SCRIPTURAL AND
CATHOLIC TRUTH
AND WORSHIP 4 *

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Scriptural anb Catbollc tTrutb
anb Morsbip OR
THE FAITH AND WORSHIP OF THE PRIMITIVE,
THE MEDIEVAL AND THE REFORMED
ANGLICAN CHURCHES

BY THE REV.
F. MEYRICK, M.A.
RECTOR OF BLICKLING, NON-RESIDENTIARY CANON OF LINCOLN
LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY
COLLEGE, OXFORD

^

LONDON
SKEFFINGTON & SON, 163 PICCADILLY
1901

This Book has been written at the instance of the
LADIES' LEAGUE FOR THE DEFENCE OF
THE REFORMED FAITH OF THE .CHURCH
OF ENGLAND, but the Author has retained his
entire independence and responsibility.

CONTENTS PART I
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Faith of the earliest Christians as shown by the Acts of the
Apostles. Summarised in the Apostles' or Baptismal Creed. The
Articles of Belief taught in the following order : The Messiah-
ship of Jesus, His crucifixion. His death, His burial. His resurrec
tion. His descent into hell {i.e., the state of the dead). His ascension,
His session at the right hand, the mission of the Holy Ghost, the
final judgment, the birth on earth of Christ, the fatherhood of
God, His Almightiness, His creative energy, the forgiveness of
sins, the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints, the
resurrection and the life everlasting. The Creed, with the order
of its articles re-arranged, used as a formula to prove whether cate
chumens were sufficiently instructed in the faith. Irenseus's Creed, i
CHAPTER II
The religion of the earliest Christians, the result on their
emotions of realising the various truths of their Creed, more
especially: r. Repentance; 2. Faith or Belief, which were accom
panied by love and hope and the different modifications of each
of those feelings, such as awe, gratitude, joy, fear, trust, humility,
brotherly-kindness, . . . . . -17
CHAPTER III
Institutions, ordinances and rites of the earliest Christians.
I. The Church; 2. Baptism; 3. The Lord's Supper ; 4. Common
Prayer ; 5. The Lord's Day ; 6. Confirmation ; 7. Holy Orders, . 20
iii i

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CHAPTER IV

The government of the Church — first by Apostles, Presbyters
and Deacons ; then by Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons, . . 26

CHAPTER V
Witness of the Epistles, proving that the faith, religion,
ordinances and Church government were the same as those testified
to by the Acts. Expansion of the Articles of the Creed. Hope,
love and obedience complementary of faith and repentance. Ex
communication added to the ordinances previously recognised.
Sanctification of marriage. Form of government unchanged.
Prominence of prophets. Unction of the sick, . . -29
CHAPTER VI
The sub-Apostolic age, conterminous with the second century.
Its faith and religion and ordinances shown to be the same as
before by the testimony of its chief writers — the Pseudo-Barnabas,
Clement of Rome, Hermas, the author of the Teaching of the
Apostles, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tatian,
Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, Ter-
tullian. The Millennium. Transference of the Lord's Supper
from the evening to the forenoon from political causes. Justin
Martyr's description of it. The sacrifices of Christians constituted
by prayer and thanksgiving alone. Change of faith inadmissible.
The Agape. Christian marriage rites. Summar)', . 39
CHAPTER VII
The worship of the sub- Apostolic Church, i. The Ante-Iucan
Service ; 2. the Missa ; 3. the Evening Service, followed by the
Agape. The form of each, . . ¦ ¦ ¦ 63
CHAPTER VIII
The third, fourth and fifth centuries, forming with the first
and second the Primitive Church. No change of faith effected by

Contents ^ PAGE
the Council and Creed of Nicoea, nor by the Council and Creed of
Constantinople, nor by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon,
nor by the Athanasian Creed. Germs of innovations found in the
conjectures of individuals, . . . . . .66
CHAPTER IX
The Lord's Day in the Primitive Church. Recognised by
Constantine and the succeeding Christian Emperors' legislation.
Strictness in its observance down to the beginning of the Middle
Ages. Sunday services : I . Ante-lucan ; 2. Forenoon, including
the Lord's Supper ; 3. Evening prayer, followed by the Agape.
St Basil's account of the Ante-lucan Service, . . -74
CHAPTER X
The hierarchy of the Primitive Church. The institution of
Metropolitans and of Patriarchs. The civilised world divided by
Constantine into fourteen ' dioeceses ' or civil districts. The Church
Catholic therefore constituted by fourteen Dicecesan or National
Churches, one for each ' dicecese ' ; independent, but united by a
spiritual bond of cohesion and by a common deference to an
(Ecumenical Synod. Rome and Constantinople borrowed dignity
from the greatness of the cities in which they were established.
The Roman See and Bishops invested by the Emperors Gratian
and Valentinian with authority over other sees and bishops in the
Empire ; the See of Constantinople invested with authority over
three of the Dicecesan Churches by the Council of Chalcedon.
Struggle between the two great sees for pre-eminence. Inferior
orders of the Ministry— sub-deacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers,
door-keepers, . . . . • '79
CHAPTER XI
The sixth, seventh and eighth centuries transitional from
primitive to mediaeval. The irruption of the Barbarians power
ful for evil in its effects on the Church. Illustrated in the doctrine
of the Lord's Supper and the practice of Confession. Origin and
growth of the Confessional. Progress towards Purgatory. Strength
ening of the Papal power, . . ¦ • • ¦ °7

^ Contents
CHAPTER XII

PAGE

Second and Third Councils of Constantinople ; Vigilius and
Honorius. Honorius declared by his successor in the Papacy, as
well as by the CEcumenical Council, to be heretical. The icono
clastic controversy. Council at Constantinople in 754, which pro
hibited image worship. The Second Council of Nicsa in 787, which
approved it. The Empress Irene and Tarasius, Popes Gregory II.,
Gregory HI. and Hadrian. Charlemagne and the Caroline Books.
Council of Frankfort in 794, which rejected the Second Council of
NicEea and its decrees. Restoration of images in the East by the
Empress Theodora in 842. Image worship in the East and in
the West, . . ¦ -94

PART II
CHAPTER I
The faith of the Mediaeval Church. The Roman supremacy
the heart of the mediaeval system. The False Decretals in 830,
believed genuine for seven centuries ; the basis on which the
Papal Monarchy was erected by Nicholas I., Gregory VII. and
Innocent III. The Articles of the medieeval faith gathered up in
the Creed of Pope Pius IV., consisting of: I. Transubstantiation.
Its further growth and triumph. Paschasius Radbert and Beren-
garius. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215. 2. The
Mass. 3. Reception in one kind. 4. Seven sacraments. 5.
Purgatory. 6. Indulgences. 7. Invocation and worship of saints.
8. Veneration of relics. Robberies of graves. Bishop Gelmirez
and the bodies of Portuguese saints. 9. Image worship. 10. Tradi
tion. II. Justification. Works of congruity and condignity.
12. Papal supremacy, . . . . . .105
CHAPTER II
The worship of the Mediaeval Church. Altered with the altera
tion of the faith, i. Effects on worship of Transubstantiation —
gorgeous ceremonial ; public and private adoration of the Elements ;
Elevation ; Reservation within the Church, processions on Corpus
vi

Contents 5«»

PAGE

ChrisH &!i.y without it ; Fasting before Communion, leading to early
celebrations of the Communion. 2. Effects of the doctrine of the
Mass — 'High Mass' for Sacrifice, 'Low Mass' for Sacrament ;
hearing Mass or non-communicating attendance ; clerical dress ;
Latin tongue. 3. Effect of the doctrine of Reception in one kind —
the denial of the Cup. 4. Effects of the dogma of Seven Sacra
ments — the system of private Confession and Absolution ; change
in the forms of Ordination ; Extreme Unction. 5 and 6. Effects
of Purgatory and Indulgences — Masses for the dead and devo
tions gainful to the clergy. 7. Effects of saint worship — the loss
of filial love to God the Father and Christ ; desecration of Sunday.
8. Effect of the adoration of images and relics — the debasement of
worship. 9. Effect of tradition and visions being regarded as
sources of truth — new beliefs and new fashions of worship. lo.
Effect of the mediaeval doctrine of Justification — self-righteousness,
regarding acts of devotion as meritorious. 12. Effect of the Papal
power — new dogmas and new ctiltes, . . . .131

PART III
CHAPTER I
Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown by the Thirty-
nine Articles. Necessity for the formal rejection of existing errors
and corruptions. The purpose of the Articles ; called ' Our Con
fession,' by Archbishop Laud and Bishop Andrewes. Repudiation
of Roman doctrine by them. i. Tradition, modern revelations
and all but Scripture. 2. Justification by merit. Hooker's exposi
tion of the true doctrine. Merit of congruity and condignity.
3. Purgatory — its unscriptural character. Masses for the dead. 4.
Indulgences or Pardons — condemned by Hooker, Andrewes, Laud,
Cosin. 5. Image worship. 6. Relics — both prohibited by the
Homilies. 7. Saint worship — its moral and spiritual evils shown by
Bishop Andrewes. 8. Seven Sacraments. Matrimony. Penance —
Hooker's teaching. 9. Transubstantiation — the teaching of
Hooker, Laud, Cosin, Jeremy Taylor. 10. One kind — argument
of Bishop Andrewes. II. The Sacrifice of the Mass — condemned
by Cosin, Ridley, Cranmer. 12. Papal supremacy — statements of
Archbishop Wake and Bishop Bilson, .... 157

vX

^ Contents

CHAPTER II

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown in the Prayer-
book. All the articles of the Creed recognised in the Collects,
Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany and the Occasional
Offices  192
CHAPTER III
Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown by the
HomiUes on Holy Scripture, on Justification, on image worship,
on saint worship, on Purgatory, on Seven Sacraments, on Holy
Communion. Note on the expression ' Under the form of bread
and wine.' The Homilies' teaching on Repentance, on the use
of the Latin language, . . . . ¦ -197
CHAPTER IV
The worship of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown by her
Prayer-book. i. The use of the vernacular. 2 and 3. Morning and
Evening Prayer restored as public services according to primitive
practice. 4 and 5- The Calendar — its Lectionary and its rejection
of mediaeval saints' days. 6. The recovery of Common Prayer ; the
form of Confession and Absolution, what they and the Commina-
tion Service teach. 7. The Litany contrasted with the mediaeval
and modern Roman Litany. 8. Collects purged of saint worship
and of claims for human merit. 9. The Holy Communion Office —
the simplicity of the ceremonies surrounding it resulting from the
difference of faith ; non-communicating attendance at it strictly
forbidden and disused. 10. Changes for the better in the Baptismal
Offices, Confirmation Service, Marriage Service, Visitation of the
Sick, the Burial Service and the Churching of Women. II. The
special excellence of the Communion of the sick. 12. The Com-
mination. 13. The use of the Psalms. 14. Forms of Prayer at sea, 207
CHAPTER V
The worship of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown by the
Ordinal. The Preface of the Ordinal. The three Orders of the
Ministry. The forms of Ordination. Abandonment of the
Porrectio instrumentorum. Dr v. DoUinger, Bishop Reinkens and

Contents S®» PAGE
Professor Friedrich on the Anglican forms of Ordination. Removal
of the mediaeval words professing to give the power of sacrificing.
Difference between the medieval priesthood and the primitive
and Anglican priesthood. The priesthood of all Christians. No
sacerdotal caste. Note from Ugo Janni. The rending of the veil
and the way made open for every Christian to his Abba Father.
The word priest, as descriptive of the second Order of the Ministry,
the same as presbyter, of which it is a shortened form, . , 228
CHAPTER VI
The worship of the Reformed Anglican Church as shown by the
canons. The dress of the officiating clergy — a cope in cathedrals
and collegiate churches at the celebration of the Holy Communion,
the surplice in all other cases : ordered by law in 1 566 and by
canon in 1604, has been the legal and canonical dress ever since.
The Ornaments rubric. Lord Selborne's judgment. The surplice
similar in form and colour to the earliest Christian clerical dress.
Frequency of communicating in the Anglican Church. Sunday
observance, . ...... 237
PART IV
CHAPTER I
Further developments of the mediaeval faith, i. The Im
maculate Conception of St Mary. 2. The Infallibility of the Pope.
3. The Pope's Universal Bishopric. Doctrine of development.
Further expansion of Mariolatry with the approval and encourage
ment of Leo XIII. The Rosary. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Immaculate Nativity of Joseph. The earthly Trinity. Further
expansion of Papal power and autocracy. The Pope in the Vatican,
like the Host on the Altar, is Jesus Christ under a veil (Bishop
Bougaud of Laval), and the incarnation of the Holy Ghost (Bishop
Jauffret of Bayonne), ...... 247
CHAPTER II
Further developments of mediasval worship — new cultes :
( I ) of St Mary (as above) ; (2) of various parts of our Lord's body —

•^ Contents

the Sacred Heart, the Sacred Feet, the Sacred Face, the Sacred
Hands, the Sacred Heart of the Penitent Jesus — each conducted
by a new order or congregation ; (3) of the Eucharist — the forty
hours' worship of the Sacrament, the perpetual worship of the
Host, nocturnal adoration of the most Holy Sacrament, con
gregation of the Eucharistic Heart. Exposition of the Host.
Benediction by the Host. Marian Congresses. Present-day wor
ship of a devout layman of the Roman Church. Scapulars, . 259
CHAPTER III
Developments in the Reformed Anglican Church since the
Reformation. The Prayer-books of Edward VI. and Elizabeth.
Opposition offered by Rome and Puritanism, and defence against
both. The seventeenth-century divines, firm maintainers of the
primitive faith and the Reformation settlement. Work of the
eighteenth century to prove the reasonableness of religion.
Wesley's Movement. The Evangelical Movement. The Tractarian
Movement. Newman, Pusey, Keble. The Ritualist Movement.
The central doctrine of Ritualism, the objective presence of
Christ in the elements. Its consequences — Reservation, Elevation,
Adoration, Fasting Communion, Non-communicating Attendance,
Children's Eucharist, Sacramental Confession, Vestments, Incense,
Lights, Genuflexions and other ceremonies. Reservation, Incense
and Lights condemned by the Archbishops, all the other practices
by leading doctors of the Church — Elevation by Bishop Cosin ;
Adoration by Bishop Taylor ; enjoined fasting by Bishop Chris
topher Wordsworth and Bishop Doane ; Non -communicating
Attendance by Bishop Moberly, Bishop Doane, Mr Scudamore.
Ritualism a back eddy in the stream of the Church's life, not
destined to be permanent or of long continuance, . . . 265

PART I

Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and Worship
CHAPTER I
THE FAITH OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS
The faith 'of the earliest Christians was that which they
received from the Apostles. We have no formal statement
of what that was, but we can gather it in its integrity from
the Gospels, which profess to be a declaration of those
things which were most surely believed among the earliest
Christians, from the book containing an account of the
Acts and preaching of some of the Apostles, and from the
letters written by them, and specially by St Paul, to their
first converts, specifically explaining some points and
incidentally exhibiting what the rest were. The history
of the sub-Apostolic and early Church betrays the existence
of no doctrine that does not appear in the Gospels, or the
Acts, or the Epistles, and it was the pious and undoubting
belief of the primitive Church that the Providence of God
so appointed it, that every important truth is there handed
down in writing for the guidance of future generations. It
will be enough to quote twoj passages to represent this
A

"«5 Scriptural and Catholic Truth
general sentiment. Irenseus, grandchild in the faith to
St John (for he was a pupil of Polycarp, who was a pupil
of St John) says, ' We have received the disposition of our
salvation by no others but those by whom the Gospels came
to us, which they then preached, and afterwards by God's
will delivered to us in the Scriptures, to be the pillar and
ground of our faith' {Adv. Haer. iii. i). And in the
fifth century St Augustine writes, ' In those things which
are plainly laid down in Scripture all things are found
which embrace faith and morals ' (De Doctr. Christ, iii. 9).
Similar passages are found in TertuUian ('), Origen (^),
Hippolytus (^), Athanasius (*), Cyril of Jerusalem (5), Basil
(^), Ambrose (^), Jerome i^), Vincentius Lirinensis (^),
even in so late a writer as John Damascene (i") and many,
many more.
It is not to be expected that the Apostles should have
arranged their oral teaching in formal order, like a professor
delivering a lecture to a class of pupils. They, of course,
began, not from the beginning in the order of thought, but
with the events in the midst of which they and those whom
they addressed were standing. Their first teaching was
on Christ's Messiahship, His Crucifixion, His Death, His
Resurrection. Convince men of those facts, and everything
else — facts and doctrines — would come in due course, and
they would all arrange themselves in their proper order,
whether for present belief or for the future instruction of
others. Accordingly, this is the very first subject in the
first address, made on the day of Pentecost. ' Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified
2

Faith of the Earliest Christians 5<^
and slain; whom God hath raised up, having loosed the
pains of death because it was not possible that He should
be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning Him, " I
foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is on my
right hand that I should not be moved ; therefore did my
heart rejoice and my tongue was glad ; moreover also my
flesh shall rest in hope ; because Thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see
corruption ; Thou hast made known to me the ways of
life ; Thou shalt make me full of joy with Thy countenance."
Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the
patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his
sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a
prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to
him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, He
would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; He seeing this
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul
was not left in hell, neither Ifis flesh did see corruption.
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses '
(Acts ii. 23-32). In the very next address it is repeated.
'The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of
our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom ye delivered
up and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was
determined to let Him go. But ye denied the Holy One
and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto
you, and killed the Prince of hfe, whom God hath raised
from the dead ; whereof we are witnesses. . . . Unto you
first God having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless
you in turning away every one of you from His iniquities
(Ji. iii. 13-15, 26). And in the nextaddress we find: 'Jesus
3

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified, whom God raised
from the dead ' {lb. iv. lo). And still again in the next
address : ' The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom
ye slew and hanged upon a tree. Him hath God exalted
with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we
are His witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy
Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey Him '
{lb. V. 30, 32). Here two of the results of the death and
exaltation of Christ are also named — forgiveness and the
gift of the Holy Ghost. Again in the interview with
Cornelius : ' Whom they slew and hanged upon a tree, Him
God raised up the third day ' {lb. x. 38). And at Antioch :
'And when they had fulfilled all that was written of
Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in
a sepulchre ; but God raised Him from the dead ' {lb. xiii.
29-30). And at Thessalonica we read, ' And Paul, as his
manner was, went in unto them and three Sabbath days
reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and
alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen
again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach
unto you is Christ ' {n. xvii. 2, 3).
In these passages we find the first articles of the faith
of the first Christians. They are : —
The Messiahship of Jesus.
His Crucifixion.
His Death.
His Burial.
His Resurrection.
These five articles in a very short time took the form
4

Faith of the Earliest Christians ^
of: 'I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead,
and buried, and the third day He rose again from the dead.'
In the first Apostolic sermon, as we have seen, the
words of the Psalmist were quoted : ' Thou wilt not leave
my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy
One to see corruption,' and the prediction was applied
by St Peter to Jesus Christ : ' He (David) seeing this
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that Jlis soul
was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see corruption '
(Acts ii. 27, 31). The meaning of the expression 'hell,'
as used here, is not the place of torment, but merely
'the state of the dead,' and the prophecy, expounded
by St Peter, implies that our Lord entered into that state
on His crucifixion; for He must have entered into it
if it could be said that He ' was not left ' there. The
truth under consideration being thus involved in the
fact of His death, was always believed from the beginning,
but it did not find its expression in the Creed for some
four hundred years. Then it appeared in this form : —
' He descended into hell.'
Closely connected with the Death, Burial, Descent
and Resurrection of Christ were His Ascension and Session
at the right hand of the Father, the last of which signified
His entering on His regal office. And consequent upon
the Ascension and Session was the fulfilment of the
promise of the Presence of the Holy Ghost, holding
on earth the office of Vicar of the ascended Lord (John
xvi. 7 ; Acts i. 4). These two points were therefore
dwelt upon in the Pentecostal address : ' Therefore being
S

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath
shed forth this which ye do now see and hear. For
David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith
himself, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on
ISIy right hand until I make Thy foes Thy footstool."
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have
crucified both Lord and Christ ' (Acts ii. 33-36). Hence
forth, that is, from the very beginning, the Lordship
or royal estate of Christ in Heaven and the Vicarial
Presence of the Holy Spirit on earth are taught as part
of the Faith. It is Jesus who is ' both Lord and Christ.'
It is Jesus who is 'the Prince of Life whom God hath
raised from the dead' {lb. iii. 15). It is Jesus whom
' God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a
Saviour' {lb. v. 31). It is the Holy Ghost who is the
author of the Pentecostal effusion {lb. ii. 33). The Holy
Ghost is given by God to those that obey Him {lb. v. 32).
The Holy Ghost was given by the laying on of the
Apostles' hands {lb. viii. 17; xix. 6). The gift of the
Holy Ghost was poured on the Gentiles {lb. x. 45).
The Holy Ghost ordered the appointment of Barnabas
and Saul {lb. xiii. 2). The Holy Ghost made the clergy
overseers of the flock {lb. xx. 28). These three articles
in a very short time took the form : —
' He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand
of God the Father Almighty. I believe in the Holy Ghost.'
Another article of faith, as taught by the Apostles,
and therefore held by their converts, is found in the
6

Faith of the Earliest Christians ^
next address recorded by St Luke after that on the day
of Pentecost. 'He shall send Jesus Christ which before
was preached unto you : Whom the heaven must receive
until the times of the restitution of all things, which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets
since the world began' (Acts iii. 20, 21). This truth
they had themselves been taught by the two angels who
consoled them at the time of the Ascension {lb. i. 1 1). It
is repeated by St Peter when addressing Cornelius : ' He
commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify
that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge
of quick and dead ' {lb. x. 42) ; and by St Paul preaching
to the Athenians : ' He hath appointed a day in the which
He will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom He hath ordained ; whereof He hath given assurance
unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead '
{lb. xvii. 31).
This truth took shape thus : —
'From thence He shall come to judge the quick and
the dead.'
The Israelites were aware that the Messiah was to be
the Son of God. 'Certain it is,' says Pearson, in his
Exposition of the Creed, ' that all the Jews, as they looked
for a Messiah to come, so they believed that Messiah was
to be the Son of God'; and this is plainly indicated by
such texts as John i. 49 ; xi. 2 7 ; vi. 69 ; Matthew xxvi. 63,
which show the belief of Jews, before they became
Christians, on the point. They knew too that the Messiah
was to come of the lineage of David, and St Peter
in his Pentecostal address reminded his hearers that this
7

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
must be, for David himself, he says, knew 'that God
had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins
according to the flesh he would raise up Christ (the
Messiah) to sit on his throne.' When therefore it was
announced, and they were convinced, that Jesus was the
Messiah, they would at once have concluded that He
was to be descended from David, and, as a matter of
fact, they were well aware that He was the son of Mary
(Matt. xiii. 55), and also that she as well as Joseph was
of the house and lineage of David, for the descendants
of David were as well known among the Jews as the
descendants of Mohammed are among Mohammedans.
Here then was another article of faith held by all the
earliest Christians (who were also Jews), which took
the form : ' Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born
of the Virgin Mary.'
Thus the whole of the doctrine respecting Jesus Christ
and the Holy Ghost, embodied in the Apostles' Creed, was
the faith of the first Christians from the day of Pentecost
onwards. As long as the first preachers of Christianity were
addressing their countrymen the Jews, it was not necessary
for them to instruct their hearers as to God the Father.
There were no Jews that did not believe from the bottom
of their hearts in God, whom they regarded as their Father
(Is. Ixiii. 16), able to do all things (Is. xiv. 27; Dan. iv.
35 i Job xlii. i), the creator of the world and preserver of
all things (Gen. i. i ; Is. xlv. 12). To the Jews all that
the Apostles had to teach was the higher sense of God's
paternity by which He was the Father of Christ, and this

Faith of the Earliest Christians ^
was sufficiently done in their preaching the Messiahship of
Jesus. But as soon as the Gospel had to be offered to the
Gentiles more instruction was required as to God the
Father. Accordingly, Paul and Barnabas preaching to the
Lycaonians at Lystra bid them 'turn from their vanities
to the living God, which made heaven and earth and the
sea and all things that are therein' (Acts xiv. 15). With
even greater plainness St Paul taught the Athenians : ' God
that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He
is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made
with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands as
though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life
and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood
all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and hath determined the times before appointed and the
bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek the Lord,
if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though
He be not far from every one of us : for in Him we live
and move and have our being ; as certain also of your own
poets have said, For we are also His offspring ' {lb. xvii. 24-
28). Thus we see taught from the beginning faith in ' God
the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.'
The effect of preaching Christ crucified and ascended
was to create a yearning desire on the part of the hearers
for forgiveness of their sins. They were pricked to the
heart and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
(Acts ii. 37). The teaching of the Apostles was that
Christ was exalted to be a Prince and Saviour to give for
giveness of sins {lb. v. 32). How were they to attain to
this blessing ? St Peter answered, ' Repent and be baptized,
9

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the re
mission of sins' {lb. ii. 38). Repentance would qualify
them for baptism, and baptism (not, let it be noted,
absolution) was the means specially appointed by which
remission of sins might be received. Christ had promised
that His Apostles should have the power of (ministerially)
forgiving sins (John xx. 23), and this was the way in which
that promise was fulfilled ; they were authorised to baptize
those whom they judged to be penitent, and by baptizing
them they admitted them into the company or family of
those that were forgiven for Christ's sake. This family or
company of the forgiven was the Church, and accordingly
all those who on the day of Pentecost obeyed St Peter's
exhortation to ' save themselves from this untoward genera
tion ' (Acts ii. 40) were added by the Lord to the Church.
' The Lord added unto the Church daily such as were being
saved ' {lb. ii. 47).
Here we find two more articles of the first Christian
faith. 'The forgiveness of sins,' which was expanded by
the Nicene Council into ' One baptism for the remission of
sins,' without any change of meaning ; and ' The Church,'
which was ' holy ' because it consisted of those who, being
penitent, had received remission of their sins on being
admitted into it, and because it was constituted by the
Holy Ghost, who was the informing spirit which united all
its members into one body and who dwelt in the hearts of
each of them singly. The characteristic of the Church as
' Catholic ' was probably not realised by the Apostles them
selves until the admission of Cornelius and his associates.
Then St Peter, astonished at what took place, learnt that

Faith of the Earliest Christians 5fr
' God was no respecter of persons, but in every nation ' (not
only the Jewish nation) ' he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness is accepted with Him ' (Acts x. 34), and he
commanded the Gentiles present 'to be baptized in the
name of the Lord,' that is, be admitted into the Church
{lb. X. 48). And on his report of what had occurred, the
disciples at Jerusalem acknowledged that ' God hath also
to the Gentiles granted repentances unto life.' But still,
so strange did it appear that the Church should be a world
wide, catholic institution instead of being confined to the
nation of the Jews, that it was necessary for the synod of
Jerusalem to be held, to finally determine the question of
the admission of the Gentiles. From that time forward it
was known and taught that the Church was not only holy
but also cathoUc — 'The Holy Catholic Church.'
The general Resurrection of the dead was taught by
teaching the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that, we have
seen, was the first truth imparted. It was for this reason
that the Sadducees became the first persecutors of the
Apostles, because ' the Sadducees say there is no resurrec
tion nor spirit' (Acts xxiii. 8), and they 'were grieved
that they ' (the Apostles) ' taught the people and preached
through Jesus the resurrection from the dead ' {lb. iv. 2).
They would have been indifferent to the spread of
Christianity had it not involved the preaching of the
Resurrection, which they held to be impossible, and which
the philosophic Athenians afterwards mocked at {lb. xvii.
32). At a later date St Paul dogmatically stated many
particulars respecting the doctrine of the Resurrection of
the dead, declaring its connection with Christ's Resurrection
II

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and showing that it meant not only a future life of the
soul but a rising again of the spiritualised body (i Cor. xv.).
These particulars had to be given, to meet some active
opposition at Corinth. But the doctrine itself was taught
from the beginning — ' The Resurrection of the body.'
The truth that after the Resurrection the blessed should
enjoy Everlasting Life, being a necessary consequence of
the Resurrection and of God's promises to the righteous,
did not take its place in the earliest Creeds, except in that
of Irenseus, nor do we read of its being inculcated as a
truth separate from the Resurrection in the Acts of the
Apostles. In this respect it was like that other clause in
the Creed, ' The Communion of Saints,' which is implicitly
contained in the previous clause, ' The Holy Catholic
Church,' for if the Holy Ghost dwells in the Church,
its members must have communion or fellowship, through
Him, both with God and with one another. So 'The
Life Everlasting ' is contained in the previous clause —
' The Resurrection of the body.'
The above are the truths which, we learn from the
Acts of the Apostles, were taught to the first Christians
and so became their faith. But the first preachers were
not contented with merely announcing the great Christian
truths. Before admitting anyone into the sacred company
by baptism, they tested him to see if he was acquainted
with them and had embraced them not only singly but
in their relation one to another. For this purpose a
formula was evidently desirable and was sure to arise,
and the Apostles' Creed, teaching in short compass what
the Apostles taught, was thus employed, whence it has
12

Faith of the Earliest Christians 5^
obtained the name of the Baptismal Creed. Of course
it took a little time to arrive exactly at its present shape,
but essentially it was the same as it is now from the
beginning. In its earliest recorded form as given by
Irenseus, a.d iSo, it ran as follows : —
'The Church, though spread throughout the whole
world to the end of the earth, received from the Apostles
and their disciples its belief in — •
' One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
and sea and all that in them is ; And in one Christ Jesus,
the Son of God, who was incarnate for our salvation ; And
in the Holy Ghost, who by the prophets preached His dis
pensations and advents ; And His birth of a Virgin ; And
His passion ; And His rising from the dead ; And the
bodily Ascension into heaven of our beloved Christ
Jesus, our Lord; And His future coming from heaven
in the glory of the Father, to gather all things in one ;
And to raise from the dead all flesh of all mankind, in
order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and
Saviour and King, according to the pleasure of the un
seen Father, every knee may bow of things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth and that
every tongue may confess Him; And that He may pass
just judgment on all, sending into eternal fire spiritual
wickednesses, and the angels that have transgressed and
become apostate, and men that are impious and unjust
and lawless and blasphemous, and giving life to the just
and pious and to those who have observed His com
mandments and remain in His love, some from the be
ginning of their lives and some after repentance, and
13

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
may grant unto them immortality and invest them with
eternal glory' {Contr. HcBr. i. x. i).
The same ancient writer makes another quotation of the
Baptismal Creed which shows that the wording of the
formula was not always the same though the articles of
belief were in no way different.
'We believe in one God, Maker of heaven and earth
and all things that are therein; Through Jesus Christ,
His Son ; Who for His exceeding love towards the work
of His hands, endured birth from a virgin, by Himself
uniting man to God ; And He suffered under Pontius
Pilate ; And He rose again ; And He was received into
brightness ; And He will come again in glory, the Saviour
of those that are saved and the Judge of those that are
judged, and sending into eternal fire corrupters of the
truth and despisers of His Father and of His Coming'
{lb. iii. iv. i).
Hence it appears that as early as the second century,
though the wording of the formula was not everywhere
the same, every article of the Baptismal Creed, as we
have it now, was not only believed but was regarded as a
sufficient declaration of the Christian Faith ; and that it
was held by all Christians because originally taught by
the Apostles and their disciples (^i) — I say every article, for
the two clauses that do not appear in St Irenseus's Creed,
' He descended into hell,' and ' the Communion of Saints '
were taught by implication, as is said above, though not
explicitly, in 'He was dead,' and in 'I beUeve the Holy
Catholic Church.'

14

Faith of the Earliest Christians 5«»

NOTES
0) ' I adore the perfection of Scripture. . . . If it is not written' (in
Scripture) ' let them fear the woe which is destined for them who add
to or take away.' — Tertull. , Adv. Hermog. t. 22.
(^) ' The two Testaments ... in which every word that appertains to
God may be sought out and discussed, and from them all knowledge of
things may be understood. If anything remain, which Holy Scripture
does not determine, no third Scripture ought to be had recourse to . . .
but that which remains we must commit to the fire, i.e., reserve it to
God ; for God would not have us know all things in the world.' —
Origen, Horn. v. in Levit.
(') ' There is one God whom we do not otherwise acknowledge but
out of the Holy Scriptures. . . . Whosoever will exercise piety towards
God can learn it nowhere but from the Holy Scriptures.' — Ilippol.,
Contr. ffcsr. Noeti. t. 9.
C) ' The holy and divinely inspired Scriptures are of themselves
sufficient to the enunciation of truth.' — Athan., Contra Gentes, i. Again,
' In these alone the doctrine of salvation is contained. Let no man add
to or take from them.' — Fest. Epist. 39.
C) ' Concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, even the
most casual remark ought not to be delivered without the Holy
Scriptures.' — Cyril, Catech. iv. 12.
C) ' It is a manifest defection from the faith, and a proof of arrogance,
either to reject anything of what is written or to introduce anything
that is not.' — Basil, De Fide, i.
{') ' How can we use those things which we find not in the Scriptures ? '
— Ambrose, Offic. i. 23.
(8) ' We deny not those things which are written, and we refuse those
which are not written. That God was born of a Virgin we believe
because we read ; that Mary married after she gave birth to Him we
believe not because we read not.' — Jerome, Adv. Helvid. juxta finem.
{") ' The canon of Scripture is perfect and most abundantly sufficient
for all things.' — Vincent., Lirin., Commonit. c. 2.
(W) 'All things that are delivered to us by the Law, the Prophets, the
Apostles, and the Evangelists, we receive, acknowledge and reverence,
seeking for nothing beyond these. '—Joan. Damsc, De Orthod. Fide, c. i .
(") ' This collect or symbol of propositions is that which we call the
IS

*^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Apostles' Creed, which I shall endeavour to prove to have been always
in the primitive Church esteemed a full and perfect digest of all the
necessary and fundamental articles of Christian religion; and that
beyond this the Christian faith or the foundation was not to be ex
tended ; but this, as it was in the whole complexion necessary, so it was
sufficient for all men unto salvation.' — ^Jeremy Taylor, Dissuasive from
Popery, II. i. 4. The whole of the first section of the Liberty of Pro
phesying is also devoted by Taylor to the proof of this point. ' The
Church hath power to intend our faith, but not to extend \i ; to make
our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive. ... If we
have found out what foundation Christ and His Apostles did lay, that
is, what body and system of articles, simply necessary, they taught and
required of us to believe, we need not, we cannot, go any further for
foundation, we cannot enlarge that system or collection.'

16

CHAPTER II
THE RELIGION OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS
The faith of a Church or any other society is a body of
Truths, external to the minds of the members of the
Church or society, which they are invited and required to
accept. Their religion, when distinguished from their
faith, is something personal, subjective, emotional. It
is not belief only, though belief produces it; it is not an
act only, though acts spring from it so necessarily that their
absence proves its absence. It is essentially a feeling,
having for its object, first, God as revealed by the
specific statements of the faith, and then man for God's
sake. The first religious feeling demanded by the Apostles on
the day of Pentecost was repentance. ' When they heard
this,' that is, the Messiahship, the crucifixion, death, burial
and resurrection of Christ, 'they were pricked in their
heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles,
Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said
unto them, Repent' (Acts ii. 37). The repentance
primarily required of them was no doubt repentance for
their share in their country's sin in having put Christ to
death. But true repentance on one point makes a man a
penitent on all, for it consists in a horror of having offended
B 17

¦^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
God, recognised as the supreme object of love, and when
once that horror is truly felt, it fiashes a Hght through a
darkened soul and compels the sinner to see all the offences
of which he may have been guilty towards God, and does
not allow him to pause until he has humbly asked forgive
ness for all of them. No doubt a man may be sorry for
wrong-doing from a variety of motives other than the love
of God, but that sorrow does not amount to repentance.
After true repentance he is a new creature. ' Repent and
be converted' (Acts iii. 19).
The attitude of mind necessary for apprehending and
embracing spiritual truths of any kind is belief or faith.
This precedes even repentance, for repentance would not
arise except from behef in the truths which produce it.
Belief or faith is the eye that sees, the hand that grasps
the truths; and the character of the religious emotions
felt by the heart depends upon the nature of the truths
thus seen and grasped. When the fact of God being our
creator, Christ our redeemer, the Holy Ghost our sanctifier,
has been realised by faith, at once religious regards towards
the three Persons of the Holy Trinity necessarily arise, not
from our faith but from the facts which our faith has made
us realise ; and we cannot help feeling awe, gratitude and
love towards them; and that awe, gratitude and love
will result in obedience to the Divine commands and
resignation to God's Will. When by faith we have appre
hended the relation in which we stand to others, as
children of the same Father, redeemed by the same Saviour,
inspired by the same Spirit, from that relation, so appre
hended, arises the feehng of love of one to another; and
18

Religion of the Earliest Christians ^
that love, superseding the necessity of all positive com
mandments, will cause us to do our duty towards our
neighbour and show brotherly kindness in our dealings
with him.
To know then what was the rehgion of the earliest
Christians we have to ask ourselves what are the religious
affections naturally resulting from their being awakened to
the truths of their faith. What feeling does the conscious
ness of God being our Father and Creator arouse ? Awe
and piety. Of Christ being Incarnate and dying for us?
Gratitude and love. Of His rising again and Ascension ?
Spiritual joy and triumph. Of the future judgment ? Fear
and trust. Of the coming of the Holy Ghost ? Humility
and love. Of our belonging to the Holy Catholic Church ?
Brotherly kindness. Of our being vouchsafed forgiveness
of our sins ? Thankfulness. Of our being granted a resur
rection and eternal life ? Hope. When we regard religion,
as we do now, not as identical with or including the faith,
but as the emotional state of the soul which follows from
the particular truths of which the faith consists, we cannot
define it with exactness ; we can only say that it is the sum
of the pious feelings necessarily and rightly arising from the
various articles of faith that have been embraced. What
ever pious feelings would arise from realising the truths of
the Gospel as summed up in the Baptismal Creed, that was
the religion of the earliest Christians.

19

CHAPTER III
THE INSTITUTIONS AND RITES OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS
I. On the day of Pentecost the Church was instituted.
From the time of the Ascension to the day of Pentecost the
disciples had not formed a united body. They had been
a company of individual believers who had lost their Head
and were waiting for the fulfilment of a promise, the nature
of which was more or less concealed from them. On the
day of Pentecost they became combined once more into
one body, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost forming the
bond of cohesion — a bond far stronger than anything
external could have been. And to this body the three
thousand souls that were then converted were united, and
all those who by faith and repentance ' saved themselves '
from the perishing world were afterwards added to it (Acts
ii. 40, 47). It was not enough to believe the spiritual truths
that the Apostles taught. The new converts ' continued in
the Apostles' doctrine,' that is, they believed all that was
taught them and did not innovate on that teaching, but that
was not all ; they had to continue ' in the Apostles' fellow
ship ' {lb. ii. 42), that is, they were to remain in the same
society as the Apostles, and this society was the Church.
A little later they were taught that this Church was invisibly
ruled, through visible ministers, by the Holy Ghost {lb. xx.
28), and was a sacred thing purchased by the blood of the
Son of God {lb). 20

Institutions of the Earliest Christians 5^
2. The door into the Church was Baptism. The three
thousand had to be baptized in order to enter the Church of
the saved {lb. ii. 47). The Samaritan converts were baptized
{3. viii. 12). The eunuch was baptized {n. 38). Even
Saul, though miraculously converted, was baptized {lb. x.
47). The Philippine jailer was baptized (75. xix. 3). What
other way could there be, when this was the way into the
Church that had been appointed by Christ (Matt, xxviii.
19)? On the first occasion of Christian baptism St Peter
said, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the
name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins.' Every
convert who was baptized had his sins thereby forgiven him,
because it was by baptism, as the final step, that he entered
the company of the forgiven. On the day of His resurrec
tion our Lord had promised His Apostles — ' Whosesoever
sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever
sins ye retain they are retained ' (John xx. 23). This
promise was accompHshed by their admitting some into
covenant and refusing others. Those whom they baptized
were thereby made members of a body whose sins, through
the adoption in Christ, were remitted ; those who were not
baptized were left outside in the kingdom of the prince of
this world and remained still in their sins. There is a very
probable allusion to the promise of John xx. 23, 'Whose
soever sins ye remit they are remitted,' in St Peter's words —
' Be baptized . . . for the remission of sins ^ and 'Save your
selves from this untoward generation ' whose sins, through
their not being admitted into the Church, were retained
(Acts ii. 38, 40).
3. Another institution, ordained by Christlike baptism

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
was the Lord's Supper. The ' breaking of bread ' spoken
of in the Acts is a general term which sometimes does and
sometimes does not refer to the Lord's Supper. In the
account of St Paul's shipwreck (Acts xxvii. 25) it certainly
means merely taking food. In the description of the daily
life of the first disciples ' breaking bread at home ' is further
explained as 'eating their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart,' and refers only to their meals {lb. ii. 49). But
when the same disciples are said to have ' continued stead
fastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking
of bread,' it is more probable that the Lord's Supper is
meant, and this almost certainly seems to have been the
case when the disciples at Troas ' came together to break
bread on the first day of the week ' {lb. xx. 7). The reason
why the expression covers the administration of the Holy
Communion is that the latter took place during the first
century at a meal. Determined to carry out as fully as
possible the Lord's injunction to do what was done at the
Last Supper, the Apostles and disciples met each Sunday
evening and re-enacted, so far as was possible, the whole of
the Last Supper. Of course there was no lamb eaten because
the type represented by the lamb was fulfilled, and as the
use of unleavened bread was only the accidental effect of the
Last Supper having fallen on the days of Unleavened Bread
it was not continued. But all the faithful of the neighbour
hood assembled, the richer members of the community
supplied provisions, and the Master's Last Supper was, with
the necessary changes, re-enacted. Towards the end of
the meal, at the same time in it that the Lord had instituted
His Memorial, bread and wine were placed before the
22

Institutions of the Earliest Christians 5^
presiding presbyter and solemnly blessed by him as the
symbols of the Body and Blood of their departed Lord, and
partaken by all in solemn silence as a memorial of Him.
Then the meal continued, and at the end of it, thanks
giving for the whole was offered and psalms or hymns
were sung. This was the form of the Administration of the
Holy Communion down to apparently the year no,
when, owing to the prohibition, by Trajan's orders, of
evening meetings, the celebration of the Holy Com
munion was transferred to the forenoon and the meal to
mid-day. 4. The earliest Christians met also not only for the
Lord's Supper, but for common prayers and hymns and
exhortations (Acts. ii. 42). At first no doubt the prayers
were extempore, but it is of the nature of extemporaneous
addresses, frequently repeated, to become after a time
forms; we know from Justin Martyr and the 'Teaching
of the Apostles,' that when the minister was competent,
even the consecration prayer in the Holy Communion was
still extempore down to the middle of the second century.
We have an example of the Apostolic Church's prayers in
Acts iv. 24-30. On that occasion the prayer consisted
chiefly of thanksgiving for the deliverance of Peter and
John; at other times it might have been penitential or
merely supplicatory. We can only judge of what it is
likely the common prayers would have been by our know
ledge of the faith which all shared and of the special circum
stances in which the Apostolic Church from time to time
found itself (')
5. Connected with the institution of Common Prayer
23

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
was the sanctification of the first day of the week. Being
Jews as well as Christians, down to the admission of the
Gentiles the early Christians all observed the Sabbath on
the last day of the week (Acts xiii. 14; xvi. 13; xvii, 2;
xviii. 4, 21). But the essential principle of the original
Sabbath was passing over from the seventh day on which
God rested from His work of creation, and Christ from His
work of redemption to the first day, on which Christ rose
from the dead, thus hallowing . that day above all others.
Accordingly, w.e .fjud the disciples at Troas assembling as a
matter of course on "the first day of the week (Acts xx. 7).
6. A special institution following upon baptism and pre-
ceding Holy Communion was '.Confirmation or laying on
of hands. When the Samaritans had been converted to
Christianity by Philip the Deacon, ' they were baptized ' by
him, ' both men and women.' Philip could do no more,
and therefore ' when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they
sent unto'them Peter and John. . . . Then laid they their
hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost ' (Acts
viii, 12, 14, 17). Again, after the Ephesian converts, who
had received only John's baptism, had been baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus, ' when Paul had laid his hands
upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them and they
spake with tongues and prophesied, and all the men were
about twelve ' {lb. xix. 5-7).
7. A rite not common to all, like Baptism, Confirmation,
and the Lord's Supper, but peculiar to one order of men,
was Ordination by which the ministers of the Church were
set apart for the service of God. The Twelve Apostles had
24

Institutions of the Earliest Christians ^
been ordained by Christ Himself, and Matthias had been
solemnly appointed to take the place of Judas (Acts ii. 22-
26) during the time of waiting between the Ascension and
Whitsuntide. After the descent of the Holy Ghost the
form of Ordination, like Confirmation, was that of laying
on of hands. The seven deacons, having been selected
by the general body of the disciples, were brought to the
Apostles and ordained by prayer and laying on of hands
{lb. vi. 6). The presbyters likewise were ordained by
Apostles {Jb. xiv. 23) and by the same form of laying on
of hands, as we learn from i Tim. v. 22 ; 2 Tim. i. 6.
Even St Paul had to be so ordained before his first
missionary journey — ' The Holy Ghost said, " Separate me
Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called
them," and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their
hands upon them, they sent them away ' {lb. xiii. 2).
The institutions and rites of the earliest Church then
were: i. The Church herself to which they belonged. 2.
Baptism by which they were admitted into the Church.
3. The Lord's Supper. 4. Common Prayer. 5. The
Lord's Day. 6. Confirmation. 7. Holy Orders.

NOTE
(^) It is hardly necessary to say that to attribute the Liturgies to
the time of the Apostles owing to their bearing the names of St James
and St Mark and St Peter and St John is merely an error. They are
so called because founded on the Liturgies used in the Churches of
Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and Asia Minor, whose histories are
more or less connected with those Apostles, and they did not take their
present shapes till the seventh century, down to which time they were
frequently altered and interpolated. 25

CHAPTER IV
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH
In the earliest times the government of the Church was
vested entirely in the Apostles, each of whom, it would
seem, had equal authority with every other over the whole
Christian body. But as the Church grew and 'the
number of disciples was multiplied ' the Apostles found
themselves incapable of bearing the burden of the whole
superintendence required. First, therefore, they devolved
upon seven assistants — known as the seven deacons — the
more secular part of their office (Acts vi. i-6). And when
their service was still found insufficient, they ordained
elders or presbyters or priests (the word priest being only a
shortened form of the word presbyter) to supervise con
gregations of converts to whose wants they could not them
selves continuously attend. We have no account of their
institution, beyond the fact that they were ordained by
Apostolic authority, but at the Council of Jerusalem we
find them as a recognised order of the ministry, and they
are established in all the churches founded by St Paul.
From their office of supervising congregations they were at
first called bishops, which means supervisors, as well as
presbyters, which means elderly persons.
36

Government of the Church ^
As the Apostles died, it was necessary to supply their
place with an order of men to whom should be com
mitted the care of the various congregations and their
ministers, which the Apostles had hitherto exercised. We
have specimens of these officers in Timothy and Titus, who
were superior to the ordinary presbyters in charge of only
single congregations, and inferior to the Apostles, not only
because the office of the Apostle, who was a witness for the
Lord, was necessarily unique, but also because the sphere of
their authority, although, like that of the Apostles, in theory
conterminous with the whole Church, was practically in
normal times limited to a certain sphere. An exemplar of
this office is found, even in the hfe of the Apostles, in St
James, who was put in special authority in the city of
Jerusalem, as is shown by the significant use of his name in
Acts xii, 17 (' Go show these things unto James and the
brethren ') ; Gal. ii. 12 (' Certain came from James,' meaning
the Church of Jerusalem) ; Acts xxi. 8 ( ' Paul went in with
us unto James and all the Elders were present ') ; and still
more plainly by the position which he took at the Apostolic
Council of Jerusalem ('James answered saying. . . . My
sentence is '). The order of men foreshadowed by James,
and first presented to us in Timothy and Titus, received
the name of bishop or supervisor as being more suitable to
them than to the presbyters who had hitherto borne it
owing to their supervision of individual congregations.
In the earliest times, therefore, we find the government of
the Church vested in (i) Apostles, (2) Presbyters, (3)
Deacons, and as the Apostles died in (i) Bishops, (2)
Presbyters, (3) Deacons. There were no other permanent
27

¦^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
officers except these, though there were evangehsts or
preachers to unbelievers, whose office was sometimes com
bined with that of the deacons (Acts xxi. 8) and in a little
while was swallowed up in that of the presbyters. And
there were prophets, that is, men and women who had the
gift of preaching and expounding, who became an important
body in the sub-Apostolic age, but, like the evangelists,
became absorbed in the presbyters. And there were persons
to whom were vouchsafed the gifts of speaking with tongues
{3. ii. 4 ; x. 46 ; xxi. 9) and the interpretation of tongues,
but they did not form an order.

28

CHAPTER V
THE WITNESS OF THE EPISTLES
The purpose of this chapter is to show that the Epistles
testify to the same faith, religion, institutions and Church
government as we have found from the Acts to have been
the faith, religion, institutions and Church government of
the earhest Christians.
I. No addition is made in the Epistles to the number of
the articles of the faith concisely taught in the Baptismal
Creed. But we naturally find an expansion of them. The
first-taught articles of the Christian Creed, which we saw
were the Messiahship, the crucifixion, death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ, are enforced in the Epistles — of course
I give but few specimens out of many. The Messiahship
including the Sonship, Lordship, Incarnation. ' Concerning
His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead ' (Rom. i. 3, 4) : ' Christ
who is the image of God ' (2 Cor. iv. 4) : ' The image of
the invisible God ' (Col. i. 15): 'His dear Son' {lb. 13):
' With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours ' (i Cor. i. 2) : ' When
the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
29

"^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons ' (Gal. iv. 4). His crucifixion, death and burial —
' We preach Christ crucified. . . . Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God ' (i Cor. i. 23) : ' This He did once,
when He offered up Himself (Heb. vii. 27): 'For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh
but quickened by the Spirit' (i Pet. iii. 18). His resurrec
tion — ' Now is Christ risen from the dead' (i Cor. xv. 20) :
' Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead '
(2 Tim. ii. 8). Expansions of the above articles — Christ the
foundation ; ' For other foundation can no man lay than that
is laid, which is Jesus Christ ' (i Cor. iii. 11): Christ the head
' That He might gather together all things in Christ ' : ' And
gave Him to be head over all things to the Church'
(Eph. i. 10, 22) : 'The Head even Christ' (75. iv. 15) : 'He
is the Head of the body the Church ' (Col. i. 18). His
Majesty — ' He is before all things and by Him all things
consist. . . . For it pleased the Father that in Him should all
fulness dwell' (Col. i. 17-19). His humility — 'Though He
was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor ' (2 Cor. viii. 9) :
' Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to
be ' (or did not eagerly grasp at being) ' equal with God, but
made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form
of a servant and was made in the likeness of men, and being
found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' (Phil.
ii. 6-8). Christ the Reconciler—' God hath reconciled us
to Himself by Jesus Christ '(2 Cor. v. 19): 'But now in
Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh
30

Witness of the Epistles 5©»
by the blood of Christ ; for He is our peace. . . . Now
therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-
citizens with the saints and the household of God ' (Eph.
ii. 13, 19). Christ the Mediator — 'There is one Mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ' (r Tim. ii. 5).
Christ the Advocate — 'We have an Advocate . . . Jesus
Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins '
(i John ii. i). Christ the Redeemer — ' In whom we have
redemption by His blood ' (Eph. i. 7).
The Epistles in like manner show that the Ascension of
our Lord, His Session at the right hand and the consequent
coming of the Holy Ghost were parts of the earliest Faith.
' He that descended is the same also that ascended up far
above all heavens ' (Eph. iv. 10) : ' Received up into glory '
(i Tim. iii. 16) : 'A great High Priest that has passed into
the heavens' (Heb. iv. 14): 'Made higher than the heavens'
{lb. vii. 26) : ' Sat on the right hand of the throne of the
Majesty in the heavens ' {3. viii. i) : 'He set Him at His
own right hand in the heavenly places ' (Eph. i. 20) : 'Where
Christ sitteth at the right hand of God ' (Col. iii. i) : 'When
He ascended up on high. . . . He gave gifts ' (of the Holy
Spirit) ' unto men ' (Eph. iv. 8) : ' There are diversities' of
gifts, but the same spirit. . . . All these worketh that one and
the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He
will' (i Cor. xii. 4, 11) : 'God who hath also given us His
Holy Spirit ' (i Thess. iv. 8).
The faith on the Second Coming of Christ is confirmed
by Phil. iii. zo — ' Heaven, from whence also we look for
our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ,' and is expanded by
I Thess. iv. 16 — ' For the Lord Himself shall descend from
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and
with the trump of God ' ; and 2 Thess. i. 7—' The Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty
angels.' So on the belief in God the Father Almighty, Maker
of all things — ' To us there is but one God the Father, of
whom are all things and we in Him ' (i Cor. viii. 6) : ' One
God and Father of all, who is above all and through all
and in you all ' (Eph. iv. 6).
The two next points — the forgiveness of sins and the
Holy Catholic Church — are thus recognised : ' In Christ we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of His grace ' (Eph. i. 7 ) : ' Justified
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus ' (Rom. iii. 24) : ' Christ loved the Church and gave
Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with
the washing of water by the Word, that He might present
it to Himself a glorious Church ' (Eph. v. 25) : 'Ye are the
body of Christ' (i Cor. xii. 27) : ' The household of God'
(Eph. ii. 19) : ' That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs
and of the same body ' (Eph. iii. 6) : ' He is our peace,
who hath made both '(Jew and Gentile) ' one, and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition ... for through
Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father '
(Eph. ii. 14, 18).
On the Resurrection of the body and the life Everlasting
we find in the Epistles : ' As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. . . . For the trumpet shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible' (i Cor.
XV. 22, 52): 'He that raised up Jesus from the dead shall
32

Witness of the Epistles 5o»
also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth
in us' (Rom. viii. ii) : 'The dead in Christ shall rise first,
then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up to
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,
and so shall ever be with the Lord ' (i Thess. iv. i6) : ' He
shall change our vile bodies that they may be fashioned
like unto His glorious body ' (Phil. iii. 21):' An inheritance,
incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for you' (i Pet. i. 4).
The Epistles then bear witness to the faith being still the
same as that taught by the first preachers to their converts,
and while they expand, they add no new article to the
articles already inculcated and believed. If there are any
that appear new, they will be found to be covered by the
clauses of the Baptismal Creed ; e.g., the dogmas of election
and predestination (Rom. viii. 30 ; Eph. i. 4) necessarily
follow (in their Scriptural meaning) from the sovereignty of
God, and an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God is
included in the confession that He is Almighty ; the dogma
of Salvation by grace, otherwise expressed as Justification
by faith (Eph. ii. 8 ; Rom. iii. 24 ; Gal. ii. 16) is a con
sequence from the death of Christ combined with the
forgiveness of sins ; the dogma of regeneration (Tit. iii. 5)
follows on belief in the Holy Ghost and His operations.
2. The religious emotions demanded of the first converts
were, as we have seen, repentance and faith. And so in
the Epistles. In Heb. vi. i we find 'repentance from
dead works and faith towards God ' declared to be ' founda
tions,' the basis of personal piety. In 2 Cor. vii. 10 the
Apostle distinguishes between 'godly sorrow,' which
C 33

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
' worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of,'
and ' the sorrow of the world,' which ' worketh death,' and
he rejoices in his converts being filled with ' godly sorrow.'
He tells the Romans that they must not ' be conformed to
this world but transformed by the renewing of their mind '
(Rom. xii. 2) ; which consists in ' putting off concerning the
former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts,' being ' renewed in the spirit of their
mind,' and ' putting on the new man which after God is
created in righteousness and true holiness ' (Eph. iv. 22).
Again he describes the temper of mind of the Christian as
one that ' looks not at the things which are seen but at the
things which are not seen' (2 Cor. iv. 18); 'For we walk
by faith ' {3. v. 7) ; and a whole chapter in the Epistle to
the Hebrews is devoted to exhibiting the effects of faith
(Heb. xi.). It may be thought that the two Christian graces
of Hope and Love are added ; for we read in the Epistles :
' We are saved by Hope ' (Rom. viii. 24), and ' Now abideth
faith, hope, charity, these three, and the greatest of these is
charity ' (i Cor. xiii. r3). But while in mental analysis we
may properly distinguish hope and love and faith, yet the
faith that was required of the first converts was a faith which
included both hope and love. In the Acts of the Apostles
St Paul professes that he entertained ' the hope of the re
surrection of the dead ' as part of the faith for which he
was called in question (xxiii. 5); and that he had 'hope
toward God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead
both of the just and the unjust' (xxiv. 15). He therefore
taught hope from the beginning, but he taught it as a part
of faith. So as to love. There is a faith which is simply
34

Witness of the Epistles 5^
intellectual apprehension, such as devils can have and
tremble, but such is not the faith of the Christian. That
is a faith which includes love and brings forth fruits. While
therefore the Epistles may seem to add to the original
repentance and faith newness of life, hope, love and
obedience, there is no real change, because newness of
life is implied by true repentance, and hope, love and
obedience by faith.
3. The institutions and rites of the earhest Christians
were, we have seen — (i) the Church, (2) Baptism, (3) the
Lord's Supper, (4) Common Prayer, (5) the Lord's Day,
(6) Confirmation, (7) Ordination.
(i) The Church is found all through the Epistles as an
institution as well as an article of faith, of which a sufficient
proof is that St Paul's Epistles were addressed to one and
another of the particular Churches which together formed
the Church Cathohc.
(2) That the Christian Sacraments are two — Baptism
and the Lord's Supper (and only two) — is indicated in
I Cor. X. by a parallel drawn between them and the Jewish
baptism unto Moses and the Jewish spiritual meat and
drink in the wilderness. In the Epistle to the Hebrews
' the doctrine of baptisms ' is declared to be ' fundamental '
(vi. i). All that are baptized into Christ are said in the
Epistle to the Galatians to 'put on Christ' (iii. 27).
Baptism is even said to 'save us' (i Pet. iii. 21), that is,
to be the means by which we are placed in a state of salva
tion among the forgiven, saved from the world lying in
wickedness, according to the promise of John xx. 23.
(3) Of the Lord's Supper we learn somewhat both from
35

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
St Paul's statement that it is ' the communion,' that is, the
means of partaking 'of the body and blood of Christ'
(i Cor. X. 1 6), and from his reproof of the Corinthians for
the way in which the institution had been abused by them
(i Cor. xi. 17). From the latter passage we learn that the
sacred elements were still distributed during the evening
meal of the faithful in which they re-enacted, so far as was
possible, the Last Supper of the Lord. It was this meal to
which Jude refers under the name of the feast of charity or
Agape (verse 1 2). The Lord's Supper, thus celebrated, was
regarded as so essential a part of the Christian rites that it
is clear that St Paul instituted it in all the Churches which
he formed, and even when it was abused, as it was at
Corinth, he forbade the abuses, but made no serious change
in the manner of the celebration nor in the hour at which
it was celebrated.
(4) The practice of meeting for common prayer and
exhortation is brought before us by the Apostle's reproofs
in I Cor. x. : 'If the whole Church be come together into
one place ' (showing that that was their practice) ' and all
speak with tongues, and there come in those that are un
learned or unbelievers, will they not say that you are mad ? '
(x. 33) ; ' When ye come together ' (plainly their usual
practice), ' every one of you hath a psalm, hath a tongue,
hath a revelation, hath an interpretation' {3. 26). And
again the instruction, ' Let your women keep silence in the
churches' {lb. 34), testifies to the custom of meeting.
Liturgical forms are evidently still wanting.
(5) The observance of the Lord's day is shown in the
same Epistle — ' Upon the first day of the week let every
36

Witness of the Epistles 5^
one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered
him' (i Cor. xv. 2).
(6) Confirmation or laying on of hands is joined with
Baptism as a fundamental in Heb. vi. i.
(7) The conditions of Ordination are laid down in
detail in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus : those selected
for priests and deacons are to be married men ( i Tim. iii.
S, 12) of high character {lb. 2, 8).
One other institution or rite is found — that of Excom
munication (i Cor. V. ; 2 Cor. ii.). But even this is not
new, for it is a power involved in the idea of the Church.
Any self-governed community must have the right of
excluding from its body an unworthy member and of re
admitting him when he has proved himself deserving of
restoration, and this authority had been specifically given
to the Church by our Lord in John xx. 23.
Marriage was not an institution peculiar to Christianity,
as it had existed from the beginning of the world, but a
specially religious character was attached to it, and that of
a Christian kind, through the analogy drawn between the
husband and wife and Christ and the Church (Eph. v. 24).
4. The Epistles witness to the continuance of the
government of the Church by Apostles, Presbyters (other
wise called Bishops) and Deacons. St Paul claims every
where his Apostolic authority (i Cor. iv. 21 ; Gal. i. and ii.).
He addresses the Epistle to the Philippians to ' the saints
in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops ' {i.e.,
presbyters) ' and deacons ' (Phil. i. i). He authoritatively
gives instructions as to the offices of bishop (presbyter) and
deacon in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, and he
37

•*? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
appoints Timothy and Titus to exercise the office of
Apostolic deputy, afterwards called bishop, over the other
presbyters (i Tim. 5. i. 22 ; 2 Tim. iv. 2 ; Tit. i. 3). The
prophets or expounders of Scripture, of whom there is
slight mention in the Acts, now take a more prominent
place (i Cor. xiv.), which they retain for some time, as
witnessed by the 'Teaching of the Apostles,' a treatise
written probably about the year 100. They did not
however form an order, but were men endowed with a
special spiritual gift, that of exposition, as others were
vouchsafed the gifts of speaking with tongues, inter
pretation of tongues, powers of healing and performing
other miracles (i Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11). These gifts
were gradually withdrawn as the Church established herself,
and with their withdrawal those who had received them
died out or were absorbed in the three permanent offices
of Bishop, Priest (Presbyter) and Deacon. In this way
there ceased the practice of anointing the sick for recovery
from sickness (James v. 14). This was a practice of
ApostoHc days, when the gift of healing still existed in the
Church, and though revived and practised for a different
purpose in the unreformed Churches, is no more a function
of the permanent ministerial office than speaking with
tongues or raising from the dead.

38

CHAPTER VI
THE FAITH AND RELIGION OF THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE
No exact limit can be laid down between the Apostolic,
the sub-Apostolic, and the early primitive Church, for the
Apostle St John lived on to the year loo a.d., that is, into
the sub-Apostolic age, and the sub-Apostolic age passed
imperceptibly into that which succeeded it. But speak
ing broadly, we may regard the sub-Apostolic age to begin
and end with the second century. Our question now is.
What were the faith, the rehgion, the ecclesiastical in
stitutions and the form of the ministry in the period,
subsequent to the Scriptural record, which begins and ends
with the second century ? To learn this, we must examine
the works of the chief writers in that period. These are,
chronologically arranged, an Epistle falsely attributed to
Barnabas but probably belonging to the first century, about
A.D. 80 ; an Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians,
A.D. 95; Hermas's Shepherd, a.d. 100; an anonymous
treatise known as ' The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,'
A.D. 100; the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, a.d. no; the
Letter of Polycarp, a.d. 120; the writings of Justin
Martyr, a.d. 150; of Tatian, a.d. 150; of Athenagoras, a.d.
170; of Theophilus, a.d. 175; of Irenseus, a.d. 180; of
Clement of Alexandria, a.d. 190; of TertuUian, a.d. 195.
39

¦^g Scriptural and Catholic Truth
In these works, and the fragments of contemporaries that have
come down to us, we find no change in the articles of faith.
The Epistle of Barnabas (so called) is directed against
the Judaising and materialising spirit which is so vehemently
assailed by St Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, and its
argument is that even those Jews that were saved were
saved not by the forms and ceremonies of Judaism but by
the Christianity that was latent in it. He seems to have
taken his text from Gal. iii. 1,2: ' O foolish Galatians, who
hath bewitched you ? . . . This only would I learn of you.
Received ye the spirit by the works of the law, or by the
hearing of faith ? '
The greater part of the Epistle of Clement of Rome to
the Corinthians is an enforcement of St Paul's injunction to
unity addressed to the same Church (i Cor. xi. 17, 19),
further arguments in favour of the Resurrection, in which
the writer appears to have had St Paul's teaching in i Cor.
XV. before him, and a panegyric of charity, similar to that of
St Paul in i Cor. xiii.
Hermas was probably a Roman Christian at the end of
the first century, and is not to be confounded with the
Hermas mentioned in Scripture. He wrote a fantastic
book of visions, which would not have received so much
notice had it not been supposed that he might have been
the Scriptural Hermas. He testifies to the faith in God
the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and in the
Resurrection. He emphasises the necessity of baptism,
and the value of repentance. The term ' bishop ' as used by
him stiU applies to 'presbyters,' and the prophets of i Cor.,
i.e., those who had the grace of exposition, are active.
40

Religion of the Sub-Apostolic Age 5«»
The treatise called ' The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles '
for the most part consists of pious instructions for continu
ing in the way of Life and avoiding the way of Death,
similar in character to the precepts with which St Paul ends
most of his letters. The only article of the faith which it
touches upon is the Second Coming of the Lord, which it
describes as being preceded by the appearance of Anti
christ, and by signs in the heavens, as St Paul teaches in
the Epistle to the Thessalonians. In respect to Ecclesi
astical institutions, we find that the Lord's day was observed,
and that the Holy Communion still made a part of the
evening social meal of the faithful, and we learn that for
the thanksgiving or consecration prayer that preceded the
distribution, if a prophet (here nearly equivalent to a man
of education or learning) were present, he was to use such
extempore prayer as he pleased, but in his absence the
officiator was to use a form as follows : —
'First concerning the cup: "We give thanks to Thee,
our Father, for the holy vine of David, Thy Servant (or
child), which Thou hast made known to us by Jesus, Thy
Servant (or Child). To Thee be the glory for ever." And
concerning the broken bread : "We give thanks to Thee, our
Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou madest
known unto us through Jesus, thy Child. To Thee be the
glory for ever. As this bread which we break was once
scattered over the hills and gathered together it became
one, so may Thy Church be gathered from the ends of
the earth into Thy kingdom ; for Thine is the glory and the
power, through Jesus Christ for ever'" (ch. ix.).
The thanksgiving after reception was to be made not
41

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
immediately that the bread and wine had been received,
but at the end of the meal, and it was to be as
follows ; —
' After ye are filled, thus give thanks : " We give thanks
to Thee, Holy Father, for Thy Holy Name, which Thou
madest to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and
faith of immortality, which Thou madest known to us
through Jesus Thy Child. To Thee be the glory for ever !
Thou, Almighty Lord, didst create all things for Thy name's
sake and didst give food and drink to men for enjoyment,
that they may give thanks unto Thee; and on us Thou
bestowedst spiritual food and drink and eternal life through
Thy Child ; and above all we give thanks to Thee for
Thy power. To Thee be the glory for ever ! Remember
O Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from all evil, and to
perfect it in Thy love, and gather it from the four winds,
the sanctified Church, into Thy kingdom, which Thou
didst prepare for it ; for Thine is the power and the glory
for ever. Let grace come and let this world pass away !
Hosanna to the Son of David ! If any be holy, let him
come ; if not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen." And
allow the prophets to offer what Eucharistical prayers
they please' (ch. x.).
From the same treatise we find that adult baptism took
place preferably by dipping in running water, or 'if thou
hast not living water, baptize into other water, cold or
warm ' ; but if this cannot readily be done, then ' pour
water upon the head thrice in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' The person to be
baptized is ' to fast one or two days previously ' and also
42

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age ^
' let him that baptizes and any others that can, fast ' (ch. vii.).
No such regulation is given as to fasting before Holy
Communion, nor could the practice have existed while
the Holy Communion was administered together with the
Agape or evening meal.
Wednesdays and Fridays are appointed by the treatise
as fasts, and it recommends saying the Lord's Prayer three
times a day. In respect to the ministry we find bishops
{i.e., presbyters) and deacons. Prophets and teachers are
still prominent, specially prophets, as in the First Epistle
to the Corinthians. The first fruits are to be given to the
prophets, or if there be none, to the poor (ch. xiii.).
Ignatius's Letters do not deal with the faith except
incidentally (as when they say that wherever Christ is,
there is the Catholic Church). They are for the most part
exhortations to live piously, from which may be gathered
the religious spirit of the sub-Apostolic Church. Of the
precepts contained in them the following is a specimen : —
' Pray without ceasing for the rest of mankind (for there
is in them a hope of repentance) that they may find God.
Therefore let them take lesson at least from your works.
Against their outbursts of wrath be mute; against their
proud words be humble; against their railings set your
prayers ; against their errors be steadfast in the faith ;
against their fierceness be gentle, and do not aim to
imitate them by requital. Let us show ourselves their
brothers by our forbearance; let us zealously imitate the
Lord, vying with one another, who shall suffer the greatest
wrong, who shall be defrauded, who shall be set at nought ;
that no lust of the devil be found in you ; but in all purity
43

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and temperance abide in Christ Jesus with your flesh and
with your spirit ' {Ad Ephes. x.).
In respect to institutions and rites, we find the Holy
Communion still connected with the Agape or evening meal
(See Ep. ad Smyrnaos, ch. viii., with Bishop Lightfoot's
note). Ignatius uses some strong expressions regarding
the benefits of Holy Communion. The one loaf is the
medicine of immortality and the antidote of death {Ad
Ephes. XX.) ; the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, which suffered for our sins {Ad Smyrn. vi.). But he
explains that the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
are faith and love {Ad Trail, viii.). This is a favourite idea
with him ; in the Epistle to the Romans he cries out, ' For
a draught I desire the blood of Christ which is love in
corruptible' (ch. vii.). There is nothing materialising in
that. On Church government he urges the authority of the
bishop, in the later sense of the word (He was himself
Bishop of Antioch), as a means of preserving unity. This
is the first time that ' bishop ' means the highest order of the
ministry, all the Apostles having now passed away. The
chief purpose of Ignatius in writing his letters seems to have
been the maintenance of the unity of the now wide-spread
ing Christian body, no longer held together by Apostolic
authority. No better way occurred to him, and probably
no better way could have been found, considering that the
mass of Christians was made up of devout but uneducated
men, than that of urging men to hold fast by their ministers.
If they did that, they would be sure of remaining in ' the
Apostles' fellowship,' that is, the body instituted by the
44

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age 5^
Apostles and now governed by their successors, and being
in that fellowship they would be safe of continuing likewise
in 'the Apostles' doctrine' as delivered by them to their
first converts; they would be 'inside the altar' {i.e., the
Church) (') ' and not be deprived of the bread of God.'
{Ad Ephes. v.). So he bids them 'be subject to their
bishop and presbytery' {Ad Ephes. ii.). 'The bishop is to
preside in the place of God, the presbytery in that of
the Apostolic college (2) and the deacons are entrusted
with the office of serving Christ' {Ad Magnes. vi.). Of the
three he seems to speak with the greatest affection of the
deacons, who are ' most sweet ' to him, and are his ' fellow-
servants.' The prophets are now disappearing, the spiritual
gift with which they had been endowed being withdrawn.
A class of 'widows,' mentioned also by St Paul (i Tim. v. 9),
is found existing, into which unmarried women as well
as widows might be admitted {Ad Smyrn. xiii.).
Polycarp's Letter to the Phihppians, like Ignatius's Letters,
is mainly hortative, but it begins with a statement of the
Resurrection of Christ, His Session at the right hand, His
Lordship in Heaven, and His Second Coming to judge
the quick and the dead, and our resurrection. Whoever
did not confess Christ was Antichrist, and any who
tampered with the oracles of the Lord and denied the future
resurrection and judgment was the first-born of Satan (ch.
vii.). The following precepts, specimens of others, show
that the rehgious spirit was the same as at the beginning : —
' Neither I nor such as I can equal the wisdom of the
blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was with you in
person, taught the word of truth with exactness and stead-
45

•*? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
fastness, and when he was not with you, wrote letters, by
earnestly looking into which you may be built up with the
faith imparted to you, which is the mother of us all, hope
following upon it and love to God and Christ and our
neighbour leading us onward. For whoever is inspired
by these hath fulfilled the commandment of righteousness ;
for he that has love is far from all sin ' (ch. iii.).
' Stand steadfast in these things and follow the example
of the Lord, firm in faith and immovable, lovers of the
brethren, kindly affectioned one towards another, united in
truth, showing one to another the gentleness of the Lord,
despising no one ' (ch. x.).
Polycarp teaches the duties of presbyters and deacons
(ch. vi. 5) much as St Paul does, and incidentally notices
that one of the presbyters was married (ch. xi.). He was
very sorry, he says, for his wife, because her husband had
done wrong.
In connection with Polycarp's Letter we may add that
there is extant a ' Letter of the Church of Smyrna,' giving
an account of his martyrdom in that city, which by antici
pation condemns the worship of saints and relics as a
superstition which Christians could never sink to.
' The wicked one, seeing the greatness of his martyrdom
and his blameless conversation from the beginning, and
seeing him crowned with the crown of immortality, having
won a prize which none could deny, took pains that not
even his poor body should be taken up by us, though
many desired to do this, and to have fellowship with (to
touch) his holy flesh. So he induced Nicetes, Herod's
father, and brother of Alee, to beg the magistrate not to
46

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age 5^
give up his body, lest, said he, they leave the crucified one
and begin to pay divine reverence to this man. And this
he did, at the suggestion and on the urgency of the Jews,
who were also on the watch when we were about to take
him from the fire ; for they did not know that it is impos
sible that we shall ever leave Christ, who suffered for the
salvation of the whole world of those who are saved, the
innocent for the guilty, nor could we ever pay divine
reverence to anyone else ; for Him, being the Son of God,
we worship, but the martyrs, as disciples and followers of
the Lord, we love as they deserve, for their unsurpassed
affection to their own king and teacher, with whom may we
be also fellow-sharers and fellow-disciples ' (ch. xvi.).
Justin Martyr was a philosopher and an apologist. We
should therefore expect to find in him a more formal state
ment of the Christian faith than in those already referred
to. And this is the case. We have in him all the articles
of the Christian belief; but there is nothing new, nothing
which he adds to the Apostolic teaching in the Acts and
the Epistles as forming a part of the Catholic, i.e., common,
faith of Christendom. I will take the Baptismal Creed by
which to test him. We find in his writings the doctrine,
though not the name of the Holy Trinity {Apol. i. 6, 13);
of God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
{lb. 10; Apol. ii. 4); of God the Son eternally born of
the Father {lb. 6; Dial. 129), and therefore pre-existent
before His birth into the world {Apol. i. 23 ; Dial 48) ;
Incarnate in time {Apol. i. 5, 31 ; ii. 13 ; Dial. 100) ; crucified
{Apol i. 35 ; Dial. 46) ; dead and risen again {Apol. i. 28 ;
Dial 107); of the Ascension {Apol. i. 50, 51); of the
47

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Session at the right hand and the Second Coming and
Future Judgment {3. 45, 60; Dial. 14, 31, no); of the
Holy Ghost {Dial 88); the holy Catholic Church, in
which is found the Communion of Saints {Dial 63, 119);
the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake {lb. 44) ; the
resurrection of the body {Apol. i. 18); life everlasting
and eternal punishment {lb. 8, 28; ii. i, 9).
Beside repentance, faith, hope and love, Justin, like St
Paul, teaches the inspiration of Scripture {Dial. 65, 92);
original sin {Apol. i. 10); reconciliation by Christ's death
{Dial 95); justification by His blood through faith {3.
13); the necessity of piety {Apol. i. 12, 17); the folly of
image worship (^) {3. 9) ; and the folly of material sacrifices
{lb. 10). These articles of theology and religion he de
scribes as the common property of Christians ; but there
is one tenet which he says is not held by all, though he
holds it himself — the tenet of the millenium — and that is
the only doctrine that he teaches which is not a necessary
part of our present Christian belief in the Church of
England. Whether that doctrine be true or not depends
upon the interpretation of Rev. xx. 1-6. There are some
among us who believe it, as there were some in the early
Church that believed it, but it has never been a dogma of
the Church.(*)
The ordinances of the Church of which Justin speaks are
two, and two only — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.
For adult baptism he says that conversion, repentance,
steadfast purpose to lead a new life, prayer and fasting are
the necessary previous conditions, and that upon it follow
regeneration and incorporation into the Christian body.
48

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age ^
In- respect to the Lord's Supper a change had occurred in
the hour of its celebration. Down to about the year no
the Lord's Supper had consisted of a re-enactment, so far as
was possible, of the Last Supper on Sunday evening, during
which the bread and the wine were blessed and distributed.
But in or about that year Trajan, for political reasons,
forbade any evening gatherings. Consequently, the Eucharist
and the social meal were both transferred to the Sunday
forenoon, and after the matin prayers there were celebrated
first the Holy Communion and then the social meal, within
the walls of the church. Justin's description of the Holy
Communion is as follows ; ' On the day which is called
Sunday there is an assembly in the same place of all who
live in cities or country districts ; and the records of the
Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read as long
as we have time. Then the reader concludes, and the
president verbally instructs and exhorts us to the imitation
of these excellent things ; then we all together rise and offer
up our prayers ; and when we have concluded our prayer,
bread is brought and wine and water ; and the president in
like manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings as well as
ever he can ; and the people give their assent by saying
Amen ; and there is a distribution, and a partaking by every
one, of the Eucharistic elements ; and to those who are not
present they are sent by the hands of the deacons ; and
such as are in prosperous circumstances, and wish to do so,
give what they will, each according to his choice ; and what
is collected is placed in the hands of the president, who
assists the orphans and widows and such as, through sick
ness or any other cause, are in want ; and to those who are
D 49

^? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
in bonds and to strangers from afar, and, in a word, to all
who are in need, he is a protector' {Apol i. 67).
From this and a similar descriptive passage immediately
preceding we see that the Holy Communion was celebrated
after the morning service on Sunday, that it was ad
ministered to all present (non-communicating attendance
being unknown), and in both kinds (half communion being
unknown), having been consecrated by the presiding
minister and distributed by the deacons, that the wine used
was wine tempered with water according to the common
custom of the country, not mixed ceremonially at the
moment, that no previous fasting was required, though it
was for adult baptism, and had now become possible
through the change of hour that had been made, and finally
that the bread and the wine were not reserved, though they
were carried, if there were need, to a brother absent from
sickness or any such cause. Justin says that Christians did
not receive the bread and wine as ' ordinary food or ordinary
drink,' but that while our bodies received nourishment from
them by assimilation, we were taught in the Gospel that
they were the body and blood of Christ. The only sacrifices
offered by Christians and acceptable to God are, he says,
prayers and thanksgivings ; ' for these are the only sacrifices
that Christians have been taught to do, in remembrance
both of their food and drink and also in commemoration of
the passion endured for their sakes by the Son of God'
{Dial 117). Here there are three things to notice — first, that
Justin formally denies the character of a sacrifice to the
Holy Eucharist, except so far as it is an offering of prayers
and thanksgivings, which he declares to be the only sacri-
50

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age 5^
fices of Christians; next, that the Holy Eucharist was
regarded by the early Christians as a thanksgiving to God,
not only for the blessings derived to us from Christ's death,
but also for the preservation of our lives by the food and
drink of daily use. This thought Justin repeats more than
once, and we shall find the idea universally entertained
by the early Christians down to the middle of the third
century. Thirdly, Justin's use of the word ' do ' suggests
that he is referring to, though not exactly quoting, our Lord 's
words, 'This do in remembrance of Me.' That the word
' do ' has a sacrificial signification is a modern gloss, resting
on no adequate foundation, unknown not only to the
primitive but also to the Mediaeval Church and to all but
the very latest development of sacerdotal needs among our
selves. Not even the Roman Liturgy recognises it, which
has : ' As oft as ye do these things ' (not sacrifice this bread)
'ye shall do them in remembrance of Me.' (^)
The nature of the Christian worship in Justin's days is
shown by the following passage : —
' We worship the Creator of the universe, not with blood,
libations and incense (which we are sufficently taught He
has 'no need of), but we exalt Him to the best of our power
with the reasonable service of prayer and thanksgiving in all
the oblations that we make Him, having been instructed
that the only service that is worthy of Him is, not to con
sume by fire the creatures that He has given us for our sus
tenance, but to apply them to our use and to the good of
those that are in need, and to show our gratitude to Him by
offering to Him solemn prayers and hymns in acknowledg
ment of our creation, preservation, and the blessings that we
51

•^g Scriptural and Catholic Truth
derive from things about us and from the change of the
seasons, putting up prayers that we may have a resurrection
to life incorruptible, through faith in Him. Our teacher of
these things is Jesus Christ, who was born for this purpose,
and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judsea
in the reign of Tiberius Csesar ; whom having learned Him
to be the Son of the Very God, and holding Him to be in
the second place, and the Spirit of Prophecy in the third, I
will prove that we worship with reason ' {Apol i. 13).
Sunday is stated by Justin to be the day of the week ' on
which we all hold our common assembly,' and the reasons
that he gives for this are that it was the first day of the
Creation and the day of Christ's Resurrection : ' For the day
before that of Saturn He was crucified, and on the day after
it, which is Sunday, He appeared to His Apostles and
disciples and taught them what we have delivered also to
you for your consideration ' {lb. 67).
It is somewhat singular that neither bishop nor presbyter
is named by Justin. The person who blesses the bread and
wine is called the president or leading man among the
brethren {lb. 65, 67). The deacons are recognised as the
officers who distributed the consecrated elements both to
those present and those who had to be absent.
Tatian. We need not pay so much attention to Tatian
as to Justin Martyr. In his earlier life he made a
philosophic defence of the doctrines of God, and of the
Logos or Word, and of the Holy Spirit, and of the Resur
rection, and wrote the earliest Harmony. In his later life
he became heretical, joining the sect of the Encratites.
Athenagoras, an apologist of the middle of the second

Religion of the Sub- Apostolic Age 5c»
century, witnesses to the tenets of God the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, and of the resurrection, the final Judg
ment and eternal life. The following is an eloquent state
ment by him of the doctrine of Christian Sacrifice in the
sub-Apostolic age : ' Now as to our not sacrificing, the
Creator and Father of all does not want blood or fat or
sweet savour from flowers or incense, being Himself the
perfection of sweet savour, wanting nothing, requiring
nothing. But the greatest sacrifice that we can offer to
Him is to know who stretched out the vault of heaven and
fixed the central earth ; who gathered the waters into the
seas ; who adorned the sky with the stars and made the
earth produce seed; who made the animals and created
man. When we apprehend the creative God as sustaining
and watching over the universe with that wisdom and skill
with which He ever works, and raise up holy hands to
Him, what hecatomb is then wanted ? Why should I seek
after burnt sacrifices which God needs not ? ' {Leg. xiii.). (^)
Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, was the first writer to
express the doctrine of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost by
the words Trias or Trinity, which, of course, added nothing
to the received doctrine. He witnesses also to the belief in
the Resurrection and Eternal Life and to the practice of
baptism and to the authority of the Old Testament.
Irenseus, I have already shown, testified to the Church's
maintaining in his day all the articles of the Baptismal
Creed, and these he declares that it held as the orthodox
faith, received from the beginning and taught everywhere,
in contrast to the novel dreams of heretics. He says : —
'The Church, having received this preaching and this
53

**? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet,
as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She
also believes these points just as if she had but one soul
and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them and
teaches them and hands them down, with perfect harmony,
as if she possessed only one mouth. For although the
languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the
tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which
have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand
down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those
in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor
those in Libya, nor those which have been established in
the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that
creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole
world, so also the preaching of the truth everywhere shineth
and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a
knowledge of the truth. Nor will any one of the rulers of
the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point
of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no
one is greater than the Master); nor on the other hand
will he who is deficient in power of expression infiict injury
on what is handed down. For the faith being ever one and
the same, neither does one who is able at great length to
discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does
one who can say but little diminish it. It does not follow,
because men are endowed with greater or less degrees of
intelligence, that they should therefore change the subject-
matter of the faith itself {Adv. Hmr. i., x. 2). C)
And again : —
'The Lord of all gave to His Apostles the power of
54

Religion of the Sub-Apostolic Age §»
preaching the gospel, through whom we also have known
the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son of God ; to whom
also the Lord declared, " He that heareth you, heareth Me,
and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me and Him that sent
Me." We have learnt from none others the plan of our
salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has
come down to us, which they at one time preached and at
a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the
Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is
unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed
perfect knowledge, as some even ventured to say, boasting
themselves as improvers of the Apostles ' {3. iii. i).
Besides the articles of the Apostles' Creed, Irenseus
dwells on the authority of Holy Scripture and the use of a
genuine tradition, not as an independent source of truth,
but as interpretative of Holy Scripture. His chief task is
the refutation of Gnosticism.
The ordinances which he recognises are, as usual.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Treating of the Eucharist,
he affirms emphatically that God accepts no sacrifices except
those of contrition and faith and obedience and righteous
ness, and he teaches that the Church's sacrifice in the
Eucharist is a thank-offering to God for the fruits of the
earth which preserve life and a memorial of the sacrifice of
the death of Christ. This is the New Oblation of the New
Covenant taught by Christ in contradistinction to the
sacrifices of the Old Covenant, and God accepts it at our
hands not for His benefit, but for ours, because it is good
for us to be grateful {Adv. Hcer. iv. 17, 18, and Frag-
mentum Secundum). 55

¦»g Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Clement of Alexandria was a philosophic writer whose
speculations belong rather to the next century in their
character. His account of the relations subsisting between
faith and love and knowledge are full of interest.
TertuUian is as decisive as Athenagoras and Justin
Martyr in his declarations of the spiritual character of the
sacrifices of Christians. 'We do sacrifice,' he says, ' but in
the way which God hath commanded ; that is, by prayer
alone ; for God the Creator of the universe does not need
any incense or blood ' {Ad Scap. ii.). ' I offer Him a rich
and greater host which He has commanded ; that is, prayer
from a chaste body, an innocent mind and a sanc^ed
spirit, not pennyworths of frankincense, tears of the
Arabian tree,' etc. {Apol. xxx.). 'Prayer (with Psalmody)
is the spiritual host which has done away with the ancient
sacrifices. We (Christians) are the true worshippers, the true
priests, who, praying in the Spirit, in the Spirit offer God's
proper and acceptable sacrifice of prayer, which He has
demanded and appointed for Himself; this it is we must
bring to the altar of God ' {De Orat. xxvii.).
The use of the word 'host' in two of the above
passages should be carefully noted. From it, as well as
from other sources, we may see that the word 'host,'
materiahsed as it now is, meant originally no more than
the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. The ' sacrifice
of thanksgiving' in Lev. vii. 13 is rendered by the Vulgate
version 'host of thanks'; in Lev. xxii. 29 'sacrifice of
thanksgiving ' is rendered as ' host for thanksgiving ' ; in
Psalm cxvi. 17 the Septuagint version has 'sacrifice of
praise,' the Vulgate, ' host of praise.' In accordance with
56

Religion of the Sub-Apostolic Age 5^
this usage we find in the Liturgies ' victim of praise ' and
'host of praise' meaning no more than 'sacrifice of praise.'
This is a specimen of the way in which a word, originally
spiritual in its signification, was afterwards materialised.
A sacrifice or offering of praise and thanksgiving becomes
a transmuted piece of bread and an object of worship. (^)
TertuUian shows us that for the second time a change
had been m.ade in the hour of celebrating the Agape or
feast of charity. Originally the Lord's Supper was, as we
have seen, a re-enactment, with some necessary change,
of the Last Supper, celebrated every Sunday evening, and
so it continued till about the year no when it was trans
ferred to the forenoon, and its order was so far dislocated
that what had been the second part of it was celebrated
before the other part instead of toward the end of it, the
common meal taking place in the church after the more
religious service was over, at about midday. The change
had been made in consequence of the imperial laws which
prohibited evening meetings. After a time, probably in
the reign of Commodus, a.d. 176, the pressure of these
laws was relaxed and the common meal was re-transferred
to the evening, while the more sacred service continued to
take place in the morning after the matin prayers or even
occasionally (Tertull. De Corona iv. 3) after the early or
before-daylight service. The two parts of the original
Lord's Supper thus became entirely separated and were
never again combined. The evening meal, now severed
from the administration of the Eucharist, is thus described
by TertuUian in his defence of Christian practices :—
' It allows nothing vile, nothing immodest. Men do not
57

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
sit down to meat till they have first tasted of prayer to God.
They eat as much as hungry men desire ; they drink as
much as is good for chaste men ; they satisfy their appetites
as men who remember that they have to worship. God by
night as well as by day. They talk as men who know that
the Lord hears them. After water for the hands and lights
have been brought in, they sing, according as each is able.
Psalms out of the Holy Scripture or hymns of his own
composition in honour of God and in the presence of the
rest. From this it is seen to what extent he has been
drinking ! Prayer concludes the feast as well as opens it.
Then they go away, not forming bands to commit violence,
nor for running to and fro, nor for lasciviousness, but care
ful as before of modesty and chastity, like men who have
not so much supped as been to a school of philosophy'
{Apol. xxxix.).
TertuUian also proves to us that marriage was now re
garded as a religious ceremony. Among non-Christians
marriages were arranged by persons called conciliatores,
then an offering of arrha or earnest money was made at
the espousals, and marriage tablets were signed in the
presence of witnesses. TertuUian, referring to these
ceremonies, writes, ' How shall I state the blessedness of
a marriage which the Church concUiates or brings about
and the oblation confirms, and the benediction seals,
angels attest and the Father ratifies ? ' {Ad uxor. ii. 8).
This shows the practice of Christians in his day, according
to which the place of conciliatores was taken by the bishops,
priests, deacons, and widows (Tertull. De pudicitia iv. ; De
monogamia xi. ; Ignatii Epist. ad Polyc. v.), the offering or
58

Religion of the Sub-Apostolic Age 5©»
oblation of the arrha was replaced by the offering of prayer
and alms made through the priest (that there is any
reference to the oblation of the Holy Communion is a
mistake), for the sealing of the marriage settlements is
substituted the seal of the Church's blessing, the testimony
of angels stands for that of the witnesses, and the ratifi
cation by a heavenly Father takes the place of the ex
pressed consent of the parents. This rhetorical description
does not mean that the old ceremonies were abolished,
but that an ecclesiastical character was imparted to them,
and that they were carried out under the control and by
the hands of the ministers of the Church — which is indeed
foreshadowed by St Paul in Eph. v. For Christian
Marriage is now a religious institution, but there is no
hint of its being regarded as a sacrament until the ninth
or tenth centuries, when the Church ceremony of solemnis
ing matrimony was first required by Charlemagne in the
West and by Leo the Philosopher in the East.
The discipline of Penitence, culminating in Excommuni
cation, or accepted as a substitute for it, foreshadowed in
I Cor. and 2 Cor., in Clement of Rome (ch. Ivii.), and in
Hermas (iii. 5), looms larger in TertuUian {Apol. xxxix. and
De PcEnitentia ix.), but we have not yet quite reached the
ordinance of Public Penitence as it existed in the next
three centuries.
After an examination of all the chief writers of the period,
we find that the faith of the Christians of the second
century, like that of the Christians of the first century,
was no more than the Baptismal Creed known ordinarily
as the Apostles' Creed. And we find that the religious
59

**? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
feelings demanded of Christians were, as before, repentance,
faith, hope, and love, putting on different forms according
to circumstances. The ministry we find still threefold,
those appointed to govern others, such as Timothy and
Titus, having now the name of bishop (which had at first
belonged to the presbytery), the other two orders, the
presbyters and deacons, remaining as before. Prophets and
evangelists, very prominent at the beginning of the century,
while the extraordinary gifts of exposition and preaching
prevailed, have died away by the end of the century.
Ecclesiastical institutions are, as before, the Church itself.
which is the company of all faithful people. Baptism, which
is the door of entrance into that company and puts the
recipient in a new relation to God, the Lord's Supper, being
at once a thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth, a memorial
of the sacrifice of Christ's death, and a means whereby the
benefits of His death are conveyed to the penitent soul,
was at first celebrated on Sunday evening in conjunction
with the common meal known as the feast of charity, but
later on was transferred from the evening to the forenoon,
while the common meal, having for a time taken place at
midday, was re-transferred to the evening. Confirmation
and Ordination remained as before, being administered by
the bishop, and in the case of Confirmation immediately
after adult baptism. The Lord's day was likewise ob
served without material change. NOTES
(') In the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians modest and pious
women are termed ' altars of God ' (ch. iv. ).
(-) The idea of the presbytery being 'the representatives of the
60

Religion of the Sub-Apostolic Age ^
Apostles, counsellors of the Bishop and the crown of the Church ' is
found also in the Apostolic Constitutions II. xxviii.
(^) ' We worship not with frequent sacrifices and garlands of flowers
those whom men have made and placed in temples and called gods ; for
we know that they are senseless and inanimate and have not the form
of God ; for we do not consider that God has such a form as that in
which some say that they represent Him for the sake of worship . . .
for why should I relate to you who know it, how the workmen manage
their materials, carving, cutting, casting and hammering them, and often
from vessels of dishonour, by merely changing their shape through their
craft and giving them a form, they make what they call gods. This we
regard not only as senseless but as an insult to God who has both a
form and a glory ineffable, but whose name is thus transferred to objects
that are perishable and require to be taken care of. . . . O fatuity
as of one struck by thunder that licentious men should be said to form
and fashion gods for you to worship, and that such should be constituted
keepers of the temples in which they are enshrined, not seeing that it is
unlawful even to think or to say that men are guardians of the gods. ' —
Justin, Apol. i. 9.
(*) ' In the first age after the Apostles, Papias pretended he received a
tradition from the Apostles, that Christ before the day of judgment
should reign a thousand years upon earth, and His saints with Him in
temporal felicities ; and this thing, proceeding from so great an
authority as the testimony of Papias, drew after it all or most of the
Christians in the first three hundred years. For besides that the
millenary opinion is expressly taught by Papias, Justin Martyr,
Irenseus, Origen, Lactantius, Severus, Victorinus, ApoUinaris, Nepos,
and divers others famous in their time, Justin Martyr in his Dialogue
against Tryphon says it was the belief of all Christians exactly orthodox ;
and yet there was no such tradition but a mistake of Papias ; but I find
it nowhere spoken against till Dionysius of Alexandria confuted
Nepos's book and converted Coracion the Egyptian from the opinion.' —
Jeremy Taylor, Liberty of Prophesying, 5.
(*) Seeking for an argument favouring the sacrificial character of the
Holy Communion, a, few modern writers (none of them scholars) have
fixed on the word ' Do,' and have said that it means ' Sacrifice.' The
word is used 550 times in the New Testament and never means
'sacrifice,' but it happened that in the Septuagint the Alexandrian
translator occasionally wrote ' do ' or ' perform a sacrifice ' in order to
avoid the tautology of 'sacafice a sacrifice.' On no better ground
than this these writers say that the words ' Do this in remembrance of
6i

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Me ' mean ' Sacrifice this,' though the sense of ' sacrifice ' is not imposed
upon ' Do ' by the context, which would alone justify that secondary
sense. Neither grammar, history, nor theology will admit of such an
interpretation. It is merely a modern buttress for a pre-accepted idea.
Dr Mason allows that all the Greek Fathers, with the exception, as he
supposes, of Justin Martyr, and he might have added all the Latin to
the Greek Fathers, treat the words as meaning 'Perform this action,'
and ' do not give so much as a hint to the contrary ' (Faith of the
Church, p. 328). An unprimitive doctrine has to be supported by an
unprimitive wresting of Holy Scripture.
(^) To the words quoted in the text there is attached the following
sentence : ' And yet we should offer an unbloody sacrifice and bring
Him our reasonable service.' If this is not a note added by a later
hand (it has the air of one, but is generally counted genuine) we have
in Athenagoras the first example of the use of the phrase ' unbloody
sacrifice,' and if he is referring by it to the Holy Communion he counts
the Eucharistic sacrifice to be the same thing as ' our reasonable service,'
which St Paul says is the presentation of ourselves a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God (Rom. xii. l).
(0 For exactly similar sentiments see Jeremy Taylor, Ductor
Dubitantium, II. iii. §§ 77) 78, and Liberty of Prophesying, 12, 13.
(^) The word hostia or host is used by the Vulgate for the Sin-offering,
Burnt-offering and Peace-off'ering. Christians have no Sin-offering nor
Burnt-offering except the one offering on the Cross, the virtue of which
is continuous. Their Peace-off'ering is the ' sacrifice of praise ' (Heb.
xiii. 15), that is, the joyous off'ering of a grateful heart, and that there
may be no materialising misconstruction of words, we are told dis
tinctly that what is meant by the ' sacrifice of praise ' is no material
offering, but 'the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His Name' (Ibid.).
The only Christian host is the immaterial sacrifice of prayer and praise
and thanksgiving.

62

CHAPTER VII
THE WORSHIP OF THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE
In respect to common worship, we are able now to gain a
clearer view than before of the form and manner in which
it was conducted. Common worship began very early in
the day, some two or three hours before daylight. The
reason of this hour being originally fixed was the desire of
the Christians, when under persecution, to avoid the
observation of the heathen. On account of the hour at
which it was held, it was called the Ante-lucan or Before-
daylight Service. It consisted of confession of sins, psalms,
hymns, prayers, lessons from Holy Scripture, ending with
the fifty-first Psalm, recited or chanted in common. There
was no Holy Communion, as a rule, at this service.
At daybreak the congregation broke up and its members
returned to their homes for refreshment. About nine
o'clock they re-assembled for the chief service of the day,
caUed Missa, because all but the communicants were in
turn dismissed from it. It was divided into two parts. The
first part consisted of psalms, hymns, lessons from the Old
and New Testament, a sermon or sometimes two sermons,
preached the first by a presbyter, the second by a bishop.
Down to this point any heathen might be present, but as
soon as the prayers began the heathens were dismissed. The
63

•*>? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
first prayers were for the catechumens, that is, for those who
were preparing for baptism, and when they were ended, the
catechumens were dismissed. Prayers were then offered for
the possessed, after which they were dismissed, and then
the candidates for immediate baptism were treated in like
manner, being in their turn dismissed, and lastly most of
the penitents were dismissed. Then began the Missa or
Service of the Faithful, which was confined to the com
municants ; and all the faithful, that is, all full Christians,
were expected to be communicants. This second part of
the service commenced with a litany, and then came the
offertory, made by the people, not at first in money, but in
kind, consisting chiefly of bread and wine. From these
oblations of the people were taken the bread and wine for
consecration. These were brought by the deacons to the
bishop, to be consecrated by him in a prayer containing
the recitation of the Scriptural words of institution and
invocation of the Holy Ghost. All the congregation then
communicated in both kinds, receiving the bread and the
cup in their hands from the clergy, who used a particular
form of words to each communicant as they offered him
the elements. After the reception came further prayers,
hymns and thanksgivings, at the end of which the bishop's
blessing was given, and the congregation was dissolved
with the words : ' Go, it is dismissal.'
But though the congregation was dissolved its members
did not yet leave for their homes. St Chrysostom describ
ing the early practice, which had been altered in his day,
says ; ' All the faithful, at their meeting, when they had
heard the sermon and the prayers and had received the
64

Worship of the Sub- Apostolic Age 5fr
Communion, on the congregation breaking up, did not
immediately go to their homes, but the wealthy and better-
to-do members, having brought food and eatables from
their houses, invited the poor and made common tables,
common dinners, common banquets in the church itself,
and after this they went home ' (Hom. xxii. 3). St
Jerome, giving an account of the ancient practice, says
that the common meal was made off those of the oblations
which had not been used for Communion (on i Cor. xi.).
By the end of the century this meal was, as we have seen,
restored to the evening from midday.
At about six o'clock came the evening service, simUar in
character to the first or ante-lucan service in the morning,
but shorter, consisting of psalms suitable for the evening,
prayers, and an evening hymn. After the re-transference of
the Agape to the evening, the meal followed immediately
upon this service. About six hours of the Sunday would
seem to have been given in this way to common worship.
We may notice that the three services of the sub-Apostohc
Church were similar in form to our own three services^
Matins, the Holy Communion and Evensong. The hour
at which the first two were held was earlier than our own,
as we should expect in a country lying more to the East
and with a climate of higher temperature than our own ;
and the time occupied by them was longer than ours, but
not more so than might be expected from the zeal of a
young and persecuted Church.

E 65

CHAPTER VIII
THE THIRD, FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES
The third, fourth and fifth centuries form the remaining
part of the period known as the primitive Church. The
sixth, seventh and eighth centuries constitute a transitional
period from the primitive to the mediaeval Church, and
the middle ages may be regarded as lasting from the ninth
to the fifteenth century. It is not possible to trace the
later centuries with the same fulness as that with which
the first and second have been treated. There are too
many writers for us to go page by page through each
of them. The third century gives us the names of
Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Cyprian, Lactantius ;
the fourth of Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Hilary, Epiphanius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Ephrem
Syrus, Gregory Nyssen, Ambrose ; the fifth of Chrysostom,
Augustine, Jerome, Vincentius Lirinensis, Cyril of
Alexandria, Theodoret, Leo I. ; and this list does not
contain all, but only the better-known writers.
With respect to the theology of these three centuries we
may say that they present no innovation on the faith
taught by the Apostles to their converts in the first century
and maintained throughout the second century, found
diffusively in the Acts and the Epistles and gathered
66

Third, Fourth and Fifth Centuries ^5
together in the Creed so called of the Apostles. If there
are any apparent additions, they are merely expansions
of the old faith, made for the purpose of repelling assailants,
and no more than explicit statements of truths implicitly
contained and necessarily involved in the older formularies.
Thus it is that the common faith of Christendom takes
the form of the Nicene and again of the Athanasian
Creed. The Baptismal Creed, whatever was its exact form in
one Church or another, taught everywhere that Jesus
Christ was the Son of God. With that statement the
Christian consciousness was satisfied ; it did not require
further explication of the truth thus delivered and embrace
by all. But after a time inquiries began to be made
by a restless spirit of investigation as to the manner in
which He was the Son of God, and the sense in which
the article was to be understood. The most active and
bold man in this inquiry was Arius, an Alexandrian
presbyter, who believed that his bishop was on this point
not sound in the faith. In opposing him, he was himself
carried into a dangerous and, as it turned out, fatal extreme.
For while acknowledging Jesus Christ to be superior to
any other created being, he yet refused to recognise
Him as partaking of the same nature with the Father.
He was called His Son because He was the highest of
His creatures and was like Him in aU things, but yet
His nature was not the same as the Father's, and there
had been a time when He did not exist. The subtle
arguments used by Arius and his party confused and
perplexed men's minds, and the rulers of the Church
67

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
resolved to call a Council of all its bishops to settle the
question finally by an appeal to Holy Scripture and by
making sure what was the sense attached to the words
of Scripture according to the continuous belief of the
various Churches of the world. Thus met the first
CEcumenical Council, the Council of Nicsea, in the year
325. The Council issued its Creed representing the
understanding of Scriptural teaching entertained by
Christendom in common, and to meet the cavils of the
Arian party it inserted into it the words : ' Being of one
substance (nature) with the Father.' But no new article
was thus added to the faith. All that was done was
that an authoritative, because commonly received, explica
tion was given to the words : ' His only Son.' And to
make this explication such as could not be misinterpreted,
there was also added : ' Begotten by the Father before
all worlds, God from God, Light from Light, Very God
from Very God, Begotten not made.' But still no altera
tion was made in the deposit of the faith. So with regard
to the other Nicene additions, ' Maker of heaven and
earth and of all things visible and invisible ' is only an
expansion of ' Maker of heaven and earth ' ; ' Who for
us men and for our salvation came down from heaven '
is involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation ; ' Whose
kingdom shaU have no end ' is a property belonging to One
who having ascended into heaven 'sitteth at the right of
God.' Before and after the promulgation of the Nicene
Creed the faith of Christians was the same, (i)
Time passed and a similar question arose as to the Holy
Ghost to that which had arisen about Christ. AU the
68

Third, Fourth and Fifth Centuries ^
early Christians knew that they beheved in God the Father
the Son and the Holy Ghost, and they were content
without inquisitively examining further. But just as the
Arian party had combated the received doctrine on the
nature of the Son, so a party, headed by Macedonius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, questioned the nature of the
Holy Ghost and His equality with the Father and the Son,
and even whether He was a Person at all. Therefore
the Church gathered the Second CEcumenical Council, to
learn for certain what was the judgment of Christendom
as to the teaching of Holy Scripture on the subject. The
Council met in the year 381 and added to the Creed of
Nicffia proper the concluding passages of the Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed. (^) These passages followed
consecutively on the clause, 'We beUeve in the Holy
Ghost,' and were : ' The Lord and Giver of Life, who
proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the
Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by
the prophets ' ; all of which is involved in and connoted
by the name of the Holy Ghost, as He is described by
our Lord (John xiv., xvi.), St Peter (Acts i. 16 ; 2 Pet i. 21),
and St Paul (i Cor. ii. n).
To the article on the Church was added the word
'ApostoUc,' which had already been declared to be one
of the Church's characteristics (Eph. ii. 20). For ' the for
giveness of sins ' there was read ' One baptism for the
remission of sins,' to show the appointed means by which
remission of sins was to be assured to converts, as taught
in Acts ii. 38, ' Be baptized for the remission of sins ' ; sins
after baptism being forgiven, in the estimation of the
69

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, not through any
ordinance but by repentance and prayer, as is taught by
St Augustine {Euchir. 7 1 ; De Symbol, ad Catech. i. 7 ; De
Fide et operibus, 2 6).
By the Second Council, therefore, and the Constanti-
nopolitan Creed no change was made in the Christian
Faith any more than by the First Council and the Nicene
Creed. It remained what it was, as delivered by the
Apostles to the first converts.
In the fifth century, controversy passed from the question
of the relation which the three Persons of the Holy Trinity
bore one towards another to the nature and Person of the
Incarnate Son. The party of Nestorius, Patriarch of Con
stantinople, could not understand the mystery of the
Incarnation in any other way than by supposing that our
Lord was two Persons, one divine, the other human, the
human Person being born of his mother and the divine
Person afterwards uniting Himself with him. This error
was condemned at the Council of Ephesus, a.d. 431.
Soon after the party of Eutyches, running into an excess in
their opposition to Nestorianism, denied that our Lord had
two natures, the divine and the human, saying that as He
was one Person so He had but one nature compounded of
the divine and human. This error was condemned at the
Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, the true doctrine being
that our Lord has but one Personality, but two natures,
the divine and the human, in His one Person. The truths
thus aflSrmed by the Third and Fourth CouncUs found
concise expression in the Western Creed called the Creed
or Faith of St Athanasius (so called because representing
70

Third, Fourth and Fifth Centuries ^
in its earlier part the teaching of Athanasius by wnicn ne
refuted Arius). ' For the right faith is that we believe and
confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is
God and Man; God of the substance (nature) of the
Father, begotten before the world, and Man of the sub
stance (nature) of His mother, born in the world ; perfect
God and perfect Man. . . . Who although He be God
and Man, yet He is not two but one Christ. . . . One
altogether, not by confusion of substance ' (in opposition to
Eutyches) 'but by unity of Person' (in opposition to
Nestorius). The statements made by the Councils and
the Creed condemning the heresies of Nestorius and
Eutyches are no addition to the doctrine of the Incarna
tion of the Son, but only an explication of it, or rather a
declaration of truths necessarily following from it or con
noted by it. And the same is to be said of the earlier part
or the Creed, expressive of the doctrine which Athanasius
maintained against Arius on the subject of the Trinity.
There is nothing new in it. Every proposition in the
Athanasian Creed is implicitly contained in the statement,
'I believe in God the Father Almighty, and I believe in
Jesus Christ His only Son, and I believe in the Holy
Ghost' But though the primitive Church, as such, made no
innovations on the Faith once delivered to the saints, yet
there were individual writers who threw out opinions or
thoughts which became the germs of future corruption of
doctrines. Counsels of perfection were advocated. Asceti
cism became esteemed. Celibacy was thought highly of.
Hermits and monks began to appear, and their lives were
71

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
counted meritorious. Worse stiU, martyrs were so highly
venerated that they were addressed in panegyrics spoken
over their graves, not at first with any idea of their hearing
the words, but as a flower of oratory to affect the minds of
the hearers — which addresses, however, when dissociated
from their surroundings, made a step, unrecognised at first,
towards saint-worship. Even their reUcs began to be con
sidered wonder-working and objects of veneration — a thing
which the writer of the account of Polycarp's martyrdom
had contemptuously declared impossible for Christians. A
mystical and supernatural character was attached to the
elements of the Lord's Supper, though anything like an
objective presence in them was undreamed of. The Agapse,
or evening meals, separated now from the sacred rite, had so
degenerated that they had to be abolished by Ambrose and
Augustine as incentives to drunkenness. Origen, whose
theological speculations made it doubtful for many cen
turies whether he was a saint or a heretic, conceived the
idea that all mankind, righteous and unrighteous, would on
the day of Judgment itself pass through a flame of fire
which would purify them just before being presented at
the tribunal of God. The idea became quite common,
taken up by Hilary and others. In reality this was an
imagination quite incompatible with the tenet of Purgatory
as it was formulated after this period, favouring rather a
doctrine of universal acceptance at the last, but neverthe
less it made a step towards it by means of Augustine's
innocent suggestion that if there was such a fire at all it
might possibly be before the last day, and by many more
steps and accretions. (^) 72

Third, Fourth and Fifth Centuries ^
NOTES
(') ' Thus, tlie Church remaining in her purity and innocent simplicity
of the faith, there was no way of confuting heretics but by the words of
Scripture or by appealing to the tradition of their faith in the Apostolical
form (the Apostles' Creed). And there was no change made till the
time of the Nicene Council . . . and the few words they added to the
old form were nothing new, but a few more explicate words, of the
same sense intended by the Apostles and their successors. . . . And
so was the addition of Nice, concerning the divinity of the Son of God,
included in the very natural filiation expressed in the Apostles' Creed ;
and therefore this Nicene Creed was no more a new Creed than was
that of Aquileia. . . . Neither is the addition made at Nice any other
but a setting down what was plainly included in the filiation of the Son
of God ; and therefore was no addition of an article, nor properly an
explication, but a saying in more words what the Apostles and the
Apostolical Churches did mean in all the copies and what was delivered
before the convention at Nice. . . . The Nicene Fathers did add no
new article of new matter, but explicated the filiation of Jesus Christ,
saying in what sense He was the Son of God ; which was in proper
speaking an interpretation of a word in the Apostles' Creed ' (Bishop
Jeremy Taylor, Dissuasive, II. i. 4).
(^) There is no ground for deserting the well-attested tradition of
these clauses having originated at Constantinople in favour of an
hypothesis lately put forward that they were added at the Council of
Chalcedon and by its authority. That the members of the Council of
Chalcedon should have declared that they were drawn up at Constanti
nople is inexplicable except upon the supposition that they were compiled
and issued at Constantinople, as some of the Fathers of Chalcedon must
have been alive when the Council of Constantinople was held, and all
of them must ¦ have known whether or no the previous Council had
issued a formulary of faith possessing Qlcumenical authority. They
would certainly have belter means of judging than a person living
sixteen hundred years later.
(^) Hilary represents St Mary passing through the future fire of the
day of Judgment (in Psalm cxviii.). Contrast with this the last develop
ment of the doctrine of Purgatory, which makes St Mary the Empress
of Purgatory and St Michael her Prime Minister, and assures her
votaries that when she pays her Imperial visit every Saturday she takes
out of the fire all who have died wearing her scapular (a piece of
woollen cloth which has already saved its wearers from hell).
73

CHAPTER IX
THE lord's day IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
The institutions and ordinances of Christians remained
the same as before during these three centuries. But a
great change in the observance of Sunday resulted from
the conversion of Constantine. Up to that time whatever
observance there was of the Lord's day was altogether
spontaneous. It was the outcome of the religious feelings
of the Christians alone, and instead of being encouraged
by public sanction, exposed those that practised it to
degrading suspicions and to persecution. The State, if it
was not hostile, was at the best indifferent, and all that
could be hoped of it was that it would leave its subjects
to the exercise of what it regarded as a foreign superstition,
while the business of the world went on as usual all round
them. The first step towards an alteration in this respect
was a law of Constantine that the Sunday {dies soils) or
Lord's day {dies Dominica) should be put on the same
footing as the old heathen festivals in respect to legal
proceedings, that is, that no actions at law should be per
mitted on it except those which necessity or charity
demanded, such as the emancipation and manumission
of slaves, which could not be deferred without a breach of
the law of charity {Cod. Theod. ii., viii., i. ; Cod. Justin, iii.,
74

Lord's Day in the Primitive Church ^
xii., ii.), or any cause that the necessities of the State
demanded should be at once prosecuted. Constantine
also ordered that the Lord's day should be a day of rest
to the army, the Christian soldiers going to church and the
heathen off'ering prayers to God in the open fields (Euseb.
Vita Constant, iv. 18-20). Another law forbade the exercise
of all secular trades in cities on Sunday, though it still
allowed agriculturists to sow corn or plant vines on it.
Further legislation took place on the lines begun by Con
stantine. Valentinian the Elder forbade Christians to be
arrested on Sunday for not paying their taxes. Valentinian
the Younger went further: 'On Sunday,' he says, 'which
our predecessors have rightly called the Lord's day, there
is to be no prosecution of law causes ; no one is to demand
payment of a debt, public or private ; no trials are to take
place before arbiters whether legally appointed or voluntarily
chosen ; and whoever departs from this rule and institution
of our holy religion is to be regarded not only as a male
factor but as sacrilegious' {Cod. Theod. viii., viii., in.).
The laws on doing agricultural work on Sunday became
more strict {Cod. Just. Leo Novell, liv., quoted in Hooker's
Eccles. Folity v., Ixxi. 9) and the decrees of CouncUs still
more so; a series of prohibitory decrees may be found one
after the other down to the time of Charlemagne. A new
duty to be performed on the Lord's day was imposed on
the Judges by Honorius, which was to visit the prisons and
see that the prisoners were humanely treated {Cod. Theod.
ix., in., vii.). The sanctity of the day was further guarded
by the prohibition of games, theatres, horse-racing and wild
beast shows on it by the Emperor Theodosius, who lays
75

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
down the principle that there is one time for prayer and
another for pleasure {Cod. Theod. xv., v., ii.). Leo and
Anthemius denounced the penalty of loss of goods on any
man who went to the spectacles on that day, and any
military man that did so was cashiered {Cod. Just, iii.,
xh., xi.). In the Codex Canonum of the African Church,
can. Ixi., there is a petition to Honorius that the theatres
might be closed on the Lord's day and on the other great
Christian festivals. The fourth Council of Carthage ex
communicated any who attended the public shows on the
Lord's day.
From the above review we may see that the Lord's day
was observed by the primitive Church with great devotion.
In the period before Constantine, the Church had nothing
but herself to rely upon to enforce its obligation, and no
force outside herself was required, so great was the zeal of
her children. They had not to be exhorted, much less
compelled, to join the Church services, long as they were,
and though they had often to be held at an hour which
demanded great self-sacrifice on the part of those that
attended them. Bingham, in his ' Antiquities of the Chris
tian Church,' notes 'the great care and concern of the
primitive Christians for the religious observation of the
Lord's day, of which they have left us several demonstra
tions ; first, in that they paid a ready and constant attend
ance upon all the offices and solemnities of public Divine
worship. They did not only rest from bodily labour and
secular business, but spent the day in such employments as
were proper to set forth the glory of the Lord, to whose
honour the day was devoted ; that is, in holding religious
76

Lord's Day in the Primitive Church 5^
assemblies for the celebration of the several parts of Divine
service, psalmody, reading of the Scriptures, preaching,
praying, and receiving the Communion, all which were the
constant service of this day ; and such was the flaming zeal
of those pious votaries that nothing but sickness, or a great
necessity, or imprisonment, or banishment, could detain
them from it ; and then also care was taken that the chief
part of it, the Communion, was administered to them by
the hands of the deacons, who carried it to those that were
sick and in prison, that, as far as was possible, they might
communicate still with the pubhc congregation' (xx., ii. 7).
When zeal began to wax cold, a canon was passed by the
Council of Elvira, a.d. 300, to the effect that if anyone in
a town did not go to church for three Lord's days together,
he was to be suspended from the Communion for the same
length of time (can. xxviii.) ; and the Council of Sardica,
A.D. 347, reminded men of the rule ' that a layman should
be excommunicated if, living in a town, he absented him
self from church for three Lord's days consecutively ' (can.
xi.). When we get as late as St Chrysostom we find the
excuse, ' I can pray at home,' put forward, which that
Father by no means admits. ' Man ! ' he cries, ' you are
deceiving yourself, for indeed it is not possible to pray
there in the same way as at church, where so many fathers
are assembled, and the cry goes up to God with one heart.
You are not heard when you are addressing your Lord by
yourself so well as with your brethren. For there is some
thing more — one heart and one voice and the bond of love
and the prayers of the priests' (Hom. iii., de Incompar.
Dei Natura, torn. i. 469). And again : 'You can pray, but
77

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
prayer has not so much power when it is only from the
members of a household as when the whole body of the
Church with one mind offers its supplications with one
voice, the priests being present and off'ering the prayers of
the whole congregation ' (Hom. ii., de obscur. prophet, tom.
vi. 187).
The fact that the Imperial laws, as soon as the Imperial
power became Christian, immediately concerned themselves
with the sanctification of the Lord's day, is sufficient in
itself to show what must have been the Christian sentiment
on the subject, and we may notice that the civil power did
not go out of its own sphere. It did not compel men to
observe the day properly, but it put an end to certain
things which were profanations of it, and which tempted
men from their religious duties on the day. And it is a
notable fact that both the civil law and the decrees of
Councils became stricter rather than laxer on the point, as
time passed and Christianity more and more interpenetrated
society, down to the time of Charlemagne, with whose reign
we count the Middle Ages to have begun.
The services of the day were, as before, the ante-lucan
service, the forenoon service, including the administration
of the Holy Communion and the Evensong service, the
last of which was foUowed, until its abolition, by the
common meal called Agape.

78

CHAPTER X
the HIERARCHY IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
Additions were made during this period to the hierarchy
of the Church. At the beginning of the third century it
was found convenient to group a certain number of bishops
under one with an honorary precedence who was called
Metropolitan. Sometimes the office of Metropolitan
passed to the senior bishop of a district, as was the
case in Africa, but generally it was held by the bishop
of the civil metropolis, the Church always following the
arrangements of the civil power wherever she could. The
duties of the office of Metropolitans were— (i) to regulate
the election and to officiate at the ordination of the
bishops of their district ; (2) to hold, and preside at, the
synods of the bishops of the province ; (3) to visit through
out the provinces, and to correct abuses; (4) to receive
appeals from the bishops, and examine them at the pro
vincial synod ; (5) to take charge of sees during vacancies ;
(6) to give letters of commendation to the suffragan-bishops
when travelling; (7) to see that Easter was kept at the
right time.
Towards the end of the third century the hierarchy was
stUl further organised by the institution of " Patriarchs,
whose authority extended over Metropolitans just as the
79

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Metropolitans' authority extended over diocesan bishops.
They had — (i) to ordain Metropolitans ; (2) to receive ap
peals from them ; (3) to summon and preside at patriarchal or
national synods. The patriarchal system began in different
places at different times, but it reached its regular and fuU
form in the fourth century in the time of Constantine.
Constantine divided the whole world, of which he was the
master, into fourteen civil districts to which were given
the name of ' Dioeceses.' Each of these Dioeceses (a civil
division of the Empire, not to be confounded with an
ecclesiastical ' Diocese ') was ruled by a Prsefect The
Church, always ready to form itself externally upon the
model of the civil government, recognised each of these
Dioeceses as the sphere of a Patriarch or Exarch or Primate
(which three titles were at this time equivalent), and thus
the Church Catholic was made up of fourteen patriarchal or
Dicecesan Churches, which differed in no essential respect
from what we now call National Churches. These fourteen
Churches, of which the Church Catholic consisted, were the
following : — (i) the Roman Church, comprising the southern
half of Italy, and presided over by the Pope or Bishop of
Rome; (2) the Italian Church, consisting of the northern
half of Italy, and presided over by the Exarch of MUan ;
(3) the African Church, under the Primate of Carthage ; (4)
the Egyptian Church, under the Patriarch of Alexandria ; (5)
the ' Asiatic ' Church, under the Exarch of Ephesus ; (6) the
' Oriental ' Church, under the Patriarch of Antioch ; (7) the
Pontic Church, under the Exarch of Csesarea ; (8) the
Thracian Church, under the Patriarch of Constantinople ;
(9) the Dacian Church, under the Exarch (apparently) of
80

Hierarchy in the Primitive Church 5^
Sardica; (lo) the Macedonian Church, under the Exarch of
Thessalonica ; (i i) the lUyrian Church, under the Exarch of
Sirmium ; (12) the Gallic Church, under seventeen Metro
politans but without an Exarch; (13) Britain, under ap
parently five Metropolitans with no Exarch over them ; (14)
Spain, under five Metropolitans but with no Exarch. Each
of these Churches was self-governed, and did not recognise
in any prelate outside its own borders any spiritual authority
or right of oversight. There was no external bond of
government to hold the fourteen Churches together. They
were wholes, independent of one another, but combined
together into one greater whole by having one invisible Head
and one animating Spirit, by maintaining the same faith,
exercising the same discipline, and having as their chief
officers bishops, each one of whom had a potential juris
diction throughout the whole of Christendom, though the
exertion of that power was, as a matter of order, limited
under normal circumstances to a special see or province or
dicecese. The only authority which the Dicecesan (or
National) Churches recognised as capable of controlling their
separate action was that of an CEcumenical Council com
posed of delegates from each and summoned by Imperial
order. These Councils passed canon after canon forbidding
the interference of the bishop of any one dicecese, that is,
district or country, with the bishop of any other dicecese.
' Bishops outside a dicecese are not to invade the Churches
across the borders nor bring confusion into the Churches,'
says the second canon of the CouncU of Constantinople,
'lest,' says the eighth canon of the Council of Ephesus,
' the pride of worldly power be introduced under cover of
F 81

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
the priestly function, and by little and little we be deprived
of the liberty which our Lord Jesus Christ, the deUverer of
all men, has given us by His own blood.'
So far the constitution of the Church is clear enough. It
consisted theoretically of fourteen independent federal,
Dicecesan (National) Churches. But now there came in two
cross principles ; the first was that the Primate of that
Dicecesan Church which contained the greatest cities should
borrow dignity from the greatness of those cities; the
second that respect should be paid to those Churches
which were founded by Apostles. In accordance with the
second of these principles an undefined reverence gathered
round the names of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and
Rome, and the prelates who presided over them. This
principle, however, had not at this time nearly so much
weight and influence as the other. The Councils of
Constantinople and Chalcedon give as the reason for the
prerogatives assigned to Rome and Constantinople the
presence of the Imperial power in those cities. (^) Even had
they not expressly declared it we might have gathered that
it must have been so, for otherwise the Apostolic sees of
Antioch and Jerusalem and Alexandria would never have
allowed the unapostolic see of Constantinople to be preferred
before themselves without making complaint ; and indeed
on any other principle than this the order would have been
Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, rather than Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem.
By virtue of the first of these cross principles, which gave
an undefined honour to apostolically-founded sees, the
Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were
82

Hierarchy in the Primitive Church 5^
endued with a dignity which other Primates had not ; by
virtue of the second the Patriarchs of Rome and
Constantinople were raised above their brother Primates;
so much so that the Council of Chalcedon, which, recognis
ing a prominence of honour in Rome because it was the
elder Imperial city, gave to the Patriarch of Constantinople,
on the ground that it was the younger Imperial city, the
second position of honour and also an authority over three
Dicecesan (National) Churches, and allowed appeals to be
made to him from all parts of the Church as much as to
the appellant's own Patriarch. These were two points in
which encroachments were made on the ancient constitu
tion of the Church in favour of Constantinople ; but it was
done legitimately at an CEcumenical Council. Rome had
no such authority to back her claim. All that she could
and did appeal to was a canon (in itself inadequate) of the
provincial Council of Sardica (the decrees of which the
Popes attempted to pass off as those of Nicsea) and the
laws of the Western Emperors.
We do not find any authority vested in the Bishops of
Rome outside their own dicecese before the law of Gratian
and Valentinian in the year 378 which enacted that all Metro
politans and all bishops who chose, in the Western Empire,
were to be tried before the Bishop of the Imperial city, in
case of any charge being made against them. (^) This decree
of Gratian gave by Imperial authority to the Patriarch of
Rome a similar position to that which was given to the
Patriarch of Constantinople by ecclesiastical authority at
the Council of Chalcedon, which extended the jurisdiction
of the latter prelate over the Churches of Pontus and the
83

^? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
East. Up to the time of Gratian's law aU suits had to be
settled within the Church of the nation where they had
arisen. The encroachment made by that law was the more
easily effected because there were no Exarchs of the
Churches of Gaul, Britain and Spain, as there were of the
other eleven Churches, but only Metropolitans without a
Primate of their own, whose duty it would have been to
maintain their rights. From this time forward the idea of
the authority of the Patriarch of Rome being extended
throughout the provinces of the Western Empire was no
longer alien to the subjects of the Western Emperor. Half
a century later Leo I. not only claimed but exerted an
authority unknown to any Bishops of Rome until the law of
Gratian had invested them with a coercive power not before
possessed. That coercive power was still further enlarged,
on Leo's entreaty, by Valentinian III., a.d. 445, and it was
then exercised by Leo, not as though it had been derived
from the Emperor, but on the novel plea that he, as Bishop
of Rome, had succeeded to the privileges of St Peter who
was chief of the Apostles. A struggle for superiority had to
ensue between the bishops of the two Imperial cities, and
it came two centuries later at the end of the sixth century,
when the title of Universal Bishop, which had been used
by the Patriarch of Constantinople, was, as we shall see,
conferred, still by Imperial not ecclesiastical decree, upon
the Bishop of Rome.
The inferior orders of the ministry also originated in the
present period. Sub-deacons, first mentioned by Cyprian,
were introduced in the third century to give assistance to
deacons where such assistance was needed. It was not
84

Hierarchy in the Primitive Church S^
till the twelfth century that the Church of Rome declared
them to be one of the superior orders, in order to be en
abled to pronounce bishops and priests to be one and the
same order (its policy being to depreciate the Episcopate)
and yet to preserve the number of three orders of the
superior ministry. Acolytes or attendants on those
ministering date also from the third century in the Latin
Church ; exorcists who prayed for men's deliverance from
Satan, readers, who publicly read the Scriptures in church,
and ostiarii or doorkeepers were a little later. Singers,
copiatse or gravediggers, parabolani or district visitors, and
oeconomi or bursars belong to the fourth, arch-deacons to
the third century. NOTES
(') ' We following in all things the decision of the holy Fathers and
acknowledging the canon of the 1 50 most religious Bishops which has
been just read {i.e., the third canon of the Council of Constantinople)
do also determine and decree the same thing respecting the prerogatives
of the most holy city of Constantinople, New Rome. For the Fathers
properly have granted its prerogatives to the throne of the Elder Rome,
because that was the Imperial city. And the 1 50 most religious
Bishops, being moved with the same intention, gave equal prerogatives
to the most holy throne of New Rome, judging with reason that the
city which was honoured with the sovereignty and the senate, and
which enjoyed equal prerogatives with the Elder Royal Rome, should
also be magnified like her in ecclesiastical matter, being the second
city after her.' — Canon xxviii. of the Council of Chalcedon.
(^) The rise of the see of Toledo, which became the second richest
see in Christendom, is similar to that of Rome. When the Gothic
Kings of Spain had become Catholic and transferred the royal residence
to Toledo they could not endure that the bishop of their see should not
therefore be superior to other bishops. Accordingly, King Gundemar
and his successors raised Toledo first to Metropolitan and then to
Primatial rank. 'Henceforth,' said King Gundemar's edict, 'we shall
not pardon the offence if any of the priests of Carthaginensis disregard
85

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
the honour of this Church. Whoever is disobedient shall certainly
undergo the sentence of degradation and excommunication as well as
the infliction of severe punishment by Us ' (Labbe et Cossart v. i6).
The King and the Church of Spain stood in the same relation to each
other as the Emperor and the Church of the Empire. In each case
the presence of the highest representative of the civil power was
considered a reason for adding dignity to the Bishop of the city in
which he resided, and giving him authority over the other bishops of
the realm.

86

CHAPTER XI
THREE transitional CENTURIES
It seems almost as necessary that rehgion should sink
gradually into superstition with the passage of time as that
a stream which leaps sparkling from its mountain spring
should become befouled after traversing the haunts of men
and crowded cities. One man adds a little here, another
there; something is omitted here, something else there;
some strange interpretation is introduced here or there,
which changes the character and meaning of a precept or
an act or a rite. Unconsciously the original faith passes
into something quite different, and a long time afterwards
men wake up and say with astonishment and indignation,
This is not the old faith ! How did it come to be what
it is now? And then comes the question of dogged
maintenance of what is, without respect to what was, or
reformation. The Church increasingly suffered from this tendency of
the faith to become corrupted as it passes from generation
to generation ; and the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries
were a period of swift declension, though the slough lying
at the bottom of the descent was not yet reached.
There was a special cause for the rapidity with which
false doctrines germinated and grew at this time. The
87

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
irruption of the barbarians and the overthrow of the
CEcumenical power of the Roman Empire changed the
face of the world and had an untold effect on the Church.
The civil and military officers of the Roman Empire feU
back before rude tribes of barbarians bursting down from
the north. The Church did its best to meet the crisis. It
swept all the untaught soldiers that it could into its net,
contented if they would embrace Christianity and accept
the guidance of Christian priests, hoping to be able to
instruct them more perfectly as time went on. A break
was thus made in the traditional understanding of
Scriptural words and Church ordinances which was never
restored in the West. I will illustrate in two points — a
doctrine and a practice. Down to this time it had been
well known that the text ' This is my body ' was to be
understood spiritually. But the barbarians found the
Church to which they had submitted celebrating with great
pomp, a pomp once unknown, a service, not now making
part of a social meal in which the Last Supper of the
Founder had been commemorated and re-enacted, but
standing by itself and apart from its old surroundings,
in which the priest appeared to declare that the bread
which he held in his hand and the wine which he poured
forth were the body and blood of the Lord. The new
converts, simple, rude soldiers of the peasant class, not
acquainted with Hebrew parable and poetry but familiar
with the magical rites of their own superstitions, accepted
the words in their baldest signification. Their teachers
knew that they were materialising the traditional faith in
respect to the Sacrament, but they had to leave the rude

Three Transitional Centuries 5^
conception uncorrected for the present, considering that
the immediate work to be done was to secure a profession
of Christianity, and that if they did that, all would come
right in the end. Thus the materialistic view of the bread
and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ took its
place in the Church, and when once it was rooted in the
apprehensions of the vulgar, the more enlightened members
of the body were not able, as they had expected, to
eradicate it. By the end of the present period, instead of
having passed away, it succeeded in making its way into
the class above the common people, and it appeared for the
first time in a treatise written by a monk of Corbey about
the year 830. We shall have to continue in a subsequent
chapter the history of this movement from below.
Similarly, down to this time it had been known that the
text, 'Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto
them, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained,'
meant that Christ's ministers were authorised by the Master
to admit men into the kingdom of grace and forgiveness
through baptism, or to keep them out of it by refusing them
baptism, and to cast them out from it by excommunication,
and to re-admit them on their proving themselves worthy.
The unlettered converts accepted the Scriptural words in
a gross sense, and an awe grew up around the clergy as
men capable of pardoning their sins. The clergy, for their
part, having enough to do to keep a hold on them in any
way, were content to aUow them to remain in a misunder
standing which would at least confirm them in subjection
to themselves, who were the representatives, says Milman,
' not only of religion but of civUisation.' ' The ecclesiastics

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
would have been almost more than men, certainly far
beyond their time, to have resisted the temptation of what
would seem innocent or beneficent fraud, to overcome or
to control the ignorant barbarian ' {Latin Christianity, iii. 2,
p. 292). Thus by the irruption of the barbarians and the
consequent break in the traditions of civilisation and
Christianity a way was made for the dogma of Transub
stantiation and the practice of the Confessional, both of
which were" sanctioned together at a much later date,
in 1215.
A previous step towards the Confessional had been made
at the end of the fifth century by Pope Leo I. In the
fourth and fifth centuries the rule was that if a man was
guilty of apostasy, witchcraft, adultery, fornication, murder,
homicide, robbery, robbery of graves, or sacrilege, he was
required to acknowledge his fault publicly in the presence
of the congregation before he could be re-admitted to the
Lord's Table. This public acknowledgment was demanded
in order that the congregation might be assured of the
transgressor's penitence and that they might help him
with their prayers. Leo I. (a.d 440-461), writing to the
bishops of Campania, directed that this discipline should
be so far altered that the confession should be made to the
clergy instead of to the congregation, on the ground that
the prayers of the clergy would be sufficient without those
of the congregation. This was the first step towards private
confession to a priest, which had hitherto been unknown in
the Church except with a view to subsequent public con
fession (in the above-named cases) to the congregation. It
was however but a short step as yet, for Leo still regarded
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Three Transitional Centuries 5^
the office of the priest to be that of prayer to God for the
sinner's pardon, not forgiveness of his sin in the place of
God. As sacerdotalism grew, the priest, from being the
representative of the congregation, slid into the position of
being the representative of God, till at length he gave
God's pardon instead of praying for it.
A step was also taken towards the doctrine of Purgatory
at the end of the sixth century. We have seen that
Origen, Hilary and others had already thrown out the idea
that on the Day of Judgment all mankind would have to
pass through a purifying fire before appearing before God,
and Augustine had conjectured that if there were such a
purifying fire it might possibly be sooner than the last day,
but said that he could not tell {De Civ. Dei, xxi. 20). Pope
Gregory I. (a.d. 590-604), if the Dialogues attributed to him
are genuine, declared that we ought to believe in a purifying
fire after death which might serve as an expiation of light
faults, such as immoderate laughter or idle talking, which
St Augustine had taught were done away by daily prayer.
This is far from being the later doctrine of Purgatory, even
before the tenet of Indulgences was added to it. Yet it led
the way to that doctrine.
Papal authority grew throughout these three centuries.
In the course of the third century three religious novels
of an heretical character had been issued under the names
of the Homilies, the Recognitions and the Epitome, and
had been attributed to Bishop Clement of Rome. They
were intended for a covert attack on St Paul, who was re
presented as Simon Magus subdued by Peter. James of
Jerusalem was depicted by them as the Archbishop of the

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
whole Church, but next to him in authority and practically
first in power was Peter. The tales were passed by with
disregard as an Ebionite dream, but they started an idea as
to Peter's position in the Apostolic Church which in the
fifth century was grasped at by the Bishops of Rome, who
were not satisfied with tracing their prominence to the laws
of Gratian and Valentinian giving them authority over the
other bishops of the Empire, or to the fact of Rome being
the seat of empire (which the Councils of Constantinople
and Chalcedon both state to have been the cause) or even
to the canon of the provincial Council of Sardica. When
we reach Leo I. (a.d. 440-461) we find the plea put forward
that Peter was the superior of the other Apostles and that
the Bishops of Rome had succeeded to that superiority.
This claim, suggested by the heretical Clementine novels
but first formulated seriously by Leo I. and never since
his days abandoned, was made with greater and greater
boldness as time proceeded, and the three centuries that
we are now considering were especially favourable to its
growth. For when the Western Empire or rather the
Western branch of the Roman Empire was extinguished in
476, the Roman bishops obtained an independent
authority in Italy which the Arian Ostrogothic kings, who
like their Visigothic cousins in Spain were of a tolerant
temperament, did not think of controlling, while the
Byzantine emperors were too far off to be able to do so,
except when a specially strong man like Justinian held the
reins of power. ' Under these favourable circumstances,'
says Gieseler, ' the ecclesiastical pretensions of the Roman
bishops, who now formed the only centre of Catholic
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Three Transitional Centuries 5^
Christendom in the West, in opposition to the Arian
conquerors, rose high without hindrance. They asserted
that not only did the highest ecclesiastical authority in the
West belong to them, but also superintendence of orthodoxy
and maintenance of ecclesiastical laws throughout the whole
Church' {Eccl. Hist. ii. 123.) In 511 was first heard the
assertion, made by a Bishop Ennodius, that the Bishop of
Rome, now first distinctively called Pope, was subject to
no earthly judges {Mansi, vin. 274). To confirm so useful
a privUege and give it an historical basis, the acts of
earlier supposititious Councils were forged, containing the
same assertion, and assigned to the fourth and fifth
centuries. As yet, however, the Bishops of Rome ac
knowledge themselves subject to General Councils and
only demanded the right of interference outside their own
Dicecesan Church when the maintenance of the faith
required it. In this demand they claimed as an exclusive
possession of their own the right which resided in every
member of the equal coUege of bishops.

93

CHAPTER XII
second and third councils of CONSTANTINOPLE
AND SECOND OF NICSEA
Hitherto I have spoken of the words and acts of in
dividuals in the three centuries now under consideration.
The Church, as a body, held two General CouncUs during
the period — the Fifth and the Sixth CEcumenical Councils,
summoned by Justinian, a.d. 553, and by Constantine
Pogonatus, a.d. 680, to meet at Constantinople. These
two Councils attempted no change in, or addition to, the
faith as contained in the Creeds and in the definitions of the
first four Councils. But the second of them pronounced a
condemnation of Monothelitism, as a corollary of the con
demnation of Monophytism declared at Chalcedon. It was
fairly argued that if our Lord had two Natures, the divine.
and the human. He must also have had two Wills, the divine
and the human, the Will being an essential part of each
Nature. {^) These two Councils are of special value as
exhibiting the relation still understood to exist between
the Popes of Rome and General Councils. At the Fifth
CEcumenical Council (Second of Constantinople) Pope
Vigilius was not present personally or by legates (although
he was in Constantinople at the time that it was sitting) and
he was by implication condemned by it for heresy. In the
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Second and Third Councils of Constantinople 5«»
Sixth CEcumenical Council (Third of Constantinople) Pope
Honorius was by name anathematised for heresy, and that
he was a heretic was acknowledged by his successor Leo II.,
who anathematised him for trying to subvert the faith by a
profane betrayal of it (Routh, Opuscula, ii. 153). Leo's
condemnation of his predecessor must have been either just
or unjust. If it was just, Honorius was a heretic and
therefore not infallible; if it was unjust, Leo pronounced
a false judgment ex cathedra on a point of doctrine and
therefore he was not infallible. It is impossible that both
these Popes could have been infallible.
Two other Councils were held which were intended to
be CEcumenical but were not. The first of these was held
at Constantinople ¦ in 754, which condemned, the other at
Nicsea in 787, which commanded, the worship of images.
We must pause over these two Councils, as they illustrate
the growth of image worship and show how not individuals
only but large sections of the Church sank at this time into
a condonation of idolatry — which shows how near we are
to the period of Medisevalism.
At the beginning of the eighth century the spiritual
character of worship had become degraded into a material
and sensuous adoration of visible forms. Doubtless there
were some then, as there ever have been, who were capable
of distinguishing between the symbol and the thing
symboUsed : but such persons were, as they ever have been,
few, and the mass of the Byzantine Christians rendered
worship to the painted images themselves, not only to the
prototypes which the icons were supposed to represent. In
717 Leo the Isaurian was lifted to the throne of Constanti-
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
nople. A brave and enterprising soldier, educated far from
the subtleties of Byzantine theology and phUosophy, he
seems to have entertained towards the worship of images a
feeling of scorn and detestation not unnatural to one whose
mind had perhaps been raised into the region of spiritual
religion by a youthful familiarity with the mountains and
fastnesses of his native province. Seated on the throne, he
determined to cleanse the Church, of which he was con
sidered the guardian, of a superstition which in his eyes
debased Christianity and laid it open to the sneers and
taunts of Jews and Mohammedans. He began with mild
measures, but soon passions were excited on both sides,
and throughout his reign and that of his son Constantine
Copronymus, the Eastern Empire was rent into two hostile
factions, one charging its opponents with atheism, the other
with superstition. In the year 754 Constantine Copronymus
summoned a General CouncU which met at Constantinople,
consisting of 338 bishops. In the Council, which adopted
the title of the Great Seventh General Council, icon wor
ship was sternly prohibited as inconsistent with the spirit-
uahty of the worship of Christ. Constantine died and left
the throne to his feebler son, Leo IV., who again left it,
after a short reign of five years, to an infant Constantine
VI., who was placed under the guardianship of his mother
Irene. Irene, an Athenian princess, had been addicted to
image worship during her husband's lifetime, and she now
resolved to make use of her exalted position for the purpose of
recalling monks banished for idolatry, and replacing images.
Her first step was to appoint her secretary, Tarasius, though
still a layman, to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and
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Second and Third Councils of Constantinople 5o»
with his co-operation, she convoked a Council, which was
first assembled at Constantinople and shortly transferred to
Nicsea, where it was opened in the autumn of the year 787,
and caUed, like the Council in the reign of Copronymus,
the Seventh General Council. At this Council the icono
clasts or overthrowers of images were condemned, as the
worshippers of images had been condemned in the previous
CouncU, the worship of images was declared a lawful and
pious practice, and an image or icon of the Saviour being
introduced into the assembly, those present fell down before
it and adored it.
Pope Hadrian readily confirmed the Acts of the Second
Council of Nicsea. The Popes had throughout the con
troversy been the strong advocates of image worship and
violent opponents of the iconoclastic emperors. They had
reason to be so ; partly because the practice of image
worship had spread through Italy subsequently to the time
of Gregory I., partly and chiefly because they found that
they could use the popular superstition in favour of images
as a lever with which to wrest their independence, which
soon became a monarchy, from the feeble hands of their
distant Imperial lord. Gregory II. and Gregory III. had
assaUed the Emperor Leo with an insolent vituperation ex
hibiting a grossness of ignorance which makes us hesitate
to acknowledge their letters as genuine. We can hardly
imagine the bishop of such a city as Rome so ignorant as
to describe the act of Hezekiah in destroying the brazen
serpent as the act of a wicked king, whom he caUs Uzziah,
setting himself up to offer violence to the priests of God.
We can scarcely beheve that he would declare that pictures
G 97

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of Christ, of James, the Lord's brother, of Stephen and of
all the martyrs had been disseminated throughout the world
to receive adoration. The violence of language used
towards the Emperor is more explicable, since a half-
revolted subject who is resolved on shaking off the yoke of
a superior (which was the position of the Popes at this time)
does not measure the words with which he assails and
provokes his lately feared master. Hadrian, following in
the footsteps of the two Gregories, gave his consent to the
decrees of the Second Council of Nicsea — but Hadrian
spoke for Italy, not for Europe. There was a nobler, freer,
more untrammelled spirit abroad in Germany, France,
England, and at that time in Spain too. Three years
after the Council had been held a remarkable book was
issued in the name of Charles the Great. From Charle
magne's name it is called the Caroline books, and though
it has been attributed by some to our English Alcuin, it
is probable that to a great extent it emanated from the
Emperor himself, who was the author of it in the same
sense that King James I. was author of books and pamphlets
which he wrote with the assistance of Bishop Andrewes and
Casaubon. The Caroline books speak more in the tone
of the Protestant controversialists of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries than of the age to which they belong.
Charles argues with power, skill, and sometimes with bitter
ness which descends to vituperation, against all adoration
of images. He forbids worship, reverence, veneration, and
orders that none shall kneel before an image, nor burn lights
to it, nor burn incense to it, nor kiss it. Pictures may be used
as historical monuments and nothing more. The Emperor
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Second and Third Councils of Constantinople ^
was not satisfied with his written protest. In 794, that is,
seven years after the Second Council of Nicsea, the Council
¦ of Frankfort was held, and in this Council the decrees of
the Nicene Council were formally condemned, and the
assembled Fathers declared their ' rejection and contempt
of adoration and servitude being paid in any form to images,
and they unanimously condemned the same.' Legates of
Pope Hadrian were present at the Council of Frankfort, and
a copy of the Caroline books was despatched to Rome.
An unwelcome present. But the Pope stood in a very
different position to the young Empire of Charlemagne from
that which he held towards the decrepit Byzantine Empire.
Hadrian dissembled his anger and returned a feeble reply
to the arguments of the Caroline books.
The Second Council of Nicsea thus proved to be not an
undisputed Council. Its decrees were rejected as soon as
heard of by the most vigorous nations of the West under
Charlemagne, and again under his son Louis the Pious ; and
even in the East the existing prevalence of icon worship
does not rest so much on the authority of the Second
Council of Nicsea, after which images were again abolished
and again restored, according to the caprice of one or
another emperor, as on the influence of the Empress
Theodora, widow of the iconoclast Theophilus, who
finally won the battle for the icons in the year 842, more
than fifty years after the Second Council of Nicsea. It was
in her reign that the festival commemorating the restora
tion of icons was held which is stiU religiously observed by
the Oriental Church. Seldom have more conspicuous
examples of the part played by women in corrupting the
99

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
theology of the Church been seen than in the savage Irene,
who murdered her son in the porphyry chamber in which
she had borne him, and the feeble-minded Theodora. To
Irene and Theodora we owe it that the worship of icons is
part of the recognised religious system of the vast Russian
Empire and of the Russo-Greek Church.
The teaching of the Second Council of Nicsea on the
worship of icons amounts to this : That to honour them is
not sufficient, that to venerate, worship, and adore them is
a duty binding on pain of anathema, but that Latria, the
supreme worship due only to Almighty God, may not be
paid to them. The Eastern Church therefore did not at
this time sink, and has not sunk, into idolatry to the same
degree as the Western Church of the Middle Ages, which
by the mouth of Aquinas declared that the images of Christ
and the Cross were to be worshipped 'with the same
supreme worship, Latria, with which Christ Himself is
adored.' StUl, when we read of the praise bestowed by
Gregory I. at the end of the sixth century upon Serenus for
' preventing anything made with hands being worshipped,'
and the zeal of Bishop Epiphanius in the middle of the
fourth century in tearing down a curtain at the door of a
church, because it had upon it the picture of Christ or a
saint ; and when we contrast the decree of the Council of
Elvira at the beginning of the fourth century, ordering
' that no images be admitted into churchesj lest the object
of religious worship come to be painted on the walls,' we
see how far the Second Council of Nicasa had declined
from earlier purity and orthodoxy. StiU more when we
place the decree of Nicsea side by side with the Second

Second and Third Councils of Constantinople §^
Commandment, do we see the difference between the
spiritual religion which God demands of us, and the
materiahsm into which man debased it. The principle of
the Second Commandment is that we should lift up our
spiritual selves to the Spiritual Being who created us, with
out demanding the aid of external form or localised symbol,
in order that our souls may hold communion with Him.
This spiritual conception of worship, cherished in the heart
of hearts of the Jewish people from the time of the Captivity
onwards, passed in still purer form to the early Christians.
For four centuries neither images nor any other visible
objects of religious worship were admitted into churches,
nor allowed in the exercise of devotion. For two centuries
more, not a single word in favour of their veneration can be
found in any writer great or small. Six hundred years
passed away and no thought of icon worship had presented
itself to the Christian consciousness. A dark time then
fell on the Church. The horror of idols, inspired by
heathen polytheism, passed away, and at the same time an
unhappy materialisation of religion took place. Not only
were symbols more and more craved after by a feeble
faith, but the distinction between the symbol and the thing
symbolised, the sign and the thing signified, was obliterated
by a gross materialising tendency, tUI the image was required
as a stepping-stone to reach the original, and then the
image and the original were so identified together that the
worship due to the original alone was expended on the
outward symbol. The iconoclasts woke suddenly at the
beginning of the eighth century to the conviction that the
Christian religion was debased and must be purified.
lOI

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Their opponents, believing them to be inspired by the
prejudices of Jews and Mohammedans, hugged their icons
closer to them, and insisted on regarding them as part and
parcel of the religion of Christ instead of a corruption of it,
throwing themselves with vehemence and ardour into the
defence of that which, for the sake of the rest, they should
have thrown away. The result of this error, committed so
many centuries ago, is that the practice of icon worship is
spread throughout a great part of Europe and Asia, and a
barrier is raised up between one part of Christ's Church and
another which appears insurmountable.
NOTE
(') In the same way it follows from our Lord's two Natures that He
had two knowledges, the divine and the human. Nor could He have
divested Himself of one of His knowledges any more than of one of
His wills, knowledge being an essential part of the Divine Nature, and
impossible to be laid aside by the human Nature after having been
once acquired, except by a mutilation which should leave the Nature
imperfect. Having both knowledges, He could not be deceived. If it
were possible to hold a General Council at the present day, a decision
to this effect might be expected from it, to meet errors lately put forth
and maintained.

PART I I

CHAPTER I
THE FAITH OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
The dominating feature and factor in the Middle Ages is
the Papal Supremacy, not only because it was a supremacy
forming practically a new order of the ministry in the
West, but also because its function was to approve by its
authority every corruption of the primitive faith and worship
as soon as it had become thoroughly popular ; and so to
change that faith and worship by the corporate action of
the Latin Church in a way that it could not have been
changed by the speculations of individuals. We have seen
that the Emperors Gratian and Valentinian had invested
the Bishops of Rome in the fifth century with a certain
power over all the bishops of the Empire, in order that
through them the Emperor might the more readily govern
the distant prelates, and the CouncUs of Constantinople
and Chalcedon recognised a primacy of honour in the see,
on the ground of its possessing within it the Imperial
throne and the senate; and further, that Leo I. had tried
to improve the position thus granted by appealing to a
supposed special privUege conferred on St Peter, and re
tained by his supposed successors. But all this would have
gone for nothing; when the Western Emperor fell, the
power bestowed by him would have gradually fallen like-
105

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
wise, and the other patriarchs and the Metropolitans, while
courteously bowing to the Roman Prelate, would have held
their own had not a literary fraud taken place in the ninth
century which changed the face of Christendom. This was
the forgery of the ' Decretals of Isidore.' The forgery was
made towards the middle of the century, between the years
829 and 845. It would seem that Riculfus, Archbishop
of Maintz, obtained from Spain a collection of letters and
decrees about the year 800, which he laid by in a bureau in
which ecclesiastical documents of the Church of Maintz
were kept. Here they were found by his successor. Arch
bishop Autcarius, who came to the see in 826 and held it
tiU 847. Already the principle of interpolating, mutUating
and forging ancient documents of authority, which was so
largely acted upon in the Middle and later ages, prevailed.
Autcarius saw his opportunity of introducing into the law
and custom of the Latin Church regulations and principles
which he honestly thought would be good for the Church.
It seems to have been he that committed the forgeries and
attributed the whole collection, forgeries and all, to Isidore
of Seville, the only learned Spanish prelate, almost the only
learned man of the sixth century, (i) The most important
part of the collection was a series of Decretal Letters, that
is, letters with canonical authority purporting to be written
by the early Popes, and exhibiting them as from the
beginning the monarchs of the Church. The extent to
which these Letters were forged may be seen by the
following Table taken from Labbe and Cossart's History
of the Councils, which, however, does not indicate more
than half of the forgeries, compositions and interpolations.
106

A Table of the Early Popes, and the Letters ascribed to Them.

No.

Name of the Pope.

A.D.

Letters ascribed to
each.

Whether forged
or genuine.

Col. Labbe
% Cossart.

vol. i.
f 2 to Cor. ")
Genuine
123
I
Clement I.
91
S to St Jas. \
Forged
82
[ and others J
2
Anacletus
lOI
3 Epistles
Forged
512
3
Evaristus
no
2 Epistles
Forged
533
4
Alexander I.
119
3 Epistles
Forged
542
Sixtus I.
130
2 Epistles
Forged
554
6
Telesphonis
140
I Epistle
Forged
559
7
Hyginus
152
2 Epistles
Forged
566
8
Pius I.
156
4 Epistles
Forged
579
9
Anicetus
i6s
I Epistle
Forged
580
10
Soter
173
2 Epistles
Forged
5^t
ri
Eleutherus
177
I Epistle
Forged
588
12
Victor I.
192
4 Epistles
Forged
592
13
Zephyrinus
201
2 Epistles
Forged
603
14
Callistus I.
219
2 Epistles
Forged
609
IS
Urban I.
224
I Epistle
Forged
618
i6
Pontianus
231
2 Epistles
Forged
623
17
Anterus
23s
I Epistle
Forged
629
i8
Fabian
236
3 Epistles
Forged
640
19
Cornelius
251
6 Epistles
3 Forged, 3")
Genuine J
668
20
Lucius
253
I Epistle
Forged
721
21
Stephen I.
255
2 Epistles
Forged
729
22
Sixtus II.
257
2 Epistles
Forged
820
23
Dionysius
258
2 Epistles
Forged
827
24
Felix I.
270
3 Epistles
Forged
904
25
Eutychian
275
2 Epistles
Forged
914
26
Caius
283
r Epistle
Forged
925
27
Marcellinus
296
2 Epistles
Forged
932
28
Macellus I.
304
2 Epistles
Forged
948
29
Eusebius
309
3 Epistles
Forged
1381
30
Melchiades
311
I Epistle
Forged
139s
vol- ii.
31
Sylvester I.
314
I Epistle
Forged
58
32
Marcus
336
I Epistle
Forged
470
33
Julius
336
4 Epistles
2 Forged, 2\
Genuine J
475
34
Liberius
352
15 Epistles
S Forged, 10"
Genuine
744
35
Felix 11.
366
2 Epistles
Forged
844
36
Damasus I.
367
10 Epistles
5 Forged, j'
Genuine
862
37
Siricius
385
5 Epistles
3 Forged, 2."
Genuine
1017
38
Anastasius
398
3 Epistles
2 Forged, i"
Genuine
- 1191
107
¦^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
These epistles are not merely letters, but Decretal
Letters, i.e., having the weight and authority of a decree.
Their purpose is fairly stated by Binius, Canon of Cologne,
one of the last learned men of the Church of Rome who
made a vigorous effort about a.d. r6o8 to defend their
authenticity, when all others were giving them up as
hopeless. He says : ' Most of those letters of the Popes
were written about the Primacy of Peter ; the dominion of
the Roman Church; the ordination of bishops; that priests
are not to be injured, nor accused, nor deposed; about
appeals being made to the Apostolic See.' It was under the
shadow of these forgeries that the Papal Supremacy grew
up. The forgeries are now exposed and avowed, but the
doctrines and practices remain.
Archbishop de Marca says : ' It is certain and altogether
beyond doubt in the judgment of aU learned men, and also
of the Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine, that universally
all those letters which precede the time of Siricius and
Innocent (a.d. 384-398) were fabricated ' {De Concord, vii.
20). Many of those that are of later date and which are
received as genuine are also more than doubtful. Siricius
is said to have written to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona ;
but there was no Himerius of Tarragona contemporary
with him ; Eumerius, which is the name most like
Himerius, lived fifty years before Siricius. Innocent I.
is said to have written to Hilarius, who is supposed to
have been a Bishop of Tarragona, but there is no
Hilarius in the Tarragona list or any other list of Spanish
prelates. Leo I. is said to have written to Turribius;
but he cannot be identified. Pope Hilarius is said to
108

Faith of the Mediaeval Church 5^
have written to Ascanius, Bishop of Tarragona; but
Ascanius's date is a hundred years after that of Pope
HUarius. Criticism declares eighty-five out of one hundred
and eleven Papal Decretal Letters to be forgeries, and
criticism has not been sufficiently trenchant. Even Devoti
says, ' This collection gradually, and step by step, began to
obtain use and authority, since in the darkness of those
times there was no one who would suspect, or rather who
could understand, that the documents given in it were
false ' {InstH. Canon, v. 66). Fleury sets down the points
in which the jurisprudence of the Decretals was opposed to
the canons of the ancient Church ; they may be summed
up thus : —
I. That no Council, not even provincial, could be held
without the Pope's permission.
2. That no Bishop could be judged definitively except
by the Pope.
3. The right of translating Bishops is ascribed solely to
the Pope.
4. The Pope alone has the right of erecting new
Bishoprics.
5. Metropolitan Sees could only be founded by the Pope.
6. A vast extension of Appeals to the Pope.
Each one of these Fleury proves to be at variance with the
canons and discipline of the Ancient Church {Discours iv.
sur I'Hist. Eccles. p. 210). But they were believed to be
ancient, on the authority of Isidore's Decretals, and were
built upon, and became the foundation of the Canon Law
109

•og Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of the Western Church. Fleury continues : ' The Decretum
of Gratian' (a work of a monk of the twelfth century)
' completely established and extended the authority of the
False Decretals, which are found scattered throughout it ;
for during three centuries no other canons were followed
in the schools and the tribunals. Gratian has even gone
beyond these Decretals, to extend the authority of the
Pope, maintaining that he was not subject to the canons —
which he says on his own warrant, and without adducing
any proof of authority ' {Ibid.). ' By the forgery and recep
tion of the Decretals,' says Van Espen, ' the discipline of
the Fathers was broken down' {Op. in. 478).
On the basis of the False Decretals Nicolas I. laid the
foundation of the Papal Monarchy of the Middle Ages in
860, which was raised to its highest pitch of power by
Gregory VII. in the eleventh and by Innocent III. in the
thirteenth century. It was not till the sixteenth century
that the fraud was discovered and laid bare by the Centuri-
ators of Magdeburg. Therefore, during the whole of the
Middle Ages, men in the West were under the impression
that they were bound by primitive rule to submit absolutely
to the Pope of Rome on all matter of faith and jurisdiction,
and this must cause us to pass a more lenient judgment on
them as individuals than we could otherwise do. But this
very submissiveness, which sought for the Papal approval of
each novel tenet as it sprang up, took away from false
doctrine the comparatively harmless character of being
the speculation of a misguided theologian and made it a
formal corruption of the faith of the whole Latin Church.
The chief of these corruptions are put together for us in

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
what is known as the Creed of Pope Pius IV. For when
the errors of the Middle Ages were rejected by the
Churches which embraced the Reformation, the Roman
Church gathered them up into small compass and imposed
a belief in them on its followers. We have, therefore, in
that formulary a summary of the faith of the Mediaeval
Church in addition to and contrasted with that contained
in the Catholic Creeds which were the faith of primitive
Christendom. The new articles are twelve in number —
I. Transubstantiation; 2. The Propitiatory Sacrifice of the
Mass; 3. Reception of Christ under one kind; 4. The
Seven Sacraments ; 5. Purgatory ; 6. Indulgences ; 7.
Invocation of Saints; 8. The Veneration of Rehcs; 9.
The Worship of Images; 10. Tradition; 11. Justification
by works; 12. The Supremacy of the Church of Rome.
I. We have seen that the idea of an objective presence
of Christ in the elements of bread and wine and of a change
of those elements into the Body and Blood of Christ
took its origin from a misapprehension by the rude
northern barbarians of the sixth and seventh centuries, unac
quainted with the parabolic and poetical style of the Hebrews
and too unlettered to take in any but the most literal sense
of the words of Scripture. The conception of the populace,
we saw, did not find expression in writing till the ninth
century, with which the Middle Ages commence. Then
Paschasius Radbert, a monk of Corbey, sprung from the
people and educated in the monastery just sufficiently to be
the spokesman of his comrades, wrote a treatise containing
it. His doctrine was at once controverted by men more
learned than himself, who had been trained in the tradi-

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
tional doctrine of the Church, Amalarius, Archdeacon of
Treves, Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Maintz, John
Scotus Erigena, Walafrid Strabo and Bertram or Ratramnus.
But argument could not overthrow a now widespread, if
ignorant, belief, which based itself, when assailed, on the
apparent meaning of the words of Scripture. The material
istic conception still grew, and invaded the higher ecclesi
astical ranks, so that two centuries later when Berengarius
re-stated the primitive doctrine that the bread and wine
were not Christ but were the means of conveying the
benefits of His death and passion to the soul if received
with faith and love, he was regarded as an innovator and
brought before Synods and Popes for heresy. One of the
Popes was Hildebrand (Gregory VII.). Hildebrand hesi
tated, ' he was not sure himself of the change of substance,'
but he too had to yield to the pressure from below, and by
his command Berengarius made confession (afterwards re
canted) that ' the bread and the wine placed upon the altar
are by the mystery of holy prayer and the words of the
Redeemer converted into the true, actual and life-giving
flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are after
consecration the true body of Christ, which was born of the
Virgin, and which hung on the cross an offering for the
salvation of the world, not only in the way of a sign and in
virtue of a sacrament, but also in propriety of nature and
truth of substance.' No argumentative basis that would
stand could be found for the novel doctrine, and it was
therefore rested on the authority of the Roman see. ' The
chief thing is to hold about it what the holy Roman Church
holds,' said Duns Scotus and other Schoolmen, who refused
112

Faith of the Mediaeval Church 5©»
to touch it with one of their fingers. Innocent III. found
a name for it in the thirteenth century and gave it the
sanction of the Mediaeval Church at the Fourth Lateran
Council. (2)
The tenet is that when the priest utters the words, Hoc est
corpus meum, ' This is my body,' the essence of the bread is
annihUated and disappears, leaving only the colour, shape
and appearance of bread, and that at the same moment the
place of the essence of bread is taken by the essence of
Christ's body, which at the instant has been divested of its
colour, shape and appearance, and invested with the colour,
shape and appearance of bread ; more than this, that with
His body the whole living Person of Christ in His divinity
and humanity enters the apparent piece of bread and there
abides until consumed. Further, that when the priest •
utters the words, Hie est calix sanguinis mei, ' This is the
cup of my blood,' the essence of the wine is annihUated
and disappears, leaving only the colour, taste and appear
ance of wine, and that at the same moment the place of the
essence of wine is taken by the essence of Christ's blood
which at the instant has been divested of its colour, taste
and appearance and been invested with the colour, taste
and appearance of wine ; more than this, that with His blood
the whole living Person of Christ in His divinity and
humanity enters the cup and there abides untU it is
emptied. 2. The second article of the mediaeval faith, the Sacrifice
of the Mass, follows from the first and also many more
behefs of the strangest and most repulsive nature. ' As
soon as ever Transubstantiation was established,' says
H 113

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Bishop Cosin, 'a foundation was laid for a number of
superstitions and errors which God-fearing men could not
sanction nor endure ; and among the believers in Transub
stantiation themselves there grew up a forest of questions,
inextricable and portentous, with which the Schoolmen
occupied themselves to such a degree that it may be truly
affirmed that a perfectly new and monstrous theology, un
heard of by all the ancients, about the Holy Eucharist and
the adoration of the Host, then took its birth ' {Historia
Transubstantiationis, vii. 22). The Sacrifice of the Mass,
held informally from the thirteenth century onwards, was
authorised by the Council of Trent in 1562. The tenet is
that the priest having first caused Christ to enter into the
apparent bread and the cup by the formula of consecration,
then takes Him and offers Him up to the Father as a Sin-
Offering for the living and the dead to propitiate His anger ;
and after He has been offered as a propitiatory off'ering to
God, His existence in the bread and the cup is destroyed by
the priest's eating one of the wafers of bread and drinking
all the wine, after which, the victim being now slain, the
sacrifice is accomplished ; but He nevertheless exists still in
the other consecrated wafers, which may be worshipped as
being Himself, until eaten by the teeth of the communicants.
3. Anselm having, with Lanfranc, learnt the doctrine of
Transubstantiation at the monastery of Bee, drew from it
the legitimate conclusion that Christ existed in His entirety
both in the bread and in the wine, or rather that after
consecration the bread was Christ in the integrity of His
Person and that the wine was Christ in the integrity of His
Person. Consequently to communicate in both kinds
114

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
became superfluous, except for the priest, who, having
brought Christ into existence in the cup, was bound to
terminate that existence there by drinking up the wine.
The result of Anselm's dictum, accepted throughout the
Middle Ages, was that the cup was taken away from the
communicant. This was authorised at the Council of
Constance, a.d. 14 15, by the following decree: —
' Since there are some who presume audaciously to assert
that the Christian people ought to take the Sacrament of
the Eucharist under both kinds of bread and wine, and
commonly communicate the laity not only under the
species of bread but also under the species of wine . . .
although this sacrament was received in the primitive Church
by the faithful in both kinds, nevertheless, henceforth let
it be received by the officiating priests in both kinds and
by the laity only under the species of bread, inasmuch as it
is most firmly to be believed, and no way to be doubted,
that the whole body of Christ and His blood are truly
contained as well under the species of bread as under the
species of wine ' (Sess. xiii.).
The tenet is that whereas Christ exists in the integrity of
His Person human and divine in each of the elements after
consecration, communion is to be given to all but the
officiating priest in only one of the elements, and it is arbi-
trarUy determined that that element shall be bread,
although Christ at the institution of the sacrament said of
the cup, ' Drink ye all of this,' and the Church obeyed His
command for 1500 years.
4. In the twelfth century the number of the Church's
Sacraments was fixed at seven, neither more nor less, 'not
"5

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
as a tradition coming down from the Apostles but as the
result of theological speculation' (Bonn Conference of
1874). The tenet is, in the words of Pope Pius IV. 's Creed,
that ' there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the
new law, instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ,' though no
proof can be adduced that there were more than two that
were so instituted.
5. We have seen that some early speculations were
made as to the possibUity of all souls having to pass
through a purifying fire on the Day of Judgment, and these
speculations were improved upon by others, who suggested
the possibility of their passing through this purification at
some time in the interval between death and judgment;
Gregory I. at the beginning of the seventh century en
couraging the notion and suggesting that slight faults
might be expiated by it. There was no great harm in this
imagination of Origen's until two features were added to it —
(i) that the period of man's spiritual trial might not be
Umited to this life but might be continued in this unknown
sphere; (2) that people in this place of purgation might be
helped out of it by the Church on earth. These two
conjectures opened up the possibilities of living unright
eously and yet being all right at the last, and of priestly
power over the dead which might be exercised or not
according to the wiU of priests, bishops and popes, who
might be induced to act by money offered by the friends of
the dead, and to deliver souls from suffering more or less
quickly according as they received greater or less payment
for Masses in their behalf. Phihp IV. of Spain left money
116

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
for 100,000 Masses to be said for his royal soul to get him
as quickly as possible out of Purgatory. Bishop Bull gives
the following account of the gradual formation of the
doctrine : —
' The true rise and growth of the doctrine of Purgatory is
plainly this. About the middle of the third century Origen,
among other Platonic conceits, vented this — that all the
faithful (the Apostles themselves not excepted) shall at the
Day of Judgment pass through a purgatory fire, the fire of
the great conflagration, which they shaU endure for a longer
or shorter time, according as their imperfections require a
greater or lesser purgation. And in this conceit, directly
contrary to many express texts of Scripture, he was foUowed,
for the greatness of his name, by some other great men in
the Church of God. But how different this Purgatory is
from the Roman, every man of sense will presently discover.
Afterwards, about the end of the fourth or the beginning of
the fifth century, St Austin began to doubt whether this
imagined purgation were not to be made in the interval
between death and the resurrection, at least as to the souls
of the more imperfect Christians. And it is strange to
observe how he is off" and on in this question. And yet it
is not strange either, considering how easily he may, nay,
how necessarily he must, be at a loss, that leaves the plain
and beaten path of the Holy Scriptures and primitive tra
ditions, to hunt after his own conceits and imaginations.
Towards the end of the sixth century. Pope Gregory, a
man known to be superstitious enough, undertook dogmatic
ally to assert the problem, and with might and main set
himself to prove it, chiefly from the idle stories of appari-
117

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
tions of souls coming out of Purgatory. Four hundred
years after. Pope John XVIII., or, as some say, XIX.,
instituted a holy-daj', whereon he severely required aU men
to pray for the souls in Purgatory. As if the Catholic
Church before him had been deficient in their charity and
forgotten the miserable souls in that place of torment. At
length the cabal at Florence in the year 1439 turned the
dream into an article of faith, so that now they are damned
to Hell that will not believe in a Purgatory. And the Pope's
vassals still tenaciously hold and fiercely maintain the
doctrine, not so much for the godliness as for the gain of
it' (Sermons, i. 124).
6. As soon as the Confessional had been introduced
(a.d. 1 2 15), the supposed realm of Purgatory was put to
another purpose. It was represented as the place where
those who had not done all the penances imposed upon
them by the priest to satisfy the justice of God, might go
and complete the tale of sufferings which they had not
yet fulfilled, but which must be accomplished before they
could get to Paradise or Heaven. This at once led to
another point. In the earlier Church a bishop who had
imposed a sentence of exclusion from the Lord's Table on
a transgressor, might, on the offender's showing proof of
true penitence, remit a part of the sentence and allow him
to return to full communion at an earlier time than had
been originally fixed. This was called an Indulgence. In
the Middle Ages the name of Indulgence was adopted, but
quite a different thing was meant by it. Already in 1095
it had been employed by Pope Urban II. for a grant of
remission of sins, which he offered to all Crusaders. ' Urban,
118

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
grieving that the Saracens had occupied Jerusalem, preached
and, by the vice-gerency committed to him by God, granted
remission of sins to aU who would go and deliver Jerusalem,
adding that if anyone died on the journey, or in battle in
the cause of Christ, he should be counted among the
martyrs and be absolved from all his sins ; whereupon aU the
world ran after him, desirous of obtaining remission of
their sins and being counted among the martyrs ' (Muratori,
ii. 2). This grant of remission the Pope caUed an ' Indul
gence of sins,' and it was repeated under the same name on
each occasion of a crusade or a quasi-crusade, with a most
lamentable effect on the morals of the - Crusaders ; and
soon it came to be sold to anyone who would help the
Pope for the time being in any war that he was waging or
in any work that he was carrying on, by giving either money
or service towards it. Nor was this all, for the Indulgence
was given for the most trifling cause. Boniface VIII. in
the year 1300 granted 'not only a full, but a stiU more
abundant, nay, a fullest pardon of all their sins ' (non solum
plenam sed largiorem, immo plenissimam omnium suorum
concedimus veniam peccatorum) to all who visited Rome in
the Jubilee Year. This is known as the JubUee Indul
gence. (^) The idea most prominent in Indulgences was
the pardon of sins, until Luther's roar of indignation
roused the sleeping Church to the iniquity of the system.
After that theologians had to be more cautious and to
revise their system of grants. Now it was the Sacrament
of Penance which conveyed pardon for sin, and it likewise
commuted eternal penalties into temporal penalties; and
then Indulgences delivered from the temporal penalties which
119

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
had been substituted for the eternal (Devoti, Inst. Can. De
Indulgentiis). Henceforth an Indulgence was an applica
tion, made by the Pope, of the superabundant merits of
others who had been better than they need have been, to
the recipient of the Indulgence, whereby he was excused a
part or the whole of his penances on earth and could be
got out of Purgatory before finishing his time there. The
merits thus applied to him were an accumulation arising
from works of supererogation done by saints and specially
St Mary, and from occasional Masses, and (lest it should
ever be exhausted) from Christ's merits, and they were kept
as a spiritual treasure over which the Pope had full control,
bishops being allowed only such a share as would enable
them to remit forty-day penance on earth or penalties in
Purgatory equivalent to forty-day penance on earth left
undone. But to this day the form granting an Indulgence
contains a clause bestowing remission of sins as well as
Indulgence of temporal, that is, earthly or Purgatorial,
sufferings, however that may be explained away by the schola
theologorum. The tenets on these two articles, which have been closely
united since the thirteenth century, are, that all persons
except the lost are thrown upon death into a place called
Purgatory, where they satisfy the justice of God by suffering
in fire the penalties stiU due to their sins, and that they
may be delivered from this place of torment by — (i) an Indul
gence from the Pope which may get them out altogether ; (*)
(2) an Indulgence from a bishop which shortens the time
by the equivalent of forty days' or sometimes even a
year's penance ;(^) (3) a Mass by a priest, paid for by

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
surviving relatives, the effects of which are uncertain ; (4)
a Mass at a privileged altar, which will at once get a soul
out; (5) a certain sort of scapular (piece of cloth) worn
during life, which assures the wearer of being taken out
by St Mary on the Saturday after death. Augustinus
Triumphus, a theologian belonging to the Papal Court at
Avignon, in a book written by the command of Pope John
XXII., says that if the Pope will, he can at once empty
Purgatory, but that it is not advisable that he should make
use of his power in that way.
7. The Invocation of Saints is a prominent tenet of the
faith of the Middle Ages. We have traced its origin to the
panegyrical orations addressed to martyrs, which we know
were not intended as addresses to the dead, but as means of
stirring the feelings of the auditors. These addresses, made
by orators and poets to senseless things as freely as to those
that are or have been sensible {see the ' Song of the Three
Children,' for example), beginning among Christians in the
fifth century, degenerated into invocations and prayers with
the increasing superstitions of the sixth, seventh and eighth
centuries till they could hardly at last be distinguished from
that worship of heroes which had been denounced with so
much scorn by the early Christian apologists and declared
by St Augustine to be impossible for Christians. When
we reach the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, Gieseler
writes : ' The worship of saints at this period completely
swallowed up the worship of God, assuming the character
to be expected from a rude, immoral and superstitious age.
Great numbers of old saints were discovered and new ones
made. (') This was the age of Legend as well as of
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Romance, and industrious monks draped out the saints in
the most arbitrary mode with adventures and miracles. . . .
The Virgin Mary was honoured above all saints. Saturday
was devoted to her and an " Officium S. Marise " instituted
in her praise. The festival of All Souls, which arose in
Clugny after 1024, soon became general throughout the
whole Church' {Eccl. Hist. iii. 420).
The tenet is that worship is to be paid to dead men and
women. This is almost in terms the contradictory of St
Augustine's saying : ' By Catholic Christians none of the
dead are worshipped ' (coli) ' and nothing created or made by
God is adored as divinity, but only God Himself, who
created and made all things' {Epist. ad Max. 17 or 44).
8. A corollary of the tenet that saints are to be wor
shipped was that their relics were to be venerated, which
led to a custom of robbing graves that was singular and
characteristic. The first act of Gelmirez (a.d. hoc). Bishop
and afterwards Archbishop of St lago de Compostela, was
to go into Portugal, on the plea of a visitation, with the
view of getting possession of the bodies of some saints and
carrying them to Compostela. His plan was to get leave
to say Mass in various churches, and while he was saying
Mass, his clerical following stole a saint's body, or if no
one was looking he did it himself. In the Church of St
Susanna at Braga we are told by the ' Historia Compos-
tellana,' a contemporary record, written under the Bishop's
eye, he ' celebrated Mass with the deepest devotion,' and
then 'with sighs and tears' broke open the tomb of St
Cucufat, St Sylvester and St Susanna, drew out their
bodies, and had them conveyed to his lodgings. The next

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
day he went to the church of St Fructuosus, and having
celebrated Mass walked in his robes to the saint's tomb,
' but as St Fructuosus was the defender and patron of that
district, it was with greater fear and silence that he took
him away by a pious robbery from his church which he
had built himself in his lifetime.' Having got his treasures,
he hurried off his archdeacon with them to cross the Minho,
after which they were safe from the pursuit of the Portuguese,
and thence he conducted them to Compostela with singing
and dancing. Usuard, the martyrologist, being sent from
France into Spain to fetch the body of St Vincent, and not
being able to get possession of it, stole the bodies of two
Cordovan martyrs instead, as ' he and his companions
wept over the thought of going back empty-handed.' The
manner in which a second head of St James was transferred
from the Holy Land to Compostela is so significant of the
morals and of the religion and of the ignorance of the time
that I give the account of it below. (^) The contrast between
these tales and the story of the treatment of the body of
the martyred Polycarp given in the Epistle of the Church
of Smyrna marks the difference on this point between the
primitive and mediaeval faith.
The tenet is that adoring reverence and veneration are
to be paid to the relics of saints.
9. We have already traced the worship of icons and
pictures to the beginning of the Middle Ages, at which time
the Eastern Church had committed itself at the Second
Council of Nicaea to the statement that to venerate, worship
and adore them was a duty, but that Latria, the supreme
worship due to Almighty God, might not be paid to them.
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
We have seen too that the Nicene decrees were rejected
by the Council of Frankfort and the nobler nations of the
West. But Pope Hadrian was on the other side, and the
insistence of the Papal party prevailed, so that, by the time
we reach the thirteenth century, the Latin Church had shot
beyond her Greek sister in the race of superstition, and it
was determined that each image was to be worshipped
with the same kind of worship that was due to the original
of it, so that the images of Christ were to receive the
worship of ' Latria,' those of St Mary of ' hyperdulia ' and
those of the saints of ' dulia.' This article of the mediaeval
faith therefore has sunk into teaching plain idolatry.
10. Tradition as a source of Divine Truth and tradition
as a witness to the meaning of Scripture are too often con
founded together. If by the tradition of the Church we
mean the witness borne by her Councils and by the
teaching of her doctors to what was regarded as the right
understanding of Scripture at the time that the Council
was held or the doctor wrote, it is a valuable aid towards
the interpretation of Holy Writ, but in the Middle Ages
tradition was accepted as an independent source of
knowledge co-ordinate with Scripture. It was necessary,
when the faith had become so much changed as not to be
justified by the written Word, to find another authority
beside that Word to appeal to. Three such authorities
were discovered — (i) Traditions which were said to have
come down orally from the Apostles ; (2) the visions of
devout women and monks ; (3) the decisions of the Pope
for the time being.
This article of the medieval faith recognises oral tradi-
124

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
tion as a source of truth when no such tradition could
exist (as it might have existed in the sub-Apostolic age)
and serves as a means of overthrowing the unique authority
of Scripture and of admitting as truth any superstitions that
have become popular.
II. The most far-reaching in its effects of all the
mediaeval tenets was that on Justification. In the im
passioned attack on the bewitched Galatians, and in the
majestic arguments addressed to the Romans, St Paul had
fought and won the battle for the doctrine of Justification
by faith. In his later Epistles that great doctrine was
allowed to fall into the background, not because it was
less regarded by St Paul, but because his converts had
finally accepted it, and therefore there was not the need
that had at first existed of enforcing it with all his
Apostolic authority and power and vehemence. It appears
again in the Epistle to the Philippians, but only as a pass
ing argument, and in the Epistle to the Ephesians it takes
the form of an axiom to which the writer contemplates no
opposition under the name of Salvation by grace (ii. 5, 8,
9). The controversy on Justification appeared closed, and
in the early Church we find no disputes on the subjects, all
acquiescing in the doctrine that the meritorious cause of
our acceptance is not our own works or deservings but
the merits of our Saviour Christ, and all at the same time
inculcating the necessity of good works as a condition,
though not as the cause, of our final salvation. But after
the early centuries had passed, the same spirit which had
animated the Judaising Galatians began to work in the
bosom of the Christian Church. The pride of man's
125

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
heart was not satisfied with the scheme of forgiveness as
set forth in the Gospel. Man demanded some means
of earning his salvation for himself; and so the subtle
minds of the Schoolmen worked out a theory of the
utmost ingenuity. Let us take the case of a man stand
ing in the natural strength of morality and upright works ;
can such a one of his own powers attain to final salvation ?
No — was the answer and the true answer. But the ad
mission was done away with almost as soon as made,
for it was asserted that such a man could and would do
such works as that it should become (as the term was)
congruous or befitting to God's justice to give him grace.
Thus by his works of congruity he was said to earn justify
ing grace. Justifying grace having been thus obtained,
his works after this time were said to be such as, with the
co-operation of this grace, to merit or earn final acceptance,
and were called works of condignity. Thus the theory was
complete : by merit of congruity a man might earn justifying
grace, by merit of condignity he could earn final salvation.
Where then was the need of Christ ? Luther indignantly
protested against the scholastic contention as not only obscur
ing but absolutely taking away the Gospel and removing
Christ. ' For if I, being in mortal sin, can do some little
work which is not only pleasing to God in its substance,
but can also earn grace de congruo, and when I have got
that grace, I can do works by grace, that is, love, and
acquire of right eternal life, what need have I of God's
grace, or of remission of sins, or of the promise, or of
the death and victory of Christ? Christ is plainly of no
use to me ; for I have free will and power of doing good
126

Faith of the Mediaeval Church ^
work by which I earn grace de congruo and afterwards
eternal life de condigno. . . . Therefore with Paul we deny
in toio congruous and condign merit, and confidently
declare that they are mere delusions of Satan never
reaUsed. For God never gave anyone grace and eternal
life for congruous or condign merit. So these disputations
of the Schoolmen about congruous and condign merit are
the unprofitable figments and speculative dreams of idle
men about nothings. And yet on them the whole Papacy
was estabUshed and it rests upon them stiU ' {Op. v. 307).
And again : ' If we by our own power can make expiation
for our sins and abolish death, there would have been no
need for Christ to become man and be baptized and die
for our sins ' {3. vii. 375).
The tenet is one that, in Hooker's words, ' attributes unto
works a power of satisfying God for sin and a virtue to
merit both grace here and in heaven glory ' {Serm. II. 34).
12. The last article of the mediseval faith, as summed up
in Pope Pius's Creed, is 'that the Holy Catholic and
Apostolic Church of Rome is the mother and mistress of
all Churches,' and 'that the Roman Pontiff is the successor
of the prince of the Apostles, St Peter, and the Vicar of
Jesus Christ.' Here there are four matters of fact dog
matically affirmed; first that the Church of Rome is the
mother as well as mistress of aU Churches ; but this is a
thing which history proves demonstrably to be false, inas
much as the Church of Jerusalem is the mother of all
Churches and the Church of Rome has never been mistress
of the Churches of the East ; secondly, that St Peter was
the prince of the Apostles, which the record of Holy
127

**? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Scripture proves demonstrably to be false, if the phrase
' prince of the Apostles ' means (as it is intended to mean)
more than that he was primus inter pares, that is, that he
took a leading position among his twelve comrades : thirdly,
that the Bishop of Rome is ' successor of St Peter,' a posi
tion first taken up argumentatively by Leo I. in the fifth
century, but contrary to the evidence of history, even as
regards the Roman diocesan Episcopate (for history affirms
the possible or probable presence of St Peter at Rome, but
not his episcopate there), and altogether unfounded as to
a supposed primacy or supremacy, which, in fact, St Peter
never held : fourthly, that the Bishop of Rome is ' the Vicar
of Jesus Christ,' whereas he is no more the Vicar of Christ
than any or every other bishop of the Church, and in claim
ing a special and exclusive Vicariate he trenches on the
prerogative of the Holy Spirit. Out of these four alleged
facts, none of which are true, is compounded the dogma of
the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, unknown to the
Apostolic age, unknown to the sub-Apostolic age, unknown
to the primitive Church, unacknowledged by the Western
Church until it was hoodwinked by the false Decretals in
the ninth century, unrecognised by the Eastern Church
throughout the whole of its existence from the first to the
nineteenth century, and rejected by the Teutonic Churches
as soon as learning revived within them.
The tenet is that the Bishop of Rome is the supreme
monarch of the Church of Christ and the Church of Rome
the mistress of all other Churches.

128

Faith of the Mediaeval Church 5©»

NOTES
(}") Some have thought the title Decretals of Isidore derived from the
forger's name having been Isidore Mercator.
(^) The decrees of the Fourth Council of the Lateran are of doubtful
authority. They were never heard of, as such, till the year 1538 (323
years after the Council was held) when they were published by Coch-
Iseus, having been edited, as he said, by Innocent III. some time after
the Council had been held. Some of the difficulties in the way of their
being genuine are that the Council is made three times to speak of itself
as a thing past. ' In Lateranensi Concilio noscitur fuisse prohibitum '
is one of these passages. 'Who can persuade himself,' says Bishop
Cosin, ' that this Council of Lateran should cite the Council of Lateran
in the decrees and canons which were there compiled, that is, that it
should cite itself as a Council not now sitting but passed ? Will any
man think these be the words of the Council of Lateran itself?'
(Memorial). Jeremy Taylor, like Cosin, denies the authenticity of the
Acts of the Council (vi. 377). Platina and Matthew Paris state that
no decrees whatever were made at it. ' Non est decretum ibi quicquam '
(Plat. De vitis Pont. Rovi.) and on this account ' totus clerus abiit
tristis ' (M. Paris, Histor. Min.). Probably the decrees are the decrees
of Innocent III. , to which he assumed the Cotmcil's assent.
(^) This 'fullest' pardon is what the pilgrims to Rome in 1900-
190: are earning, but no one can tell how a 'fullest pardon' differs
from a 'fiiU pardon ' as the Pope says it does. 'The so-named Jubilee
Indulgence,' says Dr DolUnger, 'occasions the Roman theologians
much solicitude. However much trouble they may give themselves to
show its precedence of any other plenary Indulgence, it is fundament
ally no more complete Indulgence than the common perfect Indulgence,
which one can obtain much more easily and conveniently. The grand
movement which they seek to put upon the stage during a Jubilee,
even now, and the commendation of the Jubilee Indulgence in
pastorals, briefs and sermons, has therefore in it something fictitious
and untrue ' (Speech at Bonn Conference of 1875).
(*) A Papal Indulgence may be plenary or for any length of time.
A Mass said at S. Francisco in Mexico is said to have been indulgenced
with 32,310 years 10 days and 6 hours.
(°) It was Innocent III. who confined bishops to granting forty days
or on special occasions one year,
(^) The first example of papal canonisation was that of Ulrich,
I 129

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Bishop of Augsburg, in 993 by John XV. Metropolitans claimed the
right of declaring saints for their provinces down to 1 153.
(') Maurice, Bishop of Coimbra and afterwards of Braga, paying a
visit to Jerusalem, heard from an old priest that a little church near the
city contained the relic of St James's head. Maurice tried to bribe the
old man to let him have it, frequenting the church and often attendmg
vigils there. But the custodians were always present, so he made a
plan that two of his clergy should feign sickness and for the relief of
their sickness should offer wax candles to the church and spend the
night in it. Seizing an opportunity when no one was there in the
middle of the night, they shut the doors, took out some spades that
they had previously hidden, and dug up from under the altar an ivory
box containing a silver box full of relics (one of which was St James'
head), of which they took possession and ran full speed, with the bishop,
to Jerusalem. As they were running a hermit called to them and said,
' I know, dearest brothers, what it is that you are carrying and what a
precious treasure you have stolen. Go and the grace of God go with
you, for the Apostle's head ought to be where his body is. ' These
words ' made the bishop see that the Holy Spirit had revealed what he
had done to the servant of God. ' He set off at once for Spain and
deposited the relic in the Church of St Zoilus at Carrion, and from
thence it was taken by Queen Urraca to Leon and presented to
Gelmirez. The bishop received it with great joy. Clergy and people
came out from Compostela to meet him as he brought the sacred
treasure. He and the canons walked with bare feet before it, saying
psalms. ' How the people danced ! ' says Canon Gerard, an eye-wit
ness ; ' and I myself, coming back with the bishop, burst into tears
through too much joy.' But now a contre-temps occurred. It appeared
that according to the Spanish legend about St James he already had
his head (cut off by Herod) with his body at Compostela. What was
to be done ? The Bishop of Jerez convinced himself that it was the
other St James' head, the more as it had ' a contusion ' on it which
might have been caused by the fuller's pole with which St James the
Less was struck more than a thousand years before {History of the
Church of Spain, p. 320, Wells Gardner 1S92).

130

CHAPTER II
THE WORSHIP OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
The character of the worship of the Christian Church
necessarUy changed with its faith. Each one of the new
articles of the mediaeval faith necessarUy aff'ected the forms
and the nature of the worship, but more especially those
changes which, with or without the Fourth Lateran Council,
Innocent III. introduced into the Christian religion or
sanctioned in the year 12 15. How could it be otherwise?
I will point out some of the results of each of these articles
of faith on the Church's worship.
1. Take first the doctrine of Transubstantiation. During
the first century we have seen that the only ceremony with
which the sacred elements in the Lord's Supper were re
ceived was that, towards the end of the Supper, not yet
held in a church, sUence was caUed, aU present no doubt
rose to their feet, the presiding presbyter offered an
extempore prayer of blessing over a loaf of bread and a cup
of mixed wine and water, and the deacon carried portions
of the bread and the wine to each person present, which
they ate and drank in solemn memory of their departed
and risen Lord. Then they completed the supper, and at
the end of the whole meal a thanksgiving was offered to
God for supplying man with the products of the earth for
131

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
his sustenance, and for the redemption of man by the
death of Christ; the evening being finished by singing
psalms or hymns either already known or newly composed
by any that had a poetical gift. When in the second
century the Holy Communion was transferred to the fore
noon, and appended to the matin service (occasionally to
the ante-lucan service) the devotional forms with which it
was surrounded were increased, and a greater solemnity
was given to it by the dismissal, one after the other, of all
heathen, catechumens and penitents, leaving only the
communicants and a few penitents who were permitted
to remain, but, as a penance, were not allowed to com
municate with the faithful. But stUl all was most simple ;
no ceremony was employed except such as was necessary
for comeliness and order. The accompaniments of the
Eucharistic celebration were the repentance, faith and love
of each thankful heart, not any external gorgeousness of
ritual. But when the thought had been born that the
bread and wine were, or might be, not only the memorials
of Christ and a means of grace to the faithful, but the actual
body and blood of the Lord, more ceremony and pomp
were demanded, and when Hildebrand had adopted, and
Innocent III. had imposed upon Latin Christendom, the
dogma that after consecration the elements were no longer
bread and wine at all, but each of them the living Person
of Christ, come down from heaven at the call of the priest,
and then lying upon an altar, what magnificence of pomp
and ceremony could be too great, what genuflexions and
prostrations could be too humble, what bursts of triumphant
music could be too glorious, what splendour of light and
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Worship of the Mediaeval Church 5o>
colour could be too dazzling, to greet the Lord when
in visible, though veUed, form He visited His people?
The difference between the worship of the primitive and
that of the Mediseval Church is the difference between the
simplicity of the spiritual and inward worship of a Father
brought nigh by a loving Saviour, and the complexity and
excitement of external adoration paid to a great King.
Beside the magnificent pomp which the mere fact of
Transubstantiation demanded, there were certain results
following from the tenet which affected the forms of the
Church's worship in the highest degree. The first of these
is Adoration. If I beheve that this bread is the body, soul
and spirit of Christ, nay, is many Christs, as many as the
parts into which the bread is divided, and that this cup of
wine is the body, soul and spirit of Christ, nay, of jmany
Christs, as many as the portions into which the wine may
be divided, how can I help worshipping it? Adoration
foUows necessarily on the behef, and begins with it ; it was
not tiU the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that adoration
of the Host began (Bingham, xv. 5). The new faith pro
duced a new practice, of which there is no indication tUl
the faith was changed from the primitive to the mediseval.
What an enormous difference in the forms of worship must
have ensued with a view to adoring the Sacrament may be
easily imagined. One of these changes consisted in the
Elevation of the Host for worship immediately after con
secration. This is first found ordered in the Constitutions
of Odo, Bishop of Paris, in the year 1197, who wrote:
' Presbyters are ordered, when they have begun, " Who in
the same night," etc., holding the Host, not to raise it too
133

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
much at once, so as to be seen by the people, but to keep
it about the level of the breast until they have said, " This
is my body," and then to raise it so as to be seen by all '
(Labbe et Cossart, x. 1808). This was eighteen years before
the official sanction of Transubstantiation. Eleven years
later a further step was taken by Guido, a Papal legate in
Germany, who enjoined the use of a bell at the time of the
Elevation, and desired the congregation to prostrate them
selves at its sound till after the consecration of the cup
(Csesarius Heisterbacensis, Hist. ix. 51). Throughout the
thirteenth century the command to elevate was reiterated
again and again, and a Synod of Exeter, in 1287, declared
the purpose of the ceremony. ' Because by these words,
" This is my body," and by no others, the bread is transub
stantiated into the body of Christ, let not the priest elevate
the Host until he has brought out these words, lest the
creature be worshipped by ,the people for the Creator '
(WUkins, ii. 132). The main object of Elevation was to
give occasion of worshipping the Sacramentum no longer
regarded as a Sacramentum, but as Him of whose body it
is the sacramentum or outward sign. We see in the present
day how effective a ceremony it is to awe an unlettered
crowd, as they sink down on their knees at the sound of
the bell, and worship their dimly-seen object of adoration,
which they believe to have just descended from heaven.
Its first introduction must have made a noticeable change
in the order of worship.
Another result of Transubstantiation, having a simUarly
striking effect on worship, is the Reservation of the Host,
to form and keep a local presence of Christ in churches for
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Worship of the Mediaeval Church ^
adoration. If priests could create His presence apart
from reception and apart from the faith of the recipient,
how should they not always keep Him by them — though
Christ had said that it was expedient for them that He should
go away (John xvi. 7) ? And when He was present, how
should they not worship Him ? New forms of worship must
at once arise, though they had not yet developed into the
forty hours' adoration {Quaranta ore) or the perpetual
adoration of the Host, nor into the Benediction of the
people by the bread.
Transubstantiation was the parent of Reservation, and
Transubstantiation and Reservation together produced
Processions of the Host. If the King of Heaven was
shut within a pyx, it was but reasonable that He should
from time to time hold His royal progresses, like other kings
in the East, during which He should give opportunities
to His subjects to offer Him their homage and adoration.
It was not enough that He should be carried from the
church to the beds of the sick and receive the salutations
of the people as He went, nor that He should proceed to
the aid of any who by a sudden accident were in danger of
their lives, carried by the hands of His priests. He must
have a special day devoted to the worship of Him within
the Host and to His royal processions under the form of
bread. Therefore in 1264, a short half-century after the
sanction of Transubstantiation, Urban IV. instituted the
festival of Corpus Christi, on which, after worship had been
offered to the Sacrament in church, it should be carried
in procession and adored by devout multitudes as Christ
Himself. The institution of the festival had been
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
demanded by JuUana, a nun of Lidge, who ' looking at the
full moon saw a gap in its orb, and by a peculiar revelation
from Heaven learnt that the moon represented the Christian
Church, and the gap the want of a certain festival — that of
the adoration of the Body of Christ in the consecrated
Host — which she was to begin to celebrate and commend
to the world ' (Hook, Church Bictionary). Juliana had her
revelation in 1230, fifteen years after the Lateran Council
which sanctioned Transubstantiation. The festival which
she is supposed to have originated could not but affect the
Church's worship not only on Corpus Christi day but
every day, by pressing one of the consequences of the
tenet of Transubstantiation.
Another act of devotion springing from the same source,
and affecting worship public and private, was the imposition
of fasting as a necessity preceding Communion, which led
more and more to early celebrations of the Communion.
In the first century fasting was expected before adult
baptism, but it was not expected and was never practised
before the Holy Communion. In the fourth century it
was expected before both, because it was thought the soul
was brought into a better state of preparation before a
solemn rite by a moderate refection than it would be after
the fuU noon-day meal, and everyone that received before
that meal was counted as fasting though he had had his
breakfast. But with Transubstantiation a new imagination
sprang up, that it was irreverent to place common food in
juxtaposition with the Lord's body by eating beforehand.
So a rule was formulated in 1270 (still in the thirteenth
century) by Thomas Aquinas, that no food must be
136

Worship of the Mediaeval Church ^
taken from the previous midnight to the time of reception.
The whole idea and purpose of the fasting was now
changed; it became, not a help to the maintenance of
a reverent state of mind, which might be disturbed by
the effect of food and drink lately taken, but an act of
asceticism founded on an irreverent thought, and so
oppressive as to prevent Christians from coming to the
Lord's Table because they would not adopt this unapostolic
practice, which was made a previous condition.
2. The Sacrifice of the Mass. We have seen that the
theory of Transubstantiation makes Christ enter upon a new
sacramental existence in all the integrity of His Person on
the utterance of the words of consecration, and that the
priest then takes Him, a living Person, presents Him to the
Father as a sacrifice, and kills Him in His sacramental
existence by eating one of the Hosts and drinking the
whole of the wine. It is evident that such a transaction as
this required a very diff'erent ritual from the humble eating
and drinking of bread and wine in memory of Christ's
sacrificial death and receiving God's blessing conveyed by
the rite to the faithful soul. The two ideas of sacrifice and
sacrament being now divided, and the sacrificial idea being
paramount, it became possible to institute ' low Masses ' for
communion and ' high Mass ' for worship apart from recep
tion. At the new service of ' high Mass ' there was no need
of any communicant except the priest, whose reception was
necessary to kill the sacrificial victim in His sacramental
being. What had the congregation to do ? They were to
gaze upon the act of the priest in sacrificing Christ and
offer their prayers to Him as He underwent the process of
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
sacrifice. Hence the practice of ' Hearing Mass ' or, as it is
now sometimes called, ' Non-communicating attendance,'
when the laity are no longer joyously feasting with their
reconciled Father, but watching a mediating priest making
their reconciliation with an alienated God by sacrificing the
Son of God as a sin-offering in their behalf. Those who
had come to believe that such a tremendous scene could be
enacted were little likely to be satisfied whUe it was performed
with the simple ritual of the Lord's Supper as celebrated in
the Primitive Church ; and further, an absolutely new devo
tion, that of attendance at the sacrifice without communicat
ing, which Chrysostom had so indignantly forbidden, took
the first place in the Church's weekly or daily worship. ^
Another consequence of the change of faith was the
attention paid to clerical dress in the Middle Ages. For
the first 500 years, which, as we have seen, constitute the
Primitive Church, the clergy simply wore, when officiating,
what we should familiarly call their best clothes, that is, not
their every-day dress but that which they and others put on
for festival meetings or solemn ceremonials of any kind.
Their dresses therefore differed according to the taste of
individuals and the fashion of the day. Constantine is said
by Theodoret to have given a robe with gold thread in it to
Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to use at baptisms (not at the
Eucharist), and his successor CyrU was charged with hav
ing sold it to an actress {Eccl. Hist. ii. 23). At a little
later date Jerome speaks of clergy wearing white dresses
while officiating {Adv. Pelag. i.). A Uttle later again, a.d.
423, Pope Celestine complains that people were introducing
special robes. 138

Worship of the Mediaeval Church &^
' We have been informed that certain priests of the
Lord are devoting themselves rather to superstitious ob
servances in dress than to purity of thought and of faith.
By dressing in a, pallium, and wearing a girdle round their
loins, they think to fulfil the truth of Scripture not in the
spirit but in the letter. But if the precepts to which they
refer were for this end given, that after this strange fashion
they should be observed, why are not the precepts which
foUow observed in like manner, and so "burning lights"
held in the hands as well as "a staff"? The words they
quote have a mystical meaning of their own, and to men
of understanding are clear to be observed according to a
more fitting interpretation. For by the girding up of the
loins is signified Chastity ; and by the staff Pastoral Rule,
and by " burning lights " the brightness of good works, con
cerning which it is said (Matt. v. i6), "Let your works
shine." We should be distinguished from the common
folk, and from the rest, by our learning, not by our gar
ments ; by our mode of life, not by what we wear ; by
purity of thought, not by peculiarities of dress. For if we
begin to affect innovations, we shall tread under foot the
traditions of our fathers, only to make room for worthless
superstitions. We ought not therefore to attract to objects
such as these the untrained minds of the faithful. It is
teaching they require, not mockeries such as these, nor is
it an imposing appearance to the eye that is needed, but
precepts to be instUled into the mind ' (Labbe et Cossart,
ii. 1618).
During the transitional centuries (the sixth, seventh and
eighth) it became a point of pride in educated men, clerical
139

**5 Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and secular, to cling to the garb of civilisation, that is, of
the Latin race, as a mark to distinguish them from the
barbarous tribes that were over-running the world, just as
they clung for the same reason to the Latin speech. Such
officials of the Empire as remained in the conquered pro
vinces retained with care their Roman magistrates' costume,
and the clergy were content so that their dress marked
them as civiUsed men, and not barbarians. Thus the more
dignified forms of the old Roman or Byzantine lay dress
became the dress of the clergy in the West.
When we reach the Middle Ages, a.d. 800, the world
had so changed that one of the ' barbarians ' had become
the great Emperor Charlemagne. The dresses of the
Byzantine Empire were no longer marks of superiority, and
were regarded as old-fashioned and not suflSciently orna
mental for new needs. The clergy looked about for
vestments which might be supposed to correspond with
those of Aaron, and they attributed to them any number
of symbolic meanings, which they first found in the Aaronic
vestments and then in their own. Rabanus MauruS)
Amalarius and Walafrid Strabo in the ninth century, an
Alcuin (not the Englishman) and Ivo in the eleventh, Hugo,
a Sancto Victore and Honorius in the twelfth, wrote
treatises on the subject ; and then we come to a work of
Innocent III. (a.d. 12 15), for whose new theology new
vestments were naturally sought, and in the same century
(a.d. 1290), Durandus wrote his 'Rationale divinorum
officiorum,' which is of authority to the present day. In
this book he lays it down that the priest's vestments are
six, because six is a perfect number ; ' for when we add
140

Worship of the Medieval Church §^
one, two and three together, the number six is fulfilled ' ;
and the additional vestments or ornaments of a bishop are
nine, because ' there are nine orders of angels.' The six
are Amice, Alb, Girdle, Stole, Maniple, Chasuble; the
nine. Buskins, Sandals, Undergirdle, Tunic, Dalmatic,
Gloves, Mitre, Ring, Pastoral Staff. He is happy that a
bishop has more than eight vestments, whereas Aaron had
only eight ; this shows his superiority. Each one of them
symbohses anything or everything according to Durandus's
imagination, and it does not matter whether the various
significations of the same thing agree with or contradict one
another. {^) Durandus also enters minutely into the question
at what seasons white, black, red, green, violet, yellow
should be used. On the contrary, Clement of Alexandria
and TertuUian, in the second century, forbid all dyed
colours in dress : ' And if it be said that the Lord, the
great High Priest, offers the incense of sweet savour unto
God, let them learn that this is no sacrifice and sweet savour
of (actual) incense, but that which the Lord offers is the
acceptable oblation of holy love, the spiritual sweet savour
upon the altar ' {Pcedag. ii. 233).
The process of transformation of the Church's worship
and its accessories resulting from Transubstantiation and the
Sacrifice of the Mass was hastened by the practice, unknown
in the early or in the Eastern Church, of employing a
language in public prayer not understood by the people.
This practice probably arose accidentally, from a feeling
that the barbarous tongues in the sixth century were too
vulgar to be used in addresses to God, but by-and-by the hier
archy found it to their interest, for, in consequence, no public
141

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
devotions could be used which were not dramatic, like the
Mass, and so matins and evensong dropped away as pub
lic services, and were only kept up by monastic bodies
and cathedral chapters, to which they were confined, while
public 'praying with the understanding,' or reading God's
Word, or singing the inspired psalms, which had formed the
whole of the worship of the Church of the first century, with
the exception of the evening Agape, ceased, leaving little
but the Mass.
3. From the doctrine of the Objective Presence, after
wards expressed by the word Transubstantiation, we
have seen that there follows immediately Anselm's pro
position, that Christ in all the integrity of His Person
is contained and received in each of the elements after
consecration. From Anselm's proposition there necessarily
foUows the vast liturgical change of denying the cup to
all but the officiating priest. This conclusion, however,
is so directly in opposition to the plain words of Christ
that it took 200 years after the declaration of Transubstan
tiation for the Church to make up its mind to avow
it. Then, at the CouncU of Constance, a.d. 1415, the
administration of the cup was doggedly forbidden. The
popular objection given to administering the cup was
the danger of spilling the wine, but that danger did not
exist any more in the fifteenth century than in the previous
fourteen centuries, and the reason why it was regarded
so much more seriously in the fifteenth century was that
according to the doctrine of the Objective Presence
in the elements and Anselm's dictum any drop of wine
adhering to the moustache or dropped from it must be
142

Worship of the Mediaeval Church ^
Christ's blood, nay more, Christ Himself. Crumbs could
be guarded against by the use of wafers, but nothing
could prevent the possibility of the drops of wine falling.
Therefore the form of administration used for fourteen
hundred years had to be given up and another substituted
which was in direct contradiction of the command of
Christ. From the fourteenth century onwards no Roman
Catholic lay person has received the Holy Communion as
Christ instituted it, either in its inward purpose or even
in -its outward form.
4. The classification of the Sacraments as seven (by
Peter Lombard first, in 1140, by Eugenius's Instruction
to the Armenians in 1440, and made an article of faith at
Trent in 1547) pushed to the front the rite of Penance,
which Innocent III. at the Lateran Council made obligatory
on all ; and this rite, now regarded as a sacrament, had an
untold effect on the religious life of every devout man and
woman. In the Primitive Church there was no confession
except of some very heinous sins represented by Idolatry,
Murder and Adultery, and confession of them was not
made to the priest for absolution, but to the congregation,
and its purpose was to assure the congregation that the
transgressor was so sorry for his sin that he might be
restored to communion, and to get their prayers in his
behalf, By degrees the opinion grew that if the clergy
could be certified of his penitence, that assurance would be
a sufficient guarantee for justifying his re-admission to
communion without his pubhc declaration of his offence,
and Leo I. ruled that the prayers of the clergy were
sufficient as they represented the congregation. But as
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
time went on the position of the priest was altered. He
was no longer the mouthpiece of the congregation, praying
to God for the sinner's pardon, but the vice-gerent of God,
and able not only to assure the penitent of the Church's
forgiveness for sins committed against her, but to bestow
God's forgiveness for sins committed against Him. At
orice absolution was altered from a prayer to God for the
transgressor's pardon, which it had always been up to the
thirteenth century, into an indicative form (' I absolve thee ')
by which the priest conveyed and gave pardon himself.
AU this feU in with the decree of Innocent III. in 12 15,
that everyone must confess to his parish priest and be
absolved by him at least once in the year. The result was
a revolution in the Church's practice of religion, just as
Transubstantiation had made a revolution in the Church's
faith. The two changes together set the priest on ' a
pinnacle of authority which placed him midway between
God and man, forgiving sins also as well as by his word
transmuting bread into Christ.
The forms for Ordination, another of the seven sacra
ments, were expanded at the same time, in order to
authorise the assumptions of the mediseval priesthood.
These assumptions, ignorantly acquiesced in, laid the
layman a slave at the foot of the priest.
Another effect of putting these seven rites on a level
as sacraments was to turn men's attention to Extreme
Unction. The sick were miraculously cured by anointing
in Apostolic days, and even after the gift of healing
had been withdrawn, there were some who still were
anointed in sickness, in hopes of deriving benefit from
144

Worship of the Mediaeval Church ^
the ceremony, and that is stUl done in the Oriental Church
whenever a sick man desires it. The administration of
the unction was not at first confined to the clergy, but
in the twelfth century it came entirely into their hands
and began to be considered as a normal preparation for a
Christian's death. Hence it derived the name of ' extreme '
or ' the last,' and Extreme Unction was soon identified with
unction in extremis, and in the Latin Church was used
only for one about to die, instead of for one who was
to be cured. It was often combined with a death-bed
administration of the Holy Communion, called the viaticum
or provision by the way, frequently misunderstood to mean
a provision on the road from earth to heaven or Paradise,
whereas it really means provision for the way to the end of
the earthly pilgrimage. (^) The increased value put upon
Extreme Unction added to the estimation of the priest, who
now could alone administer it.
5 and 6. The combination of the doctrine of Indul
gences with that of Purgatory, which took place in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, opened a new sphere
for the religious and devotional life. If it were true that
friends, parents, children were suffering in fire equal in
intensity to hell fire, and if it were true that they could be
got out of this place of torment by Indulgences earned by
the living, how could any friend, child, or parent, left on
earth, faU to occupy himself in earning Indulgences applic
able to the souls in Purgatory, and how could anyone
looking forward to the future fail to earn and keep a store
of them for his own use on his death-bed ? Further, if
Masses for that intention could bring the dead out of the
K I4S

'^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
flames more quickly, and if these Masses could be purchased
at a price varying from gd. to 5s. (^) who would not
purchase them ? By the hope of Indulgences attached to
some acts and not to others the religious effort of the laity
was turned wherever it pleased the Pope and the bishops
to turn it, from building a church to going on a crusade ;
and the Masses for the dead gave not only a stipend but
religious or at least ecclesiastical work to the priests.
7. Prayers to saints became more popular than to God,
because they did not demand so much intensity of mind
and reverential awe. St Mary in particular was portrayed
with all the graciousness of womanly love ; tales were told
to prove that none that trusted in her could be lost, and
visions were recounted of ladders set to heaven, one red, at
the top of which stood Jesus, the other white, from 'the top
of which bent down Mary, and men were seen to fall and
fall from the red ladder and none helped them, while as
soon as anyone made a false step on the white ladder, the
gracious arm of Mary was reached down and held them up
and drew them safely into heaven. Christ became an
object of fear, Mary of love ; Christ was thrust further and
further back, while the Father, further back stiU, was
unapproachable in His majesty. How diff'erent from the
feelings entertained towards God and Jesus and expressed
by St Paul and St John !
Another result followed from the worship of saints and
consequent multiplication of saints' days which was
probably not intended or expected. This was the secular
isation of the Lord's day. Down to the time of Charle
magne its observance had become more and more careful,
146

Worship of the Mediaeval Church 5^
and then a change to laxity occurred, which has grown and
prevailed ever since in some parts of the Church. Why
was this ? It was not a feeling of hostility to religion or to
Christianity that led to it, but a mistaken view of the nature
of the obligation to keep the Sunday. Without any inten
tion of dishonouring it, the divine sanction of the day was
disregarded or denied and its authority was rested on the
appointment of the Church. It was no longer the Christian
Sabbath instituted by God and recognised by Christ, but it
was a festival of the Church, to be treated, like other
festivals, reverently and devoutly, as the Church desired
aU her festivals to be treated. But there were so many of
them ! Not only Christmas, Epiphany, Whitsuntide and
other great solemnities, but numberless feasts of saints and
martyrs, till almost every day was a festival ! How could
they be observed and the work of the world still be carried
on ? It was necessary to regard some of them lightly, and
these pulled down the rest and with the others the Lord's
day. Something was done to sanctify them all, but the
observance which was sufficient and more than sufficient
for some obscure saint's day was a profanation of the
Lord's day. Some of the festivals became reasonably days
of amusement and enjoyment after certain religious exer
cises had been gone through, and this practice was trans
ferred to the Sunday. The heads of the Church, unlike
those of the first five centuries, winked at doubtful amuse
ments, then openly encouraged them, and if the Sunday
was only the Church's day, like the saints' days, not the
Lord's day, why should not the laymen acquiesce in the
manner of observing it which the existing Church thought
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
adequate? Thus the observance of the day slid down
from its first holiness to profaneness and laxity. It was
not irreligious men that brought about this result, but men
who were anxious still to see the day kept holy, men who,
if they withdrew from it the divine sanction of Holy
Scripture, substituted for that sanction the command of
the Church, which they believed would be of sufficient
weight to preserve the sanctity of the Sunday and the
other festivals, men who wished to see a little more amuse
ment permitted on account of the infirmity of human
nature, but by no means expected to see that concession
paving the way to an obliteration of the distinctive
character of the day as a day of rest and religious worship,
men who thought that the more holy days there were the
more holily they would be kept. Richard Baxter has said,
' The devil has been a great undoer by overdoing. When
he knew not how else to cast out the holy observation of
the Lord's day with zealous people, he found out the trick
of devising so many days called holy days, to set up by
it, that the people might perceive that the observation of
them all as holy was not expected. And so the Lord's
day was jumbled up in the heap of holy days and aU
turned into ceremony by the Papists and too many other
Churches in the world ' {Divine Appointment of the Lord's
Day). 8. The veneration of relics led to a still more grovelling
spirit than the worship of saints. What seemed to the
Church of Smyrna in the second century impossible {Epist.
xvii.) came about in the Middle Ages and had its necessary
effect. Men thought themselves safe under the protection
148

Worship of the Mediaeval Church Sfr
not of God but of the dead body of a saint or of one of
his bones. They robbed one another of these ghastly
treasures, and they made up false relics by the thousand
with which it was thought to make God's house more
sacred, and they paid veneration to them on their knees
when they were exhibited by their priestly custodians. Can
exhibitions like that of the miracle of St Januarius's blood
have any other than a debasing effect on some while they
turn others into scoffers ?
9. The worship of images, like the veneration of relics,
is an indication of how feeble the faith of the Church had
grown in things spiritual, crying out for something visible,
tangible, near at hand, to catch hold of. A brave, bold
faith, launching itself outwards and upwards, soars to the
throne of God. But a weak faith cannot do this. It falls
back, flags, droops, and then it cries out for some nearer
object of worship, which it may reach without so great an
exertion or prolonged effort. This is the rationale of
image worship, icon worship and the worship of the
sacrament. What those practices prove is not a strong
but a weak faith, seeking for props and crutches. In the
earliest times the Churches of Christians had caused
astonishment to the heathen because they had no figures
in them. The crucifixes and images which filled mediseval
Churches showed how unspiritual as well as feeble the
people's faith had become.
10. The effect of oral tradition and supposed visions
being regarded as independent sources of the faith in
addition to Holy Scripture took away all steadfastness
from doctrine and opened the way to new and newer form
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of worship. On one or other of these bases — oral tradition
or visions — new cults formed themselves which sprout up
in greater abundance the more that the old faith decays.
At the present day a Nestorian worship which is pervading
the whole Latin communion has been framed out of the
revelations of St Mary Alacoque, and in the Middle Ages
the fancies of Juliana, we have seen, originated the worship
of the Body of the Lord in the Sacrament on Corpus
Christi day. Of old a supposed oral tradition was made
answerable for any form of worship, such as image or
saint worship, which superstition introduced; the more
common resource of late has been revelations to women
and monks. Then follows a Papal utterance, and a fresh
fashion of worship is established.
II. The results of the mediseval doctrine of Justi
fication on personal religion and worship were most grave.
The primitive doctrine had been that the merits of Christ,
grasped by our faith, are the meritorious cause of our justi
fication and that the free mercy of God thereupon grants
us salvation on the condition of our love and obedience.
We could not therefore earn our salvation by any number
of good works that we might perform, though good works
were nevertheless necessary for our final salvation, having
been ' prepared for us to walk in.' The scholastic theory
made good works done by means of the co-operation of
divine grace the cause of our justification (which they con
fused with Sanctification) and of our salvation at the last.
Hence every good work done by the help of grace went
some way towards forming the aggregate which would
insure salvation ; and therefore every prayer, every act of
ISO

Worship of the Mediaeval Church 5^
fasting and asceticism, penances, pUgrimages, and such
like works, were regarded as meriting God's favour and
laying up a claim for reward, and they were done not as
free acts of filial devotion, but as a means of earning sal
vation or making satisfaction for sin past. Therefore, also,
some would have greater deserts and claims on heaven
than others according to the number of their works, nay,
many do more good works than they need for themselves ;
these are works of supererogation, the merits of which may
be handed on by the Pope to someone else who has not
done enough. (*) Thus medijevalism corrupted the free
worship of the heart offered to God and made men think
that by every separate act, such as attending Mass or visit
ing a sick person, they were earning something towards
their salvation, and it led them to believe that an act of
kindness was not only to be regarded as the outcome of
a living faith (and so disregarded by the agent) but as a
laying up merit for themselves and atoning for their sins.
This is not the free spirit of Christianity. It produced a
life of dull observance instead of the joyous, Uving, loving
devotion of a child of God. It filled churches with
attendants who came to them, not to pour out their souls
to God, but to perform a penance for sin and earn merit.
12. The supremacy of the Pope of Rome, won by
Gregory VII. and Innocent III., had an indefinitely but
infinitely great influence on the worship as well as the
faith of the Mediaeval Church. Whatever the Pope ordered
to be believed had to be accepted, and whatever prayers
he sanctioned had to be used. It was thus that many
superstitious offices were added to the mediaeval prayer
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
book. The following was a common method. Some
fanatical person, hke Juliana or St Bridget or St Mary
Alacoque, had waking dreams on some religious point.
Being sincere of belief, he or she gathered followers who
met together and offered prayers in common. To keep
the fanatics within the fold of the Church, the bishop gave
his sanction to their proceedings, and a formal office was
drawn up for their annual use. Next, this office obtained
the approval of the Pope for local but only local use, and
then finally it was imposed by his authority upon all
Christendom, together with the idle stories that had
originated it. This is the history of numberless saints'-
day services in the Mediaeval Church. {^) Papal authority
was employed in like manner for the abolition of primitive
forms of worship. By Papal urgency Charlemagne did
away with the GaUican Liturgy, and by Hildebrand's
threats and violence Alonzo VI. was forced to abolish
the old Gothic or Mozarabic Liturgy in Spain. All Church
books were at the mercy of the Pope, to be abolished like
the old Church books of Malabar, or interpolated, or added
to as he pleased, and no murmur was to be heard in o'pposi-
tion on perU of ' the sword of St Peter being unsheathed '
against the disobedient, according to the threat of Hilde
brand to Alonzo VI. when he hesitated in abandoning the
National Liturgy.
The further extravagancies relative to the infallibility of
the Pope and his universal Bishopric, and the sinlessness
of St Mary, which have been officially sanctioned in our
own lifetime by a similar process, I leave on one side for
the present, because they do not belong to the period now
152

Worship of the Mediaeval Church 5«»
under consideration. If we reckon the cumulative force of
the changes made in the Middle Ages alone, we shaU see
that the faith and worship of the Mediaeval Church, though
retaining a substratum of the original Christian religion,
were practicaUy quite other than the faith and worship of
the Primitive Church, owing chiefly to the manipulation of
Pope Innocent III. ; and we shall observe that the change
made in worship resulted from the change made in the
faith. NOTES
(¦') It is noticeable that even at the end of the thirteenth century the
Chasuble has not yet become a ' sacrificial garment.' It signifies
' Charity,' ' the wedding garment,' ' love of God and love of our neigh
bour.' Its three folds on the right aim mean that we must ' succour
monks, clergy and laity ' ; its three folds on the left arm (these folds
exist no longer) that we are to ' minister to bad Christians, Jews and
Paynims.' It means also 'the Catholic Church,' 'Aaron's vestment,'
'the Jewish Church' and 'Christ's purple robe.' But it has not yet
come to symbolise sacrifice, so why should it do so now ? The Cope
signifies 'the cares of the world,' 'heavenly delight,' 'perseverance,'
' eternal life,' ' immortality.'
(^) The Council of Nicjea is often quoted as enjoining a final viaticum ;
but this is a mistake. The injunction only applies in the case of those
who have been excommunicated for life or a long period. In their case
the Council desires that though the period of their excommunication
were not completed, they should yet be admitted to communion, lest
they should die without the peace of the Church. The canon (can.
xiii.) has nothing to do with any that are already enjoying the peace of
the Church, and the necessity or desirableness of a death-bed com
munion of the faithful cannot be based on the canon.
(') The price of a Mass for this purpose in England is Js., or for poor
people 2S. 6d. In most continental countries the price is a franc or gd.
Popular priests in towns have more Masses demanded of them than
they can possibly say, and then they farm them out to country priests,
through the agency, sometimes of a society, sometimes of a bookseller.
Many priests make their livelihood by saying these Masses.
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
(*) This is illustrated by the present Roman Catholic priest at
Norwich (Dr Duckett), as follows : ' To every good work there are
two aspects, meritorious and satisfactory for sin. For instance, a
person abstains from flesh meat on Friday. His abstinence is meri
torious, because fasting is one of the good works recommended by
Scripture and ordered by the Church. It is also an atonement, punish-
•taent, satisfaction for sin committed. But supposing the person who
abstained had either never committed any sin or had already satisfied
for it, the satisfactory part of that abstinence would be superabundant,
so far as that individual is concerned.' And again : i The most innocent
usually live the most penitential lives. They do more penance than is
needed for the atonement of the sins which they themselves may have
committed. Perhaps they never committed any. Their penances are
not superfluous but superabundant. The Roman Catholic Church
teaches that we are all members of Christ's body, and that the super
abundant atonements of one member may be applied to other members. ' —
Foreign Church Chronicle, March 1899.
(^) It is only necessary to look into a Missal to see Offices in each of
these stages of growth.

154

PART HI

CHAPTER I
THE FAITH OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
I. The Articles
The paramount principle of the English Reformation was
the resolve on the part of the Church to return to the primi
tive model, in faith altogether, in worship and religious
institutions as far as was possible in the changed circum
stances of the world. ' Our appeal,' says Bishop Andrewes,
'is to the Ancients, to the very furthest antiquity; the
newer a thing is, the less we like it, the less new that it is,
the more we are pleased by it ' {Tortura Torti, p. 96). And
the same sentiment is found in aU the leading reformers
and theologians of the Church. It might be thought with
that end in view it would be sufficient to resume the symbols
of the primitive Church, the three Catholic Creeds, and
ignore all that had come between in the Middle Ages,
including the summary of mediseval doctrine, the Creed of
Pope Pius IV. But experience shows that such a course
as this is not possible with any hope of success. In the
physical body, when once an ill-humour has set in, it be
comes necessary to expel the ill-humour before the health
of the body can be regained; and whenever truths have
been corrupted it is equally necessary, formally and con-
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
sciously, to reject their corruptions before men can enter
into the enjoyment of the truths as they were before they
were corrupted. The Church of England therefore found
is necessary to face the mediseval system and to reject all
its novel tenets by name, and to cast up a barrier against
them lest they should return or lest men should again un
consciously slide into them. Then and only then, thus
protected and safeguarded, the pure faith could be professed
and taught and believed without danger from outward
aggression or inward declension or recurrence to old corrup
tions. This work of defence, sometimes in the form of
attack, the Church performed in her XXXIX. Articles. To
repel assaults that had been made upon the truth was their
primary purpose, and while this purpose was being most
satisfactorily carried out, the opportunity was taken of
making also a positive declaration of the primitive faith,
and of rejecting some errors of more modern days which had
grown up since the Middle Ages and were of a different
nature from that of the medieval superstitions.
Archbishop Laud in his Conference with Fisher char
acterises the XXXIX. Articles as follows, and designates
them as ' our Confession ' : —
' In the Reformation our princes had their parts and the
clergy theirs, and to these two principally the power and
direction for reformation belonged. That our princes had
their parts is manifest by their calling together of the
bishops and other of the clergy tO; consider of that which
might see worthy reformation. And the clergy did their
part, for, being thus called together by royal power, they
met in the National Synod of 1562, and the Articles there
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church So»
agreed on were afterwards confirmed by Acts of State
and the royal assent. In this Synod the positive truths
which are delivered are more than the polemics, so that a
mere calumny it is that we profess only a negative religion.
True it is, and we must thank Rome for it, our Confession
must needs contain some negatives, for we cannot but deny
that images are to be adored, nor can we admit maimed
sacraments, nor grant prayers in an unknown tongue ; and
in a corrupt time or place it is as necessary for a religion to
deny falsehood as to assert and vindicate truth. Indeed,
this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by
the former, an affirmative verity being ever included in the
negative to a falsehood ' (§ 24). (i)
I will take the points at issue between the XXXIX.
Articles and Pope Pius's Creed, but I will now follow the
order not of the Papal Creed but of the Articles.
The first five Articles are a reproduction of the Catholic
faith as contained in the three Creeds, expressed in remark
ably clear and well-chosen words, and the eighth Article
adopts those Creeds, that is, the Primitive Faith, as the
Church's faith. But, as we have seen, this was not all that
was necessary, and therefore the Church proceeded to
reject the corruptions introduced into that faith, just as the
CouncU of Nicsea rejected Arianism, and the Council of
Constantinople Macedonianism, and the Council of
Ephesus Nestorianism, and the Council of Chalcedon
Eutychianism. (^)
The first medisevalism rejected is that of putting oral
traditions, visions, revelations and Papal authority {see
above No. 10 of the articles of Pope Pius's Creed) on a
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
level with Holy Scripture as co-ordinate sources of truth.
' Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation.'
By one blow a mass of mediaeval and modern superstition
was struck off from the Church's faith, and at the same
time she recurred to a principle universally held in the
Primitive Church, which was her model. For the authority
and sufficiency of Scripture is taught without hesitation by
Irenaeus (as quoted above. Adv. Hcer. iii. i), by TertuUian
{De came Christi, vi., and Adv. Hermog. xxii.), by Clement
of Alexandria {Strom, vii. i6 and v. i), by Origen {Horn, in
Exod. xiii. 2, and in Levit. v. 9), by Cyprian {Ep. ad
Pompeium, Ep. 74, and Ep. ad Cornelium, Ep. 63), by
Athanasius {Contr. Apol. i. 8, 9, and Orat. contr. Gentes i.),
by Cyril of Jerusalem {Catech. 4), by Basil {Serm. de Fide, i.,
and Mor. Reg. Ixxii. i), by Gregory of Nyssa {De. Anim. et
Resur), by Ambrose (In Psal. cxviii., and De Fide, i. 6), by
TheophUus {Epist. Pasch.), by Augustine {In Ep. Johan.
Tract. 2, and Enarr. in Psal. 57), by Chrysostom {Expos, in
Psal. v., and Hom. in Coloss. 9), by Cyril of Alexandria {De
recta fide ad Reg. ii.), by Vincentius Lirinensis {Common. 2,
3, 29), by Leo {Ep. ad Flavian.), by Gregory I. {Mor. in
Job xviu. 26). In other words it is the teaching of the first
six centuries of the Church's life.
Lest any misunderstanding should arise, the Church
explains that what she means by the sufficiency of Holy
Scripture for salvation is that ' whatsoever is not read there
in nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any
man that it should be believed as an article of the Faith or
be thought requisite or necessary for salvation.' The clause
' nor may be proved thereby ' admits such doctrines as the
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Trinity, which may be proved from Scripture though not in
so many words expressed therein, and the clause 'as an
article of the faith or thought necessary for salvation ' allows
the belief of opinions other than those proved by Scripture,
but does nor permit them to be regarded as dogmas of the
Church. Hooker writes : —
' When the question is whether we be now to seek for any
revealed law of God otherwhere than only in the sacred
Scripture ; whether we do now stand bound in the sight of
God to yield to traditions urged by the Church of Rome
the same obedience and reverence we do to His written
law, honouring equally and adoring both as divine — our
answer is. No. . . . What hazards the truth is in when it
passeth through the hand of report, how maimed and de
formed it becometh, they are not, they cannot be ignorant '
{Eccl. Pol. i. 13, 2).
'They are induced either to look for new revelations
from heaven, or else dangerously to add to the word of
God uncertain traditions, that so the doctrine of man's
salvation may be complete, which doctrine we constantly
hold in all respects, without any such thing added, to be so
complete that we utterly refuse so much as even to acquaint
ourselves with anything further. Whatsoever, to make up
the doctrine of man's salvation, is added, as in supply of
the Scripture's insufficiency, we reject it. Scripture, purpos
ing this, hath perfectly and fully done it.
'Two opinions there are concerning the sufficiency of
Holy Scripture, each extremely opposite unto the other and
both repugnant unto truth. The schools of Rome teach
Scripture to be so insufficient, as if, except traditions were
L 161

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
added, it did not contain all revealed and supernatural truth
which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in
this life to know, that they may in the next be saved '
{3id. ii. 8, 5, 6).
The Article goes on to reject the canon of Scripture,
sanctioned by the Church of Rome, allowing, with St
Jerome, the Apocrypha to be read for edification but
not as possessing authority on doctrine. 'Till some few
men,' says Bishop Cosin, ' of the Latin Church only, met
lately together at Trent, the new canon, in such terms as
they have devised it, was never heard of {Canon of Scrip
ture, iv.).
' Adhering to the ancient Catholic faith and doctrine of
the Church, we cannot admit or approve any such new
decree as it has lately pleased the Masters of the Council of
Trent to make ; who have not only obtruded these books
(the Apocrypha) upon their own people, to be received as
true and authentical parts of the Ancient Testament, but
have likewise damned all the world besides, that will not
recede from the universal conclusion of the Christian
Church' {Ibid. xix.).
2. The eleventh Article of the Church repudiates the
mediaeval theory of Justification, declaring that ' we are
not accounted righteous before God for our own works or
deservings,' but ' only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, by faith.' This is a republication of St Paul's
great doctrine of Justification in the Epistles to the Romans
and Galatians. It is ordinarUy called Justification by faith,
which is St Paul's own name for it, but it is more exactly
designated Justification by Christ's merits apprehended by
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
faith. Using St Paul's shortened form of expression, the
Article continues : ' That we are justified by faith only, is a
most wholesome doctrine and very full of comfort.' But
for a full explanation of the term it refers to the Homily of
' Salvation of mankind by only Christ our Saviour from sin
and death everlasting,' and this Homily not only puts us on
our guard against the coarser form of mediseval error which
confused Justification and Sanctification and made Sanctifi
cation the cause of Justification instead of a consequent
upon it, but also it warns us against a more subtle form of
error which represents us as justified for the merit of our
personal faith instead of for the merit of Christ, which is
the object of our faith. For when we are said to be justi
fied by faith only, it is not meant, says the Homily, ' that
this our own act to believe in Christ, or this our faith in
Christ which is within us, doth justify us and deserve our
justification to us, for that were to count ourselves to be
justified by some act or virtue that is within ourselves,' nor
' that the said justifying faith is alone in man without true
repentance, hope, charity, the dread and fear of God at any
time or season,' but the purport of the expression is ' to
take away clearly all merit of our works, as being unable to
deserve our justification at God's hands,' ' Christ Himself
only being the meritorious cause thereof.'
No theologian states the difference in the doctrine of the
two Churches better than Hooker, who writes as follows in
his ' Discourse of Justification, Works, and how the founda
tion of faith is overthrown ': —
'Wherein do we disagree? We disagree about the
nature of the very essence of the medicine whereby Christ
163

¦^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
cureth our disease. When they are required to show what
righteousness is whereby a Christian man is justified, they
answer that it is a divine spiritual quality, which quality
received into the soul doth first make it to be one of them
that are born of God, and secondly endue it with power to
bring forth such works as they do that are born of Him ;
that it maketh the soul gracious and amiable in the sight of
God, in regard whereof it is termed grace ; that it purgeth,
purifieth, washeth out all the stains and pollution of sins ;
that by it through the merit of Christ we are delivered, as
from sin, so from eternal death, the reward of sin. This
grace they will have to be applied by infusion, to the end
that as the body is warm by the heat which is in the body,
so the soul might be righteous by inherent graces ; which
graces they make capable of increase, the augmentation
whereof is merited by good works, as good works are made
meritorious by it. . . . As grace may be increased by the
merit of good works, so it may be diminished by the
demerit of sins venial ; it may be lost by mortal sin. . . .
If they work more and more, grace doth more and more
increase, and they are more and more justified. To such
as have diminished it by venial sin, it is applied by holy
water, Ave Marias, crossings. Papal salutations and such
like, which serve for reparation of grace decayed. To such
as have lost it through mortal sin, it is applied by the
Sacrament (as they term it) of Penance. This is the
mystery of the man of sin. This maze the Church of
Rome doth cause her followers to tread, when they ask her
the way of Justification. They make the essence of it a
divine quality inlterent ; they make it righteousness which is
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church S©»
in us. If it be in us, then is it ours, as our souls are ours,
though we have them from God. But the righteousness
wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our
own; therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent
quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as
are found in him. . . . You see, therefore, that the Church
of Rome in teaching Justification by inherent grace, doth
pervert the truth of Christ, and that by the hands of His
Apostles we have received otherwise than she teacheth'
{Serm. ii. 5, 6).
Hooker points out with great clearness and decision the
difference between the grace of Justification and of Sancti
fication, the latter of which is inherent and admits of
increase and diminution, the grace of Justification being
' perfect but not inherent,' that of Sanctification ' inherent
but not perfect ' {Ibid. 3), ' the one without us, which we
have by imputation, the other in us, which consisteth of
faith, hope, and charity, and other Christian virtues ' {3id.
21). God gives us 'the one by accepting us for righteous
in Christ ; the other by making Christian righteousness in
us' {Ibid.). 'Then what is the fault of the Church of
Rome ? Not that she requireth works at their hands that
will be saved ; but that she attributes unto works a power
of satisfying God for sin, and a virtue to merit both grace
here, and in heaven glory. ... If it were not a strong
deluding spirit which hath possession of their hearts, were
it possible, but that they should see how plainly they
do herein gainsay the very ground of Apostolic faith ? '
{Ibid. 32, 34).
In connection with the doctrine of Justification, the
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Church also rejects in Article XIII. the ' school-authors' '
doctrine of grace of Congruity. This doctrine was one of
the pivots of Luther's reformation in Germany. ' For they
say,' exclaimed Luther, 'that a good work done before
grace avails to procure grace by congruity. And when you
have got the grace, a work following subsequently deserves
eternal life by condignity. For example, if a man in mortal
sin, without grace, does a good work of a good natural
disposition, such as reading or hearing a Mass, giving alms,
etc., he merits grace from what is congruous, and having
in this way gained grace from what is congruous, he now does
a work of condignity, which is meritorious of eternal life.
In the first case God is not bound to give grace, but because
He is kind and just, it becomes Him to give His approba
tion to such a work, although it be done in mortal sin, and
to bestow grace in return for such an act of duty. But
after the grace has been received, God is now bound and
obliged of right to bestow eternal life ' (Works v. 306). If
this be so, cried Luther, I have no need of Christ ; I can save
myself ! It is ' the theology of the kingdom of Antichrist ! '
The English reformers, with equal firmness, if with calmer
language, rejected the scholastic supposition. 'The great
object of the Articles which have been considered ' (Articles
X.-XIII.), says Archbishop Laurence, 'was by no means what
many have conjectured it to be ; it was not to exalt Calvin-
istical speculation, but to lower scholastical presumption, by
opposing the dangerous delusion of preparatory works.
For while the philosophical papist boasted of challenging
the approbation of Heaven by the arrogant display of moral
virtue, and the superstitious one by the scrupulous discharge
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5«»
of external observances (merit in either case considered
abstractedly, and in contempt of the Christian sacrifice for
sin), by the principle contained in these, the more humble
Protestant was instructed to solicit so valuable a blessing,
as a gift procured for him by the sufferings and death of
his Redeemer ; to place in human dignity (worth) no ground
less foundation of hope ; but persuaded that even his best
performances cannot on their own account prove acceptable
to Almighty God, because replete with failings, to renounce
every meritorious claim and receive with gratitude that
gracious redemption, which, undiscoverable by reason, the
sacred page of Revelation alone discloses' {Serm. v.).
In Article XXII. the Church condemns six of the
mediseval dogmas on the ground of their being inventions
of men and not revelations of God, namely Purgatory,
Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration of Images and Relics
and Invocation of Saints.
3. We have traced the growth of a conjecture of
Origen's, which led, however illogically, to the suggestion
of a Purgatory by Gregory I. in the seventh century, and
the extension of Gregory's imagination till by the help
of Indulgences, united with it in the thirteenth and four
teenth centuries, it permeated the Western Church, and
was momentarily, though not permanently, forced upon the
Eastern Church at the so-called Council of Florence in
1439. It was repudiated by the Church in the sixteenth
century on the ground of 'having no warranty of Scrip
ture,' which we have seen that the Primitive Church re
garded as a sufficient reason for rejecting any doctrine,
' but rather repugnant to the Word of God.' The warranty
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^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of Scripture claimed for it is found in i Cor. iii., because the
singular expression, ' saved, but so as by fire,' occurs in it.
It only needs a short exposition to show that while repug
nant to other parts of Scripture, it derives no support from
this passage. St Paul is here referring to the presbyters or
.teachers of the Corinthian Church (for whom he took him
self and Apollos as representatives in order not to give
offence) and he says that he and they are labourers and
builders, whUe the main body of the believers were God's
tillage and God's building (verse 9). Then confining him
self to the first class — the ministers of God — he says that
he has himself laid the foundation stone, Jesus Christ, and
that others are building upon it ; but he bids them beware
what they build. Is it gold, silver, precious stones, that is,
good doctrine which will bear to be tested, as gold and
silver are tested, by fire ? or is it hay, wood, stubble, that
is, superstitions and unfounded opinions which will not
bear the test of fire ? If the former the builder will be
rewarded, if the latter, he will suffer loss, yet, seeing that
he has preserved the foundation intact, he will still 'be
saved, but so as by fire ' ; that is, in all probability, that he
wUl be forgiven and saved, but the straw-like superstructure
of doctrine which he has built upon the true foundation
will be destroyed and come to naught. But whatever the
words may mean, we may say with an assurance amounting
to certainty that they do not refer to any purgatorial fire,
for it is the work, the bad work, that is burnt, not the man
who builds it, and it is of builders only, that is, of God's
ministers, not of the mass of the faithful, that the Apostle
speaks. It is demonstrable that the ' wood, hay, stubble,'
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
which are to be burnt, do not represent men tortured in a
supposed Purgatory for their sins or defective penances, but
ministerial work and teaching, which will not bear testing
and will therefore perish. Nor is there any other passage
in Scripture which has any bearing on Purgatory, the ex
istence of which had not been imagined tUl long after the
canon of Scripture was closed. On the other hand, it is
' repugnant to the Word of God ' because not accordant
with the full and free pardon promised to the sinner on his
repentance without any reserve as to sufferings still to be
undergone as a satisfaction to God's justice in this world or
the next. ' If such a Purgatory as the supposition of the
Church of Rome hath pointed out to the vulgar were to
receive thee, well mightest thou be not only unwilling but
also horribly afraid to die. But, God be thanked, Christ
and His Apostles and the disciples of the Apostles have
taught us much better things. Wherefore let us comfort
one another with these words ' (Bishop BuU, Serm. in.).
The mischief of the doctrine of Purgatory was not so
great until it was united with the doctrines of the Sacrifice
of the Mass and Indulgences. In union with the first it
led people to obtain, and presently to purchase, of priests
Masses to get themselves or their friends out of torture.
Very quickly this became the popular form of their
Christianity, appealing as it did to the senses and affec
tions ; and the system was carried so far that rich men left
by their wills large sums of money to buy Masses like
PhUip IV. of Spain, or to build and endow Chantries where
priests might deliver them from suffering by prayers and
sacrifices. 169

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
4. Indulgences or Pardons in like manner aggravated
the evils of Purgatory, being another supposed means of
shortening or ending its torments by the will of the Pope,
which might or might not be exerted in the sufferer's favour.
The Church of England was contented with rejecting both
one and the other doctrine as unscriptural. Her theo
logians have proved them to be also unprimitive and
productive of evil life. Hooker writes : — •
' They imagine, beyond all conceit (belief) of Antiquity,
that when God doth remit sin and the punishment eternal
thereunto belonging. He reserveth the torment of hell fire
(the fire of Purgatory being equal in intensity to hell fire)
' to be nevertheless endured for a time, either shorter or
longer according to the quality of the man's crime. Yet
so that there is between God and man a certain composi
tion, as it were, or contract by virtue whereof work
assigned by the priest to be done after absolution shall
satisfy God as touching the punishment which He other
wise would inflict for sin, pardoned and forgiven. ... If
a penitent depart this life, the debt of satisfaction being
either in whole or in part undischarged, they steadfastly
hold that the soul must remain in unspeakable torments
till all be paid. ... So that by this postern gate cometh
in the whole mart of Papal Indulgences, a gain inestimable
to him, to others a spoU; a scorn both to God and
man. . . . Such facility they have to convert a pretended
sacrament into a true revenue ' {Eccl. Pol vi. 9).
Again : —
' A strange and a strong delusion it is wherewith the man
of sin hath bewitched the world ; a forcible spirit of error it
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
must needs be which hath brought men to such a senseless
and unreasonable persuasion as this is, not only that men
clothed with mortality and sin, as we ourselves are, can do
God so much service as shall be able to make a full and
perfect satisfaction before the tribunal seat of God for their
own sins, yea, a great deal more than is sufficient for them
selves; but also that a man, at the hands of a bishop or
a pope, for such and such a price, may buy the overplus
of other men's merits, purchase the fruits of other
men's labour, and build his soul by another man's faith.
Is not this man drowned in the gall of bitterness?'
{Serm. vi. 21).
Bishop Andrewes :—
' The Pope with his Indulgences has landed many of you
in heU, while duping you with the hope of only getting to
Purgatory. Perhaps if they had had only the fear of hell
(and they would have had if they had not been deluded by
that hope), they might have escaped hell' {Responsio ad
Bellarminum, p. 222).
' Unless a man has done aU that God commands him
and has paid the whole debt (and who has ever done that,
or can do it, when the Apostles themselves pray daily that
their trespasses may be forgiven?), he is superarrogant
when he dreams of supererogation ' {3id. p. 268).
Archbishop Laud : —
' Alphonsus k Castro deals honestly and plainly and tells
us that the mention of Purgatory in ancient writers is
almost none at aU, especially in the Greeks, and he adds
that hereupon Purgatory is not believed by the Grecians to
this very day ' {Conference with Fisher).
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"^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Bishop Cosin : —
' Of bringing souls out of Purgatory or relieving them in
their pains there the Liturgies say nothing at all, for they
know of no such matter, neither did the Church of old
teach the people to believe it ' {Note on the Holy Com
munion Office).
5. Worshipping of images is curtly condemned in the
Articles as being unscriptural ; but in the Homilies the
Church enters more at length into the question and shows
not only that the adoration of images is contrary to God's
Word but also to the practice of the Primitive Church, as
witnessed by TertuUian, Origen, Athanasius, Lactantius,
Cyril, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Augustine and Serenus of
Marseilles. The Homily attributes the introduction of
the custom to the ignorance resulting from the irruption of
the barbarians, which we have already seen to have been
the occasion of Transubstantiation and the Confessional.
'The Goths, Vandals, Huns and other barbarous and
wicked nations burst into Italy and all parts of the West
countries of Europe with huge and mighty armies, spoiled
all places, destroyed cities, and burned libraries, so that
learning and true religion went to wrack and decayed in
credibly. And so the bishops of those latter days being of
less learning, and in the midst of the wars, taking less heed
also than did the bishops afore, by ignorance of God's Word
and negligence of bishops, and specially barbarous princes,
not rightly instructed in true religion, bearing the rule,
images came into the Church of Christ in the said West
parts where these barbarous people ruled, not now in
painted cloths only but embossed in stone, timber, metal,
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
and other like matter, and were not only set up but began
to be worshipped also. And therefore Serenus, Bishop of
Massile, the head town of GaUia Narbonensis (now caUed
the Province), a godly and learned man, who was about
six hundred years after our Saviour Christ, seeing the
people, by occasion of images, fall to most abominable
idolatry, brake to pieces all the images of Christ and saints,
which were in that city; and was therefore complained
upon to Gregory, the first of that name. Bishop of Rome,
who was the first learned bishop that did allow the open
having of images in churches that can be known by any
writing or history of antiquity. And upon this Gregory do
all image worshippers at this day ground their defence. But
as all things that be amiss have from a tolerable beginning
grown worse and worse till they at the last became in
tolerable, so did this matter of images. First men used
privately stories painted in tables, cloths and walls. After
wards gross and embossed images privately in their own
houses. Then afterwards pictures first and after them
embossed images began to creep into churches, learned
and godly men ever speaking against them. Then by use
it was openly maintained that they might be in churches,
but yet forbidden that they should be worshipped ; of which
opinion was Gregory. . . . But of Gregory's opinion,
thinking that images might be suffered in churches, so it
were taught that they should not be worshipped ; what
ruin of religion and what mischief ensued afterwards to all
Christendom, experience hath to our great hurt and sorrow
proved ' {Second Part of the Homily against Peril of
Idolatry). 173

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Having recounted the iconoclastic controversy, the Homily
turns to argument. The examples of Hezekiah and Josiah
are quoted, and an indignant exclamation is introduced.
'What a fond thing is it for man who hath life and
reason to bow himself to a dead and unsensible image, the
work of his own hand ! Is not this stooping and kneeling
before them, adoration of them, which is forbidden so
earnestly by God's Word ? Let such as so fall down before
images of saints, know and confess that they exhibit that
honour to dead stocks and stones which the saints them
selves, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, would not to be given
them being alive, which the angel of God forbiddeth to be
given to him ! ' {Ibid.).
6. The worship of relics is condemned in the same
Homily. ' But in this they pass the folly and wickedness of the
Gentiles, that they honour and worship the relics and bones
of our saints, which prove that they be mortal men and
dead and therefore no gods to be worshipped ; which the
Gentiles would never confess of their gods for very shame.
But the relics we must kiss and offer unto, specially on
relic Sunday. And while we offer, that we should not be
weary or repent us of our cost, the music and minstrelsy
goeth merrily all the offertory time, with praising and call
ing upon those saints whose relics be there in presence.
Yea, and the water also, wherein those relics have been
dipped, must with great reverence be reserved as very holy
and effectual. Is this agreeable to St Chrysostom, who
writeth thus of relics ? — " Do not regard the ashes of the
saints' bodies nor the relics of their flesh and bones, con-
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church
sumed with time; but open the eyes of thy faith, and
behold them clothed with heavenly virtue and the grace of
the Holy Spirit and shining with the brightness of the
heavenly light.'' But our idolaters found too much vantage
of relics and relic water, to foUow St Chrysostom's counsel.
And because relics were so gainful, few places were there
but they had relics provided for them. . . . Now God be
merciful to such miserable and silly Christians who by the
fraud and falsehood of those which should have taught
them the way of truth and life, have been made not only
more wicked than the Gentile idolaters, but also no wiser
than apes, horses, and mules, which have no understand
ing' {Ibid.).
7. The evil of saint worship from a moral point of view,
which forms one ground for its rejection by the Church of
England, is thus stated by Bishop Andrewes : —
' " Come to Me," says the Saviour — that is, according to
Cardinal Bellarmine, " Stay where you are and send some
go-between to Me ; that is all that is wanted, though you
don't come yourselves." So " come " means " Don't come,
let others come." You draw nigh to the saints when you
pray to them, the saints draw nigh to Christ, and Christ to
God. This would be quite right if Christ had said, " Go
to the saints ; let them come in your place ; don't your
selves come to Me ; it is just the same whether you come
yourselves or the saints come for you." But now as He
has said, " Come to Me ; come all of you and I will refresh
you " (by Myself surely, not by My ministers), why do we
not go straight to Him without a go-between, and ask Him,
but turn off to them and ask of them that they would
175

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
be good enough to ask? Are there any of the saintly
spirits with whom we can converse with greater security
and joy than with our Jesus ? Is access to them easier ?
Have they more indulgent moments for speaking? Do
the saints know more of our needs ? Are their bowels of
mercy more enlarged than Christ's? Is their goodwill
towards us greater than His, so that our confidence
should be greater when we are with them ? Should
any grace of theirs be more precious to us than Christ's
promise, "I wiU refresh you"? Should any nearness to
them be dearer to us than Christ's instruction, " Come to
Me " ? When you thus invoke the saints, you give them
Christ's place ; if you go to them, you put them in the
place of Christ, for thsm to refresh you instead of Him.
You take them as mediators with God, to obtain His pardon
for you by their prayers. Paul and John never made them
selves that, and had they done so, faithful Christians would
not have endured it, as St Augustine ' ( Contra. Parmen. ii. 8,
15) teaches' {Resp. ad Bell. p. 242).
8. The mediseval number of Seven Sacraments was re
jected in Article XXV. Christ ordained but two Sacraments
in the Gospel, and therefore Confirmation, Penance, Orders,
Matrimony and Extreme Unction ' have not like nature of
Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper.'
Confirmation and Holy Orders may well be called sacra
mental rites, as they differ from the sacraments of the
Gospel only in not having had ' any visible sign or ceremony
ordained of God.' But, as we shall see, the Church found
it necessary to introduce changes in the form of their ad
ministration to recover the early conception of them.
176

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Matrimony is essentially a civil contract, to which a sacred
arid typical (which may in a sense be called sacramental)
character has been attached by Christianity, which has
dwelt from St Paul downwards on the similarity existing
between the relations of the husband and wife, and of Christ
and the Church. Like Holy Orders, it produces ' a state of
life allowed in the Scripture.'
Unction is a rite by means of which sick persons were
restored to health during the time that the extraordinary or
miraculous gifts of the Spirit prevailed, and it was after
wards changed into an ecclesiastical ceremony of anointing
people under the idea that their souls, if not their bodies,
would thereby be benefited. As an ecclesiastical ceremony,
it grew up from ' a corrupt following of the Apostles,' which
was the more observable as a corruption when it became
confined to the death-bed.
Penance is the name of a complex rite consisting of attri
tion, confession and satisfaction on the part of a penitent
confessing his sins to a priest, and of absolution or convey
ance of pardon on the part of the priest, which grew up in
the Middle Ages, and was made obligatory in 12 15. It is
a corruption of the primitive discipline of penitence, and
arose out of a misunderstanding both of the nature of re
pentance and of the divine forgiveness of sin, and of the
real character of the authority possessed by the clergy of
the Christian Church, and also of a text of Scripture (John
XX. 23). Hooker devotes almost the whole of the sixth
book of the Ecclesiastical PoUty to elucidating the true
character of penitence, showing the evUs of the so-caUed
Sacrament of Penance, which the Church repudiates, and
M 177

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
distinguishing between the Anglican and mediaeval teaching
on the subject.
'That extreme and rigorous necessity of auricular and
private confession which is at this day so mightily upheld by
the Church of Rome, we find not (in the Fathers). It was
not then the faith and doctrine of God's Church as of the
Papacy at present; (i) that the only remedy for sin after
baptism is sacramental penitence : (2) that confession in
secret is an essential part thereof; (3) that God Himself
cannot now forgive sin without the priest ; (4) that because
forgiveness at the hands of the priest must arise from con
fession in the offenders, therefore to confess unto him is a
matter of such necessity as, being not in deed, or at least in
desire performed, excludeth utterly from all pardon, and
must consequently be in Scripture commanded, whensoever
any promise of forgiveness is made. No, no ! These
opinions have youth in their countenance ; antiquity knew
them not; it never thought or dreamed of them' {Eccl.
Pol vi. 13).
' We stand chiefly upon the true inward conversion of the
heart ; they more upon works of external show. We teach,
above all things, that repentance which is one and the
same from the beginning to the world's end ; they a sacra
mental penance of their own devising and shaping. We
labour to instruct men in such sort, that every soul which
is wounded with sin may learn the way how to cure itself;
they, clean contrary, would make all sores incurable, unless
the priest have a hand in them ' {3id. 6).
' What is then the force of absolution ? What is it that
the act of absolution worketh in a sinful man ? Doth it by
178

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
any operation derived from itself alter the state of the soul ?
Does it really take away sin, or but ascertain us of God's
most gracious and merciful pardon ? The latter of which
two is our assertion, the former theirs ' {Ibid. 4).
'The sentence therefore of ministerial absolution hath
two effects ; touching sin it only declareth us free from the
guiltiness thereof, and restored unto God's favour ; but con
cerning right in sacred and divine mysteries, whereof through
sin we were made unworthy, as the power of the Church did
before effectually bind and retain us from access unto them,
so upon our apparent repentance it truly restoreth our
liberty, looseth the chains wherewith we were tied, remitteth
all whatsoever is past, and accepteth us no less returned,
than if we had never gone astray. ... It doth not permit
that, in the use of power over voluntary converts, to bind or
loose, remit or retain, should signify any other than only
to pronounce of sinners according to that which may be
gathered from outward signs ; because really to effect the
removal or continuance of sin in the soul of any offender is
no priestly act, but a work which far exceedeth their
abiUty ' {3id. 5).
' The careless manner of their absolution hath made disci
pline for the most part among them a bare formality ; yea,
rather a means of emboldening unto vicious and wicked
life than either any help to prevent future, or medicine to
remedy present evils in the soul of man ' {Ibid. 7).
9. OfTransubstantiation Article XXVIII. declares that —
(i) it ' cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; (2) is repugnant to
the plain words of Scripture ; (3) overthroweth the nature of
a sacrament, and (4) hath given occasion to many supersti-
179

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
tions,' some of these superstitions being pointed out, namely.
Reservation, Procession of the Host, Elevation, Adoration,
Reception by the wicked. Having made this protestation
against error, the Article proceeds to state the opposite
truth. ' The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in
the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner.
And the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and
eaten in the Supper is Faith.' And again it says : ' The
Supper of the Lord is a sacrament of our redemption by
Christ's death ; insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily,
and with faith receive the same, the Bread which we break
is a partaking of the Body of Christ, and likewise the Cup
of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.' Hooker
writes : —
' The bread and cup are His body and blood because
they are causes instrumental upon receipt whereof the
participation of His body and blood ensueth. The real
Presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not
therefore to be sought for in the sacrament' {i.e., the
elements) ' but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament.
As for the sacraments, they really exhibit, but for ought
we can gather out of that which is written of them, they
are not really, nor do they contain in themselves, that
grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to
bestow' {Eccl. Pol. v. 67).
Archbishop Laud : —
' Transubstantiation was never heard of in the primitive
Church, nor tiU the CouncU of Lateran (12 15); nor can
it be proved out of Scripture, and taken properly, cannot
stand with the grounds of Christian religion ' {Conference 33).
180

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Bishop Cosin : —
' For the same purpose were the words in the Form of
Consecration altered from Fiat nobis corpus et sanguis
Domini to what they now are ' (Notes — genuine series).
Bishop Jeremy Taylor : —
'What the Church of Rome teaches of Transubstantia
tion is absolutely impossible, and implies contradictions
very many, to the belief of which no faith can obUge us
and no reason can endure' {Dissuasive, I. i.).
'We may not render divine worship to Him as present
in the blessed sacrament according to His human nature
without danger of idolatry; because He is not there
according to His human nature. . . . He is present there
by His divine power, and His divine blessing, and the
fruits of His body, the real effective consequents of His
passion. But for any other presence, it is idolum, it is
nothing in the world. Adore Christ in heaven, for the
heavens must contain Him tiU the time of the restitution
of all things ' {Fifth Letter).
' And if you can believe the bread when it is blessed by
the priest is Almighty God, you can, if you please, believe
anything else. If it be transubstantiated, and you are
sure of it, then you may pray to it and put your trust in
it, and believe the holy bread to be co-eternal with the
Father and with the Holy Ghost ' {Ibid.).
'This Body, being carried from us into heaven, cannot
be touched or tasted by us on earth ; but yet Christ left
to us symbols and sacraments of His natural Body; not
to be or to convey that natural Body to us, but to do
more and better for us — to convey all the blessings and
i8i

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
graces procured for us by the breaking of that Body and
the effusion of that Blood ' ( Worthy Communicant, i. 3).
10. Article XXX. condemns the practice of the denial
of the Cup, ordered by the Councils of Constance and
Trent, on the ground of its being contrary to Christ's
command when He instituted the Sacrament. With the
practice it rejects Anselm's doctrine of Christ being re
ceived in His integrity in either element, on which the
practice rests. Bishop Andrewes justifies the Church's
action and assails the Roman position as follows : —
' On this point error begets error on error. Christ, says
the Cardinal (Bellarmine), instituted the Eucharist, in so
far as it is a sacrifice, in both elements ; in so far as it is
a sacrament, in either of the two. For the essence of a
sacrifice, he says, both are required, neither can be absent ;
if one be absent the sacrifice is mutUated. For the essence
of a sacrament, either of them is enough; whichever you
please of the two is sufficient ; either one or the other may
be away, and yet the sacrament is not mutilated. This is
magisterial enough, but it is the arbitrary dictum of the
Cardinal. What Father says so? Where is the appeal
to the first five hundred years?
'Under the species of bread, says the Cardinal, the
sacrament is entire; under the species of wine the sacra
ment is also entire. And yet these two entire sacraments
are not two entire sacraments but only one entire sacra
ment! Nay, more surprising still, under the species of
bread there is the sacrament, and under the species of
wine there is the sacrament, and yet they are not two
sacraments, and nevertheless they are two sacraments !
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Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
They are not two but one, if haste is used — if a man takes
them together at one time; they are not one but two if
there is delay — if a man takes them at two separate times,
or if two people take them at one time. When they are
taken together they are two parts of one whole; neither
of them is itself a whole. When they are taken separately,
they are two wholes, neither of them is a part — and so a
part is equal to the whole ! He receives as much who
takes either element by itself as he who takes both at the
same time! Who can understand this? "One not one,"
" two not two," " two wholes taken together are not two,"
" two are one if taken together," " two are not two unless
taken separately ! " Why should the sacrament be so much
aff'ected by time when it is not aff'ected by place ?
' Then I have this inquiry to make : Why on the theory
that the blood is always with the body and the body with
the blood, should the sacrifice be regarded as mutilated unless
both kinds are present, and the sacrament not ? What be
comes of the Cardinal's doctrine of Concomitance? In
the sacrifice he rejects it, let him therefore reject it in the
sacrament. "There," he says, "either one of the two is
sufficient," just as if Concomitance was kept at the door
whUe the Cardinal was off'ering the sacrifice, and caUed in
as soon as it had been finished. How can these things
hold together ?
'But if the sacrament is "perfect," as you say, under the
species of bread, why is the priest, when he comes to take
the sacrament, not contented with that which is perfect ?
Why should he take more than that which is already
perfect ? Why should not that be perfect for him which is
183

^§ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
perfect for the people ? Or why should he not be contented
himself with what he desires them to be contented with ?
'There is no analogy between this case and single or
trine immersion. There is in Baptism but one act of
immersion; but there are two acts in the Eucharist of
eating and drinking, and there are two subjects — bread
and wine. Besides here there is a positive command;
there there is none. Christ gave no command about the
number of immersions in Baptism — whether one or three ;
but He did give a command about both kinds in the
Eucharist. He gave an expressed command, a command
expressly obligatory on all. He said " Drink ; " He added,
"all of you." If the Saviour had used the word "aU"
after "eat," it would have been a great help to the
Cardinal's argument. But when Christ gives a command
and uses the words of injunction, there is no room for the
Church's legislation, but only in cases when, as in immer
sion. He leaves it undecided. For if He had said " Dip
once only " or " Dip three times," I suppose the Church
could not have changed the rule, nor would the Cardinal
hold that it would have a right to. But He did say " Eat,"
and He said also "Drink," and in like manner; and He
said " Do this " in regard both to one act and the other.
By saying that Christ closed the question ; nor has the
Church the right of leaving open that which Christ has
closed; nor of ordering that one kind only be received
when Christ twice ordered both kinds ; nor when Christ
enjoined "Do this" in respect of both, expunging His
words in respect to one, and forbidding men to " do it."
We may act as we please where no command has been
184

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
given, but when He gives the command, " Drink," " Drink
ye aU," " Do this," it is no longer permissible or justifiable
to disobey' {Resp. ad Bell. p. 251).
II. The Sacrifice of the Mass is condemned by the
Church of England in sharper language than any other
corruption of the Middle Ages, because it trenches on the
truth of the perfection of the One Sin-offering made once
for ever upon the Cross by Christ. 'The sacrifices of
Masses ' (in this expression the plural, Masses, is frequently
used for the singular. Mass, but here it is probably em
ployed in contrast to the one Sacrifice of the Cross), ' in the
which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ
for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt,
were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits' (Article
XXXI.). These are strong words. Are they too strong ?
What is a fable ? An idle story not founded on truth but on
imagination. Can a theory which supposes that a man
is capable of off'ering the Son of God to His Father in the
form of a piece of bread and a portion of wine, and then
causing the divine existence, which He had brought about
by a form of words, to cease by eating the bread and drink
ing the wine, be anything else than a story or tenet founded
not on truth but on imagination ; and if to misrepresent
God's character and derogate from His loving kindness
towards man be to blaspheme Him, how can it be
otherwise than blasphemous to teach that, in spite of the
Sacrifice of the Cross, God's face is stUl so averted from
His children adopted in Christ that He requires a sin-
offering to be made afresh to Him every day to propitiate
Him? The Latin equivalent for 'dangerous deceits' is
185

**? Scriptural and Catholic Truth
pernicioscR impostures — impostures because not instituted
by Christ and yet pretending to be His institution; per
nicious or dangerous because they lead men to trust for
salvation to atonements continually made by man instead
of to the one atonement once made by Christ.
Bishop Cosin writes : —
' He sitteth at the right hand of God for ever. And
therefore Christ can be no more offered as the doctors and
priests of the Roman party fancy Him to be, and plainly
think that every time they say Mass, they offer up and
sacrifice Christ anew, as properly and truly as He offered
up Himself in His sacrifice upon the Cross. And this is
one of the points of doctrine, and the chief one, whereof
the Popish Mass consisted, abrogated and reformed here
by the Church of England according to the express Word
of God  Without shedding of blood and kUling Him
over again no proper sacrifice can be made of Him ; which
yet in their Masses the Roman priests pretend every day to
do ' {Notes on the Prayer-book — genuine series).
' A true, real, proper and propitiatory sacrificing of Christ
every time the sacrament is celebrated, which is the Popish
doctrine and which cannot be done without killing of Christ
so often again, we hold not ; believing it to be a false and
blasphemous doctrine ; founding ourselves upon the
Apostles' doctrine that Christ was sacrificed but once and
that He dieth no more ' {Ibid.).
' The word Mass is nowhere found among the ancients
in the same sense in which it is now used among papists
for the true and proper sacrifice of Christ offered {toties
quoties) to God the Father for the living and the dead.
1 86

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
And therefore the very word Mass (in its new not in its
old sense) is rejected by the Anglican Church, which went
about to extirpate that vicious opinion about the Sacrifice
of the Mass ' {3id>j.
Ridley :—
' The Mass is a new blasphemous kind of sacrifice, to
satisfy and pay the price of sins, both of the dead and of
the quick, to the great and intolerable contumely of Christ
our Saviour, His death and passion, which was and is the
only sufficient and everlasting and available sacrifice, _
satisfactory for all the elect of God, from Adam the first
to the last that shall be born to the end of the world'
{Piteous Lamentation).
' Christ's blessed body and blood, which was once only
offered and shed upon the Cross, is offered up no more in
the natural substance thereof, neither by the priest nor any
other thing ' {Brief declaration of the Lord's Supper).
Cranmer : —
' The greatest blasphemy and injury that can be against
Christ, and yet universally used through the Popish kingdom,
is this : that the priests make their Mass a service propitia
tory, to remit the sins as well of themselves as of others,
both quick and dead, to whom they list to apply the same.
Then, under pretence of holiness, the papistical priests
have taken upon them to be Christ's successors, and to
make such an oblation and sacrifice as never creature made,
but Christ alone, neither He made the same any more times
than once, and that was by His death upon the Cross'
{Defence of the true and Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament of
the Body and blood of our Saviour Christ).
187

**§ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
12. With regard to the Pope's authority the Church of
England is satisfied in her Articles to fight her own battles,
saying only that ' the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction
in this realm of England ' (Article XXXVIL). By this
declaration she claims the freedom from Roman control,
which was enjoyed absolutely by the British Church and
in all essentials by the Anglo-Saxon Church, and rejects
the Papal usurpation brought in at the Conquest, re
cognised in part by Lanfranc, Anselm and Becket, cul
minating in the reign of John and Henry III., almost
shaken off in the reign of Richard II., fastened on the realm
again by the usurping house of Lancaster, and finally cast
off in the reign of Henry VIII. How uneasUy the yoke of
Rome was borne at any time in England is shown by Arch
bishop Bramhall in his 'Just Vindication of the Church of
England,' and is made evident by the Constitutions of
Clarendon, a.d. 1164, the Statute of Carlisle 1297, the
Statutes of Provisors 1350, 1363, 1389, and the Statutes
of Mortmain and Praemunire 1391 ; all of which led up to
the Statutes of the reign of Henry VIII. between 1531 and
1 543. Archbishop Wake states the case of the rejection of
Papal authority by the Church of England in his letter to
Dupin of October i, 17 18.
' This (the striking off the Papal yoke) was the first step
towards the true, just and necessary reformation of our
Church. The things that be Caesar's we gave back to
Csesar, the things that be God's to God. To the Imperial
Crown of our realm was restored its supremacy; to the
Episcopate its rights and dignity ; to the Church its hberty
by Henry VIII., who if for nothing else should be named

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
with honour for that. All these things had been trampled
beneath his feet by our then enemy who is now yours (the
GaUican Church's). The Papal authority had very often
been confined within certain limits by our laws — laws
which no one who now examined them would think it
possible to break through. But our case was that of those
who would bind the demoniac with fetters. Everything
was tried in vain. The restraints of law were good for
nothing against I know not what pretence of divine power
subjected to no human conditions. At last the kingdom
was wearied out, and the stern necessity of defending its
own laws opened the eyes of all. The question was brought
before the bishops and clergy of both provinces assembled
in synod, whether according to the Holy Scriptures the
Bishop of Rome has any more jurisdiction in the realm
of England than any other foreign bishop. The votes of
both Convocations agreed on the sound, just and true con
clusion. The universities of the realm approved by their
vote the decision which the bishops and clergy had come
to, and the King and Parliament confirmed it. And so at
last, in the only way that it could be done, a power was
totally taken away which no laws, no regulations, civil or
ecclesiastical, could ever keep within due bounds. ... If
there is any prerogative which the Councils of the Church
have conceded to the Bishop of the Imperial See, although,
as the empire has faUen, that prerogative may naturaUy be
thought to have been lost, yet, so far as I am concerned, I
have no objection to his enjoying his primacy, such as it is,
provided we come to terms on other matters, so that the
rights of the kingdom, the liberty of the Church and the
189

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
dignity of bishops be preserved. I do not grudge him the
first place nor an idle title of honour. But to dominate
over other Churches, to claim the Episcopate almost whoUy
to himself alone when Christ gave his part of it to every
single bishop, so that all held it in common possession, to
move heaven and earth for the destruction of anyone that
resisted his unlawful tyranny — these are things which we
could never bear and which you ' (Galileans) ' ought not to
endure ' (Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. App. ui.).
' By God's law,' says Bishop Bilson, ' the Pope of Rome
hath no such jurisdiction ; for six hundred years after Christ
he had none. . . . Above or against the Prince he can
have none ; to the subversion of the faith, or oppression of
his brethren he ought to have none; therefore this land
oweth him none' {True difference between Christian sub
jection and unchristian rebellion).
The oath taken tUl of late by all bishops, priests and
deacons, and by all who took their degrees at the uni
versities runs : ' I do declare that no foreign Prince, Person,
Prelate, State, or Potentate hath or ought to have any Juris
diction, Power, Superiority, Pre-eminence, or Authority,
Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within this' realm. So help me
God!' NOTES
(') Similarly Bishop Andrewes : ' Look at our religion in Britain —
primitive, pure, purified, such as Zion would acknowledge. What, must
we descend into the plain to teach that nowhere does there exist a
religion more in accord with the true Zion, that is, with the institutions
of the Gospel and of the Apostles ? Look at our Confession contained
in the XXXIX. Articles ; look at our Catechism ; it is short, but in
spite of its shortness there is nothing wanting in it. Look at the
190

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church S^
Apology of our Church — truly a Jewel. Whoso will may find our
doctrines there ' (Sermon before the Count Palaiine).
(^) It will be observed that the Church of England silently accepted
the Western form of the Nicene Creed, which contains the words, ' And
from the Son ' ; teaching that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as
well as the Father. This clause was not rejected because it contains
true doctrine, and the Church's immediate object was to reject only false
doctrine. But the words have no right to a place in the Niceno-Con-
stantinopolitan Creed, for they do not make part of the original Creed,
but were interpolated first at Toledo by King Reccared and Bishop
Leander in the year 589. From Spain the innovation spread to France
and was turged on Pope Leo III. by Charlemagne. But Leo decreed
ex cathedra that the interpolation was inadmissible and must be excised,
and he set up copies of the Creed in Greek and Latin in the Lateran
Church to show that the original Creed was without them. But as
soon as the innovation became popular through the West, Pope Benedict
VIII., ignoring his predecessor's ex cathedra decision, ruled that it was
to be admitted. The Eastern Church, by the voice of Photius in the
year 857, protested against the innovation and has continued its protest
ever since. The retention or the excision of the words is an open
question which may at any time be considered and decided, in a regu
larly constituted synod or council of the Anglican Church. If they
should be removed it would not be on account of their teaching, for
the doctrine that they teach is true, but on account of their irregular
introduction into the Creed of an CEcumenical Council without CEcu
menical authority (See History of the Church in Spain, chapter xi..
Wells Gardner).

191

CHAPTER II
THE FAITH OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
2. The Prayer-book
With the above twelve denials the Church of England,
officially and by the mouth of her theologians, meets the
twelve affirmations which Pius IV. put together as the
summary of the mediaeval faith. Secure under the lee of
this breakwater, she is able to develop her positive doctrines,
which are those of the Primitive Church before the Christian
religion was corrupted by the ignorance brought in by the
barbarians, by the natural tendency of religion in the lapse
of ages to degenerate into superstition, by the ambition and
craft of the Popes and the papal clergy who buUt up their
authority by the means of the forgery of the False Decretals,
the enforcement of the Confessional, the terrors of Purga
tory, the hopes inspired by Absolutions and Indulgences
and the various impostures which culminated in the tenet
of their abUity to sacrifice Jesus Christ on the altar. We
have seen that the faith of the Primitive Church was that
contained diffusively in Holy Scripture and summarised in
the Apostles' Creed, which was enlarged but not altered by
the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. We should expect
therefore that the faith of the Anglican Church would be
192

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5©.
found there likewise. And such is the case. The three
Creeds are not only recognised by the Articles but they
make part of the Morning and Evening Services and the
Communion Office. For the faith of the reformed English
Church is the faith of Holy Scripture and the primitive
Creeds : as the unreformed faith, so far as it differs from
hers, rests on human traditions, supposed modern revela
tions, and the Creed of Pope Pius IV.
'Our savour,' says Bishop Andrewes, 'is of the Scripture
alone, but everything with you is full of the fabricated
opinions of men, out of which your faith is formed ; so that
what you cry up as a Rock is nothing but a heap of sand ;
they are only human opinions that you cling to as your
Rock' {Resp. ad Bell. p. 452).
' There is no part of the Catholic Faith that we do not
hold ; those tenets of yours are patches on the faith, not
parts of it' {3id. p. 485).
' We have no better definition of heresy than that which
is contrary to the three old Creeds or any of the four old
General Councils. Is not that to hate new opinions ? We
innovate in nothing. We restore perhaps what those of
ancient time held, which you have innovated upon. If you
retain anything that is old, you have so interpolated it, that
not one of the ancients would recognise it if he came to life
again' {Tortura Torti, p. 96).
' Wherever we have changed anything it has been done
because in your ritual you had gone away from the pure and
perfect worship of God and because it was not so from the
beginning. . . . Whatever you have of the primitive re
ligion remains untouched with us ' {Ibid. p. 375).
N 193

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
' We have for our rule of religion one Canon given us by
God in writing, the two Testaments, the three Creeds, the
first four Councils, five centuries, three before and two after
Constantine, and the Fathers who lived in them. For those
who are not satisfied with the old Catholic Faith without the
new patches of Rome, those who are not contented unless
by draining to the dregs they reach the abuses and errors,
not to say fables and figments, which afterwards filled the
Church, we leave them to their choice. . . . There is
nothing there which has a savour of Zion — nothing at all —
or of that primitive and true faith which was once delivered
to the saints ' {Sermon before the Count Palatine).
Coming to the particular articles of the Creed, we shall
find them either directly taught or taken for granted and
lying close beneath the surface in all parts of the Prayer-
book and in every ceremony and rite that the Church has
sanctioned. Take the Collects first. The doctrine of God
the Father is found in every one of them ; His Almightiness
in the Collect for the seventh Sunday after Trinity ; His
creative Work in the Collect for all sorts and conditions of
men ; the Sonship of Jesus Christ in the Collects for
Christmas Day and the Circumcision ; His Lordship on
Septuagesima Sunday ; His Incarnation on Christmas Day
and the Annunciation ; His Suffering and Crucifixion on
Good Friday; His Death, Burial, Descent, and Resurrec
tion on Easter Eve ; His Ascension and Session on the right
hand on Ascension Day and St Stephen's Day ; the final
Judgment of quick and dead on the first Sunday in Advent ;
the Holy Ghost on the first Sunday after Ascension Day
and Whitsunday ; the Holy Catholic Church in the Collect
194

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
for all sorts and conditions of men, for St John the
Evangelist's Day, Good Friday, St Mark's Day ; the Com
munion of Saints on AU ^Saints' ^Day ; the Forgiveness of
Sins on the twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity ; the Resur
rection of the body on Easter Eve ; the Life Everlasting on
the first Sunday in Advent. So in the Morning and
Evening and Occasional Prayers the doctrines of God the
Father Almighty and Christ's Sonship and the Holy Ghost's
grace are found in almost all the prayers ; God's creative
work in the Venite ; the Sonship of Christ, His Incarnation,
Suffering, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Session and
Judgment in the Te Deum ; the Holy Catholic Church in
the Prayer for the clergy and people and the Ember Days'
Collects ; the forgiveness of sins in the Absolution ; the
Resurrection and Eternal Life in the Te Deum. In the
Order of Holy Communion the doctrines of the three
Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, Birth, Passion,
Death, Resurrection, Ascension of Christ, the universal
Church and Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins
and Everlasting Life are found. Q-) In the Litany there are
the doctrines of God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Ghost, Christ's Lordship, His Incarnation, Nativity,
Passion, Crucifixion, Death, Burial, Resurrection, Ascension,
the Holy Catholic Church, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Life
Everlasting. In the shorter offices for special occasions we
are not to expect every article of the Creeds, but in all of
them we find the doctrine of the three Persons of the God
head ; in the Baptismal Offices, those of the Incarnation,
Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ; in the Solemnisa
tion of Matrimony, that of the mystical nature of the
195

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Church ; in the Visitation of the sick, that of Forgiveness of
Sins; in the Order for Burial of the Dead, those of the
Resurrection and Eternal Life ; in the form of prayer to be
used at sea, that of the Almightiness of God. Nowhere do
we find taught or implied any of the medieval tenets
summed up in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. There may
be seen everywhere underlying the prayers and offices of
the Prayer-book a recognition of the necessity and blessed
ness of repentance, faith, obedience, hope and love.
NOTE
(1) That the grace of the Holy Eucharist is not mentioned in the Early
Church's Creeds, while that of Baptism is, teaches its own lesson.

196

CHAPTER III
THE FAITH OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
3. The Homilies
The Homilies do not stand on the same level of authority
with the Prayer-book and the Articles. They were originally
two volumes of sermons, issued, one in the reign of
Edward VI., containing twelve sermons mainly written by
Cranmer, the other in Elizabeth's reign, consisting of twenty-
one sermons, chiefly contributed by Bishop Jewel. Both
of them are recognised and sanctioned in Article XXXV.
Like other sermons, they are for the most part exhortations
to piety and godly life, and they only incidentally touch
upon faith and worship. In their hortative character they
deal with such subjects as Faith, Good Works, Charity,
Hope, Purity, Quietness, Simplicity in food and dress>
Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, Repentance, the duties of
married persons, DUigence in our secular callings. Civil
obedience. In respect to the objects of Faith, a Homily
is given to the Nativity, the Passion, the Resurrection, the
Ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Ghost.
Subjects controversially dealt with are the Sufficiency of
Holy Scripture, Justification, Idolatry, the seven Sacra
ments, the Holy Communion, Saint Worship, Purgatory,
Penitence, the use of the Latin language in public prayer ;
197

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and otl^er disputed topics are incidentaUy touched upon.
The clergy are authorised to read a Homily in place of
preaching a sermon at their discretion. It is hardly
possible for them now to do that, as forms of expression
have so much altered since the HomiUes were written ; but
it is much to be wished that both clergy and laity were
more familiar with the volume. The following are abridged
extracts from it on the controverted subjects above men
tioned. The force of the 'Exhortation to the reading of
Holy Scripture' can only be appreciated rightly if we
remember that it was only a few years previously that
permission had been granted to read God's Word at all.
Holy Scripture. 'There is no truth nor doctrine
necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation
but that is, or may be, drawn out of that fountain and
well of truth. Therefore let us reverently hear and read
holy Scriptures, which is the food of the soul. For in
holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do, and
what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to
look for at God's hands at length. And as the great clerk
and godly preacher, St John Chrysostom, saith, whatsoever
is required to salvation of man is fully contained in the
Scripture of God. These books therefore ought to be
much in our hands, in our eyes, in our ears, in our mouths,
but most of all in our hearts. And, moreover, the effect
and virtue of God's Word is to illuminate the ignorant, and
to give more hght unto them that faithfully and dihgently
read it, to comfort their hearts and to encourage them to
perform that which of God is commanded. It teacheth
patience in adversity, in prosperity humbleness; what
198

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
honour is due unto God, what mercy and charity to our
neighbour. If we read once, twice, or thrice, and under
stand not, let us not cease so, but still continue reading,
praying, asking of others, and so by still knocking at the
last the door shall be opened ' (Book I., Hom. I.).
Justification. 'This saying, that we are justified by
faith only, freely, and without works, is spoken for to take
away clearly all merit of our works, as being unable to
deserve our Justification at God's hands, and thereby most
plainly to express the weakness of man and the goodness
of God, the great infirmity of ourselves and the might and
power of God, the imperfectness of our own works, and the
most abundant grace of our Saviour Christ, and therefore
wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our Justification
unto Christ only, and His most precious bloodshedding.
This faith the holy Scripture teacheth us ; this is the strong
rock and foundation of Christian religion ; this doctrine all
old and ancient authors of Christ's Church do approve;
this doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of
Christ, and beateth down the vain glory of man; this
whosoever denieth, is not to be accounted for a Christian
man nor for a setter forth of Christ's glory, but for an
adversary of Christ and His gospel, and for a setter forth of
man's vain glory. . . . Justification is the office of God
only, and is not a thing which we render unto Him but
which we receive of Him ; not which we give to Him but
which we take of Him by His free mercy and by the only
merits of His most dearly beloved Son our Redeemer,
Saviour and Justifier, Jesus Christ' (Hom. III.).
Image worship. 'True religion and pleasing of God
199

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
standeth not in making, setting up, painting, gUding,
clothing, and decking of dumb and dead images, nor in
kissing them, capping, kneeling, off'ering to them, incensing
of them, setting up of candles, hanging up of legs, arms,
or whole bodies of wax before them, or praying and asking
of them, or of saints, things belonging only to God to
give. . . . Let us honour and worship for religion's sake
none but Him ; and Him let us worship and honour as He
wiU Himself, and hath declared in His Word that He will,
be honoured and worshipped, not in nor by images or
idols, which He hath most straitly forbidden, neither in
kneeling, lighting of candles, burning of incense, off'ering
up of gifts unto images and idols, to believe that we shall
please Him ; for all these be abominations before God ; but
let us honour and worship God in spirit and truth, fearing
and loving Him above all things, trusting in Him only,
calling upon Him and praying to Him only, praising and
lauding of Him only, and all other in Him and for Him.
For such worshippers does our heavenly Father love, who
is a most pure Spirit and therefore will be worshipped in
spirit and truth ' (Book II., Hom. II.).
Saint worship. ' Let us not put our trust or confidence
in the saints or martyrs that be dead. Let us not call upon
them nor desire help at their hands, but let us always lift
up our hearts to God, in the name of His dear Son Christ,
for whose sake as God hath promised to hear our prayer,
so He will truly perform it. Invocation is a thing proper
unto God, which if we attribute unto the saints, it soundeth
to their reproach, neither can they well bear it at our
hands. . . . Let us not anything mistrust God's goodness,
200

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
let us not fear to come before the throne of His mercy,
let us not seek the aid and help of saints, but let us come
boldly ourselves, nothing doubting but God for Christ's
sake, in whom He is well pleased, will hear us without
a spokesman, and accomplish our desire in all such
things as shall be agreeable to His most holy WiU'
(Hom. VIII.).
Purgatory. 'The only Purgatory, wherein we must
trust to be saved, is the death and blood of Christ, which
if we apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, it purgeth
and cleanseth us from all our sins even as well as if He
were now hanging upon the Cross. This is that Purgatory
wherein aU Christian men put their whole trust and
confidence, nothing doubting but if they truly repent
them of their sins and die in perfect faith that then they
shall forthwith pass from death unto life. If this kind of
Purgatory will not save them, let them never hope to be
released by other men's prayers though they should con
tinue therein unto the world's end. . . . And look, in
what state he dieth, in the same state he shall be judged,
whether it be to salvation or damnation ' {Ibid).
Seven Sacraments. 'As for the number of them, if they
should be considered according to the exact consideration
of a sacrament, namely, for the visible signs, expressly
commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed
the promise of free forgiveness of our sins and of our
holiness and joining in Christ, there be but two, namely.
Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. But in a general
acception, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to
anything whereby an holy thing is signified. In which
201

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
understanding of the word, the ancient writers have given
this name, not only to the other five, commonly of late
years taken and used for supplying the number of the
seven sacraments, but also to divers and sundry other
ceremonies, as to oil, washing of feet, and such like, not
meaning thereby to repute them as sacraments in the same
signification that the two fore-named sacraments are'
(Hom. X.).
Holy Communion. ' We must certainly know that three
things be requisite in him which would seemly, as becometh
such high mysteries, resort to the Lord's Table. That is,
first a right and worthy estimation and understanding of
this mystery. Secondly to come in a sure faith. And
thirdly to have newness or pureness of life to succeed the
receiving of the same. But before all other things this we
must be sure of especially, that this Supper be in such wise
done and ministered as our Lord and Saviour did and
commanded to be done, as His holy Apostles used it, and
the good Fathers in the Primitive Church frequented it.
For (as that worthy man St Ambrose saith) he is unworthy
of the Lord that otherwise doth celebrate that mystery than
it was delivered by Him. Neither can he be devout that
otherwise doth presume than it was given by the Author.
We must then take heed lest of the memory it be made a
sacrifice ; lest of a communion it be made a private eating ;
lest of two parts we have but one ; lest applying it for the
dead, we lose the fruit that be alive. Let us rather in these
matters follow the advice of Cyprian in like cases ; that is,
cleave fast to the first beginning, hold fast the Lord's
tradition, do that in the Lord's commemoration which He
202

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Himself did, He Himself commanded and His Apostles
confirmed. ... It is well known that the meat we seek
for in this Supper is spiritual food, the nourishment of our
soul, a heavenly refection and not earthly, an invisible
meat and not bodily, a ghostly substance and not carnal ;
so that to think that without faith we may enjoy the eating
and drinking thereof, or that that is the fruition of it, is but
to dream a gross carnal feeding, basely objecting and
binding ourselves to the elements and creatures. Whereas,
by the advice of the Council of Nicene, we ought to lift
up our minds by faith, and leaving these inferior and earthly
things, there seek it where the sun of righteousness ever
shineth ' (Hom. XV. Of the worthy receiving and reverent
esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of
Christ). (')
Repentance. ' There be four parts of Repentance. The
first is the contrition of the heart. . . . The second is an
unfeigned confession and acknowledging of our sins unto
God. . . . The third part of Repentance is faith, whereby
we do apprehend and take hold upon the promises of God
touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins, which
promises are sealed up unto us with the death and blood-
shedding of His Son Jesus Christ. . . . The fourth is an
amendment of hfe, or a new life, in bringing forth fruits
worthy of repentance ; for they that do truly repent, must
be clean altered and changed, they must become new
creatures, they must be no more the same that they were
before. Hereby we do learn what is the satisfaction that
God doth require of us, which is, that we cease from evil
and do good, and if we have done any man wrong, to en-
203

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
deavour ourselves to make him true amends to the uttermost
of our power.'
'And whereas the adversaries go about to wrest this
place (James v. i6), for to maintain their auricular confes
sion withal, they are greatly deceived themselves and do
shamefully deceive others; for if this text ought to be
understood of auricular confession, then the priests are as
much bound to confess themselves unto the lay-people as
the lay-people are bound to confess themselves to them.
And if to pray is to absolve, then the laity by this place
hath as great authority to absolve the priests as the priests
have to absolve the laity.'
' They that teach repentance without a lively faith in our
Saviour Jesus Christ do teach none other but Judas's re
pentance, as all the Schoolmen do, which do only allow
these three parts of repentance — the contrition of the heart,
the confession of the mouth, and the satisfaction of the
work. But all these things we find in Judas's repentance,
which in outward appearance did far exceed and pass the
repentance of Peter' (Hom. XX. Of Repentance and of
true Reconciliation unto God).
Latin language. ' In this ignorance have the bishops of
Rome kept the people of God, specially the common sort,
by no means so much as by the withdrawing of the Word of
God from them and by keeping it under the veU of an un
known strange tongue. For as it served the ambitious
humour of the bishops of Rome to compel aU nations to
use the natural language of the city of Rome where they
were bishops, which showed a certain acknowledging of
subjection unto them, so yet served it much more their
204

Faith of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
crafty purpose thereby to keep all people blind, that they,
not knowing what they prayed, what they believed, what
they were commanded by God, might take all their com
mandments for God's. For as they would not suffer the
holy Scriptures or Church service to be used or had in any
other language than the Latin, so were very few even of the
most simple people taught the Lord's Prayer, the Articles
of the faith, and the Ten Commandments, otherwise than
in Latin, which they understood not ; by which universal
ignorance all men were ready to believe whatsoever they
said and to do whatsoever they commanded' (Hom. XXL).
NOTE
(^) Under Note C (to a Declaration made by the English Church
Union in the year igoo) is given a quotation from ' The First Book of the
Homilies,' note, p. 147, 'Of the due receiving of the Body and Blood of
Christ under the form of bread and wine.' This is adduced in proof
that the Church of England teaches that in the Sacrament Christ our
Lord is present under the form of bread and wine. It has been shown
again and again that this sentence is no part of a Homily. It occurs in
a note appended to the First Book of the Homilies promising that
hereafter there would follow certain sermons, one of these being ' Of
the due receiving of Christ's blessed Body and Blood under the form of
Bread and Wine.' This first Book of Homilies was published in July,
1547) whilst the Act of the Six Articles, one of which made the denial
of the real presence of Christ's natural body and blood under the form
of bread and wine punishable by death and loss of goods, was still in
force. When the Second Book of Homilies was published in 1563, no
sermon tmder the promised title was contained in it ; its place was
taken by a sermon entitled : ' On the worthy receiving and reverent
esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ,' the
teaching of which is in direct opposition to the Declaration. Cranmer
is a contemporary witness that the expression found in the note of 1 547
is no part of the of&cial language of the Reformed Church. He writes,
' As concerning the form of doctrine used in this Church of England in
the Holy Communion that the Body and Blood of Christ be under the
205

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
form of bread and wine — when you shall show the place where this
form of words is expressed, then shall you purge yourself of that which
in the meantime I take to be 2. plain untruth' (On the Lord's Supper,
P. S., p. 53). This was written in 1550, (Professor Ince, Doctrine of
the Real Presence, p. 8). The use of this formula as expressing a
doctrine sanctioned by the Church of England was brought in by Dr
Pusey and still prevails in some quarters. The last edition of Wood
ward's Children's Service Book has added a hymn in which occurs the
verse : — I worship Thee, Lord Jesus,
Who in Thy Love Divine
Art hiding here Thy Godhead
In forms of bread and wine.
This is a translation from a. hymn which called forth from Bishop
Andrewes the indignant exclamation, 'Let them "worship the Deity
hiding there under the species," made from a flour-mill ! Zion would
shudder at that and utterly repudiate it' (^Sermon before the Count
Palatine). This hymn and doctrine are now set forth for the use of
children of the Church of England.

206

CHAPTER IV
THE WORSHIP OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
I. The Prayer-book.
When the Church awoke to the work of its reformation, she
found the existing forms and ceremonies of worship greatly
dependent on an uncertain tradition passing from hand to
hand, but mainly embodied in the Breviary, Missal,
Manual and Pontifical, the first of these containing an
arrangement of the Psalms to be recited at different hours,
together with some hymns, prayers and lections; the
second, the Mass Services; the third, the Occasional
Offices ; the fourth, the Ordination Services. The first
change made, and that an enormous change, was the pre
sentation of all prayers, lessons and services in the English
language instead of Latin. We have seen that the use of
the Latin language in the Church Offices may have come
in originally without evil intent, though arising in great
part from local pride of race. As time went on, it was
wilfully adopted for sacerdotal reasons. The result was
what St Paul warned the Corinthians against, the people
could not pray or sing ' with the understanding.' St Paul
was speaking of miraculous utterances in an unknown
tongue, but his words apply with extraordinary exactness to
the practice of using the Latin tongue in German, French,
Italian and Enghsh congregations : ' If I pray in an un-
207

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
known tongue my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is
unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit,
and I wUl pray with the understanding also ; I wUl sing
with the spirit and sing with the understanding also. Else
when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that
occupieth the room of the unlearned say. Amen, at thy
giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou
sayest ? For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other
is not edified. I thank my God I speak with tongues more
than ye all ; yet in the Church I had rather say five words
with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach
others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown
tongue' (i Cor. xiv. 14-19). The whole service being per
formed in an unknown tongue had to be made dramatic.
The congregation was no longer a body of the faithful,
assembling themselves together to pray and sing and give
thanks with the understanding, but a company of spectators
watching the acts of another, to which an ever more and
more awful character must be assigned in order to keep up
the attention of the spectators, and to impress their minds
with dread. And this change of idea fell in with the
mediseval magnifying of the priesthood, through which aU
intercourse between God and man must be carried on. The
priest did all that had to be done, and the congregation
gratefully received all from sacerdotal hands.
2. As soon as the vernacular language was adopted, it
was found possible to restore Matins and Evensong as con
gregational services. These had degenerated into being
services, much altered, kept up only in monasteries and in
churches to which a chapter was attached ; for how could
the people take part in them in a foreign tongue? The

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Morning Service in the Primitive Church is thus described
by St BasU :—
' The customs which now prevail among us are consonant
and agreeable to all the Churches of God. For with us the
people rising early, whUst it is night, come to the house of
prayer, and there with much labour and affliction and
contrition and tears make confession of their sins to God.
When this is done, they rise from prayers and dispose
themselves to psalmody, sometimes dividing themselves
into two parts, they answer one another in singing, or sing
alternately ; after this again they permit one alone to begin
the psalm and the rest join in the close of every verse.
And thus with this variety of psalmody they carry on the
night, praying betwixt whiles, or intermingling prayers with
their psalms. At last when the day begins to break forth,
they all in common, as with one mouth and one heart,
offer up to God the psalm of confession, every one making
the words of this psalm to be the expression of his own
repentance ' {Ep. Ixiii. ad Neoccesar). ' Here,' says Bing
ham, 'we have the plain order of their nocturnal or
morning devotions, (i) Confession of sins. (2) Psalms
sung alternately. (3) Psalms sung by one alone. (4)
Prayers between the psalms. (5) Lastly the common
psalm of confession, or the penitential psalm in the close
of all — being the fifty-first psalm, " Have mercy upon me,
O God, after Thy great goodness ; according to the multi
tude of thy mercies do away mine offences." For this
psalm was particularly noted among the Ancients by the
name of the Psalm of Confession — I may add that though
this service was very early in the morning, yet it was
frequented not by the clergy and monks only, but by the

'^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
people also. For St Basil takes notice that the people
come to church to celebrate their morning devotions '
{Eccl Antiq. xiii. 13, 15). An unknown tongue made
such a service as this, where there was nothing to look at
and only the devotion of the heart and lips was required,
absolutely impossible. One of the greater blessings of the
reformed Service-book was the restoration to the people of
the old Matin office, of which they had been deprived for
nearly a thousand years, in the Order for Morning Prayer
daily throughout the year. Bingham says justly that ' the
same service with that of the Ancients is still retained, with
some improvements, and none of the corruptions which the
superstition of darker ages brought into the devotions of
the Church, as anyone may satisfy himself that wiU compare
what has been delivered in this chapter (containing an
account of the primitive Morning Service) with the Daily
Service of our Church ' {Ibid). The primitive Morning
Service was distinct from the Communion Service, which
was held subsequently to it in the forenoon.
3. The case of the Evening Service is similar. In primi
tive times it was held at nine o'clock p.m. It began with
Psalm cxli. : ' Let my prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the
incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening
sacrifice,' which was called the Evening Psalm; then
followed prayers for catechumens, the possessed, candidates
for baptism, penitents, the peace of the world, and the
whole Church; then a prayer to pass the night in peace
and without sin, and the remainder of life without re
proach ; then two prayers by the bishop, the first of which
was caUed the Evening Thanksgiving, and the second a
Benediction, as foUows : —

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church S«»
' O God, who art without beginning and without end, the
Maker and Governor of all things through Christ, the God
and Father of Him before aU things, the Lord of the Spirit
and King of all things both intellectual and sensible ; that
hast made the day for works of light and the night to give
rest to our weakness (for the day is Thine and the night is
Thine; Thou hast prepared the light and the sun); do
Thou now, most kind and gracious Lord, receive this our
evening thanksgiving. Thou that hast led us through the
length of the day and brought us to the beginning of the
night, keep and preserve us by Thy Christ. Grant that we
may pass this evening in peace and this night without sin,
and vouchsafe to bring us to eternal life through Thy
Christ, by whom be glory, honour and adoration unto Thee
in the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.'
'O God of our fathers and Lord of mercy that hast
created man by Thy wisdom a rational being, and of all
Thy creatures upon earth dearest unto Thee, that hast
given him dominion over the earth, and hast made us by
Thy pleasure to be kings and priests, the one to secure our
lives and the other to preserve Thy lawful worship; be
pleased now, O Lord Almighty, to bow down and show the
light of Thy countenance upon Thy people who bow the
neck of their heart before Thee, and bless them by Christ,
by Whom Thou hast enlightened us with the light of know
ledge, and revealed Thyself unto us ; with Whom is due
unto Thee and the Holy Ghost the Comforter all worthy
adoration from every rational and holy nature, world with
out end. Amen.'
After these prayers by the bishop, the deacon said,
'Depart in peace.' Sometimes hymns were added, some-

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
times more psalms were chanted, sometimes two lessons
were read, one from the Old, the other from the New
Testament, and very frequently the Lord's Prayer was used.
But how could such a service as that take place when
conducted in a tongue not understood by the people ? It
had to give way to Expositions of the Sacrament and Bene
dictions by the Host, in which the priest might be watched
acting his part and the congregation might be passive.
Common prayer, whether in the morning or evening, ceased.
The order for Evening Prayer daily throughout the year
restored the old Evening Prayer of the Primitive Church in
all essential points, as the order for Morning Prayer re
stored the Morning Prayer of the Early Ages.
4. The Promulgation of the Calendar of itself formed a
long step backward toward primitive purity in two ways.
We know that the Holy Scriptures were diligently read
in the assemblies of the early Christians. Justin Martyr,
the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, Cassian,
Augustine, Chrysostom and many more say so. But the
congregations could not be edified by sounds not under
stood, and the Mediaeval Church did not want the con
gregations to understand Scripture. So the fruitful reading
of Holy Scripture was given up. But the Lectionary of the
Church of England was remarkable for instituting a more
complete and orderly rule for reading the Holy Scriptures
than any other Church's in Christendom. By the Calendar,
as fixed at the Reformation, the Old Testament was ap
pointed to be read through once in the year and the New
Testament three times; and, in imitation of a primitive
custom, a Bible was placed in churches for private perusal.
Thus a systematic knowledge of Holy Writ, pregnant

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
with consequences fatal to mediaevalism, was widely
spread. 5. The other step toward purity made by the Calendar
was the removal from it of a host of saints, apocryphal and
otherwise. Collects, Epistles and Gospels were left or
appointed only for the festivals of holy men and women
in Scripture. In the CoUects for the other saints' days and
accompanying lections, the mediseval false doctrine of the
Invocation of Saints had most deeply implanted itself. At
a blow the Collects and lections for all legendary and all
non-Scriptural saints were struck off, and wherever prayers
to the saint or recognition of his merit were found in the
Collects hitherto appropriated to the festivals that were left,
they were replaced by new Collects, infinitely more spiritual
and primitive, composed by Cranmer. A careful super
vision of the old service-books noted every passage in which
the honour due to God was given to man, and it was struck
out with an unsparing hand. ' Let not our religion,' said
the reformers with St Augustine, ' be the worship of dead
men ! They are to be honoured that we may imitate them,
not adored so as to be objects of religious worship' {De
Vera Relig. Iv.). Once more, as at the beginning, the sole
object of worship to English Christians was God the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
6. When we come to the particulars which make up the
Morning and Evening Prayer, we find them to consist of —
(i) a form of public confession and absolution; (2) a form
of praise and thanksgiving ; (3) a reading of God's Word ;
(4) a form of prayer.
The pubUc Confession and Absolution, drawn up in
1552, serve, and were intended to serve, as a discourage-
- 213

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
ment of the practice of private Confession and Absolution.
Until the yoke of Innocent III. was broken, every faithful
member of the Church was bound to confess his sins at least
once a year to his parish priest, and if he wished to advance
in the spiritual hfe he was exhorted to do so more frequently.
In 1549 the Church instructed her chUdren not to regard
this practice as necessary but rather to be content with the
public confession and absolution of the Communion Service,
though they were not to unchurch others for continuing the
old system as a voluntary act. The forms of public con
fession and absolution in the Communion Service (1549)
were intended like those of the Morning and Evening
Prayer, inserted in 1552, to satisfy a need felt by the people
without driving them to have recourse to the Confessional.
In her earliest Prayer-book she also put out the Commina-
tion Service. In this we find a characteristic note of regret
that it was impossible to restore the old system of pubhc
penitence which prevailed in the Primitive Church, when
notorious sinners openly acknowledged their sin before the
congregation, and on the congregation being satisfied that
they were truly penitent were restored to the communion
and peace of the Church. But recognising that this system
of discipline was no longer possible, she did not propose to
substitute for it the system of private confession, whether
obligatory or voluntary, but instead she ordered that there
should be read in the ears of the people out of the
Scriptures ' the general sentences ' of God's denunciation of
unrepented sin, ' to the intent that being admonished of the
great indignation of God against sinners ye may rather be
moved to earnest and true repentance.' Then she left
Holy Scripture, followed by the exhortation of the Church,

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
to do its rightful work, handing over the soul, thus made
contrite, not to the manipulation of the confessor but to
the free mercy and love of God. According to her teaching,
emphasised in 1552, auricular confession and absolution
were no part of religious practice in the normal Ufe of the
Christian, for confession to God and prayer to Him would
certainly bring pardon and restoration to the contrite soul.
But she admitted that there might be an exceptional case.
A man might be so overwhelmed with horror at a past sin
as to be unable to persuade himself of God's forgiveness,
and he might therefore exclude himself from the Holy
Communion. In that case he should seek the counsel of
his clergyman or some other minister of God's Word, to
receive from him that assurance of God's forgiveness of
which he could not satisfy himself, and so obtain the
benefit of absolution in restoration to the Lord's Table.
This comforting assurance would be more especially needed
in the case of one dying troubled in mind or conscience
with any weighty matter. In that case, after he had
unburdened himself, God's minister was to declare him
restored to God's favour (provided always that he was
penitent) and to restore him to the privilege of the Church
by admitting him to Holy Communion. But this was
exceptional. The rule was the adequacy of repentance for
bringing forgiveness from God, which was a recurrence to
the principle laid down by Augustine and Chrysostom.
The Homily on Repentance and true Reconciliation with
God quotes St Augustine : ' Moreover these were St
Augustine's words, "What have I to do with men that
they should hear my confession, as though they were to
heal my diseases " ? ' St Chrysostom writes in his treatise
_^  215

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
De Pcenitentia, ' Hast though sinned ? Say to God, I
have sinned ; I do not require anything else of thee but
that.' 'Hast thou sinned? Be sorry and thou effacest
thy sin.' ' Be humble and thou loosest the knot of thy
sin.' 'A fourth way of penitence is almsgiving, the
queen of virtues' {Hom. n. 287, 290, 292). 'Make your
judgment and the examination into your sins, within, in
your own conscience, no one being present except the all-
seeing God, and considering all your life, submit your
sins to the judgment of your mind ; reform your faults
and so with a clear conscience come to the Holy Table
and partake of the holy sacrifice' {Hom. vi. 326). 'It is
most evident and plain,' says the Homily of the English
Church, ' that this auricular confession has not his warrant
of God's Word. Let us with fear and trembling and with
a true contrite heart use that kind of confession that God
doth command in His Word; and then doubtless, as He
is faithful and righteous. He will forgive us our sins and
make us clean from all wickedness. I do not say but
that if any do find himself troubled in conscience, they
may repair to their learned curate or to some other godly
learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their
conscience to them, that they may receive at their hands
the comfortable salve of God's Word; but it is against
the true Christian liberty that any man should be bound
to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used hereto
fore, in the time of blindness and ignorance ' (Part ii.).
The transference of Confession and Absolution from the
Confessional box to the public service of the Church must
have wrought an untold effect both on the religious hfe of
the individual, who was now entrusted with himself, and on
216

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
the acts of worship carried on in the Church, and on the
sacerdotal authority of the clergy. With respect to the
other parts of the service we may imagine the spiritual
exultation and thankfulness with which men joined in
common prayer and common praises and heard God's
Word read to them in common in their own native
language, after the Church had been debarred from such
privileges for more than a thousand years.
7. The Litany was the first part of the Prayer-book to be
disembarrassed of its mediaeval surroundings and divested
of its mediaeval character. In the unreformed Service-
books it made a part of the rites and ceremonies of Easter
Eve which were (and are) as follows : (i) Sparks were
struck from a flint and from them was lighted a coal fire,
which was blessed as a new fire in three prayers by a priest
dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, with cross-bearer, holy
water and incense by his side, at the door of the Church.
(2) The priest blessed five grains of incense in another
prayer, and the coals from the new fire having been put
into the thurible, he sprinkled them and the five grains of
incense with holy water. (3) All the lights were ex
tinguished in order that they might be re-lit from the new
fire. (4) A procession was formed — first came the thurifer
with the new fire and an acolyte with the five grains, next
the cross-bearer, then all the clergy present, then a deacon
with a wand or rod having at the top a triangle of un-
lighted candles, and last the celebrant. (5) On entering
the church the deacon bent down his wand and the acolyte
lit one of the candles by a candle that he had lighted from
the new fire, and the deacon and aU the rest, except the
cross-bearer, genuflected ; on reaching the middle of the
217

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
church the second candle was lighted and all again genu
flected as before ; when the altar was reached, the third
candle was lighted and the genuflexion again took place.
(6) The deacon handed the wand to an acolyte, took his
book, and after getting the celebrant to bless it, put it upon
a desk and censed it, while the cross-bearer, the thurifer,
the acolyte with the candle and an acolyte with the five
grains of incense stood by his side. (7) The deacon
intoned a prayer during which he fixed the five grains of
incense that had been blessed, in the shape of a cross, on
a wax candle and then lit the wax candle from one of the
candles on the top of the wand. (8) All the other lamps
and candles in the church were lighted. (9) The celebrant
read in a low voice (and in Latin) at the south end of the
altar twelve lessons from the Old Testament, while a
presbyter was meantime catechising candidates for baptism.
(10) The priest proceeded to the font with the cross-bearer
and the blessed wax candle, and blessed the font, using a
prayer in the course of which first he made a cross upon
the water, then put his hand upon it, then spilt some of it
towards the four points of the compass, then three times
breathed upon it in the form of a cross, then dipped the
wax candle in it, first a little way, then a little further, then
rather further, and then all of it, then he blew three times
on the water in the shape of the Greek letter Y, then he
took the wax candle out again, then he poured in some oil
in the shape of a cross, then another kind of oil in the
shape of a cross, then both oils together in the shape of a
cross, then he mixed the oil with the water, spreading the
oil over all the water in the font. (11) He and his
assistants returned to the altar, and during this procession
018

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
thither the Litany was sung by two of the clergy, all uniting
in the refrain. We have now reached the Litany, which
began thus : —
' O God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us ; O God
the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us ; O God
the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us. Holy Mary, pray for
us ; Holy Mother of God, pray for us ; Holy Virgin of
virgins, pray for us ; Holy Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, John
Baptist, Joseph, Peter, Paul, Andrew, John, Stephen,
Lawrence, Vincent, Silvester, Gregory, Augustine, Anthony,
Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Mary Magdalene, Agnes,
Cecilia, Agatha, Anastasia, all Holy Angels and Arch
angels, all orders of blessed Spirits, all Holy Patriarchs and
Prophets, all Holy Apostles and Evangelists, all Holy
Disciples of the Lord, all Holy Martyrs, all Holy Pontiffs
and Confessors, all Holy Doctors, all Holy Priests and
Levites, all Holy Monks and Hermits, all Holy Virgins and
Widows, pray for us ! All holy men and women of God,
intercede for us ! ' Then it proceeded thus — ' Be favour
able, spare us. Lord ! ' and it contained many supplications
which have been retained in the English Litany.
If we contrast the Litany of the Reformed Anglican Church
and the Litany of the Mediseval and Modern Roman Church
(for all these ceremonies and invocations are ordered in the
Missals of the present day), it wUl be seen that one is the
prayer of manly faith to God, the other a series of supersti
tious acts crowned by a prayer marred by the introduction
of invocations to supposed saints and angels. The change
was restorative of old truth in place of mediaeval error, and
it is almost surprising to see the sure religious instinct with
which Cranmer sifted the wheat from the chaff. ' The old
219

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Litanies,' says Bishop Barry, 'were much of the general
form of our service, as may be seen by early examples. Not
tUl the eighth century did the Invocation of Saints come in,
and in striking it out we have returned to the primitive
model ' {Teachers' Prayer-booli).
8. Besides the worship of the saints, we see the mediaeval
trust in human merit parted with in the Collects to be used
throughout the year, and other prayers.
9. The most decided repudiation of mediaeval error in
worship is to be found in the Order of the Administration
of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion. This we
should expect, for we have seen that medisevalism, having
practically shelved the Morning and Evening Prayer of the
Primitive Church, concentrated itself on the celebration of
the Mass, where it professed that the priest ' by means of
the words of consecration, effected the real Objective
Presence on the Altar of the true Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ, and thereby offered Him up in sacrifice ' (they are
Cardinal Vaughan's words). To greet the coming of the
Lord, all possible ceremony was employed, and to exhibit
Him to the people, ignorant of the priest's language, every
dramatic art was used. The altar had to be of stone, or at
least, a stone blessed by the bishop must be inlaid in it, on
which the Host, that is Christ, might stand. A cross was
placed in the middle of the altar, and two lighted candles
on each side. The priest brought the elements with every
sign of reverence ; ' the celebrant with joined hands went
up to the middle of the altar, and then bowing, and placing
his hands, still joined, on the altar in such a way that only
the two little fingers should touch the front part of the top
of the altar, while the other parts of his hands were kept
220

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
between himself and the altar, and the right thumb was laid
over the left thumb in the form of a cross ' (Missal ritual),
he said a prayer under his breath and ' kissed the middle of
the altar, stretching out his hands at equal distances on
either side and placing them upon it,' and taking care after
the consecration has taken place ' never to separate the
thumb from the first finger ' when extending his hands.
Then he three times put some incense into a thurible, made
the sign of the cross over it and blessed it, and twice bowing
to the cross, censed it three times, and the diff'erent parts of
the altar some twenty times, and the relics or images of the
saints in or on the altar twice, and then he was censed him
self by the deacon. So the ceremony proceeded with cross
ings, bowings, joining of hands, lifting up of the hands so
that one palm should face the other, extending the hands,
casting down the eyes and hfting them up, genuflectings,
kissings, bendings of the head, kneelings, standings up,
censings, washings of hands, wipings of fingers, moving
from one spot to another, knockings of the breast; all
exactly ordered and taught as for the stage. The ritual
directions for celebrating Mass occupy no less than twenty
pages of small print in the Missal. When the priest came
nearer to the consecration, there were not only histrionic
regulations as to his movements, but injunctions of a graver
character, both in the Ritual directions, and in the order of
the Mass.
The saints whose memory was venerated were SS. Mary,
Peter, Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip,
Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, Thaddaeus, Linus, Cletus,
Clement, Xystus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chryso-
gonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and all others,
221

'^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
and their merits were relied upon as well as their
prayers. Those into whose society God was besought to admit the
congregation were the Apostles and Martyrs, with John,
Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Mar
cellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnes,
Cecilia, Anastasia.
Those in whose honour the oblation was made, with a
view of gaining their intercessions, were SS. Mary, John
Baptist, Peter, Paul, and all saints. Prayer was made that
the oblation might become to us the Body and Blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ ; and at the moment of consecration
the priest was to lean his elbows on the altar, hold the
Host between his thumb and first finger and say, ' This is
my Body,' genuflecting and worshipping it ; then standing up
he was to elevate it on high, fix his eyes upon it, and show
it to the people for their reverent worship, then to lay it
down and again worship it himself, while the attendant rang
a little bell, to tell the people when it was safe to begin
worshipping the wafer, which before the words were spoken
was wheaten bread and after that was Christ. In like
manner, after saying, ' This is the cup of my blood of the
new and eternal testament,' the priest worshipped it,
elevated it, but not so conspicuously as the bread, and
again worshipped it. After more prayers the priest con
sumed both his own wafer and the whole of the wine, thus
finishing the supposed sacrifice by putting an end to the
existence of Christ in the sacrament. Any communicants
that there might be received the bread only, not the wine,
and they were taught that the bread was Christ, though
how Christ's sacramental existence could have been

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church 5©.
destroyed by the priest's consumption of the species
(without that destruction there is no sacrifice according to
BeUarmine and the other authorities), and yet He could
have continued in each one of the wafers untU they were
eaten and digested, has never been explained.
This histrionic exhibition and materiahsation of a
spiritual mystery ceased with the reformed Communion
Service. Its unreal and tawdry splendour (typified by
lighted candles in dayhght) came to an end, and inward
spirituality with reverent outward demeanour took its place.
The object of worship was God, not the sacrament ; the
bread no longer became the Body of Christ, but was the
means by which we might be partakers of His most
blessed Body and Blood in our souls ; Christ's institution
was restored to its original purpose, being primarily a sacra
ment in which man received a gift from God, rather than a
sacrifice in which man gave (what he did not own) to God ;
Christ's command that all should drink of this cup was no
longer transgressed; private Masses, Masses for the dead
and Hearing Mass (or Non-communicating attendance) were
abolished, and Reservation for any purpose was forbidden.
The restoration of Holy Communion in place of Hearing
Mass or Non-communicating attendance, which had been
substituted for it, was vital to the Church of England at the
time of the Reformation, and it made the greatest change of
aU in the manner of conducting the weekly worship of the
Church. Accordingly, in the Prayer-book of 1552, 1559
and 1604, she addressed the following warning to her
children: 'Whereas ye off'end God so sore in refusing
this holy banquet, I admonish, exhort, and beseech you,
that to this unkindness ye wUl not add any more ; which
223

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
thing ye shaU do if ye stand by as gazers and lookers on them
that do communicate and be no partakers yourselves. For
what thing can this be accounted else than a further con
tempt and unkindness to God? Truly it is a great un-
thankfulness to say Nay when ye are called ; but the fault
is much greater when men stand by and yet will neither
eat nor drink this Holy Communion with others. I pray
you what can this be else than but even to have the
mysteries of Christ in derision ? It is said unto aU, " Take
ye and eat," "Take and drink ye all of this," "Do this in
remembrance of Me." With what face then and with what
countenance shall ye hear these words? What will this
else be but a neglecting and despising and mocking of the
Testament of Christ? Wherefore, rather than that ye
should do so, depart you hence, and give place to them
that are godly disposed.'
In like manner, in the Second Book of the Homilies,
pubUshed in 1563, she says, 'Our loving Saviour hath
ordained and established the remembrance of His great
mercy expressed in His Passion in the institution of His
heavenly Supper, where every one of us must be guests and
not gazers, eaters and not lookers on. To this His com
mandment forceth us, saying, " Do ye this ; drink ye all of
this." To this His promise enticeth, "This is My Body
which is given for you : this is My Blood, which is shed
for you." So then we must be ourselves partakers of this
Table and not beholders of others ' {Horn. xv.).
These exhortations and the spread of knowledge respect
ing the practice of the Primitive Church on the point in
question had the effect of breaking off the mediseval
custom of Hearing Mass, and of substituting for it a true
224

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
Communion of faithful recipients. In the century which
elapsed between 1559 and 1662 the habit had become so
obsolete that in the Revision of 1662 the Church did not
feel it necessary to repeat her warnings against it, nor was
the practice again heard of in the Church of England for
two hundred years.
10. The remaining changes for the better made in the
Church's worship may be passed over more summarily. In
the office of Public Baptism the uncomely practices of
putting salt on the chUd's lips and spittle on his ears and
nose, and adding oU to the water, and putting a lighted
candle in the child's hand were given up. None of them
were primitive. In the Order of Confirmation the
Apostolic ceremony of imposition of hands, which had dis
appeared from the mediaeval rite, was restored; and the
service was made more edifying by appointing that it
should not be used until the candidates had arrived at
years of discretion and could renew their baptismal vows.
In the Solemnisation of Matrimony the blessing of the
ring was omitted. In the Visitation of the sick the Extreme
Unction, which in that form only dated from the twelfth
century though founded on an Apostolic rite of a diff'erent
nature ; and in the Burial Service the censing, sprinkling
with holy water, and prayer and Mass for the dead were dis
used. In the Thanksgiving of women after child-birth the
name was changed from the ' Purification of Women,
which has a Judaical ring about it, to 'Churching of
Women,' as it is now commonly designated.
II. The Communion of the Sick, a service pecuhar to
the Church of England, is an example of using new means
when required to carry out old principles. In the early
P 225

'^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Church, before superstitious ideas had connected them
selves with the sacred elements, they could without risk of
misunderstanding be taken from the celebration of the
Communion in the church to the sick-bed. Later on,
there grew up the belief in the objective presence of
Christ in the elements and at once the element of bread
(why not also of wine ? ), being reserved in the church before
it was taken to the sick person, became an object of
worship. It could not be otherwise, and would be the
case now if any form of reservation was permitted. There
fore the old simple practice of communicating the sick had
to be given up, and in its place was substituted the office
for the Communion of the Sick, in which the clergyman
consecrates the elements in the sick man's house and
presence. This plan was found, on experiment, to be
infinitely superior to the earlier system ; for now so much
of the Communion Service as the sick man could bear was
said in his presence, and his mind was thus brought into a
religious state in which he might derive benefit from the
rite, and a danger to which Communion with the reserved
elements was specially liable, of leading the sick person to
trust in the opus operatum, as though a benefit were derived
from the mere act of receiving the Sacrament without regard
to the recipient's state of mind and soul, was obviated.
12. In the Commination Services there was cut off the
ceremony of blessing ashes. This began with a prayer that
God would send a holy angel from heaven to bless and
sanctify the ashes to serve as a wholesome remedy, so that
whoever was sprinkled with them for the redemption of his
sins might gain health of body and safeguard of soul. A
second prayer asked God to ' bless the ashes which, for
226

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
promoting humility and securing pardon, we have deter
mined to put upon our heads.' Then the celebrant three
times sprinkled the ashes with holy water and three times
censed them. Then he put the ashes on the heads of
clergy and laity, kneeling before the altar ; after which
followed Mass. The Church of England held that
humility and penitence could be better taught by a declara
tion of God's great indignation against sinners as shown in
Holy Scripture and an exhortation to avoid the sins which
brought His judgments on the perpetrators. She con
sidered this spiritual exercise of the Commination Service
on the first day of Lent, the season of penitence, more
conducive to true repentance and forgiveness than the
ceremony of spreading ashes on the head or the rite of
private confession and absolution.
13. For a supposed weekly recitation of the Psalms, sung
by those who might (or might not) know Latin, in the
presence of a congregation (if any) who understood nothing
of what was being chanted, a monthly recitation, in the
vernacular, in the congregational service, was substituted.
' The desired result,' says Bishop Barry, ' has certainly
followed, in the wide extension of the knowledge and use of
the Psalter by all classes of the members of the Church of
England ' {Teachers' Prayer-book).
14. The form of prayer to be used at sea and before
and after a naval engagement, to which there is nothing
analogous in the pre-reformation manuals, added in 1662,
are an instance of the desire of the Church of England to
consecrate to God the life of the nation as well as of the in
dividual. This is the result of her being a National Church.

227

CHAPTER V
THE WORSHIP OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
2. The Ordinal
The Ordinal, prepared in 1550 and added to the Prayer-
book in 1552, was drawn up on the same principle as the
Prayer-book, that is, mediaeval insertions were struck out and
the ancient forms were recovered so far as was possible. In
the Preface the modern Roman dictum that the three
Orders of the Ministry are Priest, Deacon and sub-Deacon,
the first of which is divisible into the Episcopate and the
Presbyterate, is not so much as mentioned. It is unhesi
tatingly laid down that ' from the Apostles' time there have
been three Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church —
Bishops, Priests and Deacons.' And the statement is
amply justified by history. Presbyters and Deacons appear
in Holy Scripture, and James of Jerusalem, recognised by
the other Apostles as holding a special authority at the
CouncU of Jerusalem, Timothy and Titus, appointed by St
Paul, and Polycarp, ordained by St John and others of the
Apostles {Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 14), are the beginning of a
long line of bishops, who have succeeded one the other in
the government of the Church, (i)
When we come to the form of ordination, we find the
principles of simplification and rejection of mediaevalisms
to have guided the compilers. In the ordination of deacons,
228

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church S<k
investiture with the stole was given up ; in the ordination
of priests, investiture with the stole and chasuble, anointing
and blessing of the hands, and the delivery of the paten and
chalice, were omitted; in the consecration of bishops,
anointing the head and hands, the delivery of a ring and
mitre and pastoral staff were abandoned. Of these
omissions the most important is that of the delivery of the
paten and chalice to the priests, caH^eA porrectio instrumento
rum, and its importance is given it by historical events
which are thus recounted by Dr v. DoUinger : —
' At Florence a peculiar formula of belief was drawn up,
in the first instance for the Armenians, with the pretended
assent of the Council, which was nevertheless properly at an
end. In this so-named Decretum pro Armenis the doctrine
of the Seven Sacraments is especially developed for the
instruction of the Orientals ; it is the only detaUed state
ment of the kind before the time of the Trent Council.
There is found there in respect to ordination the perfectly
astonishing declaration that the matter of this sacrament is
not the laying on of hands, which is not even mentioned,
but the porrectio instrumentorum, the delivery of the chalice
and paten. The form also is inexact, drawn out at great
length. The decree was to be forced on the Orientals ;
Clement VIII. even ordered the Orientals to observe it in
regard to the sacraments. And yet Mae, porrectio instrumen
torum is purely a ceremony, and in truth one that first arose
after the year looo and only in the West ! If so great
ignorance had not prevailed, the Decretum pro Armenis
must alone have sufficed to hinder the declaration of
InfaUibility : for here undoubtedly a Pope has erred in a
solemn dogmatic decree, in that he has marked the un-
22Q

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
essential ceremony of the porrectio instrumentorum as
essential in ordination and has not mentioned the essential
laying on of hands. Actually indeed laying on of hands is
retained in Roman CathoUc ordinations, but yet in the last
century it was declared from Rome that ordinations held in
a French diocese were invahd and to be repeated, because
the porrectio instrumentorum had been omitted. How
would it be now if bishops on the ground of this decree
should have viewed the laying on of hands, which is
essential to the validity of ordination, as a mere ceremony,
and should have discontinued it? English theologians
have only to hold this Decretum pro Armenis right ener
getically before the Romish theologians in England who
attack the validity of the Anglican ordinations, and remind
them that those who live in glass houses should not throw
stones. The important thing is that in ordination laying
on of hands be used, that words besides be uttered in which
the communication of the grace of Orders is expressed, and
that it be assumed there is conveyed through ordination a
grace of the Holy Spirit. In this respect English ordination
cannot be questioned. The validity of Roman Catholic
ordinations can perhaps be questioned with more appear
ance of justice ' {Speech at the Bonn Conference of 1875).
On the same subject Bishop Reinkens : —
'Pope Eugenius IV. in his Decree for the Armenians
(November 22, 1 139) by his teaching about matter and form,
laid Papal Infallibility painfully open to attack. He fell
into error in determining the matter of ordination. Here
also Schoolmen, who were ignorant of the history of the
Primitive Church, led the way. Instead of the imposition
of hands at ordination which the history of the Apostohc
230

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
Church so unmistakably presents to us, Eugenius IV. de
clared the matter of the sacrament to be the delivery of the
vessels and instruments necessary for the exercise of the
Ordo' {International Theological Review, January 1895).
In a similar spirit Professor Friedrich : —
'The Anglican form of ordination is more complete, and
so far as the enumeration of special functions goes, pre
ferable to the Catholic form. What in the Roman CathoUc
form of ordination is not specially mentioned but occurs
only in scattered ceremonies, is expressed precisely and
concisely in the Anglican form. There can be no doubt
whatever that the Anglican Ordination contains everything
that can be demanded of it from the Catholic side ' {Ibid).
The omission of the words conveying direct power to
offer sacrifice was still more objectionable in the eyes of
Romanists than the abandonment of the delivery of the
sacred vessels. No one ordained without those words
being used, said Pope Leo XIII., had power to sacrifice,
and without power to sacrifice he could not celebrate the
Eucharist and was no priest at all. It was very easy to
reply that for more than a thousand years the words had
never been used in ordination, and that therefore, on the
hypothesis of their being necessary, there was no Ministry
of the Church during the first thousand years and con
sequently there was none now. And it was very easy to
show also that the person ordained was authorised to
administer the sacraments, and that if one of them had a
sacrificial character through the offering of praise and
thanksgiving and pleading, by commemoration, the Sacrifice
of the Cross, then the power was indirectly given ; and
that if it had no such character, then the power was not
231

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
wanted. But a defensive and apologetic argument is not
sufficient here. It was not only a thing to be excused,
but it was desirable, nay, necessary, to strike out the
mediseval words because they had led and were stUl lead
ing to a fatal misapprehension of what the priestly office
is in relation to the Lord's Supper. The Roman Catholic
definition of priesthood is, in the words of Cardinal
Vaughan and the Anglo-Roman Bishops, 'the power to
cause the Body and Blood of Christ to become present on
the altar under the appearances of Bread and Wine, and
thereby to offer Him up in sacrifice.' In the words of
Le Manrize du Pretre, a book commonly used in the
retreats of the French clergy, it is the power by which the
priest ' daily creates the Word Himself made Flesh.' Could
the Church of England profess to have the priesthood in
this sense? Impossible. For it is a corollary from the
two doctrines of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of
the Mass, both of which she repudiated. And in good
faith, does it savour most of St Paul's teaching to Timothy
and Titus, or of the boastful claim of some African
medicine man ? Can a man really ' create the Word made
flesh ' ? Can a man really summon Jesus Christ on to the
altar and then ' offer Him up in sacrifice ' ? Rejecting the
Roman doctrine, the Church of England held fast to the
doctrine of the priesthood such as it was before Tran
substantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass were invented.
By her altered form of ordination she showed that she
believed that God gives His Holy Spirit to those who are
set apart by the chief rulers of the Church for the sacred
ministry, and that this gift of the Holy Spirit enables them
to fulfil the functions of their office, such as offering prayer

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
and praise publicly to God, instructing the people out of
His Holy Word, comforting the perplexed, assuring the
troubled conscience of God's forgiveness of the penitent,
blessing the faithful and administering the sacraments
instituted by Christ. So far as the power of sacrifice is
concerned, the two ideas of the priesthood, the primitive
and Anglican on one side, and the mediseval and Roman
on the other, have little in common and can have little in
common as long as Rome maintains the doctrines of
Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass, from
which follows her doctrine of the priesthood. It was un
doubtedly right, therefore, to strike out from the ordination
service words, interpolated in the Middle Ages, which were
meant to teach a mediaeval corruption of the truth,
which corruption the Church was repudiating.
And this was not aU. Both the doctrine and worship
of the Church depend upon the opinion entertained of the
nature of the Ministry. In almost all heathen religions and
among the Jews there existed a priesthood which was
considered necessary as intermediary between God and
man. God was too holy for man to approach Him except
through Ministers of His choice whom He had sanctified
to present the prayers of men to God and the blessing
of God to men. Under the Jewish dispensation the
separation between God and man was typified by the vail,
dividing off from what was stUl a Holy place the Mercy
seat and the Holy of Holies, which vail none but the
High Priest might pass, 'the Holy Ghost thus signifiying
that the way into the Hohest was not yet made manifest
while as the first tabernacle was standing' (Heb. ix. 8).
At the crucifixion of the Lord the vail was ' rent in twain
233

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
from the top to the bottom,' and thereby there was typified
that in Christ men might now draw nigh to God, not shut
out from His presence and mercies by any obstacle, and
might ' enter boldly into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He had consecrated for
us through the vail, that is to say. His flesh ' {Ibid. x. 20).
Accordingly, St Peter — not St Paul, but St Peter — assures
us that Christians are 'a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people' (i Pet. ii. 9), and in the Book of the
Revelation we are taught that Christ ' loved us, and washed
us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us
kings and priests unto God and His Father ' (Rev. i. 6) ;
that ' He hath redeemed us to God by His blood out of
every kindred and tongue and people and nation and hath
made us unto our God kings and priests ' {Ibid. v. 9, 10).
Every Christian is in this sense a priest, that he may go
direct to his Abba Father without requiring an inter
mediate caste to stand between him and God. But in the
Middle Ages this great truth became obscured. The
priest again became a necessity to bring down Christ
from heaven by a formula which none but he could pro
nounce, and to sacrifice Him on the altar ; and the priest
sat in the place of God dispensing His forgiveness at his
discretion. Hence the Church of which the priest was
the minister became practically the Mediator instead of
Christ, the body taking the place of the Head.
All this was done away with at the Reformation. Priest
hood was now an Order of the Ministry, and a priest meant
not a mediator by means of sacrifice, but an elderly person
(the word being contracted from presbyter) to whom was
entrusted the care of a congregation. (2) The Christian
2^A

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
priest has no more power to sacrifice than the rest of the
faithful. He can offer the sacrifice of praise and thanks
giving; so can they. He can make an off'ering of his
goods; so can they. He can offer and present himself;
so can they. In so far as the Eucharist is a sacrifice, it is
offered by all the congregation as well as by the officiat
ing priest ; if he ' celebrates ' the Lord's Supper, so do they.
It was right therefore to remove words which seemed to give
to a priest on his ordination a sacrificial power, not shared
by others, founded on a false and superstitious notion.
On the other hand the compilers judged well in
retaining the text, 'Whosesoever sins ye remit,' etc.,
although not found in the primitive ordinals, because the
way in which sins can be remitted by God's minister is
thus indicated, namely, by his public ministration of God's
Word and Sacraments, which previously to his ordination
he was not authorised to minister. NOTES
(^) The Church of England has put forth or formulated no speculative
doctrine of Apostolical Succession. The/ac^ of an Episcopal Succession
from the time of the Apostles to the present day she recognises, by
saying that there always have been bishops from the Apostles' time, and
that all clergy, including bishops, are ordained or consecrated by
bishops. Bishop Stubbs and Archdeacon Clarke have shown that there
is no break from the present day to Augustine of England and
Vergilius of Aries in the line of English bishops. This fact is of
great value in arguing with a Romanist adversary. It strikes a weapon
out of his hand which he would fain make use of, as shown by the
attempts to pass off the Nag's Head Fable as true and to impugn
Barlow's consecration. Bishop Herzog in a paper read at the Norwich
Church Congress declined to negative the feasibility of the Church
Catholic at any moment, should there be occasion, 'creating the
Episcopate anew from its own body.' This question, being hypothetical
only, has not been before the Church of England in such a way as to
call forth an answer from her. 235

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
{'-) The Old Catholic presbyter at San Remo, Rev. Ugo Janni, writes :
' I believe in the divine institution of the Ministry of the Church. The
purpose of the institution is indicated in Ephesians iv. 11-15. At first
the ministry was wholly in the hands of the Apostles. Later on, new
necessities arising from the development of the Church led to a division
of labour and a consequent distinction into three Orders of the Ministry ;
the bishop or superintendent to preside over the general government of
the Church, the presbyter who had the government of the several con
gregations, and the deacons to help the presbyters in their work.
Chronologically, after the Apostles, the first to make their appearance
were the deacons, then the presbyters, and finally the bishops, who take
the place of the Apostles in the general government of the Church.
These diff'erent officers of the Church are ministers of the Word and
Sacraments, but they are not sacerdoti. In the New Testament
there is but one sacerdote, Jesus Christ, and in a wider sense of the
word all believers are sacerdoti. See Heb. vi. and i Peter ii. 5-9. For
the Roman Church, on the other hand, the priests are scuerdoti who
profess to offer the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Consequently,
they are mediators between God and man. Now we reject this tenet
not only as erroneous but as blasphemous, which does a wrong to the
single and eternal Priesthood of Christ. Indeed the most essential
difference between Popery and Reform seems to lie exactly here.' —
Labaro, June 1899.

236

CHAPTER VI
THE WORSHIP OF THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
3. The Canons
The Canons of 1603-4, confirmed by James L, regulated
the dress of the clergy during their ministrations. In
cathedral and collegiate churches the officiating clergyman
and the readers of the Epistle and Gospel were ordered to
wear a cope — a vestment to which no sacrificial or super
stitious idea had been attached — at the celebration of the
Holy Communion ( Can. xxiv.). With that exception, ' every
minister saying the public prayers or ministering the
Sacraments or other rites of the Church shall wear a decent
and comely surplice with sleeves, to be provided at the
cost of the parish ' {Can. Iviii.). In other words the clergy
man's appointed dress in all parish churches at all times,
and in cathedrals and collegiate churches at all services
except the celebration of the Holy Communion (when a
cope, not a chasuble, was used), was to be the surplice.
This is the rule of the Church at the present time. It has
been supposed that the so-called Ornaments rubric of 1662
being of a later date may have superseded these canons of
1603-4. But Lord Selborne (RoundeU Palmer) has shown
with great clearness that this is not so. Historically the
case stands thus : —
In 1549 the minister at the Lord's Table was allowed to
237

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
wear either a chasuble (called a vestment) or a cope. This
was a step forward, as hitherto a chasuble, which had come
to be regarded as a sacrificial vestment, had been indis
pensable. In 1552 both chasuble and cope were forbidden
and the surplice was substituted for all ministrations. In
1559 the cope was again permitted by the 'interpretations'
appended to Elizabeth's Injunctions of that year, and it
was used at the consecration of Archbishop Parker by the
Bishop of Chichester, and by two of the Archbishop's
chaplains. In the same year a clause of the Act of
Uniformity, commonly called the Ornaments Rubric, was
added, without ecclesiastical authority, to the Prayer-book
of 1559, by which the ornaments, including clerical dress,
used in the second year of Edward VI. (that is, the alb and
vestment (chasuble) or cope ordered in 1549) were again
permitted. But the Act expressly stated that that per
mission was only to last until other order should be taken by
the authority of the Queen with the advice of the Metropolitan.
That 'other order' was taken by the 'advertisements'
drawn up by the Queen's injunction, and issued by Arch
bishop Parker in 1566. That this was the case, was the
judgment of nine out of the ten learned judges — Cairns,
James, Brett, Smith, Colville, Collier, Amphlett, Phillimore,
Selborne, on their examining the question in 1877. This
' other order ' enjoined the use of the cope in the celebra
tion of the Holy Communion in cathedrals and coUegiate
churches (only), and of the surplice in all other clerical
ministrations. The ' order ' with its injunctions about
clerical dress became at once law — the law of the land — in
1566, and the canons of Convocation made it the law of
the Church in 1604. It is true that the so-called Orna-
238

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
ments rubric of 1559 was retained both in 1604 and in
1662, but only as keeping ahve the old note or clause taken
from Ehzabeth's Statute of Uniformity, under which statute
the 'other order' had been introduced and which made
that ' order ' still legal. ' It being determined,' says Lord Sel
borne, that ' the so-caUed Ornaments Rubric (so caUed but
not really a rubric at all) was stiU what it had been before
— a memorandum or note of reference only to the clause
of Queen Elizabeth's Act, it followed that what had been
lawfully done in that interval between 1559 and 1661 by
the authority of the Crown by virtue, and in exercise of the
power reserved by that clause, was meant to remain and
did remain in force. The Judicial Committee held that
the direction of the Advertisements never ceased to be law
from the time of their first proclamation in 1566 to the
present day ' {Memorials xviii. p. 390). As then the
surplice had been the dress of the clergy in all their minis
trations (except in cathedrals and collegiate churches) in
accordance with the law of the realm since 1566, and by
the canon of the Church since 1604, so it remained their
dress after 1662. None of the bishops engaged on the
revision of the Prayer-book in 1662 gave the slightest indi
cation of their thinking otherwise, and what they uniformly
required at their visitations to be provided was one or more
surplices, and none of the Edwardian vestments. The
question of what were and what were not the ornaments of
the second year of Edward VI. has in truth no more than
an antiquarian interest for us. Those ornaments were
only legal for three years in the reign of Edward (1549-
1552), and for seven years in the reign of Elizabeth (1559-
1 566), after which they were superseded by the rule which
239

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
orders the use of the surplice at all ministrations, with the
one exception above specified — a rule universaUy acted
upon from the year 1566 untU it was broken for the first
time by the Rev. T. Chamberlain, vicar of St Thomas',
Oxford, about the year 1850.
' The type of dress which was at length established ' (in
the eleventh or twelfth century), says Mr Marriott, ' has been
maintained in the Roman Church, with very slight modifica
tions only, to the present time. But when, after the revival
of ancient learning, the Church of England reformed her
faith and her discipline, upon the authority of Holy Scripture
and the model of the Primitive Church, considerable changes
were made among ourselves in that mediaeval and Roman
type of dress. And the result has been that the customary
ministering dress of the English clergy during the last three
hundred years has been in colour and general appearance,
though not in name, all but exactly identical with that which
we find assigned to the Apostles in the earliest monuments
of Christendom, and which upon similar evidence we find
reason to conclude was, in point of fact, the dress of
Christian ministry in the primitive ages of the Church'
{Vestiarium Christianum, p. v.).
Frequency in communicating. Canon xxi. orders that
the Communion be thrice received in the year. This is the
minimum number of attendances and receptions expected by
the Anglican Church of all her members, as specified also
in the rubrics of the Prayer-book, being an increase by two
on the minimum previously required. The canon enjoins
that the Holy Communion shall be ministered by the
parson so often, and at such times as every parishioner may
communicate, at the least thrice in the year, whereof the

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church ^
feast of Easter to be one. In the colleges and halls of the
universities it is to be administered once a month, and
everyone is to communicate four times a year {Can. xxiii.).
The rubric appended to the Communion Service further
orders that in cathedral and collegiate churches and
colleges, where there are many priests and deacons, there
shall be a weekly Communion. Bishop Cosin states the
practice of the Church in the seventeenth century thus :
' The Eucharist is religiously and reverently celebrated by
us on the greater festivals, and on the first Sunday of every
month. If any desire it oftener and are worthy to be com
municants, it may and ought to be celebrated at other
times also — Sundays, festivals or week-days ' {Regni Anglice
Religio, xvii.). A more frequent celebration of the Holy
Communion than once a week was not practised in the
earliest ages of the Church, and is not contemplated by the
Church of England, which regards the primary idea of the
sacrament to be that of a remembrance, a memory, a
commemoration, a memorial rather than a sacrifice ; and
thoughtful men do not need a commemoration to be re-
enacted every few days to revive their memory, nor does
God require it to remind Him.
Sunday observance. Canon xiii. orders that ' all manner
of persons within the Church of England shall from hence
forth celebrate and keep the Lord's day, commonly called
Sunday, and other holy days according to God's holy wiU
and pleasure, and the orders of the Church of England
prescribed in that behalf ; that is, in hearing the Word of
God read and taught; in private and pubhc prayers; in
acknowledging their offences to God, and amendment of
the same; in reconcUing themselves charitably to their
O 241

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
neighbours where displeasure hath been ; in oftentimes
receiving the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ;
in visiting the poor and sick; using all godly and sober
conversation.' The Reformation gave back its due honour to the Lord's
day. The Homily on the place and time of Prayer describes,
in the manner of the day, two classes of men who thought
nothing of keeping and hallowing the Sunday : ' The one
sort, if they have any business to do, though there be no
extreme need, they must not spare for the Sunday; they
must ride and journey on the Sunday ; they must drive and
carry on the Sunday; they must row and ferry on the
Sunday; they must buy and sell on the Sunday; they must
keep markets and fairs on the Sunday ; finally, they use all
days alike, work days and holy days all are one. The other
sort is worse. For although they will not travel or labour
on the Sunday as they do on the week day, yet they wiU not
rest in holiness as God commandeth ; but they rest in un
godliness and filthiness, prancing in their pride, pranking
and pricking, pointing and painting themselves to be gorgeous
and gay ... so that it doth too evidently appear that God
is more dishonoured and the devil better served on the
Sunday than upon all the days in the week besides. Where
fore, O ye people of God, lay your hands upon your hearts,
repent and amend this grievous and dangerous wickedness,
stand in awe of the commandment of God, gladly follow the
example of God Himself, be not disobedient to the godly
order of Christ's Church, used and kept from the Apostles'
time untU this day. Fear the displeasure and just plagues
of Almighty God, if ye be negligent and forbear not labour
ing and travelling on the Sabbath day or Sunday, and do

Worship of the Reformed Anglican Church 5^
not resort together to celebrate and magnify God's blessed
name in quiet holiness and godly reverence ' (Hom. VIII.).
Similarly Cranmer's Catechism : —
' The Lord saith, Thou shalt sanctify the Sabbath day ;
that is to say, we should bestow that day about holy,
heavenly, and godly things. Now if you desire to know
with what holy works you should pass away this day, you
shall understand that we can do no greater holy works than
to hear the Word of God, and to learn the true fear of God
and the right faith in Him, and to prepare ourselves that
we may worthily be partakers of the Lord's Table, thereby
to receive great comfort, to the quiet of our consciences and
confirmation of our faith. And moreover on such days
chiefly we ought in faith and spirit fervently to pray to God,
to give us all good things that we lack and have need of,
and to defend and deliver us from evil things.'

243

PART IV
PRESENT-DAY DEVELOPMENTS OF
THE TWO SYSTEMS

CHAPTER I
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE MEDIEVAL FAITH
Medisevalism, as embodied in Innocent III., and the
system which he sanctioned at the Fourth Lateran Council,
A.D. 12 1 5, retained the earlier Christian faith in the back
ground, but otherwise may be regarded as a new religion
founded upon Transubstantiation and the Confessional,
and the doctrine and practices derived from them. It was
not to be expected that this religion would remain stationary
where ^it was left in 1215; for the precise function of
the Papal authority is to give sanction to any superstitions
of the common people that arise, and to declare them
dogmas of the faith as soon as they become so popular as
to be demanded by the voice of the majority. Since the
Lateran and also since the Tridentine Council new
doctrines have sprung up, or mediaeval tenets have grown
more and more explicit till they have become new doctrines,
and many more are on the way. Those which have already
gained the sanction of the Latin Church are — (i) the Im
maculate Conception of St Mary; (2) the InfaUibility of
the Pope of Rome; (3) the Universal Bishopric of the
Pope of Rome, the two last dogmas being consohdated
together in one decree.
(i). On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX., in the presence
247

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of bishops assembled to grace his act, declared a new
dogma — a thing that had not been attempted for three
hundred years. This dogma was that St Mary, the mother
of our Lord, was conceived and born without having been
subject, from the first moment of her conception, to original
sin. This is caUed the Immaculate Conception of St
Mary. It is contrary to Scripture, which represents One
only as sinless ; it is contrary to the teaching of the Church
Catholic, and it goes far to overthrow the doctrine of the
Incarnation. The foUowing had been the four steps which
culminated in the declaration of this doctrine : i. The
opinion of the early Church was that St Mary was born in
original sin and that she was liable to be guUty of actual
sin, and that she fell into the sins of infirmity that good
people, in spite of their goodness, fall into. This opinion
was held for the five centuries which constitute the Primitive
Church, and is testified to by TertuUian in the second
century {De came Christi, vii., p. 365, and Adv. Marcion.
iv. 19, p. 433), by Origen in the third century {Horn, in Luc.
xvu. 3, p. 952), by St Basil for the East and Hilary for
the 'West in the fourth century (Basil, Epist. 260, ui.
p. 409 ; Hilar, in Psal. cxix. p. 262), by Chrysostom and
CyrU of Alexandria in the fifth century (Chrys., Op. vii. p.
467 ; Cyril, Op. iv. p. 1064; vi. p. 391). Down to the end
of the fifth century any idea of the sinlessness of St Mary,
if it existed at all, was altogether outside of the Church,
and, like the worship paid to her, was regarded by the
Church as false and heretical, belonging to Gnostics and
CoUyridians, not to orthodox believers. 2. But the Nes
torian controversies, whose purpose was to maintain the
true doctrine relating to the nature and person of Christ,
248

Further Developments of Mediaeval Faith 5^
led incidentally to a great change of sentiment within the
Church in respect to the Lord's Mother, the Theotokos.
Men began, St Augustine had previously begun, to hesitate
to speak of her as actually sinful. Thus we arrive at the
second opinion held respecting her sinfulness, which was
that, though born in sin and subject to original sin, she
might have been, perhaps was, saved by God's grace from
falling into actual sin. This view was entertained from
the fifth to the twelfth century. 3. The third opinion was
that of the close of the twelfth century and the whole
of the thirteenth century, which taught that St Mary was
conceived in original sin, but sanctified in the womb before
birth — a privilege which she was supposed to share with
Jeremiah and John Baptist because they are described as
' sanctified ' (Jer. i. 5), and ' blameless ' (Luke i. 6). 4. The
fourth opinion was that she was conceived also without
sin. This tenet having been first heard of, but only to be
condemned, in the thirteenth century, was supported as a
likely hypothesis by Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century,
and after having struggled with the theory of her sanctifica
tion in the womb for five centuries, was declared a dogma
of the Church of Rome on December 8, 1854. This dogma,
then, having been denied by the whole of the Eastern
Church for nineteen centuries and by the whole of the
Western Church for thirteen centuries and by the majority
of even Western churchmen for another five centuries, has
become in the Latin Church an article of faith necessary
to be believed for salvation.
(2) and (3). In 1870 Pope Pius IX., having assembled what
he boldly caUed an CEcumenical Council, though only the
Latin Church was represented and that partiaUy, caused to
249

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
be pronounced after an iUusory discussion, in opposition to
the judgment of the most learned prelates and theologians
there present, the dogma of the InfaUibUity of the Pope of
Rome when speaking ex cathedra on any point of faith or
morals ; and subordinately to this a formal assertion of the
universal bishopric of the Pope over the whole Church of
Christ. It can hardly be questioned that there is no
justification either in Scripture or in the history of the
Church for either of these statements; but they were
supposed by an active and aggressive faction within the
Latin Church to be necessary in order to strengthen the
bonds of discipline within her; and this it was thought
would be effected by the acceptance of those dogmas, on
the ground of submission to authority, even though they
were not believed as true in the conscience of those that
accepted them ; nay more, a Protestant politician took an
active part in the intrigues which preceded the declaration
of the dogma because he thought that it would strengthen
the hands of the Pope as a civil governor, which he con
sidered desirable in the face of a turbulent populace, and a
city subject to the King of Italy, (i) The decree was a large
draft upon human ignorance and indifference to truth. It has
caused the revolt of some 120,000 Old Catholics, but the
mass of Roman Catholics has made no sign. Hitherto at
least it accepts, if it does not believe. The effect of the two
dogmas have not yet fully displayed themselves. They are
incalculable; for from the year 1870 all independence of
act or thought, all liberty of bishops, priests, laymen,
dioceses, provinces, national churches are lost within the
Latin Church, which is, in fact, from that time forward
summed up in the person of its head.
2i;o

Further Developments of Mediseval Faith ^
It is not to be expected that new dogmas will be confined
to those already promulgated ; for in order to erect some
sort of intellectual scaffolding to support 'new dogmas,'
Petavius formulated and Dr Newman embellished a theory
called the theory of development, by which are justified
any innovations in doctrine or discipline which actually
arise in the Roman communion, however originating. The
very fact of their existence is regarded as a proof that it was
the divine intention that they should emerge, although it
may be demonstrated that they actually took their origin
from misapprehension, ignorance or superstition. It is
plain that every corruption, whether of the Jewish Church,
or of any section of the Christian Church, or of any religious
body, might be thus justified ; and that if the theory be
true, there is virtually no such thing as a ' faith delivered to
the saints ' (Jude 3), to be ' kept ' as a deposit ' committed
to ' the Church's trust (i Tim. i. 3, vi. 20) for the salvation
of mankind ; and that St Paul's heat in twice repeating, ' If
any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye
have received, let him be accursed ' (Gal. i. 8, 9) was quite
out of place ; and that he should have said, instead of ' other
than that ye have received,' ' other than that which, perhaps,
after centuries of hesitancy and doubt and denial, may
receive the sanction of the Bishop of Rome.'
We are not to suppose that even the exploitation of
Mariolatry and Papal authority have come to an end with
the dogmas of the Vatican Council and Pius IX. We see
new extravagances on both heads forming before our eyes
and awaiting the hour when a future Pope shaU declare
them revelations of God. Even before the decree of Pius
IX., St Alfonso de' Liguori, the Doctor of the modern
251 ^

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Roman Church, had declared St Mary to be Mediator,
Intercessor, Advocate, Redeemer, Saviour; and Pius IX.,
having given her the new title of the Mother-Helper,
exempted her from the lot of humanity. But that is not
enough. Leo XIII. has gone out of his way to encourage
devotion to her in every way possible, taking under his
protection all the wilder legends which do her honour, such
as the Holy House of Loretto, La Salette, Lourdes. The
pertinacity with which he has urged her worship is shown
by his having published in thirteen years sixteen encyclicals
or briefs to popularise the use of the Rosary of St Mary —
two in 1883, in which he dedicates the month of October
to the devotion of the Rosary (May being already assigned
to St Mary, and March to St Joseph), two in 1884, one in
1885, one in 1886, one in 1887, one in 1888, one in 1889,
in which invocations of St Joseph are ordered because they
' are desired by and grateful to the Virgin,' one in r89i, one
in 1892, one in 1893, one in 1894, two in 1895, one in
1896, besides ordering the Festival of the Rosary to be
observed by the whole Church on the first Sunday in
October, and giving St Mary the title of the Queen of the
holy Rosary. He begins the encyclical of September 8,
1892, as follows: 'As often as the occasion permits Us to
rekindle and augment the love and devotion of Christian
people toward the great Mother of God, We are pene
trated with a wondrous pleasure and joy, dealing with a
subject which is not only most excellent in itself and
beyond Us in many ways, but is also in tenderest accord
with Our inmost feelings. For indeed the holy affection to
Mary, which We imbibed almost with Our mother's milk,
has vigorously increased with growing years and become

Further Developments of Mediaeval Faith ^
more deeply rooted in Our mind. We have learned more
clearly to understand to what degree She is worthy both of
love and honour whom God Himself first loved and so
preferred as to join Her to Himself as His Mother, raised
high alone out of the universe and enriched with most
ample gifts. The many and remarkable proofs of Her
kindness and goodwill to Us, which We recall with deepest
thankfulness, and not without tears, kindle and enflame
more and more strongly Our responsive affection. For in
the many varied and terrible trials that have befallen Us, We
have always looked up to Her with eager and imploring
eyes ; all Our hopes and fears. Our joys and sorrows have
been deposited in Her bosom, and it has been Our constant
care to entreat Her to show to Us a mother's kindness, to be
always at Our side, and to grant especiaUy that We, on Our
part, may be enabled to manifest to Her the proofs of the
most devoted love of a son. . . . And this Our hope (Our
heart delights to teU it) throughout aU Our life, and especi
ally in the discharge of the highest Apostleship, has never
failed to help and console Us in every crisis. Hence, under
Her auspices and with Her mediation We are encouraged
to hope for still greater blessings tending to the salvation of
the Christian World and to the glory of the Church. . . .
For when we betake ourselves in prayer to Mary, we betake
ourselves to the Mother of Mercy, well disposed towards us,
that whatever trials we may be afflicted with, and more
especially in our striving after everlasting life, of Her own
accord and even without being called upon. She may be
always at hand and may lavish on us the treasure of that
grace which from the beginning was given to Her in full
plenty from God, that She might be a Mother worthy of
253

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Him. . . . Let us piously invoke Her ready help in that
method of prayer which She Herself has taught us, and
accept (the Rosary, which She gave Herself to Dominic).
Then we may rest securely and with joy under the protec
tion of the best Mother. . . . Our hope in Mary, Our
mighty and kind Mother, grows wider day by day and
ever beams upon Us more brightly.'
These words and acts must have their effect when
emanating from one supposed to be infallible. A Society
of the Perpetual Rosary, formed after the model of the
Perpetual Adoration of the Sacrament, has been established
with its headquarters at Lyons, that the worship of Mary
may not cease day or night. An ' Association of the Holy
FamUy of Nazareth ' has been founded in Rome, to which
the Pope gave his approval and statutes by his brief of June
14, 1892. Every member of the Association is to have an
image or representation of the Holy Family in his house,
and all his family are once a day at least to meet and pray
before it, adding the ejaculations, 'Jesus, Joseph, Mary,
I give you my heart and my life 1 Jesus, Joseph, Mary,
help me in my last agony ! Jesus, Joseph, Mary, let my
soul expire in peace in your companionship ! ' To each of
which ejaculations the Pope has attached an Indulgence of
300 days. It is very probable that the next decree in
honour of St Mary wiU be a declaration of the earthly
Trinity — Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The month of March is
now dedicated to St Joseph, religious newspapers, e.g. ; the
Pelican, are placed under his patronage ; an English Jesuit,
Father Coupe, in a sermon preached at Chtheroe, on March
27, 1898, said, 'It is the common teaching of theologians
that Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus (like Jeremias and

Further Developments of Mediseval Faith ^
John the Baptist) was both sanctified in the womb and
confirmed in grace; that not only was sanctifying grace
infused into him before he was born, so that after birth
original sin never for an instant marred the splendour of
his unblemished soul, that not only did the breath of actual
sin never for an instant tarnish the spotless mirror of his
conscience, but actual sin never had even the power to
touch him. And it was fitting that it should be so. . . .
When trouble assails human beings they should appeal to
St Joseph. Pray for us, St Joseph ! Prayer should be
offered to St Joseph, who is the patron saint of a good
and happy death. His office had been to feed and mature
the childhood of Jesus ; and when Jesus became a man,
his work here was done. When he had done on earth,
another work awaited him ; and he is the guardian of
Christ's mystical body, the universal Church; and so the
Holy Father in Rome proclaimed St Joseph to be the
patron saint of the Catholic Church. The Lord hath made
him Master of His house and Ruler of all His possessions.'
Hence it appears that St Joseph has arrived now at the
point which St Mary had reached in the thirteenth century
as to his immaculate nativity, and is further advanced than
she then was in respect to the guardianship and patronage
of the whole Church. The time for a new dogma seems
approaching. If the earthly Trinity is not the subject of the next de
cree, it may be the addition of St Mary to the heavenly
Trinity. In Spain it is not very unusual to add to ' Glory be to
the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' the
words, 'and to the most holy Virgin.' Or it may be a
2S5

¦^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
declaration that she is sacrificed in the Mass. Already it
is freely taught in France and Italy and England that a
communicant receives her Body and Blood, that is, the
Body and Blood which Christ took from her. 'Let the
devotion of the Eucharist,' said a speaker at the Congress
of Mary held at Florence in May, 1898, ' be helped by love
of Mary! The Blood of Christ is the Blood of Mary!
The flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary ! '
What form the next decree will take depends mainly on
the wiU and personal interests of the Jesuits, who manipu
late those things by first popularising a tenet, and then
demanding its authorisation. {^)
A second decree on the Papal power seems also to be on
the way. French bishops vie with one another in their
adulation, and the adulation takes strange shapes. Mon-
seigneur Bougaud, late Bishop of Laval, writes : ' If Jesus
Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist, is He therein
present completely ? In other words, do we possess under
the veU of the Host all that our Lord brought into this world
through His incarnation, all that the Apostles loved and
admired in His Divine Person, all of which souls have
need? Evidently not. . . . And thus, O my Saviour,
there is quite the half of Thee that is lacking for me, and
that I seek in vain in this dumb tabernacle where Thou
speakest not ! And what half of Thee ? I had almost said
the most needful part. If then a half of Jesus is not in the
Holy Eucharist, it must be elsewhere. In truth it is else
where ; it is in the Vatican ; it is in the Pope. The Pope
is the second manner of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ
in the Church. The Holy Eucharist and the Pope are
these two veils woven by infinite love in order to soften

Further Developments of Mediseval Faith g»
down, by covering it, the presence of Jesus Christ in the
world. Mysterium fidei. You must believe in order to
see, when you are in the presence of the one or the other
of the two veils that hide from us the whole of Jesus Christ.
The Pope is Jesus Christ hidden under a veil. He is as
the Host upon our altars. Outside we see the accidents
and semblance of bread ; within it is Jesus Christ. Such
is the true conception of the Pope. It follows that we
ought to experience at the feet of the Vicar of Christ
something of the impression that comes upon us when we
are at the holy altar. ... I prostrated myself overcome
at his feet as if I were at the feet of Jesus Christ. . . .
Jesus Christ present on the holy altar can alone support
the soul and make it steadfast ; Jesus Christ present in the
Vatican can alone sustain a Church and make it unassail
able' {Le Christianisme et les temps presents, 1890).
Monsieur Jauffret, the present Bishop of Bayonne, com
pletes the picture. Before making his prescribed visit to
Rome he told his flock in a pastoral : ' We wUl say to the
Pope in aU submission, as unto the Spirit of God on the
day of Pentecost, " Father of those who are in need, whose
word gives hght and consolation. Pater pauperum, conso-
lator optima, O lux beatissima, wash away our faults, sustain
our weakness, heal our wounds, make straight our paths,
make us obedient to thy command, encircle us with thy
holy fervour." ' After his return he preached a service in
his cathedral on Whitsunday, 1896, in which he said:
'The Son of God abides really present in the Church
through His own Sacrament of the Eucharist. The
Eucharist of the Holy Ghost, which makes Him always
present under the corporeal species, is the infaUible Pope,
R 257

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
the Os orbis. It has been said most truly that the Pope is
the ego of the Church. The Pope is the visible personifi
cation of the Spirit of God. The Pope is the incarnation
of the Holy Ghost ' {Bulletin du diocese de Bayonne).
The two French bishops teach us that the Pope is Jesus
Christ under a veil and the Holy Ghost incarnate. There
is matter here for a second decree on the Papal authority,
should it faU in with the plans of the Jesuits to have it
declared. NOTES
(}) See Purcell's Life of Manning, ch. xvi.
(^) The Jesuits, to whom is owed the decree proclaiming the Immacu
late Conception, first took up the defence of that doctrine, not from
believing it but in order to countermine the Dominicans who were
getting the better of them in a controversy held at Rome on the subject
of Grace, known as De Auxiliis, in the sixteenth century. Cardinal
Lugo wrote from Rome to a brother Jesuit at Madrid : ' Let your
reverence see that you and yours take pains to re-awaken the devotion
of the Conception, which is very popular in Spain, in order that by this
means we may turn off the attacks of the Dominicans who are pressing us
hard here, having taken up the Defence of St Augustine. If we don't
occupy them- with some other matter they will beat us on the principal
points of the controversy in the De Auxiliis.'' In obedience to this
command the Jesuits in Spain issued a form called an Act of Consecra
tion, by which their disciples bound themselves to defend and propagate
the belief in the Immaculate Conception, and they sent out one of their
body. Father Aquete, preaching that ' the Virgin would rather be
damned eternally and live with the devils than have been conceived in
original sin.' The Dominicans, opposing this teaching, lost their
popularity in Spain and had ' some other matter to occupy them ' as
Cardinal Lugo had anticipated. Henceforth the Jesuits, pushing the
Franciscans aside, took charge of the intrigue which ended in the decree
of Pope Pius IX, in 1854.

258

CHAPTER II
further DEVELOPMENTS IN MEDIEVAL WORSHIP
The more that the old reUgion has decayed and vanished
away the more new cultes, new forms, new subjects and
new occasions of worship have been multiplied. They fall
for the most part into three groups, those which have to do
with St Mary, of which enough has been said, though no
more than a few specimens have been given ; those which
take for their object of worship some part of the Body of
our Lord, and those connected with the Holy Eucharist.
Of these the first and third cannot be excused from the
guilt of idolatry nor the second from Nestorianism, as the
object of worship is not the Person of our Lord, not even
His human nature apart from the divine, but certain parts
of His body.
Of this class the type is the worship of the Sacred Heart,
which can boast of an existence of two centuries and has
taken its place in the Breviary and Missal, having arisen
from the waking dreams of a girl at Paray-le-Monial, named
Mary Alacoque. The great church at Montmartre has
been dedicated to the Sacred Heart as an expiatory gift for
France. The worship of the Sacred Heart has been
followed up by the worship of the Sacred Feet, and the
'Arch-confraternity of the Sacred Face,' established to
promote ' the devotion traditionally given to the image of
259

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
the Adorable Face of the Saviour.' Indulgences have been
granted to this culte by a brief of December i6, 1884, and
the Archbishop of Tours is making every preparation for
the beatification of its originator, Leon Dupont, a canon of
Tours. The ' Order of the Sacred Hands of the Saviour '
and the ' Order of the Sacred Heart of the Penitent Jesus '
are on their way, but have not yet attained full recognition.
Their origin and growth is full of interest and instruction.
M. Pierre Compagne, S.J., a Jesuit of Castres, was at
Bordeaux on May 20, 1864, being 'Monday in the Octave
of the Most Holy Sacrament and the eve of the closing of
the month of Mary.' At 3.45 a.m. he saw the sky become
red towards the north-east, long rays shot out from a central
glory, and two bleeding, stigmatised hands came forth with
golden rays shining from the tips of the fingers, at the end
of which was a sword pointed towards the heart of the
gazer. Having fallen on his knees, crying, ' Divine Hands
of the Saviour, help us,' he went to say Mass, and from the
Host there came forth a voice bidding him institute a
festival and prepare an office in honour of the Sacred
Hands. He prepared the office and sent it to his general.
Father Beckx, but received no answer. Two years later he
returned to Bordeaux, and while he was praying before a
statue of the Immaculate Conception, with ' a large Heart
of Jesus ' on his right hand, he had a vision of himself as
Founder of the Order of the Sacred Hands, and while he
was saying Mass the whole constitution of the Order was
revealed to him. Not being able to get an answer from his
general, he instituted the culte without authority. It spread;
and now it has been taken up and approved by the Cardinal
Archbishop of Bordeaux and Malines, the Bishops of
260

Further Developments in Mediseval Worship Sfr
Grenoble, Reggio and others. The manual of the Order
is dedicated to ' his Holiness our Holy Father the Pope,'
and states that ' while waiting for the proclamation of the
public culte, each one may in private invoke these powerful
Hands, subsisting in the Person of the Word, and every
where an object of worship, with one and the same latria
(divine adoration) with the Word.' This worship is to be
given to the material Hands of our Lord, and it is a
necessary consequence, according to M. Compagne, S.J.,
of the worship of the Sacred Heart, for as the Heart of
Christ was the seat of His love. His Hands were the
instrument of His mercy, and the adoration of the Humanity
of Christ is the foundation of both cultes. For private
worship the Hands are to be represented detached at the
wrist, but for public adoration it wUl be better to have the
whole figure, so as not ' to expose Jesus en morceaux.'
The founder of the ' Order of the Sacred Heart of the
Penitent Jesus ' is Mathilde Marchat, a native of Soigny in
the Diocese of Chartres. In the year 1888 she says she
received a revelation from Our Lady of Lourdes, and
afterwards from Christ, instructing her to found the Order.
Her application to the Bishop of Chartres for his approval
was, according to the usual system, rejected, and the Holy
Inquisition in 1894 forbade her proceeding further, but a
new revelation has consigned the bishop to a long purgatory
for opposing the design, a church and convent have been
built, and the number of the Epouses du Sacrk Cceur de
Jesus PSnitent grows. If they succeed in establishing
themselves, they will no doubt be sanctioned and have a
festival and service appointed for them by the Pope.
The Eucharistic cultes are such as the ' Forty hours'
261

**^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Worship of the Sacrament,' or again the ' Perpetual Worship
of the Host,' when the Host is exposed on the altars and
adored by relays of worshippers for forty hours, or con
stantly day and night. Then there is the 'Nocturnal
Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament,' which was started
in Paris in 1848 by the Brotherhood of Notre Dame des
Victoires. This is described in the Bayonne diocesan
Gazette as a practice, ' beautiful in its simplicity and its
moderation,' of ' coming together once a fortnight, to pass
the whole night in the company of the Divine Master and
Saviour, in order to comfort His heart on account of the
ingratitude of men, and to intercede for their brethren and
for poor sinners.' Each 'night watch around Jesus the
Host ' is counted as ' a glorification of the God of the
Eucharist.' A 'Congregation of the Eucharistic Heart'
has also been started, but it is as yet frowned upon by the
authorities, who do not approve of pictures of the Host with
a flaming Heart in the centre, until they have become more
popular. These are instances of cultes springing up in the present
day or but lately having attained to official recognition. If
we go back a century or two we shall find the origin of the
Exposition of the Host on the High Altar for worship now
everywhere practised, which first took place at Paris in the
year 1627, and has been followed by the rite, so repugnant
to our religious instincts and yet so natural and reasonable
a result from the tenet of the Objective Presence in the
elements, of Benediction or blessing given to the worship
ping congregation by the Host, which is nothing else than
the Person of Jesus Christ enclosed in a wafer. (^)
The way in which these new devotions become part of

Further Developments in Mediseval Worship ^
the authorised worship of the Latin Church is the foUowing.
Some enthusiast starts them ; they are discouraged by the
authorities, but only as a public manifestation ; they spread
privately without hindrance ; then some society, perhaps the
Company of Jesus, gets them sanctioned for their own use ;
next they are sanctioned for the locality in which they are
now used; then for the country in which the locality is
situated; at last for the whole Latin Church; Collects,
Epistles, Gospels and lessons are then appointed for them,
and they take their place in the Breviary and Missal.
The above instances are sufficient to serve as specimens
how new faiths and new rites are more and more thrusting-
Christianity into the background in the Latin Communion.
At the Marian Congress held at Lyons on 5th September
1900, in the presence of two cardinals, thirty-five bishops
and hundreds of priests and monks, the chief orator assured
his auditors that the Lion of France, surrounded by faithful
knights, should conduct Our Lady's car across the twentieth
century, and returning to Lyons should find another Marian
Congress acclaiming the Blessed, the Immaculate, the
Warrior, the Queen of Chivalry and Honour as the ' Sove
reign Lady of earth and heaven.'
The public worship of a lay member of the Latin Church
at present consists in his attendances on Mass on days of
obUgation, when he looks at the priest sacrificing Christ to
God as a propitiation for himself, for the congregation, for
the whole Church, for the quick and dead. This form of
worship was first authorised at the CouncU of Trent in
1562. At a later hour he may attend the Exposition of the
Sacrament for private prayer to it. If particularly devout,
he makes one of the company which by relays worships the
263

•^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Sacrament, either for forty hours or some other appointed
length of time or perpetually. He is careful too to be
present when Benediction or blessing is given to the
worshipping people by the Host. But unless ordered as
part of a penance, services other than that of hearing Mass
are not obligatory, except Communion once a year; and
when assisting at Mass it is not necessary to pray but only
to show an outward attention, which does not exclude
talking to a neighbour, lacing boots, etc. (Liguori, Theol.
Mor. iv. 343). His private acts of devotion are Confession
not less often than once a year, gaining Indulgences avail
able for this world and for Purgatory, buying Masses for
the dead (price in England for one Mass five shillings, in
most Continental countries ninepence), paying devotion to
St Mary and probably wearing her Scapular, which will save
him from Hell and deliver him from Purgatory on the
Saturday foUowing his death. (^)
NOTES
(^) The word Host is now popularly confined to the meaning of Christ
existing under the form of bread or wafer. There is no reason why
it should not be equally applied to Christ existing under the form
of wine.
(^) To encoturage others to do likewise, S. Alfonso de' Liguori says
that he wore himself the Scapular of Mount Carmel (which has the
effects above specified), the Scapular of Mary in sorrow, the Scapular of
Mary of Mercy and particularly the Scapular of the Immaculate Con
ception, the last of which assures to the wearer ' 463 plenary Indulgences,
besides the Indulgences for different lengths of time which are innumer
able,' every time that he says 'a Pater, Ave, and Gloria, six times, in
honour of the Most Holy Trinity and Immaculate Maty.' It has been
calculated that a devout man or woman might thus earn in twelve hours
about 35,000 plenary Indulgences besides an incalculable number of
days, years and centuries of partial deliverances.

idi.

CHAPTER III
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE REFORMED ANGLICAN CHURCH
SINCE THE REFORMATION
The first statements of her faith and worship made by the
Church at the time she reformed herself were in the reign
of Edward VI., in 1549 and 1552. There immediately
followed her seeming overthrow but real strengthening by
the fires of persecution in the reign of Mary. Then came
the settlement in the reign of Elizabeth, in 1559, when the
Prayer-book of 1552 was restored and adopted with very
slight alteration. {^) In Elizabeth's reign there began to grow
up the party, religious and political, of the Puritans, which
increased in power during the reign of her two successors
till it overthrew both the monarchy and the Church. At
the beginning of this period the antagonist dreaded by the
supporters of the Church was Rome ; then the attack veered
about so as to come from the side of Presbyterianism and
Independency. The Church had to alter its tactics of
defence accordingly. But whether opposing Rome or
Puritanism she held fast to her own principles, at once
Catholic and Protestant, firmly rejecting innovations from
whatever quarter they came, whether in doctrine or dis
cipline. Antagonism to Rome did not drive her into the
excesses of Puritanism ; antagonism to Puritanism did not
make her condone the corruptions of Rome. The learned
school of Anglican divines of the seventeenth century,
beginning with Andrewes and ending with Bull and foUow-
265

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
ing in the steps of Hooker, whUe fighting for their lives
against Puritanism, never showed nor felt any the least
tenderness for the medievalisms with which the primitive
faith and worship had been corrupted. Hooker condemned
in the strongest terms the Roman doctrine of Tradition
{Eccl Pol. i. 13), of Papal Supremacy {3id. vii. 8), of
Transubstantiation {Ibid. v. 67), of Adoration of the Host
(Serm. II.), of Worship of Images {3id), of Invocation of
Saints (Serm. VII.), of Justification (Serm. II.), of Con
fession and Absolution {Eccl. Pol. vi.), of Indulgences
(Serm. VI.). Andrewes equally strongly condemned the
Roman perversion of Catholicism {Tortura Torti, p. 368),
and the Roman doctrines on the Interpretation of Scrip
ture {Catech. Doctrine, Part I.), Seven Sacraments {Resp. ad
Bell., p. 72), the Eucharist {Ibid., pp. 14, 250), One kind
{3id., p. 251), Reservation {Ibid., p. 267), Non-communicat
ing attendance {3id., p. 250, Serm. IV., VII.), Purgatory
{3id., p. 222), Supererogation {Ibid., p. 268), Saint worship
{Ibid., p. 242). Angel worship {3id., p. 245), Image worship
{Ibid.,-^. 274), Relics {Ibid., p. 61), Papal Supremacy {Ibid.,
p. 292 ; Tort. Torti, p. 406), Idolatry {Tort. Torti., p. 378),
Incense and Lights {Disc, on Ceremonies, Pt. III.). Arch
bishop Laud spoke equally strongly on InfallibiUty {Conf
with Fisher, § 33), Supremacy {Ibid., § 39), the Catholic
faith {Ibid., § 38), Roman Catholicism {Ibid., § 36), Roman
superstition {Ibid., §§ 35, 39), the Eucharist {3id., § 35),
Transubstantiation {Ibid., § 33), One kind {Ibid., § 35),
Invocation of Saints {Ibid., § 33), Adoration of Images
{Ibid), Purgatory {Ibid). In like manner Bishop Cosin
condemned the Church of Rome's New Articles of Faith
{Schol. Hist, of Canon of Holy Scripture, p. xxxiv.), Romish
266

Developments since the Reformation ^
Intolerance {On the state of the Church of England), Roman
Superstitions {Regni Anglia Religio, vii.), the Roman Canon
of Scripture {Schol. Hist, iv.), Transubstantiation {Hist.
Transubstantiation), the Mass {Notes on the Prayer-book),
Elevation {Ibid.), Adoration of the Host {Ibid.), One kind
(Letter), Objective Presence {Note on the Communion
Service), Reservation {3id), the Seven Sacraments {3id),
Purgatory {3id.), Saint worship (Serm. X.). Similar
catenas can be formed from Jeremy Taylor, Bull, Bramhall,
Beveridge and the rest, and we may say in general that the
Caroline divines stood firmly on the platform of the Re
formation with no look thrown backwards, unless it were
across the Middle Ages to primitive times and the faith of
primitive Christians, no article of which was lost, as may
be seen by Bishop Pearson's ' Exposition of the Creed.'
When we reach the eighteenth century we find points of
doctrine fallen into the background, and the reasonableness
of religion more emphatically dwelt upon, while enthusiasm
was looked on with alarm. Much good work was done in
proving the claims of Christianity, especially against the
Deists ; but the emotional element of religion was too much
repressed. The result was a reaction, led by the Wesleys,
devout clergymen of the Church, whose object it was to
restore warmth and light to religion, which had grown too
cold and dull to affect the heart. Unfortunately, in spite
of the wishes of the leaders, the rank and file of the move
ment, once stirred in their deepest emotions and driven
blindly by them, made a schism from the National Church,
the deplorable results of which we are now witnessing;
but, nevertheless, a quicker hfe entered into the Church
and exhibited itself in what is known as the Evangelical
267

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Movement. (^) This was followed in the nineteenth century
by the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, which originated
in the necessity felt of falling back on the principles of
Church organisation and authority as a defence against the
assaults threatened by the State.
In respect to doctrine and worship there was no idea at
the commencement of that movement of going beyond the
position taken up by the Caroline divines of the seventeenth
century ; but John Henry Newman's mind was a very rest
less one, and perhaps to protect himself against scepticism,
to the danger of which he acknowledged himself exposed,
he threw himself back more and more on authority and
dogma. Seizing the management of the Movement with a
resolute hand, he directed it more and more into a course
favourable to Rome and at length himself stepped across
the boundary. Pusey's teaching had gone beyond that of
the Church of England on three points : (i) the doctrine
of Regeneration in Baptism which he seems to have re
garded as not only changing the federal relation between
God and man, and so effecting a change of spiritual position
to the recipient, but also creating a change of disposition,
which belongs rather to sanctification, in which God allows
man to co-operate with Him, than to justification, which is
the act of God alone {^) ; (2) an overstrained sense of the
heinousness of post-baptismal sin, which led him to look
for its pardon to a formal absolution instead of simple
confession to God and prayer to God, as St Chrysostom
and St Augustine taught ; (3) the doctrine of the Eucharist,
where he held such a change in the elements as could
hardly be distinguished from Christ's Objective Presence in
them, the expression ' under the form of bread and wine '

Developments since the Reformation S©>
being frequently in his mouth. When his colleague, with
whom he had so long co-operated and whom he dearly
loved, joined the Church of Rome, his language became
very diff'erent from that of the Caroline divines as to
Roman errors, because he could not bring himself to con
demn Newman ; and in the latter part of his life he glossed
over the differences between the two Churches in hopes of
being once more in union with his old friend and at the
same time effecting an understanding between the two
Churches. Keble, the third of the trio who led the Move
ment, acknowledged that he was for a time ' fairly carried
off his legs' by the influence of Newman's and Pusey's
eagerness, and during that tinie he unfortunately wrote two
books, the Lyra Innocentium and Eucharistical Adoration ;
but in 1858, thirteen years after Newman's secession, he
wrote : ' I look now upon my time with Newman and Pusey
as a sort of parenthesis in my life, and I have now returned
again to my old views such as I had before.' ' Now that I
have thrown off the yoke of Newman,' he said to Isaac
Williams, ' these things appear quite diff'erent ' {Autobio
graphy of Isaac Williams, p. ir8). On a review of the
Movement the Tractarian party in its later development
cannot be excused of a certain disloyalty, at first not in
tended. But they must not in this respect be regarded in
the same light as the party that has succeeded them called
Ritualists. The one doctrine of Ritualism round which all
its ceremonies are grouped is the Objective Presence of
Christ in the Bread and in the Wine. This was introduced
into the Church of England by Robert Isaac WUberforce
in a book on the Eucharist, drawn from Roman sources
and published by him shortly before he joined the Church
269

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
of Rome, in which book, without using the terms Tran
substantiation or Mass, he taught the views best expressed
by those words, Dr Pusey having, as we have seen, to some
extent prepared the way. With that doctrine, which
spread widely in the Church of England and was advocated
by a Scottish Bishop (Forbes), though firmly resisted by
another Scottish Bishop (Charles Wordsworth), there came
necessarily a desire for restoring or introducing the rites of
Reservation (leading in one of its forms to worship of the
Host, in its other form to processions of the Host to the
sick man's house). Elevation, Adoration, the necessity of
Fasting Communion, Hearing Mass, otherwise called Non-
communicating Attendance, children's Eucharists, Sacra
mental Confession, as well as the use of Vestments,
Incense, Lights, Genuflexions and other ceremonies to
enhance the glory and splendour of the Neo-Eucharistical
functions. Reservation, Incense and Lights have been
condemned afresh by authority, but condemned or not, all
these practices will continue as long as the doctrine from
which they spring is held, that is, as long as men believe
' that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the Bread and
Wine, through the operation of the Holy Ghost, become in
and by consecration, according to our Lord's institution,
verily and indeed the Body and Blood of Christ, and that
Christ our Lord, present in the same most holy sacrament
of the altar' under the form of Bread and Wine, is to be
adored' {Declaration of the English Church Union, 1900).
For as Cranmer has said three and a half centuries ago :
' The rest is but branches and leaves, or the cutting down
of weeds, but the very body of the tree, or rather the roots
of the weeds, is the popish doctrine of Transubstantiation '
270

Developments since the Reformation 5^
{Doctrine of the Sacrament). And the difference between
Transubstantiation and the above declaration is little else
than one between a scientific and an unscientific statement.
All the above practices have been condemned in the
Church of England, though the archbishops have not re
newed the condemnation except in the case of Reservation,
Incense and Lights. Bishop Cosin condemns Elevation :
' The priest was appointed by the first Liturgy of Edward
VI. to take the bread and cup into his hands (which is still
observed among us) ; but he was not appointed to make
any Elevation of them, as the new Roman Catholics do at
their Mass, when the priest, saying Hoc est corpus meum,
suddenly lifts up the wafer over his head and afterwards the
chalice, that the people may all fall down upon their knees
and worship them, which rite neither we nor any of the
reformed or Protestant Churches observe, but, in regard to
the peril of idolatry, have wholly omitted ' {Note on Prayer-
book). Bishop Jeremy Taylor condemns Adoration of the
Sacrament : ' We may not render Divine worship to Him
as present in the blessed sacrament according to His
human nature without danger of idolatry : because He is
not there according to His human nature, and therefore
you give Divine worship to a non ens, which must needs be
idolatry ; for idolum nihil est in mundo saith St Paul ; and
Christ, as present by His human nature in the Sacrament,
is a non ens. For it is not true ; there is no such thing.
He is present there by His Divine power and His Divine
blessing and the fruits of His Body, the real effective con
sequents of His Passion ; but for any other presence it is
idolum, it is nothing in the world. Adore Christ in heaven,
271

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
for the heavens must contain Him till the time of the
restitution of all things ' {Fifth Letter).
And again : ' The commandment to worship God alone
is so express ; the distance between God and bread dedi
cated to the service of God is so vast ; the danger of
worshipping that which is not God, or of not worshipping
that which is God, is so formidable, that it is infinitely to
be presumed that if it had been intended that we should
have worshipped the Holy Sacrament, the Holy Scripture
would have called it God or Jesus Christ, or have bidden us
in express terms to have adored it ' {Real Presence xiii.). (*)
The demand that the Communion shall be received
fasting is condemned by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth :
'We need not scruple to say that any members of the
Church of England, who, on plea of reverence for the
authority of the ancient Church, venture to require fasting
as a condition of administering and receiving the Holy
Communion, not only set themselves up against the
authority of the Church of England, which for the most
part administers the Holy Communion at midday or even
later on Sunday, but even against that ancient Church to
which they appeal' {Twelve Addresses). 'Anything is
wrong,' says Bishop Doane of Albany, ' which makes com
pulsory a new condition, and adds fasting to the faith and
repentance and charity which are laid down as preparations
of worthy receiving' {Convention Address, 1887).
Of Non-communicating Attendance Bishop Moberly
writes : ' Is it supposed that this is a primitive practice ?
Is it not certain that St Chrysostom speaks of it in the
severest terms when adopted, apparently as a new thing,
among the careless and imperfectly-instructed churchmen
272

Developments since the Reformation 5^
of Constantinople in his own days ? And if other denuncia
tions of it are seldom found in the writings of other ancient
Fathers, is not the true explanation of the absence of such
denunciations to be found in the fact that such an usage
was absolutely unknown and unthought of in the early
Church? And does it not mihtate directly against the
very fundamental idea of the commemorative sacrifice as
the great and solemn offering on the part of the whole Church,
that men should thus not refrain only, but exhibit in a sort
of presumption of wiU-worship the fact of their determina
tion to refrain from communion ? Is it not in fact a part
of the natural result — of the logical consequence — of the
Romish doctrine, which regards the entire sacrifice as com
pleted by the sacrificing priest singly and alone, and ignores
the necessary though subordinate part which the Church in
her faithful people contributes to the joint act ? . . . The theory
exemplified in the modern practice is precisely that against
which it is my particular purpose to object' {Bampton Lectures,
1868). Bishop Doane warns his clergy, 'that it is wrong to
encourage any idea of benefit derived from the Holy Com
munion except by those who not only take part in the offer
ing but also partake of the elements. The rule stands, and
stands by Divine institution, by Catholic usage, by the
plain intention of our Book of Common Prayer. Any habit
formed by the lay people or encouraged by the clergy to
attend celebrations often, with the idea of sacramental benefit
or spiritual advantage, is a violation not merely of the
Church's rule but of the Divine Law' {Convention Address,
1887). Scudamore concludes the consideration of the sub
ject as follows : ' Those who do not communicate derive
no special benefit from their presence at the celebration. . . .
S 273

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth
Rather may we not fear a further secret loss of grace and
blessing, if we attempt to use the most holy ordinance of
Christ in a manner or for a purpose which has no sanction
from Holy Scripture or from the uninspired records of the
primitive Church ? ' {Notit. Euchar., p. 402).
Children's Eucharists are so novel that they have not yet
met with adequate condemnation. Their effect, and gener
ally their purpose, is to teach young chUdren, with their
minds still plastic, that Christ, on the words of consecration,
'comes,' 'descends,' to be the object of worship of all
present, and the children are taught to interpolate into the
service just before the consecration the Roman Benedictus
qui venit, ' Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the
Lord,' which ' has reference,' the Ritual Reason Why tells
us, to the coming of our Lord, which is about to take place
through the Consecration ' ; and they are made to sing the
Agnus Dei immediately after the consecration, which, the
same manual explains, ' is a prayer to our Lord now present
on the altar.' The children are further told at this moment
' to worship our Blessed Lord veiled beneath these outward
forms.' It is probable that Non-communicating attendance,
ChUdren's Eucharists and Sacramental Confession are the
most effective means employed for spreading the false views
of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which form the most
essential and central principle of what goes under the name
of Ritualism.
For the first time since the Reformation we are in face of
wUful disloyalty to its principles, corruption of truth, re
covered at the Reformation growing up just as it did in the
transitional centuries intervening between the Primitive and
the Mediseval Church. But this disloyalty forms only a

Developments since the Reformation ^
backwater eddy. The stream rolls on. The Church may
have been too tolerant of evil in some of its members, but
the same principles which animated the Reformers and
Churchmen to whom we owe the Prayer-books of 1549, 1552,
1559, 1604 and 1662, and the XXXIX. Articles, animate
the mass of English Churchmen now. Their faith is the
same. Their forms of worship have undergone little change.
There are the Sunday services — the Morning and Evening
Prayer, customary in the Primitive, lost in the Mediaeval
Church; the Holy Communion administered in remem
brance of Christ's death, and as a means of conveying grace
to the recipients, not less than once a month, and, if the
circumstances of the parish call for it, weekly or even more
frequently; the daily service where congregations are so
situated as to be able to attend in sufficient numbers. And
each phase of individual life is consecrated by the offices of
Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, Visita
tion of the Sick, Communion of the Sick, the Burial of
the Dead, the Churching of Women, and the Catechising of
the Young either in the church or in the school. Papal
superstitions may knock at the door, and may even make a
temporary lodgment within, but a healthy and wholesome
Protestantism, which is at the same time true Catholicism,
will expel them as soon as their real character and tendency
is perceived. NOTES
(^) It is frequently said that Elizabeth desired to adopt the Prayer-
book of 1549 instead of that of 1552 as the basis of the Prayer-book of
1559, and that the Prayer-book of 1552 was altered from that of 1549
owing to the pressure of some foreign divines. Neither statement has
adequate foundation.
C) For a genial sketch of this Movement see Sir Richard Temple's
275

^ Scriptural and Catholic Truth

Essay on the Evangelical Movement in the Church of England in
' Church and Faith ' (Blackwood).
(^) The Church holds a doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism, but she
does not hold what by many persons is supposed to be meant by
Regeneration in Baptism. She does not include Renovation under the
term Regeneration. She does not mean by Regeneration the implanta
tion of new habits in the soul. She does not mean a sensible change
felt at the moment by the individual. She does not mean by it a gift
necessarily involving final perseverance. She does not mean by it any
conscious or active co-operation on the part of the baptized person with
an act which is God's alone. But she holds that the relation between
the baptized person and God is changed, that he has been adopted into
God's family and that adoption sealed, that he has entered into covenant
with God, and that he begins a. new life as God's child, accepted for
Christ's sake. If an adult, he cannot enter into the new relationship
except after fulfilling the previous conditions of Repentance and Faith ;
if an infant, the promise that he shall fulfil those conditions hereafter is
made for him. When men understand that Regeneration does not in
clude Sanctification, Conversion or Renewal, that the baptized person is
not mechanically made a fully-developed Christian, but a child of grace
in covenant with God, and consequently placed in a present ' state of
salvation,' which, if not forfeited (as it will be by a want of submission
of the human heart and will to the Divine Spirit), will lead to the
enjoyment of the heavenly inheritance, the difficulty felt by some in
accepting the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration to a great degree, if
not wholly, passes away. The Collect for Christmas Day, composed in
1549, distinguishes Regeneration and Renewal : ' That we (i) being re
generate and made Thy children by adoption and grace, may (2) daily
be renewed by the Holy Spirit.' The late Bishop Jackson of London,
commenting on Titus iii. 5, writes : ' Regeneration is the work of the
Holy Spirit in the due use of Baptism which God has ordained.
Renewal is the work of the Holy Spirit together with the co-operation
of man, which God requires. Regeneration is an act once done and
never repeated. Renewal is, or should be, perpetual and progressive,
" the inward man being renewed day by day" ' (2 Cor. iv. 16).
(*) An Old Catholic Professor, expressing his astonishment at what he
sees going on in England, writes, 'Je plains votre Eglise d'en 6tre
r^duite k discuter encore sur des choses si essentiellement contraires k la
notion m^me de I'Eucharistie. Le pain doit etre mangi et Dieu adori
et non vice versa. '

INDEX

Agape, 22, 36, 41, 44, 49, 57, 64, 72.
Ante-lucan Service, 63.
Apostles, Acts of, i.
Apostles, Creed of the, 2.
' Apostles, Teaching of,' 41.
Anus, 67.
Articles, The XXXIX., 157.
Athenagoras, 52.
Baptism, 21, 35, 42, 48, 225, 276.
Barbarians, The, 88.
Barnabas, Epistle of, 40.
Bishops, 27, 38, 44.
Calendar, The, 213.
Charlemagne, 98.
Chasuble, The, 153.
Children's Eucharists, 274.
Church, The, 20, 35, 80.
Church, Sub-Apostolic, 39.
Church, Primitive, 66.
Church, Mediseval, 105.
Church, Reformed Anglican, 157.
Church, Modern, 247, 265.
Clement of Alexandria, 56.
Clementof Rome, Epistle of, 40.
Clementines, The, 91.
Commination Service, 226.
Common Prayer, 22, 36.
Communion, Holy, 21, 35, 41, 49, 55, 64,
202, 220, 240.
Communion of Sick, 225,
Confessional, The, 88.
Confirmation, 24, 37, 2 '5.
Congruity and Condignity, 126, 166.
Constantinople, Claim of Primacy by, 83.
Constantinople, Councils of, 94.
Constantinople, Creed of, 68, 73.
Corpus Ckristi, 135.
Deacons, 26.
Decretals, The false, 106.
Development, 251.
Dioeceses, 79.
Elevation, 133.
Epistles, The, 29.
Evensong, 2io._
Excommunication, 37.

Extreme Unction, 38, 144, 177, 225.
Eutyches, 70.
Fasting (Compulsoiy), 136.
Frankfort, Council of, 99.
Hermas, 40.
Homilies, The, 197.
Honorius, Pope, 93.
Host, The, 56, 62, 133, 272, 276.
Ignatius, Epistles of, 43.
Image Worship, 61, 95, 100, 123, 140,
172, 199.
Immaculate Conception, 247, 258.
Indulgences, 118, 129, 154, 170.
Infallibility, 249.
Irenseus, Creed of, 13, 5^.
Irene, Empress, 96.
Joseph, St, 254.
Justification, 125, 150, 162, 199.
Justin Martyr, 47.
Kenosis, 102.
Lateran Council (Fourth), 129.
Latin Language, 141, 204, 207.
Leo I., 84, go.
Litany, The, 217.
Liturgies, The, 24.
Lord's Day, The, 22, 36, 52, 74, 146, 241.
Macedonius, 6g.
Marriage, 57, 58, 177, 225.
Mass, Sacrifice of, 113, 137, i53» 185, 220.
Matins, 208.
Metropolitans, 79.
Millennium, The, 48, 61.
Missa, 64.
Nestorius, 70.
Nicaea, Second Council of, 95.
Nicene Creed, 67J 191.
Non-communicating Attendance, 223,
272.
One kind, 114, 142, 182,
Orders, Holy, 24, 37, 144, 228.

277

^§ Index

Orders, Minor, 84,
Ornaments Rubric, 237.
Patriarchs, 79.
Penance, 143, 177, 203, 213.
Pius IV., Creed of, in.
Polycarp, Epistle of, 45.
Pope, an incarnation of Christ, 256.
Pope, the Holy Ghost, 257,
Prayer-book, 192, 207.
Prayers at Sea, 227.
Presence, Objective, 205, 269.
Presbyter, 26, 38.
Procession, 135, 217.
Prophets, 28, 38, 60,
Psalms, Order of, 227.
Purgatory, 72, 91, 116, 145, 167, 201.
Reformation, The, 157, 193.
Relics, 46, 122, 130, 148, 174.
Reservation, 134.
Ritualism, 269.
Rosary, The, 252.

Sacerdotalism, 233, 230.
Sacred Heart, The, 259.
Sacred Hands, The, 260.
Sacrifices, 51, 53, 55, 56, 6r, 232.
Saint Worship, 72, 121, 146, 200, 213.
Scapulars, 264.
Scripture, Holy, 2, 15, 159, 198, 212.
Seven Sacraments, 115, 148, 176, 201.
Seventeenth Century, The, 205.
Succession, The, 235.
Supremacy, The, 82, 85, 92, 94, 105, 127,
151, 188, 249.
Tatian, 52.
TertuUian, 56.
Theophilus, 53-
Tractarianism, 268.
Tradition, 124.
Transubstantiation, 88, iii, 131, 179.
Vestments, 138, 237, 272.
Viaticum, 145, 153.
Vigilius, Pope, 94.

THE END

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