:m, '.& ,!! YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1936 Ibanbboofrs of Catholic jFaftb anb practice EDITED BY W. J. SPARROW SIMPSON, D.D. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION OUR OUTLOOK HANDBOOKS OF CATHOLIC FAITH AND PRACTICE Cloth, each 2s. 6d. net. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MORAL THEOLOGY. By the Rev. F. G. Belton, B.A. MONASTICISM. By the Rev. Father Denys, M.A. CHURCH MUSIC. By the Rev. A. S. Duncan- Jones, M.A. SOME DEFE CTS IN ENGLISH RELIGION. By the Rev. J. Neville Ficgis, D.D, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. SACRIFICE, J EWISH AND CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. S. C. Gayford, M.A. THE DOCTRINE OF THE MINISTRY. By the Rev. H. F. Hamilton, D.D. CATHOLIC OR ROMAN CATHOLIC? By the Rev. T. J. Hardy, M.A. CONSCIENCE OF SIN. By the Rev. T. A. Lacey, M.A. THE LATER TRACTARIANS.;By!the Rev.Can. S. L. Ollard.M. A THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. By the Rev. H. Leonard Pass, M.A. RECENT FRENCH TENDENCIES. By the Rev. G. C. Rawlin- SON, M.A. CHRISTIANITY AND THE ARTIST. By R. Ellis Roberts. THE PRAYER OF CONSECRATION. By the Rev. W. J, Sparrow Simpson. Introduction by the Lord Bishop of Oxford. THE RESERVED [ SACRAMENT, By the Rev. Darwell Stone, D.D. EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. By the Rev. Darwell Stone, D.D. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. By the Rev. H. U. Wbelpton, M.A. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION. By the Rev. Professor J. P. Whitney, D.D. THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH. LONDON : ROBERT SCOTT, Roxburgh! House, Paternoster Row, E.C. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION / OUR OUTLOOK. BY THE REV. J. P. WHITNEY, B.D. PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON LONDON: ROBERT SCOTT ROXBURGHE HOUSE PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. MCMXVII All rights rtscrvti PREFACE THIS little book goes back to my Hulsean Lec tures (1906-7), which were not published at once, although they appeared later (December, 1915, to March, 1916) in the English Church Review. I had hoped to make them more complete, but some pressing questions have led me to publish them now, enlarged but still not so complete as I could wish. Some matters I have left aside or touched but slightly : yet the considerations and sugges tions embodied in the book have, I hope, some value and interest. At the suggestion of the Editor, the Rev. Dr. Sparrow Simpson, I have reprinted as Appendix I. a paper read at the Cambridge Church Congress (1910). I wish to thank him for help and criticism, and I thank also my friends the Rev. Dr. Harold Hamilton and the Rev. Dr. H. M. Relton for kindly reading the proofs. Appendix II. is a recently written addition. The stand taken by the Church of England at the Reformation, first on principle but with some timidity and then with growing confidence, has given to it the law of its life. It must work out its mission in obedience to that law, in the fullness vi PREFACE of its life and in face of its many responsibilities, national and imperial. It refuses equally Papal tyranny and the anarchy of individualism. Epis copacy is, as we see from history past and present, alone able to guide the forces of a many-sided life and to inspire a Christian democracy. Some reasons for this belief I have tried to give with illustration from the past and with hope for the future J. P. WHITNEY. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Preface ....... 5 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY A History of the Episcopate is a History of the Church. Catholic Thought is Historical Thought ....... 13 Three Methods of treating Episcopacy at the Reformation : — ¦ (1) The Lutheran and Calvinist . . 15 (2) The Roman or Tridentine ... 15 (3) The Anglican ..... 15 Mediaeval History is — ¦ (1) A Record of the Geographical Growth of the Episcopate .... 16 (2) Its Spiritual Story .... 16 The Episcopate and Roman Empirer Peculiarities of England. ...... 17 Failure of Church through Mistaken Dealings with* New Races. ...... 18-21 National Churches and the Catholic Church . 21 Importance of this Problem .... 23 The Forged Decretals ..... 24 Hildebrand and his Time .... 24-28 Corruption of the Mediaeval Bishops ' . . 29 vii V1L1 CONTENTS PAGE Neglect of Synods (see note) .... 31 Evils of this .....•• 33 Bishop Pecock and his Theory of Episcopacy . 34 Standstill in Growth of Episcopate at End of Middle Ages 37 (1) Schemes of Episcopal Division not worked out (note) ....... 37 (2) Growth of more Secular Jurisdiction of Bishops and Loss of Spirituality . . 39 The Revival of Letters and Movements of Reform (see note) ....... 41 CHAPTER II THE REFORMATION GENERALLY The Reform and its Effects on Episcopate. The Reformation not merely negative . . 43 Tendencies to Reform, 1300-1500 a.d. The Reformation, with its Lutheran and Jesuit Wings, the Result of these ... 45 The Revival of Letters (Renaissance) a True Outcome of the Middle Ages . . . 45-48 Council of Constance and Reform . . . 48-49 Concordats with National Churches. . . 49 The Eastern Church ..... 50-54 Nikon ........ 51 Cyril Lucar ....... 54 Revival of Spanish Church .... 54-56 Revival in English Church .... 56-58 Comparison of England and Spain ... 58, 61 Centralization and the Papacy ... 59 Dean Colet's Sermon before Convocation (1512) 59-63 Reform not carried out in England owing to Royal Interference ..... 61 Germany, the Centum Gmvamine ... 63 CONTENTS IX Peculiarities of Germany : Abuses . Excesses of Reformation found where Episcopal Control weak ..... Lutherans : Zwinglians : Calvinists The Augsburg Confession (see note) Luther and Episcopacy .... Melanchthon and Episcopacy . Dependence of Lutheranism upon the Princes Scandinavian Lands . . The " Mediating " Theologians Definition of the Church a Matter for History as is that of a Nation ..... Norway, Denmark, and Sweden (see note on 74) Lutheranism Conscious of its Loss in Lacking an Episcopate ...... Prussian Attempts to secure Episcopacy Evils of Prussian Absolutism .... Final Loss of Episcopacy not a Result of Lutheran Reformation but of Later Forces Work done by Mediaeval Episcopate page 63 64-67 67 68-71 71-75 75 7676 777981 82-88 82-84 82-88 85 88-90 CHAPTER III THE PAPACY AND THE REFORMATION Papal Power at End of Middle Ages Lateran Council (1512) . Concordats with France (note) Strife between Bishops and Regulars Scheme of an Episcopal Committee Some Questions of Reform reappear at Trent Demands for Reform from Spain, Gennany: France ..... Discussions upon Power of Bishops Episcopal Residence Episcopacy and the Papacy . 9192 93 94 94 95 96 97-105 98 10 1 CONTENTS Views of Lainez ...... Summary of the Work of Council of Trent as regards Episcopacy .... Triumph of Papacy over Episcopacy Bishops and the Regulars Jesuits in England and Episcopacy Also Reform of Episcopacy at Trent and after wards : Greater Efficiency . " Titular " Bishops at Trent . In Spite of Papal Triumph we see Vitality of Gallicanism ..... " Febronius " in Germany (1763 f.) Change between Trent and the Vatican Council of 1870 ...... Growth of Papalism : Barbosa Vatican Council of 1870. InfaUibihty and Weakness of Episcopacy in Romanist Countries : Loss of Hold upon National Life ...... Americanism and the Church in France . Modern Papacy has Degraded Episcopacy Development and the Task of Episcopacy PAGE IOI-I02 102-109 I03 IO3-IO4 IO4 105-107 I08-IO9 no 111-115 "5 115-117 117-121 121 122-124 124-125 124-126 CHAPTER IV The Church of England during the Reformation Validity of Anglican Orders .... Appointment of Bishops : Analogies elsewhere Mediaeval Abuses, their Continuance and Re moval ....... Elizabeth and her Supremacy. Growth of Attachment to Episcopacy under Elizabeth ....... Presbyterianism under Elizabeth Conflict of Presbyterianism and Episcopacy appears plainly at Dort, 1614 127-128 128-130 130-132 132-133 134 135-137 137-139 139-140 CONTENTS XI Enghsh Expectation that Foreign Protestants would adopt their System. Theory of " Necessity "..... Episcopacy the Basis of the English System The Reformation not completed — (a) As regards a Code of Canon Law (b) As regards Synods Revival of Convocation .... General Recovery of Corporate Life by the Church of England .... The Reformation not completed — (c) In the Formation of New Dioceses The Restoration ..... Charles II and his Scene of Presbyterian Bishop Increase of Bishops : New Sees Revival of Synods .... Necessity of a Complete Scheme for New Dioceses Neglect in giving Bishops to the Colonies Attempts to Provide Colonial Bishops Summary History of the English Church in Canada ...... Expansion of the Episcopate there Wish for a Metropolitan and Synodal Action thwarted from England Evangelicals' Belief in Episcopacy . Formation of Synods .... New Dioceses in Canada Synods in Canada : the Episcopal Veto (see also 165) : Lay Representation : Exclusion of Doc trine ....... The Church in South Africa . Policy of First Lambeth Conference not yet carried out. ..... Growth of Coherency in English Church Opportunities of To-day. Value of Synods Illustrated . Value of Episcopal Visitations Need of "an Episcopal Reformation " . PAGE 141 142-143 144 144-147 144 147-149 149150 151-152 153 154 155-156 156 157-158159-165159-160160-162160-161162-163 163 163-165 166 166167 167168168169 Xll CONTENTS PAGE Power of the Episcopate to guide Growing Life 169 Mission of the Church of England . . • I7° The Church should be Self-governing and truly Episcopal in its Catholic Life . . • I7I All this is summed up in the expression, " The Historic Episcopate " (see also 85 and 182) 172 APPLNDIX I Paper read at the Cambridge Church Congress, 1910 173-181 Research and Episcopacy .... i73_I75 The Result is to Enhance its Importance . 175 The Episcopate did not Exhaust its Possibihties in the Middle Ages v . . . 176 The Reformation and Episcopacy . . . 176-178 The Council of Trent and Episcopacy . . 178 The Episcopate is needed against Papal Usur pation and against Protestant Divisions . 178 Episcopacy the only Means of Unity . . 178-179 Possibihties in its Ideal . . . . . 179 The Burden upon us to show Episcopacy at its best 179 It must be efficient ..... 179-180 Synods should be general . . . . 180 The Episcopate and Democracy . . . 1 80-1 81 APPENDIX II Note on the Present State of the Discussion as to the Origin of Episcopacy . . . 181 The Church's Experience : Historic Evidence . 181 New Testament : Second Century : St. Ignatius 182/. Charismatic Ministry. The Didachi . . 184/. The General and Local Ministers. The Epis copate . . . . . . . 186/. St. John. Summary of Results . . . 190/. Index 193 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION CHAPTER I A HISTORY of the Episcopate would be in itself a history of the Church. There is no thing in its early days or later years, nothing either of spiritual vision or practical achievement that is not either bound up with episcopal expan sion or else connected with episcopal history. In the following pages I speak of but one part of its working at a time of crisis which was severe and is sometimes perhaps taken as being too inevitable and too final. It is to-day too much the fashion to look at Christianity in the abstract and to deduce its system from its doctrine, rather than to reach its spirit through its life. It is a better way to regard, as Dollinger did, Christianity as history and to remember that catholic thought must be historical thought.1 This is a caution which works two ways, is positive as well as negative. To some it might seem to lead to a disregard of the past in favour of the present or the still more problematical future ; it is easy to 1 See Acton, History of Freedom and Other Essays, pp. 380, 383- 13 14 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION prefer the present of history to the past of politics if we assume that all history is one ; and it is easier still to do this if we exalt the wisdom of our own day in comparison with others, and fur ther take individuality as our guide through life. But if we really believe in the power of the cor porate life we are driven of necessity to the study of the past. " It was part of his religion to live much in the past, to realize every phase of thought, every crisis of controversy, every stage of progress the Church has gone through. So that the events and ideas of his own day lost much of their importance in comparison, were old friends with new faces, and impressed him less than the multitude of those that went before." 1 In these words the late Lord Acton in a paper found after his death described the ideals of his work. This seems to me the true spirit in which to approach the history of the Church's past, although it is the exact opposite of current moods. If the historian, like the pastor, has often a message of hope, it is none the less the duty of both to discourage over-satisfaction with our own day or ourselves. When we take our stand at the Reformation as a central period for our purpose we must notice, generally and apart from detail, the state of the Episcopate at the end of the Middle Ages ; we must note its practical working and its limitations. Afterwards we must indicate some aspects of the Reformation which are easy to overlook, and we 1 Acton, History of Freedom, ed. by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence : preface by the Editors, p. xxxix. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 15 trace the story of the Episcopate" through that time of stress. Broadly speaking, we observe at the Reformation three main methods of treating Episcopacy. The Lutheran and Calvinist method of disregarding it : the Roman or Tridentine method of reforming it, but, at the same time strengthening the Papal head ship, a policy which preserved the Episcopate, although with limitations and modifications of vital importance, indicated and prepared for by Medieval Papal policy. And lastly, we come to the Anglican method of preserving it, although with slight changes from the Medieval pattern. This third method, apart from its special concern for ourselves, has become of greater moment now when the English Church is the mother of many daughters. Each of these methods was formed by Medieval events and thoughts, and this connexion we must trace. Then, finally, we shall follow the Episcopate from the Reformation onwards, and see something of its later days. By taking our stand at the Reformation, we avoid some special controversies, although some others take their place. All questions about the origin and early growth of the Episcopate 1 he outside our period : in the Middle Ages at any rate it comes be fore us as a definite and well-understood institution. The other controversies which more especially concern us I shall treat not as controversies in themselves, but merely as they arise out of the material. And I shall treat them, not, I hope, in the spirit oL controversy but with .the reverence 1 I say something about this in the Appendix. 16 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION demanded by all things in the Church of God. For even if we regard the Episcopate as a mere institu tion (which it is neither my view nor wish to do), there is something pecuUarly majestic in that which has formed the minds of men from early times down to ourselves, which has been the means through which some sixty generations have been trained in the Christian life, and received the gifts of Christian grace. At the outset I think we may repeat that the his tory of the Church is, at present, too little looked at from this special point of view. Some would treat it as a history of doctrine, if, indeed, not as a strange story of corruptions ; some would summarize it in the history of the Papacy ; some would make it the record of the reception of a creed by nations to be eduqated in its faith. And yet apart from the growth of its doctrines, and from its political rela tions, the history of the Church as an institution is the history of the Episcopate in its varied aspects. This is true from the second century to the Reforma tion. It is a method of treatment which can be applied even at later times to all the pre-Reformation bodies, and can be illustrated by the expansion of our own Church in our own dominions and colonies. For here we have the permanent continuous form under which Christianity spread. Leaving aside all earlier and later controversies upon the nature of the Church, its history in the Middle Ages is (i) a record of the geographical growth, and (2) the spiritual story of the Episcopate. It is a commonplace to say that, when the bar barians overwhelmed the Empire, the Episcopate THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 17 stood through the storm, and gave the world a system of connected centres of life and fellowship. It was able to do this, partly because the towns, the chief seats of its power, survived, and partly because of its own developed strength. The Epis copate had not only been the guardian of religious life, but had entwined itself with the most enduring features of the Empire. Hence it had a special and political significance apart from the Church itself. But this fact brought with it a danger. It was easy for the Church to keep too closely to older forms of life, to think that its very existence de pended upon the framework of the society that had seen its youth. Without going into details, it may be said that in the earlier Frankish kingdom the Church regarded itself as Roman, as representing to barbarians the Roman civilization and organiza tion. In England, however, the Roman organiza tion had been swept away before English Christianity grew up, and in a large part of modern Germany the field was purely heathen from the first. Hence with these initial differences, differences between the growth of the Church in these lands was inevitable. These differences have been too often overlooked. But among the Western Franks, at any rate, Christianity based its organization upon that of the Empire. Some aspects of Christianity, and above all, of Christian unity had, it is true, found their counterpart in the Empire : so far the Empire had expressed the Church's ideal. But the Church, under new conditions of life, did run a risk of taking the Empire for more than this, of seeking its" unity, not in the Christian organization itself, but^in the B 18 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION framework of the society where it had grown up. I think we may see this danger even in St. Augustine's magnificent picture of the City of God, in the immense veneration for the Empire, with the at tempt to preserve its provincial divisions, and lastly, in the ideal of the Medieval Empire itself. This living power of the Roman world, this fascina tion of its spell, we can surely feel for ourselves as the barbarians felt it if we stand before a building like the Porta Nigra at Trier, with its voice of majesty and strength. There was a danger lest the Church should try to impress upon the nations of the West Imperial unity as well as its own essential unity, that it should try to make their Christians copies of the Christians of the Empire. Once before the Church had gone through such a peril, when it passed from the limits of the Jewish society to the wider Gentile world beyond, and it had been even then a peril which not all its leaders understood. So, too, at the outset of the Middle Ages it was possible for the Church to cling too closely to the past, and not to trust itself wholly to the new West ern world that lay before it. We can see something of the evil side of this process in the early Frankish Church, where Christianity is represented byApol- inaris Sidonius, and by Gregory of Tours.1 There 1 For Sidonius see Dictionary of Christian Biography ; Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, p. 187 f., and Guizot, History of Civilization, i, p. 343 f. Eng. trans. For Gregory of Tours see Dictionary of Christian Bio graphy ; Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, i, passim ; Guizot, History of Civilization, ii, p. 140 f. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 19 is always a temptation to make Christianity stand for the past, to look atit as something which is to disci pline and to train (a necessary side of its influence) rather than to inspire from within. Both processes, it is true, should go on together, but owing to various causes they did not work together on the Continent as happily as they did in England. The Church has need not only of its own power of life, but of a readiness to adapt itself to its work. But where the Church's life was successfully moulded into newer shapes, it succeeded in gaining strength : where it did bring its system into close touch with the manifold forms of growing life, the Church was able to control and inspire them. Of this we have illustrations in the west of Germany, and in England before the Norman conquest. In Germany, St. Boniface brought the missionary Church into close union with the national power, and it was owing to this that Germany, a little after England, was the second native missionary leader of the West. To Boniface is due, as we must not forget, the great importance of Metropolitan Sees in the West, and their close association with Rome as a centre of unity and a source of control. He brought the old organization of Rome with its traditions into touch with the new Frankish race.1 But I think we may also say that, in some places the Church failed in this respect ; it failed in the northern and eastern parts of Germany, and possibly in Scotland also. Compare, for instance, the clus- 1 For Boniface see Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II. chap. xvi. B (2), and Our Place in Christendom (Longmans, 1916), p. 57 f. ao THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION tered dioceses along the Rhine with the large dioceses to the east and north. Ordered work was as im possible in the one case as it was easy in the other. And the failure brought with it fresh difficulties. Why, for instance, should Christianity have been to the Bohemians connected with German suprem acy ? The Church was surely somewhat too ready to throw itself upon the support of worldly powers, and hence, in the process of change, it mostly showed itself too conservative. Afterwards, when the missionary age was over, changes meant to raise the efficiency of the Church's work, and extensions of the Episcopate, were all too rare. Indeed, Offa's suggested Archbishopric at Lichfield, and of Cnut's vision of a strengthened Danish Church, extensions of the Episcopate such as that made in the province of Salzburg 1 in the thirteenth century, stand almost alone. The Church's outlook was too much upon the past, and too little upon the future. How different, for instance, would Chris tian history have been had North-Eastern Europe, at the fitting time, been dealt with systematically as had been the West ! But in trying to carry out its mission, the Church 1 Sees were founded under Salzburg ; Seckau 121 7-18, Lavant 1225, and Chiemsee 1215. (See Werminghoff, Verfassungsgeschichte der deutschen Kirche im Mittelalter in A. Meister, Grundriss, p. 46). Henry II met great difficulties in his founding Bamberg (1007) owing to the opposition of the Bishops of Wiirzburg and Eichstadt whose power Vas affected. See Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, ii. 52 f. So, too Otto I had trouble with the Bishop of Halbersta'dt in his foundations of Magdeburg (968). THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 21 met a difficulty akin to one we feel in a twofold form to-day. The unity of the Church may be made to seem opposed to the national life and the separate existence of a people. But, on the other hand, the Church may so grasp the nation, so identify itself with its growth, as to deepen and to utilize for God and for itself the life of the nation with which it deals. We come across examples of either case in the past, and the problem meets us in the mission field to-day just as it met the earliest missionaries, just as it met and perplexed the Jesuits in the six teenth century.1 How is the Church to deal with the national peculiarities and separate life of the nations to whom it comes ? And, again, the same problem meets us in the difficult matter of the relation between National Churches and the Church at large/ But it is a difficulty which existed long ago ; and in its problem, and the conflicts arising out of it, much of Medieval Church history consists. Much of the mingling tendencies, the increasing vigour, and the gradual decay of ecclesiastical life in those days can be grouped under this single head. We see the Epis copal system trying to adapt itself to new surround ings, to utilize new forms of life : but sometimes it seems to overlook them ; it seems to arouse, and justly to arouse, the opposition of the units with which it has to deal. This difficulty belongs partly to Christian theory, partly to actual Christian life. Regarded as a matter of doctrine, the Church at 1 Especially in South America ; see Whitney, The Reformation (1503-1648), p. 426; Funk, Manual of Church History, ii, p. 149. 22 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION large, the Church as a whole, has alone a valid ex istence : it knows neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. If the Church isolates any particular land, or any particular group of lands, if it binds itself too closely with the local life, it is apt to forget the larger unity, which is, in actual experience as well as in Christian theory, its greatest strength. We see the results of such isolation in the early Irish Church, and often in the East. Papal centralization, going to the other extreme, has fallen into a like narrowness. But when we regard the problem as one of practice, there is a great gain of power, a great convenience of working, in a close union with local life, and a utilization of its varied forms. As bases of work and as fields of organization, they are all but essen tial ; regard must be paid to their existence and peculiarities. It is easy, however, to confuse what is essential with what is merely valuable, and it is often done, specially perhaps by Anglicans of to-day. The Church had of old, and the Church has to-day, to adapt and guide new powers of life, not merely to let them mould it or shape its life. These things indicate the road along which the Church must travel, but not the spirit in which it goes, or the aims which it must choose. I confess it sometimes seems to me that we to-day are too much inclined to regard our problems, whether of thought or practice, as too peculiarly our own ; we areapt, in consequence, to miss something when we read the past (if indeed we have patience to read at all) ; we forget that these pages, of failures and achievements, were " written for our learning." THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 23 And I think this distinction between their spheres, drawn from the past, places the problem of National churches and the Catholic Church in its true light. To lose sight of the essential unity were a sin ; to close up channels where the Spirit of God might flow richly were to quench that Spirit's power. The Church's spirit has to be that of unity, not of separa tion : the separate life is a form of working, a mode of action, but the larger hfe has to be realized and ever kept in view. In the Middle Ages this problem, although really pressing, was hardly seen. The Church might have based its unity upon that of the Body of Christ ; it might, consciously or unconsciously, have based it upon that of the Empire or its Medieval copy. Consciously or unconsciously, it often did the latter. This was hampering the present by the past, not raising it by an ideal. It was " control by a domi nion," not the realization and inspiration of an indwelhng hfe. It was well to utihze Greek and Roman forms of thought, to learn large lessons of law, of order and system. But the Church ran a danger, which exists in many forms for us to-day, of wedding itself too closely to special types of civilization, to special forms of political hfe. The Middle Ages further brought in complications of their own. Their ready acquiescence in contra dictions, their insistence upon precedents (so neces sary for a time when custom was law), all these made difficulties.1 And the difficulties swelled into 1 See " Pope" Gregory VII and the Hildebrandine Ideal," in Church Quarterly Review, July, 1910, and Our Place in Christendom, p. 67 f. 24 THE EPISCOPATE AND THEJREFORMATION troubles. Boniface's close relations with Rome, for instance, were to have a great effect. Then, when the Missionary Age was over, and over all too soon, what is so often called the Investiture Struggle began. This came about because the Church sought freedom from the too-compelling mould of the secular world. Now, at last, the Church had caught sight of the problem missed before. And two remarks must be made upon this struggle which was in one way the great moral water-shed of the Middle Ages. In the first place, more than two centuries before the struggle began, the Forged or pseudo-Isidorian Decretals had been compiled and readily accepted. Their influence, although only gradually felt, was immense and decisive, and was brought to bear for the first time upon the eleventh century in over whelming force. The Church was just then turning away from the evils of the present, and seeking in the past a higher type of life, seeking for rules that had the sanction of experience and had stood the test of time. In that past, and especially in the free canonical election of Bishops by clergy and laity, the Church found an inspiration of freedom. We Englishmen, at any rate, with our heritage of old historic freedom, can understand how such inspiration could be sought from and given by the past. But there also came, under the guise of the same past, these Decretals, that marvellous and mysterious mixture of truth and forgery. They were incorporated in those collec tions of Church law which issued from these cen turies of strife, and hence they influenced so largely THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 25 the Medieval Church. They did not, possibly, altogether create the Papal monarchy, for they themselves were largely the result of natural, social, and pohtical tendencies that helped to form that monarchy ; they did not altogether cause the great increase of Papal power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for they were launched into a world that favoured their course, and they found currents of thought that sped them on. But they worked along with all these tendencies, and the final result was a mighty power. The chief result was that the supposed precedents given by them, the authorita tive maxims thus presented to the world, made a formidable appeal to history and the past which was accepted as true. Primitive precedent, primi tive practice, was plentifully to be found here : thus the forgeries accepted as historical worked them selves out in fact. A true doctrine might have been supported by forged statements, and its truth would have been unaffected. But here we have to do with alleged historical precedents and facts. The growth of the Papacy, the struggle against metropolitan power, might have happened (it is the plea of some historians) without the Decretals, but it is difficult to disentangle the various elements in such a calcula tion, and to estimate the precise influence of the forged element in them upon the ecclesiastical system of the Middle Ages. But even if the calculation cannot be precise, none the less the necessity for it exists, and should never be forgotten. And let us pause a moment to observe the immense loss to the Church of the lack of critical power, in evitable, but none the less disastrous, at a time when 26 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION an earnest appeal was made to the past for guidance and example. Appeals to the past and critical study should always go together, for false history means false teaching and falsity of hfe ; any doctrine of continuous existence either in men or institutions, demands a study of the past ; and study, to be effective, needs criticism as much as it needs en thusiasm. Enthusiasm for the past brings with it the responsibility of enlightened study. It is so natural to exalt our own easy standards of appeal : primitive usage, the verdict of antiquity, principles of the Reformation, Elizabethan Settlement, the spirit of the Church of England, the spirit of the day, and so forth. But these ideas do not come to us by inspiration. With the lessons of the past be fore us we dare not accept them on the strength of tradition. They have to be dug out from the bowels of the past, sometimes (as with the remembrance of Egypt we can reverently say) from its very dust- heaps. Therefore from our universities above all there should go forth a warning, never more needed, and needed in very opposite quarters, than it is to day, to let our reverent study of the past, whether it be the Primitive, the Medieval, or the Reforma tion, past, keep pace with our devotion to its maxims. But the appeal to antiquity, and to an antiquity distorted by the False Decretals, was not the only feature of Hildebrand's time. His reign had been preceded by another movement, often overshadowed by the well-krjpwn Clugniac Revival, but in itself even more significant. It was what we may call an Episcopal revival, marked by (i) a general reform of Chapters, and (2) by great Episcopal activity. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 27 The reform of Chapters beginning with Chrodegang of Metz, in the eighth century, spread over Lorraine, and eastwards from it. Under its influence the cathedral clergy were grouped together under the personal control and influence of their Bishops ; the Chapter thus became not only an example of ordered and pious life, but also an instrument of missionary effort. Thus the Episcopal rule was systematized and reinforced : we soon find a new type of Bishop, devout, laborious, raised by a lofty ideal, and yet, on the practical side, filling his place in the national life. This class of Bishops slowly influenced Germany, and brought about that re ligious reformation which, under Henry III, was to lift the Papacy from the mire into which it had fallen. When we pass from the pages of Gregory of Tours in the sixth century to Lampert of Hersfeld in the eleventh, we note the change in the Episcopal character and hfe. The easy-going, luxurious pre late is replaced by the conscientious labourer, who, to quote words used by one of them, thought he had not been born so much for himself alone as for his Church and kingdom. And it was through the Episcopate thus reformed that Hildebrand worked, seizing its organization and binding it to himself and to the Papal throne. His policy was formed by uniting the canonical principles of the German revival with the strength of the Papacy and the traditions of Rome, and it was directed by a magnifi cent if ruthless skill in the use of men and pohtical combinations. The age of Hildebrand, then, is supremely significant for the Episcopate. 28 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Thus the theory that all Bishops were the dele gates of the Pope is stated by him with the utmost plainness, and so historically appears as a result of the Decretals, which were first used extensively under him and in his day. But the moral effects of the revival of the Episcopate were vast, and were accompanied, as such revivals always were, by intense activity in Synods. The appeal to Papal power and the utilization of its authority seemed an easy remedy for many evils of the day, but, like all easy remedies, brought easy evils along with it. Not the least was the real depression of the Episcopate, as much of its primitive power, and some of its func tions, were gathered up into the Papacy. The results of this wide revival, however, were slowly treasured up until they culminated in the great thirteenth century, marked by a fresh and unex pected vigour of the Episcopate, in close union with the national growth, and yet at the same time with the Papal Supremacy. It was difficult for Bishops to use their powers freely, ground down as they were, says Matthew of Paris, between the upper and nether millstones of Papacy and Crown. Yet men like our great Bishop Grosseteste revived the Epis copal ideal when it was being obscured by courtly official Bishops ; and at the same time, they cham pioned it against the Papacy. There was advantage in association with the national hfe, but close to it there stood the corresponding evil of royal tyranny and a ready adoption of low standards of hfe. There was advantage in Papal protection, but close to it there stood the evils of absorption in Papal politics, the substitution of procedure and finance THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 29 for spirituality. For the proper working of Medieval relations there was. needed a lofty and unselfish policy on the side of the Papacy, and a realization of its responsibihty. But precisely here, the Medie val Papacy failed the most, and, lofty as were the characters of some earlier Medieval Popes; the Papacy, as a whole, cannot evade the charge that it forgot its responsibility in its search for power ; that it made the details of a centralized administra tion more important than spirituality, more import ant than the Church's organization as a whole. The effect, with which we are here concerned, was the resulting weakening and dislocation of the Episcopal system. But we may note that nothing has worked greater evils than the wish for influence and power, even not taken at their worst ; the temptation to empha size most strongly that which most belongs to our selves, without regard to the rights and work of others. Our gaze becomes fixed more and more exclusively upon that part of the Church's field which it is our task to cultivate and guard ; so we easily forget the rest. No lesson of the past is clearer than this ; it is easy to forget the interests of the Church at large in the care of interests near to ourselves : the Medieval Pope, the Medieval monk and parish priest also met and often yielded to a temptation that comes to us to-day. But we judge them more severely than we judge ourselves. When the glorious vigour of the thirteenth cen tury was past, the period of decay set in. More and more, Bishops had been drawn into the service of the State, or the administration of the Papal Court, 30 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION and so more and more they had forgotten their proper duties. The useful office of Archdeacon was utilized to relieve the Bishops, and much duty, really Epis copal in character, was left to them.1 Episcopal Visitations became less common and more perfunc tory, and thus a main instrument of efficiency was cast away.a The long absences of Bishops from their sees grew longer still ; one Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro de Gigli (1499-1521) never visited his see for seven years : one Enghsh Bishop, Henry Chiche- ley (1408), afterwards an Archbishop, was three years before he saw his first Cathedral (of St. David's). Pluralities, especially in France, after the Hundred Years' War, were common ; one Cardinal,3 a bishop also beneficed in Italy where he lived, held one Archbishopric, three bishoprics, four abbeys and three priories in France. When Charles VIII, shortly before his death, was meditating upon large reforms, he wished to persuade all Bishops to be content with one see each, although Cardinals might be allowed to hold two : but to this reform, says De Commines, " he would have 1 On the Archdeacons see Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Reformation Period (Alcuin Club), Preface. Stubbs, Lectures in Medieval and Modern History, pp. 300 and 302. 2 For visitations see Frere and Kennedy as above ; Capes, History of the Church of England in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, chaps, i and xi. For instances of articles see Grosseteste, Letters (Rolls Series) Ep. 154, and Annales Monastici (Rolls Series), p. 296 for Lichfield! 3 Cardinal d'Estouteville : see Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. iv, pt. 2, pp. 178-9. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 31 found it hard to reconcile the clergy."1 Synods, too, were neglected, and no neglect wrought greater harm than did this.2 1Book viii, c. 18 (ed. Buchon). 2 Synods were dropped or rarely called although the Church needed reform. Thus Lanfranc, in making his reforms, says they had been neglected in England. The thirteenth century saw the Medieval Church at its best (save in regard to missions) : for this century Richard, Analyse des Con- ciles, gives 78 councils against 35 for the twelfth and 44 for the fourteenth. But the thirteenth century, was owing to various causes, less a time of spirituality and activity in Germany than elsewhere : there diocesan Synods were only formally kept up, and provincial Synods dropped (Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, iv, pp. 6-8 and 17). The bishops had become secular princes, often absent from their dioceses : the chapters, looked at as the prey of the nobility, had become independent and set scandalous examples (see Emil Michael, S.J., Geschichte des deutschen V dikes vom dreizehnten Jahrhundert bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters , ii, pp. 1-39. For the general decay of Church life in Germany see also Janssen, Gesch. d. d. Volhes, i, p. 681 f. and Pastor, Popes (German edn.), iv, p. 200 f. Hence Church life in Germany was inco herent : the neglect of Synods, the looseness of the provincial system, the decay of chapters, and the secular tone of bishops made a religious reform urgent. The path to reform was through Synods : Engelbert I of Cologne, a rare instance of an efficient prelate (1216-1225), used Synods freely (Michael, as above, ii, p. 31 f.). Nicholas of Cusa, a true reformer, worked largely through Synods and councils (see Pastor, ii, p. 105 f., English edn.) as Legate in Germany (1451-52) and as Bishop of Brixen (1450-64). Visitations (to be held yearly) were also essential parts of all schemes of reform. Wyclif {De Officio Regis, p. 244) * recommended them : the fre quent grants of Papal dispensations from the regular holding of them were causes of abuse ; the English 32 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION For in a Synod a Bishop throws himself upon the sympathy of his clergy, and enters into their hves ; they come to him as to their Father in God : it is an; essential part of the episcopal system, and it is a proof of their value that every period of reform has been marked by the revival of its use.1 In Visita tions, too, before they became purely formal, the Bishop ganied a knowledge of the parochial working, Concordat of 141 9 (Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England, English edn., p. 45 note) tried to restrict this indulgence. All these evils grew, along with simony and papal over-centralization ; they are com plained of not only later but at the Council of Vienne, 131 1 (see Haller, Papsttum und Kirchenreform, Berlin, 1903, i, p. 52, and especially the memorial anent reforms presented by Guillaume Lemaire, Bishop of Angers). 1 The place and value of diocesan Synods is well put by Bishop John Wordsworth : see his Life, by E. W. Watson, pp. 169-70. By Canon 13 of Lanfranc's Synod at Win chester (1071) every bishop was to celebrate a Synod once a year : in 1072 they were ordered twice a year ; in 1075 it was noticed that Councils had been disused in England for many years past. In the province of York by Zouch's Canons of 1347, repeated by his successor Thoresby, Councils were ordered at every Easter and Michaelmas. This was part of the Church revival which marked the Northern as distinct from the Southern Province towards the end of the Middle Ages. Archbishop Theodore's Council of Hertford (673) had ordered Councils yearly at Clovesho while recognizing twice a year as the rule. (See Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii, p. 120.) The primitive rule was for Councils twice a year, Nicaea, Can. v : Antioch, Can. 20, and Chalcedon Can. 19. (See Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, i, pp. 548, 720 and ii, p. 807, and Bright, Notes on Canons of First Four General Councils, on Canons cited). THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 33 and an experience of, the parochial clergy, which gave a touch of unity to the scattered workers, a touch of: tenderness to what can easily become a mere dominion. Sometimes we dwell overmuch upon Medieval abuses as if there had been nought but abuses then, or as if there were no abuses now. But abuses like these in the working of a system capable of so much good left the Church almost powerless and touched its very hfe. It is no wonder, then, if we come to attacks upon the Bishops, such as were made by Wyclif. His words were often violent, and he had little sympathy with Church order of any kind. But when he at tacked Bishops for their secular occupations, when he complained of their neglect of preaching, the duty recognized, above all, as Episcopal, since Bishops had been the earliest missionaries, Wyclif spoke the mind of others as well as of his own. And his words, filtered through his servile copyist Hus, reached German lands, and when they were printed in their new form swelled the outcry of the sixteenth century, and Jed to ultimate disunion. A blemish " in the good estate of the Catholic Church " has the inevitable result that some who " profess and call themselves Christians " fail to " hold the faith in unity of spirit." There is no need to bring further illustrations of what admits of such easy proof : Bishop Brunton, of Rochester, in England, and other preachers in Germany, could even darken the out lines already drawn. " With most Bishops," says a Rhineland chronicle of ihe fifteenth century, " the sword has supplanted the crozier ; bishoprics are sought after chiefly for the sake of the temporal 34 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION power they confer ; spirituahty is now the rarest of qualities in a dignitary of the Church." *• Such was, on one side, the outcome of the Middle Ages, so far as the Episcopate was concerned. But the strength of the ideal survived, and even the experience of evils quickened it into more vigorous hfe. One attempt, at least, was made to readjust the theory to the facts of Hfe, and it was an attempt which has often been misrepresented. Bishop Pecock (of St. Asaph, 1444; of Chichester, 1450) is often spoken of as an apologist for the Bishops. So many inconsistencies are laid to his charge ; it was so strange that the opponent of the Lollards should have been afterwards condemned in company with Wyclif ; that it is difficult to judge his career and his views as a whole. But I think we may say that he held the exercise of reason and the cultiva tion of learning to be of the first importance for clerical hfe. Tradition and precedent he criticized freely, and at times disregarded ; the vulgar en thusiasms of the later Lollards were as distasteful to him as were the punctihous pedantries of his University opponents. Such a man, trying to con struct a practical theory suited to his days, would be tempted to forecast the development he saw taking place before his eyes. It is thus, I think, that he formed his view of the Episcopate. That Bishops were bound to preach, either in their dio ceses or in London (where, as Bishop Brunton said, the people were more intelligent, and where some subjects of every Bishop were to be found), was 1 An unedited anonymous chronicler quoted by Janssen i, p. 697. See also Pastor (English trans.), iii, p. 164. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 35 true. But after all, preaching, merely routine preaching, might be enforced upon them, and yet their duty would still be unfulfilled, their ideal still far from reached. The new movement must be met with sympathy, with enquiry and with teaching in Enghsh. Pecock's method was very different from the method of compulsion and suppression adopted by the Inquisition. For there was another side of a Bishop's work, the organization and supervision, spiritual and ad ministrative, of his whole diocese ; this was a side more difficult to describe, an ideal which could never be overtaken, and it depended largely upon the conditions of the day. This, as I take it, was the side Bishop Pecock meant to present in his vindica tion of Bishops as well as of the clergy generally. He was bound to consider the changing society of the day. Hitherto there had been no really large ' and well-considered attempt to enlarge the idea of a Bishop's work. Preaching was still held the essence of his task, just as it had been in the old mission ary days. In one respect alone had there been any great change, and that was in the growth of the Bishop's jurisdiction, of his duties merely legal and routine. The Middle Ages, struggling to keep all that they had, holding precedent as almost sacred, were peculiarly unfitted to read a larger meaning into older definitions of tasks and spheres of work ; they were apt to lose the spirit in the letter. What was now needed was a race of Bishops who would give, by their hfe and sense of duty, an en larged definition of Episcopacy, a definition, that is, with the power of spiritual growth. Bishop Pecock 36 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION seems to have had the sense that ^something was lacking, and that the mere enforcement of preaching would not, of necessity, supply the lack ; nothing less than the whole care of Christianity in his diocese, in its internal and external relations, was a Bishop's task, and it must be accepted in the widest sense and deepest meaning. Because he denied the efficacy of the remedy oftenest proposed, he was held to cover abuses ; so far as his argument did this, it was misplaced. But he was surely right in stretching the limits of an ideal which might become as per functory and poor as was the practice of the day. Along a path of paradox which led him none the less in the right direction, he moved towards the highest ideal, the consecration of all possible activities in the shepherd of the wandering sheep. There were needed Bishops to do what others had done of old, to follow St. Basil, St. Boniface, St. Anselm, and Grosseteste in fulfilling the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The Episcopate was more than a mere office ; yet it was now being turned into a government, a jurisdiction, or even a sinecure. On the other hand it ought to expand with the grow ing hfe and the accumulating activities of the Church. 1 Thus towards the close of the Middle Ages we 1 On Pecock see his Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (Rolls Series,, ed. Babington) especially ii, p. 617. For the wise way in which he wished to handle the Lollards by hearing them with patience, by speaking and teaching in English, see his Book of Faith (Morison), p. 202 f. See generally E. M. Blackie in English His. Review, xxvi, p. 448. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 37 come to a standstill in the growth of the Episcopate. It was, in the first place, a geographical standstill ; * 1 The Medieval Church suffered from an imperfect control of diocesan schemes. These schemes need to be well thought out and made capable of easy growth. It is owing to this characteristic that the work of Theodore of Tarsus in England, and of Boniface in Germany, in Bavaria, Hesse, Thuringia and in the Frankish kingdom en dured (see Cambridge Medieval History, ii, chap, xvi, B (2). Sometimes provident thoughtfulness was lacking : the happy chance of inheritance from past ages, seen for instance in the numerous sees of the Rhineland, Gallic France and Italy, could not supply its place : in the parts of Europe where missions worked the provision of sees was small and poor. Papal policy, shown in the cautious restriction of bishoprics impressed upon Boniface, royal interests and jealousy felt by existing bishops, all worked to restrict the foundation of new sees. The history of episcopal divisions throughout Europe illustrates more over the difficulty of combining respect for the universal Catholic Church with the independence of local life : this is a real difficulty and it has its Medieval form just as it has a more modern form in the problem of National Churches. But it should not rashly be concluded that anything seeming to work against local life is mere tyranny. Thus, for instance, the process by which the British Churches and their dioceses grew into one with the English, was mainly due to a feeling of Christian unity. (See Cambridge Medieval History, ii, chap, xvi, B (1) and Lloyd, History of Wales, i, p. 202 f.) On the other hand the connexion between the Danish archbishopric of Dublin and Canter bury brought into Ireland external interests and caused divisions, although not to the same extent as was done in the Frankish conquest of the Saxons and the later German colonization of the "North- West. (For the history of the Irish sees see Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, Lectures XVT and XVII ; Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, Lecture XV; the difference between the type 38 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION for there had been since the missionary days httle increase in the number of dioceses, and now the formation of fresh units of national hfe had lessened the coherence between the Church and the peoples it had to train. of the Celtic episcopate and that found elsewhere was probably a matter of later growth than of origin. See Bury, St. Patrick, Appendix, p. 375.) The history of episcopacy in Scotland was complicated by the claims of York, and the hostility between England and Scotland (for the history of the sees, Dowden, The Medieval Church in Scotland, chap, i ; Skene, Celtic Scot land, ii ; A. R. MacEwen, A History of the Church in Scot land, i, chap, x-xiii ; on the islands see " The Scottish Islands in the Diocese of Sodor " in the Stottish Historical Review, April, 1911, by Dr. R. L. Poole). The Orkneys were subject to Trondhjem (as was the Isle of Man) until 1472. The Scots Church had no archbishop until 1472 : this was due to the claims of York ; the position of a peculiar daughter of the Roman Church granted in com pensation might satisfy Scots' dislike of England but did not enlist national feeling on the side of the Church. A list of archbishoprics and bishoprics in Medieval Germany is given in Michael, as above, ii, 1 f., also A. Werminghoff, Verfassungsgeschichte der deutschen Kirche im Mittelalter, p. 45, in Aloys Meister, Grundriss der Ge- schichtswissenschaft. The many anomalies, mixed relations of sees on the borders, and the lack of growth, worked together to enhance the evils of German Church life already spoken of : a German Church as a unity could hardly be spoken of. The political causes which affected the civil life of the nation were at work in the ecclesiastical field also. In France the Crown which maintained the Gallican liberties worked for the unity of the national life. If on the one hand the power of the Crown sometimes meant oppression of the Church it also meant on the other national coherence and strength. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 39 It was, in the second place, a moral standstill, for the inroads of secular needs, of Papal organization and routine jurisdiction had somewhat lowered the ideal of Episcopal hfe, and altogether prevented its enlargement as new ways of work and activity gradually opened up. More and more the Episcopal office was regarded as merely intended to restrain evil, to be mainly coercive ; but not to be a spiritual inspiration, a great force for good. More and more the Bishop's legal jurisdiction (exercised in his courts) was ex alted, and his other duties depressed. The Episco pate, no less than the Papacy, was the plaything of ecclesiastical lawyers, whose tables of money-chang ing defiled the very Temple of the Lord. To these lawyers, spirituahty, as not based upon Decretals nor to be embodied in a process, was distasteful and dangerous. They resembled the Pharisees in their technicahties and. expedients, although they were far removed from their respectabihty. To them and their works was very largely due the light- hearted paganism of the Italian Renaissance ; to them was largely due the hatred with which morally- minded men in unreasoning indignation sometimes regarded the institutions of the Church. To them was largely due the indifference or even dislike with which many of the populace regarded religion. It is a heavy indictment to bring, but it is one which the records of the Middle Ages justify ; it is one which the whole course of the Reformation confirms. To summarize, then, the results of this general survey. The Church, in full possession of the Epis copate, had at the outset worked rather on the hnes 40 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION of the Empire than by the growing shapes of the kingdoms which followed, and with which the future lay. It failed not only here, but also failed later on, through the same tendency, to adapt itself to still younger peoples as they too grew up. We must not forget that the fatal idea of vested interests and existing rights often hindered the planting of new and needed sees. Bishops ceased to be, as they should, centres of activity or sources of inspiration ; they became, even at the best, httle more than re- strainers of evil ; policemen of the civil power within a certain area. The most conscientious sought the help of friars to work unwieldy dioceses, and supply the deficiencies of parish priests. Thus there was, for a time, an access of enthusiasm, and then it died away, leaving the permanent machinery disabled by the substitution of something fitful in its place. And, in a higher sense, Bishops ceased to be links of union between the scattered parts of the Church. Their relations with the Papacy and with their sovereigns alike tended to make them forget this part of their work. We speak rightly, but possibly somewhat too often, and in somewhat too lofty a tone, of the abuses of the Medieval Church. But we often forget how largely those abuses were administrative, and could be removed by administrative reforms, or even by merely giving the administration fair play; If the Church had fallen from its high ideal, the fall was most to be noted in the restriction and weakening of Episcopal power. But the fall was not beyond recovery. The age before the Reformation was marked in many quar- THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 41 ters by an intense outbreak of individual energy and a deep sense of moral earnestness.1 These tenden cies were hkely to make men impatient of moral evils, and to set them seeking for grander ideals. Not the least result of the Revival of Letters was that it turned to the past, and placed old institutions, still living although weakened, in the light of their former days. This result combined with the growing individual energy to suggest a many-sided reform. In that reform, the revival of the Episcopate, based partly upon history, partly upon the renewal of Patristic study, partly upon the sense of practical needs, held a leading place. But there had been many currents of thought in the centuries before, and some of them were strong enough to give varied and distinct directions to the ideas of Church Reform. If these 1 I have tried to trace these movements in my book on The Reformation, Introduction. See also Maurenbrecher, Studien und Skizzen, for Spain. Further evidence is given in Mr. P. S. Allen's excellent Erasmi Epistolae ; in the late Mr. Leach's Schools of Medieval England ; in C. Dejob's La Foi religieuse en Italie en quatorzieme siecle. For the revival in England and the religious condition see Fueter, Religion und Kirche in England im funfzehnten Jahrhundert (Tubingen, 1904) ; in London the bequests to the Dominicans show their efficiency and popular liking of them ; see Rev. Bede Jarrett, O.P., in English His torical Review, xxv, p. 309 ; Raine's collection of wills for the Archdeaconry of Richmond (Yorkshire) for 1442- 1579, and for the diocese of York (1300-1531) both in the Surtees' Society illustrate the love of religion. This feeling worked with the new study of languages, which was the real outcome of mediaeval education, to further religious reform. 42 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION directions seem to us not only perplexing but con tradictory ; if they seem to have multiphed divisions and removed old evils by putting others in their place, we may still remember that " God fulfils Himself in many ways." CHAPTER II WHEN we reach the Reformation with its ef fects up on the Episcopate, some general remarks are needed as an introduction. To begin with, it must be regretted that we have fallen so much into the way of treating the Reforma tion as a purely negative movement, aiming at the removal of abuses. When we do this it seems per fectly natural to find one great result of the Refor mation in large secessions from the Church, and the rise of opinions hostile, not merely to some of its doctrines or their abuse, but to its very existence as a whole. Yet this supposition leaves almost un explained another feature of the Reformation, namely, that it is followed by an immense strengthen ing of spiritual hfe and improvements of organiza tion, which we sum up as the counter-Reformation. History knows no other case of a mere reaction so great and effective. Could a mere reaction, we may ask, have been so great and far-reaching ? But when we go back to the years before the Reforma tion, and study there many smaller movements such as those already noted this doubt becomes more urgent. A whole group of these movements comes before us, each of them with some special object of its own. They are often dismissed as 43 44 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION mere preparations for the Reformation itself. But on the other hand, they bear a striking hkeness to parts of the counter-Reformation, and it is fairly easy to trace the local and personal connexions between them and it. The fact is that the close of the fifteenth century and the be ginning of the sixteenth saw a wave of moral and religious earnestness, of devotion and self-sacrifice, of revived hfe and great ideals, moving over the whole of the West. In the words of Dr. Stubbs : " During the whole of the fourteenth and fifteenth oenturies, there had been an acknowledgment of the need of reformation in the Church, in her practices, and very especially in her discipline." x We have been too often misled by phrases such as " Refor mers before the Reformation " which unduly exalt that great but uncompleted movement. Not only the general public but even scholars find it hard to escape from the tyranny of phrases and the dead hand of the past : many of our views and interpre tations of history have come down to us from a past which did know something of the Reformation, which did admire, as we ought to admire, the heroes of its battles, but which was, on the other hand, comparatively ignorant of the Middle Ages.2 The whole tendency of modern study, however, is to distrust, if not to go further and reject, the idea of sudden movements and isolated dynamic personal- 1 Stubbs, Lectures on European History, p. 65. 2 I have tried to indicate what I hold to be the true view of these things in an Essay published in London Theological Essays, No. VI, " Continuity throughout the Reformation." THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 45 ities. It prefers to search for continuity, to investi gate "origins. Even the great men of history were born from out of their past, indebted to its efforts and moulded by its traditions. It is thus that even antagonists have often something in common, that for instance partizans of Emperors and Popes in the eleventh century have a common background in the canonical movement of the century before ; that Wychf and Pecock ahke belong to a common Scholastic tradition ; that Protestant Reformer and Jesuit were influenced by divergent waves of a common original impulse. These are, it is true, generahzations which controversialists do not wish to understand, but which constantly force them selves upon students of the past : they are able, moreover, to bring something of sympathy and feel ings of fellowship into the battles of theology and the antagonisms of sects. It is, as I have come to know for myself more and more as my ignorance has lessened, under the guidance of these generahza tions we can best study the Reformation. To understand it as it is worth understanding we have to go back to the closing centuries of the Middle Ages and to study there the common origins of the Renaissance, ahke in its academic and its popular, its literary and its theological sides. But the terms Renaissance and Reformation, as we do well to remember, are merely convenient labels either for periods of years or groups of movements : if they are accepted as anything more they are misleading as well as unscientific. The Renaissance, especially when studied along with the Reformation, ought to be viewed as the 46 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATI ON outcome of the Middle Ages and not as a reaction against them. Much modern work has tended to wards this view. The late Mr. A. F. Leach's Schools of Medieval England and other works of his have shown for England the Medieval care for education and methods for imparting it : a whole group of works upon Erasmus, and notably Mr. P. S. Allen'* scholarly edition of his letters, have given us a very different view of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries from that commonly taken. The study of Greek, for instance, as dates alone are enough to prove, was not due to the flight of Greek scholars from Constantinople when it was taken by the Turks (1453), and the foolish fable of its being so ought not to be repeated as it still is. Bessarion stayed in Italy to lecture after the Council of Flor ence (1439). Manuel Chrysoloras had lectured at Florence even earher (1397-1400) and Filelfo lec tured at the same place to some hundreds of people in 1429 : Petrarch, even if he knew but httle Greek, yet shared tastes which led others further ; x our own Grosseteste was a Grecian as well as a Hebraist.2 The decline of Greek scholarship between Grosse teste and the days of Erasmus was perhaps due to a comparative lack of teachers 3 : a knowledge of 1 See Cambridge Modern History, i, pp. 540-44. 2 For his Greek see Luard's edition of his Letters {Rolls Series) Introduction, p. xii ; F. S. Stevenson, Life of Grosse teste, p. 224 f. ; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II, vol. i, p. 76 f. on St. Ignatius : his work on the Dionysian. writings is well-known through Westcott, Seebohm and Lupton. 8 I am indebted for this suggestion to a remark made in another connexion by the great Cambridge scholar, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 47 it is more a matter of capable teachers than of cir cumstances or method : a wish for knowledge joined to diligence could produce Latin, but could not pro duce Greek scholars, and although a few teachers were to be found, they were not, and could not be, common. This lack of languages affected theology which so largely depended upon a knowledge of them : Grosseteste, while Chancellor at Oxford, had ordered the first lectures every morning to be on the Scrip tures,1 and a knowledge of the Bible is a' Medieval characteristic which bridges over the supposed gap between the Middle Ages and the Reformation : the continued influence of the Mystics, and such bodies as the Brethren of the Common Life, are also links between the two periods and proofs of continuity between them. To sum up, just as the Enghsh Reformation itself has been distorted for us by a haze of Puritan influences, so the Middle Ages have been distorted by prejudices which began with the Reformation itself. Erasmus himself can fairly be claimed as the result of Medieval training and ten dencies : his debt to them was immense, and his most modern characteristic was his really modern humour although he shared even that with Aeneas Sylvius (Pius 11 ).2 Prof. H. A. J. Munro ; see his Memoir of E. M. Cope : " Now the light of nature seems capable in favourable circumstances of doing a good deal for Latin ; but in the case of Greek it fosters often the conceit of knowledge but rarely indeed can impart the knowledge itself." 1 See his Letters, as above, p. 347. 2 Much to the point will be found in Imbart de la Tour : Les Origines de la Riforme (vol. ii : La Crise et la Renais- 48 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION This movement hurled itself against the abuses which it saw around it. Some^men who felt its force could see only the abuses, and because of them, threw over the truths those abuses had so long over laid. These men, badly met and badly handled, became opponents of the Church, to their loss and to its disgrace. But, on the other hand, much of the strength of the movement went on its proper course, and gave itself to strengthening the Church. Controversies, struggles, errors, and imperfections often checked its work. But in the end the Church stood out strengthened, though scarred by the strife of the counter-Reformation. Both the Protestant Reformation and the counter-Reformation are best regarded as descendants of this earher and wider movement, beginning in no mere attack upon the Church, in no mere negative outcry against abuses, but in a deep and positive revival of religious hfe. In that Revival a renewal of the Episcopate took a leading place. When the Council of Constance (1414) met,1 the sance, especially Books II and III, L'humanisme ChrMieri) ; in Humbert, Les origines de la ThSologie moderne, i ; La Renaissance et I'AntiquiU chrHienne (1450-152 ) especially c. i ; in a quite modern book, G. V. Jourdain, The Move ment towards Catholic Reform in the Early Sixteenth Cen tury ; in a much older work, Ullmann's Reformers before the Reformation ; in Ritschl, History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, vol. i (in English) ; in Dr. M. R. James's chapter xvii in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. 1 On the Council of Constance see Creighton, Popes, I, Bk. II, Hefele-Leclercq, Les Conciles, vii, Pt. I (the new French translation with admirable notes although less THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 49 idea of a revived Episcopate, freed from the repres sion of Papal rule and purified from its own abuses, had been eagerly caught up. And so far as the schemes of the Council were accomplished, this restoration of Episcopacy was one result. Moreover the supremacy of General Councils, as against Papal headship, implied union through the Episcopate, and therefore the freedom of Episcopal power. When men considered the Church as a working united society, they were forced back upon its general constitution and hence the Episcopate came to its own. Of equal importance were the provision for frequent meetings of General Councils,1 and the further decree (in 1533) of the Council of Basel that Diocesan Synods should meet often. This new activity of the Church is iUustrated by the whole career of Nicholas of Cusa,2 and towards the close of the fifteenth century Synods began to be once more regularly held.3 That these reforms did no more is partly due to political causes, partly due to the conclusion of Concordats between the Papacy and the Sovereigns which fettered the national useful here than for earlier centuries). Especially see Figgis in Our Place in Christendom, p. 75 f., and From Gerson to Grotius, p. 35 f. Also J. H. Wylie, The Council of Constance to the death of John Hus. 1 By the decree Frequens, see Mirbt, Quellen zur Ge- schichte des Papsttums (2nd edn.), p. 155. 2 For Nicholas of Cusa (Cues) see note on Bishoprics before, p. 23, and Cambridge Modern History, I, 629. 3 It should be noted that not only is this the case but similar assemblies were called by Zwinglians and Lutherans, especially the former. D . 50 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Churches.1 Reform was not yet "complete, but the path it should travel had been shown. Before we speak of the effects of the Western Reformation it is well to turn aside^for a moment to the Eastern Church. We lose a great deal by so often hmiting ourselves to the West : there may be those to whom this limitation is highly convenient, but the sympathies of Enghsh Cathohcs, at any rate, have always gone out warmly to our sister Church, linked to us by ties of primitive days and modern independence, endeared to us by intercourse from the days of Archbishop Abbott to those of Archbishop Benson. The East, at this time, shared the impulses of the West. As the Western nations had already grown strong, so in the East, Russia was feehng her strength, and therefore began a national extension of ecclesiastical organization. Moscow became the seat of a new Patriarchate, not an additional one, it was said, but a substitute for the Patriarchate of Rome which to Eastern eyes had departed from the Faith. Thus there was organized a National Church, in close connexion with the growing national hfe, but also in fullest touch with the ancient Patriarchates of the East. And in the middle of the seventeenth century, after the great Patriarch Nikon a had attempted a great 1 The English Concordat is printed in Wilkins, Con cilia, iii, p. 391, summarized in Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England, p. 45. For the German Concordat see Gieseler, iv, p. 302. See Creighton, Popes, I, pp. 406-7 and Appendix, pp. 450-51. 2 On Nikon see Nisbet Bain (whose untimely death was a loss to England which we can now appreciate). The First Romanovs (London, 1905), p. 126 f., and Slavonic THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 51 Reformation in varied branches, a work akin to that undertaken in England by Laud, a further in crease and enlargement of the Episcopate followed. No other country shows equal vitahty of this kind, and the impulse thus given to Christianity in Russia continued its effect even after it had been largely counteracted by the supremacy of the Crown. The strength of that impulse made Russia the ecclesias tical leader of the East, a conservative power for good, the merits of whose deeds even the surrounding barbarism cannot wholly conceal.1 Nikon was a great ecclesiastic, who after a youth of hardships overcome with bravery, became sixth patriarch of Moscow in 1652, under the Tsar Alexis. There was disorder of all kinds, and the need for re form was deeply felt in many parts of Church-life. The revision of the service books because of their textual corruption was needed in the East as it was in the West,where reformers often combined it with a wish for edification. In undertaking this task Nikon met fierce opposition from enemies who mis took late traditions for primitive custom. Even more wide-reaching however were his reforms in Europe (Cambridge History Series) p. 263 f., also Rambaud, Histoire de la Russie, p. 332 f. Moscow had been made the seat of a Patriarchate in 1305. For the organization of the Russian Church see Blackmore's translation of Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia, pp. 130 and 370 ; for the additions after Nikon, p. 234 ; three arch-sees were made, some old dioceses restored and some new ones created. Generally see The Russian Church, published for the Anglican and Eastern Association by the S.P.C K., 1 91 5, and the writings of the late Mr. Walter Birkbeck. 1 I am glad to think that I wrote these words in 1906. 52 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION organization and administration, a work which was embittered by the factions against him and by harshness on his part. Fresh enemies were raised up for him, his friend the Tsar was turned against him, and in the end he himself was degraded (1666), although his reforms remained. But in spite of some mistakes he was a reformer on a large scale, with a lofty ideal oj the Church's independence and mission. Even after the breach between him and the Tsar, and still more so before, one characteristic of Eastern Christianity can be noted : the fellow ship of the spiritual and secular administrators in care for the Church. The Western mind, so apt to take its own experiences for principles and its local policy as final, too often dismisses the deference shown to the Tsar and the place given to him by the Church as " Erastianism." This hides the facts of history and is not even explanatory. If we even go a step further and call it " Byzantinism " we do, at any rate, recognize that the Russian Church had a precedent for the attitude it took up : the Tsar took the place, as he inherited the responsibilities, of the Emperors at Constantinople. But, as much earher history shows us, loyalty was given to the early Emperors even more as guardians of the Church than as rulers of the State, and in the second place the view of Church and State held in the West since the Reformation was preceded in Medieval times by a very different view. In that earher view all society was one ; it was organized, for the service of God and the welfare of man, as a coherent whole, inside of which the twin sets of officers in Church and State had their separate duties and THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 53 fields of work. This was the conception which both East and West inherited, but which the latter lost and the former kept. If Medieval rulers in the West always, and Reformation rulers fitfully, show what we call Byzantine tendencies anent interference with the Church, it was because they were still beneath the power of this earher concep tion. In the larger sphere of £hurch and State, as in the smaller sphere of a country parish such a system is theoretically sound and practically benefi cial to the community. King and patriarch or prelate, country squire and parson can work together in a fellowship which may be hard to analyze, which may be impossible under strained relations, although under better conditions wholly useful and truly Christian. Both spiritually and geographically Russian Christianity showed a power to adapt itself to new and changing conditions, while still keeping up the ancient system. Our judgment of Eastern Chris tianity is often severe, and we forget its circum stances. The East in the sixteenth century was as the West had been in the eighth : clouds of barbarism mingled with splendid hghts of leadership : their very kings, Ivan the Terrible, for example, passed fitfully hke an early Frankish king from barbarian violence to monastic severity. But the positive achievements of the Reformation Age are nowhere better seen than in Russia. Activity in Biblical study, an enlarged standard of clerical hfe and work, provision of Catechisms for popular instruc tion, greater frequency of Synods, a richness in mis sionary effort, all these sprang from the Russian 54 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Revival : the later attempts of the West to force upon the East its own unhappy divisions of Luther ans, Calvinists, and Roman Cathohcs, merely dis turbed but did not hinder the progress made. This tendency on the part of the West, unable then as always tp understand the East, is illustrated by the stormy career of Cyril Lucar,1 who was affected by Lutheranism and the movements of the West : European theologians tried to use him for the spreading" of their views. We are overmuch inclined to forget that the Reformation as we know it was a purely Western movement : hence has arisen much of our modern controversies on the needs of the Mission field and the constitution of the Church. But the Reformation was an experience uniquely Western and it is by no means necessary that all people should be forced to undergo its ex periences. In the East, however, we can see causes at work, the operation of which in the West is hidden among more striking scenes, but we must not forget their existence in the West as in the East. There was a positive revival going on both in East and West which preceded the Reformation troubles. In one Western country that Church revival can be easily traced, and its effects noted, although social and pohtical causes prevented its continued work. That country was Spain. In spite of the efforts of the Papacy to gain control over the local 1 See for Cyril Lucar, Adeney, Greek and Eastern Churches, p. 314 f., although I must take a very different view of Cyril's work and significance from that taken by Dr. Adeney ; Neale's Patriarchate of Alexandria, ii, p. 375 ; Whitney, Reformation, p. 416 f. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 55 Church, efforts indicated by the spread of the Roman Liturgy, the Church in Spain had kept much of its national coherence and consequent powers of work.1 An unquestioning recognition of the spiritual claims of the Papacy is found along with a sense of national independence and a close co-operation with the royal power. The Crown practically appointed to the bishoprics : a right of suggesting names under Ferdinand and Isabella being turned into one of nomination under Charles. Able and pious men were appointed, and through these royal Bishops the work of reform was carried on. But, says Mauren- brecher,2 in this movement there was no innova tion : it was merely the full restoration of the old state of the Church's working. Thus at the close of the fifteenth century it is not surprising to find Spain ahead of other countries in regard to spiritual zeal and Christian hfe. That it was so was largely due to Cardinal Ximenes, under whom piety and learning were equally fostered, but always under Episcopal leadership. No new machinery was in troduced, with the exception of the Inquisition, and that, where not a political agency, strength ened the hands of the Bishops in gaining their ends. Here again it is needless to dwell upon details, but the Spanish Revival, thoroughly conservative in 1 See Our Place in Christendom, p. 56. 2 Maurenbrecher, Studien und Skizzen, i and ii. On Spain generally see Stubbs, Lectures on European History, p. 13 f. and Burke, History of Spain, II, chap, xl (on the Inquisition) and elsewhere. Philippson (as in next note). For Ximenes, Burke, History of Spain, II, chaps, xlvii, li, lii and lviii. 56 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION its spirit, illustrates the power of the Church to reform itself, the gain in efficiency due to the Church's spirit working upon a definite national area. It is true that a httle later Spain shows great intolerance of tone and narrowness of view : its early promise soon passes away. So far as the Inquisition was to blame for this, the blame should be shifted to the State, whose servant the Inquisi tion really was, but the causes of the general decay must be sought upon the social, economic, and pohtical side rather than upon the ecclesiastical. The spiritual energy of a Loyola, the spiritual beauty of a St. Teresa, are outcomes of this Revival. A further result will meet us when at Trent we see the Spanish Bishops standing for a reform that was ancient in its type, and also standing for an Episcopate with an authority of its own, not a mere delegation of Papal power. England, in its ecclesiastical as in its constitu tional hfe, has great likeness to Spain. The part played by the Enghsh Bishops, Hallam and Uller- ston at Constance, had been striking : their per sonal character worked along with the power of England to give them influence. In a purely nega tive way, by protest and by enactments, which were not thoroughly effective, no country did more than England to keep the ecclesiastical organization un trammelled and therefore free to work. It is true 1 This was a result of the anti-Papal Legislation ; see Stubbs, Const. Hist. Ill, c. xix, the English legislation against heresy, giving a share to the Bishops and to the sheriffs, avoided the methods of the Inquisition which interfered with episcopal control. On the Inquisition see THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 57 that protests against evils are easy to make, and their mere utterance is often held an excuse for further inactivity. But Archbishops Morton and Warham had high conceptions of their power ; under them ecclesiastical visitations x regained something of their importance and were even ex tended to the exempt monasteries, which, by their very isolation, had become a cause of weakness to the Church. In England, as in Spain, the Epis copal leaders, notably Fisher, took their rightful place in the Revival of Learning, and hence in these two countries the rehgious side of that Revival was most to be seen. In Germany it was educational, in Italy it was artistic and literary ; but here and in Spain it was above all rehgious, turning to Biblical and Patristic study, and seeking of its own accord to influence the moral and religious hfe.2 Bishop Fisher, a type of the fifteenth century at its best, inspired the foundation of Christ's College and of St. John's : his aims were primarily rehgious. The Lady Margaret Professorship, which, followed by Erasmus (1511), he held was meant to train men in pastoral work. If he was a patron of learn ing it was religious learning he valued most. The Philippson, Le Contre-RSvolution religieuse, Bk. II and Burke's History of Spain, ii, p. 40. Lea, Hist. Inq. ii. 163. 1 See Gairdner, Lollardy and Reformation in England, i, p. 269 f. Generally see Frere, Visitation Articles, i. 2 The religious aims of Henry VI in founding King's College, and the many-sided activity of Bishop Fisher (Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge ; vol. i) may be instanced. 58 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION influence which spread from him at Cambridge was felt among his fellow bishops and in his diocese as well. The general attitude of the Episcopate, its zeal in Synods, and the rising standard of Epis copal administrations, warrants us in assigning something of this great result to the existence of a coherent Episcopal body. For in England and in Spain, the Episcopate had both a coherence of its own and a close connexion with the national hfe, features to be found nowhere else in Europe except (as we noted) in Russia, which ecclesiastically, however, belongs rather to the East than to the West. In Spain the growth of this movement, beginning in the Church itself, originated (as all Church move ments should be) by the Church itself, had gone on unchecked. The Crown was strong enough to pro tect it from Papal interference, which was so often a cause of irritation and had httle moral influence : and the Crown, whether under Ferdin and or Charles, was happily governed by rehgious zeal. But in England the course of this indepen dent Reformation was checked by royal tyranny and the turn of events. Not until the turmoil of the Reformation was over, and the Restoration accomphshed, did this earher movement resume its sway. But there is one fact significant and not to be overlooked. Neither in England nor in Spain did the local Church get any help from the Papacy in attempting this great work. The Papacy was too closely in alliance with the Crown as against the Church, it was too much intent upon its|own pohtical objects, it really cared httle' for reform at THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 59 all, and it cared nothing for a reform begun by a National Church in its own independent zeal. The fact was that there had been in the Middle Ages an increasing centralization of Church ad ministration, of which Rome was the natural seat.1 The details multiphed and the business grew. Apart from mere abuses, the staff was insufficient, the management was unequal to the work placed upon it. Attacks upon abuses should be carefully dis tinguished from attacks upon this centralizing tend ency, for the abuses represented a phase, but the centralization represented a principle. This merely administrative function of the Papacy has a great importance of its own ; it touched on the one side far-reaching principles, and on the other more in significant details. It was, moreover, without ques tion, a purely Medieval growth, and it was one great cause of the Reformation. As an illustration of much I have said, Dean Colet's well-known sermon to Convocation in 1512 deserves some notice. It is often quoted as a proof of abuses, and for its bold denunciation of them. But it was something more than this, and it deserves mention even more for its strong con structive pohcy. He recognized the evils that existed, and he pleaded with the Bishops above all, to put them down. For that great and needed work he urged that the ordinary resources of the church were sufficient. It is so much easier to demand fresh legislation than to use existing ma chinery, and the Reformation yielded so greatly 1 See Our Place in Christendom, p. 59 f. 60 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION to this temptation, that Dean Colet's view needs some notice.1 Against the common opinion of the day he in sists that a prelacy in the Church is nothing but a ministration ; that a high dignity in an ecclesias tical person is nothing but a meek service. Ad dressing Covetousness personified, the cause of so much evil, he exclaims, " Of thee comes so much suing of tithes, for mortuaries. ... Of thee the corruption of Courts, and these daily new inven tions, whereby the poor silly people are so vexed. Of thee the wantonness of officials. ... Of thee the fervent studie of Ordinaries to enlarge their jurisdiction. Of thee comes this peevish and raging contention in Ordinaries. ' ' And he concludes that by pride, concupiscence, covetousness and secular occu pations Bishops and clergy are over much conformed to the world. The evils here touched upon had certainly caused great discontent: the disrepute brought upon the Church by its Courts and its law yers had greatly disposed the Enghsh people to wards suffering their King to humiliate their Church. Popular expression and later legislation show that Colet was right in condemning these evils, not only as being opposed to the spirit andworking of Chris tianity, but also as alienating the people from rehgion itself. What is the remedy whereby clergy and Bishops are to be transformed to the renewing of their mind ? Colet's answer is definite and firm : " Not to make new laws . . . there be already laws 1 For this sermon see Knight's Colet, p. 273, where an early English translation is also given. Also Lupton's Colet. A separate version by Smith (1661). THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 61 enough, if not too many. There is no fault com mitted among us for which our forefathers have not provided very good remedies. There are no trespasses but there be remedies against them in the Body of the Canon Law." The Laws and Constitu tions which are made already should be put in exe cution and weU kept. And then he shows this to be the case by going in detail through the reforms most needed. Especially should the Canon enjoining the canonical election of Bishops after invocation of the Holy Ghost be observed : neglect of this has resulted in a race of Bishops devoid of spirituality. Bishops should be forced to reside in their dioceses, and the corruptions of their jurisdictions should be re strained. Above all things, Councils, both General and Provincial, should be duly celebrated, for their omission has been most hurtful to the Church of Christ. Then when these laws were put into execu tion, and the Bishops must be the leaders in such a work both by example and action, the clergy could begin to reform the laity. It will be noticed how closely Colet's ideal corresponds to that actually worked out in Spain : there, no less than as Colet wished to see it done in England, was reform founded upon learning, Bibhcal and theological. These wishes and ideas were pecu liar to no special land, they were the common pro perty of earnest men everywhere. But how was it that while in Spain this programme of reform was carried out, in England it seems to have remained untouched ? We should remember, however, that on the eve of Henry VIII's attack upon the Church, Convocation (1532) had drawn up a scheme of 62 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION reform * exactly in the spirit of Colet : Bishops were to be strict in visitations ; a high standard of clerical vocation, and clerical residence was to be insisted upon ; Episcopal officials were to be re strained in their fees ; teaching and preaching were to be better provided for ; clerical offenders were to be strictly punished. But this reform of the Church by itself was checked by the King's proceedings : the ends it was hoped to reach were not gained. It may be said that lay legislation has in no case been able to do for the Church what the Church can do for itself. Restraints and restrictions, admirably suited for the repression of vice and crime, are rarely effective in securing spiritual efficiency. But the scheme of reform thus indicated was not dead ; it reappeared under Cardinal Pole's Archbishopric ; it was expounded by him to Convocation generally, and at full length to the Pope ; it included the duties of Bishops as to preaching, non-residence, care in Ordinations, reform of Chapters (1554) ; teaching was to be improved by diocesan seminar ies.2 But unfortunately Pole, with his usual in effectiveness in action, let the scheme lapse time after time, and nothing came of it in the end. Had it been otherwise, England would have anticipated the best results of Trent. Some of the features in Colet's sermon came up again in Cranmer's projected Reformatio Legum ; others, with or without special legislation, were 1 See Dixon, History of the Church of England, i, p. 87 ; correction of the date in Wilkins given in note. 2 See Dixon, iv, p. 460 f., Whitney, Reformation, P- 357- THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 63 gradually carried out under Ehzabeth. Incident ally it may be noted that much modern criticism adverse to the Bishops of her reign forgets that the conditions of her day were more those of previous reigns than of our time, and that improvement must be always gradual. It is noteworthy, how ever, that these schemes should have appeared so persistently. It shows the Church's wish, and what it would have done for itself had not outside forces and pohtical circumstances hindered it. But in England, as in Spain, no help was given to this movement for reform by the Papacy. Here once more it neglected opportunities richly given, and avoided responsibihties placed upon it by its posi tion and claimed by it as belonging to its alleged divine institution. We must now turn to Germany, a country which to most people stands pecuharly for the Reforma tion. Here the ordinary abuses were felt as they were elsewhere. From the middle of the fifteenth Century up to the Council of Trent complaints, em bodied in the so-called Centum Gravamina,1 had presented German grievances. Strictly speaking, the ordinary evils of clerical hfe at the time, which should have been dealt with by efficient Episcopal control, formed part of the complaint ; others con cerned the relations between the Curia and Ger many. The comparative freedom of France and England, secured by Concordats, had thrown the burden of Papal headship, and especially its taxa tion, mainly upon Germany ; hence arose not only 1 In Brown's Fasciculus i, p. 352. See Cambridge Modern History, i, p. 690. 64 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION great discontent, but also a great dislocation of ecclesiastical machinery. And there were other evils peculiar to Germany. Nowhere were Chapters more corrupt and evil : nowhere were they regarded so openly as provisions for younger sons of nobles.1 Hence instead of being centres of spiritual hfe, cathedrals were too often sources of evil. Bishoprics were treated in the same way, only they were kept in the princely families. Pluralities were common : Consecration or even Ordination was long postponed by elected Bishops. Consequently, as a working power the Episcopate was in many parts almost useless : it was generally without spiritual intention. When at length a revival came, beginning early in the six teenth century, it scarcely affected the North. Thus it may be said that the Episcopate was more closely connected with the princely families than with the national hfe, and that it worked as they did, more for disunion than for union. In two other countries, much affected by Cal vinism, the Episcopate had not grown with the nation's growth. In Switzerland, where the growth of the nation had been almost accidental, ecclesias tical unity was weak ; the five Swiss dioceses were divided between three provinces, with centres in other lands. In the Netherlands things were much the same ; the dioceses were mixed with foreign territory, and the Archbishops in them were also 1 See Stubbs, Lectures on European History, p. 63, on the deeply-rooted evils ; the ecclesiastical states were well governed, but "religiously regarded the system has hardly a redeeming feature." THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 65 foreign.1 There was no rehgious coherence, no sufficient provision for control. Charles V, who wished to give a coherent ecclesiastical unity to the country, and Phihp II proposed to supply these defects, and the proposal, for various reasons, became one cause of the great Revolt.2 These special blemishes are to be found in coun tries which showed the greatest dislike to Church order and the ancient system, in countries where Episcopacy was afterwards most thoroughly thrown . aside. Was such a result to be wondered at ? Was it hkely that a Church, weakly organized, weighed down ahke by the greatness of its duties and by a feehng of its unfitness, could cope with a crisis or control a flood ? To say this is not to make an apology, but to state a fact.^l There will always arise, from time to time, great movements full of force, for good if properly directed, for evil if left uncon trolled. To control them, to utihze them for the work of Christ, is the Church's task. To consider the opportunities for doing this, to devise machinery for it, is the special task of Bishops, the leaders of the Church. And it is here that the Episcopate, 1 In Switzerland, Constance and Chur (Coire) were under Mainz ; Basle and Lausanne under Besancon : Sitten (Sion) under Tarantaise until exempted by Leo X. For the Netherlands see Whitney, Reformation, p. 376. 2 See Armstrong's Charles V, ii, p. 336 1, Cambridge Modern History, hi, p. 186. Also Pastor, vi (German edn.), pp. 550-52 and Kidd, Documents of the Continental Reformation, p. 684, where a letter from the Venetian ambassador illustrates the need for an increase of Bishops and the difficulty of providing it owing to existing Papal and Episcopal interests. E 66 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION sometimes from its defective organization, some times from its personal weakness, has so often failed; here, on the other hand, it has often tri umphed gloriously, and saved the world. It has brought to the possible hcence of the present the restraining power of the past. Here is the test, then, which we instinctively apply to it and to its individual members. We call them great when they rise to this their special powers : Souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic and good, Helpers and friends of mankind, Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march On, to the City of God. (Rugby Chapel.) It is then, I think, not an accident that the dis ruptive force of the Reformation was greatest where the Episcopate was most corrupt or inefficient and least connected with the national hfe. We may note the words of Dr. Stubbs who wrote :1 "I hope you will not ascribe it to mere professional zeal, if 1 See Lectures on Modern European History, p. 33! This book with its masterly grasp of European history as a whole during the Reformation period, with its skill in analyzing forces and depicting characters would by itself have made the reputation of a lesser historian. In this field of narrative history he is as much at home as in tracing the growth of the Enghsh constitution. His Ordination Addresses show him as a pastor of deep spirituahty and power. His mastery of the Middle Ages and his insight into the working of its institutions, seen in his prefaces to the Rolls Series as well as in his Constitutional History, trained him to face modern problems. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 67 I say that one of the great openings for the Reform ation was made by the absence in some countries of Europe of adequate episcopal superintendence. It may have been quite one of the subordinate causes, but you will find it the rule : where the dioceses are large and the bishops few and powerful, there their temptation to secular business is the greater, the machinery of the Church is found to be loose and ill-adjusted, rehgion hfeless ; and conse quently, whether you regard the Reformation as a good or as an evil, the way for renunciation of the dominant rehgion is opened." He then goes on to speak of the confused ecclesiastical organization of the Netherlands. There as in Switzerland the bond of national hfe was not made stronger by a coherent and connected ecclesiastical unity. Both the Zwinglian movement and Calvinism were ecclesiastically more revolutionary than was Lutheranism. The Reformation at Zurich,1 in deed, took a special form, a revolt of a town against its Bishop who lived in a neighbouring city, Con stance. On the negative side this was, as Ranke pointed out long ago, its special characteristic, while other features were due to its working in a democratic city-state. At Geneva, too, rehgious change was comphcated by struggles against the Bishop ; the renunciation of his authority was the beginning of the Reformation. Luther again, friar as he was, with a monastic training, had no special regard for an episcopal authority and guidance to which, indeed, he owed but httle. Yet he was not re volutionary from mere wantonness, and it is possible 1 See Cambridge Modern History, II, chap. x. 68 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION that had the Episcopate presented itself to him in a worthier moral and Spiritual guise, the story of the German Reformation might have been other than it was. Had there been in the Church a moral leader ship such as he found in Staupitz, whom he followed so well ; had there been in it a coherent organization such as that of the State, to which he kept so closely, his outlook might have been far other than it was. The Augsburg Confession speaks of Bishops in a guarded and moderate tone.1 After stating that 1 The document itself in Kidd, Documents of the Con tinental Reformation, p. 259, and in Schaff, The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, p. 3, Pt. I, art. 22. " Concerning ecclesiastical government they teach that no man should publicly in the Church teach or administer the Sacraments, except he be rightly called." Part II, art. 7, " There have been great controversies touching the power of Bishops ; in which many have inconveniently mixed together ecclesiastical power and the power of the sword. . . . Now their judgment (i.e. that of godly and learned men) is this, that the power of the keys, or the power of Bishops, according to the Gospel, is a power or command of God of preaching the Gospel, of remitting or retaining sins and of administering the Sacraments. For Christ sends His apostles with this command, etc." . . . If so be that the Bishops have any power of the sword, this they have not as Bishops by the command of the Gospel but by man's law given by kings and emperors for the civil administration of their goods. . . . When, there fore, it is inquired of concerning the jurisdiction of Bishops; government (imperiutm) must be distinguished from ecclesi astical jurisdiction. Further, according to the Gospel, or as they say of divine right, no jurisdiction belongs (corn- petit) to Bishops as Bishops, that is, as those to whom is committed the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, save to remit sins, also to discern doctrine, and to reject doctrine discordant from the Gospel and to shut out from THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 69 the ecclesiastical power, and the power of the sword, have been inconveniently confused, it goes on : " Now our judgment is this : that the power of the keys, or the power of the Bishops, by the rule of the Gospel is a power or commandment from God, of preaching the Gospel, of remitting and retaining sins, and of administering the Sacraments. But if Bishops have any power of the swotd, they have it, not as Bishops, by command of the Gospels, but as a gift from human law." It is true the Confession the communion of the Church ungodly men whose impiety is known, without human force but by the Word. And herein of necessity and by divine right the Churches ought to render them obedience according to that (saying), ' He who heareth you heareth Me.' " But when they teach or determine anything against the Gospel then the Churches have a command from God which forbids obedience," etc. (Matt. vii. 15 ; Gal. i. 8, etc., and quoting St. Augustine). " Besides these things there is a question whether Bishops or Pastors have the authority to institute cere monies in the Church, and to lay down laws anent foods and holidays, degrees or orders of ministers, etc. Those who ascribe this power to the Bishops allege the testimony, / have yet, etc. (John xvi. 12, 13). They allege also . . . (Acts xv. 29). They allege the change of the Sabbath into the Lord's Day against the Decalogue as it seems. They assert the power of the Church to be great because it has dispensed from a precept of the Decalogue." " But of this question one side teaches this : that the Bishops have not the power of determining anything against the Gospel, as was shown above ; the same thing do teach the Canons, Dist. 9, etc." "It remaineth, therefore, since ordinances instituted as necessary or with the opinion of meriting grace are repug nant to the Gospel, that it is lawful for any Bishops to institute or demand such laws. For it is necessary that 70 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION goes on further to say (in words reminding us of Wiclifs doctrine of " dominion founded on grace ") that when Bishops order anything contrary to the Gospel, Christians have a command to disobey them. It also places upon this same limit the right claimed for Bishops of instituting ceremonies. But after all these considerations, the upshot is that " The Bishops might easily retain lawful obedience if they would not press the keeping of traditions which cannot be kept with good conscience. Our endeavour is not that the domination of Bishops should be removed, but we seek the one thing that they would suffer the Gospel to be taught purely, and relax some few observances which cannot be kept without sin." Here there is, of course, that appeal to individual conscience, as opposed to Church authority, which played so vital a part at the Re formation. There are also many criticisms which might be made upon the language and the special the doctrine concerning Christian liberty be maintained in the Churches, etc." [Matters coming under these heads are discussed at length. \ ' ' The Bishops might easily retain lawful obedience, if they would not urge men to keep such traditions as are not able to be kept with a good conscience." '¦' Peter (i Pet. v. 3) forbids Bishops to lord it and to give command to the Churches. Now it is not urged (non id agitur) that rule should be taken from the Bishops, but that this one thing should be demanded : that they suffer the Gospel to be taught purely, and relax a certain few observances which cannot be kept without sin. But if they will remit none, let them see in what way they will give account to God in that by their pertinacity they give cause of schism." The English translation here given is, with some verbal changes, that of Schaff . THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 71 expressions used. But the paradox was true then as it is now : the individual conscience at its best and the Church's command at its best should never be opposed and it is an evil thing when they seem to conflict. Were the Church within its rights, and were the individual conscience well in structed (which as England has lately learnt to its cost, consciences not always are) conflict could not well arise. But after all these drawbacks are made, the Confession does not take up a hostile attitude towards the Episcopate, as some later Confessions did. Luther's view in his Address to the Nobility is guarded, especially for such a vehement writer. He says : " It should be decreed by an imperial law, that no episcopal palhum, and no confirmation of any appointment shall for the future be obtained from Rome. The order of the most holy and re nowned Nicene Council must again be restored, namely, that a Bishop must be confirmed by the two nearest Bishops, or by the Archbishops. If the Pope cancels the decrees of these and all other councils, what is the good of councils at all ? Who has given him the right thus to despise councils and to cancel them. If this is allowed, we had better abolish all Bishops, Archbishops and Primates, and make simple rectors of them all, so that they would have the Pope alone over them ; as is indeed the case now ; he deprives Bishops, Archbishops and Primates of all the authority of their office, taking everything to himself, and leaving them only the name and the empty title ; more than this, by his exemption he has withdrawn convents, abbots and prelates from 72 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION the ordinary authority of the Bishops, so that there remains no order in Christendom. The necessary result of this must be, and has been, laxity in punish ing, and such a hberty to do evil in all the world, that I very much fear one might call the Pope " the man of sin." Who but the Pope is to blame for this absence of all order, of all punishment, of all govern ment, of all discipline in Christendom ? By his own arbitrary power he ties the hands of all his prelates, and takes from them their rods, while all their subjects have their hands unloosed, and obtain hcence by gift or purchase." He goes on to suggest that on matters which cannot be settled by the local Bishops and Archbishops, there should be an appeal to the Pope, while a national Consistory for Germany should exercise jurisdiction, giving their due weight to the temporal authorities. To sum up he hopes so " to help the German nation to become a free people of Christians."1 Some of his language is more violent than was needed for his proposals, but this was the standpoint of his Primary Works (Aug. 1520). As justification for this picture of deeply rooted evils Luther could have quoted many who were never on his side, and one of the most learned of later Germans, Dolhnger, puts the matter much in the same way. " And the German Church ? Where was it then, and how did it help itself? The Germans had still indeed a 1 To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation respect ing the reformation of the Christian Estate, iii, 3 f . I quote the translation in Wace and Buchheim : Luther's Primary Works, p. 45 f . (with the verbal correction of pallium for cloak). THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 73 pohtical unity : the Empire, with the Emperor and the Imperial Diet ; and they had Bishops and dioceses. But there was wanting a higher organiza tion of common hfe : in a word, a German national Church. For centuries no German council had been held, nor anything done to remedy even the grossest and most crying abuses. In truth, such a Council was hardly possible, and it is a significant fact that during the whole forty years of the Reformation contest, neither the German Episcopate nor even any considerable portion of it, made a single attempt to take counsel in Synod on the rehgious situation and the common measures to be adopted. There is scarcely a parallel case in all Church history, but it is explained by their conscious impotence. For since the dismemberment of the entire Church system through the Popes, the German Church lay on the ground hke a helpless and motionless giant with fettered limbs."1 It is true that Luther was not always consistent, and in his scheme of organization he discarded Bishops. But he regarded his Visitors as substitutes for them. In his preface to Melanchthom's Instruc tions for them he said : " Now since by Divine mercy the hght of the Gospel is restored, and that disgraceful confusion of the Christian Church is stayed, we have wished indeed to bring back that true office of Bishops and Visitation : but since no 1 Dollinger, Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches, delivered in 1872, translated by Oxenham, pp. 68-9. Bp. Hall (Episcopacy by Divine Right, Introduction, Sect. Ill) is excellent on the Lutheran attitude towards Episcopacy. He hoped (1637) for their adoption of it. 74 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION one of us was called or ordered to undertake so great a work we have humbly sought from the Serene Elector John," to undertake the work and send fit men to discharge it a (1527) ; and in the preface to his Short Catechism 2 he spoke of the neglect on the part of the Bishops in discharging the duty for which they had been appointed. But on the other hand in fairness we should bear in mind the changes and disorders for which Luther him self was largely responsible (" There is no fear of God, no more discipline since the papal ban has gone, and every one does what he lists," is the way he himself puts it in his letter to the Elector), although the covetousness of the rulers had helped. But the upshot is that the Lutheran movement was not a reaction against a good episcopal system soundly worked. It began when that system, through causes we have already noted, was weak and inef fective. There were, moreover, in Germany those who hke Colet in England, pleaded for the restora tion of full episcopal authority as a better way than revolution. Melanchthon,- who was widely criti cized in his day as afterwards for his so-called weak ness, which was often only moderation, understood the meaning of the Episcopate, and felt its loss much more than did Luther. But Luther himself 1 Extracts from the Preface and Instructions in Kidd's Documents, p. 202 f. See also McGiffert's Martin Luther, PP- 3"-3i2- Also Vetter, Reformation in Germany, p. 276 f. 2 See Kidd, p. 206 f. Extracts are given from the letter to the elector in Vetter, p. 276. The date is Novem ber 22, 1526. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 75 was, sometimes at any rate, prepared to admit Bishops as restraints, and to his friend and colleague Arnsdorf he spoke significantly of his visitors as being " all Bishops." But the use of the expression was in itself a testimony to that disregard of the Church's traditions and past which was one of his great characteristics. When we turn to Melanchthon, who was in many ways a conservative force, we find he would have hked to see something hke episcopal rule. In the cities the civil power of the Bishops had brought upon them enmity and dislike : the magnificence and civil importance of the German Prince-Bishops had been bought at a heavy cost to the Church. Melanchthon noted, too, the wish of the cities for freedom from episcopal lordship ; to them, in Ger many as in Switzerland, it was more a matter of civil than ecclesiastical hberty. x But to him, owing to his primary concern with doctrine, there was an obstacle to the preservation of the old Bishops in their dislike of the new doctrine ; he would have preferred, therefore, had he been able to act freely, to bring in Bishops of a new type ; to put it in other words, he saw the advantages which belonged to episcopal administration. When after the Counter- Reformation an efficient Episcopate was at length revived in his country it brought with it theological 1 See Vetter, p. 334. For Nuremberg, which was in the diocese of the Bishop of Bamberg, favourably disposed as he was to Lutheranism, see Ranke's Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (Routledge's edn., 1905), p. 470 f . For Melanchthon himself see Whitney, Reformation, pp. 289, 407. For Saxon Visitation, Ranke, 465. 76 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION ideas very different from those he had somewhat reluctantly adopted. His views, like his career, illustrate the fears, the dangers and the losses that attended a non-episcopal reformation. All these varying views which lay beneath the surface of the German Reformation had their coun terpart in its history, in the earlier stage in the organization and in later stages in the controversies. In Brandenburg and Prussia, where the Bishops themselves had turned towards reform, there were for a time attempts to preserve the succession as there were in other places, and to secure something of the old control.1 _ Two characteristics of German Lutheranism, its dependence upon Princes in matters of administra tion, and its absorbing interest in theological con troversy, are seen outside the German Empire also. The Scandinavian kingdoms both in ecclesiastical changes 2 and pohtical interests had been drawn into the Germanic system.3 They were affected by the Reformation, and also by the mixed con ditions of the seventeenth century in Germany, a 1 For the documents about these lands see Kidd, p. 318. 2 For the Reformation see Whitney, Reformation, pp. 85 f. and 398 f. 3 Lord Acton says (History of Freedom and other Es says, p. 341), " The theological literature of Sweden con sists almost entirely of translations from the German." He also says (p. 340), "The Danish Church has given no sign of life, and has shown no desire for independence since the Reformation." But this did not prevent great zeal for Missions. Many years later he told me he thought Nielsen's History of the Papacy, written by a Danish Bishop, the best in existence. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 77 period which has been well described by Dollinger.1 " The whole church system remained in the hands of Consistories under royal control. And to this must be added the theological ossification and narrow rigidity of the doctrines which had to be maintained according to the Forrnulary of Con cord. From these causes sprang a twofold reaction among the laity and the theologians. The lay reaction manifested itself partly in the growing frequency of conversions to Catholicism ; many felt the authority of Popes and Councils to be preferable to that of a secular prince. On the other hand, the whole rehgious hterature of the laity, from the seventeenth to far into the eighteenth century, is penetrated by a profound dissatisfaction with the condition of the system and prevalent teaching of the Protestant Church." In this direction the influence of the " mediating " theologians 2 should be remembered. To them, as to Grotius after wards in the Protestant camp, an appeal to the primitive Church was the only possible road to union as well as the only security for reform. But matters had now gone too far for such an appeal to have much effect : it might move individuals to a change of creed, but, on the Continent at any rate, it could not bring rehgious bodies any nearer unity between themselves. At Regensburg (1541) an 1 Dollinger, Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches, p. 85 f. 2 Whitney, Reformation, pp. no f., 467 f. Dollinger, Reunion, p. 77 f. Pastor in vol. v, p. 294 f . (German edn.), especially about the Colloquy of Regensburg, gives a full account. For documents see Kidd, p. 341 f. 78 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION agreement between Cathohcs and Protestants might have been reached upon doctrines such as Justifica tion, although Rome was less disposed for concord here than was Germany. But there was less chance of agreement on practical matters, on the liability to error of General Councils, and on the primacy of the Pope. Sacramental teaching was another obstacle. But after all it was pohtical considerations all round, the position of the Papacy on the one side, and the independent interests of the new theologians on the other, which were the great obstacles to union. And afterwards the two parties diverged still more : the Cathohcs hardened in their Papahsm, and the Protestants in their rigidity of Lutheran doctrine. But for a time it had seemed as if the appeal to the primitive Church, involving, as that appeal did, the succession of Bishops with the rights of ordination and government, might have provided ground for union. It is instructive to compare the position in Germany with that in Eng land. For when we do this, and only when we do it, can we understand the exact force of the appeal to primitive times. That appeal was not, as so many people assume, merely an argument. It lay at the very root of the Church's hfe, with its con tinued tradition, and the neglect of it, by the one side in order to keep up the Papacy, by the other side to enforce Lutheran doctrine, led in Germany to untold evils and multiphed divisions. It was the good fortune of the Enghsh Church, by its history and through its leaders to keep the Episcopate with its possibihties of union. To do so it had to reject the Papal leadership on one hand, and to reject THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 79 the doctrines and the model of the " best reformed Churches " on the other hand. But in the Episcopate it found a real basis for unity as we can see in the reign of Elizabeth with its comparative although not entire success. The Enghsh Church stood as a witness for Episcopacy in a unique way, and the importance of that witness is illustrated by the course of events in Germany, no less than in England. Some German theologians, especially after Cal- vinistic influence had become powerful, were strengthened in their resistance to Episcopacy by the inferences from the supposed identity of Bishops and Presbyters or Priests in the New Testament.1 But to found Church organization upon this assump tion or result of criticism was to cast away the whole history of the past and to make a breach which is more than a mechanical interruption in continuous life. Much discussion has been given to the definition of the Church just as to that of a nation, and a com parison of the two conceptions is instructive. A nation has been confused with a nationahty, which is an entity of race ; it has also been confused with a state, which is an entity of law. These two concep tions, nationahty and state, respectively belong to ethnology and jurisprudence. But the discussion of nations belongs to history, and it is history which alone can define a nation. It is a body of people made one by their history; and it is history alone which can determine whether any given body of people is truly a nation or not. In the same way 1 It should not be forgotten that Hort' and Harnack are two formidable dissenters from this view of identity. 80 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION it is the province of history to deal with Churches. Some would make a Church depend solely upon purity of doctrine : others would make* it depend solely upon its organization at any given time. They would make the definition a matter of theology or of ecclesiastical order. But the real test is a com munity of history which hnks together the people concerned. This shuts out any haphazard associa tion or dehberate formation, for neither of these can make a Church. And it also demands con tinuity between the special body under considera tion and the primitive Church. In that unity, where it is found to exist, purity of doctrine and continuity of organization necessarily play a part. But it is history which alone can determine what is and What is not a part of the Church. Revolutions which overthrow organization or interfere with doctrine may or may not be of such a kind as to destroy the unity of history. But the force and limits of revolution are not capable of exact human calculation, and it is not to be lightly under taken just because the fear of such a disaster seems small. I do not pretend that this definition makes the consideration easier. But anybody who has watched discussions which turn upon the definition of the Church cannot have failed to notice the diffi culties that often have arisen. The supposed test has been of clear apphcation, but in the end the judgement has not been easy to give. The test of organization has been apphed, and then it has seemed necessary to bring in some further "con siderations based upon doctrine to modify or to THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 81 affect the conclusion. Or it may have been the other way round : the test of doctrine has been apphed, and the verdict reached upon it may have seemed unsatisfactory : to modify or to change it supplementary considerations as to organization have been brought in, so that the original discussion has been enlarged. To me it seems that such con fusion, such an unsatisfactory result of much labour and discussion, is inevitable when the argument has been started upon a mistaken or an incomplete definition; it -is a mental process we often see. When we have to decide whether any part of Christendom has kept its corporate membership in the Cathohc Church or not, we have to look at the whole of its history instead of looking only at some special date or particular characteristic. Nowhere is this consideration more difficult and this caution more needed than in the case of the Scandinavian lands. To begin with, Christian Europe had only fitfully felt its responsibihty for them in days when they were heathen, and the organization of the Church was never made effective there.1 But in Norway and Denmark the respect formerly shown towards the Bishops hved on, even in the stress of the Reformation and under German influence, in the regard shown towards the Super- 1 For the history see some details in Willson's History of Church and State in Norway. The documents, with useful references, in Kidd, p. 233 and 323 ; see also the late Bishop of Salisbury's History of the Church in Sweden. See the Encyclical Letter of the Lambeth Conference, 1908, p. 181. For reasons given in the text I should hesitate to commit myself to a definite opinion upon the Swedish Church without a much fuller "consideration. F 82 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION intendents who replaced them. In Sweden there were also efforts to keep the succession, and the drifting away from the old Church system was gradual and sometimes hardly conscious. In its later history Lutheranism generally has shown, more especially at times, a sense of loss in respect of the Episcopate,1 just as it has in respect to hturgic services. Thus, for instance, Frederick I, first King of Prussia, appointed two Bishops, one for the Lutherans, and one for the Reformed 2 who were to dignify his coronation. Then there followed 1 For further details see Dollinger, Reunion, p. 88 f. Ranke, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, i, pp. 107 f. and 463 f. Abbey and Overton, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, p. 160 f. Lathbury, The History of the Book of Common Prayer (a work which, like the same author's History of Convocation, is full of sound learning, with details often neglected by other writers), p. 430 f. See also (in Kriiger's Handbuch der Kirchen- geschichte), vol. in, Hermelink, Reformation und Gegenre- formation, § 60-2, vol. iv. Stephen, Die Neuzeit, §4:5, § 11 : 6, § 45 : 5. On the Union (which began in 1817) see § 45 : 4. Also Acton, The History of Freedom and other Essays, p. 345. There is much in the same Essay, a review of Dollinger's Kirche und Kirchen, on the history of Doctrine in the Lutheran bodies. The conservative standpoint was taken by Stahl and is illustrated in his important work Der Lutheranische Kirche und die Union, Berlin, i860. Lord Acton in conversation with Dollinger (Hist. Freedom, p. 391) mentioned Stahl, speaking of him as " the greatest man born of a Jewish mother since Titus." Dollinger thought this unjust to Disraeli. He thought Stahl " the most illustrious lay champion " of the Lutheran party. 2 At the coronation Frederick crowned himself and his Queen and was then anointed by the Bishops. See Cam- THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 83 attempts not only at reunion between the two bodies of Lutheran and Reformed (or Calvinistic), but also to use for its accomplishment the example and influence of the Enghsh Church. The Book of Common Prayer drew to itself admiration then as it had done for instance long before, from French Cathohcs in the days of Elizabeth.1 Jablonski, a Pole and chaplain to Frederick I of Prussia, had become a warm advocate of the Anghcan system, and along with others had the Enghsh Liturgy trans lated with a view to use in the royal Chapel (1706). Those in England who were interested in the matter understood that there in many places was a willingness to admit of Episcopacy and plans for its introduction were actually prepared.2 The movement towards unity and restoration had behind it not only local sympathy, but international feehng. Bossuet, whose position in France an swered in some ways to that of Leibnitz in Ger many, was concerned in the movement, while the part played by Leibnitz himself in it helped to bring bridge Modern History, v, p. 665. '* Few coronations so frankly unspiritual " are recorded, says Sir A. W. Ward. Dollinger (Reunion, p. 82) says these " bishops " received English consecration. The Rev. C. Jenkins tells me there is no trace of this at Lambeth, and the Life of Archbishop Sharp (York), i, p. 403 f. disproves the statement. 1 Throgmorton wrote from France to Burleigh that the formulary of the Church of England was less repugnant to the Papists than the continental Protestant forms, and Walsingham confirmed this view later. 2 Abbey and Overton (small edn.), p. 162. On some points in later liturgic history of the Lutherans see Stephan (Kruger's Handbuch as before, iv), pp. 76 f. and 232. 84 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION upon him the reproach of being a Papist at heart. Pohtics, however, were mingled in the negotiations, and after weighing heavily among the considerations that furthered them, proved in the end disastrous to them. These pohtical interests, and the change from a tolerance founded on learning to philosophic indifference proved too much to overcome. A cen tury which began with the enlightened piety of Leibnitz ended in the -destructive trifling of Vol taire. This catastrophe was as great in its way as was the apparent disappearance of the mediating theologians two centuries before. Leibnitz held that " the Protestants ought to accept any doc trine proved to have been universally received in the ancient Church of the Roman Empire." x Others of very different views had reached the same con clusion in themselves, and among them was the Jesuit, Moritz Volta, Confessor to the King of Poland. - He was a frequent visitor to the Prussian Court under Frederick I, and " one of his favourite ideas was, that a reunion of the Church might take place on the ground of the doctrines of the fathers and of the early Councils." 2 Had the authoritative tradition of the primitive Church been accepted in the West as it was in the East, the sense of unity might have proved a check against the two-fold revolution which deepened discord. But, the exalt ation of the Papacy, so thoroughly carried out at Trent, combined with its apparent enemy Protestant individuahsm to hinder this result. Thus an end was put to a process which might have repaired the 1 Dollinger, Reunion, p. 94. 2 Ranke, Prussia, i, pp. 117-18. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 85 breach made by the Reformation. It is, therefore, not altogether fair to blame the energy and the destructiveness of the reformers for all that happened after them. It is true that their very conception of the Church's history as a mere process of corrup tion must have often deprived them of power and hope. But this disadvantage they managed to evade. Great movements have nearly always some elements in them which, if allowed their freedom, grow strong enough to counteract the possible excesses. It was so with the Reformation. The strangling of these elements was the work of the seventeenth century, and caused many of the evils weoften ascribe to the Reformation period itself. The organization of the Church as it grows from age to age is capable of meeting the evils these ages bring. Outside pressure and forces such as that of 'the State only interfere with the working of that constitution or check its growth. It is this free action of the Church itself which is imphed in the phrase " the Historic Episcopate," and it has been well said that " the abandonment of the Episcopate was not a natural result of the Reformation. It was not a part of the Lutheran movement." 2 The process we have just considered warns us against neglecting the past history of the Church or depart ing from its working constitution. It is an instructive chapter of history. 1 Briggs, Church Unity, p. 95. I quote the words with greater pleasure because written by a lamented scholar whose views upon Episcopacy differ from my own, but who followed in his hfe the road towards unity he advo cated in his books. 86 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION One cause of this misfortune is to be found in the action of the German sovereigns, and especially of the House of Brandenburg. Christian Thomasius (f 1728),1 a theologian of widespread influence, and one of the founders of the University of Halle (1694), had taught the duty of the ruler to suppress all controversy and Frederick William I (1713-40), in his more than fatherly care for Prussia, newly made a kingdom (1701), became an apt pupil of this school. The Consistory, which regulated ecclesiastical matters, represented the King " in his character of supreme Bishop." 2 The rehgious unity 3 which was demanded in the interest of the 1 On Thomasius, one of the earliest Germans to protest against the use of torture and trials for witchcraft, see Alzog, Universal Church History (translated by Byrne, Dublin, 1900), iv, pp. 81-3 ; and Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, i, p. 183 f. He is one of the leading figures in the University history of his day : amid colleagues described as being as rough as were the students, he spread an enthusiasm for knowledge : he was one of the first to lecture in German instead of Latin, and to popularize knowledge started a magazine with an attractive title in thirteen long words, which after a year was changed to a still more attractive title in eighteen longer words. The periodical lasted three years. Thomasius belonged to a time when German Lutheranism was a living religious and moral power, not a mere worship of the State. 2 Ranke, Prussia, i, pp. 463-4. 3 See previous note, p. 82 : also as before Stephan (Neuzgit), iv, pp. 24 and 79, for earher attempts ; for the Union, Ibid., pp. 227-9. See also Acton, History of Free dom and other Essays, p. 345. "In 181 7 the Prussian Union added a new Church to the two original forms of Protestantism." THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 87 State became, under the pressure of the monarchy, a suppression of differences ; all convictions were to be held equally true, and all sincere believers within the limits of Lutheranism and Calvinism were to form one rehgious body. This system was much like the " toleration " of the Long Parhament and its successors which also had their own impassable limits of Popery and Prelacy, or again much like modern undenominationahsm, which, in its search for unity, loses all vitahty. All of them, too, had much the same promise of success, and the same disappointment in disastrous results. The Prussian conception, thus brought into practical politics by Frederick Wilham I,1 culminated a century later in the Union, brought forward by Frederick Wilham III, and discussed under Frederick Wilham IV ; great turmoil was aroused by its ap pearance. It was to have been the end of strife, but instead led to fresh controversy ; its working joined to the pressure of the State's heavy hand 2 checked rehgious zeal and spiritual growth. Never theless, all aspirations after the episcopal succession 1 On this monarch's religious policy see Cambridge Modern History, vi, p. 226. (" Of course in a State so rigorously absolutist . . . there could be no question of . liberty for the Church.") I do not think most English students would accept the contrast drawn by the writer, Dr. Emil Daniel, between the Prussian Protestantism with its " vivifying spirit " and the " apathy " of the English Church. But of the Prussian absolutism there is no doubt and the English Church somewhat disregarded its own system. , 2 On the question of Church and State among Lutherans and in Prussia, see Acton, History of Freedom, p. 319! 88 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION did not disappear. Under Frederick Wilham IV the ill-starred scheme of the Jerusalem bishopric, so wellknown in the beginning of the Oxford move ment, was meant, so far as it affected Germany, to be the small beginning of a Prussian Episcopate. But nothing came of it in this direction; the forces hostile to a free episcopal system and all that it brings with it seemed to gather strength, and every thing was swallowed up in the extension of a highly centrahzed State. Not even the influence of the Pietists and of the Moravian Brethren which blos somed out into many missionary enterprises and deepened spiritual rehgion among individuals could arrest the progress of corporate decay. To sum up, then, what we have seen. Out of the midst of darkness there came an effort at reform which was both persistent and in the end effective. It was destined to appear, although in different shapes, at the Council of Trent and in England. In Spain the influence of the movement was especially strong, and through it the National Church was reorganized and revived. The Spanish Bishops, a compact and noble band, we shall meet again at Trent, as firm supporters of Episcopacy in its earher form before the Papacy had seized its powers. But in some countries Church organization was weak both in itself and in its hold upon national hfe. There, and there above all, the forces of disruption gained strength : the surroundings favoured their growth : there was no power able to stay them. It is thus that the sins of the Church bear their ghastly fruit, and the evils that generations do live after them. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 89 But already in our review of the history we have seen an unexpected force and power in the Episco pate as an institution : it is not a mere restraint for lawlessness and disorder, as some Lutherans held and some modern critics seem to suppose : it is not an engine of government which can be brought into close connexion with the spiritualities and emotions, the practice and the usage of rehgion. It is not something to be imposed from without, or to be copied from outside. It has a mysterious strength and a many-sided energy of its own, with a power of growth and of adaptation from age to age. In its earhest days it arose from the most inner hfe of Christ's Church, and it spread with inexplicable speed and success. So too in later ages it was entwined with all that was best and most fruitful of the Church's ministry : it absorbed its spirituahty and it moulded its practice. Where it was missing, or when it was lacking in its ideal or its work, evils arose and grew rampant and the best men longed for reform. Its absence or its weakness brought a sense of wrong. It seemed to be in itself Christianity in the form that could best guide nations, whether early converts or ripened Christians, on their road towards God. It was more of an inspiration than a conception or an expedient. Men might well regard it as a mysterious working of the living power of Christ, one of the necessary activities of His body on earth. Even where its action had been re tarded by the pressure of pohtics or the sloth of man kind, it had yet done much of its work, and given perpetual promise of a revived ideal and a richer hfe. 90 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION As we turn the pages of the past, and read there long sequences of cause and effect, our sense of responsibihty is quickened, and the promise of our hopes enlarged ; we see the power of human error and the grandeur of human effort. The corporate hfe can never excuse the individual sloth, but, in the corporate hfe, the individual labour finds its consecrated end. For it is so that we see the build ing fitly framed together, growing into a holy temple for the Lord : it is so we feel ourselves builded together "for a habitation of God through the Spirit." CHAPTER III ¦j WE have seen already that at the close of the Middle Ages, demands for reform were general ; it was felt on all sides that the old rules of the Church ought to be more stringently enforced ; and this general feehng did not lack expression. For we must remember that old rules are often found effective against new evils ; even those in stitutions which are less continuous than the Church of Christ bring, by a happy instinct, out of their treasures things new and old. The Lateran Council of 15 12, the true significance of which has often been overlooked, illustrates this law of corporate hfe, although its results were disappointing. The re forms which had formerly been expected from the great Councils of the West had not been gained. The Papacy, partly through its diplomatic skill, and partly through its intentness upon a single aim, had strengthened its power at the expense of the Concihar theory. Accordingly men looked to it, as to the victor, for reforms which the Councils had not made. But the Papacy, as a centrahzed govern ment, showed itself averse from change. At length, however, a dangerous appeal from a French Synod to a General Council, and the actual meeting of a schismatic Council at Pisa (1511) forced the hand -¦ 91 92 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION of Juhus II; then at last, although reluctantly, he called a Council (at the Lateran, April, 1512).1 It was actually opened in May, 1512, and sat, in the Pontificate of Leo X, until March, 1517. Had this Council, which met the very year of Dean Colet's sermon before Convocation, fulfilled expecta tions, it would have carried through a large reform upon Episcopal hnes. Something in this direction was actually done ; a few restrictions upon plurali ties, a limitation of monastic exemptions, an injunc tion for yearly visitation of monasteries, a strength ening of Episcopal jurisdiction over patronage, a fresh insistence upon frequent Synods, a regulation against the intrusive preaching of Friars, the placing of printing-presses under Episcopal authority ; this was the sum-total of organic reform. It went along the right path, but by no means far enough. It strengthened somewhat the hands of the Bishops, and so far revived the work of the Church. But its meeting had in reality been due to the needs of the Papacy more than to anything else, and reform was therefore hmited and restricted by the dead weight of the Curia.2 For many years the Papacy had gathered to itself much Episcopal power, and 1 On the Council, Pastor, Geschichte Pdpste, hi and iv (especially p. 559 f.). Wessenberg, Die grossen Kirchen- versammlungen des i$ten und i6ten Jahrhunderts, ii, p. 557 f . ; Whitney, Reformation, p. 17 f. ; Guglia, Studien zur Ge schichte d. V. Laterankonsil, Vienna. 2 Pastor, iv, p. 561, n. 1, remarks on the one-sidedness of Hinschius in his insistence upon some details of the dependence of the Council upon the Curia. But the evi dence for the Council, which is unhappily somewhat scanty, more than justifies Hinschius. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 93 directed much Episcopal work. The official influ ence, against which Adrian VI afterwards found himself so sadly powerless, proved strong enough to secure its vested interests against the tide of reform. Never had the highest theory of Papal power been more boldly stated than at the Council ; it was supported from the best of motives by honest men who saw in the Papal power the only chance of efficient reform ; it was supported for selfish reasons by the officials who swarmed at Rome. It was thus fairly certain that no reform would be thorough going unless the Papacy led it. As yet it had not done so, and, indeed, it stood in need of reform itself. St. Peter was, indeed, expected to strengthen his brethren, but this must be preceded by his own conversion. By this isolation of the Papacy amid currents of reform, and by its growing power, close ness of touch between ecclesiastical organization and local hfe was partly lost, and the Concordats,1 1 This was true of the earlier Concordats ; it was also true of the Concordat of Bologna (15 16) between Leo X and Francis I of France. By this agreement the Prag matic Sanction of Bourges (1438), which had asserted the independence of the Gallican Church, was abolished. In the Pragmatic the superiority of Councils to the Pope was declared ; elections were to be made by the Chapters. The Concordat of Bologna gave the nomination to the King although the Pope had a right, rarely enforced, of vetoing a choice. See Cambridge Modern History, i, pp. 385-6 and ii, p. 281. For the Concordat see Richard, Analyse des Conciles, ii, p. 809. The allowance of nomina tion by the Crown is worthy of notice ; the Papal right of refusing assent was in practice much the same as the refusal of obedience to a congS d'ttire by an English Chapter now. 94 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION sacrificing nations to the interests of Pope and kings, helped towards this result. But only by keeping that closeness of touch had the earher Church been able to do its work. At this Council the long-continued strife between Bishops and Regulars became acute. Aegidius of Viterbo, Vicar-General of the Augustinians, has given a hvely account of the controversies which lasted some four years.1 The Bishops hoped for more from Leo X than they had been able to get from Juhus II : it was not purely irony when Leo spoke of trying to please everybody, but the sug gestion showed a different spirit to that of his pre decessor. The Bishops took up the idea of a close association among themselves with executive officers and assemblies when needed, so that their rights, especially against the Regulars, might be defended. Such an organization might easily become dangerous to the power both of Pope and the College of Cardin als, and it was accordingly opposed. And the final decision, after the Regulars had borne great anxiety, was that the existing organization as administered by Pope and Cardinals would suffice. The some what scanty legislation on episcopal regulation over the Monastic Orders was the outcome of the controversy, but the significance of such a proposal 1 See Hergenrother's continuation of Hefele's Con- ciliengeschichte, viii, p. 692 f. ; the documents illustrating the controversy, p. 845 f . : we have the demands of the Bishops and a criticism of the Regulars upon them. The Bishops were clearly dissatisfied with the administration of the College of Cardinals ; the Regulars made a skilful appeal to the use of the Papal power. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 95 as the Bishops made was greater than that of the legislation which resulted. It showed what in the eyes of those best able to judge were the tendencies and the dangers of the time. Papal centrahzation on the one hand, and monastic exemptions on the other, had made large inroads upon the primitive powers and independence of Bishops. There was no real doubt to which side Leo himself inclined, and in many ways he favoured the Regulars. The apology of Pallavicini,1 that every monarchical body has its provincial subalterns and that the Papacy found these in the Regulars who were a check upon the Bishops, does httle to mend matters. The questions left unsettled at the Lateran were again brought up at Trent.2 By the time this Council met (Dec. 1545) the urgency of reform was generally admitted ; it was not only urged upon the Cathohc Church from within, but brought against it as a reproach from outside. There were still pohtical interests to affect the Papacy, but the tide of reform had risen to the throne itself. Reform was essential, not, indeed, to conciliate the Protest ants, but to restore the efficiency of the Church itself. Earher movements had resulted in monastic reform, and a deepening of spiritual hfe among the parochial clergy ; now all these varied impulses were combined. The Church in Spain had, as we 1 History of Council of Trent, Bk. 12, 13, 8. 2 For the Council of Trent I may refer to Whitney, Reformation ; also English Church Review, vol. i, 460 f. "The Jesuits at theCouncil of Trent." Cambridge Modern History, II, chap, xviii (" The Church and Reform," by R. V. Laurence). 96 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION have seen, worked out its own reform upon Epis copal hnes, and thus the Spanish Bishops at Trent spoke with the force of experience as to what the revived Church could do. The Spanish demand for reform was reinforced by France and Germany in shghtly different ways, although with them it was more an attack upon Papal centrahzation, which, owing to special cir cumstances, mattered httle to Spain. That coun try was more intent upon a revived theology and a more rigorous discipline. Those curious documents, the so-called " Libels of Reformation " illustrate the French and German views.1 But while the German Libel (or Book) dealt more with constitu tional and national grievances, the French also sought to raise the. standard of clerical knowledge and thought. The German scheme proposed to hmit the number of Cardinals, and thus to lessen the overweening influence of Italy ; Bishops were to reside in their sees ; exemptions and dispensa tions were to be restricted ; underneath the whole document lay a wish to control the Church by Councils and by the nation rather than by Pope and Cardinals. It proposed not only to give great power to the princes, but to concede to the laity the administration of the chahce, and also the Mass in the vulgar tongue. The impulses of a vigorous national hfe were thus not confined, as is so often assumed, to the Protestant bodies, although 1 For these Libels see Le Plat, v, p. 232, for the German document and its preparation ; p. 629 for the later French /document. See Phihppson, Le Contre-Revolution Religieuse au 16° Siicle, pp. 407 and 522. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 97 received by them with deeper sympathy. The French Libel of Reformation further laid stress upon the characters of priests and Bishops ; it sought for the abohtion of plurahties, the reinstitu- tion of regular Synods, diocesan and provincial. The German " Libel " had possibly a longer gene alogy, but the French scheme, which was printed and widely circulated, had, perhaps, greater influ ence. Both schemes were presented to the Third Assembly at Trent, where their reception and treat ment led to much diplomacy ; and although many of their demands were left unanswered, they had some weight in the final results of the Council.1 In the earlier sessions (v-vi) the duties of Bishops as to Visitations, even of monasteries, and as to the provision of theological instruction, were enlarged. But in some cases this was done for Bishops as delegates of the Papal see rather than in their own right. More important was the insistence upon preaching, and the regulation of the somewhat irregular ministrations of Friars. But the powers of Bishops were not enlarged so much as was pro posed, owing to the varied jealousy aroused ; and so bitter was the feehng that the Legates feared a schism if the Regulars were too much depressed. Nothing better illustrates the dislocation of ecclesi astical machinery caused by irregular means, used at first for temporary needs, and then allowed to continue. The Monastic Orders and the Friars had, in this way-y, something of the evil results of the 1 See Whitney, Reformation, pp. 202-3, 262. 299, 303, for the allowance of Communion in both kinds by the Pope, and its after withdrawal. a 98 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION too numerous Anglican societies of to-day, which have come near to disorganizing the work of the Church. Even in these earher sessions a more difficult subject arose in Episcopal residence. Not only the Papacy, but the monarchs and the Chapters had their special interests in Bishops, and were concerned about their residence in their sees. It was contended, on the one hand, that the obhgation of residence was laid upon Bishops by the law of God ; some said, on the other hand, that the obhga tion was purely ecclesiastical in origin, and therefore open to exceptions. It was a vital question for the Curia, which had gathered into its own hands the control of so much patronage, and used it to reward the officials, so that these found it easy while living at Rome to get excused the duties to which they did not attend. But some speakers went further and declared that the Papacy was the sole bishopric of Christ's institution, while all other bishoprics were derived from it. Others would have it that al though the Episcopate was of Christ's institution, its jurisdiction was derived from the Papacy ; the Pope, therefore, had, they affirmed, a right to sanction non-residence. After long discussion the Legates decided to postpone the settlement. The decrees of Session vi, therefore, while they were emphatic in sound, only seemed to settle the question at issue : they were in effect vague and general, and did httle more than repeat principles in the application of which the real difficulty lay.1 1 Carranza, afterwards Archbishop of Toledo, who came under the Inquisition (see Whitney, Reformation, pp. 236-7, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 99 This same question of Episcopal residence came up again in the debates before Session xix, and once more discussions and differences became acute. It was desired to find means for enforcing Episcopal residence in ordinary cases. At once parties were formed upon the nature of this obhgation to reside. Was it due to Divine or ecclesiastical law ? Great debates at Trent, many anxieties at Rome, were caused. The evils that arose from non-resident Bishops,1 and the consequent lack of diocesan super vision, were fully admitted, but the details of existing evils and desirable remedies could not hide the essential question that underlay them. For the Spanish Bishops, in asserting the directly Divine origin of the Episcopate, denied its dependence upon the Papacy, and so struck at the very root of the existing system. Hence the difficulty felt by the Legates and the Pope; definition, if possible, was to be desired upon a point so vital. Simonetta, the President in closest touch with Rome, wished to delay the decision, but the Imperial ambassadors Le Plat, iii, p. 522) asserted the residence of Bishops in their sees to be a matter of Divine obligation (see Sarpi, French edn. of 1704, pp. 201, 240 and 488 : see on the same subject also p. 638). Cardinal Cajetan had originally agreed with this opinion but later changed his mind. For the Decrees see Session vi, on Reformation, chap. i. „ " It is meet that prelates reside in their own Churches." And chap, iii, " The excesses of Secular clerics and of Regulars, who live out of their monasteries, shall be corrected by the Ordinary of the place." 1 These evils had been expressed very strongly by the Consilium delectorum, which is printed in Le Plat, ii, p. 596, and also in Kidd, Documents of the Continental Refor mation, p. 307 f. ioo THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION objected to this, and the Presidents could not agree among themselves. So bitter was the debate that it seemed, according to the diarist Paleotto, as if a demon had infected the Council. In the end, Jjy an unwonted course, the Legates took a vote as to the continuance of the debate. Those against it, thirty-eight in number, along with thirty-four who wished the Pope to be consulted before things went further towards a decision, together formed the majority against the sixty-seven on the other side, and thus the most delicate matter discussed at Trent was deferred only to come up again in Session xxiii with the Canons upon Holy Orders. By this later time the Libels of Reformation were under discussion, and the air was charged with excitement even more intensely than before. The existence of a hierarchy of Bishops, priests, and deacons, the superiority of Bishops to priests, were both to be asserted ; but the Spanish Bishops, led by Guarrero, Archbishop of Granada, asked for more, and wished to assert the Divine origin of Episcopacy. Special interest belongs to these later debates because of the influence gained in them by Lainez, now General of the Jesuits.1 In the earher debates the Jesuit theologians had been charged by Sk Ignatius to render every service, but to efface themselves. This they had done most faithfully, but by 1562 their Society was well estabhshed, and Lainez came to the Council fresh from oratorical triumphs at the Colloquy of Poissy. It is not too much to say that to him and his Jesuit colleagues, 1 On Lainez, see the article as before in the English Church Review, and Grisar, Jacobi Lainez Disputationes Tridmtinae, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 101 to their learning and devotion, was due the Papal triumph at Trent. In some respects Jesuit theology was independent as well as consistent ; their learn ing, at any rate that of Lainez, was colossal. To meet the Spanish demands not only for an assertion of the institution of Episcopacy by Christ, but for its institution directly and not mediately through the Pope, was impossible, if the full Papal claim were to be admitted. No dexterity in draft ing Canons could reconcile the rival views. Even the attempted distinction between the order of Epis copacy and its jurisdiction, the former derived from God and the latter from the Pope, did not satisfy all. The French Bishops were sure they did not derive their order from the Pope, and doubted if they derived their jurisdiction ; some thought that although jurisdiction, no less than order, was derived from God, yet the Pope had full power to regulate it ; the Spanish Bishops, however, led the minority of some fifty Bishops to vote for the expressly Divine origin. The argument of Lainez discriminated between order which was immutable by the law of God, and jurisdiction which was mutable by proper authority. Here he agreed with many of those present, but the learning by which he supported his view was his own, and answered to the length of his oration. Yet his seemingly conclusive authorities were open to criticism, for he assumed the False Decretals, and his contention that jurisdiction was given by our Saviour to St. Peter alone, and by him delegated to the other Apostles, is only an afterthought of the Papal controversies. But in 102 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION spite of these defects, or, possibly, partly because of them, his advocacy had great effect upon the Council. The final result of these long debates, and of the many Canons proposed (including one on the Papal Primacy), was the 8th Canon (on the Sacrament of Order) of Session xxiii : "If any one saith that the Bishops who are created by authority of the Roman Pontiff are not legitimate and true Bishops, but are a human figment, let him be Anathema." These words are really indecisive in regard to the preceding debates ; they seemed, even at the time, to leave the question open. Looked at in the hght of later Roman practice, they really shut out every view but that advocated by Lainez and his followers. And the Canon has to be taken along with the facts, that some leading questions were left over by the Council for Papal decision ; that the decrees were all sub mitted to the Pope for confirmation; and that all the rights of the Papacy were expressly reserved.1 The settlement of the questions so left over, and the decision of many small points that arose out of the decrees, further increased the already great power of the Papacy. It has often been said that the Council of Trent definitely placed the Roman Church upon the side of Medieval doctrine, and crystallized into per manency fluctuating phases of Medieval speculation. This is not true, I think, without large exceptions, for the Jesuit theologians, at any rate, were not medieval in all their views. But it is true, I think, to say that the Council of Trent, through its after- 1 Whitney, Reformation, p. 147. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 103 results, and through what it left unsaid, definitely summarized into a practical working scheme the centrahzing tendencies and institutions of the later Middle Ages. The relatively smaller power of Bishops, the surrender of the Concihar principle, the view taken of Bishops as delegates of the Pope,1 made it hard for the Episcopate to regain its free dom or to assert its independence. " Those who went to Trent as Bishops have come back as parish priests," was the verdict of Phihp II of Spain. Here we see the futility of seeking after forms of words which bury rather than destroy difference of opinions. Phrases and compromises that evade direct issues are always hurtful in the end : a truth which the Arian controversies and those between Lutherans and-Calvinists illustrate as clearly as do the debates at Trent. The relations between Popes and Councils, between the Papacy and individual Bishops, were not fully defined ; they were left to work themselves out. Growing stringency of organization, and the effects of later controversies, practically decided the issue in favour of the Papacy. Churches, no less than men, are apt to read into their systems of thought their experience of hfe, to make their doctrines and even their forms something other than they originally were. The reformation of Regulars came up for settle ment towards the very end of the Council.2 Many details were dealt with, but discussion at this stage was becoming hurried. In the earher sessions 1 See Whitney, Reformation, pp. 139, 158. 2 See Whitney, Reformation, p. 239. 104 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION (e.g. Session vi) some abuses of exemptions had been corrected, and more were dealt with now (Session xxv). But the Regulars did not submit without a struggle which the later history of the Jesuits in England illustrates. Regulars, and the Jesuits, although not technically an order, might be held subject to the same restraints, could neither preach (Session v, chap, ii), nor hear confessions (Session xxiii, chap, xv) without the leave of the Bishop of the diocese. Urban VIII (1625) appointed Richard Smith successor to Wilham Bishop as Bishop of Chalcedon in partibus infidelium and his Vicar- Apostolic in England. He insisted according to the decrees of Trent upon members of Orders having his hcence before hearing confessions. The Jesuits, not yet recovered from the turbulence of the Arch- priest disturbance, resisted,1 and a long controversy followed. Among the Jesuit statements was one which has been often repeated since, that a Bishop is necessary for the sole purpose of ordaining priests and deacons : they held that Episcopal government was not essential for a provincial Church. Their argument was no doubt, partly due to the supposed needs of their position, but, on the high papal views which they held, Episcopal rule was hardly necessary. In consequence they made of the Episcopal office, somewhat after the earher Celtic model, merely an administrative safeguard; this was neither the primitive nor the medieval view which held the 1 See Jervis, History of the Church in France, i, p. 365 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical History, viii, 40 ; Taunton, History of the Jesuits in England, p. 410 ; Dodd, Church History of England, iii, p. 106 f. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 105 Bishop to gather up into his office the tradition and the power of the Church, so that he stood in vital touch with every part of its being. The Sorbonne condemned the Jesuit view and much learning was spent upon the discussion. Indeed, the Galhcan connexion led to a nice calculation of probabilities. On the one hand it was urged that if Rome did not give the Enghsh people Bishops the French Church would ; on the other hand it was feared that if the Enghsh were allowed Bishops they would soon claim for them the same liberties as did the Galhcans. Meanwhile the Jesuits were enemies to be feared and supporters to be sought. They worked in under hand ways upon the Enghsh Government, much as the parties to the Arch-priest dispute had done, and the Bishop of Chalcedon was forced into- exile, where he died, while the Jesuits finally got a breve (given but not pubhcly promulgated), releasing them from the need of the episcopal hcence for pastoral offices. The whole episode is a com mentary ahke upon some inconvenient medieval growths and upon some equally abnormal later creations. But assuming, once for all, the complete sub jection of post-Tridentine Bishops to the Papacy, two other features of Tridentine legislation have to be noted. In the first place, there was a thorough reform of the Episcopate, and in the second place its purely administrative functions were both strengthened and increased. First, there was a reform of the Episcopate. The decrees repeating former Canons upon residence, even if insufficient, held up a higher ideal. The appointment and io6 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION confirmation x of Bishops were regulated, and tie process introduced made more efficient both the Papal control and the local scrutiny. The improved organization, and the foundations of the Congrega tions 2 in the College of Cardinals, direction given by Popes sincerely in earnest, and working upon the foundation laid by monastic revivals and Jesuit enthusiasm, had great results. An Episcopal revival which was illustrated by the Genevan Episcopate of St. Francis de Sales, recommended itself in the best of ways. Furthermore, for a long time Synods were regularly held.3 Visitations became real ; Chapters were reformed. It was not on the side of defect that the ideal of Trent offended ; everything a proper Episcopacy demanded was there, although Episcopal independence as against higher authority had gone with the past. And secondly, the working of the diocese as a unit was also brought to admirable efficiency.4 Visitations, care of benefices, supervision of Regulars and of Seculars, procedure of all kinds, the purity and efficiency of Chapters, the functions of Cathedrals as regular places of instruction and diocesan centres, the newly-founded diocesan seminaries : all these built up an admirable working 1 For the improvement here see Friedensburg, Preuss. Hist. Inst, Rome, 1908, p.165. Whitney, Reformation, p. 227. 2 On the congregation for affairs of Bishops and Regulars see Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, i, p. 464. 3 On the lapse of yearly Synods see Wessenberg, Die grossen Kirchenversammlungen. 4 The improvement is illustrated in detail by Janssen, vol. 5 ; Whitney, Reformation, pp. 296-7 ; Ward, The Counter Reformation, passim, and in Cambridge Modern History, iii, pp. 160-161. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 107 Episcopal system. Great responsibihty was laid upon the Bishops : even in matters hke indulgences and miracles, where reform was incomplete, the Bishop was to exercise control and bear responsi bility. Excellent machinery was provided, and along with the revival of a high ideal of conduct, it was ably and efficiently worked. This revival has not always been noticed. Labours such as those of the Jesuits deserve the credit they have gained ; it is well, for instance, that Canisius should be re membered gratefully and gracefully by a statue at Augsburg. But the labours of many Bishops, and the new type of Bishop now found, were surely other causes of the successful counter-Reformation. Bishop Julius of Wiirzburg, for instance, both in hfe and labours, was a type of what a Bishop should be ; churches were built, schools restored, coUeges founded, and the University reformed ; under his rule religion revived, new hfe was breathed into a lead ing German see. Not all these German Bishops were hke him, men of instinctive piety ; but so strong were the tendencies of the post-Tridentine time that even these others were forced into fair efficiency.1 The impulse gained from the revived Episcopal system was immense ; there only lacked that contact with the national hfe which gave Epis copal Anglicanism and unepiscopal Lutheranism such unexpected power. It is always difficult to balance loss and gain, and the loss here was to make itself felt in coming days.2 There was a gain in 1 On the evils of their later lapse see Wessenberg, iv, p. 424. 2 Much of the loss was on the side of civil government 108 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION discipline and order, but there was a loss in the initiative and leadership which had been the glory of the earher Episcopate. Regarded historically, and from outside, the Roman obedience must seem, in spite of its triumphs of organization, and its vast devotion, to have failed in the freedom which did once belong to the Episcopate, to have failed also in inspiring and elevating the rehgious hfe of in dividual nations. The Episcopate was sacrificed to the Papacy ; nothing but the assumption, which so constantly occurs in controversy, that the Papacy is an essential, or rather the one essential part, of the Christian Church, could justify the sacrifice. There were other discussions and decisions at Trent which concerned the Episcopate. In Session vi the matter of the so-called " Titular " Bishops J came up. Their existence was indeed an abuse and was due to a disregard of the rights of others. Thus, e.g., Bishop Julius laid a heavy hand upon his opponents although his character was, in other ways, model. For some remarks upon the types of government in Catholic and Protestant countries see Acton, History of Freedom, etc., p. 207 seq. " A country entirely Protestant may have more Catholic elements in its government than one where the population is wholly Catholic." And England he calls *' the country which, in the midst of its apostasy, and in spite of so much guilt towards religion, has preserved the Catholic forms in its Church establishment more than any other Protestant nation, and the Catholic spirit in her political institutions more than any Catholic nation." 1 I may refer to Appendix III, " On Bishops other than Diocesan," which I wrote for the First Report of the Com mittee to consider the Formation of New Dioceses presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury, July, 191 5. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 109 in itself, and hke all abuses had gathered around it many others. These Bishops had sometimes been used to supply the defects of diocesan Bishops ; they had defended themselves by the venerable, if imperfectly understood, precedent of chorepiscopi. It was said that they gave Orders to those rejected elsewhere, and their dependence upon fees for their income had led them, it was said, to begiil the sale of Orders. At any rate there could be no doubt as to the abuse, and the institution was restricted. If the restraints did not go so far as some reformers wished and as had been suggested at some previous Councils, one cause of this result was found in the convenience of these Bishops to the Papacy. Diocesan Bishops were often kept at Rome for the business of the Curia : sometimes it was useful to reward officials by the gifts of sees although it was difficult to spare them from Rome. In both cases non-residence suited the wishes of the Curia, and as a result titular Bishops, although strongly condemned, were not swept away.1 The Cardinal of Lorraine, more over, brought to the Curia unexpected help from the side of France. The existence of these titular Bishops had often made it easier for the Crown to place nominal although unqualified rulers over great Abbeys ; the Crown was loth to give up this privilege, and when the Cardinal, whose influence in the Council at this precise moment was great, expressed the royal wish it was readily acquiesced in. The discussion and its ending illustrate the opposition, sometimes conscious, sometimes uncon- 1 Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent (French edn. of I7°4). P- 334- no THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION scious offered by the Papacy to reforms which affected its own power. But, although the conception of Bishops as dele gates of the Papacy tended to become more and more general, the struggle for Episcopal freedom was not ended at Trent. There are episodes of Galhcan history which asserted Episcopal rights with un mistakable force : the Galhcan Church had in herited the Concihar tradition, and one of the great hberties it asserted was the superiority of a General Council to the Pope. The assent also of the Church through its Bishops was held essential to the abso lute vahdity of Papal decrees. The rights of the national Episcopate were closely bound up with the independence of the national ruler, and the eldest son of the Church more than once used a freedom of criticism which the eldest son so often claims. Thus episcopal control and national freedom were closely joined. But the Galhcan Liberties were really based upon primitive Episcopacy as much as upon the Concihar principle. By the primitive rule each see through its Bishop had a right to testify to the faith and tradition : upon this right rested each Bishop's claim to govern his own see without coercion, and also to meet his fellow Bishops in solemn assembly. The assertion of this claim, as made by the Galhcan Church, did not necessitate the denial of Papal authority, but it did involve the hmitation of that authority where it came into conflict, in the first place, with Episcopal freedom, and in the second place, with national independence. The discussion of these principles led to historic study and a regard for precedent no less than for THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION in national growth : the Galhcan Church was thus naturally marked out by its learning, and' its schools of ecclesiastical thought. But dangers and diffi culties met the Gallican Church as much from the side of royal power as from that of Papal authority, and in practice it was hard to observe strictly the true hmits of effective principles. The unfortunate Jansenist controversy and the growth of the ab solute monarchy had obscured much of earher history before a greater revolution confronted the Church.1 The French Revolution seemed to re move from the path of the Papacy the Galhcan tradition which had so long confronted it, yet even up to 1870 the Gallican Church kept something of its old traditions as to Concihar authority and Epis copal freedom. But, as the Galhcan Church has been so often studied, and as it is difficult in the case of France to disentangle the claims of inde pendence and State control, I do not propose to take it as an example. The principle itself is seen more clearly in Germany. John Nicholas von Hontheim, Coadjutor-Bishop of Trier, pubhshed under the name of Febronius (1763), a work on the state of the Church and the power of the Pope, which led to great controversy.2 1 On the Gallican Church see Jervis, History of the Church of France ; Cambridge Modern History, vol. v, chap. v (Viscount St. Cyres) ; Nielsen, History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century (English trans.) ; J. N. Figgis, From Gerson to Grotius, also Our Place in Christendom, p. 121 f. 2 On Febronius and his work, De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani Pontificis, see Figgis in Our Place in 112 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION There was about that time much disturbance over the proposed abohtion of the Jesuits. Joseph II became Emperor two years later and began a revolutionary reign, and this new work was therefore launched upon a troubled sea. Hontheim had been appointed (1741) to inquire into the centum grava mina, and see which of them remained unredressed. It was therefore from this point of view that he was led to look at the Papacy, and its effect upon the Church hfe of Germany. He had received his University training at Louvain, that home of so many rich traditions which it has been left to modern savagery to destroy ; x here he attended the lectures of van Espen upon Canon Law, and was brought under the influence of Galhcan tradi tions. Theologically he was thoroughly orthodox : Wychf , Hus and Luther^he was ready to condemn. It was on the constitutional side, and in the direc tion of historical study, that he went his own way, which was indeed the way of an unbiased enquirer after historic truth. He was ready to accept the Primacy of St. Peter, and to admit the derived Primacy of the Roman See, subject to limitation and the observance of historic principles. The limitations and principles he derived in the first place Christendom, p. 122 f. ; Nielsen, History of Papacy, etc., I, chap, v ; Febronius, by I. Zillech (Halle, 1905). 1 We remember Erasmus and the College of the Three Languages, but a modern student may perhaps regret most of all the destruction of the work done by the school of Church history, and its publication the Revue d'histoire eccUsiastique, with its many admirable articles and its complete bibliography. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 113 from the sound learning of the Galhcans with their appeal to Episcopacy, and in the second place he applied them to the work of the German Church, which Papal influences and policies had done so much to weaken. He discussed the treatment of the Episcopate at Trent, and his work, which is massive in learning and largely indebted to French authorities, displays insight as well as knowledge. He saw clearly that the new strength given to the Episcopate at Trent was counterbalanced by its being regarded as a delegation of Papal power,1 and that the question of the mediate or immediate origin of Episcopacy was not settled at Trent, but was tending towards settlement afterwards. He knew the results of the Decretals, uncriticaUy accepted as a whole.2 Ecclesiastical hberty, he held, had been encroached upon, and the problem for the Church was, how could it be best restored ? His remedies were : to watch the Papacy carefully ; to give sound popular instruction ; to revive Councils, General and National; to keep, indeed, the Primacy of Rome, but to reduce it within limits. It is true that in 1778 Hontheim (or Febronius) retracted or explained his views, but three years 1 See Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VI, chap, xvi (Mrs. H. M. Vernon), and chap, xviii (Prof. E. Hubert, of Liege), Nielsen, chap. v. 2 The effect of the Decretals has been often discussed. Their genuineness or otherwise need not affect the doc trines or principles they may support. But their real significance was that they had given to the ecclesiastics of the eleventh century supposed precedents just when an age, closely dependent upon precedents, was seeking for some it could apply. H 114 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION later, in " a Commentary upon his Retractation," he proved his old opinions to be right. Indeed, his facts could hardly be escaped from, and only dis turbed and discreditable pohtics made his suppres sion possible. A few years later (1786) the Arch bishops of Mainz, Koln, Trier and Salzburg met at Ems to protest against alleged Papal interference with their rights. They drew up the Punctuation of Ems. This document was a new code of Canon Law intended to go behind the Isidorian Decretals, and so to secure the rights of Metropohtans against the Papacy. They did not (as the Tuscan Bishops did a year later) desire any doctrinal change : they merely wished to return to more primitive custom before the theories expressed at Trent had been permanently worked into practice. But once again pohtics, the disturbed pohtics of Joseph II and Charles Theodore of Bavaria, brought the move ment to nought. The history of the Decretals repeated itself, and some of the Bishops dreaded the rule of their neighbouring Metropohtan more than that of the distant Pope. Febronianism might, perhaps, be lightly dis missed, as a movement or an attempt which had failed. But in ecclesiastical history, even more than elsewhere, losing causes and schools which seem to pass away, leave an effective legacy to later years. It was so with Febronius and his argu ment. The cogency of his appeal, the weight of his learning, the surroundings amid which he worked, all gave momentum to his attack. It was a solid gain that the permanent principles of Galhcanism, the argument of historic Episcopacy, should have THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 115 been brought together in the face of a strengthened Papacy and of a weakened German Church. " Fe- bronianism " therefore had its significance, and before the assembly of the Vatican Council in 1870 the Jesuit organ, the Civiltd Cattolica greeted the Munich school of writers (Dollinger, Acton and others) as " Febronians." The same journal (Feb. 6, 1869) urged that Papal Infallihty should be de clared by acclamation in the coming Council as an indirect rebuke to the Galhcan articles of 1682. * Thus the growth of Papal power brought with it the repudiation of both Galhcanism and Febronianism, which nevertheless had so much of Cathohc history upon their side. Between the Councils of Trent and of the Vatican in 1870 a long and gradual change took place. How great it was can be seen if we compare earher treatises with the works of later writers. As an example of the later school we may take the well- known work of Barbosa, Pastoralis Solicitudinis vel de officio et potestate Episcopi (17-24). To him all ecclesiastical power and all ecclesiastical office derives from the Pope as successor of St. Peter.1 1 So Pars I, Tit i, cap. 3, § 2," Episcopis, quos crearunt Apostoli, vita functis, to turn jus eligendi et creandi Epis- copos ad Romanum Pontificem pertinuit, tamquam ad successorem Petri." And if other methods of appointment have been permitted sometimes, as, e.g., popular election, this has been done (§3) by Papal concession or per mission. He states (§ 42), "LegeDivina hanc potestatem assumendi Episcopos ad solum Pontificem immediate per- tinere, vel ad eos, quibus concesserit. ' ' This is emphatically the a priori, and not the historic method of theology and of ecclesiastical law. # 116 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION This* was the change on the side of constitutional theology on the doctrine of the Church, and graduaUy it came to be assumed as the orthodox position. Just as striking was the change in administration. More and more Bishops were regarded as delegates of the Papal power : more and more was their primitive independence either slurred over or in practice denied. An iUustration of this change in constitution and in conception itself is given by the growth of the Quinquennial Faculties. In the seventeenth century the custom grew up of giving Bishops certain powers by Papal faculties ; these gave them the right of absolution in certain re served cases, of granting dispensations for marriage, of control over the reading of heretical books and so forth. But these powers were given to them as being delegates of the Papacy, and not as being Bishops, and the faculties were therefore re newed every five years.1 From 1640 onwards this was the rule, and the issue of them feU under the congregation of the Propaganda. The same power which gave could take away, and Bishops naturally felt increasingly their dependence upon the Papacy : they did not wish to risk the loss of the licences, the withdrawal of which was an easy method of punishment. The Immaculate Concep tion, too, was declared by the Pope alone (1854), thus lowering £he Episcopate further.2 AU this 1 See Mergentheim, '* Die Quinquennal Fakultaten pro foro externo," in Kirchenrechtliche Abhandlungen, ed. Stutz, 1908. See also article "Fakultaten " in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, col. 811-813. • Interest in the new dogma for a time hid this result. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 117 worked along with the growing centrahzation,1 which had shown itself, among many ways, in the formation of the specific Congregations? and the increasing use of Nunciatures.2 The grow ing efficiency of organization kept pace with the change in idea which we have seen illustrated by Barbosa, and thus the Papal monarchy became as absolute in fact as in theory. The silent change wrought out since Trent came into open view in the Vatican Council of 1870. The Curia had read its own meaning and its own intentions between the lines of the Tridentine Decrees, and when the new Council met, the altered standing of the Bishops before the Papacy was easily seen. Much had been expected from the Council, the first suggestion of which was not due to the campaign in favour of Papal Infallibility,3 although this soon became the leading issue ; with the doctrine in itself we have here no im- Thirlwall (Remains, i, 322) pointed it out (1857). " It marks a new era in the constitution of the Papal Church." 1 The excellent organization of the Congregations of the Cardinals made this centrahzation effective. See Whitney, Reformation, pp. 185, 250, 301, 423, 434, 437, 446. One Congregation was charged with the special duty of carrying out the Decrees of Trent, and of the many decisions arising out of them. a Whitney, Reformation, pp. 301, 434. 3 See Acton, History of Freedom, p. 493 (in Essay on " The Vatican Council "). Sparrow Simpson, Rom. Cath. Oppo sition to Papal Infallibility ; Nielsen, History of the Papacy, ii, c. 20 ; Cambridge Modern History, xi, c. xxv (" Rome and the Vatican Council," by G. A. Fawkes (with Bibliography). Documents in Friedrich, Documenta ad illustrandum Con cilium Vaticanum anni 1870. 118 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION mediate concern ; it is possibly capable of minimiz ing " interpretations," and it has been reaUy of little service in spite of the expectations that were raised at the time. From the constitutional point of view its significance was that it brought to a chmax that substitution of Papal for all other ecclesiastical authority which had been graduaUy taking place. It emphasized the degradation of Episcopal authority and government in the interests of the Papacy and of its exaltation. For this reason it met with the strongest opposition from those who, hke Dollinger, understood the history of the Church and loved its continuity. It was noted that the arrangements for business hmited the freedom of Bishops and tightened the Papal control. To begin with the arrangements were prescribed by the Pope, whereas at Trent the Bishops had consented to them. The alteration in the words of enactment iUustrated the change that had happened.1 Moreover the secrecy that was impressed upon the Bishops was in itself a sacrifice of freedom, and hke much else was resented sometimes openly and still more in secret.2 Some of the Bishops were bold 1 The Pope handed the decrees to the Secretaries for reading ; the form began, " Pius Episcopus, servus ser- vorum Dei, sacro approbante Concilio, ad perpetuam rei memoriam." Then after the vote the Decrees were read with the form, " Nos, sacro approbante Concilio, ilia decernimus statuimus atque sancimus ut lecta sunt." At Trent the Decrees had run in the name of the Council assembled in the Holy Ghost under the presidency of the legates of the Apostolic See. The presence of the Pope at the Vatican did not wholly explain the change. 2 See Friedrich, Documenta, i, pp. 247 f., 258 f. ; ii, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 119 enough/ to look back with regret upon the long process of centrahzation, and Strossmayer, x Bishop of Diokovar in Bosnia, spoke of the way in which this growth had stifled the life of the Church. The same bold and learned Bishop led the protest against the declaration of decisions unless they were unanimous, 2 and the opposition if small numericaUy was weighty in everything else. But Cambridge, above all, is not likely to forget the learning that was shown by this minority and the gaUant struggle it made. For we remember the labours there, although behind the scenes, of a great layman who in after years taught us much and inspired us more. From France, with its older memories, and from Germany, protests fittingly came forth. Maret,3 Dean of the Theological Faculty at Paris, and Bishop of Sura in partibus, spoke, and also wrote, with special right, for the Galhcan liberties, and there is scarcely need to recall what many learned Germans said. From younger lands than these, too, the same pro test came. Archbishop Conolly of Halifax, who had come to the Council prepared to support InfaUibihty and changed his mind after studying the question, is said to have asked indignantly " if the thousand- headed Episcopate with millions of the faithful pp. 380 f., 383 f., 391 f., and 400 f., for protests against the arrangements. On the arrangements, Nielsen ii, p. 316, and also the French criticism in Friedrich i, p. 132 f. 1 See Quirinus, Letter 32 (English trans.). 2 See Acton, History of Freedom, p. 541 f. ; Nielsen ii, P- 35i- 3 Author of Du Concile GinSral et de la paix religieuse " and Le Pope et les Eveques, 120 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION behind it was to shrink into the voice and witness of a single man ? " Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis declared that the new dogma deprived Bishops, who should declare the Faith, of a right inherent in their office. Archbishop Darboy 1 of Paris, who was afterwards murdered under the Commune, was another bold and powerful opponent of the scheme and foretold the disasters which such an ecclesiast ical Revolution would bring upon the Church. But the protests were overborne. And it was not InfaUibihty alone that threatened, if it did not destroy, the rights of Bishops. Chapter hi of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church2 assigned to the Papacy immediate jurisdiction and control in every diocese. The Primacy of St. Peter and his successors was defined with an exuberance curiously contrasting with the brevity of some Tridentine utterances. The saving clauses by which the powers of Bishops are declared to be really strengthened by the ascription of their rights and functions to another becomes, in the hght of practice, a mere form of words, although it has been sometimes (as by the German Bishops in 1875) so strongly appealed to. There can be no real Epis copal power where a greater Episcopal power can intervene and supersede at its arbitrary pleasure. Centrahzation of working and unity of aim have 1 See his criticism in a speech of May 20, 187-5. Fried- rich, ii, p. 415 f. See also La LibertS du Concile et ITnfalli- biliU in i, p. 147 f., a criticism inspired by him. 2 See Friedrich, ii,- pp. 292 and 316 for the earlier form proposed. The final form in Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte Papsttums and in Schaff. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 121 their advantages, it is true, but they can be too dearly bought. And since the Syllabus of Errors pubhshed before the Council had placed the Roman obedience in absolute opposition to the general tendencies of modern thought and pohtics, the Church in Roman lands seems to have lost much of its old power of guiding nations. The injury done to the Episcopate by such Concihar legislation and by the spirit of a centrahzed administration increases this danger. The Bavarian Government had reason on its side when it forbade the pubhcation within its territory of the constitution Pastor Mternus which embodied under Papal sanction the decrees of the Council. Bavaria judged that the constitution so greatly interfered with the local Episcopate as to make the Bishops absolutely servants of an external power. Difficulties and friction seemed therefore only too hkely to appear. For while the administrative efficiency of the Episcopate has been raised in the lower and more routine part of its work, it has been deprived of that larger spiritual freedom, that close relation with the national hfe, that special sense of a deep personal and immediate responsibihty before God, which has been the very glory of the Episcopate in the past. Nay, more, may we not say it seems to be the very atmosphere in which the Spirit of God worked with its greatest power ? Surely the com plaints repeated by successive generations, the despairing prophecies of Concihar minorities, had reason in their protest, and had the past to speak with them. 122 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Nor can we doubt, as it seems to me, that the history of later years has reinforced this verdict. I say nothing of that apparent inabihty to recognize anything of mental freedom, of the apparent wish to fetter rather than guide the inteUect, which is com ing more and more to mark the Roman obedience as it silences or casts away some of its ablest sons. But surely when the Episcopate which should interpret rehgion to the national hfe, from the inside and not from the outside, loses its essential freedom of thought and action, there must come, there has come, the peril of a bitter conflict between rehgion and the national hfe. For rehgion becomes a tradition, and not an inspiration : the nation is made to see enemies in those who should be its guides. In a day when large spiritual forces and tendencies on the largest scale work themselves to their end without the checks provided in bygone days, there is the greatest need of guidance that is sympathetic and firm. But the pohcy of the Curia towards Galhcanism and Americanism, surely re peats to-day the disastrous pohcies of the past, the pohcies which fought the Western CouncUs, estranged the sixteenth-century Reformers, treated as danger ous the movements for national freedom. But there is all the difference of a world between men trained in traditions of Itahan administration, and men across the Atlantic to whom the future is nearer and is more than the past. The problem of Ameri canism has not so far been solved by angry words or the pressure of routine. 1 But it is a problem which a 1 There was much discussion upon Americanism about 1899. It is difficult to find coherency in American opinion, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 123 national Episcopate, free and ruhng in its own house, might boldly face. In the older world there was also the same problem in another shape amid the troubles of France. It is not my task to estimate the respective demerits of past violence in words or act, to weigh the large disasters that have arisen from diplomatic blunders or want of tact. But how much of what hap pened before the war was due to the false posi tion of the French Episcopate, made less national in its service by the needs of its Papal control ? It has been loyal to the maxims in wjiich it has been trained, but its heart must be sad when it sees the result. There is a vast difference between a loyal servant with his orders from outside, and an Episco pate which stands in the twofold strength of rehgion and national hfe. The crown of martyrdom is within the reach of either, but for the one more than for the other there is the positive vision of a nation won for God. We realize, with sadness and with prayer, that the problems of to-day arise from the errors of the past, that ideals forsaken have their time of vengeance for nations as for men. The world of to-day has its many debts to the French State, but its debt to the Church of France is even older and possibly greater. That Church has shown us, with French lucidity of expression and French energy of action the eternal principles of the his toric Episcopate in its national field of work. Again and again it has been sacrificed to the needs of the and Europeans, especially Britons, need a warning not to expect too much from it, remembering the varied influences at work. 124 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Papacy, ever becoming more pohtical in its aims, but our hopes for its future are built upon our sympathies with its, past and its present. When we look back at the history of the Papacy with its grandeur of conceptions, its vastness of in fluence and its efficient organization, we are struck by the consistency of the growth. We are forced to ask ourselves what is its place in the development of the Christian Church ; is it to be looked at as a true development or as a distortion. For that ideal has a place for expanding growth as weU as for conservative tradition. A true development should keep all the hard won gains of the past, and it should prepare as weU for the inevitable needs of coming days. We must note, in the first place, how the independence, the personal vitahty so to speak, of the primitive and even of the Medieval Episcopate has been lost. With the Roman section of Western Christianity the spirit and the form of the working Episcopate have ahke been lost : Bishops have become mere executive ministers instead of being the controlling power of the Church. The Episcopate has therefore lost much of its older power to guide the national hfe and to inspire a growing democracy. This process can only be justified by a general falsification of early his tory to which some papal advocates seem finally to be committed. The growth of the papal power has not only divided Western Christendom ; it has severed more sharply than ever before the West from its parent East. As we examine that growth we are forced to see older principles of Church hfe cast aside, the wider interests of the Church at large THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 125 sacrificed to the pohtical interests of the Papacy or to the efficiency of its control. Spiritual hfe has been surrendered for pohtical influence and ad ministrative ease. We cannot see here a true form of development. So much of the old has been lost that we have distortion and not a natural growth. The agile diplomacy which again and again has chosen the path of least resistance cannot atone for the loss of simphcity and spirituahty. These,. indeed, are stiU to be found but they are none the less out of harmony with the absolute papal control. It has been the task of the Episcopate in every land and in every time so to guide the hfe of the Church, the human energies, often troublesome, it may be, but always fuU of power for good, that the future may be more deeply Christian than the present or the past. The Episcopate can do this if it has the devotion, and is aUowed the power. The Papacy cannot do it because it lacks the local sym pathies, the national instincts which a free and strong Episcopate can always have. If to-day we see whole fields of thought and realms of hfe where Christianity has httle power, it is not fair to say because of this that the Church has failed, or that it, with its Episcopacy, is to blame. It has been weak, it has been erring, it has failed to stir up the gift that was in it, but this is not the true lesson of our Western history. The Church has succeeded where it has used its Episcopate at its best. We learn from history, and this is the claim we make, to be more truly Episcopal for the future than we have been in the past, not to barter any part of it away for Papal unity, for secular 126 THE EPISCOPATE. AND THE REFORMATION power, or, what is perhaps more a danger to our selves, for individual hberty. The lesson of the Reformation, of Papal history, and of later days, is not that we must be prepared to sacrifice anything of Episcopacy for immediate gain. Rather the lesson is to value it more highly, and to hold by it more firmly, and to do this, whether the demand for its sacrifice comes to us from a Papacy seeking control, or from an individuahsm wishing to evade the discipline which is strength. CHAPTER IV I HAVE dealt thus far with the Episcopate -L in the Middle Ages and the abuses that had grown up around it; we have seen, too, its revival at the Reformation and the reforms that were then proposed. Some of the new rehgious bodies which sprang into hfe looked at the abuses alone, and rejected the Episcopal system itself : the Roman Obedience, on the other hand, carried out at Trent many administrative reforms and as we have seen strengthened the Episcopate. But that Council, and the ages foUowing it, raised permanently the Papal power, and in so doing altered the standing of Bishops. The Church of England was affected by aU these varying currents of change.1 Its history in the six- 1 Liturgical suggestions and changes at the Reforma tion give ample illustration of this. Cranmer's studies in earlier Liturgies may be assumed ; prevalent leanings towards Protestant changes are equally easy to see. But he and other Reformers were also affected by inclinations which he shared with Catholic innovators of his day. Thus the history of the Prayer Book cannot be isolated from its European background. Reformers and their opponents long used the same theological works, scholastic and other : finally Papalist writers, like Barbosa, and Protestants, who depended upon Luther, Calvin or Melanchthon, diverged. But Enghsh theologians, owing to their stand point, kept up Patristic and mediaeval learning longer than continental Reformers did. But this continuity of thought 127 128 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION teenth century has its varying and even contradict ory phases. But some spiritual gains we're made, which would have been kept, even if either the changes under Edward, or the reaction under Mary, * had unhappily laid down the limits of its future hfe. We sometimes judge a httle harshly those priests who served unmoved through such very different reigns : in doing so we forget the fluidity of rehgious change in days before the present hard hnes of divi sion had been laid down, and when men, to keep the unity of the body in the bond of peace, were ready to make aU sacrifices except the utter one of conscience. In no country more than England had the type of reform indicated before Luther gained great hold : there are signs of its influence under Mary, reminiscences of it under Elizabeth, and when the Church came back after the Restoration, it was a Church in which Colet would have been at home, and in which Wolsey might have ruled. The permanency of its special tone of rehgious thought, its special type of worship, the value of its special witness should be kept in mind. For these tended to make the crisis less severe, the transitions less abrupt : they laid down conditions of ecclesiastical hfe which it might be dangerous to disregard. But what of the Anghcan Episcopate under these conditions ? It is reaUy needless to vindicate its continuity or to defend its validity.1 That was lost through the Civil War and the course of pohtics, so that the eighteenth century lost the scholarship of the seventeenth. This made a watershed in Enghsh theology. 1 I see no gain in the modern usage of '* regular " and " irregular " for " valid " and " invalid " in this connexion. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION. 120 has been already done most fuUy and completely. Ordinary methods of argument are useless when we are constantly met by one assumption that hides itself behind different forms. When the Nag's Head Fable is laid to rest, or at any rate only wanders disembodied in the more credulous parts of earth, we have to faU back upon an examination of Bar low's opinions. When we have shown that the lack The older words have a recognized theological meaning. A valid Ministry, a valid Sacrament, is one which has behind it the guarantee of the Church's continuous and assured authority. To use the word "invalid" is not, as seems sometimes to be assumed, to assert the spiritual worthlessness of that to which it is applied ; it should not, however, be forgotten that, quite apart from the Church's guarantee, we do believe that there is a spiritual gain for 'the individual in acts done in communion with the Church. The modern preference for " regular " and "irregular," then, not only minimizes the Church's claim, but assumes an assertion in the older expressions which they do not make. It is, moreover, often connected with the quite illogical and unhistoric opposition made between a "charismatic" and an "official" ministry. These two kinds of ministry are not exclusive : they may exist apart, or they may exist in conjunction : a ministry may be either or both or even neither. It seems to be sometimes assumed that a ministry which is not official must be charismatic : this does not follow, and it is further difficult to find a suitable test for a claim to the latter. A ministry may, moreover, be purely individual ; it may, on the other hand, rest on the authority of some Society and the discussion of the authority which that Society can give is, for those who wish to remain in the full stream of the Church's continuous hfe, an historical question. Anent the words " invalid " and " irregular " two analogies may be suggested. To call a man an invalid is not to assert that he has no life at all but that he has a precarious 1 130 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION of certain accompaniments to Ordination or the Holy Eucharist is shared by us with the early Church, we have to meet arguments as to Intention which might invahdate everything and aU things. But aU the time the real objection is our neglect of Papal claims, our rejection of the Papal power. It is useless to quote primitive usage, it is useless to appeal to history, against the assumption that the whole power of creating Bishops passed, as it was asserted by Barbosa, when those created by the Apostles were dead, to the Popes as successors of St. Peter. For these reasons I do not deal with this argument here. Deeply as we grieve over the scat tered fragments of Christian unity we cannot think that Tridentine, or post-Tridentine assumptions can affect the validity of the Enghsh Episcopate. Our appeal is to the wider usage of the Church which includes not only the Primitive period but also the Eastern and the Medieval tradition. Nor does it seem necessary to deal with our present method of appointing Bishops. In primitive days the election of Bishops belonged to the Bishops, the clergy, and the laity together. Then nomination, hold on health. Secondly a marriage is irregular but valid when some legal technicalities have been left out. Some like assumption of a merely technical difference seems at times to underlie the modern usage. The older usage is however perfectly logical and clear and I can there fore see no necessity for departing from it. I notice with regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury (Kikuyu, p. 30, note), urges the modem usage. Lambeth Conferences have, however, used the older terms. See Report of Confer ence, 1908, pp. 182 and 185. The newer usage is, at present, open to objection and must lead to misunderstanding. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 131 sometimes appointment, by Emperors and Kings became common, practicaUy or formaUy.1 When the Investiture Contest reclaimed elections for the Church it did not seek to restore the primitive method, for its revival would have perpetuated simony, and other evils. It demanded free elec tions by Chapters. But this method has not always been kept to. Not to mention direct appointments by the Popes, the right of nomination or appoint ment has been conceded, in some Roman lands, to sovereigns. Bavaria and Spain give weU-known instances. The right of approval has been granted even to Protestant kings. We may, therefore, leave the method of election aside. Even election by Synods has not always answered weU, and any system must be judged partly by its results. It is true that the abohtion (for a time under Edward VI) of the conge d'elire and the suspension of Epis copal jurisdiction by special visitations under Henry VIII and Edward VI, were threatening signs. But these temporary dangers, which have their paraUels in other histories, disappeared under Ehzabeth. 1 For illustrations see Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutsche lands, ii ; Imbart de la Tour, Les elections ipiscopales dans I'tglise de France, and an Essay by Vacandard, "Les elections episcopates sous les Merovingiens " (in Etudes du critique et d'histoire, I4r0 Serie). For Prussia and Bavaria see Funk, Manual, II, 218 and 299. The Concordat of Bologna, which was as complacent towards royal power as some later Papal concessions in other lands, has already been spoken of. The Concordat with Napoleon I is another illustration of concessions made by the Papacy to claims and principles pressed by the State. See Cambridge Modern History, ix, pp. 184-5. 132 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION An influence of the Crown which is right in Spain or Bavaria or Prussia cannot be wrong in principle in England. But still we may feel glad that an older form, capable of enlargement in future days and under future needs, should keep for the Church some share in the election of its rulers. These remarks are made not because I think any apology for the Enghsh Episcopate is needed, but because there are some who when, in the din of controversy, they hear defects in our Church pointed out, are not aware that the same or even greater defects exist elsewhere. A knowledge of the elements of ecclesiastical history is not always to be found in controversialists, and they do not always assume that knowledge in those they address. And, as was pointed out in the case of Cardinal Newman, a knowledge of the present and of the primitive past needs to be linked together by the rarer knowledge of Medieval times. During the Reformation period the Enghsh Church certainly suffered great, although tempor ary, violence from the rulers, but this was also the case elsewhere. A greater drawback was the con tinued existence of Medieval abuses. The revolu tions of Enghsh history hindered an organic reform of abuses such as was wrought out at Trent. Some abuses, such as the appointment of laymen to bene fices, soon disappeared, partly under the pressure of public opinion reinforced by Acts of Parliament. Thus, for instance, the "Act for the ministers of the Church to be of good rehgion " (1571) forbade any one below a deacon of twenty-three years to hold benefices. This was aimed against the dispensa tions given to University students, real or nominal, THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 133 which Parker dishked but Grindal was not averse from. Others, such as pluralities, lingered on, and it is strange to notice Waterworth, the Anghcan historian of Trent, who wrote in the middle of last century, pointing out the interest to Enghshmen of the reforms against this evil. The close likeness, moreover, between some of Colet's proposals in his celebrated sermons and parts of what was done at Trent was noticed long ago and pointed out by Thomas Smith, of Christ's College, who edited Colet's sermon in 1661. He was of opinion that, had the ancient Canons been strictly kept, divisions and separations might have been avoided. And for the same reason he regretted the sufferings of the Enghsh Church from the lack of a codified Canon Law. It was significant that, writing at the Restor ation, he should take this view. He, and men hke him, bridged over the interval between the Church of Colet and that of Andrewes. They be lieved, as we ought to beheve to-day, in the Episco pate as a centre of unity. Disunion and divisions have arisen, Sometimes from the Papal distortion of Episcopacy, sometimes from the wrongful use of Episcopacy by the State. But a constitutional Episcopate with recognition of the rights of presby ters in Synods, and calling forth the feUow-work of the laity, has never caused disunion, and there is no reason why it should. From this lack of a Code (for a Code of Canons was never completed), and from the slow process of a gradual reform, came inconveniences. The sud den removal of Papal power in its twofold relation to the Bishops and to the King regarded, according 134 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION to the Medieval view, as twin authorities with separate functions in the one society, left some points unsettled. With the Royal Power as great as it was, not only Episcopal authority, but also the Church's self-government suffered loss. But Ehzabeth's definition of her supremacy,1 as not trenching upon spiritual power, and the check placed by her upon Parliamentary discussion of Church topics, show her respect for the rights of the Church. Her personal interference may have been active, but matters relating to the Church she mostly left to the Church for settlement. Nor is there any reason for the common behef that the royal power exercised over the Church by the Tudors was greater than royal power exercised at the time elsewhere, for it would be easy to bring paraUels. Then after wards the Civil War and Revolution brought harm to Episcopal administration as to much besides. And at the Restoration a generation untrained in the methods of the Church, and strange to its tradi tions, came again to their heritage. The difficulty of inexperience was felt. Other things besides the coer cive jurisdiction of Bishops, which graduaUy (and indeed happily) disappeared 2 as Church and State recognized their respective spheres and limits, even things of spiritual importance, passed away. 1 See especially Queen Ehzabeth's defence of her pro ceedings in Church and State (after the Northern Rebellion of 1569). Church Historical Society, lviii, pp. 42-3. See Our Place in Christendom, p. 116. 2 Abbey and Overton, English Church, 472-3, gives illustrations of this jurisdiction after the Restoration. The Episcopal Registers have cases of it. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 135 But looking back upon the reign of Elizabeth the most striking feature on the ecclesiastical side is the coherent growth of the Church in Episcopacy and aU that Episcopacy imphes. If England hke some other countries rejected, and, as we believe, rejected with reason, the Papal tyranny, it did not hke some of them cast away along with Papahsm the ancient government of the Church. But whether we ascribe the preservation of Episcopacy in England under Edward VI to choice or chance there can be no doubt that under Elizabeth it was kept by deliber ate choice. The Council wished to preserve " in the ecclesiastical government the care and diligence that properly belongeth to the office of Bishops." 1 From those who wished for further change in England after the model of "the best reformed Churches " abroad came outcries against " the order of Papistry, which they caU the Hierarchy." 2 From this side came the contention that Episcopacy was an evil thing contrary to the primitive constitution of the Church u " the parity of ministers " was asserted as a supposed conclusion from a critical 1 See Cardwell, Documentary Annals, i, 350-1 (a letter from the Council to Parker). Our Place in Christendom, pp. 115-16. 2 Orders and Dealings with the Church of Northampton, June, 1 571. Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 139 (Oxford edn.). So, too, the Admonition to Parliament wished to remove the authority of Bishops. Cooper in his sermon (1572) attacked the Admonition and was charged with defending the ungodly title and unjust lordship of Bishops and with depraving the government left by Christ to His Church. See Puritan Manifestoes Church Historical Society Publications, lxxii (Frere and Douglas) passim. 136 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION study of the New Testament : then the Enghsh Academic Presbyterians, Cartwright and others, enlarged this into an assertion, of the sinfulness of Episcopacy.1 Thus the Enghsh Church which had chosen to keep the old constitution found itself forced to defend it, and in the twofold process of experience and controversy grew more and more into the system it had chosen and drank deeply of its spirit.2 Nothing is more remarkable than this growth, which was both spiritual and constitutional. Even men hke Jewel and Grindal, in spite of their sympathy with Puritan doctrine and worship, came to understand and love the system they adminis tered. Thus Humphrey in his objection to the " habits " was surprised to find Jewel insisting upon the Church's authority to control his individual preferences. And Grindal who at London had shown much sympathy with lawlessness and in dividual hberty returned southwards to Canterbury from bis See of York more of a Bishop at heart. 1 See Maitland in Cambridge Modern History, ii, pp. 593-5. " As a battle cry ... it was first audible at Cambridge." (He is speaking of the abolition of prelacy.) See also Puritan Manifestoes, as before. 2 Dr. A. O. Meyer's study of ecclesiastical affairs under Elizabeth is spoilt by his curious neglect of the English Church and of the way in which it grew into something like the Episcopal Church foreshadowed by Colet in his sermon. If on the one hartd the English Church grew to be the Church of the nation it also grew into the spirit ef the system to which it was delivered. But. Dr Meyer looks only at the Papalists on the one hand and at the Separatists on the other. He never understands the English Church and as a result he is quite at sea when he comes to the Stewarts. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 137 There was something in the system which moulded these men, and even when they heard the arguments hurled against the constitution of the Church they learnt to love its spirit and lean on its defence. Hooker x expresses with aU the majesty of his mind the living truths which the Church of England thus taught her chfldren. But there were, nevertheless, many currents of thought and sympathy which affected the Enghsh Church and Churchmen. There was the new ten dency for theologians to group themselves around theological leaders and theological principles in stead of in religious societies with a tradition and an inheritance of their own. This brought dis order, a disorder hitherto more commonly found on the Continent, into the hitherto ordered system of England. We find traces of it, for instance, in Field who discusses Calvin and Calvinism, mainly, if not altogether, with reference to their theological orthodoxy and not to their principles of corporate association. There was also a natural sympathy be tween aU those who had common ground in their denial of Papal headship, and this had ecclesias tical results enhanced by common pohtical inter ests. In spite of a coherent growth in Episcopal brotherhood, a growth quickened by the inquiry into Primitive history forced upon Enghshmen by controversies, we see therefore another principle held by many members of the Enghsh Church. 1 His most significant passages are Book VII, pp. 329, 330, 331, 334, and 379 (edn. 1875). The controversy as to the later books does not affect these passages, as they would not have been altered in an Episcopal direction. 138 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION This was broadly speaking the Presbyterian prin ciple, which as Maitland pointed out tended in Eng land from the first to take a congregational shape.1 It worked out in varying forms, but they had com mon ground in their (sometimes fantastic) attempt to revive primitive conditions and in their dishke of Episcopacy.2 Then, when Whitgift and Bancroft formulated clearly the principles of Episcopacy, these who had first attempted to subvert the Eng hsh Church began to pass outside and form bodies of their own. But there were stiU left inside the Church many who sympathized with the Separat ists, and did not share in that reliance upon Episcopacy which marked the Enghsh Church as a whole, directing its growth and its constitutions. Yet the Enghsh Church had, amid the stress of controversy and under the pressure of experience, 1 See Maitland, Cambridge Modern History, ii, 393-4 (already referred to). Of Home's refugee congregation at Frankfort (which had " Troubles " of its own) he says, " The Presbyterianism of that precocious conventicle was already taking that acutely democratic and uncalvinistic form, in which the elders are the annually elected officers of a congregation which keeps both ministers and elders well under control. Among Englishmen a drift towards Congregationalism appears almost as soon as the ruling elder. " Hence it is difficult to discriminate strictly between the alternatives to Episcopacy which appear in England. 2 The differences and mutual dislike between the Separ atist Independents and the Presbyterians (remaining for the most part within the Church) may be noted. The complete disappearance of English Presbyterianism and the later importation of it anew from Scotland has been well proved by Dr. W. A. Shaw, History of English Church, 1640-60. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 139 by this time reahzed for itself the fuU meaning of the position it had taken up. When we reach the Synod of Dort we see the Anghcan position (as we may caU it) in contrast with that of foreign Reformers. By that time so-caUed " Arminianism " had largely coloured Enghsh ecclesiastical thought and tendencies. This new school of thought, while anti- calvinistic in theology, foUowe'd the leadership of Whitgift and Bancroft in Church pohty. The appointment of delegates to the Synod by the King of England was a result of the older ecclesiastical sym pathy and of the continuance of common pohtical interests between the Enghsh Church and continen tal Protestantism. But at the Synod the new cleavage between the two became evident. To most Enghsh thinkers the official position of their Church seemed the necessary outcome of regard for the Early Church combined with a rejection of the Papal claims. In the early days of Elizabeth there had been some expectation that French Protestants1 would follow the Enghsh Church in its pohty and in its hturgy. Now at Dort the Enghsh delegates laid stress upon the difference between the foreign ers and themselves.2 They did not join in the 1 Cal. State Papers (Foreign, Ehzabeth), ix, 477. 2 See Collier, Ecclesiastical History, vii, p. 408 (Carleton's statement is given). Also Lathbury, History of Book of Common Prayer, pp. 360 f., 369, and Morris fuller's Life of Bishop Davenant, p. 88 (the apologia of the delegates is quoted from a MS. in the Bodleian). The States General, in their letter to James I after the Synod (printed in Collier, ix, p. 375) praised Carleton warmly, thus showing no resentment at his plain speech. 140 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION decrees of the Synod and on their return home Carleton (Bishop of Llandaff and then of Chiches ter) pubhshed an account of what had happened. He had affirmed that Bishops were successors of the Apostles and were necessary to the Church : he told the Dutch that their troubles and dissen sions arose for lack of Bishops. The reply 2 was that " they had great honour for the good order and discipline of the Church of England and heartily wished they could estabhsh themselves upon this model, but they had no prospect of such happiness, and since the civil government had made their desire impracticable they hoped God would be merciful to them." Henceforth the Enghsh Church stood forth as committed to Episcopacy and all that it meant in a way which parted them from foreign Protestants.2 The expectation of Enghshmen that foreigners 1 There may be a little doubt whether the reply was given publicly or privately. Most probably a formal reply in public was amplified in private talk afterwards. But Carleton 's narrative is full and his trustworthiness un doubted. The statement about the civil government and its restraint against Episcopacy was a different reason for the lack of Episcopacy commonly given, namely, the difficulty of obtaining the succession. It would be there fore, a further justification for the theory of " necessity " as put forward by English theologians. 2 No. 31 of the Articles of Dort affirmed the purity of ministers since they all had "the same advantages of character, same jurisdiction and authority in regard they are, all of them, equally ministers of Christ, the only uni versal Bishop and Head of the Church." This was the position the English delegates protested against. For the Articles see Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum, p. 690. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 141 would foUow their lead in asserting " Cathohcism without the Pope " (an assertion supported by primitive and Eastern precedents) has been already noted. It has, however, been urged sometimes that the great tenderness of the Enghsh Church and of individual Enghshmen towards Continental Pro testants imphed a weak hold upon Episcopacy. But the complete Enghsh view should be looked at. Episcopal succession was not, it was assumed, always possible to secure without the impossible recourse to Roman Orders, yet there was a hope, even an expectation, that these foreign bodies, although deprived of Episcopacy for a time through necessity * were certain to adopt it before long. But as time went on and this expectation remained unfulfiUed, the attitude of Enghsh Churchmen changed : they either ceased to communicate with foreign bodies and to admit their members to com munion or did so more rarely. In their view the excuse of necessity, formerly assumed, ceased to apply. But as long as it had been held it had governed the relation between the Enghsh Church and these various bodies on the Continent. Its 1 See Lathbury, as quoted, especially p. 369, and the quotation from Hall on p. 370 f. Hall uses this doctrine of necessity to discriminate between Continental Protest ants who could plead it and the Scots who could not. See also Mason, The Church of England and Episcopacy as to the views of Hall, who had been at Dort for the earlier Sessions. In the same work Appendix B, p. 512 is a discussion how far this plea of necessity is justified in various cases. Crakenthorp's expression, necessitate compulsi paritatem . . . admittere . . . coacti sunt may be noted. 142 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION effect has, however, often been mistaken for a fuU jecognition of the validity of their Orders and Sacra ments. x The place of Episcopacy in Church hfe and govern ment was thus seen and felt. It was henceforth the foundation of the Enghsh position. It was something into which the Church had grown, some thing which summed up its historic growth and its fuU experience. It was not merely*something into which it had argued itself, or whiclv it had adopted as an expedient. At the end oflthe process of growth Bishop HaU was able to define Episcopacy as " no other than a holy order of Church-governors2 appointed for the administration of the Church, or more fuUy thus : Episcopacy is an eminent order of 1 See Lathbury, History of Convocation, pp. 330 and 348. Convocation (1689) objected to the expression " Protestant religion " which seemed to group the English Church with continental bodies. In 1700 " reformed churches " was substituted also for " reformed religion." The overlooking of this theory of necessity by the Central Consultative Committee of the Lambeth Conference (Kikuyu, p. 45) may be noted. It governed the two cases of (a) communicating with foreign Churches, (6) admitting their members to our communion. The latter is approved of by the Committee, as an occasional practice, and subject (quite rightly) to Episcopal discretion. The former is not approved of. Both, however, have the same historical precedents, and the force of those precedents depends, almost entirely, upon the theory of necessity. The change in attitude of the English Church, which was the obvious reason for rejecting (a), really lessens the weight of precedents in both cases. The theory ceased to apply. 2 Works, x, p. 185. I am indebted to Dr. Mason's book for the reference. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 143 sacred function, appointed by the Holy Ghost in the Evangehcal Church for the governing and oversee ing thereof ; and for that purpose, besides the administration of the Word and Sacraments, endued with power of imposition of hands and perpetuity of jurisdiction." It is thus not a mere constitutional legacy from the past or a mere precedent, but a principle of hfe. It has been the Enghsh habit to settle great pro blems by gradual working and in the course of time, rather than by dehberate and thought-out schemes. Examples of this (the education question is one) have occurred and are occurring stiU. With the Church, as with the State, too many problems have been evaded for a time, then left unsolved forever. It is an easy method, but it often hands over to the future an accumulation and comphcation of difficulties. Along with the coercive power of the Bishops went much of their purely ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and also much of their activity. As the Church came, unfortunately, to base its unity more upon the Royal Supremacy, and the fact of its Estabhshment, than upon more fitting founda tions, the old idea of the diocese as a unit, bound together by Episcopal headships and activity, tended to disappear. But even so, the vigorous rule of single Bishops has often impressed peculiarities upon a diocese. The Visitations of Wren (1635-8), for instance, have left lasting marks upon the Dio cese of Norwich, and some usages x have lingered 1 I may instance the use of the Occasional Services in Evening Prayer, which I have come across in parishes where one would not have expected to find it. 144 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION on in out-of-the-way places where one would not expect great correctness. And thus we can estim ate the loss we have undergone, partly by the lower ing of the ideal, partly by the true nature of the Episcopate not having been thought out. For there were some essential and natural parts of the Reformation ideal which were never fuUy carried out. It was difficult to disentangle the purely Papal parts of the Canon Law from those which were essential to any sound administration. An Enghsh code, which would have steadied the Church against the individual caprice of Kings, or Bishops, or parish priests, was desired. The pre paration of it was committed under Henry VIII to a body of thirty-two, and although mention is made of them from time to time, nothing came of the attempt.1 Cranmer was specially interested in the matter, and a smaU committee under Edward VI, probably utihzing his preliminary labours, drew up the Reformatio Legum. Fortunately it was never adopted, although Archbishop Parker reproduced it for discussion and approval. It had many defects and went far in the way of change, notably in the matter of divorce. But the Church has suffered since from the lack of such a code. Laud, indeed, attempted something of the task, but the attempt was charged against him. As the result of disregarding this part of the Reformation ideal, much was left vague and chaotic where order could have been easfly set up. In another most important way, too, the same ideal 1 See Gairdner, History of the English Church, pp. 230, 300 ; Dixon, History of the English Church, ii, p. 341 and Frere, History of the English Church, p. 165. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 145 was disregarded. Before the Reformation separa tions began Synods had been widely revived. Lutherans and Calvinists, preceded by Zwinglians, adopted them. How large a part Synods played in Zwingh's movement x is weU known, and from him their use passed on to Calvin, so that assembhes of ministers became a vital part of the Presbyterian system. But the idea of them was derived from the ancient Synod. What of the Church of England in this respect ? It is true Convocation met, and we may aUow more significance to its meetings than it always aUowed itself. In their genealogy, the two Convoca tions represented the old Provincial Councils of the Church, but in practice tended to become the par liamentary representation of the clergy. But, largely through its own acquiescence, it soon lost all significance It seems ludicrous to us that from 1715 to 1852 Convocation should have fancied itself incapable of discussion. Legal opinions then proved that this current ecclesiastical view, encouraged by the State, was wrong, and that the sole disability was to pass Canons. Few Chapters of the great Church Revival are of more interest than Convo cation's recovery of the powers it had forgotten. But the loss was only part of the general weakness in the corporate hfe. A Church which cared too httle for that hfe cared httle if its corporate voice was silenced. And when the revival of utterance 1 I may refer to my chapter on " The Helvetic Reforma tion," Cambridge Modern History, ii, pp. 317 and 327. For Synods among French Huguenots see Faurey, Le droit eccUsiastique matrimonial des Calvinistes Francois. Paris,i9io. K 146 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION came it foUowed naturaUy on the revival of Church brotherhood due to the Tractarian movement. For this renewed activity the Church owes much to Bishop Wilberforce, who furthermore, in his own person, revived the ancient type of an active Bishop. Convocation, then, went on, but diocesan Synods graduaUy ceased. In many parts of the Empire they have now been estabhshed, and thus a recom mendation of the First Lambeth Conference has been adopted.1 But in England itself the process has been slow, and much remains to be done. Yet the Reformatio Legum, embodying Cranmer's view, provided that diocesan Synods should be held yearly, and there can be but httle doubt that it was intended to carry out the ancient Canons under which a complete system of Synods, diocesan, pro vincial, and general, existed. Thus in one most important way we have departed from the Reforma tion model, which, in its turn, was closer to Medieval custom than is sometimes thought. And the loss has been heavy, because it is in Synods that the Episcopal Fatherhood is most truly seen, most truly felt ; by the loss of diocesan Synods the gulf between Bishops and their clergy became greater ; the vivid sympathy, needed to give vitahty to the relation between the two, was always weakened 1 This Conference (1867) in its Report on the best means of maintaining unity in faith and discipline among the several branches of the Anglican Communion urged the organization of Synodal Order ; Diocesan Synods of Clergy and Laity ; Provincial Synods, Bishops, Clergy and Laity. It also recommended the organization of a General Synod called by the Archbishop of Canterbury. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 147 and sometimes lost. And one result of this loss of Synods must be noticed. Presbyterianism rightly laid stress on Synods, and when the Church neg lected them it lost a power and rejected a principle which might have concihated those to whom that principle appealed. A maimed Episcopate lost touch with the hfe of its day and came to depend more and more upon the help of the State instead of throwing itself upon the more democratic sym pathies. The Episcopate became more of a misused tyranny at the very time it became less active. A thorough revival of Synods and the fuUest use of Convocation ought to regain for the Church much of the force and influence it has so needlessly lost. The closeness of the tie between canonical legisla tion and spiritual independence has been pointed out lately by Dr. Frere.1 And it is easy to see how the revived sense of corporate hfe seen in the 1 Report of the Archbishops' Committee on Church and State, Appendix X, p. 265. The place of Convocation and its powers is here discussed. ' The recovery of much that fell into abeyance through the lack of Canon Law is clearly shown. On the point disputed between Dr. Frere and Sir Lewis Dibdin whether or no "a quiet revo lution took place " as to canonical legislation long after the Reformation I should agree with Dr. Frere. The present relations of Church, and State are not according to the Reformation scheme. As to the proposals of the Committee they might have been a matter of course. But it is to be regretted that their proposals are presented as a new edifice upon a representative basis instead of as a revival of the earlier Synodal systems, with lay repre sentation added. The effect is to make the Committee's scheme revolutionary, whereas it ought to be merely a revival of the Church's system after a long lapse. 148 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION recovery of Convocation showed itself in many other ways. A change which pohticians deprecated and newspapers denounced " as a rash and abrupt measure," " perilous to the Church of England," led to increased vigour and stronger activities everywhere. Bishops began to enter into some thing of their spiritual heritage. The unit of the Rural Deanery, which had graduaUy faUen out of action since the close of the Middle Ages,1 awoke to hfe, and so through the diocese and this sub division of it the conception of an organized society was brought into local hfe. The general change wrought "by the deeper reahzation of the Church's unity and power has been immense. But the fuU working of the process has been checked by the fact that, under present conditions, the Church does not enjoy freedom of growth. On the one hand the pressure of the State hinders the easy interplay of spiritual and social forces. The Church has to wait long before it can gain any hberty when Parliament ary sanction is needed. On the other hand the Church has been trying to evangelize the population of to day and minister to it with machinery and means designed for a population one-tenth the size. How ever true and enthusiastic the spirit of the Church may be, its flesh, the organization and equipment, 1 The Register of Simon of Ghent (Canterbury and York Society) has many illustrations of the way in which a Medieval Bishop used Rural Deans. The Rural Deanery was a real administrative unit. There were some differ ences ; thus in Carlisle (under John de Halton) the Bishop's representative presided at its meetings. Now once more the old machinery has become effective. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 149 is, as yet, not equal to its work. This is the reason why proposals, such as those of the Archbishops' Committee on Church and State, and schemes for additional bishoprics, are things that ought to come first. They have been postponed too long, and can only be put off longer at the risk of disaster. In one other way, again, we have faUen short of the positive and constructive work thought of by the Reformation. A remarkable document, in the writing of Henry VIII himself,1 has come down to us, showing that at one time, in the first flush of the wealth gained from the monasteries, he intended a large increase in the number of Bishops. It is evi dent that others had been consulted, for one of the suggested hsts of sees came from Bishop Gardiner. It was proposed to found no less than thirteen new bishoprics : of these, four were actuaUy created, although one of them (Westminster) had a very short hfe. But on the other hand, two new bishop rics, Chester and Bristol, not included in the thir teen, were added. Thus, had aU been done that was intended, fifteen new sees would have been added to the twenty-two then existing. A stiU larger increase was talked of, but from the reign of Henry onwards no new see was created untU Ripon, in 1836. It is also strange to remember that the creation of Bishops-Suffragan also took place (1870) under an Act of the same reign. 1 Henry VIITs Scheme of Bishoprics, edited by Henry Cole, 1838. See Dixon, History of Church of England, ii, p. 217 and note ; Strype, ii, p. 406 ; Burnet, History of Reformation, i, p. 152 (edn. 1715). On the English Episcopate generally see Bedwell, The Increase of the Episcopate. 150 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Thus we see three departments of the Church's hfe in which (with deplorable results) we have faUen below the Reformation standard. The Re formation ideal was then not fiiUy carried out under the Tudors. Then the Civil Wars with their reh gious and pohtical divisions came to frustrate the promise of Ehzabeth's reign. And therefore at the Restoration many older problems presented them selves although in altered form. It is impossible to see anywhere the fuU working out of Reforma tion issues before we come to the middle of the seventeenth century. If on the Continent the natural standpoint is given by the Treaties of West phalia, in England it is given by the Restoration. The former Episcopate was restored, and restored in the sense in which Whitgift, Bancroft and Laud had understood it. Hence the conception was ade quate on the spiritual side. But on the ecclesias tical as on the pohtical side much was left unsettled and even undiscussed, especiaUy as regarded the power of the Crown. The new King made large offers, and was willing to have it understood that Presbyterians, to whom he owed much pohticaUy, would be favourably treated. Schemes of compre hension were proposed, notably that known by the name of Ussher,1 and various projects were dis- 1 I am not concerned with Ussher's own views, which may or may not have been modified in publication, but with those put forward in his name. It should be borne in mind that the Presbyterians rejected these schemes in 1648. An excellent view of the chaos under the Long Parliament, and of the conflict, is given in the accurate and laborious History of the Church of England, 1640-60, by Dr. W. A. Shaw. Presbyterianism and Independency failed. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 151 cussed. An Address and Proposals presented to the King by Presbyterians 1 and their sympathi zers pointed out with reason that the dioceses were too large for a Bishop to work properly : it also objected, and again with reason, to the lay judges in ecclesiastical Courts. As a remedy the free use of Chorepiscopi, as suggested by Ussher, was proposed. But these offices were to be chosen by Synods, and the tone of the Address shows the greatest dishke of Episcopal claims. Charles II in reply 2 promised to appoint such suffragans, one being assigned to each Rural Deanery. "No bishop shaU ordain or exercise any part of jurisdiction which belongs to the censures of the Church." In this way the Episcopate would have been brought into line with Presbyterianism, but at the cost of aU its dis tinctive and historic characteristics. The supposed precedent of the old Chorepiscopi, suggested at the time and accepted as accurate by later writers hke Burnet, was not to the point. The precedent It is curious to find so many writers of political history assuming as a matter of course that it was unfortunate, both for religion and for politics, that Episcopacy was not modified. But the Anglican Divines of the period taken together were probably the soundest scholars and thinkers England has had. Baxter, it may be noted, had a curious idea that Papists had instigated the demand for an abolition of Episcopacy in order to stir up strife. 1 See Cardwell, History of Conferences, p. 280. 2 See his Declaration in Cardwell, Documentary Annals, ii, p. 285 seq., History of Conferences, p. 286. I may refer to the note on Bishops other than Diocesan which I added, at the request of the Committee, to the Report of the Committee to consider the formation of new dioceses for the Province of Canterbury, July, 1915. 152 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION of Henry VIII's Act for Suffragan Bishops, replac ing the Roman Bishops in partibus infidelium, was also pleaded, the Act which strangely enough was utihzed in 1870, as already noted, for the modern Bishops-Suffragan. Nothing came, however, of this Caroline suggestion, and the Presbyterians were left unsatisfied. Some of them found preferment in the Church : others of them became the leaders of the new Presbyterian body, originaUy of Scots origin, which henceforth appears as an Enghsh sect, But the real defects pointed out by these Presby terians were left. The Presbyterians were men of such real piety and earnestness that they might have been reconciled to a vigorous Episcopate, con stantly in touch with the priests of their diocese, throwing themselves upon the democratic life of the clergy rather than depending, as Enghsh Bishops came to do more and more, upon the secular arm. But it was hardly hkely that,xwhen Synods grad uaUy ceased and Bishops were unable to do their diocesan work, Episcopacy should commend itself to critics originally hostile. It should be borne in mind, however, if the Restoration Episcopate failed to reunite the Church it faUed because it was given no chance of success. The dioceses were too large for effective government : the lack of Synods degraded the priesthood and did not give it its rightful place in the life of the Church. It was left for later generations to make diocesan administra tion reaUy possible, and to recover Synodical free dom. But happily, in the middle of last century, about the time that Convocation so tardily awoke from THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 153 its rest and under the influence of the same causes, a movement began for the increase of the Episco pate : it was shared in by many weU-known lay men and some Bishops, and some success met it : Manchester became a see in 1847 > St. Albans in 1875 ; Truro, 1876 ; Liverpool, Newcastle, South- weU, and Wakefield, 1880-1888 ; Bristol was re stored in 1897 ; Southwark and Birmingham were formed in 1905 ; St. Edmondsbury and Ipswich, Chelmsford, and Sheffield in 1913. The gain in a richer hfe has already been great 1 and when further centres of activity are provided, the Church wiU really overtake her work. It is barely seventy years since the problem of an overgrown population has been really faced, and the result of this neglect has been almost disastrous. But some prelates, notably Archbishop Tait, whose excessive caution put him out of sympathy with a vigorous and grow ing hfe, discouraged the schemes, and Royal Com missions, like Parliament, contributed delays. A word may be said about some suggested alterna tives for new sees. It is hard to persuade some Churchmen that Archdeacons aire not as effective as diocesan Bishops ; it is stiU harder to make them see that suffragan Bishops, the official existence of whom was thought injurious in the Middle Ages, are not as effective as diocesan Bishops. Personal activity may be aUowed as readily to one as to the other, but with Suffragans the special and personal responsibihty of the diocesan Bishops cannot be gained. No suffragan Bishop can, hke a diocesan 1 Norris, The First Twenty-five Years of a New Diocese, for Wakefield. DeWinton, The Increase of the Episcopate. 154 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Bishop, gather and draw around him the rich and varying interests of continuous local hfe. No Suffragan can be a source of energy, a centre of activity, such as a Diocesan, with his special responsi bihties and his inherited tradition, is bound to be come. The Divine method would seem to be, to call forth personal and spiritual energy by the widening responsibihties of official place, and the sympathy of a large historic hfe. There is more in the power of a diocesan Bishop than the routine discharge of Episcopal offices, and that something more, the most precious gift of aU, is what these alternative expedients seem to lose.1 Along with these other revivals, aU of them mani festations of a richer and deeper hfe, came the restoration of Diocesan Synods : a Diocesan Con ference, which included laymen, met at Ely in 1864 under Bishop Harold Browne ; a Diocesan Synod met in 1871 at Lincoln under Bishop Wordsworth (who had also suggested the renewal of Suffragans). Nothing has done more to make the diocese a work ing unit, to bring Bishops into living sympathy with their flocks, and to put the Church into the needed touch with aU the many forms of local hfe. A Diocesan Synod is not only exceUent for busi ness and in other ways, but it also strengthens and enriches the whole hfe of the diocese. But here again, in Diocesan Synods and Confer ences, the Church in England is hampered by the size of some of its dioceses. There ought to be no 1 The arguments in favour of Suffragan Bishops mainly rest on supposed advantages of administration. But a Bishop is not.a mere administrative official. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 155 diocese in which it is impossible to assemble aU the parish priests for feUowship and counsel with their Father in God. The hmit that Aristotle placed upon the size of the city-state, that it must not be beyond the power of a single town-crier, might be altered and adapted for a diocese. No diocese should be so large that to summon a Synod for it is impossible or even very difficult. Thus the argument for an increased Episco pate is strengthened. And further, there are large towns in which the unity of a local Episcopal leadership is all that is needed to reinvigorate the Church : there are also country districts in which the Church is greatly out of touch with local needs and local hfe. The inspiration arising from this local life has been, in the past, the greatest help to rehgion. Rehgion can only enter into the market-place, so haUowing pohtics and commerce, when it is en twined with every local and historic tradition. We have something of this in the Church at large, we have something of it in most of our parishes, but it is stiU lacking in some of our dioceses. And the great reason for this deficiency is : their unwieldy size, and their lack of any definite historic unity. In any scheme, therefore, this historic unity should be a chief consideration, and it is also desirable that the whole system for the whole country should be mapped out together, and that so local prejudices (which are very different things from local hfe) should not be given too much weight. The scheme should be thought out as a whole, much as it was in the days of Archbishop Theodore, and much as has been done in some of our dominions beyond the seas. 156 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE^REFORMATION In all these matters we are not walking in the dark, or trying experiments with no experience be hind us. We, in England, hardly understand as yet the lessons we can learn from our daughter Churches, In days to come, when we have learnt (and learnt together) the deeper unity of the Cathohc Church working within our Empire, knit together as it has now been more than ever before in the richer hfe of that Empire, when a priest can pass freely from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the country lanes of England, from the cities of Africa and Australia to the unreaped harvest of our Northern towns, when a few years of colonial service may be almost a matter of course, we may then relearn some lessons we have forgotten in the past. Among those les sons will be the necessity (not merely the value) of an Episcopate expanding to meet expansive needs { among them also will be the fresh vigour gained from Synods that can act and know their power.1 We may learn from the limits of our Empire lessons which primitive ages have failed to teach us. There is no need to recaU the injustice done to 1 But the proper limits of their power should be borne in mind. In some Synods doctrinal matters may not be discussed ; in many, Canons affecting doctrine cannot be passed. In the Report of the Archbishops' Committee on Church and State it is laid down, as for the present Repre sentative Church Council, that the proposed Church Council shall not trench on the rights of the Episcopate or issue any statement declaring doctrine or theology. This is quite sound. Yet a reference (p. 63) to freedom for the Church " to modify its standards and rules " might be taken as less satisfactory. But these two limits must be clearly kept. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 157 our Colonies when we told them to be Episcopal and denied them the power. But we may look at some records of our colonial daughter Churches. The consohdation, pohtical and ecclesiastical, of our Colonial Empire, was retarded by the clash of parties and principles, which came so early in its history. The Civil War made rehgious enterprise difficult, and the eighteenth century, although clear in its theology, looked at rehgion too much as a department of State. This idea was even more harmful in the Colonies than at home. It is true that the two great Societies, the S.P.C.K. (founded in 1698) and the S.P.G. (founded in 1701) kept the Colonies in view and helped them to the utmost. But the jar of sects and pohtical influences hindered the free growth of Episcopacy so that the generous plans of Bishop Berkeley and the wise schemes of Bishop Butler x remained mere documents. More than once the North-American colonies sought to have Bishops : even the Presbyterians in Pennsyl vania were ready to accept " primitive episcopacy, that is, episcopacy without any civil power annexed to it." 2 So too Chauncey, one of the opponents of the agitation for Bishops, writing 1767-8 said : " Did Bishops of the Church of England no more 1 This scheme, drawn up in 1750, made the power of the Bishop simply ecclesiastical, not coercive. For quota tion see A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies, Harvard Historical Studies, Vol. IX, a work of learning and interest but without much perception of the right of an Episcopal Church to have Bishops. • E. B. Greene in American Historical Review (1914-15), p. 64, on " The Anglican Outlook in the American Colonies in the early Eighteenth Century " gives much information. 158 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION depend on the State, and no more derive their power from it, than our ministers do, the Episcopal Churches- here might be as weU supphed with Bishops as ours with Pastors " : 1 and again he wrote : " It is not simply the exercise of any of their rehgious principles that would give the least uneasiness, but their having Bishops under a State Estabhshment." 2 It is clear that the demand for Episcopacy arose from a feehng of its rehgious necessity, and was fostered by the S.P.G. : it was opposed, sometimes with much intolerance, mainly because of the dishke of " an Estabhshment " with its pohtical associations : it met with httle favour from the government at home which hardly re garded it in a rehgious hght.3 When the American rebelhon came it disturbed nearly everything, but the wish for an Episcopate remained : under new conditions, and when opposition from London was no longer effective, it led to the election of Dr. Seabury by the clergy of Connecticut. The pohtical objections to his consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury were reinforced by the fear that an American Church might depart from the model of the Enghsh, and so Seabury was consecrated in Scotland ( (14 November, 1784). But three years later Bishops for New York and Pennsylvania were consecrated at Lambeth. By this time the 1 See Cross, op. cit., p. 175 note. 2 Cross, p. 182 note. See also pp. 115-116, and 310-11. 3 Sherlock's correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle (printed in Cross, p. 320 f.) illustrates this. It includes a long letter from Horace Walpole which has naturally no religious consideration in it. THE EPISCOPATE AND THEiREFORMATION 159 need for Bishops, especiaUy in troubled and unsettled lands, was more deeply felt and Bishops were conse crated for Nova Scotia (1789) and for Quebec (I793)- Thus the Church of England in Canada began its episcopal career.1 But the same influences which had so long delayed this beginning were stiU strong enough to prevent further growth. Thus when Dr. Jacob Mountain, the first Bishop of Quebec, sought to have two sees founded for Upper and Lower Canada, the two civil provinces, the Government refused him 2 as it did his successor. It was not until 1839 that the forma tion of the diocese of Toronto gave Upper Canada what it had lacked so long. Another repeated demand was met by a see being placed at Montreal (1850), and its first Bishop, Dr. Fulford, became Metropolitan (i860). In 1845 the diocese of Frederic- ton was formed in the Maritime Provinces, and the creation of the See of Rupert's Land (1849) was largely due to the devoted labours of Dr. George J. Mountain, Bishop of Quebec. The formation out of Toronto of Huron (1857), Ontario (1866), 1 I use the old official title, which after long discussion at many times remains. It has, however, a real his torical meaning even if it looks more to the past than to the future. The only alternative should be the Canadian Church although that title might awake some jealousies. The title " the Anglican Church in Canada," which seems to be favoured, has little in its favour. 2 See Roe, Story of the First Hundred Years of the Diocese of Quebec, pp. 21 f., 27 and 32 f. I should like to add here a word of respect for the memory of the writer, Archdeacon Roe, a strenuous worker, a real scholar and a great Church man. 160 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION Algoma (1873), Niagara (1875), and Ottawa (1896), completed the organization of the older and more settled parts, but much of Upper Canada was stiU badly supplied with priests for its growing popula tion. And the purchase of the Hudson Bay Com pany's territories (1869) connected a missionary field more closely with the older lands. But the Churchmen of Canada had long wished for something more complete than a mere diocesan organization : the Cathedral of Quebec had been caUed in its royal grant a " Metropohtan Church," but nothing further was done untU 185 1. In that year a conference of Canadian Bishops was held at Quebec. The Bishops of Montreal, Toronto, Fredericton and Newfoundland were present and the Bishop of Quebec presided : the Bishops of Nova Scotia and Rupert's Land, although absent, gave their approval to what was done. A memorial was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their Metropohtan pleading for the Synodal constitution of the Church in their country : they wished for an organization of dioceses into a province with Pro vincial and Diocesan Synods. The Canadian posi tion was clear, and it is weU to remember here that from Canada came not only the suggestion of the first two Lambeth1 Conferences, but also many expres sions of loyalty to the historic Episcopate. It is often said that insistence upon the necessity of Episcopacy and the assertion of Apostohc Succes sion are marks of one special school of thought, to which no one would assign the Canadian Church as a whole. But at that time the views of the Cana dian Churchmen were not peculiar to them or to any THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 161 one school of thought. It wiU be found, I think, that sixty years ago they were more general among Evangehcal Churchmen than they are now. I can speak from my own experience of Canadian Bishops, strong and decided Evangehcals in every, way, who were at the same time firm behevers in Apostohc Succession. There were hke cases in England, and such views were derived from older traditions of the Enghsh Church rather than from any special Cana dian school : newly settled lands nearly always chng with tenacity to the customs and ideas formerly pre valent in their older home. This is the explanation of what might seem pecuhar in the Canadian Church long ago, and even down to our own generation. The Archbishop of Canterbury's reply to the Canadian Bishops laid stress on the supposed legal impediments to Synodical action, although he thought the Government would consent to the appointment of a Metropohtan. The Bishop of Quebec's answer to this showed how thoroughly the Canadian Bishops, inspired equaUy by the regard for primitive models and by the needs of their coun try, had grasped the true ideal of Episcopacy. "A Metropohtan," he said, " apart from the object of his presiding in the Councils of the Church would answer no good purpose, so that if Synods could not be had, it would be better for the Bishops in the Colonies to remain as they were, under his Grace's own Archiepiscopal jurisdiction." x Next year (1852), however, Conferences of Colonial and Enghsh Bishops in England led to the introduction (although 1 Roe, p. 41 f. Bishop G. J. Mountain's Memoir by his son, p. 291 f. 1 62 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION not to the passing) of a BUI in the Enghsh Parlia ment to remove the impediments. Advantage was taken of an Act of the Canadian Parhament (1857) and in 1859 the diocesan Synod of Quebec held its first sitting. The supposed pohtical difficulties raised at home had now disappeared once for all : freedom had been gained. The meeting of the Synod had been preceded by long discussions and much excitement. Not only the qualifications for the lay delegates (it may be noted that no difficulty arose then or since as to lay mem bers) but the maintenance of the Bishop's veto were in dispute. 1 There were many Presby terians who conformed to the Church, and there were some Churchmen who sympathized with them. These wished to abolish the veto while, on the other side, to do away with it would place the control of the Church in the hands of laymen, closely akin to elders in the Presbyterian model. But the Episcopal veto was rightly made a primary condition of Syno dal action. 2 In this way not only was the rightful freedom of Synods secured for, the Church, but 1 I had the pleasure of hearing the story of the whole matter, vividly told by Archdeacon Roe : the election of the delegates, especially in the city of Quebec, led to actual riots, and the Archdeacon acting as Chairman at his own Vestry only saved the page containing the needed minutes when the book itself was seized and burnt by the rioters. His long journeys to put the facts of the case before the rural parishes taxed even his robust frame, though they gave him much joy as a Churchman and pleasure as a horseman. The votes of rural delegates were cast for the Episcopal veto. 2 It is expressly reserved in all the diocesan Canons I have seen. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 163 the veto of the Bishop, was also fixed.1 Soon a Province was formed and (1861) its Synod met at Montreal, which, until 1879 was tne fixed metropolis. Thus the Church in Canada, as in South Africa, gained freedom, and with it fresh power of growth. The organization of the Church, in which Dr. Machray of Rupert's Land took a leading part, was rapidly extended. That see was made Metropoli tan in 1878 after the Second Pan-Anglican Confer ence, and the sees under it grew in number : Saskat chewan (1872), Moosonee (1872), Athabasca, (1874), Mackenzie River (1883), Qu'AppeUe (1884), Calgary (1887), Keewatin (1899), Yukon (1891), and Edmonton (1914). In 1859 the see of Columbia was formed on the Pacific Coast, in 1879 Caledonia and New Westminster : Kootenay in 1899, and Cariboo in 1914. These outlying and Missionary sees were formed (1911) into a Province (at present under a Metropohtan, the Bishop of Caledonia) . The General Synod of the same year formed also a Province of Ontario, including Algoma, Ottawa, Toronto, Ontario, Huron and Niagara, under an Archbishop elected by the Bishops. This left on the eastern coast a smaller Province of Canada (including Nova Scotia, Fredericton, Montreal and Quebec), with an elected Archbishop. It will be noted that while in Rupert's Land the Metropohtan see is fixed, in the other cases an Archbishop or Metro pohtan is elected by the Suffragans. The former 1 This is essential, and should be emphasized in any scheme such as that proposed by the Archbishop's Com mittee on the relation of Church and State. 164 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION arrangement foUows primitive precedent, but under it when a vacancy occurs friction may arise from the rival claims of the Province and Diocese. Hence in the case of Rupert's Land under a vacancy the Diocesan Synod sends up two names for selection by the House of Bishops. In the other cases the Diocesan Synods elect their Bishop, whUe the Bishops elect an Archbishop or Metropohtan. The ecclesiastical organization has thus grown rapidly when once the Church had gained its freedom. Primitive models thus vindicated their usefulness for modern needs. In the Diocesan Synods lay delegates are always present : some theorists hold this a mis take, as departing too widely from tradition. But it should not be forgotten that in the primitive Councils the power of the Emperor was great, sometimes wielded in person, sometimes through delegates. In the Medieval period the conception of Church and State as one Society with its civfl and its ecclesiastical hierarchies lay at the root of everything, and at Constance laymen had repre sentation through both Princes and Ambassadors.1 1 See Figgis, From Gerson to Grotius, note ii, pp. 231- 232 : "In a democratic Government like the English, elected members would naturally take the place of the ambassadors." This is a perfectly sound statement. See also loc. cit. pp. 44-5 and 50. Opposition to the presence of the laity came from the extreme Papalists, but this view would not have been taken before the eleventh cen tury ; the earlier view emphasized the need of fellowship between the ecclesiastical and pohtical sides of govern ment ; it was gradually rejected for the more exclusively ecclesiastical view of Cardinal Humbert and his followers, but traces of the earlier view are constantly met. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 165 The claim of the lay element to a share and a voice in the Councils of the Church has more support in history than is often aUowed, and the denial of its rightfulness, necessary as that denial may be for Papahsts, is, most probably, a result of past Papal influence. In practice no evils, but on the con trary, great advantages result from the presence of laymen. The Church thus grows into a coher ence of thought and action which brings it closer to its ideal of unity and fits it better for its many-sided work. But it should not be forgotten that an essential safeguard must be kept in the Bishop's veto. This, as said before, has been done securely in the Canadian Church. And stiU further restric tions are rightfuUy placed on the power of the Synods to alter doctrine or to discuss it. But on the other hand financial matters are left to the Synods or Church Societies : the arrange ments for patronage, with respect to the Bishop's control and the wishes of the parishioners vary with the diocese. But the main thing brought out by even a short account of these Canadian rela tions is the coherency and enthusiasm formed under an Episcopal system in which Synods have their proper place. The introduction of the Epis copate was first retarded by the Enghsh Govern ment and the evfl influence of the Estabhshment idea : the present condition could not have come about under any pohtical connexion or with a lack of Synodal hfe. This single example of the Cana dian Church, which might be paraUeled from other Dominions, is enough to prove the power of a growing Episcopate and of Synodical government. 166 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION We at home have, I think, something stiU to learn from it. The lesson from the Canadian Church can be rein forced from South Africa : there too Episcopacy, Synodal action and self-government have done much. These institutions grew in that atmosphere of unity and Church brotherhood which marked the first two Lambeth Conferences. But if the wishes of the Colonial Churches were clearly expressed the timidity of the Church at home, due to the dominant regard for the Estabhshment, was as easily seen. The Colonial Churches found their safety in a reahza tion of Church hfe on the proved primitive and traditional model. It is strange to note how much of, the Episcopal policy laid down by the first Lam beth Conference remains unearned out. Self- government, freedom of spirit, the sense of brother hood, these are aU of them characteristics of our democratic age : regard for the needs of local hfe and a reahzation of its power are commonplaces of political wisdom. They are to be found at their fuUest, and can be used to their utmost under the rule of constitutional Episcopacy. That such Episcopacy is out of harmony with the conditions, of modern democratic hfe can only be maintained if aU history be disregarded. It has often been said that the Reformation was based upon individualism,1 and there is much of 1 Troeltsch in his Protestantism and Progress, which has been translated, deals with this aspect of the Reformation. I have discussed it in an Essay on Continuity at the Refor mation in the volume of London University Theological Essays. THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 167 truth in this. But it is just as true that the modern world has been slowly regaining the sense of cor porate hfe. We of to-day have learnt it as an undying lesson from the great War which has drawn us to gether. Just as the individuahsm of the Reformation showed itself in rehgious hfe so we must expect the common hfe of the Church to impress itself with growing power upon our Empire. It is astonishing, for instance, to see how strong, even in the more distant branches of our Church, is the love (respect is too weak a term) for the Mother see of Canter bury. It is a sentiment of extraordinary power, and may yet do for our Empire what the see of Augustine did in olden days for our own island. It is needless to discuss the ways in which that feehng has shown itself at the Lambeth Conference : ft has even sought to express itself in constitutional changes. So far did this go that some have even feared that the Primacy of Canterbury might grow into a Supremacy, and the Supremacy into some thing of an Anglican Papacy. We ought not to forget, even if we part from it, that none the less the Papacy has had a great place in history, and fulfiUed a noble destiny of its own. And its evils are not hkely to recur with us. Such fears are groundless : the caution of Canterbury is not hkely to pass into rashness, and we may always reckon upon a tender regard for local freedom together with a fear of straining constitutional bonds. But history has already gone far enough to show that the Anglican Episcopate has a great future of its own. The opportunity that was lost at the Refor mation is shaping itself before our own generation. i68" THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION And may I say a word, from my own Canadian experience, of the value of Synods ? I have seen in Canada how they link together Bishops and clergy ; how they caU forth the interest and ener gies of laymen ; how they send the labourers back to their separate and lonely fields with a sense of the Vast fellowship that lies behind them, and with which they work. I recaU, too, the great General Synod of 1903, when the Church took over into its own hands the whole provision, not only for missions at home, but also abroad. There were many diffi culties to overcome, many jealousies to be laid aside, not least, different societies to be superseded. But so vivid was the sense of feUowship, that the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace made the obstacles melt away. It was a remarkable proof of the power that Synods can possess, the work that they, and they alone, can do. And there, too, yearly visitation of parishes by Bishops can be the rule, so that the Bishop's super vision is a real spiritual force, the intercourse be tween him and his clergy a living and an ever-grow ing bond. It cannot be aU that in our own over- large bishoprics. Yet no Church can long neglect any law of its being without suffering the greatest loss. The Church of England has failed, for many genera tions, to use its Episcopate to the full, to demand from it aU it can give. The deepest injury wrought to the Church by rehgious revolutions in rapid turn, was the putting off (in the end, the laying aside) of a thorough and organic reform. Reform in worship and in doctrine was not accompanied, as it should have been, by reform in organization. That is the THE EPISCOPATE AND THE EEFORMATION 169 lesson of the past, as it is the work of the future. This great work, the carrying out of which I have ventured to caU an Episcopal reformation, a reform ation, that is, upon Episcopal hnes, was left for coming generations to see to for themselves. But the mistake of all this did not arise from the Refor mation itself. It arose from the fact that the Reformation in England was carried out too largely upon the negative side : that its constructive side, although seen in proper proportions by some Re formers, was yet neglected. There was no great increase in the number of Bishops ; there was no codification of the Church's law, there was no revival of Synodical hfe with all that it implies, These essential things were left aside ; the work put off was forgotten ; the Church was left poorer, almost permanently poorer. Almost, we may say : for the present has yet the chance of retrieving the past. For these are not mere isolated changes unconnected among themselves, they are varied manifestations of the many-sided hfe of the Church. With a re vived sense of what the Church was meant to be, these varied changes took their place as natural deductions from a great first principle. If there has been any value in our rapid outlook it has at least shown us that in the Episcopate, under its proper form, hes a sufficient, lies the best means of guiding rightly a growing hfe. But it is one characteristic of days since the French Revolution, that no authority can permanently enforce its claim to obedience, unless it can justify its power by life and work. The Anghcan Church has yet to carry out, unreservedly, and with an undivided heart, its 170 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION ideal Episcopacy. The failures of the past must be repaired ; after aU, they are but shght defects in comparison with aU that, by the grace of God, we have so happily preserved. But, it is said, there are difficulties in the way. There are always difficulties in realizing the inspirations of God in action ; there are always difficulties in the way of reahzing con stitutional hfe. Both these kinds of difficulties are ours to meet. Tyranny is easy, but it degrades the future ; anarchy is easy, but it has no future at aU. It is best to meet the difficulties that he around and amid constitutional hfe, and so to save and enrich the days to come. This and none other is the choice before us. For the Church of England has a special mission of its own, extending in these days of Empire far beyond our shores and gathering around itself traditions not only rehgious but secular, now hal lowed as they have never been before. We have a special gift in our Episcopate preserved and moulded as it has been. Enough has been said already on its special history, its power and its possibihties. But Enghshmen have not always loved or even studied their own history as they should. They have only learnt to admire their constitutional freedom when foreigners have sung its praises and studied its growth. They have looked at their Empire as a matter of course. It is the same with our rehgious history. We hardly realize our possession in our Church. We see some of its sons who admire over much the purely sectarian peculiarities of Rome : we see others of them who are drawn to the doctrines and associations of our Enghsh sects. But a study THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION 171 of Church history, that of our own for its spirit and that of others for its warnings, can teach them a better way. Our history in the past no less than the promise of days to come calls them to enter into the fulness of their Cathohc birthright. And of that birthright our Episcopate is one valued part. We have seen something of its expansion and its power at the most critical period of our story. Plainly and clearly it has been at its best and done its utmost when it has been in its most constitu tional form. Synods and self-government in the spiritual and ecclesiastical sphere are, as we should not forget, essential to a perfect Episcopacy. The diocese is a unit just as a priest is an individual, but each has a larger whole behind its separate hfe. The independence of the diocese, the power of the Bishop within it is limited by the rules and tradi tions of the Catholic Church beyond it, and by the constitutional forms within it. If these are dis regarded the Episcopal power may become arbi trary, the diocese suffer a loss of strength. In this direction we have some dangers to be aware of, some older institutions to restore. We must, if we wish to keep our spiritual freedom, move within the limits of our Cathohc hfe. We have no reason to fear days that are new or dangers that come near, for upon the power of that hfe we can rely. Only we may weU remember the caution in the wise words of Liddon.1 " The Church of England can not claim finality for anything that dates from the Reformation period; and that was settled, for 1 Life and Letters of H. P. Liddon, p. 290. Also Cole ridge, Memoir of John Keble, 439 f. 172 THE EPISCOPATE AND THE REFORMATION whatever good reasons, on her own, i.e., a local authority, and therefore, from the nature of the case, provisionally." With a Church as with a man, its history is the law of its hfe, and gives the limits of its power.1 It is in that sense, and in that spirit that we are committed to " the Historic Episcopate." Upon it as our haUowed ground we refuse ahke a Papal tyranny or individual anarchy. In it are gathered the powers of the past : through it we can claim the promise of the years to come, 1 The fourth of the articles adopted as a basis on which approach might be made towards Reunion by the Lambeth Conference of 1888 was " The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church." Encyc. Letter, p. 87, adopting the wording of the American Convention of 1886. See also p. 84. I do not propose to discuss in detail the " Kikuyu " proposals, except to point out a curious confusion of thought that has been made. It has been said the original proposal conformed to the " Lambeth Quadrilateral " because it safeguarded (or tried to safeguard) the His toric Episcopate in the Church of England as a member in a Federation of Churches. It is surely clear that the principle is meant to apply to all the parties in any attempted or realized union. The sanction of the article, whatever weight be allowed to it, cannot therefore be claimed for the proposals of the Bishops at Kikuyu. Appendix I THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE IN RELATION TO THE VISIBLE UNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, (A Paper read at the Church Congress, Cambridge, 1910.) HOW does research affect our view of the Episco pate ? To begin with, it gives us one caution. In constitutional origins there is always some vague ness : you have " germs " which may " develop " rather than fuUy-grown institutions : there are always outlying facts, singular points in curves otherwise continuous, which attract painful investigators. But then there are also broad facts which stand out, the heritage of one age from another. One such broad fact is that very early in the second century we find the Church episcopal : definitely so in the large area for which the Ignatian letters speak, less definitely so elsewhere in the East. From that time onwards, as Christianity spread and grew, Episcopacy grew along with it : until the disruption of the sixteenth century Christianity was episcopal. The Episcopate is the best standpoint for ecclesiastical study, just as the kingship and the nation are for pohtical study. The Church had a unity of its own. The great ques tion for a Christian was his relation to Christ : in Christ he was a member of the world-wide Ecclesia,1 and also of the local Ecclesia. So long as the Apostles lived and 1 Hort, Christian Ecclesia, p. 168. 173 174 APPENDIX governed in the Church, they were a very Sacrament of its unity, but beneath them was the many-sided local hfe. That hfe had its officers, " the organs of the Corporate life for special purposes." l When the Apos tles passed away, to some of those officers feU the special task of guarding the unity in Christ. Thus the Bishops appear, and they have not only to govern within but to keep unity without. St. Cyprian colours the picture which St. Ignatius draws. The episcopal theory was once stated by its advocates, and is stiU stated by its opponents, in a somewhat crude form. It asserted the general existence from the earliest times of monarchical Bishops with an almost mechanical transmission of authority. But it can be put to-day in a wider and deeper way somewhat as follows : (i) An essential feature of the Church was its unity, represented to begin with by the Apostles ; (2) at the close of the sub-Apostolic age that unity is represented by the Bishops,2 whose rise is " the natural and inevitable result of developments," 3 and whose continuous suc cession secured by the laying on of hands is the guarantee of unity ; (3) the Episcopate, transmitted as we know it, is much more than a mere mechanical device of government : it is " the backbone of the Church," * and " it drew to itself from all quarters both the powers and the forms of hfe." And Schubert says,6 " The Church rested upon these three piUars, the rule of faith, the canon of Scripture, and the Bishops" ; in times of strife without and of controversy within, the monarchical rule of the Bishops had proved to be the best means of preserving the 1 Ibid., p. 230. * Ramsay, Church in Roman Empire, p. 364. 3 H. V. Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 55. 4 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, etc., i, p. 439. 8 H. V. Schubert, Outlines, p. 55. APPENDIX 175 teaching of the Apostles from one generation to another." It is certain, then, that the primitive Church was more than congregational : and " the assumption is wrong," says Harnack, even when rejecting the episcopal theory, " that the ecclesiastical constitution has been developed out of an original presbyterial constitution." x Du chesne 2 says : " To me it seems that if we look at the matter dispassionately and in no contentious or party spirit, we shall see that . . . tradition gives a less prejudiced account than is sometimes supposed. The view that the Episcopate represents the Apostohc succession is in accordance with the sum total of facts as we know them." And the passage in which he amplifies this statement agrees substantiaUy to my mind with the fuller sketch lately drawn by Harnack. Harnack,3 hke Hort, speaks of the Christian organiza tion resting " in the first instance solely upon rehgious ideas, but unable as a purely ideal conception to remain effective had it not been allied to local organization." And " within the Church organization the most weighty and significant creation was that of the monarchical Episcopate. It was the Bishops, properly speaking, who held together the individual members of the Churches : their rise marked the close of the period during which charismata and offices were in a state of mutual flux." I have given conclusions because details are impos sible, and I have quoted enough to show that latest research, the nightmare of some and the fetich of others, does not lessen the significance of the Episcopate : * 1 Expositor, 1887, p. 337, also Constitution and Lave of the Church, p. 102. 2 The Early History of the Church, i. p. 66 (Enghsh translation). ¦ Harnack, Mission, etc., i, pp. 431-9. Also Constitution and Law, p. 102. * See also Batiffol, L'Eglise naissante et le catholicisme. 176 APPENDIX on the contrary, it places it in the closest relation with the whole Christian growth ; it shows it to us as the product and the keeper of the Christian life ; it is this through aU the storm of early heresies, and the rush of the barbarian invasions. Then for fourteen centuries it remained the normal type of Christian organization. In the Middle Ages the unity of the Church was reahzed by the Episcopate most of aU. Its working is often hidden by the majestic growth of the national states, and the Papacy. But a deeper study shows how much depended upon its ideal, and its practical efficiency. Great episcopal leaders showed its power, and the Councils of the fourteenth century restated its theory. We are just coming to understand that the best history of the Medieval Church would trace out its diocesan hfe, and we might even trace the growth of medieval abuses, viewed as defects in episcopal rule. And further, innovations upon Church order, such as monastic exemptions, worked against it. Now it is often assumed that in the Early and Medie val Church we see the Episcopate working at its best ; in a word, that Episcopacy reaUy belongs to the past, and that its day is really over. But there were in those days great forces weakening its strength. One was pohtical pressure, turning the Bishops into convenient pohtical tools, and another was the growth of Papal power. The Papacy often raised, as it did under Gregory VII, the level of the Episcopate. But the process began by which Episcopal freedom was sacrificed to Papal power. Liemar, Archbishop of Bremen, complained that Gre gory VII ordered Bishops about as if they were his bailiffs. Thus the Papal Monarchy grew at the expense of the Episcopate. In the West, Papal unity, after it had separated East and West, replaced Episcopal unity. Then came the Reformation. Great changes are APPENDIX 177 badly summed up in one word, but " individuahsm " goes far towards summing up the Reformation. It was an outburst of individualism, with aU the splendid possibihties and all the mighty dangers that belong to individuahsm. The Church met this new danger with an Episcopacy partly degraded and partly enslaved. Such an Episcopacy was hardly able to fulfil its olden duties, to utihze individuality and yet to preserve unity. To the Papacy fell the direction of the Church's pohcy. The Papacy met the cyclone with diplomacy, but against a cyclone diplomacy is powerless. There were some who, hke Colet, pleaded for a reform ation on the old lines of Episcopacy ; but not to speak of other things, the Episcopate under Papal rule had lost its old power of union, and it was not, as formerly, in close touch with local hfe. From this cause many evils arose. The Episcopate stood for authority, which is a neces sity of continuous rehgious life. " Promiscuous powers of association, the alternative to structural continuity, are foreign to the whole conception " x of the Church from St. Ignatius downwards. With the outbreak of individuahsm this new principle of " promiscuous association " was asserted against the Church. The assertion that every man, and stiU more, every State, has the right to create a new rehgious body, was the destruction of unity. Among the new bodies that arose there were differ ences. Independents asserted congregational indepen dence : Presbyterians asserted the Divine right of the presbyters. But while Lutherans have never formaUy denied Episcopacy,2 both Presbyterians and Indepen- 1 Article by Simpson on " Apostolic Succession," in Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. s See the Augsburg Confession, Art. VII. The ecclesiastical powers of Bishops are limited by the Word of God. M 178 APPENDIX dents asserted its sinfulness. These principles are not so closely held to-day, and we see signs of a broader out look. " Juro divino Congregationalism and Presbyter ianism have but few advocates to-day," sajys Dr. Briggs.1 But the freedom of " promiscuous associa tion " then asserted has led to endless divisions. These divisions arose because Episcopacy was sacrificed to Papal sovereignty and free association. But the Council of Trent went another way. It re formed the Episcopate along with much else, and a rehgious revival began. But it also emphasized the sub jection of the Episcopate to the Papacy. Since then the Vatican Council (1870) not only affirmed Papal infallibility, which in its present interpretation, as Dollinger 2 said, makes full unity hopeless : but it also left the Bishops mere bailiffs of the Pope ; they now hold many of their powers as Papal vicars, or by hcence. Later difficulties in Germany, France, and the United States have shown how the Roman Episcopate has lost essential freedom of action, and close touch with local hfe. It is a question how long sections of the Roman Episcopate will stand the growing strain, or how far they may succeed in changing present pohcies. But a restored ideal of Episcopacy is needed against Papal usurpation just as it is needed against the endless divi sions of Protestantism. And is not that ideal the only possible means of the largest and ultimate union ? Is not its maintenance our special mission ? There were moments in the Reformation when, with a different Prayer Book or a different constitution, the Enghsh Church might have become other than it is. But I know of no instances where it hag deliberately x Church Unity, p. 83. 1 Dollinger, Reunion of the Churches (English translation), pp. 136-7. APPENDIX 179 accepted Orders other than Episcopal. For Ehzabeth's reign we have Whitgift's statement that in his province " he knew none such." * Our Church's care for the very details of Episcopacy I need not vindicate. And this ideal of Episcopacy has been greatly quick ened in later years. Richer diocesan hfe, Bishops' in spiring energy, not merely inspecting work, new in stincts of unity within the diocese, a reaching after larger unity without, the claim of Bishops to a constitu tional obedience, and I may add the almost general and loyal response to that claim : all these mean much. A Bishop known in every parish of his diocese, a true Father in God to priest and layman ahke, " having a good report of them that are without," translating into the terms of modern hfe and modern responsibihties the pictures drawn by St. Paul and St. Ignatius, the models of St. Basil and the Gregorys, of Grosseteste, of An- drewes, of Wilberforce and King : there you have a power that makes for unity within and without. Our episcopal ideal has grown in England itself, and at length, after disgraceful delay, it has been also rooted in the United States and our Colonies to flourish there. The Lambeth Conferences are an object lesson. This has come, too, in spite of the disadvantages of our pohtical position. The ideal has been revived, but how does its revival affect reunion with non-episcopal bodies ? Because I believe visible unity to be Christ's wiU, and because we, at any rate, have gained our vision of that unity under Episcopacy, I beheve we are called upon as our contribution to union to show Episcopacy at its best, and so as most attractive. That means it must be most efficient. But how can it be so when we hve under diocesan divisions, which 1 Strype's Whitgift, iii, p. 185 (in reply to Travers' assertion). i8o . APPENDIX Henry VIII thought inadequate, and when our Domin ions beyond the seas are so inadequately provided for ? Further, the movements, which have made lasting divisions, stand for exaggerations of true principles. For instance, the Divine right of presbyters is an exag geration, but the rights of the presbyter have a mean ing. Do we not sometimes forget this ? Are we not hkely to forget it until real Diocesan Synods restore a neglected but useful side of Episcopacy ? And, again, have we not learnt too well from the State our lessons of uniformity, and so sometimes disregarded the rights of congregations ? If we, firstly our Bishops and then ourselves, see that our ideal is large enough to include those truths over-emphasized by other bodies, shall we not conciliate where now we divide, attract where we now repel ? And, again, in a future which must be largely demo cratic, discipline and guidance will be both urgently needed and earnestly sought. " The inefficiency of Protestantism is largely due to the neglect of the execu tive function of the historical Episcopate," says Dr. Briggs.1 Democracies again, as we see in our Colonies and in the United States, and as we see in the revival of monarchy, greatly value institutions which link them with the past. May we not therefore expect in days to come a deeper appreciation of Episcopacy and its associations of this kind ? It seems, then, that our ideal must be shown with loyalty and largeness : every Episcopalian must be come in loyalty and charity an episcopaUy-minded man : for the two are not the same. We must not be impatient ; we must remember that ecclesiastical ex pedients (meant to be temporary) have a way of be coming permanent. The attempted unions of East 1 Church Unity, p. 78. APPENDIX 181 and West, of Lutherans and Calvinists, teach us the dangers of compromise and diplomacy. It might be easy to reach unity if we surrender our principles to day, and ask others to do it to-morrow. But the growth of principles is what matters most. And yet we can remember how much depends upon our atmo sphere, and how much more upon our prayers. These are things we can control, but the course of Divine growth is not ours to order, although it may be ours to thwart or to further. But it is for us to guard the principles by which God has spoken to our souls, the gift of His grace to us to use for the welfare of the world. * # * * * We pass behind the veil of outward fact to the in ward grace of spiritual power. II THE ORIGIN OF THE EPISCOPATE SO far I have spoken of the Episcopate mainly in its modern history and as it concerns us to-day. But something should be added about its beginnings, although a full discussion of them is impossible here. The Church has been, as we must remember, both enriched and limited by its past : it has been inspired and guided by God throughout its course, and the guidance of God implies both the opening up of paths and the placing of restraints upon its course. The Church, hke a man, has had its experience, and again like a man, in the hght of that experience it must walk. 182 APPENDIX An experience which takes us back to the Apostles and so links us with Christ Himself has a unique impor tance in the Church's past and is therefore essential to its continued life : it cannot be bartered away or lost for any apparent gain of the day. Hence much depends upon the claim of the Episcopate to fill such a place. The acceptance of that claim by many centuries of undivided allegiance, and by the majority of later Christians, makes at the outset a presumption in its favour. We hve not in the first Christian period when facts were unquestioned, nor in the second when first the facts had been questioned and theories formed : we have to look at the facts after a long growth and through conflicting theories. For us it is mainly a question of history, and as a problem of history it should be treated. The historic evidence x is now hardly in dispute, but the interpretation of it is a different matter. Enghsh writers down to Lightfoot have given the evidence in such a form that it can easily be separated from their interpretations. With German writers, hke Harnack (who has gradually changed his views in the direction of tradition) and some modern Enghsh writers this disentanglement is more difficult. Some of them further more would shut out the New Testament from the question, but there we really find the beginnings of Church history and so it must be included. Others again speak as if the picture of Church organization given in the New Testament were rudimentary or vague. 1 It is collected by Lightfoot in his celebrated Dissertation on the Christian Ministry. The digression on sacerdotalism which is not so clear as the rest of the dissertation, and is chiefly theological, does not obscure the masterly historic touch of the main argument. The evidence is also collected among older writers by Bingham, and Potter (Church Government), and more lately by Batiffol in I'Eglise nalssante et le Catholicisme (Paris, i9°9). APPENDIX 183 Thus not long ago the Pastoral Epistles were sometimes dated late because the organization described in them seemed too highly developed for an early date. But we must take our evidence as we find it and let our conclusions follow not precede its consideration : this arbitrary mistake in criticism is now less general.1 In these Epistles the organization as we find it is both important and coherent. There is a local ministry : the Apostle exercises supervision and we have dele gates (probably temporary in 1 Timothy and Titus, apparently permanent in 2 Timothy) appointed by him, and having the right of ordaining the ministers chosen by the local communities. The Church whether general or local is not a mere loose association of indi viduals or a sympathetic gathering of fellow-believers : the existence of the community, the new Israel, is a governing fact. Within it, individuals grow, doc trines are beheved and taught, worship is practised : there is hfe in the local body, but the authority comes from the centre. This is indeed*what we might expect from the continuity between the Old and New Testa ments, and from the fact that the body of Christian behevers succeed to Israel of old.2 The organization of the Church in New Testament days is thus more complete than is sometimes assumed, and significantly its central authority hes with the Apostles. Passing from the first to the second century we find that modern criticism has not yet really adjusted itself to the now general acceptance of the seven Ignatian 1 See Dr. Lock on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus in Hastings' Bible Dictionary for a discussion of the question as to date, authority and contents of the Epistles. 2 This view is expressed vividly in 1 Peter ; it is illustrated by Hort in his Christian Ecclesia, and its fundamental impor tance for the Christian Church is well shown by Dr. Harold Hamilton in his People of God (Oxford, 1912). 184 APPENDIX Epistles as genuine. Such a confusion often remains when after a long controversy some final conclusion is reached.1 When the evidence of St. Ignatius, like that of the New Testament, is accepted, apart from any theory, the supposed startling difference between the first and second centuries disappears and the supposed " emergence of a Cathohc Church " 2 only in the second century seems fanciful and untrue. The Church grows, and its growth has to do both with its own indwelling power and with things outside its hfe. But the growth is continuous and harmonious from the Apostohc Age downwards. The Bishop in the Ignatian Epistles is a crystallization from the more fluid state of the Pastoral Epistles. A contrast is often drawn between two equivalent ministries, charismatic or spiritually gifted and regular, official or hierarchical, both supposed to exist in the early Church although the former gradually disappeared. This theory emphasizes the importance of the prophet in early days, and it fits in well with the view that the Church of the second century is really a distortion or corruption of the Apostohc Church, sacrificing, as it is suggested, spirituahty to organization and therefore rightly condemned by the Montanists. But this view, although it has commended itself to Lutherans and is also held by others, is quite unhistorical and gives a wrong basis for the study of Church history. The Didache or Teaching oj the Twelve Apostles, however, 1 Thus, e.g., some writers on Roman Britain pointed out in notes that the de Situ Britannia attributed to Richard of Cirencester was a forgery (as was shown by Dr. J. E. B. Mayor), but yet made in their texts statements founded upon it. 8 As a fact and not as a mere matter of a name. This is the assumption which underlies the discussion as to the nature of the Catholic Church carried on between Harnack and Sohm. See Harnack's Constitution and Law of the Church for the state ments of both sides. APPENDIX 185 speaks more than did other early writings about the prophets and their place in the Church : its discovery and pubhcation by Bryennios in 1883 therefore encour aged those who saw in the growth of organization a victory of the official over the charismatic ministry. But the Didache, to which it was always difficult to assign a date and place, has lately come under discussion afresh.1 The Dean of WeUs asks for a fresh discussion of the work and his conclusions, if accepted, would discredit many theories about the early Church which are largely founded upon the Didache, and its supposed support of the charismatic ministry. For himself he finds " the Apostles, Prophets and Teachers of whom so much has been said since the book was discovered " ..." increasingly unreal " and without " any true parallel " in any part of the Church. Even if aU his arguments as to the methods of the writer be not accepted the exceptional character of the Didache and the impossibility of taking it to represent normal Church hfe early in the second century must be admitted. A purely charismatic ministry in possession of the Church and graduaUy disappearing before the onslaughts of organized officials is a description not supported by evidence. There were naturaUy people with excep- 1 See the Dean of Wells, Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XIII, p. 339 f. (April, 1912). He regards it as an attempt by the writer to give guidance to the Church of his day in the form of what the Apostles might have said, so disguising " the actual conditions of his own time." The result is that it contributes almost nothing except doubtful exegesis to advance our know ledge of the early Christian ministry. For a discussion of the charismatic ministry see Hamilton's People of God, II Appendix, Note 3. Dr. Armitage Robinson's criticism is reinforced by Dr. Wotherspoon's interesting book, The Ministry in the Church in Relation to Prophets and Spiritual Gifts (Longmans, 1916). On the Didachi see Turner, Studies- in Early Church History (Oxford, 1912), chap. i. 186 APPENDIX tional gifts : there were others who without any special gifts were called to ordinary office : but we do not find ' any class of men or women permanently inspired and therefore claiming rule before we reach the days of Mon- tanism. And the Montanists, although some modern critics, with a fondness for purely spiritual rehgion and a dishke of religious institutions, see in them survivals of original Christianity, were in their own day regarded as innovators preaching a new Gospel and therefore heretics. The primitive prophets seem rather to have prophesied only occasionally : the idea of a prophet, dependent upon his gift for his dauy bread as in the Didache or drawing a fixed salary as with some of the Montanists, was foreign to early Christianity. Where a Christian was conscious of such gifts or was recogr nized as possessing them, probably he would (we have a possible case in St. Paul himself) have sought admis sion into the regular ministry even if he were not urged to do so. The actual practice of any institution would then, just as now, not answer perfectly to its ideal : it was to be wished then as now that every Christian teacher should be inspired to a peculiar degree : this was probably more often and more nearly the case then than it is now. But we have no warrant in history for supposing that a whole class of charismatic ministers existed, either coordinate or in rivalry with the ordinary ministers, general or local, whom we find in the Acts and in the Epistles, not to speak of later writings. But, on the other hand, the administration of the Church depended partly upon the Apostles, placed at the*centre and bearing " the care of ah the churches " ; partly upon the local ministers, whom we find, almost from the very first, appointed by the Apostles and also (as we see in the Pastoral Epistles) by those whom the Apostles had set in their own place, which is indeed APPENDIX 187 much the picture that St. Clement (Ep. § 42, 44) gives us.1 The practical unity secured by the ministry of the Apostles, and the needs of local life, varied in form but always conditioned by the sense of brotherhood, worked together to make a more or less uniform Church ministry. There was, to begin with, a missionary stage in which the central ministers had, of necessity, every thing to do : then there came a stage of fixed and strong local life in which the local ministry naturaUy became both more efficient and more important : had it not been for the Apostohc supervision and the strong feehng of widespread brotherhood, this local ministry might have become all-important, supreme in its own sphere without any outlook or allegiance outside. But these two stages overlap : the large amount of intercourse, the example of the unity in the older 1 St. Clement to the Corinthians. (42) " The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ : Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Both therefore came of the will of God in the appointed order. Having therefore received a charge . . . they went forth with the glad tidings that the kingdom of God should come. So preaching everywhere in country and town they appointed their first-fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. . . . (44) And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the Bishop's office. For this cause therefore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons, and afterwards they gave an additional law (ta-wo/tfr) that if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministration." I quote the translation of Lightfoot, with tfie incorporation of the reading " iinvo/ilv " in place of (iriiiovriv, which Light foot translates " (they provided) a continuance." Since Dom Morin's discovery of his Latin MS. (with the reading " post- modum legem dederunt ") the evidence for tinvopXv is stronger than when Lightfoot wrote (see Dr. A. J. Mason on The Prin ciples of Ecclesiastical Unity, 1896, p. 94 f.). 188 APPENDIX Jewish Church, even the political unity of the Empire, still more the theological conviction of unity in Christ, all these worked together to prevent the merely local ministry becoming isolated in the local Church : if, on the one side, it stretched out its hand to the local work close beside it, it also stretched out its hand to the Apostohc ministry with its unity of rule, with its power to guide, and the sense of widespread brotherhood it taught. The Christian Church could not be Presby terian because there were Apostles above the Pres byters : it could not become Congregational for the same reason, and also because there were neither Jews nor Greeks, neither Barbarians nor Scythians in Christ. It was among this interplay of varied causes and feelings and facts, in the rich gifts of the spirit and the deep sense of brotherhood, from the mingling and the growth, free but directed and guided, of the general and of the local ministries, that the " Monarchic Episcopate " arose. The historic problem is, in some ways, simplified if we bear these things in mind. On the other hand it is not quite so simple as some modern writers would make it when they seize on the analogy of the Chairman of a Board cohecting power into his own hands and so graduaUy becoming aU-important. It was a matter of growth, of hfe, of Apostolic direction and local vigour. It is perhaps a httle unfortunate that the expression " the Monarchic Episcopate " has been so generaUy accepted. If it was monarchic the monarchy was that of a constitutional sovereignty : when we speak of a monarch we are a httle apt, with foreign examples before us, to think of ambition and power, but here it is a monarchy arising and working amid the varied currents of a strong constitutional hfe. Such is the beginning of the " Historic Episcopate," not opposed to democracy, both because it had behind it the demo cratic life of the widespread Christian Church, and APPENDIX 189 because it lived in the democracy of its own local brother hood. The historic problem is clearly stated by Mr. C. H. Turner 1 : " When we have explained how the supreme powers of the general ministry were made to devolve on an individual who belonged to the local ministry, we have explained the origin of episcopacy." It may be noted that the bishop from the first represents his local church to those outside just as he represents Church unity and authority to those under him. These features of episcopacy as we find it in St. Ignatius remain in later days : in this external aspect of the bishop, and in his relation to his fellow bishops and deacons, not to mention his election by the populace, we find significant traces of the twofold origin of epis copacy. If he has his close association with his local synod and is elected by the local church, he also receives 1 Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. I, chap, vi, p. 145. Mr. Turner's chapter, which almost alone among modern works handles the matter in the spirit of a constitutional historian, deals mainly with the position under Constantine, although he necessarily looks back. In the same chapter he deals (p. 160) with the supposed exceptional use of Alexandria where, accord ing to Eutychius (Patriarch, a.d. 933-940) down to a.d. 313 the twelve presbyters laid their hands upon the bishop : accord ing to St. Jerome, and Hilary the commentator, they at least nominated the bishop. Mr. Turner, going back to a still earher charge that St. Athanasius had only received presbyterian ordination, finds the explanation of the whole confused and exceptional story in one of the many Arian slanders against the great bishop. Lightfoot, in his Dissertation, deals with the story and recounts the facts. Dr. A. J. Mason (Principles of Ecclesiastical Unity, p. 96) notes the desire of Lightfoot to " give exaggerated prominence to such weak evidence as an opponent might allege." This is a general and worthy practice with Cambridge scholars (very noticeable with Hort) and has sometimes given rise to mistaken suspicions of weakness in principle. But Cambridge with " magnificent repose " has never aimed at training controversialists. 190 APPENDIX his consecration from bishops outside and he takes his place in provincial synods. It would be almost impos sible to explain the appearance in the second century of provincial synods 1 if they had only gradually arisen from the accidental union and intercourse of bishops purely local in origin and function. Much the same may be said of the early appearance of metropohtans and of groups of dioceses associated together, even if these followed the lines of civU divisions. They arose out of a far-reaching unity much more than local. Early Christian tradition has a way of justifying itself in the end : the changes of single critics and the trend of general opinion have lately moved towards it. The appearance of the episcopate and its growth fit in so well with general Church hfe that it has been held an inevitable and necessary development. But, on the other hand, or perhaps at the same time, we might ask what is its exact connexion with the Apostles them selves : how far are they to be held its creators or its patrons ? Lightfoot in his Dissertation concludes that its appearance in Asia must be connected with the authority of St. John. His authorities for this con clusion, although given elsewhere in his survey according to geographical order, are not gathered into a note to this statement, which might seem, therefore, more a conjecture than a deduction from evidence. But the evidence is reaUy strong,2 especiaUy for a period in which 1 The best account of early Synods and of early Church organization beyond the diocese is found in Mr. C. H. Turner's chapter (Camb. Med. Hist.) already referred to and in his Studies in Early Church Organization) : see also Harnack's Constitution and Law, and his Mission and Expansion. For Synods also Leclercq's new French edition of Hefele's Councils, Vol. I. " See Lightfoot's Dissertation under Asia Minor : also Batif- fol, L'Eglise naissante et le Catholicisme (p. 145, note 2) ; Har nack, Mission and Expansion, ii, 222, says : " The traditions that ' John ' organized the Church in Asia, and that he ruled APPENDIX 191 information is not plentiful : it includes the Muratorian Fragment (before a.d. 200) : Tertulhan and St. Clement of Alexandria, not to speak of other statements which have come down to us in a less direct form. Also as we pass backwards from the second century, we come into the New Testament atmosphere of St. John's Third Epistle, with Gaius and Diotrephes and the fric tion between them.1 There is here what must be a case of an early bishop, whichever of the two men holds the office. The question of the exact identity of John of Ephesus remains,* but that does not affect the date nor the connexion of the early episcopate with the teaching, at any rate, of St. John. We thus reach a fixed starting-point for the episcopate which now begins its long development, and more than justifies itself amid the varied difficulties of the second century as it has done in later days, and may, with ampler use, do more fuUy in days to come. The result of these considerations, which arise directly out of the evidence, is to make much of current specu lation seem, from the historical point of view, hazardous if not suspicious. The plain facts are difficult to explain for any one who rejects the traditional view altogether. I do not pretend that there are not other difficulties, although they seem to me less fundamental, which meet the traditional view. At any rate the balance is, I over the Church as a mission-superintendent, are above sus picion. Eventually he came into conflict with local organiza tion (cf. 3 John)." Lightfoot's words are : " Thus the evidence for the early and wide extension of episcopacy throughout pre-consular Asia, the scene of St. John's latest labours, may be considered irrefragable." 1 For a criticism of Harnack's view as to these rivals see Brooke, Commentary on The Johannine Epistles (International Critical Commentary), p. lxxxvii. * See Dr. Swete in Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XVII, P- 375 i- rg2 APPENDIX have no doubt whatever, largely in favour of tradition : to quote again the words of Duchesne 1 : "If we look at the matter dispassionately and in no contentious or party spirit we shaU see that tradition gives a less prejudiced view than is sometimes supposed. The view that the Episcopate represents the Apostohc succession, is in accordance with the sum-total of facts as we know them . . . through the apostles who had instituted it, this hierarchy went back to the very begin ning of the Church, and derived its authority from those to whom Jesus Christ had entrusted His work." It is more than a question of historic continuity, looked at as a heritage good to possess. The Episcopate is, to use favourite 2 words of Lightfoot, " the backbone of historical Christianity " ; more something around which it has grown than an institution which has grown out of it, part of its charter and part of its charge, that which links its scattered hfe together and is a source of its historic strength. 1 The Early History of the Church, i, pp. 66-7 quoted on p. 167, note 2 before. But I should like to refer to the- whole account which is a masterly sketch by the greatest of living authorities. 8 See Mason, Principles of Ecclesiastical Unity, 99. INDEX Absolutism and Prussian Lutheranism, 86 f. Acton, the late Lord, 14, 107, 119 Africa, Church in South, 166 Alexandria, earl} see, 189 American Colonies and Epis copacy, 157 f. Americanism, 122 Anglican Episcopate (see English and Episco pate) its future, 167 f. Archdeacons, 30 Arminianism, 139 Augsburg, Confession of, and Episcopacy, 68 f. Barbarian races in Europe, and Episcopacy, 16 f. Barbosa on Papacy, 115 Bible study, medieval, 47 Bishops, appointment of, in England, 130 and foreign analogies in Spain, 55 Bishops, hmit on power of , 1 71 jurisdiction of, 39 193 Bishops, and Papacy (see Faculties), 40, 116 and Presbyters, 79, 135 f ., 187 and Regulars at Council of Lateran, 94 f. at Trent, 97 f. residence of (discussion at Trent), 97 f. * Decrees of Trent on,98,ioo Titular (at Trent), 108 (See also Episcopacy and Episcopate) Briggs, Dr. C. A., 85, 178,180 Byzantinism, 52 f. Canada, Church of England in, 159 f. history of Episcopacy in, 159 f- Canon Law, no code of, in England, 133, 144 Canterbury, Primacy of, and the Dominions, 167 Carleton, Bishop (at Dort), 140 Cartwright, 136 Celtic Bishops, 38 194 INDEX Charles II and English Church, 151 Chorepiscopi suggested at Restoration, 151 Titular Bishops, at Trent, 108 f. Church, the : definition of, is historical, 79 f. and State, Report of Com mittee on, 147 (note), 148 Code of Canon Law lacking in England, 133, 144 Colet and Reform, 177 sermon to Convocation, 59 1 Communion with foreign bodies by Enghsh Church, 141 Concihar theory, 49 Concordats, 49 (French), 93 Congregationalism in Eng land, 138 Consistory in Prussia, 86 Constance, Council of, 48 Continuity of thought at Reformation, 44 Convocation, 145, 147 and reform (Hy. VIII), 61 f. revival of, 146 Councils (see Constance, Florence, Lateran, Ni- caea, Trent, etc.) Cranmer, 62, 144 Cyril Lucar, 54 Decretals, forged, 24 f. Didachi, The 184 f. Dioceses, medieval organi zation, 37 (note) in Canada, 139 new, in England, 152 need of, in England, 149, 155 scheme for, under Henry VIII, 149, 180 Diocesan reform after Trent, 105 f. Dollinger, 11, 72, 115, 118, 178 Eastern Church, 50 f. Edward VI, 131, 135 Canon Law under, 144 Efficiency lost by neglect of Episcopate, 180 Ems, punctuation of, 114 England, Church of, 56, 127, 135, 171 thoroughly episcopal, 142, 171 abuses in, at Reformation, 132 dangers under Henry VIII and Edward VI, 131 opinion in, after Eliza beth, 137 and foreign Protestants, 139 f- the Reformation imper fect, 146 f. lacks code of Canon Law, 146 neglect of Synods by, 145 Royal power in, 131, 134 revival in nineteenth cen tury, 148 INDEX 195 England — needs self-government, 148 mission of, 170 English Bishops at Con stance, 56 delegates at Dort, 139 f. Episcopacy, 56 under Elizabeth, 131 f., 135 validity of, 128 f. Episcopacy, Primitive : modern scholars upon, 174-5 Pecock's view, 34 f. Colet upon, 59 f. weakness of, causes decay, 66 f. and Luther, 67, 71 and Confession of Augs burg, 68 f. not repudiated by Luther anism, 85 and Prussian Lutheran ism, 82 f. and Zwinglianism, 67 and Puritans, 135 and Reformation sects, 135 f-> 177 neglect of, weakens Lu theranism, 78 belief in, grows under Elizabeth, 135 and older Evangelicals, 160 f. discussed at Trent, 87 f., 178 Lainez upon, 10 1 f. and English Jesuits, 104 and Papal infallibility, 119 f. Episcopacy — lowered by modern Pa pacy, 120 neglected for Enghsh colonies, 156-7 and American colonists, 157 Canadian insistence upon, 160 f. ideal revived in England, 148 f., 179 regard for, a feature of English Church, 170, 178 see Febronius, Gallican- ism, Bishops and Epis copate Episcopal organization in British Isles, 31-32, 56 basis of English Church, 142 rule and Cathohc limita tions upon it, 171 see England, Church of, and English and Bishops Episcopate, modern re search upon, 174-5, 182 f . history of it is history of Church, 16 in Roman Empire, 18 f. reformed under Gregory VII, 27 in Middle Ages, 6, 37 (note), 176 its powers of guidance, 89, 125, 167 medieval conceptions of, 29. 3<>. 34 Pecock's view of, 35 f. 196 INDEX Episcopate — and Papacy, 28, 116, 124 at Constance, 48 among Franks, 17 f. in Germany, 19 in Scotland, 19 in Spain, 55 in Switzerland, 64 f. in Netherlands, 64 f. in Scandinavian lands, 81-2 reform of, at Trent, 105 f. powers of, 125 abuses of, promoted schism, 66 as a centre of unity, 133, 169 the historic, 160, 172, 188, 192 validity of English, 128 f. Erasmus, n (note), 47, 57 Evangehcals, older ones and Episcopacy, 161 Faculties, Quinquennial (and Papacy), 116 f. Febronius (Hontheim), inf. France, Church in, 123 Franks and Christianity, 17 Frederick I (Prussia) and his " Bishops," 82 f. French Revolution and Papacy, 111 Frequens (Decree on Sy nods), 49 Gallican Church (and Galli- canism), no Greek scholarship, Decay in Middle Ages, 46 f. Gregory VII, 25 f., 176 Grindal, Archbishop, 136 Grosseteste, Bishop, 28, 46, 47 Guarrero (Archbishop of Granada), 100 Hall, Bishop, his definition of Episcopacy, 142 Hallam, Bishop, at Con stance, 56 Henry VIII, 131 and Canon Law, 144 and new bishoprics, 140 180 Hildebrand (see Gregory VII) Historical criticism, impor tance of, 26 History and the Church, 14, 181 Hontheim (Febronius), in Ignatius, St., Epistles of, 173 f-, 183 Infallibility, Papal, 117 Jerusalem bishopric, 88 Jesuits, 21, 45, 100 f. Enghsh controversy, 104 f. Jewel, Bishop, 136 Kikuyu proposals, 142, 172 (notes) Lainez, 100 f. Lambeth Conferences, 146, 160, 166 Lateran, Council of (1512), 92 f. Laud, Archbishop, 150 INDEX 197 Lay representation in Sy nods, 164 Laymen not to hold bene fices, 132 Leach, A. F., on medieval schools, 41, 46 Libels of Reformation, 94 f., 100 Lichfield, Archbishopric, 20 Liddon, Dr., in Church of England, 171 Lightfoot, 187 f. Louvain, 112 Lucar, Cyril, 54 Luther, Primary Works, 72 Lutherans and Episcopacy, 15, 67, 82 f. Lutheran visitors, 73 f. Lutheranism in Scandina vian lands, 76 f. and Synods, 49, 145 Maurenbrecher's works, 41 (note), 55 Mediating theologians, 75 Melanchthon, 73, 75 Metropolitans Canada, 160 Ministry, Charismatic, 184 Moscow, Patriarchate of, 50 Nag's Head Fable, 129 National Churches and Pa pacy, 21 f. in France and U.S.A., 122 Netherlands, Episcopate in, 65 Nicaea, Council of, 32 Nikon, 50 f. Pallavicini, apology for Pa pacy, 95 Papacy at Constance, 49 Papacy and centrahzation, 19, 9i Papacy and development, 124 Gallicanism, no, 115, 122 f. Barbosa upon, 115 f. and Bishops, 40, 116, 120 its failure to extend epis copate, 58 and French Revolution, in its medieval failure, 29 in modern days, 122 Papal infallibility, 117 decreed, 120 Parity of Ministers, 79, 135 f- Parker, Archbishop, 144 Pecock and Episcopacy, 35 f. Pluralities, 30 Pole, Cardinal, 62 Prayer Book liked by French and Lutherans, 83 Presbyterians at Restora tion, 151 Primitive Church, appeal to, 78 Prussian Absolutism de stroyed rehgion, 86 f. Punctuation of Ems, 114 Puritans and. Episcopacy, 135 f- Quebec, diocese of, and Sy nods, 160 f. 198 INDEX Reform at Constance, 49 Colet upon, 59 f. by Convocation (Henry VIII), 61 at Lateran, 1512, 92 f. at Trent, 95 f. in Russia, 50, 53 in Spain, 54 not carried out in Eng land, 146 f. wish for, in Middle Ages, 44 movements for, 41 Bishop Stubbs upon, 44 Reformatio Legum, 62, 146 Reformation, preparation for, 41 a positive movement, 43 and individualism, 166 f., 177 not carried out, 150, 169 French and German li bels of, 96 f. Regulars and Bishops at Lateran, 94 f. at Trent, 103 Reunion (Lutherans), 83 Renaissance, 45, 47 (note) in Italy, 39 Restoration, Church of Eng land at, 150 f. Royal power in English Church, 131, 134 supremacy, evils of, 143 Rural Deans, 148, 151 Russian Church, 50 f. Saxony, Lutheran organi zation in, 73, 75 Scotland, Episcopate in, 38 Seabury, Bishop, Consecra tion of, 158 Simonetta (Cardinal), 99 Smith, Thos., Editor of Colet's Sermon, 133 Spanish Bishops at Trent, 100 f. Spanish Church, 54 Suffragan Bishops under Henry VIII, 149, 152 an unwise expedient, 153 Synod of Dort, 139 Synods (note), 31 f. and lay representation, 164 f. restraints upon (Bishop's veto, etc.), 161 diocesan, 31, 32, 146 revived in England, 154 need of, in England, 154, 166 f. neglect of ahenated Presbyterians, 152 and Reformatio Legum, 146 after Trent, 106-107 among Lutherans and Zwinglians, 49, 145 in Canadian Church, 160 f. value of, seen in Canada, 168 f. use in Colonial Churches, 146 Stubbs, Bishop, 44, 64, 66 (note) Theodore of Tarsus, 37 (note), 155 Thomasius (of Halle), 86 (note) w INDEX 199 Tractarian movement, 146 Vicars, Apostohc, of Papacy, Trent, Council of, 95 f. in England, 104 and Episcopacy, 15, 105, Visitors, Lutheran, 73 178 Visitations, 32, 168 Volta, 84 Union, Lutheran, 82, 86 (note) Wren, Bishop of Norwich, Ussher, Archbishop, scheme his Visitations, 143 of, 150 Zwinglians and Episcopacy. 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(Please WRITE for SPECIMEN COPY BOOK OF WORDS, post free ijd.) LONDON:* ROBERT SCOTT, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. From ROBERT SCOTT'S List KNIGHTS IN ARMOUR. A new book of Talks to Soldiers, for distribution among Officers and the Troops. By the Rev. EDWARD S. WOODS, M.A. With Foreword by General Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Illustrated Is. net. ONE-MINUTE READINGS FOR NURSES AND PATIENTS. By F. K. KINDERSLEY. With Foreword by the Lord Bishop of Worcester. 6d. net. " These readings are splendidly selected and consist of passages of Scripture and verses of hymns. The booklet is attractively got up." — Christian Advocate. THE TRAFFIC OF JACOB'S LADDER. Letters from Switzerland in War-time. By M. ROSAMOND EARLE. With Commendation by the Rev. J. Stuart Holden, D.D., and Foreword by the Rev. Edward S. Woods, M.A. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. net. THE PRODIGAL SON. Addresses on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. By the Rev. T. W. GILBERT, B.D. Is. net. 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