepted : seeing there can no question be made, that it continueth the same visible body by the succession of pastors and laws (the present customs in force being visibly the cor- ruption of those which the Church had from the begin - ninf:^), that first was founded upon the Apostles. For the idolatries — which I grant to be possible, though not necessary to be found in it, l)y the ignorance and carnal affections of particulars, not by coiumand of the Church THE TESTIMONY' OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 1;3j or the laws of it, — I do not admit to destroy tlie salvation of those who, living in the eonniumion thereof, are not guilty of the like, But while allowino- all this, Thorndike goes on to say that although the Church of Kome holds * all that truth which it is necessary to the salvation of all Christians to helieve either in point of faith or manners,' yet it is ' very much darkened, indeed, by enhancing of positions, either of doubtful sense, or absolutely false, to the rank and degree of matters of faith ; but much more overwhelmed and • choked with a deal of rubbish, opinions, traditions, customs, and ceremonies.' He also condemns ' the half-sacra- ment,' Papal supremacy, the abuses arising out of the invocation of Saints, private masses and indul- gences, and ' the Bomish doctrine of Purgatory/ ^ Union of Rome on those conditions he regards as hopeless. Bramhall takes the same line. Baxter having accused him of leaning towards Pome, Bramhall published a reply from which I quote the following : — I will confess that freely which Mr. Baxter neither doth know nor could know but by me, that when my body was stronger and my w4ts fresher, when I had some books and notes of my own, and could have had what supply I had desired, and opportunity to confer with whomsoever I pleased. I had then a design indeed to do my weak endeavour to disabuse the Christian w^orld by the right stating and distinguishing of controversies between the Church of Eome and us, and to show, ' Epilogue, Works, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 91G-7. 130 THE REFORiSrATIOX RETTLEIMENT First, how many of them are mere logomachies, ov contentions about words without any just grounds. Secondly, how many of them are scholastic subtleties, whereof ordinary Christians are not capable, and conse- quently no points of faith. Thirdly, how many of them are not the controversies of tlie Clnn-ches, but of particular persons or parties in those Churches. Fourtlilv, how many of our controversies are al)OUt rites and ceremonies, and thin.L^s indifferent in tlieir own nature. When all tliese empty names and titles of contrO' versies are wiped out of the roll, the true controversies between us may be quickly mustered, and will not be found, upon a serious inquiry, to be so irreconcilable as some persons have imagined. The two dangerous ex- tremes are, to clip away something from saving truth, whereof I do not find the Church of Rome to have been guilty ; and to obtrude erroneous or probable opinions for articles of faith, whereof I find many in the Church of Rome to have been most guilty. These were my thoughts in my younger days, which age and experience hath rather confirmed and radicated in me than altered.' Elsewhere he emphasises the distinction drawn by the Venetian Ambassador between ' the Court of Eome ' and ' the Church of Rome.' His Roman Catholic opponent had urged that ' it was not the Roman religion, nor any public tenet in their Church, that binds any to those rigorous assertions which the Protestants condemn.' ' I know it is not their '' religion," ' Bramhall replies : ' our religion ai]d THE TF.ftTTMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 1JJ7 theirs is the same. I know it is not the general tenet of their Church. But it is the tenet of the Court of Rome and the governing party amongst them.' ^ And thus he too, hke Thorndike, was forced to own that the governing and dominant party in the Church of Rome, while it held power, made union impossible. The prospect is much more remote now, for ' the governing party amongst them ' — the ' insolent and aggressive faction,' as Newman called it in 1870— has captured the whole Roman Church and revolutionised its constitution and its creed. The longing for the reunion of Christendom, arising from a general sense of the manifold evils of separation, influenced the best minds even among the Puritans. Baxter himself lived to modify the opinions which Bramhall felt obliged to combat. The following passage, 'faithfully xrablished from his ow^n MSS. by Matthew Silvester, 1696,' "^ illus- trates this change : — My censures of the Papists do much differ from what they were at first. I then thought that their errors in the doctrines of faith were their most dangerous mistakes. But now I am assured that those misexpressions and mis- understandings of us, with our mistakings of them, and inconvenient expressing of their own opinions, have made the difference in most points appear much greater than it is. But the great and unreconcilable differences lie in their Church tyranny ; in the usurpations of their hierarchy and priesthood, under the name of spiritual authority exercising a temporal lordship ; in their corruptions and ' Vol. ii. p. 317. "■ Baxter's TAfe, pt. i. p. 131, 138 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT abasement of God's worship ; but, above all, in their systematic befriending of ignorance and vice. . . . And I can never believe that a man may not be saved by that religion which doth but bring him to the true love of God and to a heavenly mind and life ; nor that God will ever cast a soul into hell that truly loveth Him. Also at first it would disgrace any doctrine with me if I did but hear it called Popery and anti-Christian ; but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to know that Satan can use even the names of Popery and anti-Christ to bring a truth into suspicion and discredit. This is in substance the line which the Caroline divines take. What they called ' the usurpations of the Court,' as distinguished from ' the Church, of Rome,' Baxter calls 'the usurpations of their hierarchy and priesthood, under the name of spiritual authority exercising temporal power.' And we have much need just now to take to heart Baxter's warning, that ' Satan can use even the names of Popery and Antichrist to bring- a truth into suspicion and dis- credit.' A few more quotations from Bramhall, who is generally recognised as a divine of moderate views and f]^reat learning, will help to show^ the tone towards the Church of Rome as distinguished from the Curia, w^iich was then prevalent in England. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Chalcedon, writing against Bramhall, says : ' The Church of Rome is not homogeneal with the Protestant Church.' Bramhall replies : — This is true qua talcs, as they are Roman and Protes- THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 139 tant. Tlie Kouian Church is not a Protestant Church, nor the Protestant Church a Koman Church. Yet both the one and the other may be homogeneous members of the Cathohc Church. Their difference in essentials is but imaginary.^ Again : — A great many of those controversies which raised the highest animosities among Christians at the first Reforma- tion are laid aside already by moderate and judicious persons of both parties, without any miracle, and are only kept on foot by some blunderers, who follow the old mode when the fashion is grown out of date, either out of prejudice, or pride, or want of judgment, or all together. And as many controversies of the greatest magnitude are already as good as reconciled, so more may be. It was not the erroneous opinions of the Church of Borne, but the obtruding them by laws upon other Churches, which warranted separation. - Speaking elsewhere of these erroneous opinions, he says : — I do profess to all the world, that the transformation of indifferent opinions into necessary articles of faith hath been that * insana laurus,' or cursed bay-tree, the cause of all our brawling and contention. So much as to the opinion of the Caroline divines with regard to our differences wdth Kome in general. And when they came to discuss in particular the subject of the Eucharist they declared, one and all, that their differences with Kome were entirely re- ' Works, ii. SO. - See vol. iii. pp. 552, 571-2. 140 THE REFOR:^rATIOX SETTLEMENT specting the mode, not the fact, of the Real Presence. They allow the substantia, but object to a con or a trans. ' The disagreement is only de modoj^'cpsentice/ say Bishops Montague and Bilson. ' All the con- troversy is about the mode,' says Bishop Andre wes. ' The question is not concerning a Real Presence,' says Bishop Morton, ' which Protestants do also profess.' * I cannot see,' says Cosin, ^ ' where there is any real difference betwixt us [and the Church of Rome] about this Real Presence if we would give over the study of contradiction and understand one another aright. Maldonatus, " De Sacr.," p. 143, after a long examination of the matter, concludes thus at last with us all.' And he adds : ' And so have I heard my Lord Overall [the author of the sacramental part of the Church Catechism] preach it a hundred times.' And with regard to the opinion that the Bod}^ of Christ is present ' only in the use of the Sacrament and in the act of eating, and not otherwise,' he says : ' They that hold the affirmative, as the Lutherans and all Calvinists do, seem to me to depart from all antiquity, which place the Presence of Christ in the virtue of the words of consecration and benediction by the priest, and not in the use of eating the Sacra- ment ; for they tell us that the virtue of that consecration is not lost though the Sacrament be either reserved for sick persons or other.' And, although he condemns the abuse of solitary masses, yet he gives it as his opinion that ' better were it to endure the absence of the people than for the ' NofoH on Iho Book of Common Prayer, first series, pp. l:U. 1.55. l^HE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 141 minister to neglect the usual and daily Sacrifice of the Church, by which all people, whether they be there or no, reap so much benefit. And this was the opinion of my lord and master Dr. Overall.' ' Bramhall says : * Abate us Transubstantiation and those things which are consequent on this determina- tion of the manner of the Presence, and we have no difference with them on this particular.' He thinks there is ' no difference between the Churches if rightly understood,' - and he adds that his own view ' Notes, p. 127. - Vol. ii. p. 211, iii. p. 16o. It is interesting to note what a very able and candid outsider thinks on this subject. Dr. Martineau writes as follows in his Studies of Christianity (pp. 51-2) : — ' The office of Communion contains even stronger marks of the same sacerdotal superstitions ; and, notwithstanding the Protestant horror entertained of the Mass, approaches it so nearly that no ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast. Near doctrines, however, like near neighbours, are known to (quarrel most. ' The idea of a physical sanctity, residing in solid and liquid substances, is encouraged by this service. The priest consecrates the elements by laying his hand upon all the bread, and upon every flagon containing the wine about to be dispensed. If an additional quantity is required, this, too, must be consecrated before its distri- bution. And the sacredness thus imparted is represented as surviv- ing the Celebration of the Supper, and residing in the substances as a permanent quality ; for in the disposal of the bread and wine that may remain at the close of the sacramental feast, a distinction is made between the consecrated and the unconsecrated portion of the elements ; the former is not permitted to quit the altar, but is to be reverently consumed by the priest and the communicants ; the latter is given to the curate. What the particular change may be, which the prayer and manipulation of the minister are thought to induce, it is by no means easy to determine ; nor would the dis- covery, perhaps, reward our pains. It is certainly conceived that they cease to be any longer mere bread and wine, and that with them thenceforth co-exist, really and substantially, the body and 142 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT of the Euchcaristic Sacrifice is in substantial agree- ment with Bellarmine's. His words are : — The Holy Eucharist is a commemoration, an applica- tion of the all-sufficient propitiatory Sacrifice of the Cross. If his [Bishop of Chalcedon's] Sacrifice of the Mass have any other propitiatory power or virtue in it than to com- memorate, represent, and apply the merit of the Sacrifice of the Cross, let him speak plainly \vliat it is. Bellarmine knew no more of the Sacrifice than we.^ And he goes on to quote Bellarmine in proof of his assertion. He calls the Eucharistic Sacrifice ' commemorative,' ' representative,' ' impetrative,' ' applicative ; ' but denies and challenges any Eoman Catholic to show ' that it is a Suppletory Sacrifice, to supply the defects of the Sacrifice of the Cross.' While he strongly insists, in another place, and in common with the whole Church during the first six centuries of Christianity, on the reality of a blood of Christ. Respecting this "Real Presence" with the elements, there is no dispute between tlie Romish and the English Church ; both unequivocally maintain it, and the only question is, respecting the "Real Absence" of the original and culinary bread and wine. . . . The catechism of our Church affirms that " the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." And this was not intended to be figuratively understood, of the spiritual use and appropriation to which the faith and piety of the receiver would mentally convert the elements ; for although here the body of Christ is only said to be "taken" (making it the act of the comniunicant), yet one of the Articles speaks of it as "given" (making it the act of the officiating jjriest), and implying the real presence before imrticipation. However anxious, indeed, the clergy of the " I^vangelical " school may be to disguise the fact, it cannot be doubted that their Church has always main- tained a supernatural change in the elements themselves, as well as •in the mind of the receiver.' ' Vol. ii. p. 88. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 143 representative and applicative Sacrifice in the Eucharist, he is careful to add : ' But for any Sacrifice that is meritorious or propitiatory, by its own power or virtue, distinct from the Sacrifice of Christ, I hope the author will not say it. If he does he will have few partners,' even in the Roman Church. And he calls the difference between the Churches of Eome and England on this question ' a show of empty names to no purpose.' ' And in reply to the Eomanist objection to Anglican orders — revived recently — that the Anglican clergy do not receive the power of offering Sacrifice at their ordination, Bramhall says : — First they [i.e. Anglicans] acknowledge spiritual and eucharistical sacrifices, as prayers, praises, a contrite heart, alms, and the like. Secondly, they acknowledge a com- memoration, or a representative Sacrifice, in the Holy Eucharist. Thirdly, they teach that this is not a * nucho commemoratio ' — ' a bare commemoration' without etHcacy, but that the blessed Sacrament is a means ordained by Christ to render us capable, and to apply unto us the virtue, of that all-sufficient Sacrifice of infinite value, which Christ made upon the Cross ; which is as far as the moderate Komanists dare go in distinct and particular expressions. But the Protestants dare not say that the Holy Eucharist is a Sacrifice propitiatory in itself, by its own proper virtue and expiatory efficacy. Whatsoever power it hath is in relation to the Sacrifice of Christ, as a means- ordained to apply that to true believers. In sum, the essence of the Eoman Sacrifice doth consist, according tO' the doctrine of their own schools, either in the consecra- ' Vol. V. p. 188. 144 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT tion alone, or in the mantluctition alone, or both in the consecration and participation; but not at all either in the oblation or in the fraction or mixtion. Seeing there- fore the Protestants do retain both the consecration and consumption or communication, without all contra- diction, under the name of a Sacrament, they have the Very thing which the Romanists call a Sacrifice. How is the world amused with a show of empty names to no purpose 1 ^ On the question of Eucharistical adoration Bramhall is equally clear and explicit. Replying to the titular Eoman Catholic Bishop of Chalcedon, he says : — In the places alleged by him I do not charge the Church of Rome with idolatry. In the one place I speak of the adoration of the Sacrament as an abuse, but not one word of idolatry. In the other place I speak of the peril of idolatry, but not one word of the adoration of the Sacrament. . . . ' The Sacrament is to be adored/ said the Council of Trent : that is, ' formally the Body and Blood of Christ,' say some of your authors ; we say the same. ' The Sacrament is to be adored,' that is. •the species of bread and wine,' say others; that we deny, and esteem it to be idolatry. Should we charge the whole Church with idolatry for the error of a party ? - Again : — We deny not a venerable respect unto the consecrated Elements, not only as love-tokens sent us by our best Friend, but as the instruments ordained by our Saviour to convey to us the Merits of His Passion. But for the Person of Clnist, God forbid that we should deny Him Divine honour at any time, and especially in the use of ' Jbid. p. '221. ■■= Vol. ii. pp. bO-7. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 145 this Holy Sacrament. We believe with St. Austin, that * no man eats of that Flesh, but first he adores ; ' but that which offends us is this, that you [i.e. Roman Church] teach and require all men to adore the very Sacrament with Divine honour. To this end you hold it out to the people. To this end Corpus Cliristi Day was instituted about three hundred years since. . . . But that which weighs most with us is this, tliat we dare not give Divine worship unto any creature, no, not to the very Humanity of Christ in the abstract (much less to the Host), but to the Whole Person of Christ, God and Man, by reason of the hypostatical union between the child of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Eternal Son, ' Who is God over all Blessed for ever.' Shew us such an union betwixt the Deity and the Elements, or accidents, and you say some- thing. But you pretend no such thing.' Again : — Lastly, the Grecians know no Feast of Corjjiis Cliristi, nor carry the Sacrament up and down, nor elevate it to be adored. They adore Christ in the use of the Sacrament ; so do we. They do not adore the Sacrament ; no more do we.'-^ These last two extracts from Bramhall suggest two observations. The first is the light w^hich Bramh all's employment of the term ' Christ in the use of the Sacrament ' throws on Hooker's employment of that phrase. Bramhall indisputably believed that the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was objective to the recipient and independent of his faith, and he identifies the doctrine of the Church of England on this subject with that of the ' Vol. i. p. 20. 'Vol. ii. p. G34. 14G THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Greek Church, of which there is no question. Nevertheless he declares of both Churches that they ' adore Christ in the use of the Sacrament.' On the other hand, he is careful to guard against such a materialisation of the doctrine of the Keal Presence as would constitute a kind of hypostatic union between the consecrated elements and the Humanity of Christ. And I am not at all sure that the warning is not needed now among some of our clergy and laity. To minds not accustomed to philosophical speculation there is always some danger of confusing the Divine Presence with the material instruments through which God vouchsafes to manifest Himself or bestow His gifts. These we are to reverence for His sake, whose Presence sanc- tifies them for some use beyond their natural capacity. Moses was urgently forbidden to approach the Burning Bush on Horeb till he had paid reverent homage to the Divine Presence manifested there. The Presence was objective to Moses and independent of him, and worship was due to it, not to the material instrument of its manifestation.. Nor would worship have been due to the Bush if removed elsewhere and reserved as an object of adoration apart from the particular use for which it was there and then selected. In like manner the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, as far as I know the mind of the primitive Church, was for the sake of Eucharistic communion only, and not for the sake of adoration apart from communion. It is in that sense, and in that sense only, that I advocate THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 147 reservation, which I hope will be conceded on condition that developments which are Roman rather than Catholic shall be abandoned, including the unauthorised Feast of Corpus CJiristi. The specimens which I have now given will, I think, suffice to exhibit the teaching of that distin- guished body of learned theologians known as the Caroline divines, and it will be seen that it is the very doctrine which Sir William Harcourt conscien- tiously thinks so directly inconsistent with the doc- trine of the Church of England as to entitle him to denounce all clergy who teach it as ' perjured priests.' I am sure that the late distinguished leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons did not know this when he fired off his invectives in Parliament and in the press. But does it not follow that he has still a good deal to learn before he is competent to sit in Moses' seat and fulminate his decrees as to the hmits of toleration in the Church of England ? Admirable Crichtons are rare. It is given to few men to excel alike in politics and theology, and it is no disparagement to Sir William Harcourt 's great gifts to say that he is not one of the elect in that particular, like Bacon, and Leibnitz, and Gladstone. Knowledge of theology, which embraces knowledge of ecclesiastical history, does not come by the light of nature even to the most intellectual. It requires the reading and mastery of a good many books, and cannot be got up for a parliamentary speech or newspaper controversy by a cursory inspection of indexes or encyclopaedias. L 2 148 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Theolooy is, moreover, a science, and has, like all sciences, its technical terminology, which may easily mislead the unlearned. It is easy to imagine the withering scorn with which Sir William Harcourt would lash any rash layman who dared to lay such rude hands on the sacred ark of constitutional law as he has himself laid on an ark not less sacred. How easy it would be to make fun of such doctrines of constitutional law as that * The King can do no wrong,' and that ' The King is immortal.' Adopting Sir William Harcourt's critical method, one might exclaim : ' What pernicious heresy ! What political cretinism ! What grovelling superstition ! What imbeciles those lawyers must be to offer such stuff to laymen whose minds have not been obfuscated by long burrowing among dusty text-books and nmsty statutes ! ' I must venture to say, with all respect, that this is not the spirit and temper in which questions that touch the tenderest and hohest feelings of human beings ought to be dis- cussed. I have so far presented, as I think, a fair review of the doctrine of the Eucharist as held by the Church of England down to the flight of James 11. T will now bring my review down to our own time by putting into the witness-box a few men who will be universally recognised as moderate in a sense which would be considered inapplicable to the Tractarian School. My first witness shall be the moderate and very learned Archbishop Wake, whose life covers the latter half of the seventeenth THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES UO century and the first part of the eifjjhteenth. Jiefore he became a bishop he had a controversy with the celebrated Bossuet, who in the course of it had ex- plained that Romanists ' understand the word ** offer," when they apply it to the Mass, in a larger signification than what the Apostle (in the Epistle to the Hebrews) gives it ; as when we are said to offer God whatever we present before Him ; and that it is thus they pretend to offer up the Blessed Jesus to His Father in the Mass, in which He vouchsafes to render Himself present before Him.' That this [Wake retorted] is to prevaricate the mean- ing of that phrase, the doctrine of the foregoing article [of the Council of Trent] shows. If Christ be in the Mass a true and proper Sacrifice,^ as was there said, it will necessarily follow that there He must be tnilf/ and properly sacrificed : and one essential property [of sacri- fice] being the true and real destruction of what is offered, insomuch that when there is not a true and proper destruction, neither can there be, as they them- selves acknowledge, a true and proper sacrifice, it must be evidently false in these men to pretend that, by offering in this matter is meant only ?i presenting of Christ before God, and not a real change and destruction of His Bodij offered by them. . . . Though Christ be acknowledged to be rcalljj present after a Divine and heavenly manner in this Holy Eucharist, yet will not this warrant the adoration of the Host, which is still only bread and wine ; . . . nor will such a real presenting of our Blessed Lord to His Father, to render Him propitious to ' The italics here and throughout arc Wake's. 150 THE MFOEMATION SETTLEMENT us, make the Eucharist any more than a mciapliorical, not a true and proper propitiatorij Sacrificed I venture to think that Wake goes too far in insisting that a true sacrifice must of necessity imply the ' real destruction of what is offered.' I have in a previous chapter argued that the essence of self-sacrifice is in the surrender of the will, and that the death of the human victim is abstractedly a separable accident. But I have quoted the passage because it is an excellent illustration of language which may be appealed to by both parties in this controversy. In using the term * metaphorical ' as describing the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Wake might be quoted by a careless controversialist as teaching pure Zwinglianism. But the context gives the adjective ' metaphorical ' a dilierent meaning. The following are the points of the passage : — L Wake objected to ;i true and proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. By a true and proper Sacrifice he meant the true and real destruction of the Victim. 8. He believed in a ' metaphorical ' offering in the Eucharist. 4. By a ' metaphorical ' offering he meant ' a real presenting of our Blessed Lord to His Father, to render Him propitious to us.' This is simply the doctrine of Bramhall and Andrewes, and the whole school of Caroline divines. After Wake became Archbishop of Canterbury ' Wake's Exposition, pp. G'.>, 70. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 151 he entered into a friendly correspondence with the eminent French historian and theologian, Dupin, with a view to union between the Anglican and Gallican Churches. The Church of France was strongly opposed to Ultramontanism, as indeed it continued to be till it was forcibly revolutionised by an unholy alliance betw^een the secular arm of Napoleon and the spiritual arm of the Pope. Experience as well as reflection taught Napoleon the impossibility of expelling rehgion from among the dominant factors of civil government ; so he determined to enlist it in his service. To that end he captured the Pope ; and the Pope secure in his grasp, the next thing v/as to destroy the indepen- dence of the bishops and clergy. The bishops were forced to surrender their sees, and France was, in violation of CathoHc principles, carved into new sees by Napoleon, which were filled with Napoleon's nominees, deprived of their ancient rights and made dependent on the Pope. The inferior clergy were also deprived of their canonical rights and made subservient to the bishops. Thus Napoleon beheved that he held the entire control of the conscience of France by making the clergy subservient to the bishops, the bishops to the Pope, and the Pope to himself. Our Koman brethren sometimes twit us with the subservience of our bishops at the period of the Keformation to the Sovereign. But, at the worst, our bishops never descended to the degrada- tion inflicted on the Church of France by Napoleon, using the Pope as his tool. 152 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Xothing came of the correspondence between AVakc and Dupin. But it is noteworthy that so moderate a Churchman as Wake should have enter- tained the idea of a union between the Churches of France and En^^dand on the basis of mutual explana- tions. Wake desired to get both Churches *to agree to communicate in everything we can with each other, . . . and join in the public service, and yet leave one another in the free liberty of believing Transub- stantiation or not, so long as we do not require any- thing to be done by either in consequence of that opinion.' ^ To this I may add, since it is short, the following passage from a ' Discourse on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,' by Dr. Edward Felling, a canon of Westminster Abbey, and a contemporary of Wake : — Though there be no grounds in the world for the opinion of Transubstantiation, yet we must not conceive that Christ is not verily, really, and of a truth, in the Sacrament. He may be really present, though there may be no reason to believe that He is present after a corporal manner. For two different substances and natures may be joined and go together, though they remain distinct in themselves and in their properties ; as the soul and flesh of a man are united in the same person, and as the Humanity and Divinity of Christ were joined together in the same Lord. This way of stating the doctrine of the lieal Presence is sometimes called Consubstantiation ; but erroneously, for Consubstantiation, as I have ' Moshciiii. JJi^i. iv. 280. Maclaine's edition. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 1/33 already explained, dues not mean in theolcj^^qcal language the co-existence of two diverse substances, but an identity of substance in two subsistences. I will conclude this part of my argument with the testimony of two eminent men of our own time, the late Rev. Sir William Palmer and the late Bishop Thirlwall. The former worked for a time with the leaders of the Oxford Movement. ' He was,' says Newman,' ' the only really learned man among us. He understood theology as a science ; he was practised in the scholastic mode of contro- versial WTiting, and I believe was as well acquainted as he was dissatisfied with the Catholic schools. He was as decided in his religious views as he was cautious and even subtle in their expression, and gentle in their enforcement.' Again : — Mr. Palmer about the same time [1836-7] was pro- jecting a work of a similar nature [to Newman's ' Pro- phetical OfBce of the Church '] in his own way. It was published, I think, under the title, ' A Treatise on the Christian Church.' As was to be expected from the author, it was a most learned, most careful composition ; and in its form, I should say, polemical. So happily at least did he follow the logical method of the Eoman Schools, that Father Perrone, in his treatise on Dogmatic Theology, recognised in him a combatant of the true cast, and saluted him as a foe worthy to be vanquished. Other soldiers in that field he seems to have thought little better than the lanzhiechts of the Middle Ages, and, I dare say, with very good reason. . . . x\s to Mr. Palmer's book, it ' Aiiologia, p. 108. 154 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT was one which no Anghcaii could write but himself — in no sense, if I recollect aright, a tentative work. The ground of controversy was cut into squares, and thus every objection had its answer.' The exact title of Palmer's book is ' A Treatise on the Church of Christ.' I made Newman's ac- quaintance some years after his ' Apologia ' was published, and I remember his telling me that he still regarded Palmer's book as the ablest exposition ever written of the position of the Church of Eng- land since the Eeformation, especially as against Rome. Dollinger had an equally high opinion of Palmer's ' Treatise,' and told me that he would con- sider a new edition of the book, brought up to date, * an event for Christendom.' He repeated the phrase in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, who quite agreed with him. At the earnest solicitation of Mr. Gladstone I undertook a new edition of the book, and spent a good deal of time working on it in Dr. Dollinger's library at Munich, under the direction of that illustrious scholar and divine. But the publication was interrupted for private reasons, into which it is not necessary to enter here. I hope, with the aid of a friend, to bring out before very long a work which covers Palmer's ground, and will attempt to meet some problems which did not exist when he published his masterly ' Treatise ' sixty years ago. Perrone nuide an elaborate reply to Palmer ; Ijut no dispassionate reader of both ' Apologia, p. 142. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES loo ' Treatise ' and reply will tliink that Perronc ' van- quished ' his opponent. AVarnily, however, as Palmer sympathised with the Oxford Movement in its earHer stages, his cautious temperament was repelled hy some of its later developments, and he eventually broke with it altogether. So that, on the whole, he may be regarded as one of the most moderate as well as one of the most learned of Anglican divines, and at the same time one of the most formidable opponents of the Koman claims. Let us see, then, what Palmer says as to the Eeformation settlement under Cranmer at the period when the foreign Keformers wielded their greatest influence in England — in other words, when Protestantism reached its high- water mark in the Church of England. The italics in the following quotation are Palmer's : — It is asserted that our Church, having stedfastly adhered to the whole Romish doctrine in the reign of Henry VIII., relinquished it immediately after the acces- sion of Edward VI. and became Zwinglian, rejecting especially the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This assertion arises from an erroneous view of facts, and from not distinguishing the opinions of individual theologians from the public and authorised doctrine of the Church of England. It is a fact, that no neio formulary was published by authority of the Church during the whole reign of Edward VI. The forty- two Articles of Religion compiled (it is supposed) by Cranmer, Ridley, and others, in 1552, were never authorised by Convocation, though the Royal Council most unjustifiably published them as so ap- 15G THE BEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT proved, for which Archbishop Cranmer remonstrated with tliem in vain : nor were they ever at any time received as a formulary of the Chm'ch of England, having been put forth by the King but a few days before his death in 1553, and only subscribed by a few clergy in Canterbury, Norwich, and London, and in the University of Cambridge, who were solicited, but not compelled, to subscribe by the bishops Cranmer and Eidley. From this time we hear no more of them as of any authority. That no new doctrine was estabhshed in the Church of England during this reign appears from Burnet, who observes with reference to the above Articles : ' It seemed to be a great want that this was so long delayed, since the old doctrine had still the legal authority on its side.' Yet these Articles, as we have seen, were never in force. It seems plain, indeed, that during the whole reign of Edward YI. the doctrine of the Church of England was most authentically represented by the Formulary of Instruction formally approved by the Convocation of Henry YIII. a.d. 1543, entitled * The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition,' a book which was most assuredly quite opposed to the Zwinghan doctrines. This book was of authority in the Church of England during the re- mainder of King Henry's reign. In 1546 Archbishop Cranmer, in writing to the King concerning the abolition of certain ceremonies, recognises it as of authority in the Church. The First Book of our Homilies, published in 1547 (the first year of Edward VL), chieiiy relates to Christian morals, but it terms matrimony a Sacrament [indeed, the Second Book of Homilies speaks of Ordina- tion and 'other Sacraments' besides Baptism and the Eucharist] ; and at the end of this Book of Homilies we read of ' the due receiving of Christ's Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine.' This is all very con- sistent with 'The Necessary Doctrine,' but it is not THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 157 Zwinglian. Immediately after tlie publication of the Homilies, Gardiner objected to the doctrine of Justifi- cation there laid down, as inconsistent witli tliat of ' The Necessary Doctrine,' assuming tlie latter to l)e of au- thority still. Again, in 1551, in arguing against the opinions of Cranmer on the Eucharist, he appealed to the doctrine confessed by the whole clergy of England in an open Council, ' and never hitherto by any public Council or anything set forth by authority impaired.' Nor could any effectual answer be made to this ; and, accordingly, not only does Cranmer disclaim the notion that Gardiner had been brought to trial for his doctrine on the Eucharist, but none of the bishops of the Popish party, who were expelled from their sees in Edward's reign, were deprived on pretence of their holding doctrines contrary to those of the Church, but for disobedience to the Royal Council, or for treason. Thus it appears that the authorised doctrine of the Church of England, during the whole of Edward the Sixth's reign, was that of the Real Presence, in the strongest and most decided sense.* There is, of course, no pretence for saying that the Church of England has changed or modified her doctrine on this subject since Edward VI. ; on the contrary, all the alterations in her formularies since then have been in the direction of giving greater emphasis to the doctrine of the Keal Presence, which Palmer states as follows : — She believes that the Eucharist is not the sign of an absent Christ, and that those who partake of it receive not merely the figure, or shadow, or sign of Christ's Body, ' A Treatise on the ClMrch of Christ, i. 508-511. 158 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT but the reality itself. And as Christ's Divine and Human Natures are inseparably united, so she believes that we receive in the Eucharist not only the Flesh and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself, both God and Man.' The late Bishop Thirlwall, one of the most learned and one of the ablest of Broad Churchmen, smxis up the case as follows, with his usual judicial impartiality and accuracy : — The Church of England has dealt with the subject in a spirit of true reverence as well as of prudence and charity. She asserts the mystery inherent in the institu- tion of the Sacrament, but abstains from all attempts to investigate or define it, and leaves the widest range open to the devotional feelings and the private meditations of her children w^ith regard to it. And this liberty is so large, and has been so freely used, that, apart from the express admission of Transubstantiation or of the grossly carnal notions to w^hich it gave rise, and which, in the minds of the common people, are commonly inseparable from it, I think there can hardly be any description of the Real Presence which, in some form or other, is universally allow^ed, that w^ould not be found to be authorised by the language of eminent divines of our Church ; and I am not aware, and do not believe, that our most advanced Ritualists have in fact outstepped those very ample bounds. - Lastly, the doctrines of the Real Presence, Eucharistic Sacrifice, and Eucharistical Adoration came up for judicial determination before the Court ' A Treatise on the Church of Christ, i. 527. - Charge, delivered by the Bishop of St. Davids in the year 18GG, pp. 97-8. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES lo9 of Arches and the Judicial Committee, and were de- cided to be in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England. The final Court was unanimous in affirming the legality of the two former, and affirmed the legality of the latter, ' not without doubts and divisions of opinion ; ' and this in an undefended case, and in spite of the crude and provo- cative language of Mr. Bennett. Let the reader now compare the doctrine of the Church of England, as I have exhibited it in the preceding pages, with the representation of it given in the following quotation from a letter written by Dr. Taylor, Archdeacon of Liverpool, on October 14, 1898, and published in the ' Times ' of the following day : — The Reformers denied and denounced both Transub- stantiation and Consubstantiation, and embraced the purer views of Zwinglius, which denied any presence in the elements, but maintained a presence in the due ministration of the ordinance, to the soul of the faithful recipient. Yet Archdeacon Taylor has been active not only in denouncing all who hold the doctrine which I have now show^n to be that of the Reformers ; he has, in addition, given his support to a Bill which has for its object the expulsion of all who will not hold his own ' purer views of Zwinglius,' which are not only out of harmony with the formularies of the Church of England and with the teaching of the Anglican divines, but are repudiated even by the Presbyterianism of Scotland and the Wesleyanism of England. The Duke of Argyll emphatically re- IGO THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT pudiated in the ' Times ' the attrihution of Zwing- liaiiism to Scottish Presbj^terianism, and claimed for it the doctrine of a Eeal Presence barely distin- guishable from Transubstantiation. At the time that Archdeacon Taylor was pro- claiming his rejection of AngHcan doctrine and his adhesion to ' the purer views of Zwinglius,' Mr. Price Hughes was denouncing in the ' Methodist Times ' ' the deadly consequences of ZwingHanism,' of ' the fatal Zwinghan view.' ' To regard the Lord's Supper,' says the President of the Wesleyan Conference, * as nothing more than a mere com- memorative rite is to play directly, on the one hand, into the hands of the Unitarians, and on the other^ and much more, into the hands of the Komanists. . . . Our sacramental service is as definite and pro- nounced as the Anglican service on which it is based, and with which it entirely agrees.' Thus we see that the Archdeacon of Liverpool would degrade our doctrines far below the standard of orthodox Nonconformists, and would expel even men like Mr. Price Hughes from his communion. Yet Protestants of his type protest that they have no desire at all to abridge the comprehensiveness of the Church of England ! How subtle is the power of self-deception ! This seems to be the most convenient place for offering some criticism on the objections made in this controversy to the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament for the Communion of the Sick. It is assumed, and by men of far greater learning, ability. THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES IGl and authority tlian myself, that rcRorvation is plainly and indisputably forbidden by the 28th Article and the post-communion rubric. Let us see. The article says : ' The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.' The mean- ing of the article is perhaps more fully and clearly brought out in the Latin version, which is of equal authority with the English : ' Sacramentum Eu- charistise ex institutione Christi non servabatur, circumferebatur, elevabatur, nee adorabatur.' The substitution of ' Eucharistia ' here, and in the pre- ceding clause of the article, for ' Coena Domina ' is significant. In its theological connotation the word impHes more than ' the Lord's Supper '—an expression which, though susceptible of the highest doctrine, and used even in the Church of Kome, lends itself more easily than ' Eucharist ' to a Zwinglian meaning. Ducange's definition of 'Eucharistia' is ' Sacrum Corpus Christi in Misscp sacrificio confectum.' The authors of the article, while excluding Transubstantiation, were careful to use language which implied the reaHty of the Presence, not only by substituting ' Eucharistia ' for ' Coena Domini,' but by declaring that 'the Body of Christ \^ given' as well as 'taken' (' accipitur '), though of course 'only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.' I suppose we may also infer that the imperfect tense of ' reserved ' (' servabatur ') was used advisedly, implying, that is, that no custom of reserving the M 162 THE REFOR?^rATrON SETTLEMENT Sacrament followed from the ' institution ' of it by Christ. That is an historical truism, and certainly no prohibition of reservation for the sick can be inferred from it. But we are not left to inference in the matter. The 28tli Article was drawn up in 1562. Two j^ears previously a Latin edition of the Prayer Book was published by authority, and in this the rubric in Edward's First Prayer Book ordering reservation for the Communion of the Sick was restored in a shghtly abbreviated form. The Latin Prayer Book was prescribed for public use ' in the Churches and Chapels ' of the universities and public schools. It was added, how^ever, that in the case of domestics who did not understand Latin, and of parishes attached to any college, the service should be used and the Sacraments administered in English. But it may fairly be assumed that in those cases the rubric on reservation would apply. Now surely it is altogether unreasonable to sup- pose that the very same authority which ordered reservation in the Latin Prayer Book should at the same time condemn and forbid it in one of the Articles of Ptcligion. We may, indeed, assume that the article was intcnde'^ to express disapproval — condemnation seems to me too strong a word for its cautious language — of carrying about the Sacrament in solemn procession. It is a ceremony confined exclusively to the Latin Church, and is com- paratively modern even in it, not being traceable farther back than the fourteenth century. It has THE TESTIMONY OF ANGErCAN DIVFNES 1G3 never existed in the Kussian Church, or in any of the Oriental Churches. But reservation for the Communion of the Sick, carried without any parade or ceremony, has always been common to all the Churches of the East. I may add that the elevation of the chalice is likewise unknown to the Eastern Churches, and is not a universal rule even in Latin Christendom. So much as to the 28th Article. Let us now look at the rubrics which are relevant to the question of reservation. A rubric in the Office for the Com- munion of the Sick in the First Prayer Book of Edward A""!, sanctioned it explicitly. In the Second Prayer Book this rubric was omitted. Does the omission necessarily mean prohibition ? That does not seem to me to follow, and I offer the following- reasons : The rubric of 1549 positively ordered reservation : ' Then shall the priest reserve,' &c. This is omitted in 1552. The order is withdrawn, but the practice is not forbidden. That I am not splitting hairs here seems to me evident from another rubric. In the Book of 1549 there is a rubric, not merely sanctioning, but, like the rubric on reserva- tion, enjoining by name what are called the Eucha- ristic vestments. In the Book of 1552 this rubric is not simply omitted ; there is another rubric substi- tuted for it which prescribes the use of the surphce only and forbids the use of the other vestments by name. We see, therefore, that when the revisers in 1552 intended omission to mean prohibition they said so in so many words. Is it an unfair construo- M 2 164 THE EEFOR:\rATION SETTLEMENT tion that the simple omission of the positive in- junction left the practice optional in the matter of reservation ? In 1559 the Prayer Book was again revised and a few alterations were made. But the question of reservation was not touched. The only reference to the question was a rubric which permitted the celebrant to ' have to his own use ' whatever re- mained of the bread and wine, making no distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated. Taking these facts in conjunction with the Latin Prayer Book, the inference seems to me inevitable that Elizabeth and her advisers intended reservation to be the rule in seats of learning where there was no danger of its being abused, and left optional else- where. Let us remember that of upwards of ten thousand priests in England at that time only two hundred at the most refused to accept the Prayer Book. Let us remember also that the sagacious policy of Elizabeth and her wise ministers w^as to give as little umbrage as possible to the settled convictions and traditional religious habits of her subjects, lay and clerical, as long as they recognised her supremacy ; a proof of which policy I have already given in the fact that some objectors to the Thirty-nine Articles were persuaded to sign them in their own sense. There can be no reasonable doubt that the great majority of the ten thousand clergy celebrated the Sacrament in the old vestments and with the usual ceremonial, and in all probability continued to reserve the Sacrament and carry it in THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES IGo procession to the sick. This seems to me to explain the very mild language of the 28th Article; not condemning, yet discouraging, the carrying about of the Sacrament, but making no reference at all to reservation for the sick, and certainly not forbidding it in face of the sanction of the Latin Prayer Book. To this must be added the fact that the Puritans appear to have made no sort of objection .to the reservation of the Sacrament for the Sick. The changes in a Protestant direction made in the Prayer Book of 1549 were chiefly at the instigation of Bucer, who does not appear to have made any objection at all to the rubric sanctioning reservation. What the Puritans objected to, and very strongly, was the Office for the Private Communion of the Sick ; and it would seem that they would prefer reservation to what they regarded — and truly — as an innovation on the custom of Christendom. Our great Anglican divines — Bingham, for instance — take the hne of apologising for private communion, and are glad to fall back in justification of the innovation on two or three instances in the primitive Church. Now we come to the last revision of 1662. We know that the revisers of that book were men who wished to go back as far as circumstances would permit to the Prayer Book of 1549. It is therefore improbable in the highest degree that they would gratuitously prohibit what the revisers of 1552 and 1559 had left open. The rubric of 1559 said : ' And if any of the Bread and Wine remain the curate shall have it to his own use.' The revisers of 1662 166 THE REFOR^MATIOX SETTLEMENT changed the full stop into a semicolon and added the words, ' but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest and such other of the communicants as he shall then call unto him shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same.' Surely the logical and grannnatical con- struction of this added clause is governed and limited by the clause to which it is appended. It is not a new and independent rubric. It is an explanatory addition to a previous rubric, which allowed the priest to carry home for domestic use what remained of the elements. The new clause explains that this permission does not apply to the consecrated elements. They are not to be used for common purposes, but are to be reverently consumed in church before the congregation departs. This I hold to be the reasonable and natural construction of the rubric. It is a recognised rule of syntax that the apodosis is governed and explained by the protasis, and does not travel beyond it if there be nothing else to make that necessary. Is there anything else here ? Yes, but in an opposite sense. The addition was made to the rubric on the sugges- tion of Cosin, and Cosin himself has left us the explanation. The rubric of 1559, he says, was * abused ' by some clergy carrying home for domestic use what remained of the consecrated as well as the unconsecrated elements. This became a great scan- dal, he says, and was used by I\oman Catholics as a handle against the Church. Therefore the clause THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 167 was added which forbade the clergy to carry home what remained of the consecrated as well as of the unconsecrated bread and wine. The question of reservation for the sick does not come in at all. It does not seem to have been within the purview of the revisers, having never been forbidden, and being still enjoined in seats of learning. But it is objected that the practice of reservation has been disused for three hundred years. How do we know that ? There was not a universal press during those three hundred years ; and even if there were, communion of the sick by reservation would be no more recorded than communion by private celebration. What record is there at this moment of the parishes where reservation is practised ? To argue the non-existence of a private usage of that kind from the absence of formal evidence is a most fallacious mode of reasoning. If, however, diligent search were made I have no doubt that evidence would be forthcoming. After reading a letter of mine on this subject in the ' Times,' the Kev. T. Keble sent me from Bisley Vicarage, Stroud, on December 8 last, the following note :— I was told yesterday by a lady, nearly ninety-one years old, that she remembered that her father, a very conscientious country clergyman, was in the habit of taking the Blessed Sacrament from the altar to a sick person who lived near the church, while the communi* cants waited in their places until his return. This takes us back before the Oxford Movement, and evidently denotes a tradition in the family, ot 168 THE REFORMAT [OX SETTLEMENT circle, or parish of this clergyman. The reign of the Conmionwealth doubtless destroyed a great many customs and usages that had been prevalent till then ; but many survived that cataclysm of which no record would, in the ordinary course of things, have come down to us. But the custom of this old lady's father, with the sympathetic acquiescence of his parishioners, shows how unsafe it is to rely on sweeping generalis- ations. But we are told that Vitcra scripta manet. Whatever may have been the intention of the revisers of 1662, the letter of their rubric is plain beyond a doubt ; and, rubrics being statute law, they must be construed literally. I wish that some of those who use that argument would apply it to the interpreta- tion of the Ornaments Kubric. But it is a sound argument, and I am willing to test my interpretation of this rubric by it. Here is the rubric :— And if any of the Bread and Wine remain uncon- secrated the curate shall have it to his own use ; but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not ])c carried out of the church, ])ut the priest, and such other of the communicants as lie shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. Now I venture to say that these words, so far from forbidding reservation, exclude that interpreta- tion. The celebrant does not reserve for the com- munion of the siek what may chance to remain after administering the Sacrament to those present. After consecration he sets aside what he intends to THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES 1G9 carry to the sick, and then begins to distribute to those who intend to communicate. If any part of that remain it is not to be carried out of church in the manner condemned by Cosin, but is to be con- sumed in the manner prescribed. But there is no ' if,' no doubt, no sort of contingency, in regard to the consecrated portion of the Sacrament reserved for the sick ; so httle, indeed, that if either element should fail in administering the Communion in church, the priest does not replenish paten or chalice from the reserved portion : he consecrates afresh. I say confidently, therefore, that the little word ' if ' entirely excludes the ordinary interpretation of the so-called rubric on reservation. It does not touch reservation. It has altogether a different aim and purpose ; and whatever the position of the question of reservation was in point of law before the revision of 1662, that it still remains. To my mind that position is quite plain : it is distinctly legal. Keser- vation is not forbidden in any of the formularies of the Church of England, and it is enjoined in one — the Latin Prayer Book — which is still legal in our universities and public schools. An aged peer told me the other day that it was used in Christ Church when he was an undergraduate there. Eeservation, moreover, has always been practised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I respectfully submit therefore that a bishop would be acting ultra vires who should forbid reservation for the sick when circumstances made it expedient. I am not arguing for superseding private 170 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT celebrations by the substitution of reservation. I think private celebrations are edifying when the requirements of the rubric can be satisfied. They are these. The sick man * must give timely notice to the curate, signifying also how many there are to communicate with him (which shall be three, or two at the least), and having a convenient place in the sick man's house, with all things necessary so pre- pared, that the curate may reverently minister, he shall then celebrate the Holy Comnmnion.' All this supposes leisure, and a private house, and decent surroundings. It certainly does not contem- plate a sudden emergency or the crowded lodgings and squalid surroundings of our great towns. It is a simple fact within my own experience and the ex- perience of all clergy who have served among the poor in London, that the requirements of the rubric cannot always be satisfied as to the number of assist- ing communicants or the accessories of reverence or even decency. The following letter, which I ex- tract from a newspaper, relates an experience by no means exceptional : — Sir, — The experience of Dean Hole, among villagers in cottages, is very different from that of the London East End clergy among lodgers. A curate, forbidden by his vicar (in obedience to the bishop) to reserve under any circumstances, went to communicate a dying parishioner. He found a fellow- lodger in the same room lying on his bed, mad drunk, cursing and swearing and threatening his wife, who was in vain trying to pacify two frightened children. There THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DlVlNPlS 17I was another pooi- woman also on a sick bed in the same room. The curate went to the neighbouring mission church, celebrated with no communicants, and administered to the poor woman the reserved Sacrament. ' You did wrong ; but I should have done the same,' was the vicar's remark when the curate told him this. A Layman. The fact is, the rubrics of the Prayer Book are a body of general directions which were not, I believe, intended to be enforced in every case au pied de la lettre. They must be construed by the rule of rela- tive importance,. reason, and that very uncommon faculty, common-sense. Let us test some of them by the rigorous method of literal interpretation now come suddenly into vogue. There is a rubric after the Nicene Creed which forbids all notices ' during the time of Divine Service ' except those ' prescribed by the rules of this book ' (previously named) ' or enjoined by the Queen or by the ordinary of the place.' There is hardly a parish in London in which that rubric is not violated every Sunday. The same rubric orders the sermon to begin immediately after the publication of notices. If omission is prohibition, that rubric is violated in every church in which the sermon is preceded by a hymn or collect. There are parishes, again, in which the Athanasian Creed is systematically omitted ; in which the rule of daily service is systematically broken ; in which the services for Saints' days are never kept ; in which the Holy Communion is cele- brated only once a month or seldomer ; in which 172 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT such high festivals as the Epiphany and Ascension Da}' are never observed ; and where the Holy Com- munion is never celebrated even on Whitsunday, unless it happens to fall on the first Sunday in the month. Per contra, take the case of a clergyman who observes all these rubrics. He is, let us suppose, administering the Holy Communion in the parish church, and while he is thus engaged, word is brought to him that a man, who has just met with an accident outside the church, is dying and earnestly desires to receive the Sacrament. According to the ordinary interpretation of the rubric, the officiating priest is to finish the service in church ; consume what remains of the consecrated elements ; then go home and return with a table and a fair linen cloth, and fresh bread and wine ; and meanwhile scour the parish for two or three who will communicate with the dying man ; and then, when everything is ready, after perhaps an hour's delay, he is to begin a service which certainly occupies twenty minutes. Must we seriously believe that the man who goes through all that Pharisaic formalism is a more loyal servant of the Church than he who carries the Sacrament there and then out of the church to the dying man ? And are we to conclude that the man who disregarded this literalism and put a generous and Christian interpretation on the rubric would be convicted as an offender by any Court in the land ? One whom we all revere, and who declared that He * came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,' THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINER 173 answered the cavils of the rrocrustean rubricians of His day by the memorable pronouncement that * tht; Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbatli.' I venture to think that I am acting in the spirit of that charter of evangelical exegesis when I say that the Prayer Book was made for man, not man for the Prayer Book. Those who now raise the cry of * lawlessness,' while disregarding its spirit, would, if they had their way, soon reduce the Church of England to a condition of hopeless catalepsy. They w^ould kill all enthusiasm, all spontaneity, all zeal, all, in fact, that has made the Church of England what she is — one of the noblest factors, with all her faults and blunders not a iew, in the orderly develop- ment of our nation. The fact is, w^e live in an age in which, for various reasons, the minds of men are so fixed on the visible and tangible that they find it hard to realise any existences which elude the scrutiny of the senses. The w^orld we see seems so all-em- bracing as to leave no room for any other. And the w^onderful progress of physical science during the last half-century has tended to deepen this feeling. Men's minds have been so set on the mechanism of nature that they have, to a large extent, lost sight of the end in the process, of the hidden cause in the visible effect. Some readers will remember a striking illustration in * The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,' • of this deadening effect of physical ' Vol. i. p. 100. 174 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT studies on the higher faculties. The passage is worth quoting : — Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, ^Yords- worth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure ; and even as a scliooll)oy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite dehght which it formerly did. . . . This curious and lamentable loss of the higher ijesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects, interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts ; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly orf^anised or better constituted than mine would not, I suppose, have thus suffered : and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week ; for perliaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, THE Ti:STnr()XY OV ANCii.lCAN DIVINES 17o and moic probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. It is odd that a man so familiar with the law of degeneration tending to atrophy, which results from the disuse of any limb or faculty, * could not con- ceive ' why his ' higher tastes ' should, from disuse, have been smitten with decay. The same process of degeneration is apparent in his spiritual faculties. He says truly in his ' Origin of Species ' that his argument does not touch the question of creation, but only of processes. The doctrine of evolution leaves the origin of life in the impenetrable mystery in which it found it. And ])arwin, accordingly, seems to have been then a believer in an orio-inatinfr Creator. But we can trace through his letters the gradual evaporation of this belief, not so much from any process of reasoning as from the ossification, through disuse, of that part of his mental structure. Darwin himself perceived, when too late, the proper corrective — namely, the regular exercise of the faculties which had been allowed to become atro- phied. Kesearches into the physical constitution of nature have undoubtedly in this way had con- siderable influence in turning men's minds away from the spiritual side of nature, and made them rest in the things which are seen as if they were the only things. And yet the very discoveries of modern science, which are supposed by some to militate against belief in a spiritual world under- 17G THE REF0R:MATI0X SETTLEMENT lying and interpcnetrntinf!: this, will surely seem to a reflecting mind, whose spiritual faculties are on the alert, to confirm that helief in a wonderful manner. And indeed it is this dull apprehension as to the existence of a spiritual world close to us, not far away, which is at the root of the ordinary objections to the sacramental system. Minds which regard the spiritual world as a fixed place in space beyond the sidereal system find it hard to beheve in real, veritable, spiritual substances behind material veils. And yet the whole of this world which we inhabit is in truth a sacramental system, an economy of outward and visible signs veiling realities hidden behind them. But this will more fitly form the subject of a separate chapter. 177 CHAPTER V PROPINQUITY OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD Nothing has struck me more, in contemplating the modern discoveries of physical science, than the light which they appear to me to throw on the glimpses into the spiritual world which Holy Writ incidentally, and as it were casually, vouchsafes to us. If we are to believe the Bible, the spiritual world is not a region far away in space, but close to us ; and we do not see its sights or hear its sounds simply because our present organs are too dull to apprehend them. We are thus in the condition of a man born deaf and blind into this world of sense. He is in the midst of two worlds, of which, however, he knows next to nothing. For him the abounding beauties of nature in the sphere of sight and sound are as if they were not. Let his eyes be opened, and he finds himself at once in the midst of a world of which before he had no conception — nothing but the vaguest notion from the report of those who had eyes to see. Open his ears, and another world is disclosed to him which his want of hearing had till then concealed from him. N 178 THE REF0R:\IATI0X SETTLEMENT This is the sort of relation in which Holy Scrip- ture represents us as standing towards the spiritual world. Let us take a few instances. When Elijah was ahout to leave the earth, and Elisha prayed for ' a double portion of the spirit ' of his departing master, the latter answered, * Thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, // thou sec me when I am taken from thee, it shall he so unto thee ; but if not, it shall not be so.' What did the prophet mean by ' if thou see me when I am taken from thee ' ? Surely this : that if Elisha was able to see the spiritual transformation which his master was about to undergo, that would in itself be a suffi- cient proof to him that spiritual organs were opened within him which placed him in communication with the spiritual world. Elisha did see the trans- lation of his master, and found himself at once en- dowed with the gift of seership, which enabled him to reveal the secret counsels of the Syrian King, who consequently sent an army to arrest him. * And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host encompassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not : for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said. Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw ; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.' PROPINQUITY OF THE SPll^lTUAL WORLD 170 It is evident that the ' eyes ' which the prophet pl-ayed might be opened were not the bodily eyes of the young man. These were open before, and saw nothing but the Syrian host. A new sense was opened which revealed to the youth the agencies of Divine Providence invisible to mortal sight) which protect the servants of God. In S. Luke's Gospel (iii. '11, I'l) we read : ' Kow when all the people Avere baptized, it came to pass that, Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came j'roni heaven which said. Thou art my beloved Son ; in Thee I am well pleased.' In S. Matthew's account the expression is, * The heavens were opened unto Him.' The meaning evidently is that prayer on the part of Jesus was in fact the opening of His sinless soul to that spiritual world which the gross environment of the mortal body hides from the multitude. Another incident of similar import in our Lord'^ life is related in S. John's Gospel (xii. 27-29) : — ' Now is My soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save Me from this hour ; but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, say' ing, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it said that it thundered : others said. An angel spake to Him.' That is to say, the heavenly voice which fell in articulate accents on the sensitive ear of our Saviour iso THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT sounded like the rumbling of distant thunder on the duller organs of those who were about Him. I believe that several of the discrepancies in the Gospel record of our Lord's Kesurrection may be explained in the same way. Woman's more refined and delicate organisation is naturally more sensitive to spiritual influences than man's, and this is pro- bably the reason why the devout women who visited the tomb of the risen Saviour saw more of the spiritual world than Peter and John. Mary, whose absorbing love and intense grief had, no doubt, quickened her spiritual perceptions, saw two angels ; the other women saw only one ; Peter and John saw none. In fact, each saw more or less according as the spiritual organs were in each case rendered more or less sensitive to spiritual influences. My next illustration shall be from an incident in the account of the martyrdom of S. Stephen, re- corded in Acts vii. 55-57 : — ' Being full of the Holy Ghost, he looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said. Behold, I sec the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.' Now where was the heaven into which the dying martyr gazed ? Millions of miles away, beyond the starry firmament ? AVas his mortal sight miracu- lously endowed with a telescopic power of traversing in a moment the planetary spaces and looking into a world of supersensuous glories behind them ? Is it not plain, on the contrary, that a new sense was PROPINQUITY OF THE RPIRITUAL WORLD ISl opened in liiiiisolf, wliicli ciial)l(Hl him to see tlirough the integuments of the natural life into tlie world of unseen realities which lie ahove it, not in space, but in altitude of being? The ' everlasting doors ' were ' lifted up,' and the protomartyr was vouchsafed a glimpse into a world of unearthly splendours close to him, where his Divine Master was standing read^y to receive His faithful servant. But the persecutors of S. Stephen saw^ nothing but the rapt gaze of their victim ; for the world which was revealed to him is * spiritually discerned,' and they lacked that spiritual insight. Another illustration in point is the narrative of the conversion of S. Paul. The account given in xVcts ix. says that ' the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man.' S. Paul himself, on the other hand, says, ' And they that were with me saw indeed the hght, and Avere afraid ; but they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me ' (Acts xxii. 9). And cavils against the inspiration of the Acts are sometimes founded upon this seeming discrepancy. "What is the explanation ? Evidently, that S. Paul's companions heard the sound, while his ear alone caught its articul^,te language : ra ^cdvrjsvTa avvsrotai. These examples will suftice to show the general teaching of the Bible touching the relation between the w^orld of sense and that of spirit. And now let us see wdiat physical science has to say upon the subject. We trilk of five bodily senses ; but in strictness of 182 THE RF.FOR^IATTON SETTLEMENT speech we have only one sense— that of touch, Our vision of external objects is nothing else but sensa- tions made on the retina of the eye by contact with the vibrations of an external substance, To produce the sensation of scarlet, 477 billious of vibrations break upon the retina every second, while a ray of violet is caused by no fewer than 700 billions of vibrations. Waves of light above or below these limits in number are invisible to the human eye ; that is, they move too rapidly or too slowly to make any impression on the optic nerve. This is but another way of saying that objects innumerable may ' exist in the midst of us which are of so subtile a nature as to elude our visual organs. ' Myriads of organised beings may exist imperce]Dtible to our vision, even if we were among them. ' ^ And the same observation is applicable to the phenomena of sound. Notes above or below a certain pitch, though the air be resonant with them to more delicate organisations, are inaudible to the human ear. In his interesting book on the Glaciers of the Alps Dr. Tyndall tells the following anec- dote : — I once crossed a Swiss mountain in company with a friend; a donkey was in advance of us, and the dull tramp of the animal \Yas heard by my companion ; but to me this sound was almost masked by the shrill chirruping of innumerable insects, which thronged the adjacent grass. My friend heard nothing of this ; it lay quite beyond his range of hearing. ' Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces, p. IGl. Fourth edition. PEOPINQUITY OP THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 183 Another illustration of this fact is given in Mr. Skertchly's ' Dahomey as it is.' ' Speaking of the large bats of that region he says : — They utter a sharp cliirrup, something like the squeak of a rat, but very much higher in pitch, so high, indeed, that I have frequently come across individuals whose acoustic powers had not sufficient range to permit of their hearing the note ; and on more than one occasion I have said to Buchan [his half-caste servant], ' What a noise these bats are making ! ' Upon which he has observed to me, ' Bats have no mouths for talking,' he • being perfectly unconscious of their vocal powers. Some remarkable instances of the superior power of hearing possessed by insects are given in an in- teresting correspondence in the ' Times ' of November 1874. I quote the following : — Adapting the concluding sentences of the letter of the Rev. F, 0. Morris in the ' Times ' of Saturday, it may be observed tliat there are doubtless more sounds uttered on the etirth and in the air than can reach our ears. It is well known that to many persons both the grasshopper and the bat are dumb, and it is probable that moths and other insects attract each other by calls inaudible to us, rather than by scent. One night, a few years ago, I had a female tiger-moth in a gauze cage, in a room opening into a garden. I had reared the moth from a caterpillar myself. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the garden was in the middle of a town ; yet in less than two hours no less than five male tiger-moths flew to the cage. Though I have sat in the same room hundreds of nights with the window open ' Pp. 50, 51. 184 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT and a light InuDiiig, I never before or since knew a tiger- inotli to be attracted thitlier. It seems almost impossible that these moths could have been led to the spot from other walled-in, and in some cases distant, gardens, in any other way but by a call in the stillness of the night. But the captive moth made no perceptible noise, even with its wings. There is nothing unreasonable, therefore, in believing that persons in a state of spiritual tension may be cognisant of sights and sounds which make no impression, or only a vague and meaningless im- pression, on the multitade. When we reflect, to quote the words of an eloquent writer, ' that there are waves of light and sound of which our dull senses take no cognisance, that there is a great difference even in human perceptivity, and that some men, more gifted than others, can see colours or hear sounds which are invisible or inaudible to the great bulk of mankind, you will appreciate how possible it is that there may be a world of spiritual existence around us — inhabiting this same globe, enjoying the same nature— of which we have no perception ; that, in fact, the wonders of the New Jerusalem may be in our midst, and the songs of the angelic hosts filling the air with their celestial harmony, although un- heard and unseen by us.' ' Truly ' there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' All this will sound supremely foolish to some of ' Jielujion and Cheniisiry, p. 107. By Professor J. P. Cooke. PEOPINQUITY OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 18;j the robust critics of the day. A well-known writer, for example, contributed to a leading journal ^ some ' Letter siftiied ' H.' in Pall Mall (Uizcttc of Jan. 2(5, 1875. Tlie writer was the late Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen, a man of powerful intellect, but without any aptitude for metaphysics. This is shown in a curious volume of anonymous Essays by a Barrister (p. 151), in which he gravely argues, in opposition to the doctrine of the necessary laws of thought, that there may be a world where omnipotence may cause two and two to make five instead of four. After giving some reasons for this paradox he proceeds : — ' It would also be possible to put a case in which two straight lines should be universally supposed to include a space. Imagine a man, who had never had any experience of straight lines through the medium of any sense whatever, suddenly placed upon a railway stretching out in a perfectly straight line to an indefinite distance in each direction. He would see the rails, which would be the first lines he had ever seen, apparently meeting, or at least tending to meet at each horizon ; and he would thus infer, in the absence of all other experience, that they actually did enclose a space, when produced far enough. ... In such a world, therefore, the impossibility of conceiving that two straight lines can enclose a space would not exist.' All this is a pure icjnoratio clenchi. The question is not whether there may not be a world inhabited by beings so constituted as to believe that two and two make live, and that two straight lines running i)arallel can enclose a space, but whether the human mind can accept such paradoxes for truths— whether, on the contrary, the axioms of mathematics do not present themselves to the mind, the moment it embraces them, as irreversible and eternal. The inference of the man on the railway would be that the lines were not really straight, or that his eyes deceived him. Strange to say, Mr. John Stuart Mill quotes these paradoxes with approbation in his Examina- tion of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy (ch. vi.)— a weak piece of reasoning, in my opinion. Both he and Fitzjames Stephen fail to see the fundamental difference between necessary laws of thought and empirical knowledge. Once the human mind gets hold of a mathe- matical axiom it cannot conceive its contradictory. But all our ex- perience of sunrise does not forbid the thought of its one day rising no more — a catastrophe, indeed, towards which astronomers tell us the sun is travelling. 18G THE REFOR^IATIOX SETTLEIMENT years ago a long and most scornful attack on the doctrine of Sacranientalism. His argument brought liim naturally into collision with the scholastic dis- tinctions between matter and form, substance and accident ; and here is the sort of criticism to which his superficial study of the question tempted him :— I suppose it requires no argument to show that far the greater part of this is nonsense. ' Virtual contact ' and forms without matter, for instance, are unmeaning expressions and make nonsense of the propositions in which they occur. The whole speculation is spun out of the very distinction about matter and form, substance and accident, which is essential to the controversy about the Sacraments. So much of the theory as is not non- sense is simply a play of fancy, resting on no foundation at all, and which an ingenious person niight twist into any shape he pleased. I quote this partly in order to show the character of what is called scientific theology and the siUiness of the results which its method of pro- cedure produces, and partly because it shows how of two doctrines, tlie intrinsic value of which is identical, one falls into neglect and contempt because it does not interest mankind, while the other lives and flourishes because it relates to specific tangible objects upon which people can gratify the longing for idolatry, which Hes so deep in the human heart, and which serves as a founda- tion for the most exalted ideas of priestly power. ... I think it may furnish matter of reflection to some of the clergy to hear the undisguised expression of a layman's opinion on this matter. Others probably think as I do. Well, then, I for one look upon these doctrines not merely as being intellectually absurd, but as being morally injurious in the highest degree. I would as soon see my son or daughter lie or steal as I would see PROPINQUITY OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 187 them bow to the Host or believe tliat the Communion is anything but a bare figure or symbol. In contrast with this supercilious sciolism, I have much pleasure in quoting the following passage from one of the ablest philosophical treatises of the clay : — Provided that there be no clear and absolute conflict with known laws of nature, there is nothing so impro- bable or apparently inconceivable that it may not be ren- dered highly probable, or even approximately certain, by a sufficient number of concordances. In fact, the two best founded and most conspicuously successful theories in the whole range of physical science involve the most absurd suppositions. Gravity is a force which appears to act between bodies through vacuous space ; it is in positive contradiction to the old dictum that nothing could act but through some intervening medium or sub- stance. It is even more puzzling that the force acts in perfect indifference to all intervening obstacles. Light, in spite of its extreme velocity, shows much respect to matter, for it is almost instantaneously stopped by opaque substances, and to a considerable extent absorbed and de- flected by transparent ones. But to gravity all media are, as it were, absolutely transparent, nay non-existent ; and two particles at opposite points of the earth affect each other exactly as if the globe were not between. To com- plete the apparent impossibility, the action is, so far as we can observe, absolutely instantaneous, so that every particle of the universe is at every moment in separate cognisance, as it were, of the relative position of every other particle throughout the universe at that same mo- ment of absolute time. Compared with such incompre- hensible conditions, the theory of vortices deals with common-place realities. Newton's celebrated saying, hypotheses non jingo, bears the appearance of pure irony ; 188 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT and it was not without apparent grounds that Leibnitz and the greatest continental philosophers charged New- ton with re-introducing occult powers and qualities. The undulatory theory of light presents almost equal difficulties of conception. We are asked by physical philosophers to give up all our ordinary prepossessions, and believe that the interstellar space which seemed so empty is not empty at all, but filled with something im- mensely more solid and elastic than steel. As Dr. Young himself remarked, ' the luminiferous ether, pervading all space, and penetrating almost all substances, is not only highly elastic, but absolutely solid ! ! ! ' Sir John Herschel has calculated the amount of force which may be supposed, according to the undulatory theory of light, to be exerted at each point in space, and finds it to be 1,148,000,000,000 times the elastic force of ordinary air at the earth's surface, so that the pressure of the ether upon a square inch of surface must be about 17,000,000,000,000, or seventeen billions of pounds. Yet we live and move without appreciable resistance in this medium, indefinitely harder and more elastic than adamant. All our ordinary notions must be laid aside in contemplating such an hypothesis ; yet they are no more than the observed phenomena of light and heat force us to accept. We cannot deny even the strange suggestion of Dr. Young, that there may be independent worlds, some possibly existing in different parts of space, but others perhaps pervading each other unseen and un-- known in the same space. For if we are bound to admit the conception of this adamantine firmament, it is equally easy to admit a plurality of such. We see, then, that mere difiiculties of conception must not in the least discredit a theory wliich otherwise agrees with facts, and we iUHst only reject InipotJieHes irliicJi are inconceivable i){ PROtlNQUlTf OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 189 the sense of hreakiiKj disiinctlij the pyimanj laws ofthouyJit and nature. Again : — Scientilic metliod leads us to the inevitable conception of an infinite series of successive orders of infinitely small quantities. If so, there is nothing impossible in the existence of a myriad universes within the compass of a needle's point, each with its stellar systems, and its suns and planets, in number and variety unlimited. Science does nothing to reduce the number of strange things that ice may believe. When fairhj imr sued, it makes large drafts iqion our powers of comprehension and belief.^ For the sake of convenience I will here re-quote the passage from Leibnitz on the doctrine of the Keal Presence : — As I have been the first to discover that the essence of a body does not consist in extension, but in motion, and hence, that the substance or nature of a body, even according to Aristotle's definition, is the principle of motion {ivreXix^io) and that this principle or substance of the body has no extension, — I have made it plain how God can be clearly and distinctly understood to cause the substance of the same body to exist in many different places.'^ And what could have seemed more incredible before experience than wireless telegraphy? The young Italian electrician Marconi has invented a system of telegraphy without w^ires, which does not * Tlie Principles of Scmicc, vol. ii. pp. 144, 145, 467. By W. S. Jevons. - Compare his System of Tlieologij, pp. 99, 100 ; also Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions in Philosophy, pp. 604-7. 190 TIIEI EI-:F0RMATI0X SliTTLEMENT' depend on electro-magnetic, but on electrostatic effects — that is to say, on electric waves set up at the rate of 250,000,000 vibrations a second. Facts like these bring almost within the range of credibility such stories as that of Kinglake hearing, in the stillness of the Sinaitic Desert, the sound of the church bells in his Somersetshire home.' Some othel' interesting illustrations of this sub* ject are supplied by the phenomena consequent on the grand eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, as described in a fascinating volume published by a committee of experts under the auspices of the Koyal Society. The air-waves varied in rapidity from 13 h. 48 m. to 124 h. 30 m. in passing between Krakatoa and Kew, differing, I suppose, with the violence of the explosions. The sound of the explosions was heard ' very nearly three thousand English miles from Krakatoa.' * Several times during the night ' (of the eruption) ' reports were heard coming from the eastward like the distant roar of heavy guns.' At Diego Garciii, upwards of two thousand five hundred miles from Krakatoa, the soimds were very distinctly heard, and were supposed to be those of guns lired l)y a vessel in distress. En Ceylon, and also in Australia, the soimds were lieard at many different places far removed from each other ; while at Dorey, in New Guinea, they were clearly heard, and their occurrence was recorded at the time, long before it was known to w^hat cause they were due.^ ' Eotlien, pp. 274-5. Third edition. - The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena, pp. 79, 80. PEOPINQUITY OF THE SPIEITUAL WOHiJ) 19i See, again, bow Our Lord's passage through closed doors in His Spiritual Body is brought within the realm of reason through the revelations of the Rontgen rays. For if the luminiferous ether, which is a material substance, can penetrate, as if they did not exist, opaque and solid substances like fiesh and muscle and wood and aluminium, a fortiori may the much subtler substance of a spiritual body do so. Perhaps I may here quote from a previous volume of my own : — But, in addition to all this, photography and spectrum analysis have proved that there are worlds within worlds close to us now and here of which our gross senses can take no cognisance. Photography has shown that there are nniltitudes of stars beyond the reach of ihe most powerful telescopes, and that the light of these stars is ever playing on our earth. So distant are they, and so -attenuated are their rays, that it takes countless billions of these luminous vibrations to make an impression on the photogi'aphcr's plate. ' The waves beating from the Atlantic in long course of time,' says one of our leading -astronomers,^ ' have gradually altered the face of the «hore. But in one second of time tliere are as many minute waves of light beating in on one plate as the Atlantic has sent in during a million years — a wliole geological period. The human eye is colour-l)lind to a vast proportion of the rays which come in from the stars. But the photo-plate sees all these invisible rays a great ileal l)etter than our eyes see the visible rays."- ' Sir li. Ball, in a lecture at the Royal Institution ; cf. llic Story vf the Heavens, p. 4()3, by the same author. - Life Here and Hereafter, p. 134. Second edition. id-2 THE EEFOEMATIOX SETTLEMENT It bewilders the intellect and makes the imagi- nation giddy to learn that within the petals of a flower, even within a speck of blood dissolved in a drop of water, the seven colours of the rainbow are seen as distinctly as in the bow which spans our sky. Yet that is one of the marvels which chemical analysis has revealed to us. Thus we see that human science and Holy Scripture unite their voices in teaching us that beneath the world of sense, penetrating and vivifying it, there is a world of spirit ; that what we see and touch is but the crust and shell, the outward and visible sign of unseen realities, truly present, though sense cannot apprehend it. Two worlds are ours, 'tis only sin Forbids us to descry The mystic heaven and earth within. Clear as the sea and sky. So sings the poet of the ' Christian Year.' And Milton expressed the same thought before him : — What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ? 193 CHAPTER VI SACERDOTALISM It is a pity that those who denounce the doctrine of SacerdotaHsm do not take the trouble to explain what it is precisely that they wish to condemn under cover of that unpopular word. I take it, however, that what the opponents of Sacerdotalism wish to repudiate is that somewhat distorted aspect of the Christian religion which has been condemned in the follow^ing language by an able and revered writer of our day, to whom, though himself dis- owning the creed of Christendom, many Christians, myself included, owe much : — So long as its Sacramental principle remains, the Established Church rests upon a theory of religion utterly at variance with all the residuary varieties of Puritan faith, and amounting, as many of us conceive, to a reversal of the very essence of Christianity, for it reverses that immediateness of relation between the human Spirit and the Divine which is the distinctive boon of Jesus to the world, and it reinstates that resort to mediation and < channels of grace,' and magically endowed men, which it was His special aim to sweep away and render im- possible.^ ' Why Dissent? by James Martinean, p. 14. O 194 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT It is therefore the Sacramental principle and the doctrine of mediation which are in question. I do not mean that all who declaim against SacerdotaHsm would go quite so far as Dr. Martineau ; but that is only because they are not so clear-headed as he, and do not perceive the conclusion necessarily involved in their premisses. Dr. Martineau admits, as indeed every candid and unprejudiced person must, that ' the Established Church rests upon ' the doctrine of SacerdotaHsm, which, however, he thinks it was the ' special aim ' of our Lord ' to sweep away and render impossible.' Of that more anon. Meanwhile let us see what the Old Testament has to say upon the subject. It seems to me quite impossible for any one, who is not committed to the defence of a foregone con- clusion, to read the Old Testament without acknow- ledging that the principle of Sacerdotalism runs all through it from Genesis to Malachi. A few instances may suffice by way of illustration. When Abimelech took Abraham's wife, thinking her to be his sister, and pleaded afterwards that he had done it ' in the integrity of his heart and inno- cency of his hands,' God is represented as saying, * Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart. . . . Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt Hve ; and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, and all that are thine.' ' Abraham's intercession for the ' Gen. XX. 5-7. SACEEDOTALISM 19o doomed Cities of the Plain is another instance in point. In the Twelfth Chapter of the Book of Numbers we have an account of an outburst of rebellion against the authority of Moses on the part of Miriam ; her consequent punishment by the inflic- tion of leprosy ; and her subsequent cure at the prayer of Moses. In the last chapter of the Book of Job I read as follows : — And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends ; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering ; and My servant Job shall pray for you ; for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of Me the thing which is right, like My servant Job. Here, then, are a few typical illustrations, which might be multiplied indefinitely, of the doctrine that God usually bestows His benefits on man, not immediately, but through the intervention of human agents ordained for that end. And what is the Mosaic dispensation but a development, through rite and sacrifice, of the same idea ? One family is set apart and endowed with the exclusive right to act mediator] ally between God and His people ; and when Korah and his company, relying on the fact that the whole congregation of Israel was holy, as o 2 196 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT being, in some sort, ' a royal priesthood,' attempted to usurp the office of the priesthood, Ahnight}' God is represented as vindicating by a terrible punishment the exclusive priesthood of the family of Aaron. To parry the force of this argument the opponents of Sacerdotalism are w^ont to decry the Mosaic dis- pensation not merely as a system of ordinances which has been superseded by the Christian dispensation, but as involving doctrines which are essentially antagonistic to Christianity. Dr. Martineau says distinctly that the sacramental principle and the doctrine of mediation ' amount to a reversal of the very essence of Christianity.' Dr. Martineau is a Unitarian ; but on this question he is in full agree- ment with the great mass of anti-Sacerdotalists. What authority he would be willing to concede to the Mosaic legislation, and whether he now con- siders the Old Testament inspired in any special sense, I know not. But the Evangelical party,* who in this matter are in the same boat with Dr. Martineau, hold very stringent views indeed as to the unqualified Divine inspiration of all the Books of the Old Testament. They ought, therefore, to ' Dr. Guinness Rogers, in an article in the Contemporary Review of February 1899, asserts that ' there is a strong sacerdotal element in the Prayer Book,' and declares that ' while the formula [of the ordination of priests] remains unchanged it will be impossible to exclude priests and priestism from the Anglican Church. The marvel is not that they are there, but that there has been found a place for those who repudiate the idea of a "ministerial priesthood," to use Dr. Moberly's expressive phrase.' That is surely the language of reason and common sense. SACERDOTALISM 197 consider seriously whither their attack on the principle of Sacerdotalism leads them. They con- demn it as something essentially wrong in itself. It is certain, however, if the Old Testament is Divinely inspired, that Sacerdotalism is a doctrine not only sanctioned but peremptorily enjoined by Almighty God Himself. But can God enjoin what is essen- tially wrong ? And let it be considered, moreover, that our Lord has expressly declared that He came ' not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it.' The Law was developed into the Gospel. But development impHes the conservation of the norm or radical idea. Now the radical idea underlying the Sacri- ficial system of the Old Testament was man's need of expiation, combined with his personal unworthi- ness to make an atonement for himself. It is remarkable that the immediate occasion of the appointment of the Aaronic priesthood seems to have been the public acknowledgment of un- worthiness made by the general congregation. During the patriarchal period the head of the family was also its priest ; and even when the law was delivered to the Israelites from Mount Sinai there was no regular priesthood to stand between God and His people. They were all regarded as a nation of priests until their own sense of unworthiness caused them to shrink back aghast from the awful privilege. The circumstance is related by Moses as fol- lows : — And it came to pass when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness (for the mountain did burn 198 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT with fire), that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders ; and ye said, Behold, the Lord our God hath shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire : we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now therefore why should we die ? for this great fire w^ill consume us ; if w^e hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived ? Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say : and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee ; and w^e will hear it and do it. And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me ; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee : they have well said all that they have spoken. Accordingly Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the office of the priesthood soon after this incident, and they became the appointed mediators between Jehovah and the general congregation. Still the people were not suffered to rest in this as a final and unchangeable arrangement. Their true ideal was always kept before them. They were reminded that, in spite of the Aaronic priesthood, they still continued ideally ' a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.' They were unworthy now to realise that high ideal ; but they were not to lose sight of it, and to keep them in perpetual remembrance of it there were several rites of a sacerdotal character, such as the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, in wliich the people at large were allowed to participate. SACEKDOTALISM 199 So niuch as to the teaching of the Old Testament on the subject of Sacerdotahsm. Where is the evi- dence that it was our Lord's ' special aim to sweep away and render impossible ' such teaching ? On the contrary, if we are to believe the Gospel narra- tive, He ordained a certain order of men to occupy in the Christian Church a position and to fulfil func- tions analogous to those of the Aaronic priesthood. Once before His death, and once after, He charged them with the following commission : ' As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this He breathed on them and saith unto them, Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained.' I cannot imagine a stronger sanction of the sacer- dotal principle than these words imply ; and it is clear that our Lord's Apostles understood them in a sacerdotal sense. Why was Philip bidden to ' go near ' the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch and instruct and baptise him ? Why w^as Ananias sent to Saul the persecutor, that he might ' put his hands on him,' in order that he ' might receive his sight, and be filled w^ith the Holy Ghost ' ? Why was Cor- nelius directed to ' send men to Joppa ' to fetch Peter that he might receive the pious centurion into the Christian Church ? — Why all this, if it was one of the special designs of Christianity to abolish the sacerdotal principle and to forbid all 'resort to mediation, and " channels of grace," and " magicalty endowed men " ' ? It is undeniable that the Acts of 200 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT the Apostles and the Epistles supply abundant evi- dence of a public ministry during the period which they embrace. And that ministry is represented, not as a human institution, but as of Divine appointment. Candidates are set apart with solemn rites, by means of which spiritual powers are supposed to be con- ferred upon them for the discharge of their new duties. And with this agrees the language by which the ministerial office is designated. St. Paul speaks of himself and his colleagues as * ministers and stewards of Divine mysteries,' and as ' ambassadors * accredited from God to men. Surely the sacerdotal principle could not be asserted in stronger language than this ; and, therefore, for the Church of England to repudiate the sacerdotal principle would be to repudiate all connection with the Christian ministry of the Apostohc age. And yet it must be admitted, on the other hand, that there is a sense in which it is as true now as it was under the Mosaic dispensation, that all Chris- tians are in some way priests, and are charged with sacerdotal functions. St. Peter addresses the whole congregation of Christians in his day in the language in which Moses described the priestly character of ancient Israel. He calls them ' a royal priesthood ; ' an ideal of Christian perfection which St. John saw realised when he heard the saints in bliss giving thanks for having been made ' kings and priests unto God.' A layman can validly baptise, and he has his share in the offering up of the Eucharistic Sacrifice — a fact which was symbolised in ancient times, and SACEED0TALI8M 201 now through Oriental Christendom, by the custom of the faithful laity formally offering their oblation of the Sacramental elements to their representative, the officiating priest, who then consecrated them to God, in order that Christ, the true Priest, might make them, according to His own promise, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. We are all intended, laity as well as clergy, to be * kings and priests unto God.' If man had never fallen there would have been no need of a special priesthood. All would have been alike w^orthy to offer God an acceptable service, as all will be here- after in heaven. This is the ideal towards which we are to strive ; and in order to keep our unworthiness always before us, and thus help us to fulfil our Christian calling, it has pleased God to ordain an order of men, personally as unw^orthy as the rest, to be His ' ambassadors ' on earth, and the ' ministers and stewards of His mysteries.' To characterise such a doctrine as implying a caste of ' magically endowed men ' is to substitute offensive caricature for serious argument. Dr. Martineau may, indeed, be excused for not understanding a doctrine which it has probably never fallen to his lot to study seriously. Those who repudiate the sacerdotal idea as characteristic of the Christian ministry regard personal fitness as the essential qualification of a valid ministry.^ But that is a view which the ' In the Catechism lately published by ' the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches in England and Wales ' I find the follow- 202 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Church of England rejects exphcitly in the twenty- sixth Article, where the line is drawn distinctly between moral fitness and official commission : validity of Sacraments depending on the former, not on the latter. And most reasonably and justly. It would indeed be a cruel injustice to the people if their loyal obedience to God's commands were rendered nugatory by the personal un worthiness of His ministers. Most justly therefore does the Article declare : ' Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their [ministers'] wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments minis- tered unto them ; which be effectual because of ing questions and answers : ' What is a Christian minister ? A Christian minister i? one who is called of God and the Church to be a teacher of the Word and a pastor of the flock of Christ. How may the validity of such a ministry be proved ? The decisive proof of a valid ministry is the sanction of the Divine Head of the Church, manifested in the conversion of sinners and the edification of the Body of Christ.' The second answer reads to me like a contradiction of the first. We are told, first, that ' a Christian minister is one who is called of God and the Church ; ' and next, that ' the decisive proof of a valid ministry ' is the visible success of the minister. Visible it must be, else it can be no proof to others. Yet Elijah's ministry seemed to himself and to others a faiku'e. Moreover, this ' decisive proof ' would seem to make the call of the Church a superfluity. Why call, why ordain, if ' the decisive proof ' is in the fruits of the ministry? And is every man — nay, every woman also — who exhibits this deci- sive proof a valid minister ? A minister of God undoubtedly every man and woman is who brings forth the fruits of faith and love. But what is the value of so comprehensive a definition ? If there is a special ministry, it does not define it. If tliere is not, it were better to say so. SACEKDOTALISM 203 God's institution and promise, although they l)e ministered by evil men.' In truth, the objection which I am considering implies a confusion between two things which are totally distinct : individual merit and official com- mission. To affirm that every man who shows eminent capacity for the ministerial office is in fact a minister is as reasonable as it would be to argue that every good strategist is ipso facto a general, or every good financier ipso facto Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of course it would be much better if the men best fitted for the office were appointed ministers, just as it would be much better if the best men were appointed Commanders-in-Chief, Ambassadors, and Prime Ministers. To be qualified for an office, however, is one thing : to be appointed to it is quite another. Men see this well enough in secular matters. How is it that so obvious a truth offends them when the sphere of its operation is spiritual ? I believe the reason is to be found in man's natural reluctance to believe in the reality of powers whose source and mode of action are in- visible. Unless he sees signs and wonders he finds it hard to believe that God has founded in the midst of men a spiritual polity, the administration of whose law^s and powers He has committed to a hierarchy of mortal men, the validity of whose credentials can be tested by the methods of ordinary evidence. Assuming that the Christian Church is a Divine and not a human creation — I am not arguing here against those w^ho deny that assumption — I do 204 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT not see anything more unreasonable in su^Dposing that He should transmit spiritual life through the instrumentality of a sacramental agency than in believing that He propagates natural life through the process of natural generation. Ko antecedent objec- tion can be urged against the one which is not equally valid against the other. But let us consider this question of SacerdotaHsm a httle more in detail. The ordinary objection to the doctrine of absolution— which is taught, be it remembered, in all the Eeformation formularies, and not merely in those of the Church of England— was anticipated long ago by the Pharisees when they murmured against our Lord : ' Who is this which speaketh blasphemies ? "Who can forgive sins but God alone ? ' The objection is valid in one sense ; invalid in another. It is true of course that God alone can forgive sin as an originating cause. But it is equally true that in this sense God alone can Give health, knowledge, fruitful harvests. Yet we consult a physician when the body is out of order ; we send our children to school to imbibe knowledge from the lips of human teachers ; we sow^ plant, and reap, though we also pray God to ' give us day by day our daily bread.' And the physician, or teacher, or husbandman, who should arrogate as his own the skill and energy which thus enable him to benefit others, would ' speak blasphemies ' as truly as the priest who should impiously claim in his own right and person the power to forgive sins. The physician of the soul acts ministerially ; and so does SACERDOTALISM 205 the ph3^sician of the bod}^ whether he acknowledges it or not. The latter examines his patient, sketches the diagnosis of his complaint, prescribes a regimen, and bestows his medicine. But if the patient has not told the truth, or disregards the treatment, the medicine may become a poison to him. And so in spiritual matters the absolution becomes a curse, and not a blessing, to him who has not received it in the spirit of true penitence. The truth is, the usual cavils against the doctrine of Sacerdotalism are founded on a very shallow con- ception of God's ordinary government of mankind. As a matter of fact, He has committed the ever- lasting destiny of men to the custody of one another. Any one of us may ruin for ever souls for whom Christ died. We have all received some talent of one kind or another from God ; external talents of wealth, of social rank, of official position, and the like ; or personal gifts, like beauty of person or charm of manner, an eloquent tongue or musical voice. No one is so humble as not to have some means or other of influencing those who come within his reach. And, indeed, it is very terrible to think how unceasing is this reciprocal influence of human beings upon each other, and how unconsciously it is generally exercised. Now these various gifts of personal influence, which God has given to all, in great measure or in small, every one of us may use to the ruin of his neighbour. The Almighty Father wills us to be each his brother's keeper ; but we may act the part 20G THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT of the first murderer, and kill the life committed to our trust. I cannot imagine any torment of hell more awful than the horror of those who shall meet, face to face, before the judgment-seat of Christ, the souls whom they have ruined. It seems incredible that there ever can be a heaven for a soul through whose evil influence another soul has perished. Surely the very splendours of the Beatific Vision would but increase his remorse on remembrance of the never-ending mischief he had wrought on earth. The reader will remember that of all the horrors which the poet, with true instinct, makes 'the Ancient Mariner' endure in his awful solitude on the lonely sea the chmax was the dying curse in the eyes of the two hundred corpses which lay, with upturned faces on the deck, slain by his thoughtless act. An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high : But O ! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye ! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse ; And yet I could not die. But what a faint image that is of the horror caused by a moral ruin which can never be undone ! What is there in the doctrine of Sacerdotalism that approaches in point of mystery to this fearful power which God has given to every one of us ? When a priest absolves a penitent he knows full well that the efficacy of his absolution depends, after all, on the state of the heart which receives it ; and he knows SACERDOTALISM 207 also that he cannot use the gift against the will and intention of the Almighty Giver. He who reads the heart will ratify or annul, in virtue of His perfect knowledge, the words of pardon uttered by His minister on earth. But personal influence, in what- ever form, may be used against the will of the Divine Giver. So that, in matter of fact, God has given to each of us, laic and cleric, a power of the keys, a power of opening or closing heaven, of a far more awful kind than that which He has bestowed upon the ' ministers and stewards of His mysteries.' I wish that those who cry out against Sacerdotalism, as an encroachment on the liberties of the laity, would consider the very awful sacerdotal powder which the laity themselves are discharging day by day, whether they think of it or not. It is not in the Christian ministry that we have ' magically endowed men,' but in ordinary society : men, and women too, endowed with personal, not official, gifts of magnetic influence on those w^ho come in contact with them. Personal influence is indeed the most awful of all gifts. And we all possess it in measure and degree, and are using it continually, and probably oftenest w^hen we think least about it. Virtue or vice is un- ceasingly going out of us, and we are thus scattering in the air around us germs of moral good or evil to breed spiritual health or malady in those who inhale them. In truth, the argument against Sacerdotalism cuts deeper and wider than those who use it appear to perceive. If Christ is the only Mediator, to the 208 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT absolute exclusion of all other mediators, this is fatal not only to every kind of pubHc ministry, but to all acts of intercession whatsoever, and indeed to any kind of personal influence. If 'the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,' what is that but an instance of successful mediation ? The mother who pleads for a sick or erring child is surely a mediator ; and so is the eloquent preacher or writer who turns men from sin to righteousness. In one sense of course it is true that there is but ' One Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus ; ' since it is from His Atonement alone that all human mediation derives its worth. But in another sense all Christians are bound to be mediators, for it is their duty to intercede for each other. In short, what is the Gospel dispensation but a paramount example of Sacerdotalism ? Christianity has now been in the world for upwards of eighteen centuries, and yet the vast majority of mankind are still outside its pale. In the first ages of its career the Faith of Christ carried all before it. The philosophy of Greece and the statecraft and legions of Imperial Eome were alike powerless to arrest its progress. It penetrated into the hut of the savage and into the palace of the Caesars, and led captive Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, bond and free. What has the Christian Church done in comparison with this during the last few centuries ? On balan- cing its gains and its losses, must it not be sorrow- fully admitted that it has done little more than hold its own? And what explanation can be given, SACERDOTALISM 209 except the humiliating fact that Christians have turned against each other the arms which they ought to have employed in extending the frontiers of their Master's kingdom ? In other words, the purposes of God are so far baitted, because He has entrusted the execution of them to the ministry of a fallible and selfish race. And yet, mysterious as all this seems, I think we may see a reason for it. There is an inborn tendency in human nature towards selfishness ; and to counter- act this tendency, to which even the best of men are more or less liable, God has made us necessary to each other. On the right hand and on the left, from the cradle to the grave, w^e need the help of others. Neither in sickness nor in health, in joy nor in sorrow, in temporal nor in spiritual matters, can we afford to stand alone. And thus our very selfishness is turned into an antidote against itself. If we could go through this mortal life to our eternal home as isolated units, there would be nothing to check our innate selfish- ness. But human beings are no mere aggregate of independent units, each complete in itself and striv- ing after its own perfection alone. They are members of one family — ' the whole family in heaven and in earth ' — and their mutual interdependence radiates from the centre of the family to the circumference of the race. Even the geographical arrangements of the globe, its varieties of climates and productions, are made to minister to the same end ; and the dic- tates of enlightened selfishness are slowly teaching P 210 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT the nations of the earth that the}' have need of one another ; that if one member suffers, the rest will in the long run suffer with it ; that exclusiveness is, therefore, a suicidal policy, the true secret of a nation's prosperity lying, not in jealous hugging of its peculiar treasures, but in freely exchanging them for those of its neighbours. Thus does God contrive, in the domain of things temporal, to make our very selfishness the instru- ment of its own destruction. And His mode of treat- ment is the same in things spiritual. Through all the ordinances of the Christian Church He alone is the Giver and the Source of all spiritual blessings. * Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights ; ' but these gifts reach us, as a rule, through the ministr}' of human mediators. The power is from God ; but He imparts it through human agents and material channels. This is the essence of Sacerdotalism ; and it is the advo- cates of the doctrine and not its impugners who magnify the power of God and emphasise the feeble- ness of man. For the objection to Sacerdotalism is in reality, though not consciously, rooted in the belief that man has any power apart from God. The truth, however, is that I should be guilty of just as much blasphemy in claiming to hold with any strength of my own the pen which writes these words as I should be if I claimed in my own right to forgive a fellow creature his sins. Sacerdotalism is. in fact nothing else than an example in one SACEBDOTALISM 211 department of God's providential government of a principle which runs through the whole of it ; namely, that it is His rule to work by the use of means. It is remarkable how emphatically not only the Church of the first centuries, but the mediaeval Church also, claimed for the laity a quasi-sacerdotal power even in respect to sacramental confession. I need not remind the reader that private confession came into vogue by way of relaxation on the original discipline, which enjoined on penitents a public confession in the sight of the congregation. And the absolution pronounced was the absolution of the Church through her authorised minister. This share of the faithful laity even in the power of the keys is fully recognised by the leading men among the schoolmen. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, discusses the question, ' Utrum in aliquo casu liceat aliis quam Sacerdotibus confiteri,' and decides that a layman may hear a penitent's con- fession, just as he may administer baptism, in case of necessity, and that a penitent is in such a case bound to confess. The layman cannot", indeed, com- plete on his part the sacrament of penance, since he does not possess the power of granting absolution. But this defect ' the High Priest supplies.' And therefore ' confession made to a layman in the ab- sence of the priest is in a manner Sacramental.' ' ' ' Sed quando necessitas imminet, debet facere poenitens quod ex parte sua est, scilicet conteri et confiteri cui potest ; qui quamvis Sacramentum perficere non possit, ut faciat id quod ex parte sacer- dotis est, absolutionem scilicet, defectum tamen sacerdotis Sinnnms p 2 212 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Peter Lombard decides in the same manner the question, ' An sufficiat confiteri laico ? ' ' If a priest cannot be had,' he says, ' confession must be made to one's neighbour or companion.' A priest must, in the first place, be dihgently sought after ; but ' so great is the virtue of confession that, if a priest can- not be found, confession should be made to one's neighbour (tanta itaque vis confessionis est, ut si deest sacerdos, confiteatur proximo). . . . For al- though he to whom the confession is made has not the power of giving absolution, nevertheless he who confesses to his neighbour is worthy of pardon from his desire for a priest. For the lepers were cleansed on their way to show themselves to the priests, before they reached them.' ^ Albertus Magnus, another great name, goes beyond this ; for he affirms that a layman possesses, in case of necessity, the power of absolving.'-^ Indeed, we find the duty of confessing to a layman in case of necessity not only defended by theologians in their studies, but commanded by synodical canons and provincial constitutions. The synod of Treves, Sacerdos sitpplet. Nihilomimis confessio laico ex dcfectu saccrdotis facta sacramentalis est quodammodd, quamvis non sit sacramentura perfectum, quia deest ei quod est ex parte sacerdotis.' — Summ. Theol. Supplem. pt. iii. Qusest. viii. Art. 2. Migne's edition, p. 944. ' De Sacram. Lib. iv. Distinct. 17. - He distinguishes five kinds of potestas absolvcndi. The fourth is ' ex officio ministrorum concessa sacerdotibus. Et ultima ex unitate fidei et caritatis, et hscc pro necessitatis articulo descendit in omnern Jiominem ad proximo suhvcniendiun : et hanc potcstatem habct laicus in articulo necessitatis:— PAhexins Magnus in Sent. Lib. iv. Dist. 17, Art. 58, 59. SACEEDOTALISM 213 A.D. 1310 (Can. 116), directed that confession should be made to a Cathohc layman when there was danger of death, and no priest was at hand. The twelfth of Archbishop Edmund's Constitutions allows a deacon to hear confessions and give penances in cases of necessity ; as ' when no priest could be had, or he was away from home, or stupidly or indiscreetly un- willing ; and death was innninent.' And Lyndwood says that not only may a deacon do this, but also a layman, or even a woman. ^ Two remarkable instances of confessions to lay- men have come down to us from the middle ages. It is related in ' Le Loyal Serviteur ' that when Bayard, the Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, received his death-wound on the field of Romagnano, and was carried to his tent, he clasped his sword in his hand, and, fixing his eye on the hilt for a cross, bade his faithful esquire hear his confession. The other example is related in Joinville's ' Histoire de St. Louis.' When Joinville and his companions were taken prisoners by the Saracens, and were waiting in hourly expectation of death, the Constable of Cyprus knelt down and made his con- fession to Joinville ; ' and I gave him,' says Joinville, * such absolution as God enabled me to give.' - Even the standard modern theologian of the Eoman Church, the Jesuit Father Perrone, of the ' See Johnson's Canons, vol. ii. year 1236 ; and Maskell's Mon. Bit. iii. p. cix. 2 'Encouste moy se agenoilla Guy d'Ebelin, connestable de Chippre, et se confessa a moy : ct je lui donnay telle absolucion coinme Dieu nVcn donnoit le ])ovoir.'' — Hist, de St. Louis, p. 298. 214 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEME>^T Collegio Komano, admits that sometimes deacons, men in minor orders, and even laymen, have been allowed to hear confessions and grant ' ceremonial absolution,' representing the ancient absolution given b}^ the congregation through the minister, but not quite equivalent to ' Sacramental absolution.' ^ To sum up. The truth is that the impugners of Sacerdotalism, little as they know it, are really un- dermining the very foundations of revealed religion, including the doctrine of prayer and of the whole Sacramental system. That system is based on this fundamental principle of religion : that all good things come from God, but indirectly and condi- tionally. I look abroad and find two revelations of God's will : one in the material creation, the other in the inspired record of His dealings wath mankind. And I see both characterised by one common feature, teaching this one lesson ; that it is God's pleasure to bestow His blessings, not directly from on high, but indirectly and mediately — through material, through animal, through human and spiritual agencies. He arrays the lilies of the field with glory more than Solomon's : yet not immediately, but through the kindly influence of dews, and showers, and sunshine. ' ' Inteidum vero in sacerdotis absentia diaconi, clerici inferiores, aut laici etiam excipiebant confessiones illas spontaneas et caere- n^oniales, quas passim subsequentibus seculis faciebant animam agentes coram ipsis ad raajorem peccatorum dolorem concipiendnm, et ut adjuti Ecclesijc precibus veniani a Deo facilius impetrarent. Hanc confessionem S. Thomas vocat (luodammodo Sacvamentalem, qua) juxta scholasticos una cum contritione virtutem sacramenti habebat.'— Pr^t'Zcc. Thcol. Tract, dc Pcenit. cap. v. Prop. II. vol. ii. p. 378. SACERDOTALISM 215 It is He who gives the increase in the harvest season, yet not without the co-operation of the husbandman. The health of the body is from Him ; nevertheless the sick man consults the physician and submits to his treatment. He is the Source and Giver of all wisdom, but He imparts it through the lips and pens of human teachers. And w^hen I raise my eyes from the physical to the spiritual creation, I behold the same law in operation. Under the Jewish economy I observe an elaborate ritual prescribed — if we are to believe the Bible — by God Himself as the condi- tion on which man was to approach his Maker and appropriate His gifts. I see Naaman cleansed by the intervention of a prophet of Israel and the water of the Jordan ; Job's friends pardoned by means of Job's intercession ; Jeroboam's withered hand restored by the prayer of the man of God from Judah ; Elijah fed by the wild birds of the desert. Then in the fulness of time, when Christ appeared as the Head of the New Creation, I hear Him declare that He ' came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it '■ — not to abolish the old order of things, but to give it a deeper meaning, and breathe into it a higher life. Thus He fulfilled in His own person the requirements of the Law. And when He began to lay the foundation of that new dispensation, into which the life of the old was to pass by an orderly evolution, the rule of dispensing His gifts through the ministry of secondary agencies is still observed. He instituted a Sacramental system as 216 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT the channel through which men were to be brought into spiritual relations with Himself, and founded a society for the purpose of preaching His Gospel and administering His Sacraments to the human race till the end of the Christian dispensation. 21' CHAPTEK VII AUEICULAR CONFESSION I COME now to the thorny subject of Auricular Con- fession, on which I beHeve the hatred and passion of mihtant Protestantism is so concentrated that, if that stumbhngblock could be removed, the opposi- tion even to advanced Eitualism would be half disarmed. Now I believe, for my part, that the confessional is, under certain circumstances, liable to abuse and danger, and ought, under all circum- stances, to be hedged round by judicious precautions. I shall indicate some of these further on. But I must begin with some preliminary observations for the sake of clearing the ground and getting rid of some fallacies. It is popularly supposed that the clergy have a craving for hearing confessions. There are upwards of twenty-three thousand clergy in the Church of England, and that there should be a few morbidly constituted men among so many is possible. But that the mass of the clergy, or even a fraction of the High Church party, should desire to hear confes- sions, or would consent to hear them except from a stern sense of painful duty, is to me incredible. 218 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Even if a man were so abnormally constituted, and had so little sense of the responsibility and sacred- ness of his office, as to wish to hear confessions from a motive of curiosity, he would surely soon have a surfeit of it. I am inclined to think that most men would, as a mere matter of choice, as soon be surgeons to a leprous hospital as habitual confessors. Human nature is, in some aspects of it, a weird mystery. * The corruption of the best ' is proverbially ' the worst ' kind of corruption. The brutes live accord- ing to their nature, and in their free wild state enjoy life. Man violates the laws of his nature and is capable of falling far below the brutes. And this tendency increases and takes new shapes under a highly developed civilisation, and among all classes. To many a clergyman, I doubt not, the confessional has been a frightful revelation of the cancerous ramifications of sin, sometimes under a fair exterior. That any considerable number of men would volunteer in such work except from an imperative feeling of duty I do not believe. I believe, moreover, that the increase of confession in the Church of England has come from the laity rather than from the clergy. Perhaps I may, without impertinence, give my own experience. I have never invited any one to confess to me except in the ordinary course of reading the exhortation in the Communion Service, and I have, in the whole course of my ministerial career, received the confessions of just three persons. These I received reluctantly and unavoidably. But many persons have asked me to AUEICULAR CONFESSION til'J receive their confessions. It is a task from whicli I have always shrunk ; and as nearly the whole of my ministerial life has heen spent in London, I have been able to avail myself of the alternative offered in the Prayer Book by sending those who came to me ' to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word.' But if I had been an incumbent where this alternative was not possible, I should certainly feel bound to hear the confessions of all who came to me, much as I should dislike it. I do not think that an incumbent has any choice in such cases. I read some time ago a speech made at a Protestant meeting by the Vicar of a parish in a large town in the North. He denounced confession and illustrated his own practice by a story. A man called upon him one day, he said, and astonished him by asking him to hear his confession. As soon as he recovered his self-possession he said to his visitor, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' and dismissed him. And that Vicar was cheered. Now it does seem to me a little hard that God's minister should on Sunday invite to confession any one whose conscience is troubled, and then on Monday tell him to go to the Devil for being such a fool as to accept the invitation. How did the Vicar know that the parishioner whom he repulsed so rudely had not then arrived at a critical point in the development of his character, when the unburdening of his conscience and the counsel and advice of his spiritual pastor might have made all the difference between ruin and salvation ? 220 THE KEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT Is it not a frightful responsibility to turn away any one who comes to seek comfort in the way which the Church has provided ? Another common fallacy is that the confessor worms out family secrets, and thus sows the seeds of dissension between husbands and wives, parents and children. The fact, I beheve, is that no names are allowed to be mentioned in confession. I find this rule laid down in manuals for confessors both in the Eoman and Anglican Churches, and I believe the rule is universal. In his speech in the House of Commons at the opening of Parliament this session, Mr. Samuel Smith denounced a book {' The Priest's Prayer Book ') w^hich he evidently had not read, for he made a ridiculous quotation which is not in the book, and which must have been suppHed to him by some one on whom he relied too implicitly. In that book there are ' Notes on Confession ' for the guidance of such clerg}^ as hear confessions. I quote the follow^ing : — He [the confessor] is to interrupt in any of the following cases : (1) if the penitent inaport the name of any person into his confession — he is there to confess his own sins, not another's ; (2) if he begins making excuses for himself ; (3) if he be prolix, or wandering from the point ; (4) if he be coarse. Again : — As a general rule he is to avoid questioning the penitent (except in case of absolute necessity), and especially as to kinds of sin to which he has made no reference in his confession. AUEICULAR CONFESSION 221 Again : — The priest should take most especial care not to suggest any new sinful idea to the mind of the penitent, nor teach him any evil formerly unknown to him. This is unspeak- ably important in the case of very young persons, since for them ignorance of evil is often better even than knowledge of good. Another popular fallacy is the opinion that manuals written for the exclusive use of confessors, and going into details, are samples of what passes between confessors and penitents. It would be as reasonable to suggest that manuals of anatomy and pathology furnish a fair specimen of the conversa- tions between a doctor and his patients. If a clergy- man hears confessions at all, he ought to be instructed in a number of things of which he is likely to be ignorant, and manuals are necessary for that purpose. I have never read that much abused book, ' The Priest in Absolution.' But I know that it was VTritten by the incumbent of one of the most wretched parishes in London ; a man of singularly pure and holy life, who worked himself to death among the poor. The book was doubtless largely based on his own experience, and probably dealt with gross sins and abnormal forms of vice. These, alas ! exist in rank abundance, but happily unknown and undreamt of in certain strata of society ; and also unknown to many of the clergy. And yet, unless they know them, they are as helpless in dealing with considerable sections of the community as a doctor would be who should start a practice 222 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT without any previous training in the anatomy and maladies of the human frame. ' The Priest in Ahsohition ' was intended for clergy only. It was not sold to the x^ublic ; but a gentleman of strong Protestant opinions, calling one day on a clerical friend, found the book on his table, and during the momentary absence of his friend from the room, pocketed the volume, and gave it to one of the officials of a Protestant society, which scattered extracts from it broadcast as specimens of what passed in the confessional. Some years previously the poHce confiscated a pamphlet called ' The Con- fessional Unmasked,' which consisted of excerpts from a Eoman Catholic manual for confessors. The great hero of the recent Albert Hall meeting was Mr. John Kensit, of whom I read for the first time in ' Truth ' of August 15, 1889, as follows :— Where is the Vigilance Committee ? During the last two or three weeks hawkers have been parading London with truckloads of an abominable publication called ' The High Church Confessional.' From a cursory view of one of the numerous copies with which I have been favoured I should say that a more obscene work was never publicly offered for sale, and this filthy poison is being sold up and down the streets, under the very noses of the police, at the price of twopence. The publisher is one Kensit, of the ' City Protestant Book Depot,' 18 Paternoster Eow, who boasts that he has sold 225,000 copies. It is nothing less than a public scandal that this Kensit and his associates should be at large, while Mr. Vizetelly is in gaol ; for if what the latter has done be a crime, the crime is certainly infinitely worse when committed under the cloak of religion and morality. AURICULAR CONFESSION 223 Mr. Labouchere, who has been pubhcly thanked by several judges for his exposure of sundry impos- tures, renewed his attack on Mr. Kensit a year ago in a series of scathing articles, taking the paragraph which I have just quoted for his text. The follow- ing quotation w^'ll serve as a specimen :'^ — On the appearance of this paragraph Mr. Kensit sent me a letter, in which he referred to a ' most unwarranted attack made on him as a publisher,' dropped dark hints of the advice which he was seeking from his * legal adviser,' and called upon me, pending this advice, for an explanation or apology. Having nothing to apologise for, I adopted the other alternative, and gave Mr. Kensit an explanation. I reminded him that a well-known publisher had just been sent to prison for publishing translations of the works of an eminent French novelist, which, in the opinion of a magistrate or jury — I forget which — were held to trangress the bounds of decency ; and I pointed out that ' The High Church Confessional ' contained page after page of the most loathsome indecency and obscenity, that is to say, the detailed discussion, not merely of subjects which conventional delicacy enjoins silence about, but of vice and depravity in their foulest and most dis- gusting phases. Mr. Kensit having boasted that 225,000 copies of this work had been sold, and it being notorious that the publication was being hawked about the streets for the delectation of the prurient-minded, young and old, I urged that Mr. Kensit was as deserving of imprisonment as Mr. Vizetelly, the publisher of Zola's novels, and that it behoved the National Vigilance Association, who had prosecuted in the one case, to take the same course in the other. '' Truth, September 22, 1898. 224 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Whether or not Kensit took t'lo opinion of his ' legal adviser ' upon these remarks I do not know ; but the only- response he vouchsafed to them was a further letter com- pounded of abuse and religious cant, in whicli among other things he boasted that my denunciation of him as a puiTeyor of the foulest and most pernicious literary garbage had produced a widespread inquiry for his publi- cations, and given a gratifying stimulus to his trade. This led me to look a little more closely into his trade, and I found the work which had been denounced in ' Truth ' was only one of a whole library of obscene publications, one at least of them far more revolting in tone and corrupt in tendency tlian ' The High Church Confessional.' There- upon I appealed further to the Vigilance Association, among the members of which were many eminent and respected men, both in Church and State, to put the law in force against Kensit w^ithout delay. A new and un- expected turn was then given to the controversy by the discovery that Kensit himself occupied the position of ofl&cial publisher to the Vigilance Association, so that the publications of that body were stored upon his shelves, in all their virgin purity, side by side w4th the Protestant obscenities of Kensit, hke the antidote and the poison upon the shelves of a chemist's shop. It was obvious from this that the National Vigilance Association were in a somewhat diflficult position in undertaking the prosecu- tion of Kensit, but they appeared to recognise that it behoved them to take action of some kind, and after having made some inquiry into the nature of Kensit's trade, they eventually relieved him of his position as their publisher. Mr. Labouchere has lately stated in * Truth ' that Mr. Kensit is using the district post-ofhce over which he presides as a receptacle for the regular AURICULAR CONFESSION 225 sale of these pamphlets. Mr. Kensit has, no doubt, persuaded himself that he is thereby doing God service. That question I leave to the judgment of the public. But the truth is that a certain class of minds appear incapable of reasoning dispassionately on this subject. Men who do give their reason fair play find no difficulty in perceiving that there are two sides to the question. It w^ould be difficult to name a man of calmer and more judicial mind than the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis. No one will suspect him of Eomanism, and he was certainly no advocate of clerical supremacy, either in domestic or political affairs. But he could see both sides of a disputed question, and could deal fairly with things which by no means appealed to his sympathies. His opinion on the subject under discussion is there- fore of some value. This is what he says : — It may be here remarked that anunjustprejudicehasnot unfrequently been raised in Protestant countries against the treatises which are prepared for the use of confessors in the Church of Rome. . . . The more difficult and doubtful of the cases likely to come before the confessor have been discussed separately, and have given rise to the branch of practical divinity called casuistry. Casuistry is the jurisprudence of theology ; it is a digest of the moral and religious maxims to be observed by the priest, in advising or deciding upon questions which come before him in confession, and in adjudging the amount of penance due to each sin. As confession discloses the most secret thoughts and acts of the penitent, and as nothing, however impure, is concealed from the confessor, Q 226 THE REFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT it is necessary that he should be furnished with a manual in which these subjects are discussed. Now such a manual, if properly considered, is not more justly ob- noxious to the charge of gratuitous indecency than a legal or medical treatise, in which similar subjects are ex- pounded without any reserve of language.^ And as regards the general system he says : — The system of Auricular Confession and the direction of consciences, as practised in the Church of Rome, is founded on a theory similar to that on which the custom of professional consultations rests. The confessor may be considered as a vicarious conscience, in like manner as professional advice is vicarious prudence. If the penitent makes a full and true confession, the confessor or spiritual director pronounces or advises wdth a complete knowledge of the circum.stances of the case, probably with a know- ledge of the penitent's character and position, and always with the impartiaHty of a judge — free from per- sonal concern in the matter, and unbiased by passion or interest. Seeing how bhnd and partial a judge each man is in his own case, and how unconsciously the moral judgment with respect to our own actions is perverted by the inclinations, it cannot be doubted that such a coun- sellor, in ambiguous cases of conduct, such a due tor duhi- tantium, would be generally beneficial, if the moral code which he administers was well framed, and if his opinion or advice was always honest and enlightened. Unfor- tunately, however, it happens that the system of moral mles which guides the discretion of the Catholic con- fessor is founded on a narrow-minded and somewhat superstitious theology, so far as it proceeds upon the distinctive tenets of the Church of Rome ; and that the ' On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion, p. 120. AURICULAE CONFESSION 227 desire of domestic dictation, and of regulating the affairs of families, so natural in an unmarried clergy, gives too often an improper bias to the influence of the spiritual director.' De Quincey, too, while condemning the abuse of casuistiy, maintains that * without casuistry of some sort or other, no practical decision could be made in the accidents of daily life. Of this, on a fitter occasion,' he adds, ' I could give a cumulative proof.' ^ And Hallam, a critic who will not be suspected of partiality towards the Koman system, and who disapproved of confession, though praising 'the judicious temperament ' which at the Eeformation 'left it to each man's discretion,' writes as follows : — It is very difficult, or perhaps beyond the reach of any human being, to determine absolutely how far these benefits, which cannot be reasonably denied to result from the rite of confession, outweigh the mischiefs connected with it. There seems to be something in the Roman Catholio discipline (and I know nothing else so likely) which keeps the balance, as it were, of moral influence pretty even between the two religions, and compensates for the ignorance and superstition which the elder preserves : for I am not sure that the Protestant system in the present age has any very feasible advantage in this respect ; or that in countries where the comparison can fairly be made, as in Germany and Switzerland, there is more honesty in one sex, or chastity in the other, when they belong to the Reformed Churches.-^ ' On the Influence of Authoritij in Matters of Opinion, pp. 124, 125. - Works, vol. xiii. p. 34. ^ Constitutional History, i. 120. Q 2 228 THE REFOKMATION SETTLEMENT The second passage which I have quoted from Sir George Cornewall Lewis undoubtedl}' hits the chief sources of danger in the system of the Confes- sional as practised in the Church of Rome. And it is to be observed that the distinguished author himself confines his strictures to the Roman system. A great deal of the moral theology now in vogue in the Church of Rome appears to me, so far as my reading enables me to judge, to be exceedingly well calculated to enslave the conscience of the penitent and place his will very much at the mercy of his director. The system is elaborated out into such a complicated network of details, and is withal so full of pitfalls, that those w^ho conscientiously resort to it must soon feel the necessity of leaning on the arm of the con- fessor in everything — even in the petty trivialities of daily life. The Jesuits, in particular, have so developed the system of direction as to imperil the sense of personal responsibihty in those w^ho come under its control. This, indeed, is no more than might have been expected, for the long and severe discipline of a Jesuit's novitiate has for its prime object the complete extinction of the slightest quiver- ings of independence in the human will. When, therefore, the Jesuit novice becomes himself the director of other consciences, he will naturally aim at reducing them to the same condition of unquestion- ing dependence which his own training must have taught him to regard as the very ideal of Christian perfection. The penitent is therefore advised to confess frequently, and to confide to his director every AUBICULAK CONFESSION 220 wayward fancy and every evanescent peccadillo that may chance to flit across his mind. With a certain class of minds this sort of discipline becomes at once a necessity and a luxury, and the effect of it is to diminish the sense both of personal responsibility and of the heinousness of sin. That is an opinion which I am confident I share with a large number of Koman Catholics ; so at least 1 have been told by thoughtful and devout members of the Church of Kome, ecclesiastics as well as lay- men, both in England and on the Continent. I have no doubt that the school of Loyola has produced some of the noblest types of self-sacrifice and saint- liness ; but is it unfair to say of it as a religious system that it seems admirably calculated to impress upon the mind the wisdom of endeavouring to make the best of both worlds ? It is coeval with the Renaissance, and owes, no doubt, to that semi-pagan reaction against the religion of the Cross much of its original impulse and of its rapid success. It caught the sentiment of the age on the bound, and adroitly adapted itself to the new phase of Christianity which the Revival of Letters had made popular in Western Europe. The ascetic side of religion was now odious and out of fashion, and the Jesuit sought to guide the new fashion by swimming with it. The world had learnt to love a less strict and less austere religion, and a less strict and less austere rehgion it should have. One sees the contrast in everything on which the Jesuit has left his mark. His very architecture is of the earth, and is redolent of the boudoir. 230 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMBt^T Go into any old cathedral — it need not be Gothic — which was reared under the influence of the sad, yet triumphant, feelings inspired by the Sacrifice of Calvary, and then enter a Jesuit church — I care not where — and you cannot fail to see that you have virtually visited the shrines of two different kinds of religion. The former suggests sublime and melan- choly reveries, a sentiment of human misery, the vague divination of ' a city which hath foundations ' somewhere beyond the shifting sands of time, and in which the weary heart shall at last find peace, and be enabled to solve many a dark riddle that now per- plexes and distresses it. A Jesuit church awakes sentiments of quite another kind. You feel that this world is not so bad after all. Wealth and comfort and prettiness surround you. Smiling angels beam upon you from every cornice, and the Madonna is no longer the Mater Dolorosa with sad pale face, but a drawing- room helle who has an eye for the last fashion. Religion, in short, has laid aside her grave and sombre aspect, and has become gay and coquettish. ^ Our business,' says Addison, ' is to be easy here, and happy hereafter.' The Jesuit has reduced the maxim to a system, and works it through the con- fessional. Trust him, submit your will to his, and you will find that the yoke of Christ is indeed easy and His burthen light. He is provided with a com- prehensive and most accommodating code of casuistry that knows how to evade obligations which it may be inconvenient to fulfil. AUEICULAR CONFESSION 231 No wonder that the Jesuits became, and still are, the most popular of confessors.. No wonder that wealth flowed rapidly into their coffers, and that their churches and colleges glittered with marble and precious stones. But the result has been unfor- tunate. The popularity of the Jesuits in the confessional and the hold which they obtained over the education of a great part of Europe had the effect of creating a school of casuistical divinity which has been prejudicial to morality, and which is mainly responsible for the popular odium to which the en- tire system of confession is exposed. Sir George Lewis may be right in thinking that it is ' natural ' for ' an unmarried clergy ' to have * the desire of domestic dictation and of regulating the affairs of families ' when the clergy are made into a separate caste by a system of compulsory celibacy. Blanco White — a most sincere and honest man through all his mental aberrations — attributed much of the evils of the Koman Church to compulsory celibacy — ' that most wicked and mischievous part of the Roman system,' as he calls it. 'The Church of Rome,' he adds, 'her clergy, high and low, are fully aware of the evils which the law of celibacy produces. Their support of that odious law is not a sin of ignorance.' ^ Our Lord Himself declared that the gift of continence was an exceptional one, demanding great force of will. How can multitudes of men know at the age of twenty-one or twenty-four whether they have a ' Life of Blanco 11 kite, vol. i. p. 108. 232 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT vocation for a celibate life? The Eussian and Oriental Churches go to the opposite extreme and insist on the parochial clergy being married. Our own Church takes the middle course and leaves her clergy free to marry or remain single. I am not sure that it would not have been waser to restrict marriage to such clergy as had means to support a wife and family. It can hardly be doubted that the universal enforcement of celibacy must have the effect, among other evils, of raising the barrier of caste between the clergy and the laity. The clergy come to regard themselves as a separate body, with separate interests and separate duties, and are apt to resent any claim on the part of the laity to a share in the management of ecclesiastical affairs. The laity of the Eoman Communion have now no voice what- ever in the counsels of their Church. Bishops and priests are set over them without their consent, and they must receive, with implicit obedience, whatever rules of discipline, or articles of faith, or system of education, their spiritual rulers may choose to impose upon them. To this kind of Sacerdotalism no one can object more strongly than I do. But what likelihood is there of its ever taking root in the Church of England? The pulse of the Enghsh clergy re- sponds to all the movements of the national life just as freely as that of the laity. Their politics, indeed, may preponderate in one direction, though certainly not so much as formerly ; but, at all AURICULAR CONFESSION 233 events, it is not in the direction of a spiritual supremacy. They can have no temptation what- ever, that I can imagine, to interest themselves in * family affairs,' and we may therefore dismiss that objection to the confessional, so far at least as it concerns the clergy of the Established Church of England. And, indeed, even in the Church of Eome the objection lies more against the system of direction than against that of confession. The two may generally go together ; but they need not, and the office of director has frequently been exercised by a layman. I frankly think that the practice of direc- tion is becoming more prevalent than is wholesome in our own communion. I am not disposed to deny that it may be useful occasionally in some cases ; but its tendency is to generate a morbid scrupulosity and to blunt the sense of personal responsibility. And I think that frequent confessions are, as a rule, liable to the same objection. But the remedy for these and other dangers is not an indiscriminate denunciation of confession, but a frank recognition of it, by the rulers of the Church, to the extent and within the limits which the Church herself has plainly prescribed. Nothing can be worse than the present state of things, and it says much for the purity and discretion of our clergy that no scandal has arisen from it. There is not the slightest check upon the youngest and most inex- perienced curate except his own sense of w4iat is right. By the common law of the Church, recognised in our Prayer Book, every incumbent is entitled to 234 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT hear the confessions of those who come to him. But no other priest has a right to hear confessions without the Bishop's hcence. Would it not be better to recognise facts and regularise what the Church permits ? Voluntary confessions cannot be prevented, but they may be and ought to be put under proper restrictions, so that all danger may be reduced to a minimum. If this were done, I believe that much of the prejudice against confession would vanish, and people would see that under judicious safeguards it may be useful as medicine, if not as food. Let us glance at some of the reasons which may be urged in favour of its use under proper conditions. And I begin with the opinion of the judicious Hooker : — Because the knowledge how to handle our own sores is no vulgar or common art, but we either carry towards ourselves, for the most part, an over- soft and gentle hand, fearful of touching too near the quick ; or else, endeavouring not to be partial, we fall into timorous scrupulosities, and sometimes into those extreme dis- comforts of mind from which we hardly do ever lift up our heads again ; men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret faults, and to crave imposition of penance from them whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in His Church to be spiritual and ghostly physicians, the guides and pastors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only consist in general persuasions unto amend- ment of life, but also in the private particular cure of diseased minds.* Self-knowledge is proverbially the hardest of all • Ecclcs. Pol. Bk. vi. c. iv. [7.] Ed. Keble. AURICULAR CONFESSION 235 to master/ and no progress at all can be made to- wards it without the practice of strict periodical self-examination. But how many practise this ? Now one of the uses of confession is that it neces- sitates a habit of self-examination. Moreover, persons connnit sins frequently from ignorance of what they are doing. And this is true especially of young people. We are apt to give the youth, of both sexes, credit for more innocence than many of them are entitled to. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is as alluring now as it was of old, and young minds often pluck the forbidden fruit, and have their minds ' opened ' to an extent which would astonish parents and teachers if they knew it. If the hidden life of our public, and still more of our private schools, whether for boys or girls, could be written, it would throw a lurid light on the records of many a crime and premature death. I am persuaded that if the dispassionate opinion of medical men could be got they would say that their art, sometimes unavailing, would in many cases have been unnecessary if some of their patients had in time ' opened their grief ' to some ' discreet and learned minister of God's Word.' Probably no man of our time had so large and varied an experience in this matter as the late Sir Andrew Clark. He often talked to me on the ' ' E coelo clescendit Tvwdi cr^avTov.' Juvenal, Sat. xi. 27. Juvenal's allusion is to the legend thut this command, which was written in golden characters on the porch of the temple of Delphi, had Apollo for its author. 236 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT subject, and I believe that many parents received invaluable aid from him in the management of their children. One thing he felt very strongly, namely, the dire need of warning young people, of both sexes, when they reach the critical age of transition from puberty to adolescence. It would be most salutary, he thought, that there should then be a full confession to some discreet person— parent, doctor, or clergyman. An entirely frank confidence on the one hand, and timely warning on the other, at the parting of the ways, would prevent many a sad wreck in after life. For the young are then commonly launched upon a world of unwonted temptations, with new emotions, new passions, physical changes, all stirring them, and no one to enhghten* them about the mysteries of their own nature and the perils that await them. And thus, in sheer ignorance, habits are often contracted in early youth which undermine the constitution, make large contributions to our lunatic asylums, and consign many lives of fair promise to a pre- mature grave. That was the opinion of perhaps the most competent authority of our generation. I shall never forget a conversation which I once had with the most attractive youth, in mind and body, whom I have ever known— bright, cheerful, generous, handsome, full of noble impulses, with a soul as pure as crystal, and withal most manly, and devoted to manly sports. After leaving Eton, and while preparing for the army, he came one day to talk to me about the sore need of establishing a public AUEICULAR CONFESSION 237 opinion in support of purity in our public schools, such as now exists in support of truthfulness. ' A boy loses caste,' he said, ' and is disgraced, who has been found out lying. Is it not possible to create a public opinion among schoolboys in favour of purity, so that a boy should lose caste and be disgraced among his fellows who should be known to be guilty of impurity ? ' His idea was that guilds of purity might be formed at public schools for the purpose of creating such public opinion as he desired. Mysterious are the ways of Providence. After joining a cavalry regiment this charming young fellow was stationed at York, and used sometimes to stay with me at Eipon from Friday to Monday. During one of these visits he asked me if I would agree to be his almoner. He had been accustomed since he had received an allowance to give away the tithe of it as belonging to God and not to himself, and distributing his little charities out of what remained. ' My tithe,' he said, ' might at present help ' some deserving youth through the university. When I come of age it will come to a nice sum.' He would then have come into possession of a fine property. The matter was to be settled between us on his next visit a fortnight afterwards. But that visit was never paid. His horse slipped on a tramway rail, and a noble life was removed to another sphere when on the threshold, as it seemed, of great useful- ness in this. He was full of sympathy for the sufferings of the poor, and intended to devote some part of his future hfe to their service. 238 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT From motives of modesty and hmnility he made me promise to keep his plans secret even from his nearest relations. I should have done so had his life been spared. But I considered that his death relieved me from my promise, and I told the story in a monthly magazine. And I have repeated it here to show the need of instiUing seeds of purity into the minds of the young, as it presented itself to a fine youth who had passed through the ordeal unscathed. Though opposed, therefore, to the en- forcement of confession on young people as a con- dition of confirmation or first communion, I think there is much to be said for Sir Andrew Clark's opinion that at that most critical period the young should be warned, and in some cases invited to make a confession to one w^hom they can trust. If parents should shrink from that duty themselves, they should certainly confide it to some one else ; and I do not know that any one would be better equipped for the task than a minister of religion, who would combine the solemnity of religion with the w^arnings of a friend. We are all impressed, more or less, by the visible emblems of religion. And confession to a man in surplice and stole is apt to impress the mind — of the young especially — more than to the same man sitting in an armchair in his study. But the consent of parents should ordinarily be obtained. I say ' ordinarily ' because many cases occur in our large towns where parents are the last persons to advise their children aright. Sermons are all very well ; but even the best of AURICULAR CONFESSION 239 sermons must deal in generalities, and must avoid some subjects altogether. It may be thought by some that this is an advantage. I doubt it. Many a moral sore goes on festering unto death because there is no skilful hand to probe the wound. But this can only be done in private confession. Again, why are so many of the sermons one hears jejune and pointless when they deal with the interior hfe ? Is it not because our clergy have, for the most part, so httle practical acquaintance with the anatomy of the human soul ? Their sermons want directness and are apt to evaporate in platitudes. Who would trust himself to a physician who derived all his know- ledge from books, having never walked a hospital or studied the anatomy of the human frame ? Dissenting preachers often excel the English clergy in point of directness and force, chiefly, I beheve, because confession, though not under that name, is largely practised among the Dissenters, especially the Wesleyans, but w^ithout the safeguards of the Church system. In truth, all persons of any pretence to earnest religion make their confessions some time or other, and that into mortal ears or through material media : one class to the friend of their soul or the wife of their bosom ; another in their poems ; another in their sermons ; another in what are technically called ' confessions.' It is a natural craving of the human heart for sympathy and help, coupled with a desire to disclose its sins. But may we not confess to God and obtain for- 240 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT giveness without the intervention of human agents ? Unquestionably. But let this be considered. In the first place, why should we confess to God at all ? Certainly not with the view of tehing Him anything of which He is ignorant, but because words react upon impressions, and fix and deepen them in the mind. It is very hard to realise the omnipresence of God — that He hears every word we utter and knows our most secret thoughts ; and the conse- quence is that in confessing our sins to God alone it is not easy to have that sense of shame, w^hich is of the essence of true contrition, and which is such a powerful preservative against temptation. Private confessions to God are therefore too commonly couched in those general terms in which, according to the adage, ' deception lurks.' But why not confess to some friend or relation ? Why go to a priest ? Far be it from me to say that this would not be useful. But such confession is subject to two defects, and is exposed to at least one danger. It cannot give the sense of relief conse- quent on a confession followed by absolution, and it lacks that combination of authority with sympathy which is characteristic of what is called ' Sacramental Confession.' ^ And, after all, it is easier to ' make a clean breast of it ' to an authorised minister of God ' I cannot understand why this term should be exposed to so much opprobrium, for it has virtually the sanction of the Book of Homilies. ' Absolution is no such Sacrament as Baptism and Communion are ; . . . but in a general acceptation the name of a Sacrament may be attributed to anything whereby an holy thing is signified.' — Sermon on Common Prayer and Sacraments, part i. AURICULAR CONFESSION 241 than to tlie most tender of friends or relatives. The knowledge that he acts ministerially, and that the secret will be religiously kept, gives the necessary courage, which w-ould otherwise, in most cases, be lacking. The very strength of our love is apt to forbid a fall disclosure of our inner self to an object of ordinary human attachment, for fear lest the discovery might alienate his love. For, as the poet sings : — Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits range and dwell apart ; Our eyes see all around in gloom or glow Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart. And it is well For what, if heaven for once its searching light Lent to some partial eye, disclosing all The rude bad thoughts that in our bosom's night Wander at large, nor heed love's gentle thrall? Who would not shun the dreary uncouth place ? As if, fond leaning where her infant slept, A mother's arm a serpent should embrace ; So might we friendless live, and die unwept. And there is also the risk, in private confession to a friend, of ostentation. So subtle are the devices of self-love that egotism may lurk in the very con- fession of our sins unless there be some special guarantee for that element of shame to which I have referred above. The Wesleyan relations of * experi- ences ' are admitted, I believe, to minister largely to spiritual pride. But when the confession is invested E 242 THE REFOR^^IATION SETTLEMENT with a religious sanction, and is made on bended knees and to Almighty God (for every auricular confession is addressed primarily to God, and to the Priest only as His Minister), there is a solemnity and reahty about it which is fatal to pride and self- conceit. Confession to a Minister of religion im- presses, I believe, upon the mind a consciousness of guilt which does not ordinarily come of confession to a friend, or even to God. ' The flesh is weak ' in the best of us, and they are very few to whom religious ordinances are not a help in reahsing their relation to the unseen, but omnipresent, God. I have admitted that the practice of confession is by no means free from danger ; but the dangers are not generally those which are commonly supposed. Persons, who know nothing about the subject i^rac- tically, imagine that because manuals written for the guidance of confessors go into a number of details, confessors are therefore in the habit of examining their penitents on these details. This, of course, is quite a mistake. Mr. Capes, ^ in a letter on this subject to the ' Guardian,' declared that all the time he was a Eoman Catholic, though he was in the habit of confessing regularly, no question was ever asked him which he would object to see published in the newspapers ; and I beheve that this is the ' The late Kev. J. M. Capes was an Anj-lican vicar who joined the Church of Rome in 1845, and returned to the Church of England on the proclamation of Papal Infallibility in 1870. He became then for some time assistant to Mr. Stopford Brooke when that able and admirable man was still in the service of the Cliurch of England. AUKICULAR CONFESSION 243 experience of almost every one who makes a habit of confession. There may be cases in which ques- tions of a certain kind may be necessary ; but they are cases in which there is no danger of suggesting the sin to the penitent, for it has already left its stain. Besides, our Catechism bids us examine our- selves in preparation for the Holy Communion ; and the Exhortation in the Communion Office directs that this examination should be ' by the rule of God's commandments,' w^hich is also the usual rule in auricular confession. Now a real self-scrutiny as to our transgressions against the Ten Commandments, to be effectual, must involve self-examination in details ; and this seems to me far more hazardous than enumeration in confession, just in proportion as the security for shame is less complete, and the accompaniments of place and circumstances are less solemn. Self-examination, if it be really searching, is one of the most difficult of mental processes. Its real value is in the degree of its minuteness, and even persons who are used to it, and really do know- something of themselves, can hardly dispense with the use of manuals. In a remarkable passage in his Autobiography Goethe attributes his ow^n defection from Christianity to the inefficiency of the Lutheran system of auri- cular confession, which now commonly deals in generalities and avoids all details. The passage is really a beautiful exposition of the Sacramental system, ' the Protestant w^orship,' in his opinion, ' lacking fulness in general,' and having * too few It 2 244 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Sacraments.' The j^assage is too long to quote; the following extract will suffice for my purpose : — In my time I liad been confided to the religious in- struction of a good old infirm clergyman, who had been confessor to the family for many years. The Catechism, a Paraphrase of it, and the Scheme of Salvation, I had at my fingers' ends. I lacked not one of the strongly proving biblical texts, but from all tliis I reaped no fruit ; for as they assured me that the honest old man arranged his chief examination according to an old set form, I lost all pleasure and inclination for the business, spent the last week in all sorts of diversions, laid in my hat the loose leaves borrowed from an older friend, who had gotten them from the clergyman, and unfeelingly and senselessly read aloud all that I should have known how to utter with feeling and conviction. But I found my good will and my aspirations in this important matter still more paralysed by a dry, spiritless routine, when I was now to approach the confessional. I was indeed conscious to myself of many failings, but of no great faults ; and that very consciousness diminished them, since it directed me to the moral strength which lay within me, and w'hich, with resolution and perseverance, was at last to become master over the Old Adam. We were taught that we were much better than the Catholics for this very reason : that we were not obliged to acknow- ledge anything in particular in the confessional, nay, that this would not be at all proper even if w'e wished to do it. This last did not seem right to me ; for I had the strangest religious doubts, which I would readily have had cleared up on such an occasion. Now, as this was not to be done, I composed a confession for myself, which, while it well expressed my state of mind, was to confess to an intelligent man, in general terms, that which I was AURICULAR CONFESSION 245 forbidden to tell him in detail. But when I entered the old choir of the Barefoot Friars, when I approached the strange latticed closets in which the reverend gentlemen used to be found for that purpose, when the sexton opened the door for me, when I now saw myself shut up in the narrow place, face to face with my spiritual grandsire, and he bade me welcome with his weak nasal voice, all the light of my mind and heart was extinguished at once, the w^ell-conned confession-speech w^ould not cross my lips ; I opened, in ray embarrassment, the book which I had in hand, and read from it the first short form I saw, which was so general that anybody might have spoken it wdth quite a safe conscience. I received absolution and with- drew, neither w^arm nor cold ; went the next day with my parents to the Table of the Lord, and, for a few days, behaved myself as was becoming after so holy an act. In the sequel, however, there came over me that evil, which from the fact of our religion being complicated by various dogmas, and founded on texts of Scripture, which admit of several interpretations, attacks scrupulous men in such a manner, that it brings on a hypochondriacal condition, and raises tliis to its highest point, to fixed ideas. I have know^n several men who, though their manner of thinking and living was perfectly rational, could not free themselves from thinking about the sin against the Holy Ghost, and from the fear that they had committed it. A similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the communion, for the text, that one who un- worthily partakes of the Sacrament, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, had very early already made a monstrous impression upon me. Every fearful thing that I had read in the histories of the middle ages, of the judgments of God, of those most strange ordeals, by red- hot iron, flaming-fire, swelling water, and even what the Bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with the 24G THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT innocent, but putis up and bursts the guilt}', — all this pictured itself to my imagination ; and formed itself into the most frightful combinations, since false vows, hy- pocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pro- nounce himself worthy, and the forgiveness of sins, by which everything was to be at last done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one could not with certainty dare appropriate it to oneself. This gloomy scruple troubled me to such a degree, and the expedient which they would represent to me as sufficient seemed so bald and feeble, that it gave the bug- bear only a more fearful aspect, and as soon as I had reached Leipsic, I tried to free myself altogether from my connection with the Church.^ I am pleading, however, for nothing more than liberty in this matter, and for a rational treatment of a most important and delicate subject. I wish people to see that there are two sides to the question, and that it cannot be cavalierly dismissed by rhetorical platitudes about ' the principles of the Keformation.' Let the Bishops grapple with it openly and courage- ously. Let them see that only competent persons are allowed to hear confessions ; and by competent persons I mean persons who are * discreet and learned,' that is, trained in moral divinity and certi- fied to be otherwise fit for the office. This is what the words ' discreet and learned ' mean in the Ex- hortation in our Communion Office. It is a technical expression, and occurs frequently in, for example, ' Autobiograjihij, \o\. i-Y)]). 2iS, 2o0. Engl, Trans! . AURICULAE CONFESSION 247 Peter Lombard, Aquinas, and Bonaventnra, in the sense of an authorised confessor.' Let the Bishops inquire into tlie facts before they hastily condemn a ' It may be well to give some evidence of this. The compilers of the Prayer Book were trained in the usual text-books of moral theology, and scholastic language came natural to them. By canon law every parish priest was entitled to hear confessions in his own parish, but not other priests, unless they had a special faculty from the bishop of the diocese. Aquinas says : ' Dicendum est quod electio discreti sacerdotis non est nobis commissa, ut ex nostro arbitrio facienda, sed de licentia superioris, si forte proprius sacerdos esset minus idoneus ad apponendum peccatis salutare remedium.' — Summa, Suppl. pt. iii. qua3st. viii. art. iv. G. Again : ' Prasterea, potestatem quam habet sacerdos in populo habet ab episcopo. Sed ex ilia potestate potest confessionem audire. Ergo et eadem ratione alius, cui episcopus potestatem concedet.' Ibid. Art. v. Peter Lombard says : ' Quaerendus est sacerdos sainens ct discretus, qui cum potestate simul habeat judicium, qui si forte defuerit, con- iiteri debet socio.' In the same chapter he says : ' Si tamen defuerit sacerdos, proximo vel socio est facienda confessio.'— Lib. iv.De Sacr. Dist. xvii. 5. Here, as in Aquinas, we note two points on which those old theologians and experts in moral pathology laid remarkable em- phasis ; (1) that not every priest had a right to hear confessions, but only those who had the episcopal licence to certify that they were ' discreti et sapientes,' or ' prudentes ; ' (2) the salutary influence of confession even to a layman when a priest was not available. The Venerable Bede also insists on this in his Commentary on the Epistle of St. James. I will now give some Anglican examples. In a Provincial Con- stitution of Archbishop Edmund it is said : ' De posnitentia praci- pimus : quod diaconi poenitentias dare non praisumant, nisi in his casibus : cum sacerdos non potest, vel absens est ; vel stulte, vel indiscrete [i.e. through lack of licence] non vult ; et mors imminet agroto.' Lyndwood says on the word ' regroto ' in the above : ' Qui desiderat confiteri. Tali namque casu potest non solum diaconus, sed etiam laicus confessionem a'groti audire ; immo et mulier hoc potest. Et hoc verum, ad ostendendum fidem sacramenti ; sacra- 248 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT discipline of whose practical working many of them are entirely ignorant. The puhUc mind is saturated with groundless prejudices and misapprehensions which none could so effectually dissipate as the Bishops. The fear, for instance, that the privacy of family life is likely to be invaded in the confessional is, I believe, quite unfounded. Penitents go to con- fess their own sins, not those of others, and the mention of names is emphatically forbidden. Would it not be well to inquire, too, whether English clergymen are ever in the habit of re- ceiving the confessions of any against the wishes of their natural guardians ? But if children go to confession with the full approbation of their parents, and wives with the consent of their husbands, what right have irresponsible outsiders to interfere in the matter? It is these meddlers who, in fact, invade the sanctity of private houses. ' The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger ' has surely no right to dictate the method of its treatment. All that I have said so far goes to support the wise and cautious observations of the Primate on this subject. It is really a layman's question. It is for the laity to say whether they will go to confession or abstain. If they choose to go, parish priests are bound by the law of the Church to hear their confes- mentum tamen deficit, quia nullus potest vere absolvere nisi sacerdos.' Lib. iii., Tit. 24. In Keynold's Constitutions frequent mention is made of priests 'provident and discreet,' and 'prudent and discreet men,' always with the meaning of licensed confessors. — See Johnson's Canons, vol. ii., Nos. 1222, 9 ; 1281, 8 ; 1322, 10; 1378, 4. AUEICULAR CONFESSION 249 sions. Let that be recognised, and let the Bishops forbid others without special licence to certify that they are, in the language of the Prayer Book, ' dis- creet and learned ministers of God's Word.' And let it also be laid down absolutely that all confessions must be heard in church, with open door. The old English canons are urgent on this point. For ex- ample, it is said in one of Eeynold's Constitutions : * And let the priest choose such a place in the Church for hearing confessions as is open to the view of all ; and never take the confession of any, especially of a woman, in secret, unless in case of necessity, or on account of the sickness of the penitent.' ^ If we are to have confession at all — and I do not see how it is to be prevented — let it be put under strict rules and safeguards. At present we have the choice of two systems of confession. According to one system, a person — man or woman, young or old, married or single — who has any scruples, goes to the parson's house and is closeted with him in his study or vestry, without any of the formal solemnities of religion ; and they talk together perhaps on the most delicate subjects in strict privacy. By the other system it is arranged that the parson is in his church in surplice and stole at a stated time. The penitent — if a w^oman, veiled from recognition by the priest or any one else — kneels and makes confession in the presence, though out of hearing, of all but the priest. ^A^omen may always confess incognito. Now I put it to any man of the world to say ' Johnson's Canons, ii., 1322, 8. 250 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT which he thinks the safer of these two systems. Yet we are such creatures of prejudice that while no objection is made to the former system — which is surrounded with peril — the mere mention of the latter is enough to drive a number of otherwise sensible persons clean off their mental balance. I quote another strict rule from one of our old English canons : — And let priests beware that they do not inquire of their penitents concerning the sins of other persons, or the names of the persons with whom they themselves have sinned, but only the circumstances and quality of the sin. Confession ought to be of what belongs to them- selves, not to others.^ Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Samuel Smith, and others have pointed to Spain, Italy, and France as examples of the evil effects of the confessional, and I have in this chapter quoted Blanco White's testi- mony as to its demoralising influence in Spain, attributable, in his opinion, to the compulsory celi- bacy of the clergy, combined with compulsory con- fession. It would be illogical to conclude that the same effects would follow^ w^hen confession is entirely voluntary and the clergy are allowed to marry. But I am disposed to distrust these rhetorical generalisa- tions altogether. Hallam, as we have seen, questions the common allegation that sexual immorality dis- tinguishes, in any marked w^ay and as cause and effect, Eoman Catholic from Protestant populations, ' Johnson, ibid. AURICULAR CONFESSION 2ol and appeals to the Protestant and Koman Catholic cantons of Switzerland by way of example. No one would venture to say that the Roman Catholics of Great Britain are more immoral than the Protestant population ; and the sexual morality of Ireland is conspicuously higher than that of England, Scotland, and Wales. Indeed, as it happens, the sexual im- morality of Wales and Scotland, where the confes- sional hardly exists, is lower than that of England, where confessions are less uncommon. Would a Protestant think it fair if one were to argue from this that the higher rate of immorality in Wales and Scotland is due to the comparative absence of the confessional ? To argue that things which happen to be coincident must be related as cause and effect is to reason like the rustic who attributed Goodwin Sands to Tenterden Steeple. It must be admitted, I think, that compulsory confession and compulsory celibacy together have a natural tendency towards sexual immorality, although the case of Ireland proves that the tendency can be counteracted by national characteristics, and perhaps by the purifying effect of a long discipline of suffer- ing. What we may say with truth is that where the national standard of morality is low, confession, especially if it be compulsory and cehbacy be en- forced on the clergy, is very likely to work injuriously. It certainly did so in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Bourbon regime. To this I can bear some personal testimony. I received some part of my early education in Southern Italy, and mixed 252 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT a good deal with all classes of the population in the Kingdom of Naples, urban and rural, some time after the collapse of the Bourbon dynasty, while the old state of things was still fresh in the memory of the population. I found the j^riesthood in the worst possible odour. They were popularly accused, not only of gross immorality, but of betraying the secrets of the confessional in addition. It was commonly believed that the Government used the confessional for discovering political opinions and secrets. Men were often flung into prison immediately after con- fession, which was compulsory under that terrible despotism in a manner not dreamt of in this country. All adults were obliged, under pain of civil penalties, to receive the Holy Communion at stated intervals, to be preceded in every case by confession. To ensure that they had been to confession and received absolution, the priest supphed each penitent, after absolution, with a metal medal,' which was presented at the altar as a condition of communion. But when the secrecy of the confessional became generally discredited, while resort to it periodically was never- theless compulsory, a way was found by which the law was evaded w^hile seemingly obeyed. The priests sold the ' tokens ' for a trifle without insisting on confession, and the apocryphal 'penitents ' received ' This custom of certifying fitness for communion by means of vouchers used to prevail in Scotland, perhaps does still, among the Presbyterians, and also among some Episcopal congregations. The metal vouchers were called ' tokens,' and were collected in church before communion, in proof that intending communicants had been examined and pronounced tit by the minister. AURICULAR CONFESSION 253 the Sacrament unsuspected. Can anything l)e imagined better calculated to degrade and discredit religion and sap the foundations of morality ? And yet it is not so very long ago since the Sacramental test, though under a less odious form, prevailed among ourselves— a sacrilege to which must be largely credited the low views about the Sacrament, together with its infrequent and slovenly administration. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the debased con- dition of the priesthood in Southern Italy after the liberation of the NeapoHtan Kingdom. The mass of the laity rebounded from the yoke of an intolerable tyranny to utter irreligion, and the corrupt priests lost their hvelihood. I have myself been more than once accosted in the streets of Na]3les by needy priests offering for a franc to say a mass for the soul of any of my friends or relations. These are the ' mass-priests ' of whom we read so much in the hterature of the English Eeformation ; and these are ' the sacrifices of masses ' denounced in the Thirty- first Article as ' blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.' I was so shocked by the state of the Church in Southern Italy that on my return to England I took the liberty of writing a full account of my experiences to Dr. Newman (he was not then Cardinal). With his characteristic kindness he sent me, young as I was, and a stranger, a most friendly reply ; and that was the commencement of a highly prized friendship with which he honoured me till his death. The fohowing extract from his letter is interesting, and as 254 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT I know that it contains nothing which he regarded as private, I may quote it : — I am afraid I cannot doubt matters are very bad in Italy, as you say. No one makes more ruinous con- fessions of the state of the ItaHan priesthood than St. Alfonso Liguori. And I do not know how one can wish for the continuance of a state of things which seems hopelessly bad. Everything I have heard of the regijiie of the Bourbons makes me rejoice in their overthrow, and I trust they will never be restored. A distinguished Roman prelate, who was here last year, said that the new generation will be brought up without any rehgion at all. He did not see any hope for Italy ; and he said the Pope had very few supporters. I suppose things imist be worse before they are better. And this reconciles me to what else would be insupportable — the sacrilege and blasphemy which prevail there. It is difficult to balance crimes, but there is something more revolting in ' holding the truth in unrighteousness ' than in persecuting it. No part of Mr. Walsh's romance about the Oxford Movement excited my indignation more than his gratuitous impeachment of the honour and veracity of men like Newman and Keble and Church. It w^ould be possible to destroy any man's reputation by Mr. Walsh's methods of controversy ; garbled quotations, insinuations, unproved asser- tions, sujypressio^ies veri equivalent to siiggestiones falsi. Even the four Evangelists would fare badly under such treatment. Nothing impressed me more in my long intercourse with Cardinal Newman than his transparent honesty. With true wisdom — un- like Cardinal Manning in that respect — he was not AUEICULAR CONFESSION 255 blind to the faults and corruptions of the Church of Rome, while his loyalty to, and his belief in, her never, I believe, wavered after he joined her com- munion. While himself a believer in Papal infalli- bility under certain conditions, he nevertheless strongly disapproved of the manner and precipitancy of Dr. Dollinger's excommunication. And surely every unprejudiced reader of his ' Apologia ' will acquit him of the dishonesty which Mr. Walsh imputes to him as one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. It is not Roman Catholics alone, or Anglican churchmen alone, or those alone who have been purified and braced by his unrivalled Parochial Sermons, who are concerned in the reputation of Newman. The whole English-speaking race is entitled to resent an attempt to besmirch the good name of a man who sacrificed for conscience' sake all that the world holds dear, and who has enriched the English tongue with some of the noblest master- pieces in its literature. But to return to the subject of confession. I was much struck by a letter from a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons which appeared in the * Times ' in the first week of September, 1898. He complained that ' many persons in isolated positions ' are, to his knowledge, ' put to the inconvenience and expense of a long journey ' because their own parish priests will not hear their confessions. And then he bears the following testimony : — I should like to make a further remark on the state- ment that habitual confession results in mental en- 256 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT feeblement. This has l)een so repeatedly stated that no doubt a vast number of people believe it to be a fact. But I may fairly ask for some evidence. I have never seen it so stated by any one ^vho has been in the habit of hearing confessions or by any one who habitually goes to confession. And I hold that only those who have the ex- perience are fit judges in the matter. I take my own case, if you will for the moment permit me to be an egoist. I am over sixty years of age. For the last thirty years I have been going to confession, sometimes at long intervals, more fre- quently at shorter ones. I am a member of the medical profession, a Fellow of my college, a hospital surgeon, and have attained some repute. I judge mj-self to be about the last man to be infected with morbid influences. My wife and my grown-up children go to confession. They none of them seem to be affected with mental feebleness. A vast number of my friends, some in my own profession, others lawyers, others hard-headed men of business, go to confession, and I fail to see the dreadful deterioration which is set forth. I am an Alpine climber, and have the personal acquaintance of numbers of the finest race of men, the Swiss guides. They are the most devout men I know, and they all ' go to their duties.' The w^hole thing is a figment of the brain unsupported by a single shred of evidence. One other thing I should like to state. In all my long experience of confession, made to many priests, I can never remember having one single ques- tion put to me. This statement as to examination of penitents is a pure fiction. I really do not know what answer is to be made to a statement of that sort. I have never heard or read that the English soldiers who fought at Agin- com't or Crecy, or Irish regiments at Waterloo or in the Crimea, were made less brave and manly than AUEICULAR CONFESSION 257 other men by going to confession. Let abuses of confession be guarded against by all means, and let no one practise it who prefers to do without it. But when that is said it seems to me that the question is exhausted. Indiscriminate denunciation of confes- sion within these limits is not only unreasonable ; it is misleading in addition, for it diverts the attention of the XDublic from the premonitory symptoms of the dangers which invariably lead to the decay of national life. The Koman satirist complained bitterly that • Syrian Orontes had flowed into the Tiber,' and flooded the city on the Seven Hills with the effemi- nate luxury and pollutions of the East ; so that it had ceased to be any advantage to the Koman youth to have in infancy inhaled the air of the Aventine and been nourished on the Sabine olive. ^ He reverts to the theme in another place, and contrasts the old Koman virtue, when Kome was poor, with the degeneracy which the spoils of a conquered w^orld had bred. ' In days of yore their humble fortune preserved the Latin women chaste, and their lowly roofs were kept from the contamination of vice by toil, by short slumbers, by hands galled and hardened with the Tuscan fleece, and Hannibal close to the city, and their husbands standing guard on the ' Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim clefluxit Orontes, Et linguam, et mores, et cum tibicine chordas Obliquas, nee non gentilia tympana secum Vexit, et ad circum jussas prostare puellas : Ite quibus grata est picta lupa barbara mitra ! llusticus ille tuus sumit trechedipna, Quirine, Et ceromatico fert niceteria collo ! — Juv. Sat. iii. G2-G7. S 258 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Colline to\Yer. Now we suffer the evils of long peace ; luxury, more cruel than war, broods over us and avenges a conquered world. No crime is want- incy, or deed of lust, from the time that Roman poverty came to an end. Henceforth the Sybaris flowed to these hills, and Ehodes, and ]Miletus, and garlanded, saucy, drunken Tarentum.' ' Does not London now present to the eye of him who penetrates below the fair surface of its gilded exterior many of the symptoms which fired the indi^^nation of Juvenal, and revealed to his prescient eye the inevitable Decline and Fall which Gibbon has described in detail ? But, to pass by the loath- some side of the picture, let us glance at what lies open to the observation of all. London attracts not only the wealth of the world and the luxury which wealth carries in its wake ; it also robs the provinces, as old Rome robbed hers, of much wealth and intel- ligence and enterprise on which they have a fair claim, and without which they are so much the poorer. In the early part of this century most of the nobility and gentry of Scotland never dreamt of having a house in London for ' the season.' Many of them did not visit London for an interval of years ; and not a few thought it unnecessary to take their families even as far as Edinburgh, except for an occasional ball or visit. Their ' town - houses ' meant their houses in the county town. They lived simple, frugal, and many of them cultivated and re- fined, lives among their people. A feeling of mutual ' Juvenal, Sat. vi. 287-298. AURICULAR CONFESSION 259 esteem and confidence thus grew up between the lord and laird on the one hand, and the people on the estate on the other. Now all who are * in society ' feel bound to spend a portion of each year in London, and are insensibly drawn into the vortex of its dissipation and its ruinous competition in luxury. What is the consequence ? Impoverished landlords ; mortgaged estates ; the old mansions occupied by strangers, who have no interest in the country, or sympathy with its people ; and a feeling of dangerous alienation spreading and deepening be- tween the owners of the soil and its tillers ; in a word, the precise condition of things which was so largely instrumental in producing the French Kevolution. Our police courts have lately lifted some corners of the veil that hides a state of social corruption in our midst which it is impossible to describe in detail, but which Juvenal describes in his sixth Satire as precipitating the fall of Rome. Noble Eomans — like Tacitus, for example — who were capable of looking above and beyond the follies and frivolities of the hour, were oppressed with a pro- found sentiment of sadness and foreboding. Eecog- nising the futility of resistance to the tide of corruption, and the impotence of mere law to stay the plague, they despaired of national regeneration, and were driven to the conclusion that human life had become empty and void, and the world a huge imposture.^ Only a few weeks ago the police found, ^ ' Ludibria rerum humanarum cunctis in negotiis.' — Tacitus, Ann. iii. 18. s2 260 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT on the premises of ca blackmailing quack, letters — covering only a period of three months — from sixteen thousand women, of all classes, enclosing hush money to conceal their having bought a drug to procure abortion. Will the most prejudiced de- nouncer of confession venture to affirm that a judicious use of confession might not help to arrest this secret sapping of our national life ? The clergy and medical men know more about these things than the general public. I have already said that I have never received the confessions of more than three persons, circumstances enabling me to send those who came to me to some more experi- enced clergyman. But I have at different times received letters from total strangers, asking my advice on the most delicate subjects, and dealing w^ith matters which, from inexperience, I did not at the time fully understand. In such cases I have asked permission to erase name and address, and anything likely to identify the writers, and consult the late Sir Andrew Clark. In every case permission was granted, and in giving my advice to my corre- spondents I have always insisted on my letter or letters being shown to the husband, when my cor- respondent was a wife, and always with the happiest results. These were not confessions in the technical sense of the word, and I mention them to show how impossible it is, even for the clergy themselves, to put a stop to these confidential communications. I do not suppose that my experience is at all excep- tional. One preaches a sermon or publishes a book, AUEICULAR CONFESSION 261 and a hearer or reader finds something that pricks the conscience or throws a flash of Hght on some hidden and perhaps unsuspected sin ; and the preacher or author is consulted personally or by letter. What is he to do ? Is he to turn a deaf ear to the cry of a soul in distress ? Suppose he does, and then hears that the person whom he repulsed has committed suicide or gone to the bad ; will not the remorseful thought that he might have saved that soul, and refused, haunt him to his dying day ? The clergy are, indeed, in an intolerable position if they are bidden by the Church, on the one hand, to invite all who ' cannot quiet their own consciences ' to resort to them for help, and are then denounced as ' perjured priests ' and reprobates for fulfilling the duty imposed upon them by the Church. And how slow people are to reaHse the folly of trying to fight against nature ! Naturam expellas furca ; tamen usque recurret, Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix. It is not ' murder ' only that ' will out.' Just as the human body struggles to expel an invading poison, and it is the healthiest body that struggles hardest, so the human soul strives, and the purest strives most, to cast out sin of every kind. It is no use answering that this can be done by confessing to God alone. We must take human nature as we find it, and the simple fact is that there are human beings who crave for human sympathy, and reafise the Divine forgiveness more easily if it reaches them 262 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT through the sound of a human voice. Consolation in sorrow comes really from God just as truly as the forgiveness of sins. Is there, then, no virtue in the touch of a sympathising hand, in the sob of a sympathising voice, in the glance of a sympathising eye? What is the meaning of the Incarnation if * the high and lofty One who inhabiteth Eternity ' was as accessible when ' dwelling in the unapproach- able light ' as He was when He appeared in human form among men, feeding the hungry, cleansing the lepers, comforting mourners, w^eeping over graves, raising the dead, casting out devils, pardoning sinners, taking up squalid children in His arms and blessing them ? It is not a question of God forgiv- ing any one who confesses to Him from a contrite heart without human intervention, but of man's realising the Divine forgiveness more when it reaches him through the ministry of his fellows. And I re- peat that the objection is equally valid against inter- cessory prayer — indeed against any intervening media. Why kneel in confession and prayer to God ? Why confess and pray at all to the Omni- scient One who knows our thoughts and needs before we utter them ? It is we who need these aids, not God, who bestows His gifts through the ministry of men and angels and innumerable material channels for our ])enefit, not from His necessity. 1 am persuaded that a great deal of the prejudice against voluntary confession, under proper safe- guards, arises from ignorance of the facts and from want of reflection. Of course, if a clergyman is dis- AURICULAR CONFESSION 2G3 honourable, he can abuse the confidence reposed in hhn ; but he can more easily abuse confidential intercourse of another kind, such as private inter- views in his study or vestry. The fact that there nia}^ be some dishonourable doctors in the medical profession does not prevent men from trusting their family doctors and allowing them to have private interviews with their waives and daughters. The business of life could not go on except on the prin- ciple of mutual confidence ; and if the clergy are not to be trusted to hear the spontaneous confessions of such of their people as voluntarily resort to them, that means that all private intercourse between them and any of their parishioners ought to be made penal. Short of that, the agitation against confession is futile. But if, on the other hand drastic measures are to be adopted, they ought to be applied all round — to Nonconformist ministers and Koman Catholic priests as rigorously as to the clergy of the Established Church. For the plain truth is that confession, under whatever name, prevails among all Christian denominations. Mr. Moody was in the habit of inviting private confessions at all his meetings ; and if intercourse of a private kind is to be allowed between a pastor and the individual members of his flock, does it not stand to reason that the more such intercourse is surrounded with the solemnities of rehgion, and the more open it is, the better ? It is safer in a surplice and stole on the part of the pastor than in a frock coat ; and safer in a confessional box in open church — where the pastor 264 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT need not know who is confessing to him — than in the secrecy of a locked vestry or study. It is odd how so practical a people as the English lose their usual common sense when their prejudices are violently excited. The sight of a confessional box in church, which reduces all risk of scandal or mischief to a minimum, is enough to drive people crazy who see no harm in a secluded tete-a-tete interview between pastor and penitent. The fact is, they don't stop to think or reason ; they merely give vent to their alarmed feelings ; like a charming old lady whom I once knew. * Dick,' said she one day to a favourite grandson, ' I wish you would put away that pistol. It is most dangerous.' ' But, dear Granny,' pleaded the boy, ' it is not loaded.' ' Never mind, my dear,' said she, ' loaded or not, it may go off.' But it is time to consider w^hat the Church of England says upon this subject. For neither in this nor in other matters do I desire to go beyond her teaching. 265 CHAPTEK VIII THE REFOKMATION AND CONFESSION One of the commonplaces of the current controversy on the so-called ' Chmxh Crisis ' is the assertion that the Keformers condemned and repudiated the doctrine and practice of auricular confession, and that such confession has remained ever since under the ban of the Church of England. Let us examine that assertion in the Hght of history; and let us begin with the Book of Common Prayer. In the year 1548 there was an ' Order for Com- munion ' set forth containing an exhortation, in which auricular confession was recommended in the following language : — ' And if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled or grieved in anything, lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other dis- creet and learned priest, taught in the law of God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort that his conscience may be relieved, and that of us (as of the Ministers of God and of the Church) he may receive comfort and absolution, to the satisfaction of his mind, and avoiding of all scruple 266 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT and doubtfulness ; requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest ; nor those also which think needful or convenient, for the quietness of their own consciences, particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church. But in all things to follow and keep the rule of charity ; and every man to be satisfied with his own conscience, nor judging other men's minds or con- sciences ; whereas he hath no warrant of God's Word to the same.' In the subsequent editions of the Prayer Book the intending communicant, ' w^ho cannot quiet his own conscience,' is bidden to go to his parish priest, * or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God's Word, and open his grief ; that by the ministry of God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together wath ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all scruples and doubtfulness.' In the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, through all the editions of the Prayer Book, the sick person is directed to make a special confession of sins preparatory to absolution ; but in the last re- vision the priest is ordered to ' move ' him to such confession ; after which he is to absolve him in the following words : — ' Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to THE KEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 267 His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences. And by His authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' Dr. Newman delivered a challenge on this question which is worth quoting, and which, as far as I know, has never been answered. It is as follows : — Let candid men consider tlie form of Al^solution contained in the Prayer Book, of which all clergymen, Evangelical and Liberal, as well as High Church, and (I think) all persons in University offices declare, that ' it containeth notliing contranj to the Word of God.' I challenge, in the sight of all England, Evangelical clergymen generally to put on paper an interpretation of this form of words, consistent with their sentiments, which shall be less forced than the most objectionable interpretations which Tract XC. puts upon any passage in the Articles.' Dr. Newman then quotes the form of Absolution in the Prayer Book, and contrasts it with the Roman, which, of the two, is certainly the milder form. The right of pronouncing this absolution is by the Church of England strictly confined to an ordained priesthood. On the head of every priest in the Church of England, be he High, or Low, or Broad, a bishop laid his hands and pronounced these words : — ' Apologia, p. 171. First Edition. 268 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ' Keceive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments : in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' ^ Thus much for the direct evidence of the Prayer Book. Let us now turn to another class of evidence. In one of the Injunctions set forth in the first year of Edward VI. there is an inquiry whether ' parsons, vicars, curates, chantry priests, and other stipendiaries,' ' have every Lent required their parishioners in their confession to recite their Pater Noster, the Articles of our faith, and the Ten Com- mandments in English ; ' and this inquiry is repeated in the Visitation Articles of Archbishop Cranmer in the second year of Edward.- The regular practice of confession is here assumed. Queen Elizabeth, soon after her accession, put forth Injunctions, of which Archbishop Parker and other bishops afterwards published * Interpretations and further Considerations.' Among them is the following : ' Ecclesia Christi est, in qua purum Dei Verbum praedicatur, et Sacramenta juxta Christi ordi- nationem administrantur ; et in qua clavium autlio- ritas retinetur.' ^ ' Mr. Frederick Yerney, with the manly honesty which belongs to his nature, declared lately in the Times that these words deterred him, while a deacon, from proceeding to the order of priesthood. '^ Cardwell's Doc. Ann. vol. i. pp. 26, 51, ^ Ibid. p. 240. THE REFOEMATION AND CONFESSION 269 Among ' Certain Articles of Keligion, set forth by the order of both Archbishops, MetropoHtans, and the rest of the Bishops, for the uniformity of Doc- trine .... to be read by all parsons, vicars, and curates at their possession-taking, or first entry into their cure,' is the following : ' I do acknowledge also that Church to be the spouse of Christ, wherein the Word of God is truly taught, the Sacraments orderly administered according to Christ's institution, and the authority of the Keys duly used.' ^ In the 113th Canon of 1603, the regular practice of confession is taken for granted, as follows : — ' If any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the Minister, for the unburdening of his conscience and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him, we do straitly charge and admonish him, that he do not reveal and make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy, under pain of irregularity.' In the year 1696 Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkins were executed at Tyburn for conspiracy against the life of William III. Three English clergymen, Messrs. Cooke, Snatt, and Collier, at- tended them on the scaffold, and, with imposition of hands, gave them absolution in the sight of the assembled multitude. This was considered a grave scandal, and the two Primates of the day (Tenison and Sharp) , together with twelve other Bishops then 'in and about London,' immediately put forth a * Declaration ' against this irregular proceeding. But ' Cardwell's Doc. Ann. vol. i. p. 261. 270 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the ground which they take is not that the system of private confession has heen disallowed in our Keformed Church; on the contrary, they quote with approbation the Kubric which enjoins the Minister to ' move ' the penitent ' to make a special confession of his sins,' and censure the offending Ministers for not obeying it. ' If those Ministers,' they say, ' knew not the state of these men's souls, how could they, without manifest transgression of the Church's order, as well as the profane abuse of the power Christ has left icith His Ministers, absolve them from all their sins ? ' ^ I do not know whether the office of Confessor of the Eoyal Household has ever been formally abo- lished. It certainly existed in the early part of this century, and long after the Great Kebellion at least it w^as no sinecure. In the 19th Canon of the Irish Church, passed when Ussher was Primate and Bramhall Bishop of Derry, it is ordered that 'The Minister of every parish shall, the afternoon before the said adminis- tration (of the Lord's Supper), give warning by the tolling of the bell, or otherwise, to the intent that if any have any scruple of conscience, or desire the special ministry of reconciliation, he may afford it to those that need it. And to this end the people are often to be exhorted to enter into a special examination of the state of their own souls; and finding themselves either extremely dull, or much troubled in mind, they do resort to God's Ministers > Cardwell's Doc. Ann. pp. 302-G. THE EEFOKMATION AND CONFESSION 271 to receive from them as well advice and counsel for the quickening of their dead hearts and the sujjduing of those corruptions v^hereunto they have been subject, as the benefit of absolution likew^ise for the quieting their conscience by the powder of the keys, which Christ hath committed to His Ministers for that j)i^rpose/ ^ Let this suffice as to the law of ' our licformed Church ' on the subject of Confession, as embodied in the Prayer Book and other formal and authori- tative documents. And that auricular confession was commonly practised in our Communion, at least down to the religious catalepsy of the eighteenth century, and even after by devout members of the Church, is a fact which admits of abundant demon- stration, as a few examples will show. Hooker, as we learn from Izaak Walton in his life of him, was absolved on his death-bed by Saravia, * they being supposed to be confessors to each other.' Bishop Andrewes, too, not only taught but practised confession. In his ' Devotions ' he thanks God ' qui aperuisti mihi portam spei confitenti et roganti ex mysteriorum et claviitm lootestate^' ^ And it is re- lated of him that when he was Prebendary of St. Paul's it was his custom during Lent to be in the Cathedral daily at certain hours to hear confessions. Bishop Bull also, the great defender of the Nicene Creed, who died in 1710, confessed and received ' Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law, vol. i. p. G98. - Preces Quoticliancc , p. 266. 272 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT absolution more than once during his last illness.' Ko one at all familiar with the diaries and clironicles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will need to be told that they afford abundant evidence that the practice of auricular confession and absolution was then recognised as one of the ordinary means of grace. Let me quote two extracts from Kennet's ' Register and Chronicle ' by way of example : — I was chosen by the Duchess of York, as soon as she was known to be so (saith Bishop Morley), to be her spiritual director and guide in those things that con- cerned her spiritual and everlasting condition ; and the reason why she made choice of me to be so, rather than any other of my order, was because she knew me better, and because I had been her first instructor in matters of rehgion many years before. In this relation of mine to the Duchess I continued until after her father's banishment, and all that time I must bear her witness that she was not only a zealous Protestant herself, according as it is by law^ established in the Church of England, but zealous to make Protestants, as appears by what she did for that counterfeit pre- tended convert Macedo (whom the foresaid libeller Maimbourg magnifies so much, though he knows he proved himself to be an aiTant impostor and profligated w^retch), and in her own deportment as devout and charitable as ever I knew any of her age and sex : inso- much as that besides her private prayers, morning and evening, which she never omitted, she daily and hourly observed the Canonical Hours of the Public Service of God in her Chapel with those of her family. Neither did she ever (as long as I was with her) omit the re- ' Last Hours of Eminent Christians, p. 182. THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 273 ceiving of tlio Sacnunent of the Lord's Supper once every month at least, besides that of solemn Festivals which she always received with the King in the Royal Chapel. A7id ahvays the day before she received she made a voluntary confession of luhat she thought she had offended God in, either by omission or commission, inofess- ing her sorroiv for it, and inomising ajnendment of it, and then hnceling down she desired and received absolution IN THE FORM AND WORDS PRESCRIBED BY OUR ChURCH.^ Mr. Lenthall, Speaker of the Long Parliament, who died on September 3, 16G2, was attended in his last illness by Dr. Bredock (also spelt Bride- oake), Kector of Witney, and afterwards Bishop of Chichester, who gives, in a letter preserved by Kennet,- an interesting account of his conversation with the penitent Puritan. * When I came to his presence,' says Bredock, ' he told me '' he was very glad to see me ; for he had two great works to do, and I must assist him in both ; to fit his body for ' Kennet's Register and Chronicle, p. 385, Edition of 1728. Those who object to the practice of confession are sometimes put to liard shifts in explaining the language of the Prayer Book. To the mind of any one not blinded by prejudice or ignorance, the Exhorta- tion in the Communion Otiice plainly advises private confession, to be followed by the only form of private absolution prescribed by the Church, to all who have any scruples about their fitness for partaking of the Sacrament. It would never occur to him that all that was meant was that the penitent should have a private conversation with his pastor, and listen to some passages of Holy Scripture, that he might thereby ' receive the benefit of absolution ' ! Yet this explana- tion has been gravely offered by persons in authority. We see the traditional, as it is indeed the only legitimate, interpretation of the passage in the place marked by capitals in the quotation in the text. - P. 762. 274 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the earth and his soul for heaven : " to which purpose he desired me to pra}^ with him. I told him the Church had appointed an Office of the Visitation of the Sick, and I must use that. He said " Yes, he chiefly desired the prayers of the Church;" wherein he joyned with great fervency and devotion. After prayers he desired absolution ; I told him I was very ready and willing to pronounce it ; but he must first come to a Christian confession and contrition for the sins and failings of his life : "Well, sir," said he, ''then instruct me to my duty." I desired him to examine his life by the Ten Commandments, and wdierein he found his failings, to fly to the Gospel for mercy. Then I read the Ten Commandments in order to him, mentioning the principal sins against each commandment.' Dr. Bredock then goes on to say that of course he omits what the penitent told him ' under the seal of this Office,' and only states what Mr. Lenthall autho- rised him to publish. ' After this Office,' he adds, * wherein, indeed, he showed himself a very hearty penitent, he again desired the absolution of the Church, which I then pronounced, and which he received with much content and satisfaction : •' For," says he, '' now, now indeed do I find the joy and benefit of that Office which Christ hath left in His Church ; " . . . The next day he received the Sacrament, and after that work I desired him to express himself to Dr. Dickenson (a learned physi- cian. Fellow of Merton College, who received the Sacrament with him) concerning the King's death, THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 275 because he had only done it to nie in confession ; which he did to the same effect as he had to me.' So much as to the doctrine of the Church of England on this subject, as prescribed in her autho- rised formularies, and illustrated in her practice. It would be easy to show that the same doctrine is taught and enforced by all her great divines ; but I must again content myself with fairly representative specimens. The Catechism of Justus Jonas, which was trans- lated, adopted, and authoritatively recommended by Cranmer, contains the following passage : — Now God doth not speak to us with ii Voice sounding out of heaven ; but He hath given the Keys of the King- dom of Heaven, and the author it jj to forgive sin, to the ministers of the Churcli. Wherefore let him that is a sinner go to one of them. Let him achioioledge and con- fess his sin, and pray him that, according to God's Com- mandments, he will give him absolution, and comfort him with the word of grace and forgiveness of his sins. And when the minister doth so, then I ought steadfastly to beheve that my sins are truly forgiven me in heaven. . . . Wherefore, good children, give good ear to this doctrine ; and when your sins do mahe you afraid and sad, then seek and desire absolution and forgiveness of your sins of the ministers ivhich have received a commission and command- ment from Christ Himself to forgive mfin their sins; and then your consciences shall have peace, tranquillity, and quietness. But he that doth not obey this counsel, but being either blind or proud, dotli despise the same, he shall not find forgiveness of his s/«s, neither in his own good works, not yet in painful chastisements of his body, or any other things whereto God hath not promised remission of 1-2 27G THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT sins, ^vherefore despise not absolution, for it is the com- mandmcnt and ordinance of God} Bishop Latimer says : — But to speak of right and true confession, I would to God it were kept in England ; for it is a good thing. And those which find themselves grieved in conscience might go to a learned man and there fetch of him comfort of the Word of God, and so come to a quiet conscience. . . . And it grieveth me much that such confessions are not kept in England. - Bishop Ridley says : — You have known me long indeed, in the which time it has chanced me, as you say, to mislike some things. It is ti'ue, I grant ; for sudden changes without substantial and necessary cause, and the heady setting forth of ex- tremities, I never did love. Confession unto the minister, which is able to instruct, correct, comfort, inform the weak, wounded, and ignorant conscience, indeed I ever thought might do much good to Christ's congi'egation, and so, I assure you, I think even at this day.^ In the Sixth of Archbishop Parker's Articles of Visitation, in 1567, those are condemned w^ho teach ' that mortal or voluntary sins, committed after baptism, be not remissible by penance.' '* The following will show Hooker's opinion : — But concerning confession in private, the Churches of Germany, as well the rest as Lutherans, agree all, that all men should at certain times confess their offences to God in the hearing of God's ministers, thereby to show how their sins displease them ; to receive instruction for ' Catechism, p. 202. - Sermons, ii. 390. Edit. 1824. ^ ' Letter to one Martin West.' Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. iii. G7. ' Cardwell's Doc. Ann. i. 341. THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 277 the warier carriage of themselves hereafter ; to be soundly resolved, if any scruple or snare of conscience do entangle their minds ; and, which is most material, to the end that men may at God's hand seek everij one his oivn imrticular pardon, throiKjU the j^oiverof those keys, which the minister of God using according to oui' blessed Saviour's institution in that case, it is their part to accept the benefit thereof as God's most merciful ordinance for their good, and, without any distrust or doubt, to embrace joyfully His grace so given them according to the word of our Lord, which hath said, * Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted.' So that grounding on this assured belief, they are to rest with minds encouraged and persuaded concerning the forgiveness of all their sins, as of Christ's own w^ord and power, by the ministry of the keys.* Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, whom De Quincey calls ' one of the subtlest intellects that England has produced,' ^ is severe upon ' that torture of the conscience, that usurpation of God's power, that spying into the counsel of princes, with which the Church of Eome hath been deeply charged ; ' but he is equally clear in favour of the system of confession sanctioned by the Church of England. For example : — Confitehor Domino (says David), I will confess my sins to the Lord : sins are not confessed if they be not confessed to Him ; and if they be confessed to Him, in case of necessity it tcill suffice, though they be confessed to no other. Indeed, a confession is directed upon God, though it be made to His minister : if God had appointed 1 Eccl. Pol. Bk. vi. ch. iv. 14. 2 Works, vii. 276. 278 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT His angels or His saints to absolve me, as He hath His ministers, I would confess to them. . . . Men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves, nor are they to be brought in chains, as they do in the Roman Church, by a necessity of an exact enumeration of all their sins, but to be led with that sweetness with which our Church proceeds, in appointing sick persons, if they feel their conscience troubled with any weighty matters, to make co special confession, and to receive absolution at the hands of tlie priest ; ' and then we are to remember that * cverij coming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our own transmigration out of the icorld, and toe should do as much here for the settling of our conscience as upon our death-bed.' ^ Bishop Hall can hardly be called a High Church- man, yet here is a specimen of his teaching on the sub- ject of auricular confession : — If after all these penitent endeavours you find your soul still unquiet, and not sufficiently apprehensive of a free and full forgiveness, betake yourself to God's faithful agent for peace : run to your ghostly physician ; lay your bosom open before him ; flatter not your own condition ; let neither fear nor shame stay his hand from probing and searching the wound to the bottom ; and that being done, make careful use of such spiritual applications as shall be by him administered to you. This, this is the way to a perfect recovery and fulness of comfort. And again : — Although therefore you may perhaps, through God's goodness, attain to such a measure of knowledge and resolution as to be able to give yourself satisfaction con- cerning the state of your soul ; yet it cannot ])e amiss, out ' Sermons, Ivi. THE EEFOEMATION AND CONFESSION 279 of an abundant caution, to tako God's minister along with you, and making him of your spiritual counsel, to unbosom yourself to him freely, for his fatherly advice and con- currence : the neglect whereof, through a kind of either strangeness or misconceit, is certainly not a little disad- vantageous to the souls of many good Christians. The Romish laity make either oracles or idols of their ghostly fathers : if we make ciphers of ours, I know not w^hether w^e be more injurious to them or ourselves. They go about to rack your consciences to a forced and exquisite confession under the pain of no remission ; but we persuade you, for your own good, to be more intimate with and less reserved from those w^hom God hath set over you, for your direction, comfort, and salvation.* Bishop Overall, the author of the latter part of the Church Catechism, makes the following inquiry in the 21st Article of his Visitation in 1619 :— Whether doth your minister, before the several times of the administration of the Lord's Supper, admonish and exhort his parishioners, if they have their consciences troubled and disquieted, to resort unto him, or some other learned minister, and open his grief, that he may receive such ghostly counsel and comfort as his conscience may be relieved, and by the minister he may receive the benefit of absolution, to the quiet of his conscience and avoiding of scruple. And if any man confess his secret and hidden sins, be he sick or whole, to the minister, for the unburthening of his conscience, and receiving such spiritual consolation, doth or hath the said minister at any time revealed and made known to any person whomsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust, contrary to the 113th Canon ? Similar inquiries are to be found in abundance in * Works vii. 453-5. 280 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the Visitation Articles of other bishops. I give Overall's as a siDecimen of the general rule. Bishop Cosin, who was always proud to appeal to the authority of ' My Lord and Master Overall,' WTites as follows : — The Church of England, howsoever it holdeth not Confession and Absolution Sacramental, that is, made unto and received from a priest, to be so absolutely necessary, as that luitliout it there can be no remission of sins ; yet by this place it is manifest what she teacheth. . . . Our * if he feel his conscience troubled ' is no more than his * if he find out his sins ' (' si inveniat peccata ') ; for if he be not troubled with sin, what needs either Confession or Absolution ? Venial sins that separate not from the grace of God need not so much to trouble a man's conscience. If he hath committed any mortal sin, then we require confession of it to a priest, who may give him, upon his true contrition and repentance, the benefit of absolution, which takes effect according to his disposition that is absolved. . . . The truth is, that in the priest's absolution there is the true power and virtue of forgiveness, which will most certainly take effect, ' unless an obstacle is imposed,' as in Baptism.^ Jeremy Taylor says : — It is a very pious preparation to the Holy Sacrament that we confess our sins to the minister of religion : for since it is necessary that a man be examined, and a self- examination was prescribed to the Corinthians in the time of their lapsed discipline, that though there were divisions amongst them, and no established governors, yet from this duty they were not to be excused, and they must in destitution of a public minister do it themselves, but this is in case of such necessity : the other is better : that is, it is of better order and more advantage that this ' Notes on Common Prayer, First Series, p. 163. THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 281 part of repentance and holy preparation be performed under the conduct of a spmtual guide. And the reason is pressing. For since it is Hfe or death that is there administered, and the great dispensation of the keys is in that ministry, it were well if he that ministers did know whetlier the person presented were fit to communicate or no ; and if he be not, it is charity to reject him, and charity to assist him that he may be fitted. There are many sad contingencies in the constitution of ecclesiastical affairs, in which every man that needs this help, and would fain make use of it, cannot ; hut iclicn he can meet ivitli the blessing, itiuere icell it were more frequently itsed and more readily entertained. Again : — But the priest's proper power of absolving, that is, of pardoning (which is in no case communicable to any man who is not consecrated to the ministry), is a giving the penitent the means of eternal pardon, the admitting him to the Sacraments of the Church and the peace and communion of the faithful ; because that is the only way really to obtain pardon of God ; there being in ordinary no way to heaven but by serving God in the w^ay which He hath commanded us by His Son, that is, in the way of the Church, which is His body, whereof He is Prince and Head.^ Chillingworth is a name to conjure with among Protestants. His favourite maxim, ' The Bible and the Bible only the religion of Protestants,' has become a proverb. His name would evoke the plaudits even of the Albert Hall demonstrators. Let us see then what Chillingworth says : — Since Christ, for your benefit and comfort, hath given ' Jeremy Taylor's Works, vii. 452, 484. Eden's Edition. 282 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT such authority to His ministers, upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition, to absolve and release you from your sins, . . . therefore, in obedience to His gracious will, and as I am warranted, and even enjoined, by my holy mother the Church of England expressly, in the Book of Common Prayer, in the rubric of visiting the sick (which doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far), I l)eseech you tliat by your practice and use you wdll not suffer that commission which Christ hath given to His ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them ; to be an antiquated, expired commis- sion, of no use nor validity in these days ; but whenso- ever you find yourselves charged and oppressed, especially with such crimes as they call * Peccata vastantia con- scientiam,' such as do lay w^aste and depopulate the con- science, that you have recourse to your spiritual physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease, that he may be able, as the cause shall require, to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives, or comfort and temper it with oil. And come not to him only w^ith such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienced in the Scripture, as one that can speak com- fortable, quieting w^ords to you, but as one that hath authority delegated to him from God Himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins.^ I do not know whether Bishop Ken's Manual, composed for the use of Winchester scholars, is still used in that illustrious school. A copy of it, which I still possess, was given to me by the clergyman who prepared me for my first communion, a very moderate man, and it contains the following direc- tion : — In case, good Philotheus, you do find this examination ' Works (Serm. vii.), pp. 83-4. THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 283 too difliciilt for you, or you are afraid you shall not riglitly perform it, or meet with any scruples or troubles of con- science in the practice of it, I then advise you, as the Church does, to go to one of your superiors in this place to be your spiritual guide, and be not ashamed to un- burthen your soul freely to him ; that, besides his ghostly counsel, you may receive the benefit of absolution ; for though confession of our sins to God is only matter of duty, and absolutely necessary, yet confession to our spiritual guide also is by many devout souls found to l^e very advantageous to true repentance.' Archbishop Wake says : — The Church of England refuses no sort of confession, either public or private, which may be any w^ay necessary to the quieting of men's consciences, or to the exercise of that power of binding and loosing which our Saviour Christ has left to His Church, We have our penitential canon for public offenders ; we exhort men, if they have any the least doubt or scruple, nay, sometimes though they have none, hut specially before they receive the Holy Sacrament, to confess their sins. We propose to them the benefit not only of ghostly advice hoio to manage their re- pentance, hut the great comfort of absolution too, as soon as they have completed it. . . . When we visit our sick, ive never fail to exhort them to make a special confession of their sins to him that ministers to them ; and when they have done it, their absolution is so full that the Church of Rome itself could not desire to add anything to it.- ' A Manual of Prayers for the use of the Scholars of Winchester College, and all other devout Christians. To which are added Three Hymns; for Morning, Evening, and Midnight. By the Right Eeverend Father in God, Thomas Ken, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. The thirty-fifth edition. P. 24. - An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, p. 31.' 284 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Dr. South asks : Does the Church of England hold auricular or private confession to the priest as an integral part of repentance and necessary condition of absolution ? No : the Church of England denies such confessions to be necessary, either necessitate prcccejHi, as enjoined by any law or command of God ; or necessitate incdii, as a necessary part of pardon or remission of sins ; and consequently rejects it as a snare and a burden, groundlessly and tyrannically imposed upon the Church. But so much of private confession as may be of spiritual use for the dis- burthening of a troubled conscience, unable of itself to master or grapple with its own doubts, by imparting them to some knowing, discreet, spiritual person, for his advice and resolution about them ; so much, I confess, the Church of England does approve, advise, and allow of. Bishop Short, w-ho was more of an Evangelical than a High Churchman, says: — The evils and abuses arising from this custom had so alienated the minds of most men from it, that it was readily dispensed with ; but it has proved a misfortune to our Church that the tide of opinion has carried us too far towards the opposite extreme. The Scriptures never speak of confession as obligatory in such a sense as the injunctions of the Church of Eome had ordained. Con- fession to a priest is nowhere mentioned as absolutely necessary ; but reason, as well as the Word of God, strongly points out, that to acknowledge our faults, espe- cially to one vested with spiritual authority over us, must be a most effectual means of restraining us from the com- mission of sin. ... In the Church of England the confession of particular sins is recommended in the Exhortation to the Sacrament, and the Visitation of the Sick ; but so little are THE REFORMATION AND CONFESSION 285 we accustomed to this most Scriptural duty, that these recommendations are frequently unknown and generally neglected, while scarcely a vestige remains of ecclesiastical law for the restraint of vice.^ Bishop Tomline, no High Churchman, while condemning * the Popish Sacrament of Penance,' is careful to add : — Confession of sin to God is an indispensable duty, and confession to priests may sometimes be useful by leading to effectual repentance ; and therefore our Church encourages its members to use confidential confession to their priests, or to any other minister of God's Word.^ The latitudinarian Bishop Burnet, while con- demning compulsory confession, and recognising dangers lurking even in voluntary confession, allows that ' in the use of confession, when proposed as our Church does, as matter of advice and not of obliga- tion, we are very sensible many good ends may be obtained.' ^ And not only so, but he was in the habit of hearing confessions. A brother bishop having asked him * what absolution he used when people came to confess to him,' adding that himself ' was in the habit of using that in the Office for the Sick, but wished to know what was Burnet's practice,' the latter replied that ' in his opinion either was proper, but that he himself used that in the Office for Holy Communion.' * ' History of the Church of England, p. 170. 2 Scriptural Expos, of the XXXIX Articles, Art. XXV. 3 An Expos, of the XXXIX Art. p. 311. * See Church and the World, 2nd series, p. 393. 286 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Dr. Barrow, the great writer against Papal Supremacy, says : — If Christian men, having fallen into sin, or failed of duty towards God, do seriously confess their faults, and heartily repent thereof, when the ministers of the Church, in God's name and for Christ's sake, do declare (or pro- nounce) to them, so doing or so qualified, the pardon of their sin and absolve them from it ; we need not doubt that their sins are verily forgiven, and the pardon expressed in words is effectually dispensed unto them.' One of the best accredited and most popular of Anglican Vademecums is ' The Country Parson ' of the saintly George Herbert, and here is his picture of * the parson comforting : ' — In his visiting the sick or otherwise afMicted he fol- loweth the Church's counsel, viz. in persuading them to particular confession ; labouring to make them under- stand the great good use of this ancient and pious ordinance, and how necessary it is in some cases. Wheatley's * Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer' is a work of great moderation, and is commonly on the list of books recommended by our bishoj^s to candidates for ordination. Admit- ting the existence of abuses in times past, Wheatley says : -— But no argument, sure, can be drawn, that because a practice has been abused, it should therefore cease to be. The abuses of it should be reformed, but not the practice discontinued. He then adopts as his own the charitable rule ' 'An Exposition of the Creed,' Wo7-J:s, vii. '.)1'.). 2 Pp. 375, 37G. THE REFORMATION AND CONFESSION 287 laid down in the Order of Communion of 1548, quoted on a previous page, and goes on : — What could have been added more judicious than this, to temper, on the one hand, the rigours of those who were too apt at that time to insist upon confession as absolutely necessary to salvation ; and to prevent, on the other, a carelessness in those who, being prejudiced against the abuse, were apt indiscriminately to reject the thing, as at no time needful or useful in a penitent ?■ So that we may still, I presume, wish, very consistently with the de- termination of our Church, that our people would apply themselves oftener than they do to their spiritual physi- cians, even in the time of their health ; since it is much to be feared they are wounded oftener than they complain,, and yet, through aversion of disclosing their sore, suffer it to gangrene for want of their help who should work the cure. The philosophic Bishop Berkeley writes : — • I had forgot to say a word of confession, which you mention as an advantage in the Church of Rome which is not to be had in ours. But it may be had in our com- munion by any who please to have it ; and I admit it may be very usefully practised.^ I possess tw^o volumes entitled ' Enchiridion Theologicum, or a Manual for the use of Students in Divinity. By John Lord Bishop of London.' Mine is the third edition, and was published in 1825. It is a compilation, and the author says : — My choice has been principally directed to such works as had the sanction of public authority, and which may ' Letter to Sir John James. Berkeley's Works, iv. 278. 288 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT therefore be relied on as containinfi; the final and decided opinions of our Reformers approved of in the general by the Church at large. Among the documents in this collection is 'A Short Catechisme or Playne Instruction, conteyning the sum of Christian learning, set forth by the King's Majesties Authoritie for all Scholemasters to teach, 1553.' The Catechism has a distinctly Evangehcal flavour. But it teaches plainly enough the doctrines of the Eeal Presence in the Eucharist, and the power of the keys in the Church. Of the former it says : — Even as by bread and wine our natural bodies are sustained and nourished, so by the body, that is the flesh and bloude of Christ, the soule is fedde through fayth, and quickened to the heavenlye and godly lyfe. Of the latter : — To this Church belong the keies whearwyth heaven is locked and unlocked : for that is done by the ministration of the worde ; whereunto properly appertayneth the power to bynde and louse ; to holde for gylty, and forgive synnes. Another document is ' Kules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocese of Dow^n and Connor, by Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of that Diocese.' Among the Bules is the following (Xo. Ixviii.) : — Let every minister exhort his people to a frequent confession of their sins, and a declaration of the state of their souls ; to a conversation with their minister in spiritual things, to an inquiry concerning all the parts of their THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 289 duty ; for by preaching, and catechising, and private intercourse, all the needs of the soul can l)est be served ; but by preaching alone they cannot. Again, Kule Ixxii. says :— A minister must not stay till he be sent for, but of his own accord and care go to them, to examine them, to exhort tliem to perfect their repentance, to strengthen their faith, to encourage their patience, to persuade them to resignation, to the renewing of their holy vows, to the love of God, to be reconciled to their neighbours, to make restitution and amends, to confess their sins, to settle their estate, to provide for their charges, to do acts of piety and charity, and above all things, that they take care they do not sin towards the end of their lives. For if repentance on our death-bed seems so very late for the sins of our life, what time shall be left to repent us of the sins we commit on our death-bed ? Again (Kule xliii.) : — Let not the humours and inclinations of the people be the measures of your doctrines, but let your doctrine be the measure of their persuasions. Let them know from you what they ought to do ; but if you learn from them w^hat you ought to teach, you w411 give but a very ill account at the day of judgment of the souls committed to you. He that receives from the people what he shall teach them is like a nurse that asks of her child what physic she shall give him. These are specimens of the teaching inculcated as a matter of com'se by Bishop Jeremy Taylor in an Irish Protestant diocese. And the Bishop of London in the year 1825 recommends it, equally as a matter of course, * for the use of students in divinity ' u 290 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT in England. A similar recommendation from the present Bishop of London would probably provoke from Sir William Harcourt a scathing denunciation in the columns of the ' Times.' But let us come down to our own time. I suppose the late Dr. Yaughan would be accurately described as an Evangelical Broad Church- man. I enjoyed the great privilege of his friendship, and I know that he held decided views as to the expediency of private confession in certain cases. But there is no need to draw on one's memory, for his views are public property. In a volume of * Addresses to Young Clergymen,' published in 1875, he says : ' — • Most clergyraen, whatever their Church views, find themselves compelled sometimes to receive confessions. In other words, they are the natm-pJ referees in cases of conscience ; and cannot, if they would, evade the necessity of ministering privately to spiritual disease. It may be in the form of difficulties of believing. It may be in the form of perplexities in acting. It may be in the form of distresses about sin, the forgiveness of the past, or strength against the present. In some form or other, the study must sometimes be a confessional ; and one of the most anxious, most trying, most exhausting parts of the clergyman's day is given of necessity to this office. The late Mr. Frederick Denison Maurice would be generally recognised as the most distinguished leader of the Broad Church party. I knew him well enough to be able to say that nobody would be more ' P. 34. THE REFORMATION AND CONFESSION 291 shocked than ho by such demonstrations as the recent Albert Hall meeting. The view of Sacerdo- talism which I have endeavoured to explain in previous chapters pervades his writings. Let one specimen suffice : — Now these facts are indisputable. 1. The whole sacerdotal caste in Cliristendom has the name of ministers or servants. From the Bishop of Rome down to the founder of the last new sect in the United States of America, every one who deals with the Gospel at all, or pretends in any sense to have a Divine commission, assumes this name as the description of his office. 2. The most remarkable power which these ministers have claimed, and that on account of which the greatest homage has been paid to them, is the power of absolving or setting free. This claim has in a manner been universal. Luther beheved that he was to absolve as much as Tetzel. Every person who says that the sole office of a minister is to preach the Gospel says so because he believes that is the way to absolve. There are most serious differences about the nature of the power and the mode in which it is to be exercised, none at all about the existence of it, and about its connection in some way or other with the Christian ministry. ... It has been believed, as a necessary consequence of the importance attached to the Eucharist, that an order of men must exist in the Christian Church corresponding to the priests of the old dispensation, with the difference that the sacrifice in the one case was anticipatory, in the other commemorative. This office has been associated with the absolving power of which I spoke just now.^ ' The Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. pp. 109-111. The italics in this passage are Maurice's. u 2 292 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Thus we see that this distinguished and revered Broad Churchman gives as the two notes of Christian ministers, that they are an absolving and a sacrificing priesthood in the sense expounded by Bramhall and the representative school of Anglican divines in general. And he emphasises what I have been insisting on, namely, that it is impossible to get away from Sacerdotalism. It underlies and pene- trates the whole system of the Providential Govern- ment of the world. It argues a very loose and shallow habit of thinking on theological subjects not to see this. So much, then, as to the doctrine of the Church of England on the subject of auricular confession and absolution. The popular notion that the repu- diation of these formed a fundamental tenet of ' the Reformation Settlement ' is one of the most curious myths of history. The fact is that it was not a burning question at all, or even a debatable question, among the Eeformers. The Puritans w^ho clamoured against vestments and other ' relics of Popery ' said nothing against confession. How indeed could they, when not only Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and other leading Reformers were advocates of it, but foreign Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists alike, upheld the system, abolishing only its compulsory character ? The Saxon, the Bohemian, and the Augsburg Con- fessions of Faith insist on the duty of private confession with a view to absolution through the ministerial exercise of the power of the keys. Luther's ' Shorter Catechism ' was accepted by the THE REFORMATION AND CONFESSION 293 Lutheran body as one of these dogmatic books. One chapter is entitled ' On Confession : how those of the simpler sort are to be instructed in it ; ' and it opens thus : — Confession comprisetli two things : one, to con- fess sins ; the other, to receive absolution or remission of sins horn the confessor or preacher of the Gospel, as if from God Himself, and not to doubt, but firmly to believe that through absolution the sins are remitted before God in heaven. The preface to the * Formula of Concord ' says that ' all the Churches of the Confession of Augsburg approved and received this Catechism,' with others that are named. ' So that they were propounded publicly in churches and schools and some private houses.' It is not necessary to adduce further evidence of the views of foreign Kef ormers ; but I may conclude with the testimony of two eminent Lutherans. The first is the illustrious Leibnitz, who says : — I regard a pious, grave, and prudent confessor as a great instrument of God for the salvation of souls ; for his counsel assists us in governing our passions, in discover- ing our vices, in avoiding occasions of sin, in making restitution, in repairing injuries, in dissipating doubts, in overcoming despondency, and, in fine, in removing or mi- tigating all the ills of the soul. And if, in the ordinary concerns of life, there is scarce anything more precious than a faithful friend, what must it be to have a friend who is bound, even by the inviolable obligation of a Divine Sacrament, to hold faith with us and assist us in our need ? ^ ' A System of Theology, i3. 130. Engl. Transl. 294 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT My other authority is the distinguished Danish theologian, Martensen, whose able and learned ' Christian Dogmatics ' was one of the special books which the late Dr. Vaughan used to recommend to the large body of the younger clergy who looked to him for guidance. There are many passages on the subject in Martensen, who died only a few years ago, but one will sufiice : — It cannot easily be denied that confession meets a deep need of human natm-e. There is a great psycholo- gical tmth in the saying of Pascal, that a man often attains for the first time a true sense of sin, and a true stayedness in his good purpose, when he confesses his sins to his fellow-man as well as to God.' I have now given a fair summary of the evidence in favour of auricular confession presented by the formularies of the Church of England and by her representative divines— High Church, Broad Church, and Low^dow^n to our own time ; and I ask all dispassionate men to compare it with the violent denunciations of confession in Parliament, in pamphlets, and on platforms. All who choose have of course a right to denounce it, though it baffles my wit to see how they are to stop it so long as it is left voluntary. But what no one has a right to do is to denounce as ' lawless ' and * disloyal ' any of the English clergy who may think it their duty to govern themselves by the explicit teaching of the Church of p]ngland and the desires of such of ' Christian Dogmatics, p. 444. Engl. Transl. THE EEFORMATION AND CONFESSION 295 the laity as conic to them to ' open their grief,' as the Book of Connnon Prayer recommends. The plain truth is that the agitators in this controversy are wofully ignorant of the history of the Eefor- mation, and are entirely out of sympathy with the authorised teaching of the Church which they volunteer to champion. The preceding pages have supplied abundant evidence of this, and we shall find more as we proceed. But considering the great names, intellectually and morally — including men who by study and experience had a profound knowledge of human nature— -who have borne testimony to the salutary influence of voluntary con- fession under proper safeguards, is it not somewhat rash to indulge in indiscriminate condemnation at the instance of persons who have no personal knowledge on the subject ? At all events, let it be clearly understood that what the agitators are really de- manding, though they do not seem to know it, is a revision of the Prayer Book and a new Eeformation in harmony with the opinions and aspirations of Lord Grimthorpe and Mr. Ivensit. I doubt whether the English people are yet prepared for this religious development. 296 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT CHAPTEE IX THE I>^TEEMEDIATE STATE One of the points of attack in the present con- troversy is the ancient custom of prayers for the dead, which is assumed to be included in ' the Eomish doctrine concerning Purgatory ' condemned in the Twenty-second Article. I am obliged to admit that some of the younger clergy of the advanced school among us do hold the Eomish doctrine of purgatory — though I believe without its worst accompaniments — under the honest behef that it is the doctrine of the primitive Church, and likewise of the present Oriental Churches and of the Church of England ; in fact, of Christendom, with the excep- tion of the Tractarian party, whom it has become the fashion among our neo-Catholics to regard as theologians out of date. I made this amazing discovery about three years ago ; and when I challenged one of the representatives of this party to the proof he referred me, as his prime authority, to the ' Praelectiones ' of the Jesuit Father Perrons of the Collegio Eomano, the standard theologian of modern Ultramontanism. Some of our younger clergy, I fear, instead of THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 297 reading the ancient Fathers and the great divines of our own Church, with their massive learning, have got into the habit of reading modern Roman books, hke Perrone's elaborate work, and are thus led to the fallacious conclusion that the theology they find there is the Catholic faith— ' the faith of Christendom ' — as one of them has said— barring some out-of-date Anglicans. The simple fact is that Perrone's doctrine of the Intermediate State is not only directly contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, but equally so to the doctrine of the ancient Church, of all Oriental Christendom at the present day, and even of the Roman Church before the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century. And neither the Council of Florence, nor the subse- quent Council of Trent, sanctions the more recent de- velopments of the doctrine of purgatory in the Roman Church. The Council of Trent, indeed, commits itself to very little. It merely says : ' There is a purgatory, and the souls there detained are helped by prayer, and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar,' The Catechism of the Council, however, is more definite. It says: 'There is a purgatorial fire, where the souls of the righteous are for a time purified by torture {quo j^iorum animcB ad definitum tempus cruciatcB exjnanticr), that entrance may be opened for them into the eternal home, into which nothing that is defiled can enter.' And pastors are bidden to be more diligent and frequent in the declaration of this doctrine, * because we are fallen on times in which men will not endure sound doctrine.' 298 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT This is a considerable innovation on the doctrine of undivided Christendom ; but it is far short of the teaching of Perrone, which is now the dominant doctrine of the Church of Kome, as we shall see presently. Meanwhile our first concern is with the limits within which the doctrine of prayers for the dead may be held and taught in the Church of England. The first formal exposition of doctrine put forth by the Reformers was the Ten Articles of 1536, which were expanded a few years later into ' The Institution of a Christian Man.' This careful and elaborate summary of Christian doctrine was, with a few additions, published by authorit}' of Convocation in the year 1543, under the title of ' The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,' and was the work of a commission consisting of all the bishops of the English Church, eight archdeacons, and seventeen doctors of divinity, making forty-six in all. The head of the commission was, of course. Archbishop Cranmer. Hugh Latimer, then Bishop of Worcester, was one of the number. On the subject of ' Prayer for Souls Departed ' the ' Neces- sary Doctrine and Erudition ' says : — Forasmuch as due order of charity requireth, and the Book of Maccabees and divers ancient doctors plainly show, that it is a very good and charital)le deed to pray for souls departed ; and forasmuch as such usage hath continued in the Church for so many years, even from the beginning, men ou^^ht to judge and think the same to be well done. And truly it standeth with the very order of charity, a Christian man to pray for another, both quick and dead, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 299 and to commend one another in their prayers to God's mercy ; and to cause others to pray for them also, as well in masses and exequies, as at other times, and to give alms for them, according to the usage of the Church and ancient opinion of old fathers ; trusting that these things do not only profit and avail them, but also declare us to be charitable folk, because we have mind and desire to profit them which, notwithstanding they be departed this present life, yet remain they still members of the same mystical body of Christ whereunto we pertain. And here is specially to be noted, that it is not in the power or knowledge of any man to limit and dispense how much, and in what space of time, or to what person par- ticularly the said masses, exequies, and suffrages do profit and avail ; therefore charity requireth that whosoever causeth any such masses, exequies, or suffrages to be done should yet (though their interest be more for one than for another) cause them also to be done for the universal con- gregation of Christian people, quick and dead ; for that power and knowledge afore rehearsed pertaineth only unto God, which alone know^eth the measures and times of His own judgment and mercies. Furthermore, because the place where the souls remain, the name thereof, the state and condition which they be in, be to us uncertain, therefore these, with all other such things, must also be left to Almighty God, unto whose mercy it is meet and convenient for us to commend them, trusting that God accepteth our prayers for them ; reserv- ing the rest wholly to God, unto whom is know^n their estate and condition ; and not we to take upon us, neither in the one part nor yet in the other, to give any fond and temerarious judgment in so high things so far passing our knowledge. Finally, it is much necessary that all such abuses as heretofore have been brought in by supporters and main- 300 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT tainers of the Papacy of Rome, and their complices, con- cerning this matter, be clearly put away ; and that we therefore abstain from the name pm'gatory, and no more dispute or reason thereof. Under colour of which have been advanced many fond and great abuses, to make men believe that through the Bishop of Rome's pardons souls might clearly be delivered out of it, and released out of the bondage of sin ; and the masses said at Scala Coeli and other prescribed places, phantasied by men, did there in those places more profit more souls than another ; and also that a prescribed number of prayers sooner than other (though as devoutly said) should further their petition sooner, yea specially if they were said before one image more than another which they phantasied. All these, and such like abuses, be necessary utterly to be abolished and extinguished. This is a remarkable statement from a com- mission including not only Cranmer (its President) and Hugh Latimer, but all the rest of the l)ishops on the bench as well as the most eminent of the clergy. It was afterwards sanctioned by Convocation w^ithout a dissentient voice. Thus we see that the whole clergy of England in the reign of Henry VIII. condemned * the Komish doctrine of purgatory,' with its merce- nary ' pardons,' and also the name on account of the ' abuses ' attached to it, but retained the doctrine in so far as it was held by ' the ancient doctors ' and * old fathers.' And let it be remembered that ' The Necessary Doctrine and P^rudition for any Christian Man' has never been withdrawn or repudiated by the Church of England, and that no formulary of doctrine— as Palmer has reminded us in a passage THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 301 already quoted — was put out between the reign of Henry VIII. and that of Ehzabeth. We may fairly assume therefore that this statement on purgatory is the key to the Twenty-second Article. The next point that solicits our attention is the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. In the Office for the Burial of the Dead, when the priest throws earth upon the corpse he says, ' I commend thy soul to God the Father Almighty, and thy body to the ground,' &c. The next prayer begins thus : ' We commend into Thy hands of mercy, most merciful Father, the soul of this our brother departed, that when the judgment shall come, which Thou hast committed to Thy well-beloved Son, both this our brother and we may be found acceptable in Thy sight, and w^e may receive that blessing,' &c. The next prayer concludes thus : ' Grant, w^e beseech Thee, that at the day of judgment his soul, and all the souls of Thy elect departed out of this life, may w^ith us, and w^e with them, fully receive Thy promises, and be made perfect altogether, through the glorious resurrection of Thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.' The Second Lesson is followed by some versicles, of which the following are samples. The priest says, with reference to the dead, ' From the gates of hell,' and the congregation reply, 'Deliver their souls, O Lord ! ' Then follows a prayer, in which occurs this petition : ' Grant unto this Thy servant that the 302 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT sins which he committed in this world be not imputed unto him, but that he, escaping the gates of hell and pains of eternal darkness, may ever dwell in the region of light, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the place where is no weeping, sorrow, nor heaviness.' This is almost a literal rendering of a prayer in the Apostolical Constitutions, which shows the practice of the Christians of the third century. The prayer is as follows : * Let us pray for our brethren departed in the faith of Christ, that the most merciful God, who has received the spirits of the deceased, would forgive all their voluntary and involuntary failings ; and that, being restored to the Divine favour, they may have a place assigned them in the region of the blessed ; in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in the company of those where pain and sorrow and dissatisfaction have no place.' But I may be told that the First Prayer Book of Edward VL was superseded by the Second Prayer Book, from which prayers for the dead were ex- cluded. My answer to that objection is this : The very authority which published and sanctioned the second book — i.e. the Act of Uniformity —declared explicitly and emphatically that it was not intended as a condemnation or censure of anything contained in the first book. The Act of Parliament, by which the second book of King Edward w^as ratified, states that there was nothing in the first book but what was ' agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church, and very comfortable to all good people desir- THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 303 ing to live in Christian conversation.' The Act then goes on to explain * that such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise thereof proceeded rather from the curiosity of the minister and mis- takers than from any other worthy cause.' This Act of Uniformity bears still stronger testimony to the excellence and orthodoxy of the first book, for it declares that ' by the aid of the Holy Ghost it was w^ith one uniform agreement concluded.' I think I am right, therefore, in asserting that in substituting the Prayer Book of 1552 for that of 1549, the Church of England was as far as possible from refusing her sanction to anything contained in the latter. She expressly guarded against any such inference in the passages which I have just quoted ; and therefore the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. cannot be quoted as any argument in favour of the view that the Church of England does not sanction prayers for the dead. They were excluded under pressure from Calvin, acting on the English Re- formers through the boy-king and through Bucer and Peter Martyr, who were then holding positions of considerable influence in England. • Calvin's objection to prayers for the dead was natural enough ; for they were inconsistent with his doctrine that the great mass of mankind are irrevocably fore- ordained to eternal damnation, \^hile the small flock of the elect, whose fall was impossible, were privi- leged to enter heaven as soon as they passed away from earth. But the Church of England has ever instinctively recoiled against the unchristian cruelty 304 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT of the Calvinistic system, and has never without protest accepted, even temporarily, any of its funda- mental tenets. The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. was, of course, abolished on the accession of Queen Mary in 1553. When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558 she took immediate steps to restore some of the most important omissions in the Prayer Book of 1552, and her Primer of 1559, published by authority, contains prayers for the dead. The Marian persecution, however, had caused such an anti-Eoman reaction that even the strong Tudor will of Queen Elizabeth could do comparatively little against it. Those who had fled to the Continent during the reign of Mary now returned with soured, and in some cases vengeful, feelings, and thought that it was impossible to rush too far or too fast in a direction opposite to that of Eome. Such a period of feverish excitement was not very favourable to a policy of moderation, and Queen Elizabeth, backed as she was by the support of the old leaders of the Reformation, found it impossible to restore, as she wished to do, the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. in its integrity. But all the alterations made were in that direction. The commemoration of the faithful departed was not, however, restored to its old place in the prayer for the Church militant till the last review in 1661. The present state of the question, then, so far as the Church of England is concerned, I take to be this. In the years 1536, 1543, and 1549, she gave, freely, deliberately, and publicly, her sanction to the doctrine TPIE INTERMEDIATE STATE 305 of prayers for tlie dead, ai]d that sanction she has never since ^vithdrawn. On the only occasion on which she seemed to do so (1552), she was careful to put on record, through the mouths of the spiritual and temporal organs of the nation, a distinct protest that that was not her intention. And as a matter of fact, prayer for the dead was not altogether excluded even from the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., though it was certainly reduced to very narrow compass. ' There was one clause,' says the very moderate Wheatley, ' permitted to stand ' in the Prayer Book of 1552, ' viz. in the prayer that imme- diately follows the Lord's Prayer, in which, till the last review, we prayed that we with this oub BEOTHEK, and all others departed in the true faith of God's holy name, may have our perfect consum- mation and bliss.' He goes on to say, what we all know, that the Puritans at the Savoy Conference objected to the words, ' with this our brother,' not because it implied, as it certainly did, prayers for the dead, but because, in "Wheatley's language, ' they did in general object against all that expressed any assurance of the deceased party's happiness, which they did not think proper to be said indifferently over all that died.' The words were therefore, and on that ground only, omitted in the last revision. But Wheatley contends : — That the sentence, as it is still left standing, may well enough be understood to imply the dead as well as the living. For we pray (as it is now) that ' we, with all those that are departed id the true faith of God's holy X 306 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT name, may have our perfect cousummation and bliss ' ; which is not barely a supposition that all those who are so departed 2cill have their perfect consummation and bliss, but a prayer also that they men/ have it, viz. that we with them, and they with us, may be made perfect together, both in body and soul, in the eternal and ever- lasting glory of God. AVheatley then adds a passage (too long to quote) from Bishop Cosin, strongly supporting his own view. Palmer, too — I mean the learned author of the * Origines ' and of the ' Treatise on the Church ' — declares that 'the great divines of the EngHsh Church ' are not opposed to the doctrine, and that ' the Church of England herself has never formally condemned prayers for the dead, but only omitted them in her Liturgy ' — an omission which he con- tends had been partially restored when the reasons which caused the omission were no longer in force. I have restricted my quotations to Wheatley and Palmer because they are acknowledged as standard authorities, and are generally recommended by our bishops, I believe, to candidates for ordination. It would be easy to produce a cloud of witnesses in support of Sir W. Palmer's assertion that ' the great divines of the English Church ' sanctioned prayers for the dead both by precept and example. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Bull, Bishop Overall (the author of the sacramental part of our Church Catechism), Thorndike, Collier, Field, Barrow, Andrewes, and the saintly "Wilson and Ken make up a catena which might very easily be extended. Archbishop Sheldon THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 307 and Bishop Blandford, men of no extreme opinions, confessed that it was their daily practice to pray for the dead ; and Thorndike and Bishop Barrow beg the prayers of the faithful for their souls in the epitaphs which they left behind them.' A few years ago the legality of prayers for the dead came before an English court, and was ex- pressly affirmed by the Dean of the Arches in the case of Woolfrey v. Breeks. ' Spes mea Christus. Pray for the soul of J. Woolfrey. It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.' This was the inscription which originated the trial. The Incumbent refused to admit it into the churchyard, on the ground that the Church of England did not sanction prayers for the dead. But the court over- ' Barrow's epitaph is as follows : — ' Exuviae Isaaci Asaphensis Episcopi, in manum Domini depositae, in spem la?ta3 resurrectionis, per sola Christi merita. vos trans- euntes in clonium Domini, domum orationis, orate pro conserve vestro ut inveniat misericordiam in die Domini.' Wheatley, too, left the following epitaph for his own tomb :— 'Eeader, join for him in the ejaculation of St. Paul :— The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.' These epitaphs show not only that their authors believed that the Church of England sanctioned prayers for' the dead, but, further, Wheatley's belief that Onesiphorus was dead when St. Paul prayed for him, a belief of which a dispassionate consideration of the facts hardly leaves a doubt. Bishop Heber, a man of moderate opinions, was an advocate for prayers for the departed on Scriptural and Patristic grounds. He writes : ' The early Christians, most of them, believed that the con- dition of such persons ' as were in Hades ' might be made better, and a milder sentence be obtained for their errors and infirmities from the Almighty Judge by whom the doom of all creatures shall be finally settled.' (See his letter in the Diary of a Lady of Quality, p. 255.) 308 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ruled the objection, and sanctioned the inscription, on the ground (I am quoting the Language of the judgment) that it ' was not illegal, as by no canon or authority of the Church in these realms had the practice of praying for the dead been expressly pro- hibited.' The judge took his stand on the First Prayer Book of Edward VL, on which the Act of Uniformity which sanctioned the Second Book stamped its approval. In strict law the Church of England sanctioned, and still sanctions, all prayers publicly offered within the precincts of her church- yards. But when the question was put to the test and an ofticer of the Church of England attempted to forbid prayers for the dead, and it w^as decided that he had no power to refuse his sanction, it seems to me extraordinary that any persons, at all ac- quainted with the facts of the case, should commit themselves to the untenable position that prayers for the dead are forbidden by the Church of England. But it does not follow that because the Church of England has never refused to sanction prayers for the dead, such prayers are in themselves right and proper. In order to come to a true conclusion on this head it is necessary, of course, that we should understand clearly what prayers for the dead mean and imply. Now^ the first observation that an impartial study of the question will suggest to an unprejudiced inquirer is that prayers for the dead are not only coeval with Christianity, but anterior to it. That they are coeval with Christianity it would be easy to THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 309 prove by a chain of evidence which may ])e considered demonstrative. This has never been disputed by any v^riter of considerable eminence, whatever his own views may have been. Neander freely admits it, and so, though somewhat grudgingly, does our own latitudinarian Bishop Burnet. It may not, however, be so well known that the lawfulness and even duty of prayers for the dead has been always allowed and acted on by the Jew^s. Among a host of witnesses that might be cited in proof of that asser- tion, I will content myself with the following quotation from Jeremy Taylor : — We find, he says, by the history of the Maccabees,^ that the Jews did pray and make offerings for the dead, which also appears by other testimonies, and by their form of prayers still extant, which they used in the captivity. Now it is very considerable that, given our Blessed Saviour did reprove all the evil doctrines and traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, and did argue, concerning the dead and the Resurrection, against the Sadducees, yet He spake no word against this public practice, but left it as He found it ; which He, who came to declare to us all the will of the Father, would not ' ' For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin ' (2 Maccabees xii. 44, 45). This attests the practice of the Jews, of which, indeed, we have clear evidence in the ritual of the Temple and Synagogue, in which our Lord must often have joined. In a book of 'Daily, Sabbath, Festival, and occasional prayers, according to the Kitual of the German and Polish Jews,' are several beautiful prayers for the dead. 310 THE KEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT have done if it had not l)een innocent, pious, and full of charity. I will now assume that I have established these three statements : — (1) That the Chm'ch of England has nowhere refused her sanction to prayers for the dead. (2) That such prayers have been sanctioned by the Christian Church from the beginning. (3) That the Christian Church inherited them, with our Lord's tacit sanction, from the Jewish Church. If this be admitted, it follow^s, I think, that the doctrine is founded on some truth or group of truths, which have their roots in our nature. What are these truths ? Let us think for a moment. Consider the mass of mankind, and you will find it impossible to accept the Calvinistic theory, which divides the race by an invisible but impassable gulf, even in this life, making it absolutely impossible for those who are on opposite sides ever to exchange positions. If the study of human nature teaches anything certain, it is this — that man's eternal happiness results from the development of his nature to the fullest perfection of which it is capable, and that such development is, w^itli God's help, in man's own power. But how few even approximate to that perfection here ! Will not the facts of the world around us force home on any thoughtful mind the conviction that the vast majority of mankind pass out of this life with undeveloped characters — far indeed from that perfection of their powers which would enable them to see and enjoy the vision thp: intermediate state 311 of * the Kiiif]^ in His beauty ; ' but far also — blessed be God ! — from that utter and hopeless demorahsa- tion of character to which Aristotle gives the name of uKoXaata, and which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews characterises as past possibility of repentance. The question therefore arises, What happens to this multitude of neutral characters wdien death severs their connection with this life? Our sense of natural justice revolts against the idea of their being eternally lost. Our knowledge of human nature, on the other hand, assures us that such persons could no more enjoy the pure delights of the heavenly life than an ignorant clown could enjoy himself in a royal drawling-room ; and, since human character does not develop per saltum, if these persons are ever at all to be ' made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,' their grow^th in grace will not cease with the last breath of this earthly life ; their training must still go on till they are able with unclouded eyes to behold the Sun of Righteousness. The reader's thoughts will, of course, have anticipated my remark that this train of reasoning leads logically to some doctrine of purgatory. It does, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the case of ' Essays and Eeviews,' decided that some kind of purgatory was an admis- sible doctrine in the Church of England. The purgatory which Mr. Wilson contended for success- fully extended, it is true, indefinitely beyond what 312 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT he calls ' the great adjudication ' ; but that fact makes no difference to my argument. Now, surely, the fact that the Court of Appeal admitted Mr. Wilson's doctrine of purgatory as compatible with his position as a beneficed clergyman is a legal confirmation of the distinction which Dr. Newman drew, in Tract Ninety, between ' the Komish doctrine of purgatory,' censured in the 22nd Article, and any other doctrine of purgatory. And this distinction is still further marked by the fact that in the original form of the Article the doctrine was condemned as * the doctrine of schoolmen.' As the controversy between the two Churches proceeded, it naturally became more per- sonal, and so for ' the doctrine of schoolmen ' was substituted 'the Eomish doctrine.' The Article could hardly be aimed at the Tridentine decree on the subject, for that decree did not exist when the Thirty-nine Articles were published. We have already seen that the decree of Trent only says : — ' There is a purgatory, and the souls there detained are helped by prayer, and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.' Nothing beyond that state- ment is de fide in the Church of Eome. A Eoman Catholic is not committed to anything beyond the bare statement that there is a place intermediate between this life and perfect bliss, where imperfect souls are trained for perfection and helped by the prayers of the Church on earth. In a selection from the writings of St. Catherine of Genoa, published by Cardinal Manning, I find the pains of purgatory explained to mean the flames of divine love con- THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 313 suniiiig the soul with longings which cannot ])o satisfied till it is sufficiently purified to be able to enjoy the full fruition of the Godhead. 'When the soul finds itself on its way back,' she says, ' to its first state (of innocence), it is so kindled with the desire of becoming one with God, that this desire becomes its purgatory. . . . The instinct by which it is kindled and the impediment by which it is hindered constitute its purgatory.' That is the thought which permeates and underlies all her views on the subject of purgatory, and her writings have a distinguished place in the Church of Kome. Those who are acquainted with Dr. Newman's beautiful ' Dream of Gerontius,' will remember the subjective view which he takes of the pains of purgatory. The guardian angel which bears the soul of Gerontius into the presence-chamber of the Eternal King thus describes what followed : — The eager spirit has darted from my hold, And with intemperate energy of love Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel ; But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity, Which, with its effluence, like a glory, clothes And circles round the Crucified, has seized. And scorch'd, and shrivell'd it ; and now it lies Passive and still before the awful throne. O happy, suffering soul ; for it is safe, Consumed, yet quicken'd, by the glance of God. On coming to itself, the soul is represented as singing a plaintive prayer to be - taken away ' from 314 THE EEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT the ravishing vision of its God to a place of purifica- tion : — There, motionless and happy in my pain, Lone, not forlorn, — There will I sing my sad perpetual strain Until the morn. There will I sing, and soothe my stricken lireast, Which ne'er can cease To throh, and pine, and languish, till possest Of its Sole Peace. Do not let us he frightened by mere words in such way as to discard any truth. Purgatory means a place of purification ; and which of the sons of men, except the Son of Man, has ever left this earth so pure as to need no purging before admission to the presence of the all-pure God? Let us rescue words, good in themselves, from any accretion of error that may have gathered round them. This is a wiser plan than to cast them away, with, perchance, some precious truth clinging to them. Another truth which underlies the doctrine of prayers for the dead I believe to be this : that the race of man, and pre-eminently the Christian portion of it, is one family, and that death does not and can- not destroy that network of natural interest and sympathies which binds us together and make us necessary to each other on earth. The great evil of our nature, the cause of nearly all its woes, is selfish- ness — the repudiation of our family relationship and responsibilities. How does God contrive to cure us of that selfishness? By making us necessary to THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 315 Qach other. Hence the duty of intercessory prayer ; and if the Churcli on earth and the Church in Paradise be one, why should intercessory prayer cease at death? 'To forbid prayers for the dead,' Mr. Gladstone once said to nie, ' is to undermine the doctrine of prayer for the livinfr.' This view is strongly supported by the late K. H. Hutton, in one of those thoughtful essays which he used to con- tribute to the ' Spectator.' ' One of the most ditiicult of mental exercises is to realise the existence of the spiritual world as an objective reality, inhabited by spiritual beings, in- cluding the souls of the departed : not unconscious, not idle, not unprogressive, but active, docile, unlearning and learning, and thus going on to perfection. The Twenty-second Article, indeed, so far from condemning every doctrine of purgatory, appears to sanction some doctrine of purgatory. For to condemn a particular doctrine of purgatory is to imply a permissible doctrine ; such, for instance, as Mr. Gladstone, following Butler, expresses as fol- lows : * The Christian dead are in a progressive state, and the appointed office of the interval between death and resurrection is reasonably believed to be the corroboration of every good and holy habit, and the effacement of all remains of infirmity and vice.' ^ That is the doctrine of the great Anglican divines, ' The Essay 0)1 Prayers fo7- the Dead has just been repubhshed, with others, by his niece. See Aspects of Religions and Scientific Thought, No. xxxi. - Studies subsidiary to Butlcfs Works, pp. 153-4. 316 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT and it is surely the doctrine of reason and charity. Nor is belief in the purification and moral develop- ment of souls in the intermediate state confined to High Churchmen. The late Dean Stanley held it strongly. Indeed, a good part of this chapter was in substance contributed by me, on the Dean's advice, to the ' Contemporary Keview,' in an article which he had read in manuscript with entire approval. Maurice also was a firm upholder of the doctrine ; and so was Charles Kingsley, as any one can see for himself by consulting his ' Letters and Memoirs of his Life,' by his widow. ^ In one of his letters to myself, after remarking on Puritan eschatology — 'i.e. the doctrine which the Puritans (as far as I know) first introduced, namely, that the fate of every man is irrevocably fixed at the moment of death ' — he proceeds : — I need not tell you that this is not the Catholic doctrine ; that the Church has held, from a very early age, the belief in an intermediate state. That belief was distorted and abused, in later times, as the Komish doctrine of purgatory. But the denunciation of that doctrine in the Thirty-nine Articles (as Dr. Newman pointed out in Tract Ninety) does not denounce any primitive doctrine of purgatory ; nay, rather allows it by the defining adjective ' Romish.' That this Puritan eschatology is no part of the creed of the Cluu'ch of England is proved by her final rejection of the Article affirming endless punishment. It is as well here to say that I do not deny endless punishment. The truth is that if we give our hearts fair play • Vol. ii. pp. 395-6. First Edition. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 317 and free scope, prayer for the departed is a natural impulse. The heart of man instinctively refuses to believe in death as its natural and final portion. It searches for its vanished kindred, and will not believe that they cease to be, or that its interest in them, or theirs in it, is broken. It is a universal sentiment of humanity, seen in various forms and under divers con- ditions : in an Old Mortality going up and down the country laboriously renewing the time-worn tomb- stones of the Covenanters, and in the great orator of Athens, who knew the spell that it held when he put a moment's fire into the breasts of his degenerate countrymen by invoking ' the dead at Marathon.' It is also seen in those legends of many lands which represent some hero or national benefactor as enjoy- ing a happy immunity from the last debt of humanity : our own Arthur still living in the vale of Avalon, or the great Barbarossa sleeping in his mystic cave till his country needs his trusty sword. The fact is, w^e all pray for the dead -at least, all loving hearts do. When our beloved pass away from us we follow them with our longing thoughts, we speculate on their condition in the world unseen, we wish them well. And what is a wish but a prayer inarticulate ? ' Every good and holy desire,' says Hooker, ' though it lack the form, hath notwith- standing in itself the substance, and with Him the force, of a prayer. Who regardeth the very moanings- and sighs of the heart of man.' And what is that philosophic threnody ' In Memoriam ' — one of the greatest poems in our language — but a passionate 318 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT protest against any admission that death can separate hearts that have loved each other on earth ? See, too, how prayer for the departed hreaks out of the heart instinctively in the poet's noble ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington : — God accept him ; Clirist receive him. I wonder if it has ever occurred to any of those who denounce prayers for the dead as a flagrant proof of disloyalty to the Church of England that they include Her Majesty and the royal family in that dishonouring accusation. For prayers for the departed are said at the anniversary services held in memory of the departed members of the royal family. At Prince Henry of Battenberg's funeral, the offi- ciating priest prayed : ' Give rest, Christ, to Thy servant with Thy Saints,' which is substantially out of the ancient liturgies. Those who have read the very interesting ' Life of Princess Alice,' by her sister Princess Christian, will remember some passages of exceeding pathos relating to the tragic death of Princess Alice's boy. Her second son, a bright child of two years, known in her letters as ' Frittie,' fell out of a window while her back was momentarily turned, and was killed before her very eyes. Born during his father's absence in the war with France, and delicate from his birth, he was endowed with the intellectual brightness which often goes with feebleness of bodily organisation, and was naturally a special pet of his mother. The sudden quenching of his life by a THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 319 violent death was of course a terrible blow to her, w^hich she bore with heroic fortitude. There is a wonderful pathos in some of her references to her lost treasure — a vivid vision of suppressed sorrow which almost enables us to sec her grief : — He was such a l)right child. It seems so quiet next door. I miss the little feet, the coming to me, for we lived so much together. . . . He loved flowers so much. I can't see one along the roadside without wishing to pick it for him. In my own house it seems to me as if I never could play again on that piano where little hands were nearly always thrust when I wanted to play. ... I had played so often lately that splendid, touching funeral march of Chopin's, and I remember it is the last thing I played, and then the boys were running in the room. Having so many girls, I was so proud of our two boys ! The pleasure did not last long, but he is mine more than ever now. He seems near me always, and I carry his precious image in my heart everywhere. Who can read these moving sentences, these chastened moanings of a bruised heart, without feeling that the habitual attitude of the bereaved mother's heart was one of prayer for her lost boy? How natural the habit is comes out incidentally in one of Princess Ahce's letters. 'Ernie,' the elder boy, ' always prays for Frittie ; and talks to me of him when we walk together.' I am persuaded that much of the unbelief and agnosticism of the day is due to two causes : first, the vague and unreal way in which the spiritual world is regarded by the mass of professing Christians, and 320 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT preached about by a large number of the clergy ; secondly, 'the Puritan eschatology,' which distressed Charles Kingsley, and which teaches that all the saved pass straight to heaven at the moment of death. That is a view which reason, when it seriously considers it, cannot accept. Very few are they who are fit to enjoy the Beatific Vision when they pass from earth into the spiritual realm. Newman says, in one of the most striking of his Parochial Sermons, that, ' if we could imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven.' Indeed, it must be so, for the key to happiness is correspon- dence with our environment. But what concord could there be between holiness and unholinessV between a matured sinner and a glorified saint ? between the diaboHc and the angehc temper? between Christ and Behal ? Here good and evil are so mingled that we cannot realise their mutual and irreconcilable antagonism. In heaven they would face each other at opposite poles, mutually repellent. To admit an unholy man to heaven would therefore be no boon to him. Of all imagi- nable places, he would find himself least at home there. His whole nature would need transformation. But that is not the work of a moment, of an hour, of a day : it is a slow, gradual process, governed by the law which tarns impressions into habits, and habits into character. Heaven is intended for certain characters, and none but they could ever enjoy it. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 321 But we are not, in this matter, dealing with full- fledged wickedness, but with inchoate characters, and characters that have been moulded awry from no fault of their own — multitudes born and reared in the midst of such surroundings as gave them no chance of avoiding the evil and choosing the good. These two classes doubtless form a large proportion of Christians, to say nothing of the heathen. The moral sense of any thinking man will rebel against the notion that all those creatures of an almighty, all-seeing, all-loving God are doomed to an eternity of suffering. And it is because this is the doctrine of much of our popular theology that so many have rejected Christianity altogether, in mistake for a spurious counterfeit. The Catholic doctrine — by which I mean, as our Church means, the doctrine of Christendom while it was still one — is very different. Avoiding the rashness of passing judgment on any individual, let him be the greatest of heresiarchs — for the Athanasian Creed condemns characters, not persons ; Arians, not Arius — it teaches that there is an inter- mediate state wdiere the imperfect are made perfect, the ignorant enlightened, the vacillating confirmed, the crooked made straight. That this process of amelioration will in many cases involve pain who can doubt ? ' We have no right,' as Mr. Gladstone says in one of his profound ' Studies subsidiary to Butler's AVorks,' ^ ' to assert that " the redeeming and consummating process will be accomplished ' p. 254. Y 322 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT without an admixture of salutary and accepted pain." ' Multitudes pass out of this hfe with crooked characters, from no fault of their own, hke limbs badly set, and requiring to be unset or broken before they can be made straight. For these and for the crowds of Christians who pass out of life neither very bad nor very good, unformed in religious habits either for heaven or for hell, Puritan eschatology makes no provision. They are not fit for heaven : who will dare to say that they are lost? The Church, supported by Holy Scripture, provides for them in the Intermediate State. Dr. Welldon, now Metropolitan of India, a broad-minded Evangelical, insists on the Christian doctrine of prayers for the departed, and on the fact of retributive discipline going on in the Intermediate State : ' — But if a variety of destinies in the unseen world, whether of happiness or of suffering, is reserved for man- kind, and yet more if the principle of that world is not inactivity but energy or character or life, it is reasonable to believe that the souls, which enter upon the future state with the taint of sin clinging to them in whatever form or degree, will be slowly cleansed by a disciplinary or purificatory process from whatever it is that, being evil in itself, necessarily obstructs or obscures the vision of God. The parable of Dives and Lazarus seems clearly to indicate a certain moral progress as the effect of retri- butive discipline.^ This is the class of religious questions which ' The Hope of Immortality, chap. vi. - See a striking passage on the need of purgatorial discipline, in the late Mr, W. Pi. Greg's Enigmas of Life, chap. vii. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 323 interest workiiu^ men and women mucli more tl 'i-> lan those which are supposed to constitute a ' crisis in the Church ; ' and Members of ParHament who think otherwise ' are up in a balloon,' to quote a celebrated phrase of Mr. Gladstone. I had some experience of this five years ago while delivering a course of sermons on the Intermediate State in Kipon Cathe- dral. The sermons were reported in full in some Yorkshire papers and in one London paper. This brought upon me a mass of letters from all parts of the kingdom, chiefly from working men. The following may serve as a specimen : — Thank God for the new energy to persevere your sermon on * The Many Mansions ' has put into a person of * weak and wavering will.' To such natures — and their name is legion — sermons are too often simply ' dampers.' They don't give us hope, and it is Jiojyelessness, more than anything else, that drives us to despair, and to giving up persevering. We hard-working people have little time or inclination to read religious books, and such of us as care for religion look to sermons for instruction by the way. Too often we get on the one side, ' The Church, the Church,' and, on the other, ' Conversion ' and ' Only believe.' If only we could get such a Christ-like Gospel as you preach, there would not be so many unbelievers and ones quite indifferent to religion amongst us. I know several who say, ' What's the good of trying ? I always break down. I'm sick and weary of it all.' I've felt so myself, but never will again after that sermon. Hope will make me persevere. I quote this, italics and all, as an illustration of the kind of teaching for which the working classes Y 2 324 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT are hungering. They will go, and do go, to the churches where they get it, and lights, and coloured vestments, and incense, will not repel, but rather attract them. Ceremonial is nothing in itself ; but it may be made a useful auxihary of reHgious as of civil life. I will now quit this part of the subject with a beautiful passage from Tennyson's ' Morte d' Arthur,' where the duty of praying for the dead is argumenta- tively enjoined in the person of the poet's hero. Pray for my soul. T^Iore things are wrought l)y prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? For so the whole world round is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. Now^ I come to the modern Eoman doctrine of Purgatory, which some of our younger clergy strangely mistake for the doctrine of the Catholic Church — that is, of the Church of ' the ancient fathers and doctors ' to which our own Church refers us. That doctrine is based on two articles of belief : first, that purgatory is a place of torment, differing only from the torments of hell in point of duration ; secondly, that souls are constantly passing from purgatory to heaven, with more or less delay according to their moral condition and the interest taken in them, and the masses said for them by THE INTEEMEDIATE STATE 325 friends on earth. The late Kev. W. Pahner, who had an intimate knowledge of the Greek Church, states the difference between the Latin and Oriental Churches with general accuracy as follows : ' — The doctrine of Purgatory is taught by the Latins, and is rejected by the Greeks. The doctrine of the Fathers and of the early Church, of the present Greek or ' Orthodox ' Church, and of all the other separated Eastern Churches, is this, that generally speaking, and upon the whole, the state of the faithful departed is a state of light, and rest, and peace, and refreshment ; of happiness far greater than any belonging to this life, yet inferior to that which shall be enjoyed after the resurrec- tion and the final Judgment. The doctrine of the Latins, on ' Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion, pp. 124-5.— This Palmer was a brother of the late Lord Selborne : a most learned and able man, who spent several years in Eussia, studying the history and doctrines of that Church and kindred Churches. Eventually he joined the Church of Rome. He must be distin- guished from the Rev. Sir William Palmer (previously quoted), also a most learned man, and author of the well-known Treatise on the Church of Christ, of the Origincs Liturgicce, and other works. He lived and died an English Churchman. Of the purgatorial fire Bellarmine says : ' It is the common mind of theologians that it is true and proper fire, and of the same kind as our element.' And he gives the volcanic fire of ^Etna as an illustration {De Purg. ii. 11). The late Father Faber says of his Church : ' It loves to represent purgatory simply as a hell which is not eternal. Violence, confusion, wailing, horror, preside over its description. It dwells, and truly, on the terribleness of the pain of sense which the soul is mysteriously permitted to endure. The fire is the same fire as that of hell, created for the single and express purpose of giving torture' {All for Jesus, pp. 335-7). It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this sort of teaching represents a different religion from that of which we read in the early centuries of Christianity. 326 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT the other hand, is this, that generally speaking, and upon the ^vhole, the state of the faithful departed is a state of penal torment, differing from that of hell only in the certainty of future deliverance. Palmer admits, however, that, although the Greeks reject the word ' purgatory ' on account of its evil associations, they nevertheless believe that many of the departed are in an imperfect condition, with stains of sin cleaving to them ; and ' of such they think as needing the prayers and oblations of the Church on earth to procure their refreshment, and to lighten them tcov KaTzyovTOiv cwtovs aviapwv. On the other hand, the Latins think of the higher souls that they either go straight through purgatory, or are speedily released from it.' The doctrine of the Eastern Church, in all its branches, is thus seen to be identical wdth that of the ancient Church and of the Church of England. It believes that no disembodied spirit has ever entered, or ever will enter, heaven, till after the general resurrection. And this is the unanimous doctrine of the primitive Church. By * heaven ' I mean the realm of the Beatific Vision, the ' kingdom ' into which our Lord says that He will invite the saints — evidently for the first time — after the final Judgment. This explanation is necessary because the Bible almost always speaks of heaven in the plural — 'the heavens.' The spiritual world. He tells us in another place, is a sphere of ' many mansions,' abodes suited to the ethical condition and needs of each of the diversified multitudes who THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 327 constantly pass from earth into the unseen lionie. And as progress, in one direction or another, is a law of intellectual and moral life, we may assume that souls in the Intermediate State, while waiting for the Judgment, rise from sphere to sphere in the altitude of heing in proportion to the purification of their characters and the expansion of their faculties. The present Pope, a few years ago, invited all the Eastern Churches and the people of England to acknowledge his supremacy and prerogatives, and restore the unity of Christendom by submission to him. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Eastern Church sent a powerful answer, signed by himself ■and his suffragans, declaring that there could be no union till the Church of Pome abandoned her innovations and heterodox doctrines, and returned to the faith of the ancient fathers and councils — the ground always taken by the Church of England. This is what the Eastern bishops say on the subject of the Intermediate State : ' The one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the seven CEcumenical Councils, in accordance with the inspired teaching of Holy Scripture and with the Apostolic tradition of old, in praying invokes the mercy of God for pardon and repose of those who are asleep in the Lord. But the Papal Church, from the twelfth century onward, invented and accumulated in the person of- the Pope — as if he enjoyed exclusively some special privilege — a multitude of innovations respecting purgatory, the superfluity of grace in saints, and its distribution among those deficient 328 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT in it, and sncli like ; and she has further propounded the behef in a complete recompense of the just before the general Eesurrection and Judgment/ That sums up clearly and tersely the complete subversion of the ancient doctrine by the Church of Eome. The two cardinal errors of that sub- version are (1) the doctrine that purgatory is, if I may use the expression with reverence, a sort of clearing-house for souls, under the jurisdiction and control of the Pope and his delegates the clergy ; and (2), growing out of this doctrine, a traffic in souls, culminating in the shameless abuses associated with the name of Tetzel, and w^hich did more to bring about the Reformation, especially in Germany, than any other cause. I have discussed at some length in another work ^ the subject of the Intermediate State and the Koman doctrine of Purgatory, especially the belief that souls pass through purgatory to the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision before the Judgment Day. Those who wdsh to consult the authoritative Roman teaching on that point will find it stated with great clearness in Perrone's ' Praelectiones.' ^ As to the traffic in indulgences and pardons, I know well that Roman Catholics in this country and in most enlightened countries would energetically condemn the abuses wliich flourished in such rank luxuriance at the period of the Reformation. But all danger of their recurrence cannot be regarded as ' Life Here and Hereafter : Longmans. - Vol. i. pp. 800-848. Paris edition of 18-42. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 329 out of the question while the exorbitant clciinis of the Papacy, and its needs as aspiring to temporal dominion, remain uncancelled. I may be supposed, even by some Roman Catholics, to exaggerate the claim of the Papacy to jurisdiction over souls beyond the grave. But the truth is that I might have used stronger language. To give an example : The late Pope, in replying to a deputation of Belgians who had presented him with a papal tiara on June 18, 1871, used these words : — * Ye offer me gifts : a triple crown, symbol of my triple royal dignity, in Heaven, on earth, and in Purgatory. And my kingdom will not perish, because the Pope will always be, as I have been. Pope, wherever he may be ; at one time in his own States, to-day at the Vatican, some other day in prison. But I accept this crown as a symbol of resurrection. It w^ill not serve me to-day, but certainly in the days of my triumph.' ^ These discourses were addressed ' to the faithful of Rome and of the world,' with the sub-title ' a tutti i fedeli di Roma e dell' orbe,' and were carefully revised by the Pope himself. How far do they fulfil ' Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX, pronumiati in Vaticano ai Fedeli di Roma e delV orhe dal iwincipio dclla sua prirjione fino al prcsente, 3 vols. The passage which I have quoted is in the first volume, p. 133, and is as follows in the original : * Voi mi oiJrite dei doni : un Triregno, simbolo della mia tripla dignitii reale, nel Cielo, sopra la terra, e nel Purgatorio. E il Mio regno non perira, perch^ il Papa sara, come fu, sempre Papa, dovunque ei sia ; una volta nei suoi Stati, oggi al Vaticano, un altro giorno in prigione. Ma lo accetto questa corona, come un simbolo di risorgimento. Ella non mi servira oggi, ma bensi nei giorni del trionfo.' 330 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT the conditions of infallible utterances, as defined by the Vatican decree ? It is an interesting question, on which I may have something to say when I come to discuss the question of Infallibility. Meanwhile I trust that I have sufficiently explained the doctrine of the Church of England regarding the Intermediate State, and shown wherein it differs from the teaching of the Church of Rome. 331 CHAPTEE X ECCLESIASTICAL COUETS AND THE OENAMENTS RUBKIC Try. fortiter in re was more conspicuous than the siiaviter in moclo in the statement lately put forth by the Council of the Enghsh Church Union. That is usually the case with statements declaring doctrines, whether religious or political. They aim, if drawn up by honest men, at directness and terse- ness, and avoid rhetoric and vagueness. And the con- sequence is that they commonly startle persons who are not familiar with such subjects. But it is some- times good for people to be startled. It sets them athinking, and drives them back on first principles. Now it happens that the sentence which has caused most excitement in the statement of the English Church Union is the one sentence which is capable of the easiest defence. Here it is : ' We have denied, and we deny again, the right of the Crown or of Parliament to determine the doctrine, the discipline, and the ceremonial of the Church of England.' This frank utterance has made the cup of Sir William Harcourt's indignation overflow in a torrent of invective. He denounces Lord Hahfax as ' the 332 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ecclesiastical Jack Cade,' leading an ' open rebellion ' ; and he declares dogmatically that ' the only reply to this nonsense ^vhich it is necessary to give is that the Crown and Parliament, when they enacted the Prayer Book in the teeth of the bishops and the clergy, did determine all the conditions of the Church of England as established by law, and have continued to do so for more than three centuries/ And Sir William goes on to declare that the allega- tion which he denounces as ' open rebellion ' * is a direct denial of the first principles of the English Eeformation, which was the work of the laity for the laity, who also in the tribunals for the final decision of Church functions have provided for themselves a necessary and adequate safeguard.' I venture humbly and respectfully, but decidedly, not only to traverse every one of these statements, but to prove that the assertion, which Sir William Harcourt has stigmatised as a signal for ' open rebellion,' is nothing more than a platitude of con- stitutional law. I recognise the temerity of such an assertion in opposition to a distinguished statesman and lawyer, who is, moreover, one of the most formidable intellectual athletes among living contro- versiahsts. But I am sure that Sir William Harcourt will be the last to resent my rashness, for he has himself set me the example by sundry excur- sions into the field of theology, which has lain as much outside his normal studies as that of law has Iain outside mine. ' To the law and to the testi- mony,' then. In opposition to Sir William Harcourt THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 333 I respectfully lay down, and shall endeavour to prove, the following propositions : — 1. That the English Keformation was much more a political than a theological movement ; the professed aim of the Keformers being to liberate the Church and nation from the domination and inter- meddling of the Pope. The Keformers disclaimed any intention to create a new Church, or a new creed, or a new ceremonial further than by the abolition of certain abuses and accretions which had in the course of ages got mixed up with the ancient ceremonial of the Church of England. Both clergy and laity appealed to the Church of the CEcumenical Councils (universally accepted) as the standard of faith and worship. 2. That it is incorrect to say that ' the Crown and ParHament enacted the Prayer Book in the teeth of the bishops and clergy,' and that neither Crown nor Parliament has ever claimed or exercised the right of determining the doctrine, discipline, or ceremonial of the Church without the Church's own sanction. 3. That this imphes no derogation from the constitutional supremacy of the Crown in matters ecclesiastical. 1. The first two propositions belong to the region of ecclesiastical history more than to that of law, and there perhaps it is not presumptuous for me to say that I am perhaps more at home — at least I ought to be — than Sir William Harcourt. But his authority would nevertheless be likely to overpower mine, and I shall therefore appeal to names which 334 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Sir William himself will admit to be not inferior to his own. No man of our time studied the history of the Eeformation with a more unbiased mind, a more minute care, or a more comprehensive grasp of the whole subject than Mr. Gladstone. He was singu- larly well equipped for the task. To a wide and accurate range of reading he added a remarkable aptitude for theological and legal studies, and his eristic discipline in the House of Commons made him sharp to detect a flaw in an argument. Brought up an Evangelical, he began his special study of the Keformation with his mind biased, as far as it was biased at all, in that direction. Having no foregone conclusion to uphold, he kept his mind open to such light as an impartial study of facts might shed upon it. Now this is what Mr. Gladstone says : — With us the question lay simply between the nation and the Pope of Rome, and its first form as a religious question had reference purely to his supremacy. . . . That the question of the English Reformation was eminently and specially national ; that it was raised as between this island of the free on the one hand, and an ' Italian priest ' on the other, is a remarkable truth which derives equally remarkable illustrations from our history. The main subject of contention between the State and the Romanists, or recusants as they were called, was not their adhesion tc this or that Popish doctrine, but their acknowledgment of an unnational and anti-national head. To meet this case the oath of supremacy was framed. . . . The British Government required of its subjects the renunciation, not of Popish doctrines, but of the ecclesi- THE ORNAMENTS EUBRIC .335 astical supremacy of the Pope. ... It was not tlie existing Church as a rehgious institution, but the secular ambition of the Papal See, against which security was sought by renouncing its jurisdiction.' Newman's bias, after he became a liomaii Catholic, would have been to make the most of the religions question as the motive cause of the Kefor- mation. But he was an honest man and had studied the question conscientiously, and this is his conclusion : — Not any religious doctrine at all, but a political principle, was the primary Enghsh idea at that time [reign of Ehzabeth] of 'Popery.' And what was that principle, and how could it best be kept out of England ? What was the great question in the days of Henry and Elizabeth? The Supremacy. . . . Did Henry VIII. religiously hold justification by faith only? Did he disbelieve Purgatory? Was Elizabeth zealous for the marriage of the clergy ? or had she a conscience against the Mass ? The supremacy of the Pope was the essence of the ' Popery ' to which, at the time of the Articles, the Supreme Head or Governor of the English Church was so violently hostile. - Freeman had a religious devotion to the virtue of historical accuracy, and he comes to the same conclusion as Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal New- man : — Nothing was further from the mind of either Henry the Eighth or of Elizabeth than that either of tliem was * The State in its Relations 2vith the Church, pp. 174, 189-90. - Apologia, p. 162. The italics are Newman's. 336 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT doing anything new. Neither of them ever thought for a moment of estabhshing a new Church or of estabhshing anything at all. In their own eyes they were not esta- blishing but reforming ; they were neither pulling down nor setting up, but simply putting to-rights. They were getting rid of innovations and corruptions ; they were casting off an usurped foreign jurisdiction, and restoring to the Crown its ancient authority over the State ecclesi- astical.^ The late Dr. Brewer edited, with learned intro- ductions, several of the volumes published under the auspices of the Master of the Rolls. His introduc- tion to the papers relating to the reign of Henry VIII. makes a goodly quarto volume of 572 pages. He had studied the history of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries with great care, and he agrees in the main with the authorities already cited : — But the Reformation did not owe its origin to Tyndal or to Parliament ; to the corruptions of the clergy, or to oppression of the Ecclesiastical Courts. There is no reason to suppose that the nation as a whole w^as discon- tented with the old religion. Facts point to the opposite conclusion. . . . Nor, considering the temper of the English people, is it probable that immorality could have existed among the ancient clergy to the degree which the exaggeration of poets, preachers, and satirists might lead us to suppose. The existence of such corruption is not justified by authentic documents, or by an impartial and broad estimate of the character and conduct of the nation before the Reformation. . . . But though the Reformation advanced no further [than the abolition of Papal Supremacy] in the reign of Henry VIII., and he still ' Disestablishment and Disendoivment, p. 38. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 337 maintained the rites, ceremonies, and doctrines of the ancient faith, it was ah-eady in liis reign irrevocably established.' Macaulay's summing up of the Reformation period is not remarkable for its accuracy, and is scornful and somewhat flippant. But he, too, makes the supremacy the testing question. Elizabeth as well as Henry VIII., he says, certainly had no objection to the theology of Rome. The Royal supremacy was to supersede the Papal ; but ' the Catholic doctrines and rites were to be retained in the Church of England.' Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation w^ith Rome ; and throughout her w^iole life she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system.^ But we are not dependent on second-hand testi- mony for our knowledge of the position taken up by Elizabeth : her words are on record. In her Admonitions of 1559 she declares that she ' neither doth nor ever will challenge any other authority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble kings of famous memory. King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI., which is, and was, of ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm.' And again, in the year 1569, on the suppression of ' Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII. iv, 551. - Essays, i. 181, 133. 338 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the northern rebelhon, the Queen piibHshed a pro- clamation, in which she said that she chiimed no other ecclesiastical authority than had been due to her predecessors ; that she pretended no right to define articles of faith, or to change ancient ceremonies formerly adopted by the Catholic and Apostolic Church . . . ; but that she conceived it her duty to take care that all estates under her rule should live in the faith and obedience of the Christian religion ; to see all laws ordained for that end duly observed; and to provide that the Church l^e governed by archbishops, bishops, and ministers. And then she assured her people that she meant not to molest them for religious opinions provided they did not gainsay the Scriptures, or the Creeds Apostolic and Catholic, nor for matters of religious ceremony as long as they should outwardly conform to the laws of the realm, which enforced the frequentation of Divine service in the ordinary churches.^ It would be easy to go on multiplying authorities ; but these will suffice to establish my first proposition, that the motive cause of the Eeformation was political rather than doctrinal, and w^as centred in the question of the Papal supremacy. 2. I now proceed to give evidence for my second proposition. Sir ^Yilliam Harcourt has offered only one piece of evidence in support of his view that the Prayer Book is the offspring solely of the Crown ' LinKai-d's Hist. v. 295. THE ORNAMENTS EUBRIC 339 and Parliament ' in the teeth of the bishops and clergy.' His solitary proof, which he appears to regard as crucial, is the opposition to the Uniformity Act of 1559 by all the bishops present in the House of Lords in that division, and the verbal omission from the Act afterwards of the words ' the Lords spiritual ' as assenting to the Act. I shall examine that point presently. But why does Sir WilHam fix on that year and that Act of Uniformity exclu- sively as if it possessed a sacrosanct character and nullified all that preceded and succeeded it ? For no other reason that I can imagine than that it is the only fact in the whole history of the Keformation which gives a colourable pretext to his theory. There are other Acts of Uniformity before and after 1559 in which the assent of the Lords spiritual is mentioned. Why should they be excluded from the evidence available on this subject? That style of controversy will never do. It offends equally the canons of logic, justice, and historical criticism. Now let us look at the facts. The norm of our present Prayer Book is to be found in the ' Order of the Communion ' published on March 8, 1548. It was compiled by seven bishops (including Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Eidley), and the Deans of Christ Church, Oxford, St. Paul's, Lincoln, Exeter, the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, and Dr. Robertson, afterwards Dean of Durham. This service left the Office of the Mass to be said in Latin to the end of the consecration prayer and the z 2 340 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT communion of the priest, but added to it in English what is substantially our present Communion Office. This was used without any authorisation at all by Parliament, and the laity had no hand in it. It was followed by the First Prayer Book of Edward VL, which is the basis of our present Prayer Book. It prescribed, among other things, the use of the Eucharistic vestments ; and the Act of Uniformity which sanctioned it declares that it is in harmony with 'the pure Christian rehgion taught by the Scriptures,' as well as with ' the usages in the primitive Church,' and that it was drawn up * by the aid of the Holy Ghost.' This Act of Uniformity purports to have been passed by ' the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this Parliament assembled.' So far we have no trace of ' the Crown and Parliament ' ' enacting the Prayer Book in the teeth of the bishops and clergy.' At this juncture, unfortunately, a number of foreign Reformers — iconoclasts in religion and re- publicans in politics — came to England, and were placed in positions of great influence, including the chairs of theology at the Universities. They were in the confidence of the astute Calvin, who hoped by their aid to overthrow the constitution of the English Church and reconstruct it on the model of Geneva. His recommendations were backed up by some influential persons at Court, who calculated, as Hallam and Macaulay have pointed out, that a new Eeformation on the Swiss pattern would be certain to relieve the Church of much property which THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 341 nobody could use so profitably as themselves. The precocious mind of the priggish boy who occupied the throne of the Tudors was completely turned by the artful flatteries of these men. He w^as persuaded to regard himself as a second good Josiah/ whose name would be blessed by future generations as a great reformer. But the bishops set their faces against the revolutionary proposals of the foreign Eeformers, and the King, finding himself thus balked of pos- thumous renown, told Sir John Cheke that when Parliament met he should effect his purpose by exercise of his Koyal authority.^ This threat he appears to have executed — at least partially. There is no record of the Second Prayer Book of Edw^ard having ever been submitted to Convocation. Card- w^ell surmises that ' the Convocation was induced to delegate its authority to a commission appointed by the King ; ' ^ but of this there is no proof in the records of Convocation. Considering the genesis of the Second Book, the wonder is that so few alterations were made of a serious character. Some of the alterations, indeed, were in the nature of improvements ; ^ others affected * Strype's Memorials of Cranvicr, ii. 9. - ' Hoc non me i^arum recreat quod mihi D. Checus indicavit : si noluerint ipsi [episcopi], ait, efficere ut quas mutanda sint mutentur, rex per seipsum id faciei ; et cum ad parliamentum ventura fuerit ipse suae Majestatis authoritatem interponet.' — See Peter Martyr's Letter to Bucer in Strype's Memorials of Cranvicr, ii. 6G3. ^ The Two Liturgies of King Edward VI. p. xviii. "• This is frankly admitted by a hostile witness :— ' Without doubt subsequent revisions of the Book of Common Prayer [of 1549] have 342 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT the integrity of the ancient ceremonial sanctioned by the First Book ; none touched the essence of doctrine. Cranmer disHked the alterations which the Second Book made in the Communion Office. He was a great admirer of the Book of 1549, in the compila- tion of which he took a leading part. Writing of it he says : ' The manner of the Holy Communion, which is now set forth within this Eealm, is agreeable with the institution of Christ, with St. Paul, and the old primitive iVpostolic Church, and with the right faith of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross.' ' He solicited Bucer's opinion of the Book, and Bucer replied that he ' found nothing in it but what was either taken out of the Word of God, or at least not contrary to it, if fairly interpreted ' — an opinion which he revoked afterwards under the influence of those who were set on organic changes. Cranmer, as usual, played a weak and vacillating part. W^edded to the First Book and opposed to any further changes, he lacked the courage to resist the King and his powerful prompters. So he ended l)y swimming with the current, but recorded his opinion of the aims and character of the new introduced elements which, although it may not be easy to justify them by the test of antiquity, have given to the daily service a breadth or even a certain dignity which is altogether wanting in the book of 1549.' ' The Prayer Book of 1549 relaxes the obligation of private recitation [of matins and vespers] altogether, but this was reimposed in the Second Book of 1552.' Edward VI. mid the Book of Common Prayer. By Francis Aidan Gasquet, O.S.B., pp. 30, 39. ' One of the additions in the Second Book was the order to recite the Athanasian Creed on several Saints' days as well as on the great festivals. THE ORNAMENTS RUBKIC 343 Eeformers in a letter of protest to the King's Council, in reply to a Royal mandate that he should peruse and report upon the Second Book. The drift of his protest may be gathered from the following extract : — I know your Lordships' wisdom to be such as that I trust ye will not be moved with these glorious and ungruiet spirits which can lihc nothinrj hut that is after their oiu7i fancy ; and cease not to make trouble luhen things be most quiet and in good order. If such men should be heard, although the Book were made every year aneio, yet it should not lack faults in their opinion} This is a pregnant comment on the declaration of the Act of Uniformity which ratified the Second Book, namely, that ' such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise ' of the First Book proceeded rather from ' the curiosity of the ministers and mis- takers than from any other worthy cause.' This Act, which was passed on April 6, 1552, ordered the use of the Second Book on the 1st of the en- suing November. The copies of the Book wdiich were printed in the interval, however, were so full of errors, that — partly for this reason, and partly, as it seems, because the King w^as anxious to have the Book revised still further in the interest of the Puritans — an Order in Council was issued on September 27 cancelling the whole edition and forbidding the issue of any more copies. On the 6th day of the following July the boy-king, who had been ailing for some months previously, died ; and his Second ' State Papers (Domestic) Edivarcl VI. xv. 15. 3U THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Book of Coinnioii Praj'er died with him. It seems tolerably clear that its adoption was very irregular and partial, and of questionable legality.' Its use would have been illegal before the Feast of All Saints, 1552. But all the copies printed up to the end of September in that year had been suppressed by the Order in Council already referred to. There is not a fragment of proof, that I know of, to show that any other edition had been printed in the meantime. There is evidence that the Second Book was used in some churches in the interval, for it was covered by Act of Parliament. It is for lawyers to decide how far the Order in Council affected its legality. It was pretty evident before the end of 1552 that the King was dying, and the perilous uncertainty as to the succession filled the minds of those in authority with apprehensions which were not likely to leave much room for deliberations about the new Prayer Book. The King himself too, knowing that his illness was incurable, had to think of other matters than the disputatious letters of Calvin and the flatteries of self-seeking courtiers. The Duke of Northumberland, w^ho after the death of the Protector really ruled the kingdom, w^as bent on securing the ' See Letter of George Withers to the Prince Elector Palatine {Zurich Letters, Second Series, ii. 159, 160). Sjieaking of the sup- pressed edition of the Second Prayer Book he says : ' But the King, who truly feared God, not being yet satisfied with these improve- ments, was about to put the last rinish to this work, and appointed a day for the assembling of both Houses of Parliament. All were full of hope and expectation ; but in the meantime our most excellent King was taken away by an untimely death.' THE OENAMENTS RUBEIC 345 sceptre for his daughter-in-law, the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, and had actually persuaded the King to appoint her his successor by Letters Patent. The partisans of Mary were equally resolute on the other side ; and in the prospect of a struggle which promised to be as desolating as the Wars of the Eoses, the small knot of Puritanical Reformers and their nostrums were forgotten. This is the nearest approach in all the history of the Reformation to Sir William Harcourt's assertion that ' the Crown and ParHament enacted the Prayer Book in the teeth of the bishops and clergy.' But it is an approach only. For the Uniformity Act of 1552 was passed with the assent of the Lords spiritual as w^ell as temporal. Sir William, however, was mainly thinking of the Uniformity Act of 1559. On that occasion it is undoubtedly true that all the bishops present in the House of Lords voted against the Act. It is equally true that the Act itself omits all express mention of the spiritual Lords as assenting parties to the Act, using only the phrase, ' with the assent of the Lords and Commons.' But this is not decisive, for the same phrase is used in the Uniformity Act of 1552, when the spiritual peers were assenting parties. The Uniformity Act of 1549 is still more to the point, for after mention- ing ' the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled ' as assenting to the xAct, it afterwards speaks of ' the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled ' — the very phrase on which 346 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Sir William Harcourt fastens in the Elizabethan Acts of 1559 and 1552. But Sir William has a second string to his bow. The Elizabethan Act says : ' And for due execution hereof, the Queen's most excellent Majesty, the Lords temporal and all the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, doth in God's name earnestly require and charge all the archbishops, bishops, and other ordinaries, that they shall endeavour them- selves to the uttermost of their knowledge, that the due and true execution hereof may be had through- out their dioceses and charges, as they will answer before God for such evils and plagaes wherewith Almighty God may justly punish His people for neglecting His good and wholesome law,' &c. This proves nothing. Obviously the spiritual peers could not ' earnestly require and charge ' themselves to do anything even if they had been assenting parties to the Act. Thus we see that the phrase which has delighted Sir William Harcourt, and w^hich forms the corner-stone of his novel theory of the Reformation, vanishes like those frail substances which look beauti- ful when disentombed from some ancient sepulchre, but crumble to pieces when exposed to the light of the sun. But there is more to be said on this matter. The year after the Uniformity Act of 1559, Ehzabeth put out a Latin version of the Prayer Book, with some alterations and additions which brought it nearer the Book of 1549. In the Letters Patent which authorised this Latin Book she says expressly that the Book of 1559 was passed * with the consent THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 347 of the three Estates of the Keahn.' ' Tliis is a flat contradiction of Sir WiUiam Harcourt's assertion. Yet there is undoubtedly an apparent discrepancy between the votes of the bishops against the Act of Uniformity and the Queen's unequivocal assertion in a formal State document that the Act of Uni- formity Avas passed ' with the assent of the three Estates of our Keahn,' namely, the Lords spiritual, the Lords temporal, and the Commons. This is said in the face of Parliament and tiie nation, and there is no contradiction from any quarter, not even from any of the bishops. What is the explanation ? I venture to offer the following. When the Act of Uniformity was passing through Parliament ten out of the twenty-six sees were vacant through death, leaving sixteen bishops as peers of Parliament. Of these, nine voted against the third reading of the Act. One was absent through illness and seven for no assignable reason. The Bill was thus opposed by just one more than a third of the whole bench, and of these more than half were dis- qualified by canonical and statutory law. All the episcopal consecrations in the reign of Mary are in that category, for they were made by authority of ' ' Omnibus ad quos proesentes literaj pervenerint, salutem. Cum mem ores officii nostri erga Deum Omnipotentem (cujus providentia principes regnant) legibus quibusdam saluberrimis, consensu trium Regni nostri statiium, saneitis, anno regni nostri primo, Eegium nostrum consensum libenter prjebuerimus : inter quas una lex lata est, ut Preces publicsE una et eadem certa et prascripta precandi forma, lingua vulgari et vernacula, passim in Ecclesia Anglicana haberentur,' &c. 348 THE EEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT the Pope which had been, from 1534, renounced by the Convocations of the Church lawfully convened ; and this canonical renunciation was never repealed by either Convocation. Moreover, thirteen bishops, canonically and legally appointed, had been deprived by Mary without pretence of sanction from the ecclesiastical law of England, and intruders were thrust into their sees. In addition, Queen Elizabeth and her advisers took the precaution of fortifying their position by statute as w^ell as by canon law before passing the Act of Uniformity. Mary's statute restoring the Papal Supremacy was repealed before the Uniformity Act reached the House of Lords, and the Marian bishops w^ere thus legally as well as canonically disqualified as spiritual peers, although they were not as yet formally de- prived. This is the very objection that Bonner afterwards took to the consecration of Archbishop Parker and the other Ehzabethan bishops, namely, that the Ordinal used lacked statutory authority,^ not having received the assent of Parliament. But the Queen had anticipated this objection by supplying the legal defects of the Ordinal ; a precaution which some Eoman Catholic wTiters have perverted as if it meant the rectification by the Queen of some flaw in the act of Consecration. The view therefore which Elizabeth and her ministers appear to have taken of the negative votes of the Marian bishops is that they were null and void, the voters being disqualified on grounds both ' White's Lives of the Elimbcthati Bishops, p. 36. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 349 legal and canonical. Had they supported the Act and accepted the situation, it is probable that their position would have been legalised, like that of the Ordinal. As it was, their votes were ignored, and the assent of the new bishops was assumed. The Act of Uniformity, therefore, on which Sir WilHam Harcourt rehes, assumes the assent of the spiritual peers, and the Queen positively asserts it without a dissentient voice. Two things are con- spicuous in Elizabeth's conduct all through that troubled period : one, her anxiety to have the law on her side ; the other, pace Sir William Harcourt, her peremptory repudiation of any right on the part of the laity to legislate for the Church. The spiritual peers constitute the first of the three estates of the Realm, and whatever lawyers may think now, it is unquestionable that in the time of Elizabeth and previously an Act of Parliament would have been considered of doubtful authority, if not altogether invalid, passed in a Parliament where the spiritual state was ignored. 'In the Parliament Eoll of 21 Eich. n. it is said that many ordinances have been disannulled because the State of the clergy were not present in Parliament at the making of them. So that the distinction between Estates in the kingdom and Estates in Parliament, as if the bishops were one of the first and not of the second, is merely imaginary, and leaves one Estate unrepre- sented in Parliament.' ^ Elizabeth had far too much ' De Lolme On the English Constitution, pp. 134-5. I owe this quotation to Mr. James Parker. 350 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT respect for precedent to run any risk of that sort. Certainly this view of the Constitution came down at least to the Great Rebellion. When the bishops were turned out of the House of Lords by the Long Parliament they protested against any legislation enacted in their absence as null and void. Elizabeth's repudiation of the right of the House of Commons to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs, except by way of sanction for ecclesiastical matters brought before it either by Royal authority or by the House of Lords, where the Church was repre- sented by the bishops, could be illustrated by various examples. Let two suffice. The case is put succinctly and clearly by a very able and learned foreign writer on the Enghsh Constitution, Dr. Rudolph Gneist, Professor of Law in the University of Berhn. He writes : — When in 14 Elizabeth a bill touching the rites and ceremonies of the Church had been read a third time, the Queen declared to the House, through the Speaker, that * no bill concerning religion should be proposed or received into this House, unless the same be first considered and approved by the clergy.' This, however, referred to the initiation of legislation touching the Church, and actually formed a new province, as to which no precedent could be found for the cooperation of Parliament. On the contrary, the interference of the Commons witli the internal affairs of the Church, as well as all taxation of spiritualties, had always been energetically rejected.^ The author gives no reference, but there is a parallel passage in the Calendar of State Papers ' Hist, of the Engl. Const, ii. 149. English translation. THE OENAMENTS RUBRIC 351 edited by Mrs. Green.' As late as the year 1593, in a speech dehvered by Sir Edward Coke, Speaker of the House of Commons, we find this language. He tells the House that he had been sent for by her Majesty, who directed him to tell the House, among other things, ' that it is in her power to call Parha- ments and to end them, and to assent to or dissent from- anything done therein. Secondly, that in her Majesty's pleasure, delivered to them by the Lord Keeper, it was not meant that they should meddle either in matters of State or ecclesiastical causes; and she wondered that any should be so forgetful of her commandment, or so bold as to attempt a thing so expressly contrary to that she had forbidden. She further directs that if they attempt to exhibit any Bills tending to matters of State or reformation in causes ecclesiastical, the Lord Keeper, on his alle- giance, shall refuse to read them.' The Queen here refers to her having previously * forbidden ' this sort of intermeddling in ecclesiastical affairs on the part of the House of Commons, and * wonders that any should be so forgetful of her commandment.' This probably refers to a petition presented to the Queen in the year 1586 by the House of Commons, praying for reforms in the direction of Puritanism. Her Majesty sent a snub- bing and sarcastic reply, of which the drift may be gathered from the following quotation : — Her Majesty is fully resolved by her own reading and princely judgment upon the truth of the reformation ' Calendar of Eliz. la91-4, p. 322. 352 THE EEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT which we have ah-eady, and mindeth not now to begin to settle herself in causes of religion. Her Majesty hath been confirmed in her said judgment of the present reformation by the letters and writings of the most famous men in Christendom, as well of her own dominions as of other countries. Her Majesty thinks it very incon- venient and dangerous, while our enemies are labouring to overthrow the religion established as false and erroneous, that we, by new disputations, should seem ourselves to doubt thereof. Her Majesty hath fully considered, not only of the exceptions that are made against the present reformation, and doth find them frivolous, but also of the platform that is desired, and accounteth it most prejudicial unto the religion established, to her crown, to her government, to her subjects. Her Majesty thinketh that, though it were granted that some things were amiss in the Church, yet seeing she is fully persuaded, and knoweth it to be true, that for the very substance and grounds of true religion no man living can justly control them ; to make every day new laws in matters of circum- stances and of less moment (especially touching religion) were a means to breed great lightness in her subjects, to nourish unstayed humour in them, in seeking still for exchanges. ' Malum est et reipub. noxium assuefieri homines ad facilitatem mutandarum legum.' If anything were amiss it ai^ioertaincth to the clergy more properly to see the same redressed. ' Unicuique in sua arte credendum. Quam quisque norit artem in hac se exerceat. Navem agere ignarus navis timet.' Her Majesty takes your petition herein to be against the prerogative of her crown. For by their full consents it hath been confirmed and enacted (as the truth herein requireth) that the full power, authority, jurisdiction and supremacy, in Church causes which heretofore the popes usurped and took \o THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 353 themselves, should be united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm. ^ Yet Sir William Harcourt picks out Elizabeth's reign in particular as the auspicious era, when the laity got their feet on the necks of the clergy and reformed the Prayer Book 'in the teeth of the bishops and the clergy ! ' I humbly submit that, inasmuch as men's heads are soft in comparison with stone walls, it is ill luck for a controversialist to run his head against the stone walls of history. But I am willing to be generous and to test my case by subsequent periods of history. Sir William Harcourt's theory is vitiated by another fatal flaw. The following letter appeared from his pen in the * Westminster Gazette ' in the first week of last July :— The Reformation Statutes. To the Editor of The Westminster Gazette: Sir, — My attention has been called to some comments in your paper of June 30 upon the citation I made from the Act of Uniformity to show that it w^as enacted by the authority of the * Lords Temporal and the Commons ' alone, to the exclusion of the * Lords Spiritual.' The statute from which I read in the House of Commons was, I need not say, the great Beformation Act of Elizabeth, in which this notable circumstance is specially recorded (1 Eliz., cap. 2). The note in the Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 472, gives the reason. The same observation applies to the preceding Reformation ' Cardwell's Synodalia, 11. 559-01. A A 354 THE REFOR^^IATION SETTLEMENT Act of Uniformity of Edward VI. (5 and G Ed. VI., cap. 1, Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 437). These were the Reformation statutes by which the doctrines and practice of the Church of England were established by law, on its separation from the Church of Rome, and were enacted not with the authority of the ' Spiritualty ' but against their consent. I did not, of course, refer (as you seem to suppose) to the Bcstoration enactment of Charles II., which was in no sense a Bcformation statute, and was passed under very different conditions. Your obedient servant, W. V. Harcourt. I have already shown that Sir William has care- lessly misread the statutes of Edward VI. and Elizabeth to which he refers. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that his construction of them is correct. "What then? Edward's Act is dead, and has no more legal force than the laws of Lycurgus. Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, on the other hand, ^vas abolished by the Long Parliament, and was revived by the Uniformity Act of 16(j'2. On that Act it rests. Now the Prayer Book sanc- tioned by the Act of 1662 was not Elizabeth's Prayer Book, but that Prayer Book as revised by the clergy, w^ho made several additions to it, in the reign of James I. That revision was never submitted to Parliament. It rested solely upon the Koyal authority ratifying by Letters Patent the action of the Metropolitan and of the other clerical Commis- sioners. The Prayer Book thus revised, without any THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 355 interference on tlie part of Parliament, was at the Restoration handed over to the Convocations of the two Provinces for its final revision. The Northern Convocation elected delegates to co-operate with the Convocation of Canterbury, and their united labours resulted in (300 alterations. This last revision passed the Lords and was then sent down to the Commons, who, while maintaining their right to discuss the book thus amended, abstained from doing so out of deference to Convocation. So deferential, indeed, were they that they even shrank from correcting a clerical error in the Baptismal Service, and remitted it to Convocation, which thereupon deputed the Bishops of Durham, St. Asaph, and Carlisle to make the correction. The Act of Uniformity then author- ised the revised Prayer Book in the following words : * Be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by the advice, and with the consent, of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and of the Commons as- sembled in this present Parliament,' &c. This Act is now the statutory charter of the clergy, and if any previous Act conflicts with it, it is a commonplace of law, with which even laymen are familiar, that if two Acts of Parliament differ, it is the second that pre- vails. Why, then, does a distinguished lawyer and statesman, like Sir William Harcourt, repudiate *the Hestoration enactment of Charles II.,' and declare that it ' was in no sense a Reformation statute, and w^as passed under very different circum- stances ' ? I can imagine no other reason than the fact that the last Act of Uniformity, which is now 356 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT the basis in secular law of the Prayer Book, shatters Sir Wilham Harcourt's theory in pieces, and gives statutory force to Queen Elizabeth's dictum, that ' if anything were amiss, it appertaineth to the clergy to see the same redressed.' > It is of course natural that Sir 'Winiam should dislike a statute of which the history furnishes a complete refutation of his whole argument. But is it not a characteristic mark of lawlessness to pick and choose among laws, insist- ing on those of which we approve, and rejecting those which we dislike? Surely Sir William is himself here violating the very code of morals which he is trying to impose with such draconic rigour on the clergy. The last attempt made by an external authority to legislate for the Church in matters of doctrine, disciphne, and ceremonial, was William III.'s scheme in 1689. The King attempted to impose his scheme on the Church without the assent of Convocation, but was arrested by addresses from both Houses of Parliament, praying that, ' according to the ancient practice and usage of this kingdom in time of Parliament, his Majesty would be graciously pleased to issue forth his writs, as soon as con- veniently might be, for calling a Convocation of the clergy of this kingdom, to be advised with in ecclesi- astical matiers.' "' He was obliged to comply. Convo- cation was summoned and the scheme was laid before ' See KcnnctVs Register, p. G80 ; and Docuvicnts relating to the Act of Uniformity, p. 453. -• Pari. Hist. v. 216. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 3o7 it. The Upper House, under the influence of the Erastian Primate, Tillotson, was favourably dis- posed ; but the Lower House of Convocation, after animated debates and conferences with the Upper House, rejected the scheme, and made an end of it.' Parhament disclaimed for itself and the Crown the right to determine the doctrine, the discipline, or the ceremonial of the Church of England ; in other w^ords, vindicated proleptically the proposition which Sir William Harcourt has denounced as ' a direct denial of the first principles of the Keformation, which was the work of the laity for the laity.' Nobody can master a subject more thoroughly than Sir William Harcourt when he gives his mind and devotes a sufficient time to it. Witness his mastery of finance, which was comparatively new ground to him till he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is quite evident, from his speeches in Parliament and his letters to the ' Times,' that he has never seriously studied the history of the Keformation at all. He has simply adopted a popular tradition, and assumed its accuracy without any attempt to verify it. The tradition is a pure myth, as I think I have now shown. But before I pass to my next proposition it may be well to note a few of the items in the scheme which Convocation rejected. It recommended the disuse of ' the chanting of Divine service in Cathedral Churches ; ' of * the Apocryphal Lessons ' Cardwell's Hist, of Conf. ch. ix. ; Lathbary's Hist, of the Con- vocation of the Church of Engl. ch. xi. 358 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT and those of the Old Testament which are too natural,' and 'all the legendary Samts' days.' It recommended that ' if any refuse to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper kneeling, it may be administered to them in their pews ; ' that ' distinction of meats in Lent be abolished ; ' ' that the rubric which obliges ministers to read or hear common prayer publicly or privately every day be changed to an exhortation to the people to frequent those prayers ; ' ' that the absolution in the Morning and Evening Prayer may be read by a deacon, the word " priest" in the rubric being changed into " minister; " and those words and remission be put out as not very intelligible ; ' that ' all high titles or appella- tions of the King, Queen, &c., shall be left out of the prayers, such as " Most illustrious, religious, mighty," &c.' There was a lively debate as to whether the Church of England should be called ' Protestant.' The Lower House rejected the term as ' equivocal,' ' since Socinians,' &c., were so designated, and it was dropped accordingly. In my humble opinion the Church of England has done wisely in refusing to admit the term * Protestant ' as entering into the definition of her claims. It is a negative term, and things are properly defined by their properties, not by their accidental negations. * The Protestant faith ' is a contradiction in terms. The note of faith is * I believe ; ' of Protestantism, ' I do not beheve.' It is a grievous mistake to place the essence of a Church in the negation of something which it THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 359 repudiates, and thus tie its life to the existence of error. To tell me that a man is a ' Protestant ' is to tell me absolutely nothing more about his religious opinions than that he is not a Koman Catholic. It is a definition which embraces every man who is not a Koman Catholic ; not only orthodox Christians but Socinians, Mormons, Comtists, Agnostics, and even Atheists. Every Church is Protestant in so far as it protests against error, but to fix upon that characteristic as its raison d'etre is an absurdity, and is very bad tactics in addition. The Pope and Cardinal Vaughan take good care to designate the Church of England as ' Protestant,' while they claim a monopoly of the term ' Catholic,' and it would be playing into their hands to acquiesce in that position. The Church of England claims to be the Catholic Church of this land, and it is by a true instinct that she has always refused to surrender that title to the amorphous designation of Protestant. It is just because of my loyalty to the Church of England and my opposition to the errors and domination of the Church of Eome that I refuse to call myself by a name which signifies nothing positive, and sur- renders the whole ground of controversy to the Church of Kome. Burke says, wdth his usual accuracy and sagacity : — It is not a fundamental part of the settlement at the Revolution that the State should be Protestant without any qualification of the term. . . . Our predecessors in legislation were not so irrational (not to say impious) as to form an operose ecclesiastical establishment, and even 3G0 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT to render the State itself, in some degree, subservient to it, when their rehgion (if such it might be called) was nothing but the negation of some other. This always appeared to me a monster of contradiction and absurdity. . . . The Church of Scotland knows as little of Pro- testantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. She has by the articles of union secured to herself the perpetual establishment of the Confession of Faith, and the Presbyterian Church government. In England, even during the troubled interregnum, it was not thought fit to establish a negative religion; but that Parhament settled the Presbyterian as the Church discipline ; the Directory as the rule of public worsliip ; and the Westminster Catechism as the institute of faith.' Sir William Harcourt will not, I am sure, im- peach the loyalty or orthodoxy of Edmund Burke. But when he says that Lord Halifax ' might as well deny the right of the Crow^n and Parliament to tax the people ' as deny their right to alter the creed and ceremonial of the Church, he forgets that Crown and Parliament did not claim the right to tax that portion of the people w^hich constitutes the clergy. The clergy taxed themselves in Convocation by constitutional right till they voluntarily resigned that right in the reign of Charles II. And Speaker Onslow^ in a note to a passage in Burnet's ' History of his own Times ' (iv. 508), says that in the Act of Parliament which accepted this resignation of right by Convocation, * there is an express saving of the right of the clergy to tax themselves in Convocation if they think fit.' The origin of the exclusion of ' ' A Letter to Sir Hercules Lanffrishe, M.P.' Works, iv. 517. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 361 the clergy of the Church of England from the House of Commons is the fact of their having a Parliament of their own (Convocation), v^here they were taxed by their representatives. The Act of 1796 excluding all men in Episcopal orders, so as to get rid of Home Tooke, who had given up his clerical profes- sion, was an unjust and oppressive extension of the old rule. So that Sir William Harcourt's illustra- tion, instead of being, as he intended it, a reductio ad absitrduju of Lord Halifax's dictum, in fact confirms it. 3. My third proposition is that the doctrine which I have laid down on this point derogates in no way from the constitutional supremacy of the Crown in matters ecclesiastical. There is much confusion in the public mind on this subject. The Eoyal Supremacy operates within well-defined limits. Henry YIII. extorted from the clergy, after much difficulty, the title of ' Supreme Head of the Church of England,' but with the qualifying clause : ' As far as the law^ of God allows.' During the first year of Mary's reign the royal writs ran : ' Mary, by the grace of God Supreme Head of the Church of England.' After the repeal of the anti-papal legis- lation of her father the title of course became illegal. But Elizabeth would not palter with it in any sense, and in the first statute of her reign, restoring the ancient jurisdiction of the Crown over all estates of the Eealm, the title of ' Supreme Head of the Church ' was dropped, and that of ' Supreme Governor of all persons and in all causes, ecclesiastical as w^ell as 362 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT civil,' was substituted for it. That has been the legal title of our Sovereigns ever since. And it is a perfectly defensible title even from the point of view of the strictest Churchman. Nor is England the only countr}^ where the Sovereign, under what- ever title, exercises powers quite as ample as those covered by the Queen's Supremacy. At least before the Vatican Council there was practically no difference in this respect between England and Continental Catholic countries. What difference the Vatican decrees have made I do not know. Emile Ollivier, who was Prime Minister of the French Government when the Council met, declared afterwards that the proclamation of Papal infallibility was equivalent to separation between Church and State caused by the Pope.^ Austria has always been considered very loyal to the Holy See ; yet the Koyal Supremacy in Austria is quite as stringent as in England. I remember Dr. Dollinger pointing out to me, immediately after the passing of the Falk Laws m Germany, that they hardly w^ent beyond the scope of the laws of the Austrian Empire ; and any one who reads Count Ferdinand dal Pozzo's ' Catholicism in Austria ' will agree with Dr. Dollinger. Take the following : — When any society whatsoever enters into the State its members have a right to the protection of the State, in order to enforce the observance of the con- ' ' Je ne connais pas, depuis 89, d'evcnement aussi considerable : c'est la separation de I'Eglise et I'Etat, op6ree pur le pape lui- meme.' — L'Efjlise ct VEtat cm Concilc du Vatican, i. 391). THE ORNAMENTS RUBEIC 363 ventions, and all the conditions of the society. If any member be injm-ed in his rights, and, on the other hand, the directors of the society refuse to do him justice, the injured meml)er may apply to the Sovereign, asking the redress of liis grievances and administration of justice. The Sovereign, however, ought to grant it in a manner suitable to the nature of the society itself. On this principle are grounded the applications known under the various denominations of a recourse to the prince — ajjjJeal ab ahusu, &c. They are substantially complaints addressed to the prince or to his tribunals, against the decisions of ecclesiastical superiors, when there is reason to believe that they have misapplied their powers. In the early ages of the Church applications of this description frequently occurred. St. Athanasius, condemned by the Council of Tyre, implored the aid of Constantine. In the same way St. Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, unjustly reprobated by the Synod of the Oak, petitioned the Emperor Arcadius for protection. . . . But were the question to turn on purely ecclesiastical matters, the application to the prince should only be admitted when it is averred that the ecclesiastical judge has somewhat violently injured the applicant in not foUoiving the legal rules ill his proceedings} All the subjects of Her Majesty are entitled to this amount of protection from the civil Courts : not members of the Established Church merely, but Nonconformists of every description, including ' Pp. 118-9, cf. pp. 113, 114, where it is shown that ' the placet royal is required to validate every ecclesiastical decree, whether of disciphne or of doctrine, and whether proceeding from local eccle- siastical tribunals or from the Pope.' Count dal Pozzo was an eminent Austrian lawyer, who was for a time President of the Imperial Court of Genoa when Northern Italy was under Austrian rule. 364 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Koman Catholics. Two or three instances will prove this. Some years ago a Koman Catholic nun in Ireland was dismissed from her convent and from conventual life altogether. She appealed to the civil tribunals, and her appeal was heard. But a still more striking case is that of Father O'Keeffe, who in the year 1873 appealed to the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland against an ecclesiastical sentence of Archbishop Cardinal Cullen, who was, moreover, Papal Legate. The Cardinal acted on a Rescript from the Pope in addition to his Legatine authority. The Court differed on some points of the case; but the Chief Justice sustained Father O'Keeffe on all points. In the year 1881 some trustees of a chapel in Huddersfield appealed to the civil Court against the election of a minister of the name of Stannard on the ground that he preached false doctrine. I quote from the ' Times ' report : ^ — This schedule contained the ten following articles : — * 1. The Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and their sole authority and entire sufficiency as the rule of faith and practice. 2. The Unity of God with the proper Deity of the Father, of the Word, and the Holy Spirit. 3. The universal and total depravity of man and his exposure to the anger of God on account of his sins. 4. The sufficiency of the atonement which was made for sin by our Lord Jesus Christ, and His ability and wiUing- ness to save all who come to Him for salvation. 5. Free justification by faith, and by faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ. 5. The necessity of the Holy Spirit's in- ' Feb. 2, 1881. THE ORNAMENTS EUBEIC 365 fluence in the work of regeneration and also in the work of sanctification. 7. Tlie predestination according to God's gracious purpose of a multitude which no man can number unto eternal salvation hy Jesus Christ. 8. The immutable obligation of the moral law as the rule of human conduct. 9. The resurrection of the dead, both just and unjust. 10. The eternal happiness of the righteous, and the everlasting punishment of the wicked.' The principal ground of the plaintiffs' case was that the tone and character of Mr. Stannard's public teaching from the pulpit were not in harmony with this doctrinal standard. The High Court of Justice decided in favour of the plaintiffs on the doctrinal question. Other instances might be quoted, both in England and Scotland, of appeals from the ecclesiastical Courts of non-established religious bodies to the secular tribunals. So that the disestablishment of the Church of England would not liberate it at all from the jurisdiction of the Crown through its regular Courts. There is no escape from the Eoyal Supre- macy. The Sovereign is the fountain of justice, and a final appeal must always lie to him where civil rights are concerned. No English Churchman who knows anything about the matter would deny so elementary a proposition, and I do not find it denied in the manifesto of the English Church Union which has stirred Sir William Harcourt's wrath. To deny the authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in ecclesiastical causes, and to claim at the same time the restoration of the Church's own Courts, is by no means to deny 366 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT the authority of the Crown or the Koyal SuiDremacy. Let us consider this. The principle for which I am contending is clearly set forth in the grand preamble of the Statute of 158-2, as follows :— \Vliere, by divers sundry old cauthorities, histories, and chronicles, it is manifestly explained and expressed that this Kealm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same ; unto whom a body politic* compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty, been bounden and owen to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience : he being also institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary, whole, and entire power, preeminence, authority, prero- gative, and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of folk, resiants, or subjects within this his Eealm, in all causes, matters, debates, and contentions happening to occur, insurge, or begin within the hmits thereof, without restraint or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world : the body spiritual whereof having power, when any cause of the law divine happened to come in question, or of spiritual learning, then it was declared, interpreted, and shown by that part of the said body politic called the spiritualty, now being usually called the English Church, which always hath been reputed, and also found of that sort, that both for knowledge, integrity, and suthciency of number, it hath been always thought, and is also at this hour, sufficient and meet of itself, without the inter- meddling of any exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts, and to administer all such THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 367 offices and duties, as to their rooms spiritual doth ap- pertain : for the due administration whereof, and to keep them from corruption and sinister affection, the king's most noble progenitors, and the antecessors of tlie nobles of this Realm, have sulliciently endowed the said Church both with honour and possessions : and the law temporal, for trial of property of lands and goods, and for the conservation of the people of this Realm in unity and peace, without rapine or spoil, was and yet is adminis- tered, adjudged, and executed, by sundry judges and ministers of the other part of the said body politic, called the temporalty : and both these authorities and juris- dictions do conjoin together in due administration of justice, the one to help the other. Here, then, we see drawn, with sculptured pre- cision, the line of demarcation between the respective domains of the spiritualty and temporalty ; each independent of the other so long as it keeps within its own borders and observes its own laws and pre- scribed rules of procedure ; while the Sovereign is supreme over both, to see that each administers justice fairly and in accordance with the law^s belonging to each. This is now^ the charter of con- stitutional law that regulates the mutual relations of the spiritualty and temporalty, and there could hardly be a more direct contradiction than it offers to Sir William Harcourt's dictum in his letter to the ' Times ' of March 9, namely, that the claim of the spiritualty to adjudicate within its own domain ' is a direct denial of the first principles of the English Reformation, which was the work of the laity for the laity, who also in the tribunals for the final decision 368 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT of Church questions have provided for themselves a necessary and adequate safeguard.' And the great luminaries of English constitu- tional law have always drawn and emphasised the distinction which Sir William Harcourt dismisses with scorn. It would be difficult to appeal to a greater name in that respect than that of Lord Coke, who says, not as a matter admitting of con- troversy, but as an axiom of law, — As in temporal causes the King, by the mouth of his judges in his Courts of Justice, doth judge and determine the same by the temporal laws of England, so in causes ecclesiastical and spiritual . , . the same are to be determined and decided by the ecclesiastical judges according to the King's ecclesiastical laws of this Realm. ^ And in his Fourth Institute (321) he observes : — And certain it is that this kingdom has been best governed, and peace and quiet preserved, when both parties — that is, when the justices of the temporal Courts and the ecclesiastical judges — have kept themselves within their proper jurisdiction, without encroaching or usurping one upon another. And where such encroach- ments or usurpations have been made, they have been the seeds of great trouble and inconvenience. The encroachments of the Judicial Committee on the spiritual domain are a striking illustration of this last observation. The distinction between the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction is exemplified in various ways. For ' Cau'drie's case. THE ORNAMENTS KUBRIC 369 instance, Convocation is in a manner more indepen- dent of the Crown than Parhament. It is not, as ParHament is, the Sovereign's Council. He is not its head, nor does he open or prorogue it, as he does Parhament. The Primate is its head, and opens and prorogues it, and it is not power but leave that Convocation has to seek for the purpose of making canons ; and its canons remain in being, though without coercive force, vi^ithout the Eoyal assent, which may be given years afterwards; whereas a bill that has passed both Houses of Parliament ceases to be unless it has received the Koyal assent before the end of that session. Again, canons receive the Koyal assent in the gross ; Parliamentary bills, one by one. The Judicial Committee has itself disclaimed any right to adjudicate on the doctrine or ceremonial of the Church of England. The Court has merely claimed the right, when appealed to, to interpret legal documents according to the principles of law. The Court laid down this rule very plainly in the Gorham case, as the following quotations will show : — ' It is not for the Court to decide whether opinions are theologically sound or unsound, but whether such opinions are contrary or repugnant to the doctrines which the Church of England, by its Articles, Formularies, and Rubrics, requires to be held by its ministers. ' The Court will apply to the construction of the Articles and Liturgy the same rules which have been long estabhshed, and are by law applicable to the con- struction of all written instruments, assisted only by the B B 370 THE REFOR^IATION SETTLEMENT consideration of such rational or historical facts as may be necessary for tlie understanding of the subject-matter to which the instruments relate, and the meaning of the words employed. * In all cases in which the Articles, considered as a test, admit of different interpretations : Held, that any sense of which the words fairly admit may be allowed, if that sense be not contradictory to something which the Church has elsewhere allowed or required ; and if there be any doctrine on which the Articles are silent or ambiguously expressed, so as to be capable of two mean- ings : Held, that it was intended to leave that doctrine to private judgment, unless the Rubrics and Formularies clearly and distinctly decide it. . . . ' The Court lias no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine trliat ought in any par- ticular to he the doctrine of the Churcli of England ; its duty extends only to the consideration of that which is by law established to be the doctrine of the Church of England, upon the true and legal construction of the Articles and Formularies.' Again : ' This Court, constituted for the purpose of advising Her Majesty in matters which come within its competency, has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England. Its duty extends only to the consideration of that which is by law established to be tlie doctrine of the Church of England, upon the true and legal consideration of her Articles and Formularies ; and we consider that it is not the duty of any Court to be minute and rigid in cases of this sort. We agree with Sir William Scott in the opinion which he expressed in Stone s Case, in the Consistory Court of London : " That if any Article is really a subject of dubious interpretation, it would he THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 371 highly improper that this Court should fix on one mcaninrj, and ptrosecute all those ivho hold a contrary opinion regarding its interpretation.'' ' ^ The Judicial Committee, in the Purchas case, quoted this rule of judicial interpretation with ap- probation, and then proceeded immediately to violate it in the most extraordinary manner ; not intention- ally of course, but owing to their entire ignorance of the whole subject with which they had to deal — an ignorance stimulated by very strong unconscious bias. What I have now said may suffice to show that in asking for restoration of spiritual Courts for the trial of spiritual causes Churchmen are demanding nothing revolutionary, nothing unreasonable, but, on the contrary, are merely claiming their just rights guaranteed to them by the British Constitution. But it may be useful to exemplify this by the case of the Presbyterian Established Church of Scotland. It is, within its own domain, entirely independent of the civil powder. After the Koyal Commissioner has formally opened the General As- sembly on behalf of the Sovereign, the Moderator formally opens it on behalf of the spiritualty ; and this dual exercise of jurisdiction is also observed at the prorogation of the Assembly. All the Courts are purely ecclesiastical, and are quite independent of the secular Courts, provided they administer their own laws within the limits of their proper Brooke's I'rivy Council Judgments, pp. 1, 2, 35. 372 THE REFOR^IATION SETTLEMENT jurisdiction. This has been sometimes disputed on the ground that the lay elders are constituent members of the Courts. But the objection is un- tenable : first, because the elders are appointed entirely by the Church, the Sovereign and the civil power having absolutely nothing to do with it ; secondly, because the elders, if not spiritual persons, are certainly ecclesiastical persons. A layman may be an ecclesiastical person in law, his status in that respect depending on the status of the person or body from whom he derives his jurisdiction, and the questions w^ith which he has to deal. A bishop's chancellor is an ecclesiastical judge, though a layman ; and so was the Dean of the Arches. But the Scotch elders are ecclesiastical per- sons for an additional reason. They are a constituent element of the ministry. Their proper designation is not ' lay elders,' but ' ruling elders ; ' and they are set apart for their oftice at a solemn service in church. Their ecclesiastical character is plainly indicated by the questions put to them before their appointment to their ministry. For example : ' Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, civil government ? Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to save souls, and not w^orldly interests or expectations, as far as you know from your own heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of ruhng elder? Have you used undue THE OKNAMENTS EUBRIC 373 methods, by yourself or others, to obtain the call of this Church ? Do you adhere to your acceptance of the call to become ruling elder of this Church ? Do you engag(3, in the strength of the" grace that is in Christ Jesus, to perform with diligence and faithful- ness the duties of ruling elder, watching over the flock of which you are called to be an overseer, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, and giving a conscientious attendance upon the meetings of this (Kirk) session, and also of superior Courts when called to sit as a member in them ? ' That in matters of legislation and judicature the estabhshed Church of Scotland is, within its own domain, absolutely independent, is not open to con- troversy : it is a matter of fact. It has no powder to alter its authorised formularies without the sanction of Parliament ; but within that frontier it is quite independent. When I was asked by Archbishop Tait to give evidence before the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission in 1883 I went carefully into this ques- tion and consulted competent persons in Scotland, among others Dr. Grub, a learned historian and professor of law in the University of Aberdeen, and Dr. Boyd of St. Andrews (' A. K. H. B.'), who held the office of Moderator of the General Assembly ; and they all assured me that from a decision of a properly conducted ecclesiastical tribunal in Scotland there is absolutely no appeal. But there is no need to labour the matter, for the point has been judicially decided : for instance, in the case of Sturrock v. Greig. 374 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT In that case Lord Justice Clerk Hope declared as follows : — The first section [of the ' Confession of Faith '] an- nounces a great truth of the Church, hable to misappre- hension doubtless, but a doctrine which is the foundation of the whole authority and government of the Church over its members ; that is, that in the matter of disci- pline, whether as to doctrine or evil practice, or non- observance of Church ordinances, the Church is exercising a government through its Church officers, appointed by the Lord Jesus, distinct from the civil magistrates. Whatever questions have been raised as to the wider effect of this declaration, to which I need not now advert, this is undeniable, that in regard to disciphne the authority of the Church, as a distinct and separate government, is so derived from that source. To that declaration, as the foundation of the exercise of Church censure over the members of the Church, I think Courts of law must give full effect as much as to any other statutory enactment. It is not our business to consider the truth of that declara- tion ; if it were, I should be prepared to defend it. Neither are we to consider whether it will arm men with alarming power, capable of producing great mischief. The statute has given the remedy in the Courts which it trusted— in the appeals competent to the Superior Church Courts. He goes on to say that the Church Courts 'have been trusted as a separate government. The declaration of the authority under which they act assumes that it must be separately administered, free from control, from subjection, or subordination to civil tribunals.' The Court went even so far as to decide that — THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 375 No action for damages will lie against a Church Court of the Establislied Church for any sentence or judgment pronounced by them in a proper case of disci- pline duly brought before them, regularly conducted, and within their competency and province as a Church Court, even although it be averred that the judgment was pro- nounced maliciously and without probable cause,' So that there is absolutely no remedy if the Eccle- siastical Courts follow their own regular procedure. In the case of Lockhart v. The Presbytery of Deer, the four judges of the First Division of the Court of Session laid down the law in similar terms. The Lord President, in delivering judgment, said : — We have just as little right to interfere with the pro- ceedings of the Church Courts in matters of ecclesiastical discipline as we have to interfere with the proceedings of the Court of Justiciary in a criminal question. - I may add to these instances a case which Lord Halifax has lately published in the ' Times.' The decision, which was delivered on June 29, 1870, is as follow^s : — A minister of the Established Church in Scotland was suspended by the presbytery of Dunkeld for six months, during w^hich time he w^as compelled to pay ^55 to his assistant for discharging the duties of the cure. The General Assembly, which is the supreme and final Church Court, composed exclusively of ministers and elders, was ' The Lmu of Creeds in Scotland, by A. Taylor Innes. The case of Sturrock v. Greig was in 1849. -' Ibid. p. 231. 376 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT not satisfied with the decision of the presbytery, and in May 1870 ordered the presbytery to proceed to a fresh trial on the same charge. Upon this the minister prayed the civil Courts to suspend the judgment of the Assembly on the ground that the Assembly had exceeded its juris- diction. The Court of Session, however, held that the proceeding complained of being within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church Courts, it had no power to review them. The following were the decisions of the judges :— It appears to the Lord Ordinary that the whole matter was a question of ecclesiastical law and procedure, of which it was the exclusive province of the General Assembly to judge, and with which the Court of Session had no right to interfere. If the Court were to do so it would simply be reviewing the proceedings of the supreme Ecclesiastical Court. The Lord Justice Clerk : Within their spiritual pro- vince the Church Courts are as supreme as we are within the civil, and, as this is a matter relating to the civil discipline of the Church and solely within the cogni- sance of the Church Courts, I think we have no power to interfere. Lord Cowan : I am of the same opinion. The Assembly is the supreme tribunal in ecclesiastical offences, whether attaching to the morality of ministers or to alleged heretical opinions. I repudiate the idea of a civil Court being entitled to overrule the deliverances of the Assembly in matters of that kind. It may be that incidentally and necessarily the civil interests of the clergyman may be affected. Every such judgment pro- nounced by the Assembly has necessarily that effect, but because the civil interests of the man found guilty of an offence may be affected, is that any reason for the civil Courts interfering ? By no means. The procedure THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 377 having regard to offences cognisable by the Chuich Courts, and to be followed, on conviction, by ecclesiastical pains and penalties, the Chinch Courts had supreme and exclusive jurisdiction. Lord Benholme : Within their own department the law of the land gives the Assembly an exclusive and final jurisdiction. The General Assembly is the suprem.e Ecclesiastical Court in Scotland. How mild, after all this, seems the denial of the English Church Union that Crow^n and Parliament have a ' right to determine the doctrine, discipline, and ceremonial of the Church of England ' ! That dictum has been in force in Scotland for centuries, and with the best results all round. Justice has been so administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts as to give at least as much satisfaction as the decisions of the secular tribunals. Yet Lord Halifax is, in Sir William Harcourt's opinion, an ' ecclesiastical Jack Cade ' because he claims for the Church of England what the Constitution has guaranteed to her, and what we see in operation in Scotland without any of those evils and dangers which our Cassandras on this side of the Tweed threaten as the result of restoring to the Church the jurisdiction of which she has been deprived, in violation of that very Eeformation Settlement to which those who wish to cripple her energies so loudly appeal. If, indeed, the Judicial Committee had proved itself a competent tribunal, and given general satis- faction in dealing with ecclesiastical questions, the 378 THE EEFOR^^IATION SETTLEMENT flaw in its origin and title might have been forgotten or condoned. For Englishmen are patient of anomalies and irregularities as long as they work well in practice. But of all the Courts that have ever dispensed justice in England none, I venture to think, has proved itself so entirely incompetent as the Judicial Committee has done in adjudicating upon ecclesiastical questions. Ignorance and un- conscious bias have presided over its judgments in a degree which is hardly credible to those who have not examined- its deliverances in detail. And the result is that their Lordships have landed us in chaos. Their decisions, hke the pots in the fable that went sailing down the stream, crack each other. It is impossible to obey one judgment without violating another. They are judgments of policy, not of law, and vary with the passion or prejudice of the occasion and the popular strength at the back of the impugned doctrines or practices. It is this, I believe, even more than its secular character, which has so discredited the decisions of the Judicial Committee. That is an indictment which ought not to be made against an august tribunal without proof. I proceed, therefore, to give my proof. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. has the following Kubric in the beginning of the Com- munion Office : — Upon the day, and at the time appointed for the administration of the Holy Communion, the priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say, a' THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 379 white albe plain, with a vestment or cope. And whcu-e there be many priests or deacons, then so many shall be ready to help the priest in the ministration as shall be requisite, and shall have upon them likewise the vestures appointed for their ministry, that is to say, albes with tunicles. The Second Prayer Book of Edward expunged this Rubric and substituted the following : — And here is to be noted that the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministra- tion, shall use neither alb, vestment, nor cope ; but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet, and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only. Thus we see that when Parliament — for this Prayer Book does not appear to have received the sanction of Convocation — intended to abolish the old Eucharistic vestments, it said so in plain straight- forward language w^hich anybody could understand. Both the Prayer Books of Edward were aboHshed by Mary's legislation, and when Elizabeth came to the throne she was most anxious to restore the First Prayer Book of Edward and retain the ancient ceremonial. Failing to carry her point so far, she appointed a small company of divines to revise Edw^ard's Second Book under the presidency of Parker, who, however, w^as absent most of the time on account of illness. The Puritan element was represented by Sandys. Secretary Cecil, doubtless by instruction from the Queen, sent a series of 380 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT suggestions to the committee, including the follow- ing :— Whether such ceremonies as were lately taken away hy King Edward's [Second] book might not be resumed, not being evil in themselves? Whether the image of the cross were not to be retained? Whether processions should not be used ? Whether, in the celebration of the Communion, priests should not use a cope beside a surplice ? ' This points to the direction in w^hich the Queen desired that alterations should be made. The divines, how'ever, did not act on these suggestions. They left the Eubric forbidding the vestments. But the Queen refused to sanction the revised book until provision was made for the ' ornaments ' abolished by the Book of 1552. The following clause was therefore inserted into the Act of Uniformity which legalised the revised Prayer Book : — Provided always, and be it enacted, that such orna- ments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use as was in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. ; until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorised under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the metropolitan of this realm. And also that if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church, by the misusing of the orders appointed in this book : the ' Strype's Ann. vol. i. pt. i. pp. 122-3. THE OKNAMENTS RUBRIC 381 Queen's Majesty, by the like advice of the said Commis- sioners, or metropoHtan, ordain and pubhsli such further ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advancement of God's glory, the edifying of the Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacraments. In a contemporary Latin translation of this Act of Uniformity the first sentence of this clause is rendered :— ' Provisum atque statutum sit, quod talia ecclesiastica ornamenta et ministrorum ejusdem conservabuntur, et Usui subservient, quemadmodum mos erat in hac ecclesia Anghcana ex auctoritate Parliamenti in anno secundo Regni Regis Edwardi Sexti.' ' As was the custom in this Church of England ' makes rather better sense than the English version, and may be taken as the contemporary interpreta- tion. There is a slight verbal difference, but no differ- ence of meaning, between the language of the statute and the language of the Eubric of Elizabeth's Prayer Book, which is as follows : — And here is to be noted, that the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministra- tion, shall use sach ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VL, according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this book. To any mind, not blinded by prejudice, and fairly acquainted with the history of the period, both Eubric and Statute are quite plain and unambiguous. 382 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT The Statute reserved the right to restore, as circum- stances permitted, the fuU ritual of the second year of Edward YI. That was impracticable for the present, but a way was left open for it. It was ' further ceremonies or rites ' that the Queen con- templated, not any diminution of those legalised by the Act. This is plainly the meaning of the ' other order' for which the Act of Uniformity makes provision, and this natural interpretation of the Act is corroborated by a mass of external evidence, as I shall prove presently. The Long Parliament abolished the Ornaments Eubric on the very ground that it kept in legal being the Eubric of the Book of 1549, which prescribed the Eucharistic vestments. At the Eestoration Con- vocation and Parliament restored the Ornaments Eubric, shghtly altered, although warned by the Puritans that it would ' bring back ' the vestments ; and it now reads as follows : — And here is to be noted, that such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministrations, shall be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth. The Act of Uniformity which ratified this Eubric says nothing about ' other order.' This is the last statutory pronouncement on the subject, and it is obvious, on all recognised rules of interpre- tation, that if any previous enactment of any kind comes into collision with our present Eubric, that THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 383 enactment is y;,s"o facto repealed. Wlien the lan- guage of a statute is plain it must be construed literally. This has been declared so often from the Bench that it must be taken as an axiom of legal interpretation. In Edrick's Case the judges said : — * They ought not to make any construction against the express letter of the Statute ; for nothing can so express the meaning of the makei's of the act as their own direct words, for index animi — sermo. And it would be dangerous to give scope to make a construction in any case against the express words, when the meaning of the makers doth not appear to the contrary, and when no inconvenience will therefrom follow, and therefore a verbis legis non est rccedendum.' ' In fact,' says Stephens, 'when the Legislature has used words of a plain and definite import, it would be very dangerous to put upon them a construction which would amount to holding that the Legislature did not mean what it has expressed. The fittest in all cases where the intention of the Legislature is brought into question is to adhere to the icords of the Statute, construing them according to their nature and import in the order in which they stand in the Act of Parliament.' ' The good expositor,' says Lord Coke, ' makes every sentence have its operation to suppress all the mischiefs ; he gives effect to every word in the Statute. He does not construe it so that anything should be vain and superfluous, nor yet makes exposition against express words ; for viperina est cxpositio qucB corrodit viscera textus {PoiuUefs Case, 34), but so expounds it that one part of the Act may agree with the other, and all may stand together. But the best expositors of all Acts of Parliament in all cases, are the Acts of Parhament themselves, by construction and conferring the parts of 384 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT them together : optima statutl interpretatrix est {omnihus particuUs cjusdcm inspcctis) ipsiim statutiim.'^ The Judicial Committee acted on this recognised rule of legal interpretation in the case of Liddell v. Westerton. The question before the Court was the ornaments of the Church, including altar vestments. Referring to the First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI. the Court said : — The Queen was in favour of the First, but she was obliged to give way, and a compromise was made, by which the services were to be in conformity with the Second Prayer Book, with certain alterations ; but the ornaments of the Church, whether those worn or those otherwise used by the minister, were to be according to the First Prayer Book. Then the Court quotes the clause on ecclesiastical ornaments in the Uniformity Act of 1559, and says that ' the Eubric to the new Prayer Book ' was ' framed to express the same thing.' The Court then proceeds : — It will be observed that this Eubric does not adopt precisely the language of the Statute, but expresses the same thing in other words. The Statute says ' such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use ; ' and the Rubric, * that the minister shall use such ornaments in the Church.* The Rubric to the Prayer Book of January 1, 1604, adopts the language of the Rubric of Elizabeth ; but they all obviously mean the same thing, that the same dresses ' Bonliani's Case. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 385 and the same utensils or articles which were used under the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. may still be used. This is in accordance with law, grammar, and common sense. And the Court was a strong one, consisting of the Lord Chancellor (Cranworth) ; Lord Wensleydale ; the Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall (Mr. Pemberton Leigh) ; Sir John Patte- son ; Sir William Maule ; Archbishop Sumner ; Bishop of Londoii (Tait). In the Purchas and Eidsdale cases, which gave a directly contrary decision, the Judicial Committee felt that the Liddell v. Westerton judgment w^as an awkward obstacle in their w^ay, and they tried to surmount the difficulty by alleging that the question of the minister's vestments was not before that Court. But that is a sophism. The question of altar vestments is in pari materia with ministerial vestments, and the Court of 1857 said so expressly when it afhrmed that ' the ornaments of the Church, whether those worn, or those otherwise used by the minister, were to be according to the First Prayer Book.' There is no doubt about it, and nothing but the imperious exigencies of a foregone conclusion could have induced a Court of Justice to take refuge in so manifest a fallacy as that perpetrated in the Purchas and Ridsdale cases. And now let us come to close quarters with the decisions in the Purchas and Eidsdale cases. These two Courts reversed the plain meaning of the Eubric of 1662. They deliberately changed an c c 386 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT injunction into a prohibition. The Kubric, it is admitted on all hands, taken by itself, orders the use of the Eiicharistic vestments. The Court, in the Eidsdale case, frankly admitted this. How, then, did that Court, following the decision in the Purchas case, manage to turn the Kubric upside down and make it mean precisely the contrary of what it plainly says ? The following is the answer as given by the Court in the Purchas case : — The vestment, or cope, alb, and tunicle, were ordered by the First Prayer Book of Edward YI. They were abolished by the Prayer Book of 1552, and the surplice was substituted. They were provisionally restored by the Statute of Elizabeth, and by her Prayer Book of 1559. But the Injunctions and Advertisements of Elizabeth established a new order within a few years from the passing of the Statute, under which chasuble, alb, and tunicle disappeared. The Canons of 1603-4, adopting anew the reference to the Rubric of Edward VI., sanctioned in express terms all that the Advertisements had done in the matter of the vestments, and ordered the surplice only to be used in parish churches. The revisers of our present Prayer Book, under another form of words, repeated the reference to the second year of Edward VI., and they did so advisedly, after attention had been called to the possibility of a return to the vestments. Their Lordships accordingly declared the Eucha- ristic vestments illegal. Eeally this is enough to take one's breath away. Will the reader try to realise what it means ? The Queen, as we have seen, refused peremptorily to sanction the Second Prayer Book of Edward unless THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 387 certain alterations were made in it, and especially a provision for tlie restoration of the entire ritual and ecclesiastical ornaments of the second year of Edward. She carried her point. The Kubric for- bidding the Eucharistic vestments was expunged from the Prayer Book of 1552. Their legality was restored by a special clause in the Act of Uniformity, and by a new Kubric displacing the prohibitory one of 1552. Now why, in the name of reason and common sense, should the Queen take all this trouble, and put forth all her Tudor determination of purpose, if her intention all the w^hile was to prohibit the vestments ? They were prohibited by a distinct Kubric in the Prayer Book which she restored. Why not leave the prohibition? Why insist, on the contrary, on substituting another Kubric reversing the prohibition ; and, not satisfied with that, inserting a special clause in the Statute to legalise the vestments ; if her sole purpose was to get rid of them altogether? Ehzabeth was a very able woman, with a wih of iron. If we are to recog- nise this exhibition of Privy Council law as accurate, we must reverse the judgment of history and pro- nounce Elizabeth to be little better than a fool — one of those spoilt vacillating sovereigns who change their minds from day to day for the mere love of change, or out of what the Americans call ' sheer cussedness.' She makes a tremendous fuss and braves powerful opposition to restore the Eucharistic vestments, and all for the purpose of giving herself statutory power to undo w^hat she had done ! That c c 2 388 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT is what the Judicial Committee of the Privy Comicil, not in the cynical spirit of the old augm^s, but calmly, deliberately, and with all the honesty of rehgious zealots, ask us to believe ! Credat Jiidceus Ajx-IIa ; non ego. Nor am I singular in my incredu- lity . The Purchas judgment has been raked and riddled by legal criticism. I quote the following from a powerful pamphlet by Justice Sir John Taylor Coleridge, one of the ablest and most cautious judges who ever adorned the bench : — The Act of Uniformity [which covers the Ornciments Rubric] is to be construed by the same rules exactly as any Act passed in the last Session of Parliament. The clause in question (by which I mean the Rubric in question) is perfectly unambiguous in language, free from all difficulty as to construction ; it therefore lets in no argument as to intention other than that which the words themselves import. There might be a seeming difficulty in fact, because it might not be known what vestments were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI. ; but this difficulty has been removed. It is conceded in the Report that the vest- ments, the use of which is now condemned, were in use by authority of Parliament in that year. Having that fact, you are bound to construe the Rubric as if those vestments were specifically named in it, instead of being only referred to. If an Act should be passed to-morrow that the uniform of the Guards should henceforth be such as was ordered for them by authority, and used by them in the 1st Geo. I., you would first ascertain what that uniform was ; and, having ascertained it, you would not inquire into the changes which may have been made, many or few, with or without lawful authority, between THE ORNAMENTS RUBEIC 389 the 1st Geo. I. and the new Act. All these tliat Act, specifying the certain date, would have made wholly immaterial. It would have seemed strange, I suppose, if a commanding officer, disobeying the statute, had said in his defence—' There have been many changes since the reign of George I. ; and as to " retaining," we put a gloss on that, and thought it might mean only retaining to the Queen's use ; so we have put the uniforms safely in store.' But I think it would have seemed more strange to punish and mulct him severely if he had obeyed the law, and put no gloss on plain words. ^ There we have the true judicial mind, construing a legal document according to the recognised canons of legal interpretation. The Long Parliament made a clean sweep of the Church and Prayer Book, and at the Kestoration Convocation and Parliament restored the Ornaments Rubric, Advertisements and Injunctions of Elizabeth notwithstanding, and in spite also of the remonstrance of the Puritans, who declared, \vith the tacit approval of the bishops, that the restoration of the Rubric w^ould mean the legal restoration of the vestments. The present Rubric therefore has absolutely no legal connection whatever with anything that happened in the reign of Elizbeth or any other reign. There is no reference in it, directly or by implication, to anything that went before it except the legal ritual and ecclesiastical ornaments of the second year of Edward VI. ; and the Act of Uniformity, which sanctioned it, says nothing about any ' other order.' The Rubric stands ' Remarks on Report of Judicial Committee, pp. 7, 8. 390 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT by itself, clear, unam])i<:^uous, and forbidding any construction in discord with its plain grammar. The construction put upon the Rubric by the Court in the Purchas case is an outrageous violation of all the principles of British law and all the dictates of common justice. Instead of interpreting the exist- ing law, the Court, under cover of its judicial pre- rogative, acted the part of a legislature, repealing one law and substituting another. And nobody is more quick-sighted to detect this lawless raiding by the judicature into territory not its own than the judges themselves when they are free from the influence of a domineering bias. One of the judges in the Eidsdale case was the late Lord Selborne ; a highly honourable and devout man, and enjoying the highest reputation as a law^yer. He gave the sanction of his name, with entire conscientiousness, to one of the grossest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated by a British Court of law\ And this he did in violation of rules and principles which he w^as himself foremost to defend when his prejudices w^ere not strongly enlisted against the still small voice of justice. Let me give an example. It will be in the recollection of some of my readers that Mr. Bradlaugh was prosecuted by amember of the House of Commons in order to recover damages for his sitting and voting after a majority of the House had refused to let him either affirm or take the oath. The question came before the House of Lords for judgment on April 9, 1883, and the judg- ment was delivered by Lord Selborne, who was then Lord Chancellor. I extract the following from the THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 391 report of the ' Daily News ' of the following day:— The Lord Chancellor, having referred at length to the authorities hearing upon the point, said the argument at the ])ar had satisfied him that the grounds upon which the judgment appealed against rested could not be maintained. The language of the Act afforded no sufficient ground for implying an intention on the part of the Legislature to give the common informer as well as the Crown a right of action for the penalty. One of his noble and learned friends, he understood, was of opinion that though the words of the Act of 1866 might not by themselves afford any sufficient ground for such an intention, it might, nevertheless, be implied according to the true principles applicable to the construction of the statute. He (the Lord Chancellor) thought it would be legislation and not interpretation to import into the Act, by any inference from repealed enactments, provisions . . . which the Act itself did not contain. This is sound law, and is a direct, though uncon- scious, condemnation of the Ridsdale and Purchas judgments. But not only are those judgments a violation of the rules of law and grammar ; they arc in direct conflict wdth the plain facts of history in addition. The theory on which they are based is that the phrase, * until other order,' in the Act of Uniformity, means that the ritual of Edward VI.'s second year was now- restored until the Queen saw her way to the aboli- tion of it. I have already remarked on the unspeak- able absurdity of that assumption ; but let us grant it for the sake of argument. Certain Advertisements 392 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT were drawn up in 1564 by Archbishop Pcarker and some of the bishops, on the initiative of the Queen ; and in these Advertisements the use of the cope was made imperative in cathedral and collegiate churches at the celebration of the Eucharist. The Purchas judgment says, by a characteristic blunder, that this apphed only to high festivals. Anxious to restrict the use of the vestments as much as possible, their Lordships eagerly snatched at any plausible excuse that would enable them to carry out their purpose. The Advertisements say nothing about high festivals ; but the 24th Canon says :— In all cathedral and collegiate churches the Holy Communion shall be administered upon principal feast- days ; sometimes by the bishop, if he be present, and sometimes by the dean, and at some time by a canon or prebendary, the principal minister using a decent cope, and being assisted with the gospeller and epistler agreeably, according to the Advertisements published Anno 7 Eliz. From this the Court inferred that the cope is lawful ' upon principal feast-days.' If the judges had taken the trouble to carry their research as far as the next Canon, they w^ould have read : ' In the time of Divine Service and Prayers in all cathedral and collegiate churches, when there is no Com- munion, it shall be sufficient to wear surplices.' This clearly implies that the cope was to be used whenever the Holy Communion was administered. What these two Canons show% and also the Advertise- THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 393 ments, is the lax observance of the Kubrics, jjoth in the time of Elizabeth and in that of James I. And the Canons and Advertisements at the same time shatter another of the dogmatic bhmders with which the judgment bristles. Here it is : — Their Lordships remark further that the doctrine of a minimum of ritual, represented by the surplice, with a maximum represented by the medigeval vestments, is inconsistent with the fact that the Rubric is a positive order, under a penal statute, accepted by each clergyman in a remarkably strong expression of * assent and consent,' and capable of being enforced with severe penalties. It is really trying to the temper to criticise calmly a judgment which positively revels in igno- rance. "When their Lordships indited the words which I have quoted they had the Advertisements and Canons before them. The former say : ' Item, that in cathedral churches and colleges the Holy Communion be ministered upon the first or second Sunday of every month at the least.' The Canon says, ' upon principal feast-days.' And this, more- over, in cathedral and collegiate churches only. It was still rarer in ordinary parish churches. Yet the Prayer Book enjoins a weekly celebration at least. And as to the ' remarkable ' stringency of subscrip- tion, ' capable of being enforced with severe penalties,* let us see what Archbishop Bancroft, who lived in the reign both of Elizabeth and James, says : — How carelessly subscription is exacted in England I am ashamed to report. Such is the retchlessness of 394 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT many of our bishops on the one side, and their desire to be at ease and quietness to think upon their own affairs ; and on the other side such is the obstinacy and intoler- able pride of that factitious sort [i.e. the Puritans], as that betwixt both sides, either subscription is not at all required, or if it be, the bishops admit them so to qualifie it, that it were better to be omitted altogether. If the best and the learnedest man in Christendome were in Geneva, and should oppose himself to anything that the Church there holdeth, if he escaped wdth his hfe, he might thank God ; but he should be sure not to continue as a minister there. There is no Church established in Christendome so remisse in this point as the Church of England : for, in effect, every man useth and refuseth what he listeth. Some few of late have been restrained, who had almost raised the land into an open sedition. But also they followed their own fancies, and may not be dealt wdth withall (forsooth) for fear of disquietness.^ Compare this with the rosy picture which the Judicial Committee give us of the Arcadian peace and universal obedience to Eubrics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Puritans of that time knev\^ better, and so, to their dire distress and discomfort, did the bishops who tried to extort from them a very slender minimum of rubrical obser- vances. But what was the purpose of the Advertisements? There was a maxim in the Koman law, which, by the way, is commonly misunderstood, as if it meant, ' What's the use ? ' When a Eonian judge wished to find a clue to the intention of an act, he asked Cid ' Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline, p. 210. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 395 bono .^ 'to whose advantage? who would benefit l)y it?' Who would benefit by the Advertisements? Against whom were they directed ? The Judicial Committee say that they were directed against those who wore * the medisoval vestments ; ' against, that is, the vast majority of the English clergy. There were nine thousand parish priests when Elizabeth ascended the throne, besides other clergy ; and of these all but two hundred at most conformed to the new regime. It w^as to conciliate this mass of clergy, with the laity in sympathy with them, that Elizabeth insisted on restoring the ritual of the second year of Edward, thus leaving matters to go on without any change in the service of public worship that would much offend the eyes of the usual worshippers. The Advertisements, according to the Judicial Committee, w^ere directed entirely against those quiet country and town clergy who continued to wear the old vestments and practise the old ceremonies under the protection of the Act of Uniformity. The old mode of worship ' was pro- visionally restored,' the Judicial Committee tell us, in order to be immediately put under ban, and thus dash the hopes of the great multitude wdio had been conciliated by the concession. Yet, marvellous to say, not a cry of distress, not a remonstrance, not a murmur escapes from the menaced and harassed majority, who were the victims of this capricious and mocking cruelty on the part of the Queen. But the ' little flock ' of the returned Puritans, as one of themselves describes them, make the welkin ring 396 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT with their complaints against the restored worship of Edward's second year, and against the enforce- ment of the minimmn sanctioned by the Advertise- ments. They evidently never heard of the con- struction put upon the Act of Uniformity and Ornaments Kubric by the Judicial Committee three hundred years afterwards. Let us take a few examples. One of the chief Puritan leaders was George Withers, and his testimony is valuable as showing the view which the Puritans at the time took of the ' other order ' in the Act of Uniformity of 1559. This is what Withers says of the state of things on the accession of Elizabeth : — The second form of prayers, which Edward left behind him at his death, was restored to the Church. But the ceremonies which, as was above stated, w^ere retained in the Church at the first Eeformation of Edw^ard, are restored under the same name. Power, moreover, w^as given to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever additional ceremonies they might think proper ; and they immediately afterwards both discontinued the ordinary bread heretofore used in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and for the sake of a newer reforma- tion adopted the round wafer, after the manner of that used by the Papists.^ This is an indisputable proof that the ' other order ' of the Act of Uniformity was understood at the time to mean additions to the Ornaments Rubric, not any subtraction from it. The wonder is how any one could think otherwise. The Act itself ' Zurich Letters, Second Series, p. IGl. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 397 expressly provides for the addition of ' further ceremonies or rites ' in the event of * any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church by the misusing of the orders ap- pointed in this book.' As an instance of what the Queen meant by ' other order,' we have her letter, ' given under our signet at our Palace of West- minster, the 22nd of January, the third year of our reign,' and addressed to four of her Commissioners, * so authorised by our Great Seal,' the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London, 'William Bil, our Almoner, and Walter Haddon, one of the masters of our requests.' She begins by giving them to under- stand ' that where it is provided by Act of Parliament, holden in the first year of our reign, that whensoever we shall see cause to take further order in any rite or ceremony appointed in the Book of Common Prayer,' &c. She enjoins on them to see to ' the comely keeping and order of the said churches, and especially of the upper part, called the chancel,'' finding that there were ' great disorders, and the decays of churches, and in the unseemly keeping and order of the chancels and such like.' These disorders the Commissioners are to correct, ' specially that in all collegiate and cathedral churches, where cost may be more probably allowed, one manner to be used ; and in all parish churches also, either the same, or at the least the like, and one manner throughout our realm.' ^ ' Strype's Life of Parker, iii. 46. 398 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT This shows what the Queen was aiming at, and what she meant by 'other' or 'further order.' She restored in law, in spite of Puritan opposition, the order of w^orship of 2 Edward YI. That was her standard ; but the practice in many places was very different. Immediately on her accession the Puritan party showed their hand, and therefore she prudently secured statutory power to take ' other order ' for the purpose of checking their lawlessness. That is the plain meaning of that clause of the Act, and it is also the meaning of the Advertisements. The letter which I have just quoted is good evidence, for instance, of the enforcement of the cope, with the congruous vestments of the Epistoler and Gospeller. It did not mean that those vestments were thereby made illegal in parish churches, but that they were to be a pattern to parish churches when the latter could afford, or could be prevailed upon to adopt, a higher ritual. Parish churches were to have ' either the same ' as cathedrals, ' or at the least the like.' The cathedrals were to be the models at which parish churches were, as far as prac- ticable, to aim. The immediate cause of the Advertisements was a letter addressed by the Queen, on January 25, 1564,' to Archbishop Parker, ' requiring him to confer with the bishops of his province, and others having ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; for the redressing disorders in the Church, occasioned by different * Strype's Life of Parker, iii. Go. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 309 doctrines and rites, and for the taking order to admit none into preferment but those that arc conformal)le.' In this letter she rebukes ' the Primate, and other the bishops of your province with suffrancc of sundry varieties and novelties, not only in opinions, but because in external ceremonies and rites there is crept in and brought into the Church by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses than wisdom would, and delighting in singularities and changes, an open and manifest disorder, and offence to the godly, wise, and obedient persons, by diversities of opinions and changes, and specially in the external, decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in churches.' The meaning of this is perfectly plain. The disorders were all caused ' by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses than wisdom,' and setting themselves against ' the external, decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in churches.' There is no manner of doubt what those were. They were the full ritual of 2 Edward VI. : Eucharistic vestments ''ghts at celebration of the Holy Communion, ceremonial use of incense, &c. And the lawlessness of this noisy faction is con- trasted unfavourably with ' the godly, wise, and obedient persons ' — that is the nine thousand parish priests who practised the mode of worship enjoined by the Act of Uniformity and Ornaments Eubric, which is admitted even by the Purchas and Eidsdale judgments to have been lawfid at the date of this letter of Elizabeth, and for two years afterwards. 400 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT The Queen accordingly * requires, enjoins, and straitly charges you, being the MetropoHtan, accord- ing to the power and authority which you have under us over the province of Canterbury (as the hke we w*ill order for the province of York) , to confer with the Bishops your brethren, such as be in commission for causes ecclesiastical,' and ' so to proceed by order, injunction, or censure, according to the order and appointment of such laws and ordinances as are provided by Act of Parliament, and the true meaning thereof ; ' and also ' to observe, keep, and maintain such order and uniformity in all the external rites and ceremonies, both for the Church and for their own persons, as by laws, good usages, and orders, are already allowed, well pro- vided, and established.' Surely it needs a triple panoply of prejudice to see in these instructions any hint, still less any order, to alter the law and upset the order of worship prescribed by Statute and Kubric. On the contrary, the Primate and his coadjutors are to devise means whereby the lawless clergy may be made to conform to the existing law. The Ornaments Eubric, instead of being condemned as ' provisional,' is upheld as ' established.' The Queen concludes : — And in the execution hereof we require you to use all ex- pedition, that to such a course as this is shall seem neces- sary : that hereafter we be not occasioned, for lack of your diligence, to provide such further remedy, by some other shai-p proceedings, as shall percase not be easy to be borne THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 401 by such as shall be clisorclcrod : and thcrowith also we shall impute to you the cause thereof. Strype has the following note here : — This last paragraph was substituted in the room of some other w^ords, w^iich I find written by Cecil's own hand in a former rough draught, which (carrying some- thing in them that might be made use of in favour of those Dissenters) the Queen, I suppose, commanded to be struck out, and the words above inserted in the place thereof. The words of the rough draught were as follows : * And yet in the execution hereof we require you to use all good discretion, that hereof no trouble grow in the Church ; neither that such as of frowardness and obstinacy forbear to acknowledge our supreme authority over all sorts of our subjects be hereby encouraged any- wise to think that we mean to have any change of policy, or of the laws already made and established, but that the same shall remain in their due force and strength.' Surely this is decisive of the intention with which the Advertisements w^ere framed. The Queen's minister tones down a little the stringent and menacing language of the Queen, yet enjoins that her Majesty's intentions shall be carried out with such discretion that the lawless clergy shall not be ' encouraged anywise to think ' that there is going to be any change of policy * or of the laws already made, but that the same shall remain in their due force and strength.' But even this is too mild for the Queen. She strikes it out, and inserts in its place a threat of ' other sharp proceedings ' against the recalcitrants. D D 402 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT In obedience to the Queen's commands, says Strype : ^- — The Archliisho]) and some of the other Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Commission proceeded to compile cer- tain Articles, to be observed partly for due order in the public administration of the Holy Sacraments, and partly for the apparel of persons ecclesiastical. These Articles were printed with a Preface this year 1564, by Reginald Wolf, according to Bishop Sparrow's Collections, and entitled Advertisements. Though by a writing on the backside of the fair copy that was sent to the Secretary, when they were first framed, it seems they were not presently pub- lished nor authorised. For these are the words written upon them by the Secretary's own hand, March 1564, Ordinances accorded by the Archhishoi) of Canterbury, dc. in his ijrovince. These were not authorised nor imUished. Strype proceeds : — The matter, I suppose, was this : When these Articles (by Leicester's means no question) were refused to be confirmed by the Queen's Council, the Archbishop, how- ever, thought it advisable to print them under his and the rest of the Commissioners' hands, to signify at least what their judgment and will was ; and so let their authority go as far as it would. Which was probable to take effect with the greater part of the clergy ; especially considering their canonical obedience they had sworn to their Dio- cesans. But because the book wanted the Queen's authority they thought fit not to term the contents thereof Articles ov Ordinances, by which name they went at first, but by a modester denomination, viz. Advertisements. This was the reason that there is some difference in ' Strype's Life of Parlcer, i. 313 THE ORNAMIilNTS RUBRIC 403 the Preface thereof, as we have it printed in Bishop Sparrow's Collections from tliat which is in the MS. copy sent unto the Secretary. That Preface is all the same, but only, whereas in the MS. it ran thus : [The Queen's Majesty hath by the assent of the Metropolitan, and with certain other the Commissioners in causes eccle- siastical, decreed certain rules and orders to be used, as hereafter followeth] : in the said Collections we read thus : [The Queen's Majesty hath by her letters directed unto the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Metropolitan, required, enjoined, and strictly charged, that wath assistance and conference had wdth other Bishops, namely such as be in commission for causes ecclesiastical, some orders may be taken w^hereby all diversities and varieties among them of the clergy and the people, as breeding nothing but conten- tion, offence, and breach of common charity, andhc against the laws, good usages, and ordinances of the realm,^ might be reformed and repressed, and brought to one manner of uniformity throughout the whole realm : that the people may thereby quietly honour and serve Almighty God in truth, concord, unity, peace, and quietness, as by her Majesty's said letters more at large doth appear. Where- upon by diligence, conference, and communication in the same, and at last by assent and consent of the persons beforesaid, these rules ensuing have been thought meet and convenient to be used and followed.] There be also some other small alterations. As the word constitutions in the MS. is changed into temijoral orders in the Collec- tions : and iwsitive laius in discipline is changed into rules in some part of discipline, I have also diligently com- pared the printed book with the aforesaid MS. copy, ' These words in itcdics, in the published form of the Advertise- ments, as well as the Queen's letter to the Primate, show that the intention was to level up to the standard of the Ornaments Eubric, not to level down to a lovrer standard. D D 2 404 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT and find them different in many places, and sundry- things are left out which are in the copy; the Arch- bishop thinking fit in that manner to publish them, because of tJieir ivant of tlie stamp of autlwrity to oblige persons to tlie observance of them. The difference between the original draught of the Advertisements and the form in which they were published in 1566, here pointed out by Strj^e, marks the difference between the stamp of authority and the absence of it. The Queen kept on urging the Primate to repress the lawlessness of the Puritans. That well-meaning but weak man, in his turn, implored the Queen and her Council to give the seal of authority to the Episcopal Advertisements. This the Queen and the Council steadily refused to do. The poor Primate complained that he could not enforce the Advertisements on his own authority, especially in London, which was the headquarters and stronghold of the Puritans, and which was under the jurisdiction of a Puritan bishop. 'An ox,' said the distracted Ajrchbishop, ' cannot draw more than he can.' Strype says : — But all this pains and labour had not a success answerable. The Queen had followed the Archbishop with repeated commands to press the ecclesiastical orders. And she was in such good earnest to have them observed all her kingdom over, that she had now willed the Archbishop of York to declare in his province also her pleasure determinately to have them take place there. But her Majesty's Council was backward to empower and countenance our Archbishop in his endeavours for that THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 405 purpose. This, with the clamour and rage of the dis- senting clergy and their adherents, and the hard names they gave him, quite discouraged the good man. He liked not the work, especially being accompanied with so much severity ; but it w^as out of obedience to the Queen, who was continually calling upon him, and ordering the Secretary to WTite to him, to quicken him. But finding his own inabihty to do her that service she required of him, he very often and earnestly sent to the Secretary, that the Queen's Council might stand by him with their authority. But he could not obtain his desire.^ On April 28, 1566, the Primate wrote a pathetic letter to Cecil, in which he says : — The Queen's Majesty willed my Lord of York to de- clare her pleasure determinately, to have the order to go forward. I trust her Highness hath devised how it may be performed. I utterly despair therein as of myself : and therefore must sit still, as I have now done, always waiting either her toleration, or else further aid. Mr. Secretary, can it be thought that I alone, having sun and moon against me, can compass this difficulty? If you, of her Majesty's Council, provide no otherwise for this matter than as it appeareth openly, w'hat the sequel will be, horresco vel reminiscendo cogitare. At last the Queen authorised the publication of the Advertisements, after the erasure of every sentence and expression which implied the formal and legal authority of the Sovereign under the ' other order ' clause of the Act of Uniformity. The Primate now felt that he could enforce the Advertisements at least upon the ringleaders of the ' Strype's Parker, i. 451. 40G THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT lawless Puritan ministers, and he proceeded against them with more rigour, but only with partial success. The Puritans were furious ; but they were quick to mark the difference between the legal value of the Advertisements and documents bearing the legal stamp. For instance, in a letter written by one of the leading Puritans, without date, but evidently after the issue of the Advertisements, the vnriter says : — In what way the Sacraments are disfigured by human inventions will easily appear from the public form of prayer, the royal Injunctions, and the Admonitions, or (as they call them) the Advertisements of the Bishops. In brief, then, the state of the case is as follows : On coming to the throne, the Queen made a strenuous effort to restore the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Faihng in this, she had the Rubric against the Eucharistic vestments expunged from the Prayer Book of 1552, with sundry other changes, before she sanctioned the restoration of that Book. More- over, she insisted on the addition of a clause in the Act of Uniformity, restoring in its integrity the rule of public worship authorised in the second year of Edward VI., and incorporated this, with a shght verbal alteration, in a Eubric prefixed to the new Book. She made these alterations and additions a sine qua non of her sanctioning the Book. And knowing the revolutionary and intractable temper of the Puritans, she took the precaution — being a stickler for law — of giving herself power in the Act of THE OKNAMENTS RUBRIC 407 Uniformity to take ' other order ' — explained, a few lines later, as adding- ' further ceremonies and rites ' — as occasion might require. Under this sanction she published, the following year, under the authority of Royal Letters Patent, a Latin version of the Prayer Book, with some changes which brought it nearer the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. ; e.g. the restoration of the Rubric sanctioning the reserva- tion of the Sacrament for the Sick. Every action which she took in virtue of the ' other order ' sanc- tioned by the Act of Uniformity was in the direction of enforcing the law of the Ornaments Rubric. In no single case did she take any action to abridge in any particular the standard of public worship pre- scribed by that Rubric. The lawlessness of the Puritans had at last become so rampant, that the Queen wrote a strong letter to the Primate enjoining him to take action with his suffragans to devise means for curbing this clerical lawlessness of ' a iew persons,' and enforcing obedience to the ' established laws.' The Advertisements of 1564 were the result. But the Queen, while urging Parker to action against the Puritans, persistently refused to give to the Advertisements the sanction provided for by the Act of Uniformity. In 1566 she gave an informal sanction to the publication of the Advertisements ; and in consequence of this informality the original title of ' Admonitions ' was altered to ' Advertise- ments,' and every passage and word were struck out which implied legal authority. Thus shorn of legal authority, the Advertisements w^ere published. 408 THE REFOKMATION SETTLEMENT Why did the Queen refuse to give legal authority to the Advertisements? There were two reasons. The first was that the Advertisements fell short of her expectation. It is clear from her letter to Parker that she wished him and his colleagues to make the Orna- ments Kubric the standard at which they were to aim. Instead of this they adopted a rule of an ideal maximum sanctioned by the Statute and Kubric — and practised by the vast majority of parish priests, as is evident from their silence — and a realisable minimum, to be enforced on the rebellious minority. The Queen had no objection to their enforcing this minimum rule on their own authority ; but, with an unconsciously prophetic eye to Privy Council law, she refused to give the stamp of legality to anything short of the Ornaments Rubric. Her second reason was partly political, and partly personal. Her Council, with their natural aversion to the stirring up of a swarm of Puritan hornets buzzing about their ears, acted on the Melbournean maxim, ' Can't you let it alone ? ' But some members of the Council and powerful courtiers were in sympathy with the Puritans, thinking them the winning side. Preeminent among these was the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Leicester. To him Pilkington, the puritanical Bishop of Durham, made a passionate appeal in favour of toleration for the Puritans.^ Thus the imbroglio ended in the compromise of publishing the Advertisements, with the informal sanction of ' Strype's Parker, iii. 09. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 409 the Queen, but without endowing them with the force of legal instruments. Collier says, with strict accuracy, that ' the Queen, as was observed, refused to conhrni these " Advertisements," though drawn at her direction.' And he adds that ' the " Advertise- ments " were checked at present by the interposing of the Earl of Leicester, of Knolles, and some other Court patrons of Dissenters.' ^ Soames, an expert in the history of the Keforma- tion, says : — Hence a formal approval of the Lambeth regulations was found unattainable. Had their tenor been disliked, the proceedings upon them which quickly followed never would have occurred. Elizabeth, however, withheld her name, on the plea that it was unnecessary, the prelates having already sufiicient authority to act as she wished. Their position thus became highly difficult and invidious. It is plain enough that any reluctance to act would have been immediately resented at Court, yet all the painful proceedings in which they soon became involved might be colourably represented as chiefly flowing from their own intolerance. . . . This publication [of the Advertise- ments] cites the Queen's letter [to Parker, quoted above] as an authority ; her ministers therefore could not have disapproved it. No signatures, however, are printed but those of the Primate and of the Bishops, Grindal, Cox, Guest, Home, and BuUingham. The original document appears to have been signed by others besides ; ])ut this ' Eccl. Hist. vi. 301, 392, 419 ; cf. Strype's Parker, i. 320. ' In the meantime the Archbishop and his fellows of the Ecclesiastical Commission did go on, as far as they could, to reduce the Church to one uniform order, the Queen still calling upon them so to do, reckoning their own authority sulticient.' 410 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT is immaterial, as it has none but ecclesiastical authority to plead.' I venture to assert, therefore, on the evidence, that the Advertisements had no force whatever in law. And I make that assertion without the slightest bias, and purely in the interest of historical accuracy. For the truth is that the legal status of the Advertisements is entirely irrelevant to my argu- ment, though it is absolutely essential to the case set up by the Purchas and Eidsdale judgments. I have shown that the Advertisements were directed exclusively against the Puritan Nonconformists. In her letter to Parker, already quoted, the Queen draws a pointed contrast between the disobedience of the Puritans and the silent acquiescence of the mass of the clergy in the order of public worship prescribed by the Ornaments Eubric. Whittingham, Dean of Durham, in a long appeal to Leicester, indirectly confirms the distinction thus marked by the Queen. ' Alas ! my lord,' he exclaims, ' that such compulsion should be used towards us, and so great levity towards the Papists. How many of the Papists enjoy liberty and livings which neither hath sworn obedience to the Queen's Majesty, nor yet do any part of duty towards their miserable flocks,' i.e. after Puritan methods.- This bears out ' Elizabethan Religious Hist. pp. 42-3. - Strype's Parker, iii. 83. The relation in which Leicester was with the Puritans is shown by the next paragraph of this letter : * O noble Earl, at least be our patron and stay in this behalf, that we lose not that liberty which hitherto by the Queen's Majesty's benignity we have enjoyed with comfort and quietness.' THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 411 what 1 have argued in a previous part of this work, namely, that the Queen tacitly sanctioned all the old ritual, provided tlie new Prayer Book was accepted. It is thus evident, heyond all possibility of doubt, that the Advertisements were directed against the Puritans, and against them alone, and were intended to enforce against them a minimum of ritual,' namely, the Eucharistic vestments in cathedral, collegiate, and college churches,^ the surplice in the parish churches, and the prescribed vestments for outdoor wear. In other w^ords, the Advertisements prescribed the low-water mark below which the Puritans must not recede, while leaving the high-water mark where the Ornaments Kubric had left it. This was indeed doing no more than giving a quasi-sanction to exist- ing practice. One of the leading Puritans, waiting on August 16, 1563 — that is, more than six months before the Advertisements were heard of — said : ' I am speaking of that round cap and popish surplice, ' The Judicial Committee dismissed with scorn the argument that the Advertisements insisted on a minimum of ritual observances, while leaving the legal maximum undisturbed. Yet the Advertise- ments say so in so many words. For instance, the Advertisements insist on the clergy ' reading at least one chapter of the Old and another of the New Testament every day,' and having a monthly celebration of the Holy Communion. If we are to adopt the law of the Judicial Committee we must conclude that it is illegal for the clergy to administer the Holy Communion every Sunday, or to read two chapters of each Testament daily, as the Rubric orders. There is indeed no end to the absurdities in which their Lordships' reasoning would land us. See Collier, Hist. vi. 391. - In the ecclesiastical language of that day ' collegiate ' embraces college chapels. 412 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT which are now enjoined us, not by the unlawful tyranny of the Pope, but by the just and legitimate authority of the Queen.' ^ That means the authority of the Ornaments Eubric, for there was no other legal authority at the time. In other words, such indulgence was shown to the Puritans, that a minimum of ritual observances was conceded to them, provided they conformed to it loyally. It is almost inconceivable, and would be in- credible did we not know it to be a fact, that, on the state of facts now described, two Courts of the highest dignity, and consisting of able and upright men, would in our own time — and in cases which involved penal consequences — deliberately declare that a set of episcopal regulations of the year 1564, which never received legal authority, abrogated a statutory order of the year 1662, which makes no reference whatever to them, or to any other document. The legal rule is that when two statutes are in conflict the later practically abrogates as much of the former as runs counter to it. But here we have — not a statute, but — a sort of episcopal pastoral abrogating an Act of Parliament passed a ' Zurich Lett. i. 134. The editor of the Enghsh translation of these Letters thro\vs out the following suggestion : ' It may be well, however, to observe that the original word rendered by the term Surplice ap- pears sometimes to have been used by the writers when, according to the Injunctions, the cope, and perhaps some other habits, may have been included or intended ; and, indeed, considerable uncertainty seems to have prevailed as to the occasions on which these vestments were respectively used, as well as to the precise meaning of some of the terms by which they were designated in the original letters ' (vol. ii. Preface, p. ix). THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 413 century later ! Sir William Harcourt stood a^^hast at the bare idea of the two Primates paving a decision which might not be on all fours with the Purchas judgment. But when he has realised the facts, I cannot help thinking that he will welcome any decision of that kind from any quarter, and that he will, moreover, take the English Church Union and the whole tribe of Kitualists to his bosom for their resistance to judgments which make an epi- scopal pastoral repeal an Act of Parliament enacted a hundred years afterwards. I might stop here, for I respectfully claim to have proved that the Purchas and Ridsdale judg- ments are a gross perversion of justice, history, logic, and grammar. The Advertisements gone, their Lord- ships' whole case collapses, and they are left floundering in the deep, like Sindbad and his com- panions when the whale, which they had mistaken for an island, sank beneath them. But it may be instructive to examine briefly some of the reasons, in addition to the Advertisements, which conducted the Court to its extraordinary conclusion. ' From the passing of the Act of Uniformity,* say their Lordships, ' there is abundant evidence to show that the vestments in question were not used at all.' It is a characteristic of their Lordships, in the two wonderful judgments which I am consider- ing, to make their own ignorance the measure of other people's knowledge. If the assertion were true, it would not avail them. I do not know how far non-user would protect a man from the enforce- 414 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT ment of an obsolete statute against him. The vaUdity of the wager-of-battle law was upheld by the Courts not so long ago ; and the following case occurred in our own time. A man happened to stumble on an old unrepealed statute, in which it was enacted that a tailor who made the buttons of a suit of clothes of the same cloth as the suit could not recover payment. He immediately ordered a number of suits w^ith buttons of the same material, and afterwards refused to pay. The tailor sued him, and the defendant pleaded the statute. The judge made some unpleasant obser- vations on his conduct, but admitted that he had the law on his side. The law was immediately repealed. But however the case may stand with regard to the enforcement of an obsolete statute, there is no question at all that obedience to it is not penal. That was the point before their Lordships, and their plea of non-user is a pure irrelevancy. But it is not only irrelevant, it is inaccurate in addition. It was premature on the part of their Lordships to assume that what they did not know did not exist. Let us see. The Advertisements, as we have seen, were made applicable to both provinces. In 1570 Grindal was translated to York, and he gives a doleful account of what he found there. Popery was, in his opinion, rampant. York minster seemed to be * another church rather than a member of the rest ' of the churches with which he had been familiar. He notes ' three evil qualities in the northern THE ORNAMENTS EUBRIC 415 province: great ignorance, much deafness to better [i.e. Puritan] instructions, and great stiffness to retain wonted errors.' So he set himself to purify the minster and other churches from the order of worship and ornaments which he found there. Accordingly he issued Injunctions abolishing rood- screens, albs, tunicles, censers, crosses, candlesticks, images, altars ; the crucifix also, which was to be displaced by the royal arms, or some other ' con- venient crest.' And the minister was henceforth to be ' vested only in a surplice with sleeves,' and to read the prayers from a desk outside the chancel, with his face always turned to the congregation. This was an exhibition of lawless- ness even by the rule of the Advertisements, and his lawless temper soon afterwards got Grindal into trouble. The Queen suspended him for the rest of his life. But Grindal makes some remarkable admissions. Here is one : — When the Queen first began to reign, the Popish religion being cast off, she reduced religion to that condition wherein it Wcas while Edward VI. was alive. x\nd to this all the states of the kingdom with full consent gave their voices in the great Council of the nation called the Parliament. The authority of this Council is so great that the laws made therein could not by any means be dissolved, unless by the same that made them. In that form of religion set up by King Edward there were some commands concerning the habits of ministers, and some other things, which some good men desired might be abolished or mended. But the authority of the law hindered them from doing anything that way ; yet the law allowed the Queen, with the counsel of some of the 416 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Bishops, to allow some things. But indeed nothing was either altered or diminished {At vero dc lege nihil nee mutatum nee imminutnm est). When we bear in mind that this was after the Advertisements, and that Grindal was one of the commissioners who compiled them, and whose sig- natm'e they bear, his letter proves to demonstration that the Advertisements neither altered nor dimin- ished any part of the Ornaments Kubric. On the other hand, his Injmictions issued in the diocese of York in 1570 prove that the eiicharistic vestments were at that time in use there in parish churches as well as in cathedrals. Strype tells a story which sounds very modern, and which would have brought down upon Grindal the lash of Sir William Harcourt. A man of the name of Smith told the Archbishop, when he was Bishop of London, ' that he would as lief go to mass as to some churches ; and such was the parish church where he dwelt, and that he was a very Papist who officiated there. But the Bishop said that they ought not to find fault wdth all for a few ; and that they might go to other places.' ^ The present Bishop of London is a good historian, and probably he con- sidered himself safe in courteously giving Mr. Kensit the advice which a Puritan predecessor had, three centuries before, given to a similar Protestant brawler. The Court in the Purchas case asserted that its interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric was in ' Strype's Grindal pp. 158, 171. THE 0BNAMENT8 RUBHIC 41? harmony witli tlie cxposltlo cont(')iij)uranca ' iruiii the days of EHzabeth to about 1840.' The fact is precisely the reverse.^ Scarcely a single writer of eminence during that period can be named who docs not assert or* assmne that the Ornaments Kubric means what it says — that is, that the entire ritual of the second year of Edward has been legally in posses- sion from the year 1559. To refute their Lordships' dicticm in detail would need a volume ; but crucial examples will suffice. I have already quoted from a letter written by Withers, a Puritan leader, after the Advertisements. The following quotations show that the vestments and other ritual of Edward's second year were understood to be still legal imme- diately after the bishops, under pressure from the Queen, began to enforce the minimum allowed by the Advertisements. Eef erring to the accession of Elizabeth, Withers writes : — The high Parliament of the whole realm was assembled, Popery again cast out, and the second form of prayers, which Edward left behind him at his death, was restored to the Church. But the ceremonies which, as was above stated, were retained in the Church at the first reformation of Edward, are restored under the same name. Power, moreover, was given to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever additional ceremonies they might think proper ; and they immediately afterwards both discontinued the ordinary bread heretofore used in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and for the sake of newer reformation adopted the round wafer after the pattern of that used by the papists. . . . What must we say when most of them [the clergy] are Popish priests, E E 4lS THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT consecrated to perform mass ; and the far greater part of the remainder are most ignorant persons, appointed at the will of the people, not to the ministry of the \vord, l)ut to repeat the oflice of the day or festival, which almost any child might do without any difficulty. ^ Here we have the eonteinp(3raiieous testimony of a leading Puritan to the following facts : (1) that the Legislature of 1559 restored the entire ritual of the second year of Edward VI ; {'2) that the Advertise- ments intended to enforce that ritual by * additional ceremonies ' and not to diminish it in any particular ; (o) that most of the beneficed clergy were then * popish priests,' and unbeneficed priests whose duty it was ' to repeat the office of the day or festival ; ' (4) that this was in accordance wdth ' the will of the people.' In plain words, the mass of the clergy carried on Divine Service as they did during the reign of Mary, with the same vestments and ceremonies, but using the English Prayer Book. This piece of contemporary evidence is of itself enough to shiver the whole fabric of ignorant assumptions on which the Purchas and Kidsdale judgments are founded. Another contemporary Puritan witness is Jerome Zanchius. In a letter to Queen Elizabeth dated from Heidelberg ' Sept. 10, 1571 '—that is, more than five years after the publication of the Advertise- ments— Zanchius writes : — Your most gracious Majesty may believe me that the 5'cstoration of such Popish vestments will be a far greater ' Zurich Lett. ii. IGlj 10l>. THE ORNAMENTS RUBBIC 419 evil than nuiy appear at the lirst glance, even to those who are most sharp-sighted. For I seem to see and hear the monks calling out IVoni their pulpits, and confirming their people in this ungo(ll\- religion ])y your Majesty's example, and saying, ' What ? Why, the Queen of England herself, most learned and prudent as she is, is beginning by degrees to return to the religion of the holy Roman Church ; for the most holy and consecrated vestments of the clergy arc now resumed.' ^ In the same letter he stigmatises those ' resmucd ' vestments as ' the ridiculous and execrable garments of the mass-priests,' ' the sacerdotal vestments in the ministry.' He also objects to ' the order about wearing the linen surplice.' Two inferences are fairly deducible from this letter : (1) that Zanchius had no doubt about the legaKty of the Eucharistic vestments five years after the publication of the Advertisements ; (2) that he clearly understood the difference between this and the enforcement of the surplice as a minimum. ' The garments of the ungodly mass-priests,' ' the sacerdotal vestments,' ' the holy and consecrated vestments,' cannot mean the surplice, and must mean the ordinary Eucharistic vestments. The surphce was not in itself a sacerdotal vestment, nor was it consecrated except when used with the full vestments of the mass. The word ' vestment ' by itself commonly includes the whole Eucharistic suit, and not merely the chasuble. In the year 15G4, w^hen Archbishop Parker was ' Zurich Lett, ii oi'6. 420 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT^ engaged on the Advertisements, he invited the representatives of the Puritans to formulate their ohjections to the vestments, whicli they did in categorical form. He replied point by point, and the objections and answers show plainly that all the sacerdotal vestments were in question. For instance i it was objected that the vestments obscured the ministry because by their appeal to the eyes they were an obstacle to the contemplation of spiritual things. The Archbishop replies that the ministry, on the contrary, is made more conspicuous to pious minds by decorous vestments, and he instances the sacerdotal petalon worn by St. John the Evangelist as recorded by Eusebius, and the use of sacrificial vestments by Cyprian.' Parker also canvassed in December of the same year, after he had drawn up the Advertisements, the opinions of Bucer and Alasco, the two leading foreign opponents of the vestments. The latter declared that ' the use of those vestments could not be sanctioned by any Church without impiety.' Bucer stigmatised them as ' like the Aaronic vestments, and of the same ' Contra nfinn vstmnii urgamenla. Jiesjn>n.<nsi>icuumma<,'is redditur ministeriutn ilccora veste. Hiuc in ecclesiastica his- toria legimus de vcstibus Joannis Evan- ticlistse, qui gestavit petalum, seu lami- nani pontificalcni. Kt Cyprianus dederit birrhuni carnifici, dalniaticain vesten> diacouis, et stetit iu lineis. THE ORNAMENTS RUBEIC 421 material, shape, and colour as those used by the Papists ' • — a description which cannot possibly apply to the surplice. My next piece of evidence is from Sir John Maclean's ' Parochial and 1^'amily History of the Deanery of Trig Minor in the County of Cornwall,' Part II., p. '348. The reader will there find an inventory of Church goods a year after the publication of the Advertisements, and two years after they were drawn up and publicly discussed. There we have it on record that the two churchwardens of the parish church of Bodmin gave a voucher for having then ' received into their hands and keeping, of the said Nicholas Cory, Mayor, and of all the whole parish aforesaid, to he used and occupied to the honour of God, in the same church, from the day and year aforesaid [i.e. the Sth of Elizaheth^ forexcard all such goods and ornaments as folloioeth ; and hath taken upon them and their successors to yield a true reckoning of all the same goods and ornaments and, delivery thereof, to make loithout delay to the said Nicholas Cory and his successors, for the time being Mayor, and to all the ichole parish, of Bodmin aforesaid, this time tioelvem-ontJi.' Among these ornaments, ' to be used and occupied to the honour of God in the same parish church, from the day and year aforesaid ' {i.e. 15G7),are several sets of chasubles, albs, and copes, the use of w^iich, according to the Purchas and Kidsdale judgments, was at the time illegal and highly penal. It will not do to say that ' Strype's Parker, i. 387, 342. 422 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Cornwall was a lon^v way from London, and the Mayor, churchwardens, and parishioners did not know about the pubHcation of the Advertisements. It did not take a year for news to travel from London to Bodmin ; and, moreover, the existence of the Advertisements was well known all through the previous two years, although the publication of them did not receive the informal sanction of the Queen till 1506. Besides, it would have l)een the duty of the bishop of the diocese to lose no time in making known to his clergy and churchw^ardens the change made in the statute law by the Advertisements, if such change had really been made.^ Four years later than the Bodmin case — i.e. in 1571 — the w^ill of a Somersetshire gentleman of the name of Humphrey Coles, a Justice of the Peace, and therefore presumably acquainted with the law, was proved by the Solicitor-General of the day, who was one of the executors, and of course familiar with the law\ Among other things the will says : — I will to the churchwardens of the parish church of Corff, in the county of Somerset, fo the iise of the mine church, and maintenance of Divine Service there, the cope [which, according to the Purchas and Ridsdale judgments, had been for five years illegal in parish churches] of velvet, embroidered, that nuj irife lent to the j^arishioners there, and all vestments and other furniture of mine what- ' The inventory from which I have quoted mentions also the use of ' Jesus' cotes, tormentor's cotes, and devil's cotes.' These belonged to tlie wardrobe of the Miracle Plays, which continued to be acted lonf( after the Keformation, generally in the cliurchyards, but some- times in llu- churches. THK ORNAMENTS RUBRir: 423 soever the cJiurcJnrardeiis luiri'. )iirrf for ihc imiintrinmn' of Divine Service there. Surely i\\v inost anh^nt worshipper of Privy Council law will not seriously contend that it took five years for the news of the alleged ahrogation of the statutory Kuhric hy an episcopal fiat to reach the county of Somerset. But let us proceed. Skipping over the reign of James, which offers no evidence of importance either way, we come to the year 1G41, when a Committee of the House of Lords suggested ' whether the Euhric should not be mended, where all vestments in time of Divine Service are now [i.e. in 1641] commanded which were used 2 Edward VI.' The Committee wdiich made this suggestion con- sisted of ten earls, ten bishops (including the learned Ussher), and ten barons, wdio w^ere assisted by some of the most distinguished divines of the day. Surely no one wdio is not dominated by a foregone conclu- sion will believe that the Bench of Bishops in 1641, and the most learned men in the kingdom, could have been under the delusion that ' all ' the vestments of Edward's First Book were then ' commanded,' if they had all, except the surplice, been notoriously illegal since 156(). The thing is incredible. In 1644 the suggestion of 1641 was carried into effect by an iVct of Parliament, which ordained that ' no copes, surplices, or superstitious vestments, roods or rood-lofts, or holy -water font, shall be or be any more used in any church or chapel within this realm.' But the ' superstitious vestments ' here mentioned, it has been argued, did not mean the chasuble, but 424 THE REFOR:^rATTOX SETTLEMENT the square cap and tippet. That is nonsense, for the cap and tippet were prescribed for outdoor wear, not for use ' in any church or chapel.' The ' copes, surphces, superstitious vestments ' of the Act of 1644 clearly mean, and are convertible with, the sug^'estion of 1641, w^hich embraced ' all vestments which were used 2 Edward VL' Then came the Revolution, the overthrow of the Church, and the abolition of the Prayer Book, even in private chapels, under the most cruel penalties. On the restoration of the Church and monarchy the Prayer Book was revised, and was sanctioned, with the present Ornaments Rubric, by Act of Parliament. It is a simple matter of fact that down to the Purchas judgment not one reputable authority can be cited who gives the slightest sanction to the non-natural interpretation of the Judicial Committee. It is not necessary to weary the reader with a catena of authorities in favour of the plain meaning of the Rubric. Let three well-known names suffice. Wheatley's ' Rational Illustrations of the Book of Common Prayer ' is a standard work, which is generally found on the list of books recommended to candidates for Holy Orders. It was published in 1722. After enumerating the vestments and other ornaments sanctioned by Edward's First Prayer Book Wheatley says : * These are the ministerial ornaments and habits enjoined by our present Rubric, in conformity to the first practice of our Church innnediately after the Reformation.' He then quotes the Rubric of the Book of 1552, which THE ORNAMENTS RIIDPJC 425 abolished all vestmonts but the surplice, and adds : ' But in the next review, under Queen Elizabeth, the old Rubrics were again brought into authority, and so have continued ever since ; being established by the Act of Uniformity that passed soon after the Restoration. ' ' Another well-known writer on the Prayer Book is Archdeacon Sharp. In a series of Charges pub- lished in 1753 Sharp, after quoting the 14th Canon, writes as follows : — And upon the 58th Canon, which enjoins Ministers reading Divine Service, and administering the Sacraments, to wear surpHces, and graduates their withal hoods, I need say the less, because it is superseded by the Rubric before the Common Prayer in 1661, which is statute law, and determines that all the ornaments of the Ministers at all times of their ministration shall be the same as they were by authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI. So that the Injunction concerning the habits and ornaments of Ministers which is at the end of Edward VI. 's First Service Book, with its explanation in the Act of Uniformity by Queen Elizabeth, is the legal or statutable rule of our Church habits to this day, and is so far from being explained by this Canon that it rather serves to explain the Canon itself, as I shall show in an instance or two. For, first, this Injunction of King Edward's referred to in our present Rubric, though it requires the surplice to be used in all parish churches and chapels annexed to the same, yet doth in express words give liberty to the clergy to use or not use the surplice in their ministrations in other places, which is an indulgence » P. 91. 420 THE REFOR^rATTOX SETTLET^IENT that the Canon doth not expressly give, and 1 even qiiesv. tion wliether it can he fairly inferred from it. And the other thing that I would ohserve in the said Injunction is, that no order is given therein concerning the use of the hood with the surplice in parish churches, though the same is allowed to he used hy dignitaries in Cathedral Churches and in College Chapels. Therefore, as I take it, the clause in this Canon, which enjoins graduates to wear the hoods of their respective degrees in parish churches, is not strictly binding, forasmuch as the present Rubric, which is of later date coid (Jccisirc of all questions about the habits in ministration, refers us to a rule by Avhich the said practice is not required. ]\ry third authority is the late Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter, in his well-known answer to the parish- ioners of Helston, when they desired him to prohibit the use of the surplice in the pulpit : — ■ On this particular I have no difficulty in saying that Mr. Blunt has been right since he has preached in his surplice. The sermon is part of the Communion Service, and whatever be the proper garb of the Minister in the one part of that service, the same ought to be worn by him throughout. The Rubric and Canons recognise no difference whatever. The Rubric at the commencement of ' The Order for ^lorning and Evening Prayer ' says, ' That such ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward YI.' — in other words, ' a white alb plain, with a vestment or cope.' These were forbidden in King Edward VI.'s Second Book, which ordered that 'The Minister at the times of the Com- TIIK ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 427 munion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use neither alh, vestment, nor cope, hut heing an arch- bishop or hishop, lu^ sh:ill liave and wear a rochet; and being a priest or deacon, lie shall have and wear a surplice only.' This was a ti'iuniph of the party most opposed to the Church of Rome, and most anxious to carry reformation to the very furthest point. But their triumph w^as brief. Within a few months Queen Mary restored Popery ; and when the accession of Queen Elizabeth brought back the Reformation, she and the Convocation, and the Parliament, deliberately rejected the simpler direction of Edward's Second Book, and revived the ornaments of the First. This decision was followed again by the Crowai, Convocation, and Parlia- ment, at the Restoration of Charles II., when the existing Act of Uniformity established the Book of Common Prayer, with its rubrics, in the form in which they now stand. From this statement it will be seen that the surplice may be objected to with some reason : but then it must be iiecause the law requires ' the alb and the vestment or cope.' Why have these been disused? Because the parish- ioners — that is, the churchwardens who represent the parishioners — have neglected their duty to provide tliem : for such is the duty of the parishioners by the plain and express Canon law of England (Gibson, 200). True it would be a very costly duty, and for that reason, most probably, churchwardens have neglected it, and archdeacons have connived at the neglect. I have no wish that it should be otherwise. But be this as it may, if the churchwardens of Helston shall perform this duty, at the charge of the parish, providing an alb, a vestment, and a cope, as they might in strictness be required to do (Gibson, 201), I shall enjoin the minister, be he who he 428 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT may, to use them. But until these onicaments are pro- vided hy the parishioners, it is the duty of the minister to use the garment actually provided by them for him, which is the surplice. The parishioners never provide a gown ; nor if they did, would he have a right to wear it in any part of his ministrations. For the gown is nowhere mentioned nor alluded to in any of the rubrics. This decision is valuable not only on accomit of the great ability and legal acumen of Bishop Phillpotts, but for two other reasons. In the first place it points to one main cause why the Eucha- ristic vestments fell into desuetude, namely, the un- willmgness of the parishioners to go to the expense of providing them. Centuries before the Beforma- tion we have evidence of constant disputes bet^veen parishioners and incumbents as to the legal share of each in providing the necessary ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers. Bishop Phillpotts's decision is valuable, in the second place, because it gives proleptically a prac- tical refutation of an assumption which underlies the whole of the Purchas judgment, namely, that it is inconceivable that the rulers of the Church should have allow^ed the Eucharistic vestments to remain in abeyance if they had really believed that they were statutably binding. But here we have, in our own generation, an eminent and fearless prelate in- sisting on the strictly binding force of the Kubric as regards the full Eucharistic vestments, yet declaring his intention to rest satisfied with the use of the surplice, unless indeed the parishioners should THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 429 provide the obsolete vestments; in w^hicli case tlie Bishop would put tlie law in force and compel their use. Why should it be thought incredible that bishops in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries should take the same view of their duty in this respect as a recent late Bishop of Exeter ? 80 much for the Judicial Committee's * clear and abundant expositiocontem2)oya)ica' against the legality and use of the Eucharistic vestments from the year 1566 ' to about 1840.' The assertion, like the rest of their Lordships' arguments, is entirely against the evidence. But even if no evidence were producible it would prove nothing. Being legal, the presump- tion is in favour of their use, not universall}^, owing to the negligence of clergy and parishioners in pro- viding them, but here and there in places where they had not been made away with. The onus pro- handi is on the objectors. But I have produced in- controvertible evidence of the use of the 1549 ritual years after the date given by the Judicial Committee for its legal and actual extinction. I now offer the following piece of evidence that this ritual was not only legal, but was in use down to the eve of the Great Kebellion, and after the Kestoration. I have a curious and very rare tract now lying before me, bearing the following title : ' Lambeth Faire, wherein you have all the Bishops' Trinkets set to sale. Printed Anno Doni. 1641.' It is a satirical description, in rhyme, of a public sale of ' the orna- ments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof ' then in use. The Bishops, having been ' put downe ' 130 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT by Parliament, are supposed to preside at the sale of the now useless ' trinkets.' Let us see what sort of * trinkets ' they were : — This l)eing done of Bishops, all the Crew Began with speed their wearing Robes to shew, And with extended voyce they all did cry, Come, Customers, see what you lack, and buy ; Here's Vestments Consecrate, all sorts and sizes. Here we have two facts stated : first that ' vest- ments consecrate ' were then among the ornaments of the Church of England ; secondly, that they were then in use, for they are offered for sale as ' wearing robes,' not as antiquarian relics. Now the only * vestments consecrate ' being the Eucharistic vest- ments properly so called, this reference to them as ' wearing robes ' seems to me conclusive, at least so far as this, that they were then considered by the Puritans as among the chief grievances to be got rid of. But, according to the Purchas judgment, they had been ' swept away with severe exactness ' more than seventy years previously. Among other ' trinkets ' described in ' Lambeth Faire ' are the following : ' a crucifix,' ' crosier staffe,' 'crosses,' 'high altars/ 'sacred fonts,' 'guilt {sic) cherubims,' ' bellowing organs,' ' curious hymnes,' 'mitres,' 'bells baptized,' 'golden slippers conse- crated ' and ' emboss'd with Holines Divine.'- The following passage, moreover, seems to show con- clusively that what are called altar lights were then in use : — THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 131 Wax Candles, Tapors, another cries and calls, These brouglit I with nie from Catliedrall Panics ; They'l scare the Divele, and put him unto iiighl, When he perceives a consecrated light ; When we at Mattens and at Even-song were, We had them by us then devoid of feare ; They'l bring delight unto your eyes and nose, They burn so cleare and smell so like a Rose, And when you think that it hath burnt enough, Then blow it out, you shall not smell the snutfe, Or else you may on w^hom you will bestow it ; They'l joy to think a Bishop once did owe it. In 1688 Richard Baxter and some of his friends made proposals for the reform of the Prayer Book, and they insisted that ' among the most necessary alterations of the Liturgy ' was ' that the Rubric for the old ornaments wdiich were in use in the second year of King Edward YL be put out.' The following entry in a parish register w^as sent to me some years ago by a friend. It is written in the register between 1704 and 1705 : — The ornaments of the parish church of Wellow : — Item. — Two chalises parcell guilt ; and one silver chalise unguilt. Item. — One cope of red purple velvet ; with a pair of vestments of the same. Item. — One cope of blew velvet and a pair of vest- ments of the same. Item. — Three paire of satten vestments and a why to chysible. Item. — Two altei- cluaths of silke, and a pairc of curtens of silke. 432 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT Item. — A saye cl(3ath and a Ijuckram cloath, and a red pawle. Item. — A velvet coate, three knells of diaper, and one of ]ieedleworke. Item. — Too corporas cloaths, and ffour corporas casis. Item. — Three alter cloaths of holland for the high alt. Item. — Four hanners ; two silke hanners ; and a crosse hanner of silke and the stremoer of silke. Ite)}i. — A hrason pulley and an h'on pin. Item. — A greate brasse pan ; and five platters of tin. Item. — One table cloath. Item. — A handle of a pase of silver. Item. — Too silver candlesticks and a seynser of silver, ^vith pase of silver. The copy of a bill of tlie ornaments of the church of Wellow, delivered to Farmer Bull and William Coole, churchwardens ; with the same parcell above written ; dehvered to them by the parish of Wellow. It is not necessary to expose all the blunders of the Judicial Committee ; but two of them deserve a passing notice. They laid it down as a fact, too patent to need argument or illustration, that the order to use a surplice excludes by necessary im- plication the use of a chasuble or cope, since both could not be worn at the same time. The fact is that a surplice or alb (which is a sleeveless surplice) is always worn under the Eucharistic cope or chasuble, as their Lordships would have seen if they had read the liubrics of Edward's J3ook, which orders * the priest that shall execute the holy ministry ' to ' put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say, a white albe plain, with a vestment or cope.' THE OBNAiMENTR PJTBKTC 433 Another of their Lordships' extraordinary dicta is that omission means prohibition, or, as thej' express it, that every Kubric ' by necessary imphcation aboHshes what it does not retain.' If this is good law, it is broken every w^eek in every church in the land. Pulpits are illegal, and organs, and hoods, and stoles of any kind. Indeed their Lordships, with that capricious consistency which occasionally visits their reasoning, have actually forbidden stoles of any colour or no colour. So that every clergyman who wears a stole is acting as illegally as he who wears a chasuble. Their Lordships' rule would have made havoc of Divine Service before the Eeforma- tion as well as since. The first Eubric of the Hereford Missal, for example, prescribes the use of the alb and amice for the officiating priest. Are we to infer from this that he was forbidden to wear the chasuble ? Of course w^e know the contrary. The Eubric in the York Missal supplies a still more ludicrous illustration. ' When the priest washes his hands before Mass,' it says, ' he shall say this prayer.' Does that forbid him to wear any eccle- siastical vestments at all? I say it w^ith all submission, but I believe that their Lordships have here contradicted a funda- mental principle of English law. Greek law said : Quce lex non juhet vetaf.^ Our law, following the Eoman, says : Qu(c lex non juhet j^ermittitr i\Ir. ' To fiev yap iffTi rwv SiKaiwu to koto Truaau aperiju v-rrh tov vu/llov Tcrayfieva, oiou oh KcAeuet airoKrivPvvai eavrhf 6 v6jxos, k 5e yuv? KeAfi'tj, airayopevfi. Aristotle, Eth. bk. v. ch. 11. - ' Cum apud Gr;rcos leges non jnri? tantnni seel virtutis causa 434 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Archibald Stephens, who was counsel for the prosecutor in Sheppard r. Bennett, reduced their Lordships' maxim to an absurdity. He argued that ' the Second Prayer Book of Edward prohibited all manual acts in the Prayer of Consecration ' because it did not enjoin them. This was too much for the Court, and gave rise to the following interpellation : Lord Justice McUish : Was there no direction to break the bread ? 3/r. Stephens : There was no direction. Archhislwp of York : Your argument would prove too nuich. Lord Chancellor : There must, ex necessitate, liere be some manual acts. Mr. Stephens : 'My contention is, there were none; and your Lordships have already ruled that ' omission is prohibition.' Archbishop of York : Then in 1552 the minister could not take the paten or the chahce in his hand ? Mr. Stephens : No. With that neat refutation ad ahsurdum I leave the matter. I have remarked in a former chapter on the fallacy of assuming that either non-user or even non- existence of the vestments is any proof of their illegality. But the Judicial Committee repeatedly p.ppeal to this alleged fact as conclusive evidence of illegality. They find bishops asking in their Yisita- ferrentur, legibns proecepta continebantur quibus magistratus edice- bant quffi fieri vellent. Apud nos autem, stiicto jure inter Romanos jam ovto, lex nihil jubet, sed quas fieri nolit, edicit, ita ut contraria Aristoteli jam nunc obtineat regula : q^iicB lex iion jubet i^onnittit. — Michek't, Commcntar. ad Aristot. Ethic. Nicom. p. 195. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 43o tion Articles wliether the minister wore a surplice, and their Lordships take this as proof that the chasuhle was illegal. But a hetter knowledge of the history of the times would have shown them that it was not a case of surplice against chasuhle, hut of surplice against ' a horseman's cloak ' or ordinary secular dress. The difficulty was to get the Puritan clergy ' to w^ear any clerical vestments of any kind. Moreover, copes and chasubles were sometimes valuable spoil, and were often sold to the highest bidder, or privately disposed of. I have already quoted Burleigh's description of the ruin and desolation which Puritanism had wrought in matters of rehgion over large tracts of the country. Numbers of Sir Wilham Harcourt's devout Protestant laity engaged heartily in the work of reformation on Puritan models for the sake of the loot. So that a witty divine of the day declared in a published sermon that 'Popish lands make Protestant land- lords.' Let me corroborate here by independent evidence the doleful picture drawn by Burleigh. In an official Keport to the Queen's Council, in the thirty-fourth year of Elizabeth's reign, on the con- dition of Lancashire and Cheshire, I find the follow- ing description : — Small reformation has been made there by the Ecclesiastical Commission, as may appear by the empti- ' To prevent misunderstanding let rae say that the Puritanism of the Elizabethan era had scarcely anything in common with the Evangelicalism of our day or with ordinary Protestant Nonconfor mity. Its residuary legatees are the Kensits and the Church Asso- ciiition. 436 THE REFORMATION SETTLE^IENT ness of churclies on Sundays and holy days, and the multitudes of hastards and drunkards. Great sums have been levied under pretence of the Commission ; but the counties are in worse case than before, and the number of those who do not resort to Divine Service greater. The people lack instruction, for the preachers are few, most of the parsons unlearned, and many of the learned not resident ; and divers unlearned daily admitted into very good benefices by the bishop. . . . Some of the coroners and justices of the peace and their families do not frequent church ; and many of them have not communicated at the Lord's Supper since tlie beginning of her Majesty's reign. . . . Alehouses are innumerable, and the law for suppressing and keeping them in order is unexecuted ; whereby toleration of drunkenness, unlawful games, and other great abuses follow. Although their Loi'dships [of the Council] have often written to the justices for redress, small or no reformation has followed ; and cockfights and other unlawful games are tolerated on Sundays and holy days during Divine Service, at which justices of the peace and some Ecclesiastical Commissioners are often present.^ That was the state of degradation, social and religions, to which Pnritanism reduced England, wherever it got a free hand, in the reign of Elizabeth. And such is the state to which the spiritual descen- dants of those Puritans — the Church Association and its ahies — would reduce England now, if they had their way ; not intentionally, of course, but from their ignorance of human nature and of the forces which tend to elevate it and make for righteousness. It took a long time to raise the ' Calendar of State Papers: Domestic, 1591-1594, pp. 158-9. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 437 clergy from the degraded state to which the alliance of Erastianisni and l*uritanisni had reduced them. Here is Swift's description of the social condition of the EngHsh vicar of his day : — He hath a house and barn in repair, a field or two to graze his cows, with a garden and orchard. No ^aiest expects more from him than a pot of ale ; he lives like an honest plain farmer, as his wife is dressed but little better than Gcody. He is sometimes graciously invited by the squire, where he sits at a humble distance ; if he gets the love of his people, they often make him little useful presents ; he is happy by being born to no hi^^her expectation, for he is usually the son of some ordinary tradesman or middling farmer. His learning is much of a size with his birth and education ; no more of either than what a poor hungry servitor can be expected to bring from his college.' If the English people wish to get that class of clergy back, undoubtedly the Protestant agitators are going the right awa}' about it. Let the Pnri- tanico-Erastian principle have its way, and let the Church be regarded as an ordinary human institution, looking to the State for its doctrine, its disciphne, and its ceremonial, as if it were a department of the Civil Service, and the result will be that 'men of brains, of education, and of self-respect will refuse to take orders, and Swift's class of peasant * servitors ' will take their place. As a ' profession ' the Church is the poorest. I imagine that the average pay of the clergy at this moment is under 200?. a year. What but the love of God and pity ' Writingti on Religion and the Churchy i. 267. 438 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT for human misery and sorrow could tempt a man of ordinary brains and education to dedicate his life to the toil, anxieties, and worry of so poorly paid a profession? A few years after my ordina- tion I felt the need of study for proficiency in niy calhng. I gave up accordingly three years to study, devoting my leisure to journalism, and helping some of my brother clergy on Sunday. Without hard work I made a fair income; and I claim nothing more than ordinary brains and education. Why should a man abandon such a position for the sake of -200/. a year, or less, and much harder work, with the addition of being made 'the ofifscouring of all things,' and the sport of ignorant bigotry and Philistinism at Albert Hall demonstrations? We have been hearing complaints for some time past that the proportion of ' honours ' men, and even of University men, who take orders, is growing alarm- ingly smaller every year. No self-respecting man, if he be not impelled by the love of God and the ' enthusiasm of humanity,' will care to be made the target of Sir Wilham Harcourt's invective, or be smitten with the jawbone of Lady Wimborne's ubiquitous donkey. But to return to the Judicial Connnittec. Wliat but the most childlike ignorance of the condition of England from Elizabeth's accession to the Kestora- tion, and for some time after, could have persuaded a body of upright and intelligent men that the absence of costly vestments in scenes of irreligion and desolation, such a^ I have described, ib proof of THE ORNAMENTS KUBRIG -139 their illegality ? They might just as well have decided that daily service and weekly celebrations of the Holy Communion arc illegal, for these were as rare as the Eucharistic vestments under the tyranny of Puritan lawlessness. Both were carried on all through that period of spiritual desolation and barrenness, but only here and there. Mr. Tomlinson wrote a pamphlet against Arch- bishop Benson's Lincoln judgment, and afterwards expanded it into a book. The book is the offspring of that prolific parent of myths, a mare's nest, and its argument is so confused and so inconsistent with facts, that I should have deemed it waste of time to notice it, did I not find that men like Lord Grim- thorpe have proclaimed this mare's nest to be a wonderful discovery. People are in general so ignorant of the history of the Keformation that they are too prone to take a writer's valuation of himself or of his friends for granted, without testing it. Lord Grimthorpe always writes in the tone of an infallible pope, who is master of all knowledge in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth ; aiid the unreflecting are apt to suppose that a man who writes so confidently, and obtained some reputation at the Parliamentary bar, is likely to be right when he writes on subjects which he has never studied, and of which he knows very little. Knowledge of theology and of ecclesiastical history and law is not necessary to success at the Parlia- mentary bar ; but it is necessary in dealing with the subjects which I am discussing ; and as Lord Grim- UO THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT thorpe has become sponsor for the legitimacy of Mr. Tomhnson's Hterary foundhng, it is perhaps better to examine its claims. Mr. Tomlinson's theory is that Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity revived the Second Book of Edward, ' with one alteration or addition [quoting the Act] of certain lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and cor- rected, and tw^o sentences only added in the delivery of the Sacraments,' and none other or otherwise.' The capitals indicate the importance which Mr. Tomlinson attributes to the last words of this quotation. His inference is that these w^ords had the effect in law^ of re-enacting the Kubrics of the book of 1552, one of which forbids the Eucharistic vestments in express w^ords. The first observation which Mr. Tomlinson's theory invites is that it is not only opposed to all contemporary and succeeding evidence, but also against every legal decision on the subject, including the Purchas and Ridsdale judgments. All the Puritans in the reign of Elizabeth, without a single exception, assumed that the Act of Uniformity and the Ornaments Rubric restored the vestments of Edward's First Book. It legalised the Prayer Book of 1552, except the Rubric on vestments ; and that w^as expunged in fa'vour of an order restoring the vestments which the Rubric of the Second Book forbade. That is the unanimous complaint of all ' I (]uote Mr. Tomlinson literally. In the original, of course, the word is ' Sacrament.' THE ORNAMl-^NTS KUJ3RIC 441 the Puritans, English and foreign. Had they known such a deadly Haw as Mr. Tondinson imagines, they would luivc boi-'ii (juick to ])oiiil it out. That is the first objection to Mr. Tondinson's theory, and it is fatal. Next, it would prove too much. As a matter of fact, no ' alteration or addition of certain Lessons ' was made when the Act passed, or for two years after- wards. Moreover, an edition of the Prayer Book came out in 1559, after the Act of Uniformity, with the addition of the prayers for the Queen and the clergy, the benediction, and the prayer beginning, ' God, whose nature and property,' &c. From this it follows that Mr. Tomlinson's quotation from the Act of Uniformity contemplated not only what had actually been then done, but also what it was intended to do. Moreover, the ' other order ' pro- vided for in the Act would legalise the addition of the Ornaments Kubric to the Act. It is strange that a gentleman who upholds the legality of addi- tions to the Act of Uniformity by means of Eoyal Injunctions should denounce as a ' fraud ' the ad- dition of the Ornaments Kubric by Eoyal authority. But where is the proof that the Ornaments Kubric w^as not in the copy of the Prayer Book appended to the Act of Uniformity when it was before Parliament? There is absolutely no proof, not a scrap of tangible evidence. It is certain that the Ornaments Rubric was in the first edition of Ehzabeth's Book, printed simultaneously with the Act of Uniformity. Of that edition only two copies U-2 THE RErOEMATiOX SETTLEMENT are known to exist. One is in the possession of Lord Aldenhani, and the other (Lord Ashhurnham's copy) came into ^Ir. Quaritch's possession last sunnuer. Its rarity may be guessed from the price, 184/. 1 had an opportmiity of examining it, and the Ornaments Eubric was in it. That Eubric is in fact merely the Ornaments clause of the Act of Uniformity, with a slight verbal alteration. But Mr. Tomlinson's theory is exposed to another deadly tlaw. This gentleman, who is so stern a censor of ' suppressions and misquotations ' ' by other people, is obliged by his theory to alter an Act of Parhament, changing ' second ' into ' seventh.' "^ The Ehzabethan Act of Uniformity legahses the ritual of the second year of Edward VI. Mr. Tomlinson, in order to get in the ritual of 1552, forbidding the Eucharistic vestments &c., is forced to read ' seventh ' for ' second.' And what is his defence of this violent proceeding? A gross misinterpreta- tion of the following Koyal Injunction, which he thinks, with the usual confidence of the discoverers of mare's nests, reverses the plain language of an Act of Parliament. It is a sad waste of time and space to quote and discuss pure irrelevancies and fads ; but Mr. Tomlinson has an idea that those who receive the Ornaments Kubric in its plain gram- matical meaning fight shy of the Thirtieth Injunction ' He accuses myself of being \facile princeps in mistjuoting.' There is no mis(iUoting whatever in the passage to which he appeals by way of proof. -■ 'L'hc I'raycr JJooh'. Artirlc^, a)id llvmllics. p. ;}'J. THE ORNAMENTS KUBlUC 413 as fatal to their case. Here, then, is the Injunction in full, with Mr. T(nnlinson's portentous capitals : - ItciiL—Ucv Mcijesly l)cin«;- desirous to liavo the prelacy and clergy of this realm to be had as well in out- ward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministries, and tli inking it necessary to have them known to the people in all places and assemblies, Both IN THE Church and witliout, and thereby to receive the honour and estimation due to the Special Messengers AND Ministers of Almighty God; willeth and com- mandeth that all archbishops and bishops, and all others that be called or admitted to preaching or ministry of the Sacraments, or that be admitted into vocation ecclesiastical, or into any Society of learning in either of the Universities, or elsewhere, shall use and wear such seemly habits, garments, and such square caps, as were most commonly and orderly received in the Latter Year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth ; not thereby mean- ing to attribute any hohness or special worthiness to the said garments, but as St. Paul writeth : Oiiiuia dcccntcr et beciuidiLDi ord'uicni fiant (1 Cor. xiv. cap.). Beyond all rational controversy this Injunction refers to the ordinary garb of the clergy. They were to wear a clerical garb that would make ' them known to the people in all places and assemblies.' Nor was it enough to wear this clerical garb when they went to church : they must wear it everywhere. For some had tried a compromise, putting on the clerical garb when they went to church, either to oihciate or to worship, and exchanging it for ordinary lay dress when they returned home. The Injunction orders them to wear it always. It is as if the War Office •444 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ordered all officers to wear uniform off duty as well as on. Who would understand such an order to mean that they were not to wear the regulation full-dress uniform on the proper occasions ? Three of the leading Puritans, writing in July 1566, say :— Our affairs are not altered for the l)etter, but alas ! are sadly deteriorated. For it is now settled and determined that instead of common bread a small unleavened cake must be used ; that the Communion must be received kneeling ; that out of doors must be worn a square cap, bands, a long gown, and tippet ; but in the sacred service the white vestment and cope are to be retained (in miiiistcrio autcm sacro vestis alba ct capa yct'meaiitur)} This was after the publication of the Adver- tisements. The writers make no distinction between parish churches and cathedrals, or between ordinary days and high festivals. They simply say that the * sacerdotal habit,' the ' sacred vestments,' are now beginning to be forced on the Puritan clergy in celebrating the Holy Communion, while ' a dress not common, but peculiar and distinct, was prescribed for ordinary use.' ' Vestis alba ' means alb rather than surplice. Yet Mr. Tomlinson calmly tells his readers that the Thirtieth Injunction and the Act of Uniformity refer to 'the surplice only.' So that we are to understand that the clergy were to wear ' the surplice only,' * both in the church and without.' It is really waste of time to discuss such ' Zurich Lett, bccond series, letter 50. THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC 445 nonsense, or would be if the public were not so io^norant of the question. So let us follow Mr. Tonilinson's reasoning a little further. ' Now the outdoor garb of the clergy,' he says, * underwent no change whatever from the earlier to the latter years of Edward VI.' Why, then, does the Injunction say that those prescribed habits were such ' as were most commonly and orderly received in the latter year of the reign of Edward the Sixth ' ? Because, argues Mr. Tomlinson, that was the year of the Second Prayer Book, which abolished all the vestments except ' the surplice only ; ' and the Thirtieth Injunction refers to the Kubric of that Book. But what about the Act of Uniformity which legalises the vestments of the second year of Edward ? The two things are irreconcilable ; but w^hat is that to Mr. Tomlinson ? Hoc volo, sic jiibeo ; sit pro ratione voluntas. The reference to ' the latter year ' of Edward VI. is simple enough to any one not bound to maintain a theory j^er fas et nefas. The persistent complaint of the Puritans was that while restoring the Second Book of Edward, with a few alterations, the Act of Uniformity brought back the vestments of the second year of Edward instead of leaving the Kubric which prescribed the surplice only. That Rubric had been expunged from the Book in favour of the clause in the Act which re-enacted the Eucharistic vestments. That was the grievance of the Puritans. But the Thirtieth Injunction says in effect : ' But no such objection lies against the outdoor habits on which we insist, 44G THE REFOR^^IATION SETTLEMENT for theij were most commonly and orderly received in the latter year of the rei^^ai of Edward YI.' — the year to which the Puritans were always appealing. That makes pjood sense of the Thirtieth Injunction. Mr. Tomlinson's interpretation makes irretrievahle nonsense of it. Here is one more specimen of Mr. Tomlinson's method of reasonint{. He quotes Sandys as follows : — The Parliament drawetli towards an end. The laH liook of service is t^one through with a proviso to retain the ornaments which were used in the first and second year of King Edward, until it please the Queen to take other order for them. Our gloss upon this text is that we [clergy] shall not be forced to iisc them, but that others [churchwardens kc] in the mean time shall not convey them away, but they may remain for the Queen. The words within parenthesis are a siiqgestio falsi on the part of Mr. Tomlinson, without an atom of fact to support it. Strype, in quoting the passage, says truly, ' But this must be looked upon as the conjecture of a private man.' What Sandys meant is what I have been contending for all along, namely, that the Puritans, finding the vestments restored in spite of their protests, fell l)ack on their second line of defence — i.e. that they would not be forced to use them. The ' we ' does not mean, as Mr. Tomlinson suggests, the clergy, but Sandys and his fellow-Puritans. But Sandys's letter contains one important point. He was one of the revisers of the Second Book, and he says^ in the THE ORNAMENTS RUBRTC 447 teeth of Ml". Toinliiisoii'R tlioory, iliat tlie Act of Uniformity rcstoiXHl llic nrnamonts which were used in the fir. 'it and second years of Kin<^^ lulward. I am not sure that we know for certain what the full ceremonial in use under Edward's First Book was. Prohahly it was the old ceremonial, hardly, if at all, chantjed. But Sandys puts the matter beyond a doubt by including the first as well as the second year of Edward. The old ceremonial was of course used unabridged in Edward's first year.^ Mr. Tomlinson's dogmatism is always in an inverse ratio to his knowledge. Here is an example. He asserts peremptorily that ' nobody ever paid the shghtest heed to the standard of 1549 during the six years, 1559-66, wdiich elapsed before the issue of the Advertisements. Not a single bishop then wore alb or chasuble, not a single priest wore alb or tunacle, still less a " vestment " during all those six years when, on the received theory, those " orna- ments " were not merely permissible, but com- pulsory.' Now^ considering that, with the exception of tw^o hundred at most, nine thousand parish priests ' The following quotation from Bucer's Censtira, published in lool (see Dixon's Hist, of Ch. of Engl. iii. 291), shows that the ceremonial in use under the First Book of Edward was the customary one, the only difference consisting in the service being in English : — ' I may add on ceremonies that in many of your churches there is still found a studied representation of the execrated Mass, in vestures, lights, bowings, crossings, washing of the cup, breathing on the bread and cup, carrying the book from right to left of the table, having the table where the altar was, lifting the paten and cup, and adoration paid by men who nevertheless will not communi- cate. All these should be forbidden.' •148 THE REFOR^FATIOX SETTLEMENT retained tlieir livings, all using the old ritual, which the Act of 1559 explicitly legalised, it would require demonstrative proof that they all, or a majority, or even a large number of them, suddenly left off the mode of worship with which they were familiar, and to which they were attached, for no rhyme or reason. What evidence does Mr. Tomlinson offer ? Xot a scrap. We are to take his infallible word for it, the burden of proof being entirely on his back, and the presumption against him amounting to moral proof. But I have already given positive evidence that ' the standard of 1549 ' was in matter of fact followed during the period named and long afterwards ; and my proofs could be multiplied. I may add the following. In the ' Life of Sir Thomas Smith ' it is recorded that among the ornaments of his chapel in 1569 were 'vestment and alb for the priest ; a Bible, and a pair of virginals instead of an organ.' ' That was three years after the publication of the Advertisements ; and Smith occupied an official and influential position. With one more specimen of the way in which ]Mr. Tomlinson is accustomed to get up his facts, I will take my leave of him. ' That stiff High Church- man, John Johnson,' he says, ' when he published his " Clergyman's Yade-Mecum " in 1707, had not so much as heard of Canon MacColl's theory.' True; but in subsequent editions Johnson confessed his ignorance, retracted his error, and strenuously sup- ported * Canon MacColl's theory.' In a long com- ' r. 171. THE ORNAMENTS KUIMIIC 449 ment on tlio Ornaments Knbric in tlie fifth edition, pnblislied in \1'2:\, Johnson, speaking- of the ' other order' of the Uniformity Act, says: — Some have attempted to prove, that she did take such Order ; but there is no certain proof of it ; nay, it is evident enough that she did take no such Order : For. the Rubric enjoining tlie same Ornaments that were used in the first Book of Edward, still continued thro' her reign, and the two following : And if she had taken such Order ; yet the Rubric before Morning Prayer in our Present Liturgy, enforced by the Act of Uniformity, 14 Charles II., could not be affected by any Order taken by Queen Elizabeth : therefore Bishop Gibson truly says, ' Legally, tlie Ornaments of Ministers in performing Divine Service are the same nou\ as they were in the second year of Edward VI.' The Judicial Committee also condemned the use of incense and altar lights on the same grounds as the Eucharistic vestments, and their argument on those points collapses with their argument against the vestments. But I may cite the following mstances of the use of incense and altar lights after the publication of the Advertisements. In the ' History of Trig Minor,' already quoted, we have indisputable evidence not only of the use, in the year 1567, of copes and chasubles of various colours, but also of a ' ship of tin ' for incense, ' a censer of fatten,' ' a lamp before the high altar,' ' a sacring bell.' These took the place of ' two censers of silver and two ships of silver,' which are found in the inventory of 1539. They disappeared as G a 400 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT valuable loot in the predatory zeal of interested ' re- formers ; ' and the fact that the parish provided cheap ones in their place, which were in use after the publication of the Advertisements, is good evi- dence against the ruling of the Judicial Committee. Jn I'.ishop Lloyd's Form of Consecrating Churches, t^'c, there is a service for the consecration of candlesticks and of censers. While the Bishop is placing the candlesticks ' upon the altar,' the chaplain is directed to say : ' Thy word is a lantern unto my feet : and a light unto my paths. ' For in Thee is the foundation of hfe : and in Thy light shall we see hght.' This clearly imphes that the altar candles were intended to be hghted. So likew^ise when a censer is presented and re- ceived, the clergy say : ' While the King sitteth at his Table : my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. ' Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as the incense : and let the lifting up of my hands be as the Evening Sacrifice.' Now let it be remembered that the volume from w^hich these extracts are taken was published in the beginning of last century ; that it was compiled by a bishop's chaplain, and dedicated to the Bench of Bishops ; that it was certainly used by the Bishop whose chaplain compiled it ; and that it agrees sub- stantially with various Forms of Consecration Services whicli wore in conmion use in the seven- teenth century. Is it possible to believe that the THE ORNAMENTS RUIUUC 401 observances which it prescribes were all th(> while forbidden by law and unknown in practice ? There is in the British Museum a MS. of Bishop Sanderson's, with a sketch of his chapel and lettered references after the Restoration ; and anion^- other thing's the following inventory j^ives us a peep into his manner of administering the Holy Communion : ' The gilt canister for the wafers, like a wicker basket lined with cambric ; a vessel with pipes for the water of mixture ; basin and ewer for washing before consecration, and a towel ; footpace of three steps covered with Turkey carpet ; a censer in which the clerk putteth the frankincense ; the navicula, like the keel of a boat, with a half cover for the incense.' But the Judicial Committee has not only shown its incompetence to act as a final court of appeal in ecclesiastical causes by reason of its entire ignorance of the matters on which it has to adjudicate ; it has, in addition, displayed such a marked bias as to destroy confidence in its fairness on the part of those who have carefully examined its judgments. Its decisions have been dictated by policy rather than by law. It has invariably acquitte'd men who have been powerfully supported by influential parties, and condemned men who appeared to lack that support. Gorham flatly contradicted the plain language of the Prayer Book, yet was acquitted because his doctrine was popularly identified — though quite erroneously-- with the doctrine of the Evangelical party. The * Essays and Reviews ' and Mr. Bennett of Frome had G G 2 452 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT powerful parties behind them : therefore the accused were acquitted, l^ut the Eituahsts were supposed to represent only a small party whose resentment might be braved without danger. They were there- fore condemned, against the plain letter of the law, till an Archbishop declared in favour of the legality of some things which the Judicial Committee had condemned. That looked formidable ; therefore the Judicial Committee supported the Archbishop. A clergyman of the name of Dunbar Heath was in 1860 tried for heresy on account of some confused statements which he had published on the subject of the Atonement. He was deprived by Dr. Lushing- ton. Dean of the Arches Court, and appealed to the Judicial Committee. And meanwhile he had taken some steps to explain himself to his bishop and to the Court. I quote the last paragraph of their Lordships' judgment : — Their Lordships have had their attention directed to a letter addressed by ^Ir. Heath to the Lord Bishop of Winchester on January 2, 1860, in which he states that, if he has laid down any doctrine or position at variance with the Articles or formularies, he has done so un- wittingly and in error, and in which he requests his diocesan to point out in what respects he has done so, that he may correct whatever error he has fallen into. Another and more formal document has also been brought before their Lordships, in which ^Ir. Heatli has stated that, if it appears to the Ordinary, and to the official Principal of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, tliat his language does contain or teach a doctrine directly THE ORNAMENTS RUlilUC 453 contrary or repugnant to any of the Thirty-nine Articles of Rehgion, he expresses his regret and revokes his error. Wlio can doubt, who lias followed tlio vai'i(nis judgments of this august tribunal, that if Mr. Heath had been supported by a powerful party their Lord- ships would have welcomed his expression of regret and revocation of any error he might have un- intentionally taught ? But Mr. Heath had no back- ing. He had been a Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and was a high — I think senior — wrangler. But he had, nevertheless, a very confused mind, as I often had occasion to notice, for I used to meet him at the Koyal Society of Literature, of which we were both Fellows. He was always in the clouds when he joined in our discussions, and seemed to labour under an incapacity to give intelligible expression to his ideas. He was emphatically a man towards wdiom every possible indulgence ought to have been shown on a charge of heresy. But the Court refused to accept his general expression of regret and retractation. ' They are unwilling to proceed to the last step in their duty, but unless he expressly and unreservedly revokes the errors of which he has been thus convicted, their Lordships have no course left but to advise her Majesty to confirm the sentence of deprivation under the Act.' And deprived Mr. Dunbar Heath was accordingly. An- other proof of bias characteristic of the Judicial Committee is the fact that a Ritualist was always made to pay the costs, according to the usual rule, 4.5i THE EEFOiniATION SETTLEMENT when he was condemned, but refused his costs in several cases where judgment was in his favour. I am sure that in making these complaints against the fairness of the Judicial Committee I shall carry with me the sympathy of all dispassio- nate lawyers who may take the trouble to compare my accusation with the facts. Some of the severest impeachments of judicial impartiality that I know have been uttered by lawyers. Lord Sellx)rne, when he sat in the House of Connnons in 1868 as Sir Roundell Palmer, offered a strong opposition to the transference of election petitions from the House of Commons to >the judges, on the ground of what he thought the inevitable political bias of the judges. I quote his words : — Judges, Hke other men, have their politics ; but at present cases in which political bias might be supposed to affect their minds were rare, although in those cases they frequently gave their judgments according to their politics.' When the Supreme Court of Judicature x\ct was before the House of Commons it was proposed by the Government to give certain discreiionary powers to the judges in the matter of assessing costs, and in a few other particulars. The Bar flew to arms in dismay, and proclaimed its profound distrust of the impartiality of our judges in cases where their feelings were likely to be engaged. Let two extracts from the speeches of two distinguished barristers ^ ' Speech by Sir lloundell Palmer on Mr. Disraeli's Bribery Bill. Sec Hansard, third scries, cxcii. pp. 286-7. ' Elevated to the judicial bench afterwards. THE OKxXAAlENTS HUBKIC 455 and nieinbers of the House of Coiiinioiis suffice by way of sample.' Here is the opinion of Mr. Lopes :-- When the proper time came lie should move an aineiuhneiit that the Bill of Exceptions should be pre- served. A^ain, under tlie Act of 1(S73 and this Bill, if a judge misdirected a jury, or improperly received or rejected evidence, a new trial was not to l)e granted, unless the Court before whom the case came should be of opinion that the miscarriage of justice wvas caused by the misdirection, — uidess the jury had been attected by it. Judges w-ere so apt to think they were right when they were wrong, that this would be a very dangerous inroad indeed. Hitherto, save in a few exceptional cases, costs had always followed the event, and in no case w'as the successful party deprived of his costs ; but the Bill proposed to give a judge absolute discretion, so that a judge who disapproved a verdict might order a success- ful defendant to bear the costs of an action. Mr. Watkin Williams used even stronger lan- guage, as the following extract from his speech will show : — These Kules and Orders w^ould be made by the judges, and w^ould come into operation, and then in the month of March or next Easter the House might interfere. But suppose the judges abolished meanwhile trial by jury. The Lord Chancellor might order cases to be tried by a judge instead of before a jury, and when the matter came to be discussed in Parliament, all manner of proceedings would be taken under these Eules and Orders, and they would be told that the greatest inconvenience would be caused by the House repeahng ' See Times of July G, 1875. ^66 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT them. He trusted that the House would never part with this power. It might he said that the judges would never do these tilings. Wouldn't they ? The first thing done by these Rules and Orders was to abolish the Bill of Exceptions which had been granted to suitors by Edward I., to prevent caprice and the exercise of what was called ' discretion ' on the part of the judges. The Bill of Exceptions was one of the rights of the suitor. The judges ought to administer the law, and ought not to have the ' discretion ' which would enable them to alter it. Another exceptional feature in the Rules and Orders was the power given to the Common Law judge over costs. The power of giving costs would be in the discretion of the judges, and it would totally alter the relations between the judges and the Bar. It \vas right that in Equity cases the judge should have the power of deciding as to the payment of costs, because he has the whole case before him. But imagine a case of libel, or of interference with personal liberty, which would come before a jury. If the judge took a view opposed to that of the jury, he might avenge himself — and it w^as necessary to speak out on this subject— by punishing the counsel, the suitor, and the jury, because he differed with them in opinion. At present, if a judge manifested caprice or lost his temper during a trial, the counsel bore it patiently, because they knew^ that the judge was subject to the laws. If he was wrong in his ruling they tendered a bill of exceptions ; and if he overrode counsel they had the jury to appeal to. The Rules and Orders would alter all this, and produce changes such as no one at present realised. It appears then that the clergy are not the only class in the connnunity who gravely suspect the partiality of our tribunals in questions where the THE ORNAMENTS RUBBIC 457 prejudices of the judges are tolerably certain to come into play. And it must be allowed that the clergy have special reasons for suspiciousness, inasmuch as the questions which affect them are too often decided by judges who have at best no more than the merest rudimentary knowledge of them, and who conse- quently connnit themselves to statements and con- clusions which those who have studied these ques- tions know to be quite erroneous. There was a time when English judges were profoundly versed in ecclesiastical history and Canon Law. How many are there on the Bench now who have setiously studied these questions ? Is it so marvellous then that men who have studied them feel no great respect for judicial deliverances which, as in the case of the Purchas judgment, bristle all over with blunders? For myself, I know not why I should reject the False Decretals of the Papacy and accept those of the Judicial Committee. After all, Historic Truth ' is great, and will prevail,' the Purchas judgment and its defenders notwithstanding. But I hasten to add that I acquit the Judicial Committee of anything worse than unconscious bias. I have no doubt that the members of the Court have always acted with entire conscientiousness. But it is possible that the very conscientiousness of a judge may tempt him unconsciously to bend the law from the straight line of justice in the direction of some interest which he conceives to be of para- mount importance. So that his conscientiousness, instead of being a protection to him, is a snare. The 4o8 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT late Sir George C'oriiewall Lewis has some obser- vations on this subject, which are so pertinent that I shall take the liberty of quoting them : — It is universcilly iidiiiitted that no man ought to be a judge in his ovrn case. But, if the case were not his own, his competency to form a judgment upon it might be indisputable. So if any political measure be proposed which affects the interest of a profession, it may happen that persons belonging to that profession, though peculiarly competent to form an opinion respecting it, on account of their experience and knowledge, are dis- qualified on account of the probable bias of their judg- ment by personal considerations ; and that the requisite indifference is only to be found among those w^ho do not belong to the profession. Such outlying persons may be the only impartial judges in the matter. . . . The operation of a personal interest in perverting the judg- ment is so insidious, that great honesty, combined with perpetual vigilance, is necessary in order to guard against its influence. Men utterly incapable of teUing a deliberate untruth, or deliberately expressing an insincere opinion, are nevertheless liable to be warped by personal interest in the dehberate formation of opinions. When a strong bias of this sort exists, their minds, ready to receive every tittle of evidence on one side of a question, are utterly impervious to arguments on the other. Hence we see opinions, founded on a belief (and often a radically erroneous belief) of self-interest, pervade whole classes of persons. Frequently the great majority of a profession, or trade, or other body, adopt some opinion in which they have, or think they have, a common interest, and urge it with almost unanimous vehemence against the public advantage. On occasions of this kind, the persons interested doubtless convince themselves of the Till: OENAMENTS HCBRIC 150 reasonaljleness of tlie view which they put forward ; they are guilty of no liypocrisy or insincerity ; but their judgment is warped by their belief as to their interest in the question.' J hit the bins of self-interest is not always the most powerful bias. Many a man who knows himself too well to suffer the promptinos of self-interest to biaij him is readily influenced by the interest which he feels in a great cause or institution. Lord Cairns and Lord Selborne were far cibove the motives of self- interest. But the former was a very strong Puritan, and both were devoted to the interest of the Church as an Establishment, and allowed their minds, I be- lieve, to be biased against a party who, they thought, were imperilling the Establishment. I may shock some of my friends, but I will frankly ow^n that the judge whom I should be disposed to trust in these questions would be a great and strong lawyer like the late Sir George Jessel, who, as a Jew, would have ' the requisite indifference.' ' Influence of AiUliorily in Mattera of Opinion, pp. 34-36 ; cf. Mill's Logic, ii. 286-7, third edition. 460 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT CHAPTER XI ANGLICAN AND EOMAN ORDERS When one has a good case it is an error in tactics to stand on the defensive. I propose therefore in this chapter to test very briefly the vahdity of Roman Orders by the criterion apphed by Leo XIII. to the vahdity of Anghcan Orders in the Bull in which he declared their invahdity. In the most weighty, learned, and dignified ' Answer ' of our two Primates to that Bull it is shown conclusively that the argument on which the Pope bases his conclu- sion would invalidate the Orders of every Church in Christendom, and most of all the Orders of the Church of Rome. The retort of ' The Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster,' in their 'Vindication of the Bull " Apostohc^e Curse," ' is one of the weakest specimens of special pleading which it has ever been my lot to read. It is of course natural for Cardinal Vaughan and his colleagues to assume throughout the infallibiUty of the Pope. To those, who accept that dogma, further argument is obviously superfluous. The Pope has declared that Anglican Orders are invahd, and therefore causa finlta est for all infallibilists. But for others Cardinal ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 4G1 Vaughan's aRSinn))tioii hns no valno. It is evident from the whole of the ' Xiiidicatioii ' that in the minds of its authors the decisive proof of tlic invalidity of Anghcan Orders is the fact tliat the Pope has pronounced them iiivahd. They evidently agree with Cardinal Manning that ' the appeal to history is a treason and a heresy ; ' and their own appeal to history is plainly a condescension, a con- troversial device on the part of disputants who take their history from a foregone conclusion, not from the impartial evidence of facts. There is a vast difference hetween studying history in order to support an imperative dogma already received as a necessary article of faith, and studying history with a loyal intention to follow whithersoever it may lead. The Pope having spoken. Cardinal Yaughan and his colleagues are hound to find history in agreement with the Pope, or to deny the Pope's infallihility. Of course, therefore, they have found history in agreement with the Pope. They try to disguise this aspect of the question from their readers, and argue as if they were free to accept the verdict of history, which manifestly they are not. Indeed they start with an apparently unconscious recognition of this fact when they urge, — In short, to deny Leo XIII.'s competency to define the conditions of a valid sacrament is to strike at the very roots of the sacramental system. For if there be no authority on earth capable of deciding so fundamental a point, how can we continue to attach vital importance to the Sacraments, or to regard them as stable rites of 402 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT divine institution on the true observance of which the maintenance of our spiritual life depends ? Observe how the quiet assumption that to deny the Pope's ' competencj^ to define the conditions of a vahd sacrament ' is deemed equivalent to an afhrma- tion that * there is no antliority on earth capable of deciding so fundamental a point.' Both the Papal Bull and the Cardinal's ' Vindication ' prudently pass by the consecrations of Barlow and Parker and the decree of Pope Eugenius lY., ' as not requiring to be examined, since, even apart from them, the in- validity of your [i.e. Anglican] Orders was decisively proved.' The consecrations of Barlow and Parker need not be discussed, for no scholar who has a reputation to lose would now think of relying on the old Eoman arguments against them. The decree of Pope Eugenius is a very different matter. It was addressed ' to the Armenians ' in November, 1489, as a rule of faith and practice on the doctrines of the Trinity in Unity, the Incarnation, and the Seven Sacraments. It answers all the tests of an c.r catliedra infallible pronouncement. And in addition to this internal evidence of an ex cathedra character, it was issued three months after the Council of Florence, and Eugenius affirms that the decree received the sanction of the Council. If ever a Papal decree fulfilled the conditions of infallibility, this doctrinal utterance by Pope Eugenius IV. did so. Now let us look at its bearing on the validity of Anglican Orders. After describing the Seven ANGLICAN AND liOMAN ORDERS 4G3 Sacraments, the Pope proceeds to say that all those Sacraments require three conditions for their validity, * namely, things as matter ; words as form ; and the person of a minister conferring the Sacrament with the intention of doing what the Church does : and if any of these is ahsent, there is no Sacrament. Among these Sacraments there are three — Baptism, Confirmation, Order — which imprint on the soul an indelible character, that is, a certain spiritual mark distinct from others. Consequently they cannot be repeated on the same person. But the remaining four imprint no character and admit of reiteration.' ' After giving the usual explanation of the matter and form in Baptism, the Pope goes on to say that the matter of Confirmation is the chrism blessed by the bishop ; and the form, the words — ' I sign thee with the sign of the cross, and confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.' This omits the laying on of hands as part of the matter of Confirmation, and gives, as its form, words which have by no means been universally used. The comment of our two Archbishops is irresistible : ' If therefore the doctrine about a fixed matter and form in the Sacra- ments were to be admitted, the Eomans have ' See Denzinger's Enchiridion Symholorum ct Definitiomim qum dc Rebns Fidel et Morum a Conciliis ChJcinncnicis et Stwimis Ponti- ficihus cniananint, Wirceburgi, 1874, pp. 172, 17G. Denzinger omits the first part of this decree, which expounds the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation dogmatically, in order to give colour to his unfounded suggestion that the Pope intended no definition of the doctrine of the Sacrament.:;, but only 'practical instruction.' 464 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT {idministered Confirmation imperfectly for many centuries, and the Greeks have none.' That is a very serious matter for a Church which now regards every ex cathedra utterance (^f a Pope as infaUihle truth, l^ut it is Pope Eu.^enius's definition of the matter and form in the Sacrament of Order which concerns us in particular. ' The matter here,' says Pope Eugenius, * is the delivery into the hands of a person ordained to the priesthood of the chaUce with wine and the paten with bread ; and the form of conferrino- the priesthood is : " Peceive the power of offering sacrifice in the Church for the living and the dead, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." ' If we are to accept this as infallible truth, Christendom has been without a valid priesthood from the first Christian Pentecost till now ; for the delivery of the paten and chalice containing the Eucharistic elements has never been received by any Church as necessarily of the essence of the matter of sacerdotal ordination, and is not now so considered by the Church of Kome ; while the form prescribed by Eugenius, though now insisted on as essential by the Roman Church, has never been so regarded by the Church Universal. Our own and the Oriental Churches, which have never admitted the infallibility of the Pope, are unaffected by this decree of Pope Eugenius lY. Kot so the Church of Pome. The Pope's decree is binding on it, as an article of necessary faith, and consequently it is bound by tlie logic of its dogmatic ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 465 position to confess itself witliout priesthood or Sacra- ments. Thus we see that it is not AngHcan Orders which Leo XIII. 's Bull and Cardinal Vaughan's ' Vindication ' have invalidated, but Roman Orders. What, again, can be a more glaring example of special pleading than the following? — Your Reformers no doubt retained the terms * priest ' and * bishop ' as the distinctive names of the two higher degrees of their clergy — probably because they did not dare to discard terms so long established and so familiar. But whilst retaining the terms they protested against the meanings attached to them by the Catholics, and, in- sisting on the etymological signification, used them, and desired that in future they should be used, to denote, not ministers empowered to offer sacrifice, but pastors over their flocks, to teach them, to administer to them such Sacraments as they believed in, and generally to tend them spiritually. This meaning they professed to regard as that of Scripture, and of the Primitive Church, which explains the language of the Preface of your Ordinal. What Cardinal Vaughan and his coadjutors here cite as proof of a deliberate purpose to make a fundamental change in the doctrine of the Church of England is only an illustration of the tendency, already noticed, of all reformers to dwell chiefly on the neglected side of important truths, and use some reserve in dweUing on the side that had been pushed to an extreme. Just as St. Paul dwelt on the necessity of faith and seemed to depreciate works ; and St. James dwelt on the necessity of works to the apparent neglect of faith ; and the H H i66 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT early Christian Apologists denied in words the exis- tence of Christian temples and Christian altars- meaning such temples and altars as were used in heathen worship; so tlie first Anglican Keformers dwelt more on the communion than on the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist. And when they seem to deny, like Hooker, that sacrifice is part of the Christian ministry, they mean sacrifices like those of the Mosaic dispensation, and sometimes hke the carnal view of the Eucharistic sacrifice taught by many Koman writers, and believed by the multitude. That Cranmer, who had most to do with the compi- lation of the Prayer Book, had no idea of innovating on the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, properly so called, is plain from his own language. 'The manner of the Holy Communion,' he says, 'which is now set forth within this realm, is agreeable with the institution of Christ, with St. Paul, and with the right faith of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross.' ^ And at his trial in 1553 he 'offered to join issue upon this point, that the Order of the Church of England, set out by the authority of the innocent and godly Prince Edward VI. in his High Court of Parlia- ment, is the same that was used in the Church fifteen hundred years past.' '^ But even if Cardinal Yaughan were right in thinking that Cranmer's intention was to change the doctrine of the Church of England, our reply is that Cranmer failed in his intention. Eor the Ordinal has ' Defence of the Cath. Doc. of the Sacr. Bk. v. ch. 18. -■ See Jeremy Taylur'b Works, v. 238. Edeu's edition. ANGLJCJAN am:) EO^IAX OKJ)J::iiS IG? always contained all the essentials of the rite oi' ordina- tion to the priesthood. It is called ' The Form and Manner of Ordering of Priests.' The first Kulnic says : ' ^Vhen the day appointed by the Bishop is come, after Morning Prayer is ended, there shall be a Sermon or Exhortation, declaring the Duty and Oltice of such as come to be admitted Priests ; how neces- sary that Order is in the Church of Christ, and also how the people ought to esteem them in their Office.' Then the Archdeacon is to ' present unto the Bishop (sitting in his chair near to the Holy Table) all them that shall receive the Order of Priesthood that day,' saying : ' Eeverend Father in God, I present unto you these persons present, to be admitted to the Order of Priesthood.' Thereupon the Bishop bids the Archdeacon ' take heed that the persons ' pre- sented are ' apt and meet ' by learning and character ' to exercise their ministry duly ' — that is, the ' sacer- dotium,' with all that it implies ; it is the generic term, embracing all the functions of the Priesthood. Then the Bishop addresses the congregation, and invites objections, if there be any, to the qualifications of any of the candidates for 'the holy Office of Priesthood.' Then follows a prayer : ' Almighty God, Giver of all good things, who by Thy Holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church ; mercifully behold these Thy servants now called to the OfBce of Priesthood; and replenish them so with the truth of Thy doctrine, and adorn them with innocency of life, that, both by word and 468 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT r^ood example, they may faithfully serve Thee in this office,' &c. After the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel, the Bishop addresses the candidates and reminds them of * how great importance this office is where- unto ye are called,' and exhorts them, ' in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you have in remembrance unto how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and charge, ye are called.' Then the Bishop asks : * Do you think that you be truly called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Order of this Church of England, to the Order and Ministry of Priesthood ? ' ' Will you then give your faithful dihgence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and Eealm hath received the same, according to the commandments of God,' &c. After some more questions and devotions, * the Bishop with the priests present shall lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that receiveth the Order of Priesthood,' and the Bishop gives his commission as follows : — Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee l)y the Imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacra- ments ; Id the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holv Ghost. ANGLICAN AND RO:NrAN ORDERS 469 Tlie candidates havinf^ tliiiR received the Sacer- dotium in the plenitude of all that the word con- notes, the Bisliop <;ives each of them a Bible and bestows jurisdiction by the followin^^ words : ' Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in the Congregation, where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto.' The same distinct designation of ofhce is observed in the consecration of bishops. The Pope and Cardinal Vaughan admit that our present * form of ordination, together with the prayer, Abnighty God, Giver of aU good things . . . behold these Thy servants now called to the Office of Priesthood {or E'piscoiKite), might, apart from the further reason to be given presently, have furnished the necessary degree of definiteness.' * The further reason ' is that the Papal Bull ' very reasonably asks how any of those other prayers can be thought to designate the priesthood and episcopate in the Catholic sense, lohen it is i-iotorious that this is just the meaning which the compilers were studious to exclude from the entire service.' ' What is ' notorious ' here is the ignorance of the Pope as to the entire subject on which he was pronouncing an ex cathedra judgment. For the fact is, as I have shown, that the compilers of the Prayer Book, and the whole body of representative Anglican divines, ' were studious ' to do, and succeeded in doing, precisely the reverse of what the Pope and Cardinal Yaughan impute to them. The Anglican divines ' A Vindication, pp. 38, 311. 470 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT liave always insisted on the doctrine of the Eucha- ristic Sacrifice ' in the Catholic sense,' and have only repudiated the nncatholic incrustations which grew around it in tlie writings of Eoman divines and in tlie al)use of a traffic in private masses. The prayer, Ahnightij God, Giver of all good things. Sec, is admitted by Cardinal Yaughan and his colleagues to be ' best adapted to supply the needed element of detiniteness.' ' J^ut it is found in your present Ordinal far removed from the imposi- tion of hands,' and must therefore he regarded as irrelevant. Nothing has brought so much discredit on Roman theology as this hard mechanical view of divine operations. ' The whole ordination service,' as Cardinal John de Lugo (quoted by the two Primates) admits, ' is a single action, and it makes no difference if the matter and form are separated from one another (as is the case in the Pontifical), if what intervenes makes up a moral whole.' ' The assertion that an ordination, otherwise valid, could be invalidated by the interposition of a few moments of time and a page of print between a certain prayer and the laying on of hands is worth}^ only of ^lohamedan casuistry, according to which the smallest deviation from the prescribed formula, in word or action, invalidates the entire rite, And see how it acts. The invocation has dropped out of the Poman Liturgy, in which the words of institution are held in Koman theology to be the consecrating factor. The Easterns, properly and reverently re- ' Answer of the ArclthisJtops, p. 30. ANGLICAN AN J) ROMAN ORDEllS 471 fusing to limit the action of the Eternal One by measurements of time, regard the whole Liturgy as a single action, and decline to dogmatise as to the precise moment when the elements become ettectual for their purpose. It doos not trouble them there- fore that the invocation comes after the effectual words have already been spoken according to the Koman doctrine. Cardinal Vaughan is thus logically bound to impeach the orthodoxy of all the Eastern Liturgies ; while the Easterns, on their part — though too charitable to condemn the Roman rite as null — do accuse it of being mutilated and defec- tive : — - The one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the seven CEcumenical Councils admitted that the Sacred Elements are sanctified after the prayer of invocation of the Holy Ghost by the blessing of the priest, as witness the ancient formularies (ruTrtKa) of Rome and Gaul. But the Papal Church innovated in this also, having arbitrarily considei'ed the sanctification of the Sacred Elements as taking place with the utterance of the words of the Lord : ' Take eat, this is My Body,' and. ' Drink ye all of it, for this is My Blood.' ' But the doctrine of Leo XIII.'s Bull and Cardi- nal Yaughan's ' Vindication ' of it is exposed to still ' A Patriarchal and Sjjnodlcal Encyclical Letter unto the most sacred and beloved-of-Clod Metropolitans and Bishops, onr brethren in Christ ; and unto the sacred and pure clergy under them ; and unto the entire pious and orthodox faithful of the Most Holy Apo- stolical and Patriarchal See of Constantinople. A Reply of the Holy Catliolic and Apostolical Orthodox Church of the East to the Ency- clical of Pope Leo XIII. on Reunion, p. G. 472 THE REFORl\rATION SETTLEMENT more formidable perils. The question turns in the last analysis on the intention of the compilers of the Prayer Book and of the Anghcan clergy as a body from the Reformation downwards. A heterodox intention is gratuitously imputed to them, and all their acts are thus presumed to be tainted by theo- logical pravity. There is, of course, a true doctrine of intention. The minister of a Sacrament must intend to do what the Church does. It follows that a minister who is insane, or drunk, or in a fit of somnambulism, or otherwise mentally mcompetent, cannot perform a valid Sacrament. But if he knows what he is about, and intends to discharge with ceremonial exactness the function which the Church has committed to him, then his Sacrament is vahd, whatever his own private belief may be. For the real Consecrator in all Sacraments is Christ Himself, and His will is effectual independently of the belief or unbelief of His visible minister. The Church of England insists on this merciful and equitable doctrine in the Twenty-sixth Article. It would indeed be a cruel case if the devout and worthy recipient were defrauded of a divine gift through the will or wicked- ness of the minister. But let us take the doctrine of intention which is now prevalent in the Church of liome, and let us sec how that Church will fare under its application. The Catholic Church of Spain under the Moorish domination offers a crucial test. One of the classical works on Moorish Spain is that ')f Professor Dozv, himself a lioman Catholic. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 473 '.The Church,' he says, 'was subject to a hard and cruel servitude.' Tlie ri^ht of convokiiif^ councils as well as nominatii^i;- l)isli()])s, wliicli had Ixiloiif^cd to the Visigoth Kings, was now claimed and exercised by the Arab Sultans ; ' and that fatal right, confided to an enemy of the Christian religion, was for the Church a source of inexhaustible evil, of opprobnum, and of scandal.' Whenever a Moorish Prince wished to squeeze money out of the Christians, or to make use of them in any other w^ay, he put the ecclesias- tical machinery in motion by calling a council. At first the bishops refused to give the sanction of their presence to these synods. But the Sultans had another string to their bow ; the sovereign sent Jews and INIusulmans to take the place of the bishops, and do his bidding. This did not work well, and the next device on the part of the Mohamedan rulers was to put pliant tools into each see as the bishop died or was deposed. The bishopric was knocked down to the highest bidder, who often did not go even through the form of making a profession of Christianity. Benegade Christians, professed Jews, and born Musulmans thus came to occupy the sees of Moorish Spain, many of them unbaptized, but all having gone through the sacrilegious farce of consecration, which was thus entirely null and void. 'In this way,' Dozy tells us, 'the Christians saw their dearest and most sacred interests entrusted to heretics ; to libertines, who took part in the orgies of Arab courtesans, even during the solemnities of Church festivals ; to unbelievers who publicly 474 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT denied a future life ; to wretches who, not satisfied witli selHn,£j their own souls, sold their flocks into the hari^^ain.' ' '11 lis state of things lasted for centuries. What will Cardinal Vaughan say ahout the Sacraments, including Orders, administered hy men like these? Can he guarantee that any of them was validly ordained, or administered the Sacraments in their turn with the right intention and the right matter and form ? Yet the priesthood of Spain is largely descended from the episcopate of the Moorish domination. Blanco White too makes revelations which, though not quite so damaging, suffice to involve the sacramental system of Spain, at least during the period which he describes, in an atmo- sphere of doubt. He tells us of clergy who were not only immoral, but unbehevers in addition ; unbe- lievers of an aggressive type, who, revolting against the state of things which they saw around them, were animated by an energetic hatred of Christianity. Believing that they were forced by circumstances to take part in a mischievous imposture, would not their temptation be to invalidate deliberately the Sacraments they administered by perpetrating a flaw either in the matter or form ? Then there is the case of the ecclesiastics, bishops and priests, who threw off the mask at the French Revolution, and avowed that they had been acting a farce all the time they were going through the fonii of conferring and administering Sacra- ' Jlhtoire dcfi ^F7^snImans (VK^pagup, jmr R. Dozy, ii. 47. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 475 ments. Who will guarantee their good faith and due ol)servance of tlie (essentials of valid Sacraments ? Consider also the prevakaice of lay ])a])tism administered in ContineJital and South American countries l)y ignorant midwives and nurses. There is a story told of a distingnislied English Koiiiaii Catholic priest who visited his old nurse on her deathhed. ' I am deeply indebted to you,' he said, 'for you made me a Christian.' * Oh, yes, your Kiverence,' she said, ' and I made many other Christians also.' ' I suppose you always used the right form of words ? ' continued the priest. ' Faith, and I did,' was the unexpected reply. ' I baptized ye all in the name of Jesus and Mar}^' The priest, horror-struck, went and had himself baptized and re-ordained. Such is the story, and even if it be only hen trovato, it ought to warn the Pope and Cardinal Yaughan that in their mode of attack on the validity of Anglican Orders they are indeed playing with edged tools. But I must give a more flagrant instance of the way in which the extreme development of the doc- trine of intention in the Church of Rome has under- mined the whole sacramental system of that Church. By an arbitrary rule of the Roman Catholic Episcopate of South America no one was eligible for Holy Orders who had a strain of native blood in him down to the fourth generation. But persons thus disqualified often got ordained, and doubt was thrown on the validity of their orders, owing to the negative intentions of the bishops. In the year 47G THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT 1865, one of tlie bishops determined to bring the matter to a test. He announced pnbHcly that henceforward, in the event of his unwittingly ordaining any man within the prohibited degree of native blood, the ordination would be null and void, inasmuch as his intention would be absent. Never- theless several men who were descendants of native Indians or Mulattos were ordained by the bishop unwittingly at his next ordination. When the fact came to his knowledge he declared that those ordinations were null and void. There w^as an appeal to the Holy See, which, after careful consideration, ruled that the ordinations were nullified by the with- drawal of the F.piscopal intention. This decision appears to have been arrived at without hesitation. But while the Holy See sustained the decision of the South American bishops, and ordered them to warn the persons thus ordained that their orders were invahd, it ' sharply reproved ' the bishop for having such ' negative intentions,' which were illegal, and must no longer be cherished.' ' Extiait cle VAnalccta Juris Pontificii, 8"'« Serie, col. 1081, Rome, 18GG : Intention du ministrc.—IJn eveque de rAmerique dii Sud publia un edit avant rordination.protestant que nul descendant des Indiens jusqu'a la quatiieme generation ne devrait se presenter parce que le prelat n'aurait pas Tintention de leur conferer les ordres. Cette pro- testation fut renouvelee plus expressement au moment de Tordina- tion, car le prelat declara qu'il n'aurait aucune intention actuelle ou virtuelle a I'egard de tous ceux qui n'etaient pas espagnols purs. Malgre cela, plusieurs descendants d'Indiens ou de mulatres re<.'urent les ordres et les exercerent. Le Saint-Siege fut consults sur la validite de ces ordinations. Quoique le Cardinal Casanatc reconnut la nnllitc des ordinations, ANGLICAN AND ROMAN OHDERS 477 This decision throws a cloud of doubt over all the Sacraments of the Konian Church. It is no longer a question of doing what the Church does, or intending what the Cliurch intends. The bishop or priest may at the moment be doing what the Church does, and be intending sincerely what the Church intends ; yet the Sacrament which he thus confers is nullified by the fact that he has a prejudice against a certain class of persons. In the case before us the bishop did all that the Church required of him ; but his negative intention in the abstract nullified his positive intention in the concrete. And Eome sanctions this, while condemning the negative in- tention and abolishing the illegal disability ! But, il exprima uettement I'avis que ces intentions negatives etaient gravement illicites. Voici son votum : Ad 1 et 2. Negative.— (^Vi'vA explicita intentio episeopi de non conferendis ovdinibus restitit validse collationi, ut ex Sacro Concilio Tridentino, sess. 7, de Sacramentis in genere, can. 11 nota Bonacina (ojier. moral, torn. i. disp. 6, q. 3, punct. 2 § 3), Hurtad. de Sacram. (disput. 4, difficult. (> ^. Sed qiiamvis ; rursus difficult. 7, ^ 1, pag. 36), P. Diana {in coordinatis, torn. 2, tract. 5, resol. 106, ^> 1, alias p. 5, tract. 13, Miscell. p. resol. 66 et fuit resp. in Fesulana con- firmat. sub die 8 niensis Augusti 1681. Ad 3. — Acriter corrigendum episcopum ut abstineat ab hujus- modi negativis intentionibus de jure illicitis, sed tamen caute inquirat de personis, et insuper monendos invalide promotos, ut curent se iterum ordinari sub conditione, quatenus non sint valide ordinati, ut advertunt iidem auctores specialius Diana ibidem sub § 1. La S. Congregation du Concile jugea que I'ordination avait 6te nulla, et qu'il fallait avertir tous les eveques d'Amerique qu'ils devraient s'abstenir desormais de ces intentions negatives, et qu'ils n'avaient pas le droit d'ecarter des Saints Ordres les Indiens et les negres, ni aucun de leurs descendants du cote paternel ou maternel, suppose qu'ils cussent les qualitcs exigees par les canons. 478 THE EEFORMATIOX SETTLEMENT on the other hand, it is laid down in ' A Catholic Dictionary ' which bears the imprimatar of Cardinal Manning and the nihil ohstat of the * Censor Dcputatus,' that a negative intention, which is un- authorised and illegitimate, is invalid, and conse- quently does not nuUify a sacrament.^ This is far indeed, as we shall see, from being the only example of Eome speaking with an uncertain voice, notwith- standing its proud boast of being semper cadcm. Even on the question of intention a subsequent decree seems hardly consistent with that on the validity of the ordination of quadroons. ' A certain Vicar Apostolic ' consulted the Holy See on the following point. ' In certain localities some heretics baptize wdth the right matter and form, but expressly warn the persons to be baptized not to believe that baptism has any effect on the soul ; for they say that it is a mere external sign of adhesion to their sect. And thus they often ridicule the Catholics about their faith in the effect of baptism, which indeed they call a superstition.' The question is therefore put ' whether baptism administered by heretics is doubtful on account of a defective intention of doing what the Church does, if it has been expressly declared by the minister, before baptizing, that baptism has no effect on the soul.' The answer — which is the doctrine of the universal Church since the Cyprianic controversy with the Pope - is in the negative, ' because, notwithstanding the error in ' Pp. 738, 739. AKGLICAK AND liOMAN OEDEBS 179 regard to the effect of baptism, there is no exclusion of the intention to do wliat the Church does.' ' But the most conclusive of all replies to the Konian attack on the validity of Anglican Orders is the terrible uncertainty in which the theory and practice of the Papacy, culminating in the dogma of Infallibility, has involved the Orders of the Church of ixome. The personal infallibility of the Pope, speaking ex cathedra on faith or morals, is now an article of faith in the Church of Eonie as imperative and fundamental as the doctrine of the Trinity or Incarnation. It is a learned Eoman Catholic who writes as follows : — It [dogma of Papal infallibility] means that although a few months ago grave difiicuHies, arising from genuine historical documents and from Catholic doctrine, rendered it impossible to lay before Christian people such a dogma as one revealed by God,^ yet, nevertheless, the definition of it is so worded as to avoid them all, or otherwise that in some way or other they have been completely solved. It means that Vv'e must acknowledge and distinctly assert this new dogma to be no less certainly true than (for example) the mysteries of the Trinity in Unity, or of the Incarnation of the Son of God, or of the resurrec- tion of the body. It means that if we do not give to the doctrine the • Negative ; quia, non obstante erroie quoad eft'ectus baptismi, non exckulitur intentio i'aciendi quod tacit Eeclesia.'— xlna/sc/o c7«ris Pontificii, xx. 193, a.d. 1881. - The author is here quoting and making his own the words of the petition of the Bishops of Germany and Hungary against any definition of infallibility by the Council of the Vatican. 480 THE REFOKMATION SETTLEMENT same interior and absolute assent with our whole mind as we give to all the articles of the Apostles' Creed, we have no longer any right to be named Christians ; we are to be deprived of the Sacraments ; we make ship- wreck of the whole faith, and willingly cast ourselves out of the Church. It means that whatever may be the grounds or wliatever the authority on which w^e ' have been accus- tomed to rely, as evidence and proof of the certainty of those old truths, we must place no less rehance upon the undeniable certainty of the new dogma. All stand or fall together. If the doctrine of tlie infalhbility of the Pope has not been divinely revealed, there never has been any revelation, and there is no divine truth in any one doctrine of the Christian Faith. Put it how we may, this is a startling fact ; and we are bound to inquire, ' Why must we so believe?' The answ^er is, because it has been declared by a hurried decision of the suspended Council of the Vatican, which has been promulgated by the authority— not of the Council, nor as a decree of the Council, but — of the Pope alone, as an Apostolic Constitution, himself as it were giving sentence in his own cause.' Su much as to the place of the dogma of the Pope's infallibility in the creed of the lioman Church since July, 1870. Let us now test the doctrine by the touchstone of history. It is an undisputed doctrine of the Church of Christ throughout the world, and in all ages, that nothing can be an article of necessary faith now which was not an article of necessary faith on the ' WJiat is the Meaning of the late Definition of the Infallibility of the Pope} An Inquiry. By Willium Maskcll, M.A. rublishccl in 1871. ANGLICAN AND KOMAN OEDERS 481 first Christian Pentecost. That is the authorised doctrine of the Church of liome, as of the rest of Christendom. In a book pubHshed with the impri- matur of Cardinal Manning, and the nihil obstat of the ' Censor Deputatus,' I read : — All that we know and believe now, the entire cycle of Christian doctrine in all its circumstances, was known and believed then by the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost before the sun went down.' Moreover, the Vatican decree itself declares that the Pope's infallibihty ' is a dogma divinely revealed ' '^ from the beginning.' Now let us look at the facts. Keenan's Cate- chism possessed at one time the largest circulation among English-speaking Eoman Catholics through- out the world. My copy is the third edition and twelfth thousand, bears the date of 1854, was pub- lished in Edinburgh by Marsh and Beattie, and in London by the well-known Dolman. Prefixed to it are letters of strong recommendation from all the Eoman Catholic Bishops of Scotland. ' The rapid and extensive sale of the book in this country,' says Bishop GiHis, 'besides a third edition printed in America, is evidence sufficient of the favour with which this Catechism has been received by the Catholic pubhc' In his Preface to the second edition the author congratulates himself on the approbation of the former edition by many clergy- ' The Divine Teacher, p. 20, 6th edition, a.d. 1885, by Father Humphrey, S.J. II 482 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT men in Scotland, and by several in Ireland and England, the fact of its appearing in a very elegant x\merican edition, approved by the Eight Eev. Dr. Hughes (Arch- bishop) of New York, and by the American Catholic clerg)' and Catholic press. In his Preface to the third edition he says : — The hard-working clergy and persecuted Catholics of Great Britain have now given the Controversial Catechism a decided approbation. The demand for it in each of the three kingdoms has satisfied its author that his labour has answered some good purpose. An edition of the twenty-fourth thousand was pub- lished during the sitting of the Vatican Council by ' the Catholic Publishing and Bookselling Company, Limited,' New Bond Street, and was strongly recom- mended by the ' Tablet ' newspaper. I believe that down to the Vatican Council it w^as the most universally popular and authoritative Catechism among the English-speaking members of the Eoman Church, not only in Great Britain and Ireland, but in America as well. And now I place in parallel columns the Vatican decree on Papal infallibility, and the same doctrine as expounded in the highly accredited and widely circulated ' Controversial Catechism ' of Father Keenan : — Keeiian's Catechism Vatican Decree •Must not Catholics believe 'Therefore, faithfully adher- the Pope in himself to be infal- ing to the tradition received lible ? That is a Protestant in- from the beginning of the Chris- vention ; no decision of his can tian faith, for the glory of God ANGLICAN AND KOMAN ORDERS 483 oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and en- forced by the teaching body ; that is by the Bishops,' whom the author had previously defined as ' the lawful judges of Christian doctrine, who have been appointed by Christ for that purpose.' our Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely re- vealed : that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks (?a; catJwdrd, thut is, when in discharge of his office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his su- preme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, is, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals ; and that, there- fore, such definitions are of them- selves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable. And if any one presume to contradict this our definition— which God forbid — let him be anathema.' The contradiction is absolute and complete, and was felt to be so by the Eoman authorities. For, instead of withdrawing Keenan's Catechism from circulation after the Vatican Council — which would have been a public acknowledgment of the contra- diction — the incriminating leaf was cut out of the existing edition, and another leaf inserted in its place containing the Vatican doctrine, as if it had been there always. 484 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT The Vatican decree, moreover, extinguishes, in the following words, the inherent rights and jurisdic- tion of the entire episcopate : — If any shall say that the Roman Pontiff possesses only an office of inspection or direction, but not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters which pertain to faith and morals, but also to the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the world ; or that he has only the more excellent parts, but not also the total plenitude of this supreme authority; or that this authority of his is not ordinary and immediate, whether over all and singular Churches or over all and singular pastors and laity — let him be anathema. In a work against this dogma, before it was passed, the Bishop of Mayence (Ketteler) said : — Will it not seem to all nations that the authority of all Bishops is suppressed and sentenced to death, only in order to erect on such vast and manifold ruins the unlimited authority of the one Roman Pope ? Two days before the dogma of infallibihty was proclaimed the minority sent a deputation to the Pope to implore him to agree that the consent of the Church should be laid down as a condition of infallible definitions. The deputation consisted of Simor, Primate of Hungary, Archbishops Ginoulhiac, Darboy, and Sherr (of Munich), Bishops Ketteler (of Mayence), and Eivet of Dijon. The minority offered this concession by way of compromise. But, instead of accepting it, the Pope and the majority ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 485 explicitly rejected the consent of the Church as an element in the case. It follows logically that if the Pope alone were officially to proclaim as an article of faith something which the Church collectively and unanimously rejected, the Pope would be right and all the rest of Christendom wrong. Cardinal Vaughan may tell me that I am suggesting a contingency which is not likely to happen. But that is not the question. The fact is that the Vatican definition has drawn a line of demarcation between the Pope and the Church, and made him infallible apart from the Church. The Vatican dogma is therefore a flat contradiction of Keenan's Catechism, which teaches that the doctrine of the Vatican dogma ' is no article of the Catholic faith,' since 'no decision of his [Pope's] can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body ; that is, by the Bishops of the Church.' Thus we see that a doctrine, which down to 1870 was denounced by the teaching body of the Church of Rome in the British Isles and in America as ' a Protestant inven- tion,' is now de fide under the sanction of anathema. Well might the martyred Archbishop Darboy of Paris say that Pio Nono had built for himself a throne on the ruin of his brethren, and an unassailable fortress on their annihilation. • ' ' Les Papes du moyen Jige avaient sans doute, plus d'une fois, exagere leurs droits et leurs pretentions, mais cette exageration menie pouvait, a tout prendre, donner comma excuse le bien des peuples qu'on se proposait, ou la gloire de I'Eglise qu'on voulait defendre. Aujourd'hui nous sommes en face de la Papaute luttant, non pas 486 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT It may be worth while to elucidate the matter a little further by showing that the doctrine of Keenan's Catechism was the traditional doctrine of Koman Catholics throughout the British Empire and America until the Vatican dogma superseded and anathematised it. In the year 1825 the Irish Eoman Catholic Bishops were examined before a committee of the House of Lords on the question of the Pope's position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. I will quote the answers of the two most eminent Bishops with the assent of the rest. Bishop Doyle says :— A particular Church, or the canons of a particular Church, might define that the authority of a General Council was superior to that of the Pope ; such canon may be received, for instance, in Ireland or in France, and might not be received in Italy or Spain. Bishop Murray was asked : ' Is a decree of the contre les princes, mais contve Tepiscopat, comme si Pie IX pouvait trouver sur la ruine de ses frcres un trone plus eleve, on, clans leur aneantissement, una forteresse plus inexpugnable. malheur des temps et abus des plus saintes institutions ! on ne veut plus qu'un seul eveque vtTitable dans le monde, le Pape, un seul docteur infail- lible et autorise, le pape ! Que toute voix se taise, si ce n'est pour dire ce qu'il aura dit, que toute action ne s'exerce plus que sous sa jurisdiction episcopale, universelle, immediate, qu'ils renient leurs droits imprescriptibles, ceux qui ont ete etablis de Dieu pour gouverner, qu'ils deehirent les pages de I'Evangile ou ces droits sont graves ; il ne faut plus qu'une bouclre, une main, un monarque absolu, alors, dit-on, alors seulement nous aurons I'Drdre universe!. Ainsi il y a 40 ans, un ministre parut, a la tribune fran(;'aise, pour dire : I'ordre regne a Varsovie. Oui, mais c'etait I'ordre que cr^'S la mort ; on avait tue la Pologne. L'ordre qu'on veut, c'est la mort de I'Eglise.' — La dcrnv^re Heure du Concilc, p. 5, 1870. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 487 Pope valid without the consent of the Council ? ' His answer is : — A decree of the Pope in matters of doctrine is not considered binding on Catholics if it have not the consent of the Church, either dispersed, or assembled by its Bishops in council. Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis in America, writing from Rome to the Archbishop of Baltimore during the Vatican Council, repudiates point blank the doctrine afterwards proclaimed as an article of Cathohc faith, and adds :— For if a Papal decree is X)cr se infallible, there is no need of the assent of the Bishops, or of taking votes in the Council, or of subscriptions in their several Sees ; much less is it lawful for any Bishop to resist such decree. Archbishop Hughes, of New York, in a disserta- tion on the subject, says : — Bellarmine maintained, as a matter of opinion, that the Pope, in his official character, is infallible ; Bossuet, as a matter of oinnion, maintained the contrary. But- According to the Catholic rule of faith, the doctrines of Christianity are not abstract speculations ; they are * positive truths or facts,' unchaiujed and unchangeable, as they came from the lips of Jesus Christ and His inspired Apostles. But being public truths or facts they were taught by the pastors of the Church and believed by the people in all countries and in every century since the establishment of the Church. Consequently T can 488 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT verify them ^Yith the same certainty which I have that such an event as the battle of Waterloo, the decapitation of Charles I., or the Council of Nice took place in the world. In neither case is a Divine orijcrsonal infallibility iiecessary. . . . The doctrines of the Catholic Church arc fixed stars in the firmament of belief, and the transmutation of an opinion into a doctrine would be the raising of a new light, a species of religious reformation which Protestants have taken into their own hands, and for which Catholics have neither the talent, inclination, nor authority.'^ Cardinal Wiseman says : — But it must not be thought that Catholics beheve there is a certain mass of vague and floating opinions which may, at the option of the Pope, or of a General Council, or of the whole Church, be turned into articles, of faith.2 Again : — If the symboHcal documents of a Church . . . decide, or seem to decide, a belief, and the great body of its pastors or teachers agree in one interpretation of that definition, and allow none other to be taught, that we hold to be the doctrine of that Church. If it allow two most different, or even contradictory, sentiments to be publicly taught, the holders of neither have a right to call theirs more than opinions in the Church.^ In a manual of instruction by the Koman Catholic Bishop Hay I find the following question and answer : — g._When the head of the Church publishes any decree concerning faith or morals, to which he requires » rp. 49, 91, 92. ' Lectures, hi. p. C3. 3 Essays, ii. 122. ANGLICAN AND KOMAN OKDERS 489 submission, to all the faithful, is he himself infallible in what he there teaches ? A. — This is not proposed as an article of Divine faith, nor has the Church ever made any decision concerning it.* In his 'Letter to Dr. Pusey on his Recent Eirenicon ' Cardinal Newman includes Dr. Lingard and Dr. Husenbeth among ' the chief (Roman Catholic) authors of the passing generation in England.' Let us see what those two distinguished divines have to say on the subject before us. I happen to possess a volume of pamphlets which belonged to Dr. Husenbeth. Among them is Car- dinal Manning's 'Vatican Council and its Defini- tions : a Pastoral Letter to the Clergy,' published immediately after the Council. This pamphlet is full of marginal and interleaved notes in Dr. Husen- beth's handwriting, disputing Manning's principal points, and confronting them with the opinions of Roman Catholic authorities. He quotes as follows from Dr. Lingard's ' Letter to a Clergyman in the Diocese of Durham : ' — ' To your question, where the infallibility of the Catholic Church resides, I answer, in the Episcopal College united to the Pope.' But the Vatican decree says in the Pope, ' without the consent of the Church.' Dr. Husenbeth quotes Bishop Baines as fol- lows : — When I say that the infaUibility of the Pope is not an article of the Catholic faith, I mean that no Catholic is bound to believe it, but that each one may think of it as * Sincere Christian, p. 95. 490 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT he pleases, just as much as a Protestant may do. Bellar- mine and some other divines, chiefly Italian, have believed the Pope infallible, when proposing ex cathedra an article of faith. But in England or Ireland I do not believe that any Catholic maintains the infallibility of the Pope.' On page 154 of his Pastoral on the Vatican dogma, Cardinal Manning affirms of the Roman Catholics of England and Ireland that ' what the Council has defined they have always believed.' On this Dr. Husenbeth makes the following note : — The belief in the Pope's infallibility was by no means so general among Enghsh Catholics as Dr. Manning appears to think. For instance, the famous ' Protesta- tion ' in 1788 was signed by all the four Vicars Apostolic, most of the priests with their flocks, and altogether by 1,525 Catholics ; and yet it contained these words : — * We acknowledge no infallibility in the Pope.' And though this document was censured on other grounds, that part of it met with no censure. So much as to Dr. Husenbeth. It is evident from his annotations on Cardinal Manning's pastoral that he did not accept the Vatican decree ex animo even after its proclamation. Soon after the close of the Vatican Council Lord Acton published in German, in the form of a letter to a friend, a pamphlet, which I review^ed in the ' Times ' in the autumn of 1870. Lord Acton was in Rome during the whole sitting of the Council, and was on terms of confidential intimacy with the Bishops of ' Defence against Dr. Moyscy, p. 230. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 491 the minority. His account of what hapx^ened in the Council may, therefore, be accepted as accurate. Indeed, some of the Bishops of the minority, among them Archbishop Kenrick, pubHshed their speeches afterwards. Here is an extract from Kenrick's : — The doctrine is not dc fide, and cannot be made so even by the definition of an G^cumenical Council. We are the guardians of the deposit of faith, not its lords. The following are passages quoted by Lord Acton from other speeches delivered in the Vatican Council. One said : ' Foreseeing the grievous ruin which threatened souls he would rather die than sanction the synodal clause.' Another said that ' the definition of infallibility would be the ruin of the Church.' Another declared that even the faithful, who acknowledged in the Roman Pontiff a primacy of magistracy and jm-isdiction, and whose affection and obedience to the Holy See had never been more manifest, were troubled in heart rather than encouraged, as if now for the first time the foundation of the Church and of the true doctrine were established. On the other hand, the decree would afford food for calumnies and derision of infidels ; and even some among the faithful did not hesitate to say that such a definition would be logically impossible. Another trembled, foreseeing that very many of the faithful would not be able to endure the great scandal of the new dogma, and would consequently be exposed to the danger of making shipwreck of their faith altogether. Another called it ' an unheard-of novelty,' imply- 492 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ing that 'the doctrine of the Church had been changed and therefore depraved.' Other Bishops dwelt on the absence of such a doctrine from the catechisms and symbohcal books of the Church. American Bishops declared that it would be almost impossible for them to return to their dioceses with such a doctrine in their pockets. These are only samples of a number of passages which Lord Acton culled from the speeches and publications of the minority in the Vatican Council. To quote his own words : — This is the picture of the Vatican Council and of its work which we get from men like Schwarzenberg, Rauscher, Haynald, Ketteler, Clifford, Purcell, Conolly, Dupanloup, Darboy, Hefele, Strossmayer, and Kenrick. And so the Council stands self-condemned by the mouths of its ablest members. They represent it as a conspiracy against Divine truth and right. They declare that the new dogmas were neither taught by the Apostles nor beheved by the Fathers ; that they are soul-destroying errors, contrary to the true doctrines of the Church, based on deceit, and are a scandal to Catholics. Surely no judgment could be less ambiguous, no language more open, no testimony more suf&cient or decisive for the consciences of the faithful. These are the words of a loyal member of the Koman Church, one of the most learned men, too, in her communion ; and he is, in the main, merely reporting the opinions and strong convictions of the most eminent Bishops in his Church for learning, rank, and the importance of their sees. I will add to this catena an extract from an ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 493 interesting volume of letters from Ur. Dollinger published by his niece after his death. The extract is from a letter addressed to Monsignor Kuffo Scilla, Papal Nuncio at Munich : — I refused to change my faith. I refused to believe and teach a new dogma, the contrary of which I had been taught in my youth, and the falsity of which I had learnt by the study and research of fifty-six years. . . . During this long period I always taught the contrary of what was decided by Pius IX. in 1870. The Nuncio does not dispute this in his friendly reply ; nor v^as it disputed, as far as I know, by any Inf allibilist who wrote in public against Dr. Dollinger at the time of his excommunication. Cardinal Newman, it is known, while having no difficulty about the dogma himself, strongly disapproved of the manoeuvres by which the decision was obtained, and the hurry with which it was attempted to be forced upon Dr. Dollinger, to whom, according to him, 'it was practically a new article of faith.' Archbishop Darboy, in a brief analysis of the Bishops of the majority in the Vatican Council, divides them into three groups : (1) the timid, who seek for safety in force and numbers, floating supinely with the stream because they think this less dan- gerous than a struggle against the current which leads to the abyss. (2) Episcopal clerks — a multi- tude of prelates without dioceses, offspring simply of the Pontifical will, elevated by the Pope alone to their revocable dignities, simple officials, liegemen 494 THE REFOKMATION SETTLEMENT of the Papacy. (3) Ai-dent and exaggerating spirits, cherishing the aspirations of another ej^och, un- reahsable desires, illusions, for the most part preju- dices which are impervious to theological reasoning.^ The Bishops of the minority, on the other hand, possessed not only an overwhelming preponderance of intellectual eminence and learning ; they presided, in addition, over the most important sees and cities, and over the most educated populations in the Latin Church. But they were swamped by numbers, many of whom had no flocks. To give these merely titular Bishops an equal voice with the occupants of ancient sees, or any sees, was an encroachment on the constitution of a Council claiming (however illegitimately) to be OEcumenical. For the raison d'etre of an (Ecumenical Council was to gather from each diocese in Christendom its traditional teaching on the question in dispute. The Christian Creed ' ' Cette majorite, en effet, se compose surtout d'eveques timides, d'hommes en sous-ordre, d'esprits ardents et exageres. Les premiers aiment a etre avec la force et le grand nombre, afin de ne pas courir de dangers; ils suivent aisement le fieuve qui les emporte et trouvent moins dangereux de descendre toujours que de lutter pour remonter le courant qui m^ne aux abimes. Les seconds sont tous ces prelats sans diocese, issus de la seule volonte pontiticale, relevant du pape et du pape seul, revocables ad nutum pour la plupart, simples officialese comme disent les canonistes remains, ou, si vous I'aimez mieux, dans notre langue fran^aise, hommes liges de la Papaute. Enfin les derniers ne sont ni indifferents, ni timides, ni victimes de leur position subalterne, ni flatteurs par temperament, mais, dans une nature bouillante, ils portent des aspirations d'une autre epoque, des d6sirs irrcalisables, des illusions, le plus souvent des prejug6s pieux que les raisonnements theologiques n'ont jamais dissip^s. De ces categories-:, la premiere ne desire pas se convertir, la seconde ne peut pas, la troisi^me ne doit pas." — La dcrnicrc llciirc du Concile,\}. 3. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 495 being a Divine revelation, it was held to be a question of historical evidence, not of speculation. If the evidence v^as so much on one side as to amount to moral unanimity, it was held to be conclusive. Yet even then the decree of the Council was not con- sidered dc fide, a part, that is, of the creed of Christendom, the deposit of faith once for all com- mitted to the Church. Not till the Church dis- persed throughout the world, its faithful laity as well as clergy, recognised the decree as part of the creed which it had always held, was it considered binding. It is obvious that Bishops without sees had no tradition to deliver, and therefore were not witnesses at all : in other words, were not legitimate members of the Council. What they delivered was but their own private opinions, not the testimony of a diocese traceable back to its origin. It is in this sense that the decision of a truly OEcumenical Council has been recognised as infallible ; not by special inspiration or endowment on the part of the Bishops, but by conclusive historical evidence. The dissent of the eighty-eight Bishops who composed the minority of the Vatican Council, representing moreover, as they did, the vast majority of the educated laity of the Latin Church, destroyed the necessary condition of moral unanimity ; and Cardinal Newman intimates, in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, that if the minority had held out the Vatican dogma would not have been binding. But the point to which I wish now to direct special attention is that the com- position of the majority, as Archbishop Darboy and 496 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT others have shown, was such as to vitiate, apart from other reasons, the claim of the Council to be considered (Ecumenical. The defenders of the Vatican dogma try to reconcile its novelty with the rule of faith, recognised even by the Roman Church, that there can be no new article of faith since the Day of Pentecost, by com- paring it with the Homoousion of the Xicene Creed. But there is an essential difference. The Homoou- sion is a definition having for its object the protec- tion of a truth always accepted as a part of the Creed of Christendom. The dogma of InfallibiHty is the creation of a new article of faith, not the definition of an old one. Any Christian who asserted at any time betw^een Pentecost and the Council of Nicaea that Jesus of Nazareth was personally a creature would have been condemned as a heretic. But the fertile ingenuity and dialectical dexterity of Arius succeeded for a time in baffling the Fathers of the Council. He acknowledged Christ's pre-existence before His virgin birth. He admitted that He was the Creator of the w^orld, and had existed before the angels. In short, there was scarcely a title belonging to God which Arius did not concede to Christ. Not until the keen spear of a dialectician more subtle than himself pierced his sophisms by pinning him to the declaration that Christ was ' a creature, though the highest of the creatures,' was it made manifest to the minds of all that Ai'ius denied the Divinity of Christ. The Homoousion (of the same substance) was inserted in the Creed to guard a truth ANGLICAN AND ROMAN OEDERS 497 already held, namely, that Christ is a Divine Person co-existing eternally with the Father. This is altogether different from the dogma of Papal infallibility. It is a matter of historical demonstration that the doctrine therein defined was not so much as even heard of certainly for the first eight centuries of Christianity. That date will suffice for my purpose, though I might, in matter of fact, bring it much farther down. Until July 18, 1870, any member of the Church of Eome might deny, write against, denounce — as in truth many did — not any particular view or definition of Papal infalhbility, but Papal infallibility itself in any sense reconcilable with the Vatican dogma. The Church of Kome is therefore in this inevitable dilemma. Either the Vatican dogma of Papal infalhbility is a fiction and a fraud, an undeniable historical falsehood ; or the Church of Kome has for more than eighteen centuries allow^ed an article of faith, as binding on the conscience as belief in the existence of Almighty God, to be an open question, the avowed impugners of which were not even liable to censure, still less to the refusal of Sacraments. The upholders of Papal infallibility may make their choice ; but the choice lies between the two horns of the dilemma : there is no third. Semper eadem indeed ! What is there in the history of the Church of England at any period since the Reformation comparable to this theological cataclysm? What mutual contradic- tions can be produced from Anglican divines that equal those which I have cited from Eoman divines ? K K 498 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT The truth is that history and the Ultramontane Theory of the Papacy cannot stand together. They are mutually destructive. And this is the view of a distinguished Ultramontane writer. I have before me as I write a revised edition of an elaborate treatise in defence of the supremacy and infalhbihty of the Pope, printed in Eome in 1875 ' ex Typographia Vaticana,' and dedicated to Pio nono, Pontifici Maximo Boctori et Jucliciincrranti a ChristoJesu in Ecclesia constituto cum potestate in cunctos Epi- ficopos. The author's name is Aloisius Vincenzi, and when he wrote the book he held the post of Professor of Hebrew in Rome and the dignity of Prelate. He won his spurs in the arena of controversy as an accredited champion of the Papacy thirty-three years before the pubhcation of the goodly volume from which I am about to quote. One of his works, he tells us in his Prologus (p. viii), was written ' at the instance ' beatissimi PapcB Pii IX. feliciter regnantis. And he acknowledges ' the debt of gratitude ' which he owes erga clarissimos viros Pctrum BaUerini et Joannem Perrone e Soc. Jesti. I was in Rome when the book was published, and learned from Monsignor Nardi, dean of the Rota, who was a great favourite of Pius IX., that the book was written at the suggestion of the Pope, and dedicated to him by special permission. A book printed at the Vatican press, prompted by and dedicated to the Pope, written by a prelate who was a learned professor, and approved by the most distin^juished theologians in Rome, must be admitted ANGLICAN AND EOMAN ORDEES 499 to possess the highest authority. The subject of the book is ' The Sacred Monarchy of the Hebrews and Christians, and the Infalhble Magisterium in each ; ' and the argument is a laboured attempt to prove that as the Hebrew Church had {ex hijpothcsi) an infalhble head, first in Moses, and then in the High Priest, so the Christian Church, its antitype, has its infallible head in the Pope. This thesis Vincenzi established to his own satisfaction on a pile of impregnable evidence, as he deems it, from the Old Testament and the New, from the history of the Church, and, above all, from the necessity of the case. Just as men of science assume the existence of a luminiferous ether, and find its evidence in phenomena which they cannot otherwise explain, so Vincenzi assumes the existence of a supreme and infallible Papacy, and finds that it fits all the facts except two, which however are rather formidable impediments. I will describe the first in the author's own words, after a careful and minute survey of the first five centuries of the Christian era, in which he finds ample proof of Papal infallibility and universal supremacy : — Nevertheless, as is patent from the preceding pages we must not conceal the fact that in the ancient Acts of the Church during the aforesaid period {i.e. the first five centuries of Christianity) there arc some four hundred documents entitled Canons — Apostohc Canons, as they are called; Canons of Ancyra, Elvira, Neo-Csesarea, Gangra, Laodicea, Nicsea, Constantinople, Africa, Chal- cedon — most of them written in Greek — where the pre- K K 2 500 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT rogatives of the Roman See are never once set forth ; or if ever mentioned, only mentioned to be disowned. ' What are we to infer from this silence ? ' our author asks in pathetic bewilderment. A writer who had the faintest perception of the canons of historical evidence would infer that his thesis was an edifice built upon the sand, which collapsed the moment it came in contact with the hard facts of history. But that is an impossible inference to Vincenzi. For him the Pope's infallibility is an axiom of theological science : a dogma to be argued from, not argued about. If history does not agree with the dogma, so much the worse for history. It must be thrown overboard. I am not exaggerating in the least. The Pope's supreme Magisterium and infal- lible authority being assumed as an article of ne- cessary faith, it follows of course that 'the aforesaid canons, erected against the sacred sovereignty of Peter and his successors, must necessarily be repro- bated ' as a gigantic fraud perpetrated by heretical forgers and mutilators ! The heavens may fall, but the personal infallibility of the Pope must stand. And here we get a charming insight into the cal- culus by means of which Ultramontane controver- sialists surmount the facts of history : — In fine, whatever is to be thought of the origin and authority of the aforesaid countless Canons, nobody will ever persuade me that Apostles, and Orthodox Fathers of Nicsea, Constantinople, Africa, and Chalcedon, ever sanctioned Canons of this sort ; in w^hich both the Pri- macy of Peter and his successors is discredited and ANGLICAN AND EOMAN OKDERS 501 destroyed ; and at the same time the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontitf over all the Bishops of the Catholic Church is repudiated. Vincenzi accordingly undertakes to reconstruct the Canons of the whole Catholic Church in so far as they come into collision with the Papal theory. The following may serve as a specimen. The sixth Canon of Nicaea in its genuine form offers a complete refutation of his theory. Its opening words are : — Let the ancient customs be maintained, which are in Egypt and Libya and Pentapolis, according to which the Bishop of Alexandria has authority over all those places. For this is also customary to the Bishop of Rome. In like manner in Antioch and in the other Provinces their privileges are to be preserved to the Churches. This restricts the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Eome to the Province of Italy ; and that was the contemporaneous interpretation of the Canon. But it would, of course, be fatal to Vincenzi's argument. So he calmly concludes that the Canon was garbled by crafty heretics, and he ' restores it to its original form ' as follows : — Let the ancient customs be maintained — namely, that the Roman See should have the primacy of honour in the first rank ; that Alexandria should have the primacy of honour in the second rank ; Antioch in the third rank ; and Csesarea in the fourth rank, with the attributes belonging to these secondary Sees. And then Vincenzi adds w^ith charming 7iai^ vete : — Although I do not suppose that I have rendered the 502 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT exact words of the Canon, yet I am confident that I have hit upon their meaning.^ And this is the kind of history which is now taught with authority under the shadow of the Vatican ! AVliat is the use of appealing to history against a system of which an authorised champion can sum up his case in the passage quoted on p. 500 ? A starthng confirmation indeed of Cardinal Manning's declaration that ' the appeal to history is a treason and a heresy.' Certainly it is for any loyal believer in the present Papal system. The second impediment which history puts in the way of Vincenzi's thesis comes from the New Testament. It consists of St. Paul's declaration that he ' withstood Peter to the face,' on a question of doctrine, ' because he was to be blamed ; ' and because St. Paul always refers to St. Peter as an Apostle of coordinate authority with himself. It would be too bold to say that this too is an inter- polation by heretics. But Yincenzi is equal to the occasion. The Pope's personal infallibility and supreme magistracy over the whole episcopate being, in Vincenzi's mind, a revealed truth to be believed by all Christians on pain of deadly heresy, all facts to the contrary must be got rid of somehow. He frankly admits that the passages in question cannot be reconciled with Papal supremacy and infallibility, which must be upheld at any cost. So he devotes * De Hehraorum ct Christianorum Sacra Monarchia et dc Infal- libili in Utraqiie Magisterio, pp. 291-298, 305-371. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 503 sixty-six large quarto paf:;es to the task of proving that it was not Peter the Apostle to whom St. Paul refers, but an unknown namesake. On the whole, was there ever in any controversy so complete an abandonment of the whole field of historical evidence as this treatise in defence of the Papacy ? And one of the most curious features of the whole controversy is the intellectual blindness which prevents the defenders of Papal infallibility from seeing that the Vatican Council is itself one of the strongest arguments against its own dogma. For if, as the Vatican decree declares, Papal pro- nouncements ex cathedra ' are infallible of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church,' where was the sense of having a council at all to decide, after months of heated debate, a question which w^e are told has been an article of faith since Pentecost ? Nay, more ; how is it that the Church was so stupid as ever to have any councils at all if the Bishops of Kome have always been infallible ? Why summon all the Bishops of Christendom to one place to deliver their testimony on some disputed question of faith — and that too before the days of railways, and steamers, and telegraphs, when travehing was so slow and often perilous— if the Bishop of Kome could all the while have decided the point infallibly, and communicated his irreformable decision to his de- legates, the Bishops of the whole Christian Church ? The one historical fact of General Councils is alone sufficient to overthrow the imposing structure of the Papacy. Truly ' the appeal to history is a treason 504 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT and a heresy ' on the part of a beHever in an infaUible Papacy. What the late Father Knox of the London Oratory says of the dogma of the Immaculate Con- ception of the Virgin is equally true of Papal infallibilitj' and all ex cathedra utterances of the Pope : — The moment before Pius IX. spoke these words, interior assent to the doctrine of the Immaculate Con- ception was not obligatory on the faithful. The moment after he had spoken them, none who heard him could doubt interiorly the truth of the dogma without com- mitting a formal sin of heresy and incurring the forfeiture of their salvation.^ This is nothing less than a complete subversion of the received doctrine of the v^hole Christian Church of the General Councils. To afhrm that the mere fiat of the Pope can in a moment change a doubtful or discredited opinion into an eternal truth, instantly demanding unquestioning interior assent on pain of ' heresy incurring the forfeiture of salva- tion,' is not only a monstrous contradiction of the faith of Christendom ; it is in addition a deadly blov^ at truth itself as a fact existing outside and independently of the human mind. Truth thus becomes an opinion instead of an eternal verity, and a vista is opened out of an indefinite expansion of the creed of the Church, the doubtful opinions or proved falsehoods of to-day becoming the divine truths of to-morrow, claiming the instant submission of heart and intellect. ' Wlien does the Church speak infallibly ? p. 40. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 505 It is a fallacy to suppose that the qualification of ex cathedra limits the pronouncements of the Pope on questions of faith or morals ; nor, indeed, are his infallible utterances limited even by the area of faith and morals. For Eoman Catholic authorities are irreconcilably divided in their explanations of the exact meaning both of ex cathedra and of what con- stitutes faith and morals. Let us take a few examples. Cardinal Newman declares that to constitute an ex cathedra utterance there must be a solemn cere- monial. The Pope must be surrounded by his Court and Council, and deliver his infallible decree explicitly to the whole Church with proper pomp and Pontifical formalities, so that there can be no mistake as to the character of the decree. According to this explanation, the number of ex cathedra Pontifical decrees, Newman says, is still under twenty.^ On the other hand. Dr. Ward asserts that there is practically no limit to the Pope's infallible utter- ances. According to him the phrase ex cathedra embraces not only the utterances of the Pope at the head of a General Council, but Encyclicals, Allo- cutions, Apostolic Letters, ' and various letters to this or that individual pastor,' or even to laymen, such as Pius IX.'s 'letter to that spiritual rebel, the King of Sardinia,' or Gregory XVI. 's 'confi- dential communication ' to Lamennais. Nay, whenever it shall please the Pope to order the publication of a decree put forth by any of the ' Historical Sketches, p. 340. 506 thp: reformation settlement Pontifical congregations, that decree at once 'be- comes absolutely infallible.' The most distinguished Ultramontane writers are in fact at sixes and sevens among themselves as to what constitutes an ex cathedra decree. ' It is necessary,' says Dom Gue- ranger, ' that the terms of the decree should indicate the intention of imposing an obligation.' ' For our- selves, on the contrary,' says Dr. Ward, ' we regard a different doctrine as absolutely certain ; and indeed, as one which cannot be denied without most serious results.' Take, by way of example. Pope Nicholas Third's ' Exiit qui seminat.' * As to this Bull,' says Dr. Ward, ' Ultramontane controversial- ists have hitherto almost universally denied that it was ex cathedra' But Dr. Ward, in his * Brief Summary,' takes the opposite side ; and Dr. Ward turns out to be infallibly right, for a reason which I shall presently mention. Agaiii, says Dr. Ward, ' many Pontifical pronouncements which Dom Gueranger admits to be ex ca^/tecZra do not neverthe- less express, either indirectly or equivalently, the obligation of interior assent which the respective Popes have by them intended to impose.' And he cites as an instance * St. Leo's letter to St. Flavian.' ' This letter is not only accounted ex cathedra by every individual Ultramontane theologian, with the singular exception of Bellarmine, but is ordinarily used by Ultramontane controversialists as the one typical instance of an ex cathedra pronouncement. Yet this letter contains no syllable implying ever so distantly that St. Leo was intending to oblige the ANGLICAN AND EOMAN ORDERS 507 whole Church to accept its teaching. But, in truth, among the various ex cathedra acts recited by Dom Gueranger, there are several others which entirely fail to fulfil his conditions.' ' It comes to this therefore : The Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra ; but ' Ultramon- tane controversialists ' may be for centuries ' almost universally ' in error as to the ex cathedra character of any Papal pronouncement in particular. Ages after the pronouncement was uttered by the organ of infallibility Dom Gueranger discovers that it was an ex cathedra decision. Dr. Ward agrees with Dom Gueranger as to this particular case, but dissents at the same time from the doctrine laid down by that eminent theologian as to the tests by which the ex cathedra character of any Papal utter- ance may be known, and ' regards a different doctrine as absolutely certain.' Again, a certain Papal ' letter is not only ac- counted ex cathedra by every individual Ultramon- tane,' with one ' singular exception,' ' but is ordi- narily used by Ultramontane controversialists as the one typical instance of an ex cathedra pronounce- ment ; ' the ' singular exception ' being Bellarmine, the greatest of Ultramontane controversialists. Both Dr. Ward and Dom Gueranger assert that the insertion of any Papal utterance, even of ' letters to individuals,' in the ' Corpus Juris,' impresses an ex cathedra character on such utterances, ' their in- sertion in that official collection ' being ' equivalent » See Dublin Review, New Series, No. XXIX., pp. 204-206. 508 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT to a complete promulgation.' Nor is even this formality always necessary. ' Dom Gueranger,' says Dr. Ward, ' lays very great and deserved weight on the formula prescribed by Pope S. Hormisdas to the Eastern Church. But this formula recognises as ex cathedra * all the letters of Pope Leo which he wrote concerning the Christian religion.' But no one will maintain that all these letters express, either directly or equivalently, an intention of obliging the universal Church.' It is a complete fallacy, therefore, to suppose that Papal infallibility is restricted to formal decisions. On the contrary, it would be the grossest presump- tion for any Roman Catholic to deny infallibility to any single one of the numerous sayings of Pius IX. during his long Pontificate. ' Some Catholics,' says Dr. Ward, ' really seem to speak as though he (Pius IX.) had never defined ex cathedra any verity except the Immaculate Conception.'^ On the con- trary, he expressly declares that he has ' never ceased' {nunquam intermissus) from condemning ex cathedra ' perverse doctrines,' and he has made a similar declaration in the ' Quanta Cura.' If for more than twenty-three years,' adds Dr. Ward, naively, * he has never ceased from such condemna- tions, the number of his ex cathedra Acts must by this time be considerable.' I have quoted Dr. W^ard in preference to any other exponent of Papal infallibility because the Pope has expressly sanctioned his doctrine on the ' This was written before the Vatican Council. ANGLICAN AND EOMAN ORDERS 509 subject in an Apostolic Letter which was pubHshed at the time in the ' DubHn Keview.' To doubt the soundness of Dr. Ward's doctrine is, therefore, to impugn the dogma of Papal infallibility itself. It is consequently useless to quote any Boman authorities on the other side, since their difference from Dr. Ward must be the measure of their error. Now the upshot of Dr. Ward's teaching is that it is practically impossible to put any limits on the Pope's infalli- bility. With remorseless logic he has demolished every attempt to do so, and the Pope himself has covered Dr. Ward's irresistible logic with the awful authority of his infallible shield.' Nor is the restriction of the Pope's infallibility to questions of faith and morals of the smallest practical utility. All recent Ultramontane writers teach that the object of the Pope's infallibility is practically unlimited, since there is no branch of human knowledge which does not, directly or in- directly, impinge on faith or morals. Even ques- tions of fact, which Ultramontanes themselves formerly excluded from the sphere of Papal infalli- bility, are now declared by Dr. Ward to be embraced within its scope. The five propositions attributed to Jansenius, he argues, are not only heretical, but are actually to be found in the ' Augustinus.' This is now infallibly certain because the Church decrees those to be implicated in the Jansenistic heresy * See Dr. Ward's Authcyrity of Doctrinal Decisions, pp. 52, 55, 75, 76 ; and the Dublin Revieiu of July, 1870, p. 206. 510 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT who were wrong on the question of fact no less than those who were wrong on the question of doctrine. ^ Father Knox teaches the same doctrine as fol- lows : — In compelling the Bishops and clergy to swear that they sincerely believed the five condemned propositions to l3e contained in the ' Augustinus/ the Church showed most clearly that she had not the slightest doubt about her power to determine infallibly this fact, and that her children had no right in conscience to doubt her power. For if a doubt had been admissible, she could not lawfully have exacted the oath, since she would have exposed the Bishops and clergy to the danger of perjuring themselves by swearing that they were absolutely certain of a fact for which they had no sufficient ground of certainty except her (on the hypothesis) fallible authority. But she knew, and with good reason, that though she had no direct power to judge this fact, in so far as it was a purely human one, indirectly she had power to decide concerning it because of its close connection v^th re- vealed dogma. - Almost any fact relating to human conduct, or having any bearing on religion, may thus be brought under the denomination of faith and morals. So that the sphere of the Pope's infallibility is in reality un- limited, and the ex cathedra limitation is no limita- tion at all. It is almost enough to make one despair of the triumph of truth over error to find that the pro- position which the keen wit and remorseless logic of Pascal laughed out of the court of reason should ' Authority of Doctrinal Decisions, p. 38. "^ When does the Chiirch t^peak infallihly ? p. 61. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 511 appear again under the shield of an ecclesiastical authority which claims to be infallible even in the domain of facts. If the Pope is to be believed implicitly when he afBrms that a certain book con- tains five propositions which no human being has ever been able to find there, it is obvious that he wields an infallible sceptre over the whole realm of human life and thought. There is another fatal flaw in the Papal theory. It is not only disproved by history ; it is in addition an entire inversion of the original idea of the Church. According to that idea the clergy were elected from below, but ordained from above. As a rule, the faithful laity chose their chief pastors ; but these received their commission from a superior officer. First the Apostles, then the Episcopate, exercised the power of ordination. ^ The unit of the Church was in the Bishop. Its whole potentiahty was summed up in him, and thus the gates of hell could not prevail against it except by the destruction of the entire Episcopate, and thereby of the power of reproduction. But according to the Papal theory the Church becomes a corpse on the decease of the ' It is irrelevant to my present point whether the unit of the Church was in the Episcopate or the Presbyterate. Episcopalians and Presbyterians both believe that Orders are conferred by a power superior to the persons to be ordained. And that is the point under consideration. Baronius believed that the See of Eome was vacant for three years before the election of Leo VII. ; in other words, that the whole Christian Church was headless for three years. See the anomalies in which the Church of Rome is involved by its assump- tion — alone among Churches — that the Church on earth has one visible head. 512 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Pope, for he is its solitary head. A body deprived of its head is dead. Again, the Papal Bull against the validity of Anglican Orders goes on the orthodox assumption that the gift of Orders is from above — bestow^ed by a higher grade on a lower. But what about the Pope, from whom, according to the Papal theory, the whole life of the Church flows ? How is he ordained ? Originally the Bishop of Kome was elected by the Cardinal Archdeacons of Eome and the suburbicarian districts, and was then consecrated to the episcopal office in the same way as other Bishops. All that is changed. The original system has been revolutionised. The College of Cardinals ceased long ago to represent the Koman clergy and laity. Most of them are Bishops ; but they need not be. The Cardinalate is open to deacons, and even to subdeacons and laymen. This becomes a matter of capital importance when we consider in what the essence of making a Pope consists. Its essence is in election by ballot. Qui eUgitur Bom. Fontifex, says Bellarmine, eo ipso fit Pontifex Sinnmus Ecclesice totius efsi forte non ex- 2)rimant elector es} ' Moroni, who enters at length upon the question, and must be considered the organ of the Court of Kome, declares that a Pope must necesarily be in possession of all his powers from the instant of election, although he admits that this opinion has prevailed in the Church only since the days of Adrian V., who died a layman.' '^ • Dc Bom. Pontifice, lib. ii. cap. 22. - Cartwright, On Papal Conclaves, p. 1G8. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 513 The case of Pope Adrian V. is one of the multi- tude of mediaeval irregularities which touch the essence of the Koman claims. There is nothing in canon law to limit the choice of a Pope to the College of Cardinals, and as a matter of fact Popes have been elected from outside the Sacred College — John XIX. for example, who was a layman, as was also Adrian V., who died a layman a month after his election, but exercised the full prerogatives of his office in the interval, abolishing inter alia the im- portant Bull of his predecessor, Gregory X. This changed fundamentally the constitution which regu- lated elections to the Papacy, and was in force during six subsequent elections, when Clementine V. restored Gregory's constitution. Leo VIII. was also elected as a layman. By Baronius he was considered as a usm'per, but by Fleury and others as a legitimate Pontiff. How trivial the pettifogging objections of the Papal Bull against the validity of Anglican Orders appear when compared with these serious flaws which affect the very core of the Papacy ! If the essence of the validity of the Papacy lies in the act of election, independently of the previous status of the person elected, as eminent Eoman authorities affirm, and the crucial instance of Adrian V. illustrates, it is patent that the original constitution of the Christian Church has been abrogated throughout the Koman Obedience. Matter and form are alike concentrated in a two-thirds majority of votes by ballot. And when our Eoman friends taunt us with the L L 514 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT conge d'elire ^ in the election of our bishops, they forget that it existed when the Pope's supremacy was acknowledged in England, and existed also in its essence, and still exists, in some foreign countries, where the sovereign has enjoyed a right of veto on Papal nominations to the episcopate. But a still more formidable retort on our Eoman assailants is the veto on Papal elections possessed by France, Austria, and Spain, and never disputed by the Holy See. Nor is this veto an obsolete privilege. It is in full force still, and has been exercised more than once in recent times ; the last time in 1831 by Spain, which vetoed the election of Cardinal Giusti- niani after he had secured the requisite majority. Giustiniani had been Nuncio in Madrid, and had made himself unpopular at Court. And it was by an accident that Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti (Pius IX.) was not excluded from the Papal throne. Austria, disturbed by the liberal aspirations imputed to him, instructed its agent to lodge the formal veto in the name of the Emperor. Private information of the Imperial intention reached the Conclave ; the election was hurried forward, and the Austrian veto arrived the day after the election, when it was of no avail. ' I have never been able to see the ' farce ' of the conge cVelire. The civil power cannot impose a bishop on the Church without the Church's own consent. The chapter can reject the nominee of the Government, and the Episcopate can checkmate any attempt at coercion by refusing consecration, without which the rejected nominee cannot take possession of his See. The cong^ cVdire is thus a valuable check on the nomination of unworthy persons. Praemunire may make martyrs, but cannot force the will. ANGLICAN AND EOMAN ORDERS 515 It is true that the iinworthiness of the minister does not affect the vaHdity of his official acts ; but there are scandals in the history of the Papacy so shocking as to suggest considerable scepticism if we are to adopt — I will not say the hypercriticism of the Papal Bull against Anglican Orders, but — the sober rules of historical criticism. Take the case of Pope John XII., who was raised to the Papal throne at the uncanonical age of eighteen. This youth made the Papal Court so infamous by his licentiousness that the citizens of Eome at last appealed to the German Emperor to rid them of the scandal. Otho arrived in Rome and summoned a council of twenty cardinals, and all the principal members of the Eoman clergy, to investigate the charges against the Pope. The conclusion arrived at by the Council was summed up by the Emperor in a letter to the Pope, of which the purport may be gathered from the following extract : — Having arrived in Rome for the service of God, we demanded of the bishops and cardinals what was the cause of your absence, and they asserted against you things so disgraceful as to be unworthy of comedians. All, as well clerics as laics, have accused you of homicide, perjury, sacrilege, of incest with your relatives and with two sisters, of having drunk wine to the honour of the devil, and having invoked in gambling Jupiter, Venus, and other Demons. We therefore request you to return immediately in order to justify yourself from these charges ; and if you fear the insolence of the people, we promise to you upon our oath that nothing shall be done contrary to the canons. L L 2 516 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT A learned Eoman Catholic, ^yriting of this episode, says : — In that extraordinary Council voices had been raised, from ecclesiastics and laics, with strange protests against John XII. ' The very Iberians, Babylonians, and Indians have heard of the monstrous crimes of the Pope ! ' Cardinals deposed that he had been seen to celebrate Mass without communicating ; that he had consecrated a bishop in a stable ; had bestowed the bishopric of Todi on a boy ten years old ! It was stated also, in reply to Otho's demand for specific charges, that he had caused ecclesiastics to be blinded and . . . with cruelty fatal to life. The reply made by John to the prelates sent with the Emperor's letter was laconical : ' We have heard it said that you intend to make another Pope. If you do, I will excommunicate you in the name of the Omnipotent God, so that you shall be no more able to confer Holy Orders or to celebrate Mass.' ^ So that in addition to his scandalous life this Pope was so ignorant as to believe that the Emperor could confer Holy Orders and celebrate Mass. Hov7 will Rome's modern doctrine of intention bear that test ? Well might Dollinger say to me, as he did in 1874, that ' if one chose to be critical, Anglican Orders, the validity of which he had carefully examined, were much safer than Eoman Orders.' John XII. was deposed, after an infamous Pontificate of eight years, and the layman Leo YIII. was chosen in his stead. All Churches, alas ! have scandals to deplore, and must trust to the Divine mercy to make good, for the sake of the innocent people, any defect caused by ' Mediccval Christianity and Sacred Art, b}- C.J. Hcmans, p. 21. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 517 sins of commission or omission on the part of their rulers ; but no Church is in such sore need of the mercy of God and the charity of man as the Church of Kome. Boccaccio has ihustrated by a humorous story the impression made on thinking men at the time by the scandals of the Papacy. A Jew in France, who had for a long time resisted all the arguments and solicitations of a Catholic friend to become a Christian, said one day, ' I'll tell you what I will do — I will go to Kome and be guided by what I see at the fountain-head of your reHgion.' The Christian tried to dissuade him. For he too had been in Kome, and believed it to be the last place in the world to incline a man to Christianity. But the Jew went, and called on his friend on his return, after an absence of some months, with the news that he had become a Christian. ' God be praised,' exclaimed his friend, ' but what did you see in Kome to make a Christian of you ? ' 'I saw iniquity and immorality prevailing everywhere in the Church,' he replied, ' from the Pope downwards. So I reflected and came to the conclusion that a rehgion which has survived all that for centuries must be indeed divine, and I became a Christian.' I do not mean to impugn the vaHdity of Koman Orders on account of the confusions, irregularities, and scandals which disfigured much of the history of the Papacy during the Middle Ages ; but I venture to question the prudence of Koman Catholic contro- versiaHsts in provoking EngHsh Churchmen to retahate in self-defence. No one can read dispassio- 518 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT nately the history of the early years of EHzabeth's reign without being forced to the conclusion that, if the Queen had only acknowledged the Pope's Supremacy, nothing would ever have been heard against the validity of Anghcan Orders. Bonner, who knew the facts better than either Leo XIII. or Cardinal Vaughan, questioned the legal authority of Edward's Ordinal because of its lack of ParHamentary and Convocational authority; but he made no ob- jection to it on the ground of defect in matter or form : a proof that he recognised no such defect.^ And how is the Pope's invitation to the EHza- bethan Bishops to the Council of Trent to be recon- ciled with the view that he held them to be no bishops at all ? I prefer to quote the fact from the treatise on ' The AngHcan Schism ' by a bitter Eoman CathoHc contemporary, Sanders. In 1560, he tells us, the Pope ' sent a Nuncio ' to England, who was to say on behalf of the Pope that ' if on account of her doubtful birth Elizabeth was afraid that her title to the throne might, on the part of the Church or the Pope, be questioned, the matter could be easily settled, for the Apostohc See is indulgent.' But, so far from being conciliated by those blandish- ments, ' the Queen would neither listen to the Nuncio nor allow him even to land.' ' Some time afterwards (1561-2), the Pontiff, to leave no means untried, sent another legate to persuade the Queen to allow some, at least, of her own bishops to attend the Council [of Trent], and to enter into conference ' Collier, vi. 428, 431. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN ORDERS 519 with the CathoHcs, promising them Hberty of speech and the safety of their persons.' The legate was the Abbot Martinengo.' In fine, if it be a question of the vaHclity of Eoman Orders as against AngHcan, certainly the Church of England has no reason to ' be ashamed to speak with her enemies in the gate.' ' Sanders's Anglican ScJiism, pp. 290-1. 520 THE KEFOKMATION SETTLEMENT CHAPTER XII THE PRISOXER OF THE VATICAN : A CHAPTER OF SECRET HISTORY After the death of Pius IX., the more long-headed among the Vatican ecclesiastics felt that if un- exampled misfortune was to be averted from the Papacy and the Eoman Catholic Church, a complete break must be made with the policy of the late Pope. It was true indeed that Pius had provided his suc- cessor, in the event of his death, with a political testament which pledged him to an irreconcilable attitude towards Italy, but nevertheless the party of reconciliation worked hard to push their candidate forward in the Conclave. This candidate was Cardinal Pecci, who had been banished, through Antonelli's jealousy, since 1846 to the unimportant diocese of Perugia. At the head of the party of reconciliation stood Cardinal Franchi, and his best adjutant was Monsignor Galimberti, afterwards Xuncio in Vienna. Galimberti succeeded in convincing his distinguished patron that Pecci 's only hope of election lay in winning the foreign Cardinals. This again was only possible through the friendly co-o]Deration of the foreign Powers ; and THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 521 in order to accomplish this the action of the Press was necessary. It all turned on representing Pecci to the governments, with which Pius IX. had embroiled himself, as the opponent of his policy. Already before 1878 the quiet campaign of the Press had begun, Louis Teste having written a book on the next Conclave in which he extolled the qualifications of Cardinal Pecci, and recommended him as the future Pope. On the day of Pius IX. 's death, the campaign of the Press, Italian and foreign, in favour of a conciliating Pope began, and with such success that all the twenty-four Cardinals who took part in the Conclave voted for Cardinal Pecci. Leo, as Pope, did not disappoint the hopes which the party of reconciliation had placed in him, for he at once nominated their leader. Cardinal Franchi, as Secretary of State, though he knew how displeas- ing this would be to the supporters of the policy of his predecessor. He was indeed, as a diplomatist and opportunist, much too cautious to issue at once a Pronunziamento on the lines of Franchi and Galimberti ; for the party of the Intransig emits was still too powerful at the Vatican, and it was neces- sary to gain time and, meanwhile, prepare the right milieu. Only in one point did the new Pope break at once with the tradition of Pius IX. As the late Pope had quarrelled with almost every foreign Sovereign, so Leo sought to reconcile himself with all the crowned heads, and he therefore made use of the announcement of his succession to the Throne to begin friendly relations with the monarchs and 522 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT governments. That he wrote even to the Protestant Kaiser, Wilhelm I., roused the anger of the Intran- sigeants to the highest degree, and silent opposition was not wanting. Leo XIIL, with his Secretary of State, had hardly taken the first steps towards reconciliation with Germany when the latter died suddenly, on June 30, 1878, only four months after his appointment. The circumstances were peculiar and dramatic, and pubHc opinion in Rome spoke of poisoning, which the Eomans ever since the days of the Renaissance have been quick to suggest when a man in high position has died suddenly ; but the sinister suggestion must be dismissed as idle gossip. The deceased Cardinal's relatives suspected no foul play, in spite of the Cardinal's body turning black im- mediately after death, although they did not forget that Franchi's death could only be welcome to the Intran- sigeant party. We may add parenthetically that Zola has preserved the legend of the Vatican poisoning case in his novel ' Rome,' which is strongly anti-papal. Leo XIIL, who had just founded two journals on Franchi's principles, ' Le Journal de Rome,' edited by Monsignor Galimberti, and ' L' Aurora,' edited by Monsignor Schiaffino, a Benedictine, both of whom afterwards became Cardinals, was thrown into great embarrassment by the sudden death of his prime minister. His difficulties were increased when he learnt that, contrary to all precedent, the Intran- sicjeant Cardinals had called a meeting in the house of Cardinal Monaco della Valetta, for the purpose of forcing their candidate on the Pope as the new THE PEISONER OE THE VATICAN 523 Secretary of State. Again the Pope showed his independence by appointing a ' KeconciHationist ' in the place of Franchi, the leader of that party, in the person of Cardinal Nina. Immediately the I ntransig cant storm was directed against him, and this was all the easier as Nina dis- dained to defend himself against his enemies. The Cabal next tried to destroy their adversary socially. The Neri — i.e. the clerical aristocracy — received orders to boycott Nina, not only outside the walls of the Vatican, but also in the very presence of the Pope. When that did not succeed his recreations were twisted into a scandal, into the details of which it is un- necessary to enter. He went straight to the Pope and offered his resignation, and at the same time cleared his character so completel}^ that the Pope refused to accept his resignation. But the honest man was so sick of the intrigues directed against him, that he insisted on being released from office. His successor was Jacobini, then Nuncio at Vienna, and but lately a recipient of the purple. He belonged to neither party, but was a wise man who knew how to get on with both, being possessed of an elastic conscience which enabled him to please every one. Being all things to all men, he succeeded for a time in lulling the suspicions of the Intransigeants, whom Tosti's pamphlet in favour of a reconciliation with the Vati- can had enraged. Padre Tosti was abbot of Monte Casino, the famous Benedictine Monastery, which the traveller between Eome and Naples sees perched against the sky. The traditions of the Benedictines 524 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT have been liberal, and Monte Casino has afforded an asylum and encouragement to those who laboured, and often jeoparded their lives, for the regeneration and freedom of Italy. To this, and also partly to the intercession of Mr. Gladstone, it is due that the monastery of Monte Casino was spared when most of the other reHgious houses were suppressed. Ever since the accession of Leo XIII. to the Papal throne the Benedictines of Monte Casino, and Padre Tosti in particular, laboured for a reconcilia- tion between the Vatican and Quirinal. The Jesuits, on the other hand, conducted the campaign of the Intransigeants, though seldom showing their hand openly. And they won at last. Jacobini's ambi- dextrous tactics did not suit them, and he died suddenly at the age of forty-five. Insinuations of poisoning again floated in Eoman society, doubtless with as httle foundation in fact as in the case of Pranchi. The Pope, wearied out with the machi- nations of the Jesuits to get an Intransigeant appointed Secretary of State, yielded on that point, and, to the surprise of the uninitiated, appointed the Nuncio at Madrid, a young Sicilian : a man of ability ; adroit, scheming, ardent, and of strong will. He is not a Jesuit. That society was far too astute to get a professed member of their order appointed. But Eampolla was under their influence, and is still. Eampolla and his patrons were too prudent to show their hands at once. They kept a vigilant watch over the development of events, determined to nip in the bud any scheme for promoting a modus vivendi THE PRISONER OE THE VATICAN 525 between the Papacy and the Monarchy. The party in favour of reconcihation was still strongly repre- sented at the Vatican. The Pope was at the head of it, though not ostensibly ; and Cardinal Schiaffino and Padre Tosti, together with Galimbcrti, who were all in the Pope's confidence, worked energetically for the cause which they had so much at heart. A few weeks after KampoUa's appointment, Crispi was again Minister of the Interior, and he was more than ready to meet Tosti halfw^ay in any practical arrangement for putting an end to the quarrel betwen Church and State. The relations between the Italian Government and the Vatican became more friendly, and it really looked as if a reconcihation was at last in sight. The inter- mediary in these negotiations was Tosti, who threw himself heart and soul into the business. An idealist and an ardent patriot, the eventful '48 found him in the front line of the liberal movement, with Gioberti, Eosmini, and Ventura ; priests all, and all labouring in their several ways to realise the national idea, then represented by Pius IX., in whom the hopes of Young Italy were centred, and who eclipsed, during his short-lived enthusiasm for Italian unity, the fame and influence of Mazzini, Balbo, Gioberti, and other leaders of the national movement. Tosti was at that time the poet of the movement. He wrote, among other things, ' The Soldier's Psalter ' and 'The Lombard League,' two martial hymns in praise of the liberation of Italy. * The Lombard League ' he dedicated to Pius IX. in a fine lyrical 526 THE EEFORMATION SETTLEMENT poem. He was then in his thirty-eighth year, and had ah-eady made his mark in the repubhc of letters with his 'History of Monte Casino.' But he sacrificed his briUiant worldly prospects to his patriotism. Indeed, he ran no small risk when the reaction set in and he saw some of his intimate friends, leaders in the movement, exiled or cast into prison. Eegarding the cause as lost, he found a warm friend and admirer in Don Pedro, the accom- plished Emperor of Brazil, who offered him an asylum at his court. While waiting for the vessel that was to carry him across the ocean, he found a safe retreat in Naples under the protection of the British Consul. But the fear of the sea overcame that of a Neapohtan dungeon, and he determined to remain in Italy. An influential personage persuaded the King (Bomba) to allow Tosti to return to Monte Casino after a severe warning from the Com- missary of Police. There he gave himself up to Hterature, and pubhshed a ' Life of Abelard ' and other works. In 1860 Tosti reappeared in the world of politics with an eloquent hrochure : ' San Benedetto al Parlamento Italiano.' " It is a forcible appeal on behalf of his famous monastery. Pepoli and Valerio had suppressed the religious orders in Umbria and the Marches, and Tosti feared, with good reason, the like fate for Monte Casino. His story of Monte Casino records, with persuasive eloquence, the services which the monastery had rendered to Italy in the civil as well as in the rehgious sphere, and he declared with THE PKISONER OF THE VATICAN 527 prophetic insight, that the reHgious orders, suppressed with such undiscriininating ruthlessness, would flourish again in a few years, and avenge themselves on their persecutors. How slow politicians are to learn the impotence of physical force and parlia- mentary decrees against spiritual ideas ! ' We shall not go to Canossa,' exclaimed Bismarck when he was passing his ' Falk Laws ' with overwhelming majorities. In a few years he went to Canossa, and was fain to court the party whom he had persecuted. Jules Ferry, heedless of the warning, banished a crowd of religious orders, suppressed the teaching and the symbols of Christianity in the schools, and passed an army of seminarists through the barracks of France, hoping thus to annihilate clericalism. To-day France is paying the penalty of Jules Ferry's folly. Clericalism, instead of being destroyed by the conscription, has converted the army, and crime has so increased meanwhile that there is a reaction in favour of restoring religious teaching in the schools. The same thing happened in Italy. Many of the monks in the various orders were liberals ; and a wise policy might have enlisted them into the ser- vice of the monarchy, and disarmed, to a large extent, the hostility of the remainder. Instead of this they were driven out into the w^orld in a state of beggary, and thus needlessly forced into the camp of the enemies of Italian unity. Tosti foresaw this. But his defence of his con- vent seemed to make no impression on the Govern- ment. Yet it prevailed. Mr. Gladstone interested 528 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT himself in Monte Casino, and used his great influence with Itahan statesmen to save the doomed monastery. He found powerful auxiharies among patriotic Italians, Count Gahrio Casati in particular. But it was Tosti's powerful appeal that enabled the friends of Monte Casino to make out an irresistible case.* The liberation and unity of Italy, with Church and State reconciled, was the dream and passion of Tosti's life. But he was doomed to a rude awaken- ing. Such was the charm of the man that, in spite of his political heresies, he kept on good terms to the ' The music of Tosti's style cannot be translated ; but the ear may catch something of it, as of a beautiful song, even without following the sense. His volume concludes with the following pathetic appeal : — 'Lasciateci monaci, se ci volete cittadini benefici. II tristo monaco nel mondo e una contraddizione in veste grottesca ; e questi non son tempi da ridere. Tutto vi lasciamo alle soglie delle nostre badie ; fin la polvere delle passate ricchezze ci scrolliamo dal sajo : tutto prendete, ma non toccate al sagramento della nostra fede monastica. E troppo cara ai nostri cuori ; e troppo cara alia nostra Italia. Questa e cattolica e non protestante ; nella via che essa viaggia per la citta di Dio, vuol trovare uomini che parlino con Dio ; la solitudine le farebbe paura. Questa patria di Dante e di Eaffaello, innamorata di Dio, che discese per la via delle sensibili bellezze del firmamento, della terra, e della mare, a creare V uomo, per questa via vuole ascendere a lui ; vuole 1' arte della religione ; vuole il culto. Lasciate un rifugio all' Italia, vedovata, per carcere, per esigli, per guerre, di tanti figli ; lasciatele posare il capo nel seno delle nostre salmodie. Con questi canti noi la cullammo fanciuUa. L' uomo d' armi, 1' uomo del lavoro, 1' uomo dei negozi, tutti hanno cittadinanza nella vostra compagnia ; possibile, che solo il uomo della prcghiera sia forestiero nella terra dei cattolici ? Lasciateci salmeggiare, perche la preghiera ^ il vincolo del nostro sodalizio e della nostra fatica : e il nostro mestiere. Per lei siamo monaci, per lei saremo sempre con voi, per lei san Benedetto vuole starsene con la sua Italia.'— See De Cesari's II Padre Tosti nella Politica, p. 9. THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 529 last with Pius IX. From his successor he had great hopes. He had made the acquaintance of Monsignor Gioacchino Pecci forty years before, when Pecci visited Monte Casino on his way to Benevento as Apostohc delegate. The young monk and the young prelate felt each other's attraction and became friends. Tosti rejoiced when the choice of the Conclave fell on Cardinal Pecci, whom he welcomed as an ideal Pope, marked out by Providence for reconciling the Monarchy and the Papacy. Leo XIII., on his part, hastened to honour the Abbot of Monte Casino.^ Tosti's antecedents, politics, and intimacy with the Pope qualified him in an eminent degree to act the part of intermediary between the Pope and Crispi, who was, like Tosti, an idealist, and apt to dream dreams and see visions. The jubilee of the Pope's priesthood was to be celebrated on Decem- ber 31, 1887, and this was considered an auspicious moment for proclaiming the reconciliation of the Quirinal and the Vatican. To prepare the public mind for the advent of peace Tosti published in May of that year a pamphlet, which was approved and revised — some say inspired — by the Pope. It is in the form of a dialogue between a simple priest, Don Pacifico by name, and his bishop. Don Pacifico is Tosti himself, who expounds under this thin veil his ' The Abbot of Monte Casino was in former days the first baron of the Kingdom of Naples, and ruled over a vast diocese, which reached the dimensions of a considerable State. In modern times this feudal abbacy was merged in a triumvirate of three abbots, one of whom is ' President of the Congregation.' Tosti was one of the triumvirate when Leo XIII. became Pope. M M 530 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT own and the Pope's views on the situation. After a passing reference to the events of 1848 and the fair promise of Pio Xono's outburst of hberahsm, Tosti saj' s : ' But times are changed ; and in the mind of the Monsignore there sprouted a new^ dogma — the identification of the throne and the altar.' ^ Tosti opposes this pohcy vigorously, and the pamphlet assumes, all through, the acquiescence of the Pope in Tosti's views. The bishop's mild objections act as a foil to Tosti's argument. For example, Tosti says : — The breach at Porta Pia was an ugly affair, through which Rome, the Pope's patrimony, was forcibly seized by other hands. The breach was made by a definite number of soldiers, commanded by a definite number of men called tlie Government. But the Power which really took possession of Rome was a moral, a universal in- dividual, a nation — in a word, Italy. Say rather, Don Pacifico, that it was the Revolution — that is to say, a minority of sectaries with a few Catho- lics led astray by the idea of a united and powerful Italy. True, Monsignore ; it was a minority ; nor do I say that all the thirty millions of Itahans conspired with Cavour and fired the cannon with Cadorna at Porta Pia. But when a minority, approved or tolerated through failure to oppose it, becomes a Government cle facto and administers social justice, it becomes a majority, not merely by reason of its numerical superiority, but through the principle of authority which it represents. Our most holy rehgion started from a minority of a dozen fishermen. . . . When people lived under an absolute monarchy, princes reigned ' La Conciliazione, p. : ' . . . e nella mente di Monsignore rampollo un nuovo dogma : la identificazione del trono e dell' altare.' Evidently an oblique reference to the reactionary Eampolla in the play on the word rampollo. THE PEISONER OF THE VATICAN 531 and governed at the same time, and if there was any encroachment on the property or rights of the Church the Popes knew where to look for restitution. But to- day princes reign and do not govern. The depositary of the laws is the multitude, and the Government is the nation ; so that if there has been any usurpation, the Pope may grieve over the usurper, but he cannot turn to the Prince for restitution. It follows that the King of Italy cannot restore Eome to the Pope, since it is not his. It would be necessary to restore it with force to the Pope, to wrest it away by the hands of the nation, and to accompany this with the sword of the parricide and of the foreigner. What slaughter ! what rapine ! what shipwreck of authority in a period of universal rebellion ! The non i)ossumus of the Pope and of the Prince thus finds its equihbrium in the balance of divine justice.^ Leo w^as encouraged to hope great things and had Crispi sounded, through Tosti, as to whether the State would be willing to make over to the Vatican the administration of the wealthy Basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura. Tosti went most days to Crispi's house in the Via Gregoriana, and the Prime Minister showed himself amenable to the wishes of the Pope. Tosti assured the Minister that the Pope would, on the first opportunity, make an announce- ment in favour of a rapprochement with Italy, and in fact the celebrated Allocution of May 23, 1887, at least made no points against Italy. Both sides cherished great illusions. Leo XIIL, influenced by the Eeconcilables, specially by Galimberti and his intimate friend Monsignor Bocali, entertained the ' La Conciliazionc, pp. 16-17. M M 2 532 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT most extravRfT^ant hopes. He perhaps beheved the Itahans would, even if they did not leave Eome altogether, at least find a modus vivendi whereby the Eternal City could enclose, both Sovereigns within its walls. But, being an experienced diplo- matist, the Pope was careful to take no hasty step, for he had still to reckon with Eampolla and the Intransigeants who were watching his dealings w^ith Crispi. Tosti's pamphlet gave them their opportu- nity. It made a great sensation, and passed rapidly through three editions. Eampolla immediately struck his blow. A letter from the Pope to the Cardinal appeared in the Osservatore Bomano (the official organ of Eampolla) which put a summary end to the Tosti-Crispi negotiations. It was then the policy of France to cultivate friendly relations with the Jesuit party, and to prevent a friendly under- standing betw^een the King of Italy and the Pope. The French ambassador accordingly made common cause with the Intransigeants. Thus reinforced, the Intransigeants were not satisfied with the rupture of the negotiations ; they determined to ruin Tosti. Under pressure the Pope asked Tosti to retract the sentiments expressed in his Conciliazione. To oblige the Pope, but very reluctantly, he wrote a letter which, after revision by the Pope himself, was published in the newspapers. But the retractation was not humiliating enough for the Intransigeants, and they demanded a more complete expiation. The Pope seemed to be ashamed of the part which he was made to play, and instead of this time appeahng THE PEISONEK OF THE VATICAN 533 to Tosti in a personal interview, he sent for Don Michele Morcaldi, one of the abbatial triumvirate, and, as President of the Congregation of Monte Casino, Tosti's superior, and begged him to obtain Tosti's retractation. Tosti refused to make a second retractation. But the Pope, anticipating this, author- ised Morcaldi to assure Tosti, on the Pope's official and private word of honour, that the retractation would be kept strictly secret, and was only asked for by the Pope as a w^eapon of defence against the fury of Rampolla's party. Thus reassured, and in full reliance on the Papal promise, Tosti wrote his second retractation without measuring his words or calculating the consequences, wishing only to oblige the Pope and get him out of a difficulty. On July 27, a fortnight after it was written, Tosti's second retractation appeared in large type in the Osservatore Bomano. On the following morning he read it at Monte Casino. The blow was terrible, and his emotion w^as for some time uncontrollable ; not so much by reason of the humiliation inflicted on himself as on account of the Pope's violation of his pledged word. On recovering from his fit of nervous agitation, Tosti WTote a touching and dignified letter to Monsignor AngeH, recapitulating the facts given above, and complaining of the Papal breach of faith.^ ' Nothing remains to me ' — so he • To prevent any mistake I give the letter literally in the original : — 'Keverendo Monsignore, — Ai primi giorni di questo mese il nostro P. Abate, presidente, mi communico 1' ordine del S. Padre di umiliargli una seconda lettera di sottomissione, piu esplicita dell' 534 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT concludes, ' but to bow my head humbly to the supreme desire of his Holiness, and to say from my heart : Thy will he done.' He wrote at the same time to the Abbot Morcaldi, demanding an explanation. Morcaldi assured him, in reply, that he was charged categorically by the Pope to assure Tosti that his retractation would be guarded by the formal seal of the Papal secret.^ Eeceiving no answer from Monsignor Angeli, Tosti wrote to the Pope direct, on August 1, a letter full of dignity, but also of the bitterness of a man betrayed by a friend, who was, moreover, the Chief Pastor of his Church. In that letter, after reminding his Hohness that his retractation was asked for merely as a means of stopping the truculent rage of his enemies {ad arcendam tr uculent avi rahiem diei suoi nemici), he resigned his posts of Vicearchivist of the Holy See and Superintendent of the sacred monu- altra, gia publicata nell' Osservatore Romano, a cagione del mio opuscolo : La Conciliazione. Mi diceva die questo documento resterebbe nelle mani di .S. Santita, sotto segveto papale. Subito mi affrettai a compiere ciecamente la volonta dell' Augusto Pontefice, che per mezzo dello stesso P. Abate, presidente, si degno manifestarmi il suo benplacito, dicendomi che il S. Padre era contento della mia docilita, che fossi stato tranquillo e che mi benediceva, vietando che pill si parlasse del mio opuscolo. Posso attestare coram Deo di non avere io in alcun modo violato il segreto papale, che mi fu imposto dal P. Abate, presidente, per ordine del S. Padre. Ora mia lettera d di publica ragione, ed a me non rimane che chinare umilmente il capo ai supremi voleri di S. Santita, e dire col cuore : Fiat voluntas tua ! ' ' 'Fu categorico il precetto datomi dal Papa, ed a voi da ingiunto, del segreto papale, in cui doveva rimanere involta la vostra lettera.' THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 535 ments under the State, and stopped at the same time the pubhcation of the ' Kegesta Pontificum,' a vahiable work which he had edited for years, and had brought down to Clement V. The letter con- cludes : ' Take all from me, and leave me only the habit of my Saint Benedict in which he lived so well, and died so excellently.' The Pope made no reply, and Tosti never again entered the Vatican. He returned to his studies, beginning with a translation of Sallust into Italian. But the victory of the Intransigeants was not yet complete. Tosti was suppressed, but the Pope still cherished the hope of celebrating his sacerdotal jubilee with a message of reconciliation and peace to Italy ; and the Intransigeants encouraged his aspirations in order the more completely to frustrate them. The negotiations with Crispi w^ere resumed, this time under the auspices of the librarian of the Vatican, Monsignor Carini, a son of Garibaldi's General of that name. He had been an officer in the Eoyal army, and while quartered at Perugia had become intimate with the Cardinal Archbishop, afterwards Leo XIII. The negotiations wxnt on prosperously for a time. Friendly messages were exchanged between King Umberto and Leo XIII. The former offered to present the Pope with a hand- some golden chalice as a jubilee gift. The gift was graciously accepted, provided a slight change were made in the proposed inscription, namely, that it should be a gift from ' Umberto, Prince of Savoy,' not from ' Umberto, King of Italy.' It was a 536 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT masterstroke of diplomac}' on the part of EampoUa and the Jesuits. The breach between Crispi and the Pope was now even more complete than that between the Pope and Tosti. The Sindaco of Eome too, the royahst Prince Torlonia, was involved in the quarrel. Hoping to help on the negotiations, he went, without consulting Crispi, to the Cardinal Vicar, Parochi, and conveyed to him the congratula- tions of the city of liome. For this indiscretion he was promptly dismissed from office. Crispi, recognising at last the hopelessness of negotiating with a Pope who was evidently not his own master, determined to strike a blow from his side. He patronised the Giordano Bruno memorial and ostentatiously encouraged its development into an anti-papal demonstration. The breach with the Vatican was now complete, and Eampolla's star was in the ascendant. The fates were singularly unkind to Leo XIII. Cardinal Schiaffino died in 1889, and Cardinal Galimberti in 1896 ; both with startHng suddenness. Galimberti was the last of the Beconcil- ables ; and his death was important on another ground, for he held the influential ofhce of Teller at the next Papal Conclave. Deprived of all his supporters in the Sacred College, the venerable and well-meaning Leo seems to have given up the struggle and abandoned the field to the manoeuvres of Cardinal Eampolla. I am forcibly reminded by this episode in the annals of the Vatican of a conversation which I had with Dr. Dollinger at Munich during the sitting THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 537 of the Vatican Council. I suggested that Pio Nono's successor, if a man of strong will and hberal ideas, might — on the abolition of the Tem- poral Power which seemed then impending — avail himself of the new prerogative of infallibility to reform the Papacy, and restore the Bishop of Kome to his legitimate position in the hierarchy of the Church. Dollinger shook his head. * My friend,' he said, ' the Papacy is the growth of centuries, and it will take generations, if not centuries, to reduce it to its proper proportions. It makes very little difference how able and well-disposed a new Pope may be. Once elected, he becomes powerless. He will find himself inside a system, wheel within wheel, fetter upon fetter ; and struggle as he may, he must eventually succumb.' The history of Leo XIII. 's pontificate is a striking confirmation of Dollinger's forecast. Truly, the Pope is ' the prisoner of the Vatican.' But his jailers are those of his own household. In matters which do not encroach on the traditional policy of the Vatican or the domina- tion of the Jesuits the Pope has a free hand. Out- side those limits he is not a free agent : he is but the organ of a system and a party which have with marvellous skill, begotten of ages of experience, bound the Koman Church in fetters as impossible to break as the withes with which Delilah bound Samson wdien the locks of his strength were shorn. I never cherished the faintest illusion as to the verdict of the Vatican on the validity of Anglican Orders. To have admitted that they were valid, or 538 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT even doubtful, would have broken the tradition of Rome since the excommunication of Queen EHza- beth, and would have made the ecclesiastical position of Cardinal Vaughan and his colleagues awkward if not untenable. The decision was a foregone con- clusion, and no amount of evidence would have made the slightest difference. This is not to say that the majority of the Pope's experts did not act in good faith. I have no doubt that they acted as conscientiously as the members of the Judicial Committee are wont to act when they sit in judg- ment on a Ritualist. Their minds w^ere simply impervious to the force of any evidence that told in favour of Anglican Orders. The most learned of the Pope's Commissioners, the Abbe Duchesne, had no doubt of the validity of Anghcan Orders ; and although he hardly ventured to expect that the Pope would admit their validity, he beheved, as he told Mr. Gladstone in my presence, that the evi- dence was too strong for the Pope to do more, at the worst, than to leave the question undecided. I did not share his conviction. I never doubted that Anglican Orders w^ould be condemned on grounds of policy quite irrespective of the merits of the question. That the Pope himself was as sincere, as he was in initiating negotiations with Crispi and encoura- ging Tosti's plea for ' Conciliation,' I do not ques- tion. Mr. Gladstone's ' Soliloquium ' was written on a private intimation from the Vatican that his intervention would help the Pope to take up a benevolent attitude : and Mr. Gladstone showed me THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 539 a letter from Tosti (who was a friend of his) ex- pressing his admiration of the * Soliloquium ' which, he said, the Pope had sent him, through a friend, with expressions of great gratification and hopeful- ness. All in vain ! ' The prisoner of the Vatican' cannot emancipate himself from the traditional policy of the Roman Curia. While that endures Eome will seek, not union, but domination, For myself, I am inclined to think that the Bull against Anghcan Orders was a blessing in disguise, and will eventually make for the reunion of Christendom by banishing all illusions. It is now manifest to all that what Eome seeks is not union, but unconditional submission. This, I believe, will prove a salutary lesson for any Romanisers among us, and will hinder instead of promoting the harvest of secessions which Cardinal Vaughan hoped to reap from the Papal Bull. English Churchmen will now turn their faces in another direction. They will strive for union among themselves in the first place. I am per- suaded that the main differences between the great bulk of the EvangeHcal party and the High Church party, including even the extreme wings, are chiefly due to misunderstandings, and are more on the surface than in the essence of our controversies. The great body of orthodox Nonconformists, too, are surely much nearer the Church of England than they were forty years ago, and have a much truer conception of the Christian Church than the Puritan clergy of Elizabeth's day had. The Catechism 540 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT lately adopted by the various Nonconformist bodies is a remarkable proof of this. The Church is there recognised as a divine institution, and the figment of an invisible church is discarded. The Presby- terianism of Scotland affords a still more striking illustration of approximation towards the Church of England. The predjudice against prelacy, as such, is dead ; and if Presbyterians hesitate to adopt Episcopacy it is not because they think that form of government unlawful, but because they do not doubt the lawfulness of Presbyterian ism, and have a patriotic pride in the services — which I, for one, freely acknowledge — that it has rendered to Scotland. Its doctrines as to the Church and Sacraments are distinctly high ; and its standard of public worship is being gradually brought into harmony with its standard of doctrine. I witnessed lately, on the occasion of my receiving an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh, a sight strange to my experience of Presbyterianism in my boyhood. After receiving our degrees, a throng of graduates, mider- graduates, and spectators, went in procession, arrayed in a variety of gorgeous vestments, from the McEwan Hall — a splendid gift from a citizen and parliamentary representative of Edinburgh — to St. Giles's Cathedral, to listen to an address delivered by a distinguished minister. The address w^as preceded by a short devotional service, more in accordance with an Anglican service than with the Presby- terianism of my youth. And the congregation con- sisted of Presbyterians, Established and Free, and THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN 541 also of Anglican Churchmen and Scottish Episco- palians, High and Broad. It was enough to make Jeanie Geddes turn in her grave. To this must be added the remarkable Patri- archal and Synodical Encyclical Letter, already mentioned, in which the Eastern Church has replied to the Pope's invitation to submission. The Eastern bishops have in this document placed themselves in line with our own Church, as evidenced by our representative divines and by the tw^o Primates in their recent ' Answer ' to the Pope's Bull. The Eastern bishops reject the Pope's Supremacy and Infallibility, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, the Komish doctrines of Purgatory, In- dulgences, Transubstantiation, and also Commu- nion in one kind. Kepudiating the idea of any human head of the Church, the Eastern bishops declare that ' the only everlasting Chief and immortal Head of the Church is our Lord Jesus Christ,' and that ' the divine Fathers . . . had, and could have had, no idea of an absolutist supremacy in the Apostle Peter, or in the bishops of Kome. . . . They could not invent, arbitrarily and of their own will, a novel dogma, erecting upon a pretended succession from Peter an overbearing supremacy of the Roman bishop.' And they make the pertinent observation that 'the Church of Eome was founded, not by Peter, of whose Apostolic work at Eome history knows nothing, but mainly through the disciples of the heaven-soaring Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, whose Apostolic ministry in Eome is clear to all 542 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT men.' It is indeed inconceivable that Peter should have been Bishop of Eome, yet that there should be no allusion to him in the Acts of the Apostles or in St. Paul's Epistle to the Komans, or letters written by him in Rome, considering St. Paul's punctihous deference to St. James as Bishop of Jerusalem. The fact is, diocesan episcopacy, in the modern sense of the word, did not exist during St. Peter's life— at least outside Jerusalem— and the story of Peter's Roman Episcopate is an invention of the Pseudo- Clementines. This common ground of opposition to R^man pretensions on the part of the Anghcan and Oriental Churches, and their general rapprochement towards each other, have naturally alarmed Cardinal Vaughan, and he has privately sent to the Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Church, on behalf of himself and his brethren, an elaborate impeachment of the Church of England. The Intransigeants of the Church Association are his best alHes. The con- tinuity of the Enghsh Church up to the beginning of Christianity in this kingdom is the only effectual argument against Rome. I deprecate, therefore, any ruling, by whatever authority, which would have the effect of suggesting a visible break between the Church of England before and after the Refor- mation. Just as the vestments of our judges and the ritual of our Court and Parliament take us back to the reigns of our Edwards, Richards, and Henrys, so the vestments and ritual sanctioned by the Or- naments Rubric — the Judicial Committee notwith- THE PEISONER OP THE VATICAN 543 standing — take us back to the dawn of Christianity in these isles. I repudiate the idea of a Eoman Church in this land which was abolished at the Eeformation. What was abolished was a system of usurpations on the part of the Bishop of Kome, and with that system a number of corruptions which had gradually grown up in parts of the doctrine and worship of the Church. ' Where was your Church before Henry VIII. ? ' asked a Eoman Catholic of Dr. Hook of Leeds. ' Where was your face before it was washed ? ' answered the old vicar. The retort may have been a bit rough, but it was as just as it was witty. Let the two Archbishops admit in principle this unbroken continuity of the English Church in its ritual as well as in its doctrine, and I believe that the mass of Churchmen, lay and clerical, will support them in checking illegitimate developments, and even the forcing of legitimate ceremonial on unwilling congregations. I believe also that they will have the support of public opinion. Gorgeous vestments, incense, and the ceremonial commonly objected to, will appear innocent, if not attractive, when disso- ciated from disloyalty to the Church of England. No one objects to that ritual in the churches of that admirable body of Christians who call themselves 'the Cathohc and Apostohc Church.' And this tolerance is not due to their not being an established rehgion, but to the absence of suspicion as to their loyalty to their engagements. Convince the British public that the ritual which rouses the hostility of 544 THE KEFORMATION SETTLEMENT some persons is part of the legal heritage of the Church of England, and is no more Popish than shoes and stockings are Popish, and all prejudice will vanish as speedily as the prejudice against chanting the Psalms and preaching in the siurphce. And there is another consideration which the opponents of Ritualism would do well to bear in mind. It is much to the credit of the working classes of this country that they have never shown any disposition to combine in their own interest against the owners of property and privilege. Who can doubt that this is largely due to their being still under the influence, ideals, and sentiments of Christianity, even when they sit loosely towards the Christian Creed? The influence of the Church extends far beyond the formal acknowledgment of her Creed. But let the masses lose hold of their instinctive belief in a future world where the destiny of man is dependent on his conduct here, why should they, in that case, acquiesce in social and political systems from which many of them seem to them- selves to derive but httle benefit ? Let them lose their faith in a heaven beyond the grave, and the temptation will be irresistible to seek their heaven here. And they are the majority and have a potent voice in the making of our laws. Let them be convinced that there is no heaven, and they will claim the earth. This is so well put by a powerful writer that I am tempted to quote him : — What will l)e the result, what the possible catastrophe, when this doctrine [of a future life] is no longer ac- THE PEISONER OF THE VATICAN 545 credited ; — when it is discarded as a delusion — when it is resented as a convenient deception .and instrument of oppression ; — when the poor man is convinced that there is no wealth of gold and jewels awaiting him in the spiritual kingdom — that if he is wretched here he is wretched altogether — that what he lacks now will never hereafter be made good to him — that the promises and liopes dangled before him to keep him quiet have been mere moonshine, and that in very truth the bank in which he had insured his fortune, in which he had in- vested all his savings, to have a provision in which he had toiled with indefatigable industry and endured wdtli exemplary patience, is a fraudulent insolvent ; — w^hen, in fine, he wakes up w4th a start to the bewildering con- viction that if he is to rest, to be happy, to enjoy his fair share of the sunshine and tlie w^armth of life, he must do it 71010, here, at once, ivitliout a day's delay ? Will there not come upon him that sort of feverish haste to be in luxury and at peace, to immcdiatize all that earth can yield him, to sink the uncertain future in the ]:)assing present, which has been depicted in such vivid colours as pervading and maddening the daily thought and talk of the Socialists and Communists of the French metro- polis ? ' The salutary and restra^ining influences thus vividly depicted by Mr. Greg are rapidly on the wane, he tells us, among the working classes of this country. ' Among working men it is for the most part absolute atheism, and is complicated by a marked feeling of antagonism towards the teachers of Religion, a kind of resentment growing out of the conviction that they have been systematically deluded by those who ought to have enlightened them.' And then he adds in a note, ' I am assured, K N 54G THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT however, that this can scarcely be stated as broadly as a few years &go— considerably oioing to the Ritualists.' * Is it prudent to wage war against a religious movement which won this acknowledgment, a quarter of a century ago, from a very able public writer who had, as a Unitarian, no sympathy with Kitualism ? The influence of the Eituahsts among the masses is much greater now than it was when Mr. Greg bore this testimony. The severest censors of the Ritualists generally admit their self-denial and labours of love among the poor, but add that this is not the question. I submit that it is very largely the question. The very purpose of Eehgion is to elevate humanity; to make human beings better parents, better children, better servants and masters, better wives and husbands— in a word, better citizens ; and I venture to suggest that it would be as stupid as it would be criminal to suppress any mode of worship which bears so good a fruit. And let it further be considered whether the kind of worship which goes under the name of iiitualism does not minister to some craving in the nature of man, and bear witness at the same time to some aspect of the character of Almighty God which it would be well for us to realise. Believers in the Bible must admit that when God condescended to ordain a style of worship it was of a kind that appealed to the whole of man — his understanding, Lis imagination, his bodily senses. ' Bocks Ahead, pp. 131, 141-143. THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN .047 Now if it be true, as Dean Lyall lias said,' that ' when God created this lower world, He created it according to the pattern of the world above,' we see at once why all the ritual arrangements of His worship should be designed ' for glory and for beauty.' He is emphatically ' the King in His beauty,' iind this earth, though the trail of the Serpent be over it all, and strewn though it be with moral ruins, still bears manifold witness to His love for all that delights the eye and charms the ear. To my ]nind the wealth of beauty expended on the plumage of a humming-bird, or on the gauzy wings of some ephemeral insects, is almost more wonderful than the creation of an archangel. Kansack the wliole kingdom of nature and you will find no organit^ existence, from the minutest to the most stupendous, which does not give evidence of a love of beauty for its own sake. The tiniest atom of organised matter, insects w^hich can only be seen under the microscope, are each and all formed on a distinct type, and fashioned after some pattern of exquisite beauty. This proves that beauty of form and colour was not created merely in order that men might see and admire it. God's love of beauty for its own sake is written on the imperishable rocks and on the ever- lasting hills. Long before man was created the world was full of beauties w^hich gladdened no human eye, though they have left their records on the rocks. And even now man sees but a small portion of the beauties of nature. Look at the ^ Fro^cedia Proohetica, p. 2G4, 543 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT ocean alone, and think of the v/orld of wonders, buried in its bosom, which eye of n:ian has never seen. There is not a shell in all its depths or along its innumerable shores which does not bear witness to a love of beauty on the part of Him who made it. And to this love of beauty, which is inherent in the nature of God, the soul of man instinctively responds. ^Vhy does the uncultivated savage carve the handle of his war club and the prow of his canoe on lines of artistic beauty ? Why do the untutored women of the South Sea Islands make pottery in forms of exquisite beauty, with no other materials than mud, and sunshine, and their own bare hands"? V\'hy do the poor in the slums of our towns love to have a few bright flowers in their windows, and a singing bird to cheer with its music the dull monotony of their lives ? Is it not because the love of beauty is so natural to man that it shows itself in the most unexpected ways and under the most discouraging conditions ? And is it not because men have recognised this double aspect of beauty — its origin in the divine nature, and its reflection in the nature of man— that they have in all ages worshipped Him, wlien circumstances permitted, in splendid temples and with stately ceremonial? God needs no splendour of worship, and He accepts the homage of the heart without any ceremonial when circum- stances make it impossible or unadvisable. He lieard the cries of the oppressed Israelites in the house of bondage. But when they departed laden with the spoils of Egypt, He would accept nothing THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN .049 short of their costHest gifts. And when He appeared in human form in Judea, He rebuked the false disciple, who, with hypocritical solicitude for the poor, would forbid the * woman who v/as a sinner ' to pour out her costly spikenard on her Saviour. Pie loves to be worshipped * in the beauty of holiness,' where that is possible, because He is a lover of beauty, but chiefly because such worship, when the expression of the heart's devotion, is a proof of the gratitude and love of the worshippers. But it is sometimes said that splendour and stateliness of worship were abolished when the Gospel superseded the law. Yet our Lord has told us that He ' came not to destroy the law, but to ful- fil it.' And He attended the gorgeous worship of the Temple without dropping a hint that it was displeasing to Him. Ruskin, in one of the most eloquent passages in the English language, has ex- posed the fallacy of the objection.^ It is too long for quotation, but the following extract will indicate his argument : It is a most secure truth that although the particular ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at any given period of man's history may be by the same au- thority abrogated at another, it is impossible that any character of God, appealed to or described in any ordinance past or present, can ever be changed. God is one and the same, and is pleased or displeased at the same things for ever, although one part of His pleasure may be expressed at one time rather than another, and ' ' The Lamp of Sacriiice,' in The Seven Lamps of Architecture* 550 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT although the mode in which His pleasure is to be con- sulted may be by Him graciously modified to the circum- stances of men. Equally pertinent is his answer to the cry of superstition, idolatry, and Eomanism : The probabihty, in our times, of fellowship with the feelings of the idolatrous Romanist is absolutely as nothing compared with the danger to the Israelite of a sympathy with the idolatrous Egyptian ; no speculation, no unproved danger ; but proved fatally by their fall during a month's abandonment to their own will ; a fall into the most servile idolatry; yet marked by such offerings to their idol as their leader was, in the close sequel, instructed to bid them offer to God. And now I appeal to history, to reason, to Holy Scripture, and to common sense against a repetition of the folly which drove from the Enghsh Church, to her great loss, men like Wesley, and Newman, and others, yet without checking the movements of which they were leaders. The movement against which the present agitation is directed may be dis- figured — like most movements inspired by enthu- siasm and zeal^ — by extravagances and eccentricities; but it -appeals at bottom to instincts in our nature which cannot be forcibly suppressed with impunity. The extravagances will drop off under skilful treat- ment, and all that is good in the movement will remain as a solid gain to the Church. Let us tolerate each other. Let us have no Procrustean system of worship which shall reduce all things to a dull monotony of uniformity. Tastes and feelmgs THE PRISONER OF TIIR VATICAN 551 differ even in matters of public worship, ajul all tastes should have scope, within reasonable limit.-^, in a national Church. Let therefore a wide latitude be conceded where clerf^y and congregations are of one mind. Above all, let us have charity ; let us mutually seek points of agreement rather than of difference ; let us try to understand one another's meaning and aims, and let us cease to call each other names and impute dishonourable motives. And then, perhaps, we may see, even on the near horizon, the foregleMins of the day when • Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.' For indeed I believe that there is far more real unity among us than appears on the sur- face ; that under varying phraseology we often mean the same thing. A terrible responsibility lies on any who deliberately or heedlessly help to widen instead of closing the breach. It seems to me im- possible to follow^ carefully the history of the Church of England through all its vicissitudes without recognising the hand of a guiding Providence lead- ing it by devious ways towards a predestined end. The striking passage in which the Ultramontane De Maistre gave expression to that feeling has often been quoted. ' If Christians,' he said, ' are ever to be drawn towards each other, it seems that the initia- tive must come from the Church of England. Presbyterianism was French in its origin, and was consequently marked by exaggeration,' and lacking in adaptability. * But the Anglican Church touches us with one hand, and with the other touches 552 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT those whom we cannot reach.' And therefore this uncompromising Papahst saw, and had the candour to avow, that the Church of England ' is very precious ' as a mediator in the reunion of Christen- dom ; and he compares her to ' one of those chemical intermediaries capable of uniting elements which are mutually repellent.' ' Let us beware then of putting obstacles in the way of God's purposes. Little as they know it, those who would sever the Church of England of our day from the Church which, with all its faults and shortcomings, has played so great a part in the development of our nation from its origin till now, are doing their best to defeat that destiny which an alien and opponent discerned among the omens of her future. ' The English language and the Anglo- Saxon race are overrunning the world,' says Cardinal Newman in one of his charming Essays. Let us then be patient meanwhile and try to ' bear one another's burdens.' ' He that believeth shall not make haste.' Spartam nactus es, lianc exonia. ' Considerations stir la France, ch. ii. INDEX AniMELECH, 194 Abraham, 194 Acton, Lord, on Vatican Council, 4;)1 Acts of the Apostles, 181 Advertisements, the, 891, 394, 398, 407 informality of, 409 directed against the Puri- tans, 410, 444,448 Agnns I>i, the, 109 Aiasco, 420 Alban, church of Saint, Holborn, xHv Albertus Magnus, 212 Aldenham, Lord, 442 Alexander the Great, 72 Alfonso Liguori, Saint, 254 Alice, Princess, 318 Ananias, 199 Andrewes, Bishop, 116, 150, 271, 306 Angeli, Monsignor, 533 Anglican Church. See Church of England Anglican Orders. See Church of England Anselm, 81 Apocalypse, the, 78 Argyll, Duke of, 159 Arians, lix, 321 Aristotle, 31 Arius, 496 Armada, the, 93 Arnobius, 122 Arnold, Matthew, xxxi Arthur, King, 317 Articles, the, 70, 128 revision of, in 1562, 131 the Twenty-eighth Article discussed, 161 et seq. the Twenty-sixth, 202 the Twenty-second, 296, 315 Ascension, Feast of, 172 Ashburnham, Lord, 442 Athanasian Creed, 171, 321 Atonement : doctrine of, 39, 49-72 a Cambridge Fellow burnt for heterodox opinions on, 97, 208 Augsburg, confession of, 33, 293 Bacon, Lord, 74, 107, 121, 147 Baddeley, Mr., speech against Ritualism, Ixix Baines, Bishop, 489 Balbo, 525 Bancroft, Archbishop, 393 Baptism, use of cross in, 37 Baptists, 103 Barlow, consecration of, 462 Baronius, 513 Barrow, Bishop, 116, 286, 306, 307 Basnage, 129 Baxter, 36, 135, 137, 431 Bayard, 213 Beaconsfield, Lord, xi-xiv Bellarmine, 142, 325, 506, 507 Benholrae, Lord, 377 Bennett, See Cases 0) i THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Ijcnson. Archbishop, Lincohi juil^'iiient of, 43'.) Jierkeley, Bishop, *JJ<7 ^ Beveridjze, Bishop. 110 Bingham. 105 Bismarck. o27 Black Rubric. St^p Rubrics Blandfortl. Bishop, b07 BlomtieUl. Bishop, Ixxv Bocali. 531 Boccaccio, story of, 517 Bonaventura, 247 Bossuet. 149 Boyd, Dr., 373 Bradhiup;]i, Mr., 390 Bruuihall, Bishop. 110, 132, 134. 130. 138. 143, 270 Bredock. Bp., 273 Brewer. Dr., 330 Bri}^ht. John, xi Brooke, Rev. Stopford, 242 i;ucer. 105, 420, 447 Buchanan, Georj^e. 114 Bull, Bishop, 110, 300 Bullini,'ham, Bishop, 409 liunyan, .John, Ix Burke. Edmund, on Irish affairs, xxiv, xxix, XXX, xxxv Burke, Father, xxxvii Burleigh, Lord, 94, 103, 100, 435 Burnet, Bishop, 99, 150, 2«5, 309 Butler. 315, 321 C.KSAR, Julius, 72 Cairns, Lord, 459 Calvin. 40, 340 Calviuists: view of Eucharist, 7, 140 habit of persecution, 102 in England, malign Laud, 119 object to prayers for dead, 303. 310 ('aniden, 120 Canons : of 1571, 35, 37 of 1003, 37, 209 Canons : the Twenty fourth Canon, 392 the Fourteenth, 425 Canterbury, Archbishops of. See Temple and other names Capes, Rev. J.. 242 Capernaum, Christ's discourse at, 14. 22, 28, 30. 32, 124 Cardinals : Allen, 82, 85. 91 Antonelli, 520, 531 of Como, M2. S4. 91 Franchi, 520 Galiniherti. 520. 530 Jacobini, 524 John di Lugo, 470 Manning, hi, 254, 312. 401, 478, 489, 502 Monaco della Valetta, 522 Newman, xliii, Ivi, Ixxvii contemporary opinion of. Ixxiv, 137," 153. 253 on confession, 207 on purgatory, 312. 313 on the Reformation, 335, 489. 495 i his detinition of ' ex cathedra,'' 505. 552 Nina, 523 Palavicino, 130 Pecci, 520. Sec also Popes Eampolla, 524. 532, 530 Schiartino, 522 530 Vaughan, 400 ' Vindication ' of, 405. 470, 538, 542 Wiseman, 488 the cardinalate at death of Pius IX., 512 Carini, 535 Caroline Bishops : illustrious list of, 110 opinions held by, 132 Casati, Count Gabrio, 528 Cases : Bennett Case, 3. 159, 434 Blunt Case, 42ii Bodmin Case, 422 INDEX 555 Cases : Dunbar Heath, 452 Ed rick, 383 (iorham, 4")! Lincoln jud^iiient, 439 Lockhart, 375 Purchas, 371. 385, 388, 399, 41<), 422, 440, 457 Kidsdale, 105. 385, 390, 399, 410, 422, 445 Catechism, the, 19, 140 Catherine of Genoa, Saint, 312 Cecil, Robert, 379, 405 Chalcedon, Eoman Catholic Bishop of, 138 Branihall's controversy with, 144 Charles I., fidelity to English Church, 114, 115 Cheke, Sir John, 341 Chichester, Bishop of, 133 Chillingworth, 281 Christendom, reunion of, 137, 327 Christian, Princess, 318 ' Christian Year.' See Keble Churcli, Dean, xxxvi Church Association, xliii, 435 Church of England : how far it sanctions doctrine of Real Presence, 3, 11, 35 not committed to consnb- stantiation, 33, 35 Baxter, a representative divine of, 37 use of cross in baptism in, 38 Anglican divines on Eu- charist, 80 as a Divine institution, 103 greatness of its clergy in seventeenth century, llti royal supremacy binding on its clergy, 125 validity of orders not disputed by Rome in sixteenth century, 128 Venetian ambassador's sum- mary of its creed, 133 Church of England : Roman objections to Anglican orders, 143 doctrine of Eucharist similar to that of Greek Church, 140 proposed union of, with Galilean Church, 151 did not become Zwinglian at Reformation, 155 narrowness of some clergy of, 100 paralysing effect of literalism on, 173 lawlessness of clergy of, xlvil canon of 1003, 1 lack of elasticity of episco- pate of, lix confession in, 217, 233, 204, 272, 275-292. 294 prayers for dead in. 298-310, 318 doctrine of purgatorv in, 311, 330 not a new Church at Refor mation, 333 the law and its ceremonial 309, 377 spiritual courts, 371 ornaments and vestments in, 385, 392, 430 Elizabeth and, 406 effect of Protestant agitation on, 437 validity of Anglican orders, 460 et seq., 537 doctrine of intention in, 472 Roman criticism of, 513 Dollinger on, 517 validity compared with that of Roman orders, 519 papal bull against its orders, a blessing in disguise, 539 sympathy of Eastern Church with, 541 its continuity to be insisted on, 543 folly of present agitation against, 550 THE EEFOBMATIOX SETTLEMENT Church of Rome : policy to its dissenters, Ix Jesui'ts sent by, to England, 92 does not dispute validity of Anglican orders in six- teenth century, 128 distinction between Church and Court of, i:^(3, 138 auricular confession in, 226 evils produced by celibacy, 231 form of absolution in, 2(i7 doctrine of purgatory in, 312 doctrine of intention in, 473, 516 its ordination of native priests, 476 contradictions in defining Papal Infallibility, 482 _ See also Roman Catholics, Panacy, and Popes Church of Scotland. See Presby- terians Clarendon, Earl of, 118 Clark. Sir Andrew, 235, 260 Cobden, Mr., xi Cocks, Rev. A., xlviii, 1 Coke, Sir Edward, 351 Coke, Lord, 383 Coleridge, Ivi, 206 Coleridge, Sir John. 388 Coles, Humphrey, 422 Collier, 306, 409 Colossians, Epistle to, 54, 70 Communion of the Sick. See Eucharist Confession, xx to laymen, 211-214 Protestant hatred of, 217, 219 fallacies concerning, 220 manuals of, 224 Cornewall Lewis on, 225 uses of, 2.33, 238 advantages of confessor being a priest, 2i2 imaginary dangers of, 248 compulsory, 251 Confession : secrets of, betrayed, 252 indiscriminate denunciation of, 257 ignorance concerning, 262 injunctions concerning, 268 Articles, Rubrics, and Canons on, 269-271 evidence that it was prac- tised, 272-275 taught by divines, 275-293 Constantinople, xxxviii Consubstantiation, 3, 32 erroneously confounded with Real Presence, 152 Convocation, independence of, 369 Cooke, Professor, 184 Cornelius, 199 Corpus Ckristi, 145, 147 Corpus Juris, the, 87, 507 Cory, Nicholas, 421 Cosin, Bishop, 110, 124, 140, 166, 280, 306 Courtenay, Mr., Ixvi Coutances, Bishop of, 127 Cowan, Lord, 376 Cox, Bishop, 409 Cranmer, 102, 121, 125, 155, 268, 275, 298, 339, 342, 466 Cranworth, Lord, 385 Creighton, Dr., Ixxvi, 290, 416 Crispi, 524 idealism of, 529 negotiations with Papacy, 532-569 Crown and Church, 331, 333. See also Elizabeth Cvprian, 420 Cyril, Saint, 9 D.vxTK, ' Inferno ' quoted, 64 Darboy, Archbishop, 484, 495 Darwin, Charles, ' Life ' quoted 173 . ' Origin of Species ' 175 David, 47, 49 De Maistre, 551 INDEX 557 De Quincey, 227, 277 Dean of tlie Arches, 372 L)enzinger, 4()3 Diocletian, edicts of, 123 Disestablishment, xix Di=raeli, Mr., ix. See also Beaconsfield Divinity, Lady Margaret Profes- sor of, 30 Dollinger, Dr., 80, 154, 250, 493, 51»3, 536 Dolman, 481 Don John of Austria, 88 Don Juan de Ydraquez, 85 Donne, Dr., 34, 277 Douay, 88. 92 Doyle, Bishop, 480 Dozy, Professor, 472 Drummond, Professor Henry, 48 Ducange, 161 Duchesne, Abbe, 538 DulYerin, Lord, xxvi-xxviii Dupin, 151 Eastern Churches, 2 Sacrament not carried about in, 63 compulsory marriage of clergy in, 232 how far they accept Purga- tory, 325 Patriarch's letter to Pope, 327, 4(;4 orthodoxy of liturgies of, 471 sympathy of, with English Church, 541 Echard. 126 Edmund, Archbishop, 213, 247 Edrick. Sec Cases Edward YL, 99 persecution under. 102 Prayer Books of, 125, 156 different rubrics of, 163, 341, 378 et scq. See also Prayer Book Elijah, 178 Eliphas, 60 Ehsha, 178 Elizabeth, Queen : lines on the Peal Presence, 34 and Mary Queen of Scots, 83, 86 attempts on her life inspired by Jesuits, 85 and defended by modern apologists, 89 excommunication of, 90, 108, 127 her struggle with Pope, 94 policy to bishops, 9(3, 101 action of clergy on her acces- sion, 126 and the reservation of the Sacrament, l(j4 injunctions of, 268 restores omissions in Second Prayer Book of Edward YI., 304, 386, 395. 427 beliefs of, 335, 357, 379, 387 upholds ceremony, 397 the Advertisements, 402 determination to enforce ritual, 406-416 Puritanism under, 435 Act of Uniformity of. 440 thirteenth injunction of, 442 Ely, Bishop of, 101 English Church Union, 331, 413 Epiphany, feast of, 172 Erastians, xxii Eucharist : Zwinglian view of, 1, 7 Transubstantiation and the Keal Presence, 2-4, 140 Hooker, doctrine of, 4-10, 11, 14 Keble's view of, 11 Eucharistic Presence, inde- pendent of faith, 12-15 Christ's own teaching of, 20-22 attacks on, 31 doctrine of Keal Presence in, 34 as a sacrifice, 35, 39-79, 142 }5B THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Euclinrist : Anglican divines on. 80, 122, 124 f^ .ST//, their dilYerences with Home on, 140 adoration of the Sacrament, 144 reservation of the Sacra- ment, 146, lGO-173 Catliolic doctrine of, not rejected at Keformation, 15.^) judicial decisions on, 159 infrequent celebrations of, 171 Cranmer and. 466 Eusebius, 123, 420 Eutvchianism, 34 Evangelicals, Iv, 142, 106 Ferry, Jules, 527 Field, 306 Flavian, Saint, 506 Fleury, 513 Florence, Council of. 462 Fortescue, Lord, Ixxii France : iamous letter on religion by Burleigh to, 107-112 Church in, subservient to Napoleon, 151 Franciscans, 130 Frederick Barbarossa, 317 Freeman, 335 French Revolution and Roman orders. 474 Friend, Sir John, 269 Froude, xxviii Fry. Mrs., Ixi Gage's Catechism, lii (ialatians. Epistle to, xxxix (rardiner, 157 (lee, Henry, 126 General Councils. 35 the liateran, 128 of Trent, 12H, 130, 199, 297 of Florence, 297 General Councils : the Vatican, 482, 491 the Seven (Ecumenical Councils, 327 and the Church, 504 Genesis, 75 Gibbon, 258 GiUis, Bishop, 481 Ginoulliiac, Archbishop, 484 Gioberti, 525 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., Ixxiv, 118, 147, 154, 315, 321, 334, 524, 527, 538 I compared with Disraeli, xii- XV Glasgow, Archbishop of-, 86 Gneist, Dr., 350 I Goethe, 243 Gorhani. Sec Cases i Greek Church, 2 no feast of Corpus Christi in. 145 rejects Purgatory, 325 See also Eastern Churches Green, Mrs. J. R., 351 ! Greg, Mr. W. R., xviii, 322, 545 I Gregory XIII. See Popes I Gregory, Saint, 124 I Grey, Ladv Jane, 345 Grimthorpe, Lord, 295, 439 Grindal, Bishop, 409, 414 Grotius, 37 Grub, Dr., 373 Gueranger, Dom, 506 Guise, Duke of, 82, 86, 91 Guizot, 80 Halifax, Lord. 331 letter to * Times,' 375 I Sir W. Harcourt and. 377 ! Hall, Bishop, 116, 118, 278 i Hallam, Arthur, 71 I Hallam, Henrv. 48, 80, 98, 100, 115, 227, 250 Hamilton, Sir William, 28, 185 Harcourt, Sir William, Letter of Introduction to, ix-lxxviii, 118, 138, 147, 250, 331, 338, 345- 347, 377, 413, 435, 438 INDEX Hatton. Sir Christopher, 101 Hay. Bishop, 4S;} Heath, Dunibar. 4")2 lleber. Bishop, ii07 HebreAYS, Epistle to, lo, 811 Henry of Battenberg, Prince, ol8 Henry VIII., struj/gle again;: I Pope did not begin with, 93, ir>(;. SHo Herbert, George, 28() Herbert. Sidney, xi Heylin, 133 High Commission Court, 119 Hole, Dean, 170 Holv Communion. Sec Eucharist Home, Bishop, 409 Home Kule ior Ireland and the religious question, xix et scq. Hook, Dr., 543 Hooker : doctrine of Eucharist, 2, 4- 10, 14, 26, 14o, 400 on confession, 234, 271, 276, 317 Hope, Lord -Justice Clerk, 374 Hormisdas. o08 Hosea, 00 Hughes, Archbishop, 487 Hughes. Mr. Hugh Price, xxv Humphrey, Father, 481 Huntingdon. Countess of, Ixi Husenbeth. Dr., 489 Hutton, Pi. H., 41, 315 Incarnation, the, 10, 18 Hutton's Essay on. 41 meaning of, 59 the means of atonement, 68 Indulgences, 135 Ingle, Rev. J., Ixviii Innocent III. See Popes Intermediate State, -290-330 Intransigeants, 522, 532, 542 Jacobkan bishops, 110 James, St., Luther on the Epistle of, 49, 122 James I., 114,423 James II., 14H Janscnius, 509 J esse! , Sir George, 459 Jesuits : l)olicy under Elizabeth. s5 from Home and Douay, 1'2, 109, 112 hinder reconciliation be- tween the Churches, 133 and confession, 22H, 231 ! Jcvons, 54, 189 j Job ([noted, 00 ''■ John, Saint, Gospel of. 19, 179 John, King, and the Pope, bl Johnson, John, 448 Joinville, 213 Justus Jonas, 275 Juvenal quoted, 235, 257 Keble, xxxvi, Ivi ' Christian Year ' quoted, 10, 192, 241 Kedney, Dr., GO Keenan, 481 Kelly, Rev. J., 167 Ken, Bishop, 110, 282, 300 Kennet, 272 Kenrick, 487 Kensit, Mr., xvi, xxi, Ixxvi. 222, 295, 410 1 King-lake, 190 I Kingsley, Charles, lix, 310 Knolles, 409 I Knox, Father, 87, 92, 504. 510 i Krakatoa, eruption of, 190 Labouchebe, Mr., his exposure of Kensit, 222 ' Lambeth Faire,' 429 Lamennais, 505 Langton, Stephen. 81 Latimer, 103, 270, 298 Laud, 110 broadmindedness of, 118 bis noble death. I'JO his life quoted, 133 5G0 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT Leibnitz, 27, 147, 189. 293 Leicester, Earl of, 408 Leigh, Mr. Pemberton, 385 Lenthall, 273 Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 225, 458 Liddon, xxxvi, xlvi Lingard. Dr., 489 Lloyd. Bishop. 450 Lockhart. Sec Cases London, Bishop of. See Creigh- ton London compared with Rome, 259 Lopes, Mr., 455 Luke, Saint, 179 Lushington, 452 Luther, letter to Henry VIIL, 32 and Consubstantiation, 34 teaching of original sin, 48 view of Eucharist, 140 system of confession, 243, 293 Lutherans, 2, 25, 32, 76, 102 Lyall, Dean, 547 Macaflay, lix, 110, 337 Maccabees, book of. 298 Maclean, Sir J., 421 Magna Carta, 81 Malachi, 194 Manning. See Cardinals Marconi, 189 Martinengo. Abbot, 519 Martensen, 2('>, 294 Martineau, Dr., 141, 193, 196 Mary Magdalene. 18, 180 Mary, Queen of England, 347, 379, 418, 427 Marv. Queen of Scots, 83, 88, 90, 102 Massillon, Ix Matthew, Saint, 179 Maule, Sir William, 385 Maurice, F.D., 290, 316 Mayenne, Duke of, 82, 91 Mazzini, 525 Melanchthon 47 Mill, John Stuart. 185 Milton quoted, 192 Minutius Felix, 122 Montague, Bishop, 116 Monte Casino, 524 Moody, Mr., 263 Moors in Spain, 472 Morcaldi, 333 Moriarty, Kev. Dr., xxxvii Morley, Bishop, 272 Mosheim, 153 Murray, Bishop, 486 N A AM AN, 76 Napoleon : quotation from his conversa- tion, 72 attaches importance to reli- gion, 151 Nardi, Monsignor, 498 Newman. See Cardinals Newton, 107 Nicene Creed, 4, 34 Honioousion of, 496 Nonconformists : and Sir William Harcourt. xxi charge of schism against, lii- liv compared with Puritans, 539 Norfolk, Duke of, 495 Oakley, Ivi Oratory, the London, 86. 00 Overall, Bishop, 116, 140, 279. 306 Oxford movement, xxxv, Ivi, 153, 167 Paget. Lord, 101 Palmer, Koundell, xxxvi, Ixxiv Palmer, Kev. W. P., 325 Palmer, Sir William, 153, 306, 325 Papacy : forgeries in connexion with, SO, 457 policy of, 81 INDEX 561 Papacy : unscrupulousness of, at Re- formation, 82 aniinui? against Elizabeth, -SI -93 encroachments before Refor- mation, 93 innovations of, 327 Mary restores papal supre- macy in England, 348 Papal decrees and councils, 4.S to Council of Trent, 51« Adrian V., 513 Clementine V., 513 Eugenius IV., 462 Gregory X., 51-3 O O :S2 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT Topps : Gregory XIII., 82. 80, 88 Gregory XVI., 505 Innocent III., 128 .John XII., 515 •lohn XIX.. 513 Leo VIII , 513, 51() Leo X., 327 Lpo XIII., 521, 531, 534. 537. 541 Paul v., 88 See also I'apafV J'ljpuiunire, Statute of, '.♦3 1 rayer Book, the, 121, 125, 102 a Latin one of 1500, 162, 205. 346, 347, 381 not made by Crown, 339 historical summary of diffe- rent Prayer Books, 339- 347, 424 ceremonial of Edward VI. 's first Prayer Book restored by Elizabeth, 447 Presbyterianism. 150 Church of Scotland. 371-377 J'l ice Hughes, Mr., xxv, 100 I'riraate, the. See Temple I'iivy Council, Judicial Coiii- mittee of, 105, 159, 311, 309 character of its lud^ments. 373, 387, 394." 411. 423, 429, 433, 438, 449, 452. See also Cases rotestantism : used for political purpose^, siv misconceptions of, 11 a Danish divine quoted, 25 Jieibnitz a l^rotestant, 27 pluralists in Protestant Church, 98 ^xcesses of foreign Protes- tants, 109 meeting at Albert Hall, 127, 438 Bramhall's doscription of. 139 Protestants believe in a Ileal I^resence, 140 | Protestantism : hatred of confession, 217 but some Protestant divine,^ recommend it, 290 Psalms quoted, 74 Purchas Case. See Cases Purgatory : Romish doctrine of. 1 35 Perrone's doctrine. 297 Legality of prayers for dead, 307 St. Catherine of Genoa on. 312 meaning of, 314 Catholic doctrine of. 321 modern Roman leaching concerning, 324, 32s Puritans : Puritan bishops, 96 reaction against. 106. 133 anarchical doctrines of. 114 lawlessness of, 117. 406, 439 did not object to reservation of Sacrament, 105 the Puritan eschatology, 320 and the Rubrics, 385), 394, 396 opposition to vestments, 398. 445 Elizabeth and, 408, 410 their evidence to continuity of ceremony, 418 dishke of all clerical robes, 435 Pusey, xxxvi, xliii QuiRiNAL and Vatican. 524 it fieq. Real Presence. See Eucharist Reformation, 35, 37 teaching of its leaders, 40 condition of Churcli at. m(» causes of, 82 character of its leaders, '.ts. 100. 102 Laud's influence on Reform- ation settlem,eut, 120 INDEX 563 Koiormation: Sir W. Palmer on, 1")5 the lieformers and confes- sion, 265-295 and prayers for the dead. a political movement, 3ii3 (rladstone on, 334 Newman on, 335 Macaulay on, 337 and Church jurisdiction, 377 ijjRorance of history of, 43i) Ke^nsters, Parish, extract from, proving use of vestments, 431 Kenan, 41 Reservation, 160-173 llesurrection, 22, 24 discrepancies in records of, 180 Reynolds, 249 Richard II., Statutes against Papacv under, 93 Ridley. 103, 122, 276, 339 Ridsdale Case. See Cases Kitualism, xi, xv Albert Hall demonstration against, xvii denounced by Sir W. Har- court, XX character of Ptitualist clergy, 484 Robertson (of Brighton), Ivii, lix Robertson, Dean of Durham, 339 Rock, Dr., 131 Rogers, Guinness, xxii, Ixxvi, 196 Roman Catholics : in England loyal to Eliza- beth, 93 political position of, 97 persecution of, 102 establishment of hierarchy, xi in Ireland, xx question of a University for, XXV penal code against, xxxi iS'^g also Papacy and Popes Romans, Epistle to, 54, 115 Rome, compared with London, 258 Rontgen rays. 191 I Rosebery, Lord, xvi I Rosmini. 525 [ Rubrics : Evangelicals violate tbe, ; Ixxiii the Ornaments Rubric, '■'>!, ! 96, 105, 168 under EHzabeth, 400, 407 ' Purchas Case and oma- I ments, 416 ! sanctioned by Parliament, I 424 capricious interpretation of, 433, 440-456 the Black Rubric, 25 Rubric ordering reservation of Sacrament, 162 in office for Communion of ; Sick, 163 ! of 1559 and 1662, 165, 168 ! general consideration of j Rubrics, 171 alteration in, under Edward 1 VI., 378 I Rubric forbidding vestments, 380 Elizabeth and Rubrics of 1 Edward VI., 386 The Purchas judgment, 388 Act of Uniformity and. 396 1 Ruskin, 549, 550 Sacerdotalism : meaning of, 193 in Old Testament, 194-199 the priesthood, 201 objections to, 204 absolution and, 206 an example of God's use of means, 211 confession in connexion with, 212-214 celibacy produces wor^^ Wake, Archbishoi). 1 ts 152, 2s;; Walsh, Mr., xxxv-xlii. 254 Walsingham, Sir Francis, 97. 107, 12G Walton, Izaak, 271 Ward, Dr.. 505 Waterland. Dr., 1 IC* Welldon, 322 Wesleyanisni, Ivi, Ixi, 159 Wheatley, 280, 305, 424 White, Blanco, 231, 250. 474 White, 97, 98 Whitgift, 107 Whittingham, Dean. 410 William Eutus and Pope, si William I., Emperor of Germany 522 Williams, Mr. Watkin. 455 Wilson, Bishop. 110, 30C) Wilson, Mr., 311 Wimborne, Lady, 438 Withers, George, 344, 390. 417 Woolfrey. 307 Wiirtemberg, confession of 33 Xenocrates, 4' Zanchids, Jeromi:, 41 k Zeno, 47 Zola's 'Kome." 522 f^vingli. 47. 122, 150 ; ; ; ', ^ ZwinglianisTn, in; yif^WD ^^ Ku- charist, 1, 160 in Anglican divines 150 PRU^TBD rfT EF®rJIBTrOODE AMD '-^O., M.'5W-9TlJtlfl sgi'Ar.f j,ond6n COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as provided by the library rules or the Librarian in charge. by special arran gement with DATE BORROWED DATE DUE DATE BORROWED DATE DUE C28<251)100M 937,42 M131 MacColl The reformation settlement