PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES
PROBLEMS
AND PRINCIPLES
BEING PAPERS ON SUBJECTS
THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
BY
THE LATE R. C. MOBERLY, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY
AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH
AUTHOR OF "MINISTERIAL PRIESTHOOD," "ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY"
"CHRIST OUR LIFE," ETC.
EDITED BY
THE REV. R. B. RACKHAM, M.A.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1904
PREFACE
BY one of those dispensations of Providence
which are so mysterious to us, Robert
Campbell Moberly was taken away from the
Church on earth last year, just at a time when
he seemed to have attained a position and an
opportunity of offering her the greatest services
by his doctrine and counsel. He had indeed
left behind him solid monuments of his teaching
in his two greater works, Ministerial Priesthood
and Atonement and Personality. But there are
many matters of practical policy which the
Church will have to face in the next few years
wherein we should greatly desire to have the
help of his counsel and judgment. Failing, then,
the living voice, we can at least gather up " the
fragments which remain," that is to say, the
various utterances or papers which from time
to time he found occasion to print and publish.
In these papers thus collected together we shall
happily find, on the one hand, that he has
expressed his opinion very clearly on many of
the serious problems which are likely to vex the
Church in the immediate future, such as the
vi PREFACE
question of disestablishment, the educational
problem, the autonomy of the Church, and the
marriage laws ; on the other hand, his theological
papers form a series which serves to illustrate the
larger work on the Atonement, and adds em-
phasis to the more characteristic points of his
teaching on the subjects of the Personality of
God and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
The papers have been practically reprinted as
they first appeared, with a slight exception in
the case of the paper on the marriage laws, where
some small verbal changes have been made with-
out any alteration in the sense. As the papers
cover a space of twenty years, to republish them
in this manner may be liable to a charge of un-
fairness towards their author, as making no allow-
ance for development of thought or change of
opinion. But the date of each paper is given
at its head ; and further, as Dr. Moberly was
never wont to form an opinion on an important
matter until he had thoroughly reasoned it out,
so when he had thus made up his mind he was
not one lightly to change it. So, in fact, we
find that the strong opinion on marriage with
a deceased wife's sister to which he gave utter-
ance (in the above-mentioned paper) in the year
1884, he expressed with no less insistence in the
lower house of Convocation in 1901. The pam-
phlet on the Independence of Church Courts,
which did not attract much attention in the year
when it first appeared (1886), he reissued in 1899
PREFACE vii
without alteration, but prefixing a letter to the
Dean of Christ Church.
The collection has been entitled Problems
and Principles, because Dr. Moberly's great aim
was to get at the right principles underlying the
matter in hand, compared with which he con-
sidered that the details are of small importance.
He was deeply convinced of the vast influence
that is exercised upon mankind by ideas, and
that right thinking must in the long run win the
victory fortis est veritas et praevalet ; and with
this conviction he fearlessly assailed the problems
that face us, whether in theology or in ecclesiasti-
cal politics. Further, the fact that his writings
are concerned with principles gives them a per-
manent value reaching beyond the particular
circumstances which were their immediate occa-
sion. Including nearly all his printed utterances
outside his books, the form of these papers is
varied some are sermons, some pamphlets, some
papers read at meetings ; but under the diversity
of form lies a fundamental unity of thought and
method. In arranging the papers attention has
been paid to their subject-matter and logical con-
nection rather than to the chronological order of
their composition.
A description of the contents of the volume is
subjoined. In connection with this the reader
may find it convenient to have before him these
dates of the author's life. Robert Moberly (nat.
July 26th, 1845) was made Vicar of Great Bud-
viii PREFACE
worth, in Cheshire, in 1880; in 1892 he was
appointed Professor of Pastoral Theology, and
Canon of Christ Church, at Oxford. In 1889
he contributed to Lux Mundi an essay on "The
Incarnation as the basis of dogma." He pub-
lished in 1896 Reason and Religion : Some aspects
of their mutual interdependence ; in 1897 Minis-
terial Priesthood: Chapters on the rationale of
Ministry and the meaning of Christian Priesthood;
in 1901 Atonement and Personality ; and in 1902
a volume of sermons entitled Christ our Life.
For the sake of completeness mention should
be made of Sorrow, Sin, and Beauty, three short
series of addresses, published in 1889, reissued
in 1902. On June 8th, 1903, his career on earth
was closed. ' Requiescat in pace.'
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
PART I: THEOLOGICAL SUBJECTS
i. BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD is a paper which
was read at the Church Congress at Rhyl in 1891. In
connection with this paper there is to be noted a
change in the writer's mind, not so much in regard
of belief, as of phraseology. This we learn from the
following note, which is taken from page 237 of
Atonement and Personality :
" In connection with this section of the present chapter
[on ' The Holy Spirit in relation to human personality '], I
may perhaps be allowed to make reference to an essay on
the mutual interdependence of Reason and Religion, in which
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS ix
I endeavoured, a few years ago, to discuss with somewhat
more fulness the true meaning, and the different manifesta-
tions, of reason. I refer to it in the main, simply as a more
expanded statement of my present meaning. But whilst
doing so I should like to take the opportunity of saying ex-
pressly that in the opening pages of the last paper which
that little volume contains there are a few phrases which I
should certainly wish to modify now. The modification
would be rather in pursuance, than in contradiction, of what
was really the essential thought of that paper. But I should
certainly now prefer to avoid, as misleading, any use, in
reference to human personality, of any phrase, such as a
'distinct centre of being,' which might even seem to con-
ceive of it at all otherwise than in its capacity of relation to,
and dependence on, God."
2. REASON IN RELATION TO CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES
is an extract from the opening sermon of a course on
Christian evidences, preached at Bowdon, in Cheshire,
in the early part of 1891.
3. REASON AND THEOLOGY is a University sermon
preached at Oxford on January 2Oth, 1895. In the
preceding autumn a proposal had been made by the
Theological Board to improve the method of taking
the theological degrees. The Hebdomadal Council
refused to allow this, unless the existing limitation
of these degrees to those in priests' orders were
removed ; and in view of this condition the proposal
was ultimately allowed to drop. Before this, how-
ever, there had been a conference on the matter in
November, 1894, at which Moberly took a leading
part ; and in the following January he gave full utter-
ance to his convictions in this sermon, which is a
strong and reasoned argument against the possibility
of adopting " undenominationalism " as a principle
in the teaching of theology. Some years later, as
we shall see, he was moved to write against the
x PREFACE
same principle in relation to the public elementary
schools.
Nos. i, 2, and 3, together with an essay on the
nature and function of the rational element in man,
were published in Reason and Religion : Some aspects
of their mutual interdependence (Longmans, 1897), a
volume which, with the Lux Mundi essay on "The
Incarnation as the basis of dogma," forms Moberly's
chief contribution to apologetic theology.
4. A RELIGIOUS VIEW OF HUMAN PERSONALITY is a
University sermon, preached at Oxford on October 2nd,
1902, and printed in the Journal of Theological Studies
for January, 1903. Coming after the publication of
Atonement and Personality, it developes the theory
of personality therein set forth, especially in relation
to the meaning of human personality.
5. THE FULHAM CONFERENCE ON COMMUNION WITH
THE ATONEMENT. In the autumn of 1900 a conference
of representatives of different schools of theology, at
the invitation of the Bishop of London (Dr. Creighton),
met at Fulham Palace and discussed the doctrine of
the Eucharist. They published a report which elicited
a criticism from Moberly in the Journal of Theological
Studies of the following April. The special point he
selected for consideration, Communion with the Atone-
ment, leads him to examine the relation of the Atone-
ment to the Eucharist, and makes the article a useful
appendix to Atonement and Personality. It may be
as well at this point also to call attention to his utter-
ances on the same subject in Priesthood and Sacrifice,
the report of a similar conference held at Dr. Sanday's
lodgings in Christ Church, in December, 1899, in
which he had taken part.
6. THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY GHOST, a Uni-
versity sermon preached at Cambridge on Trinity
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS xi
Sunday, May aoth, 1894, is an exposition of a doctrine
which was peculiarly precious to the preacher, as being
that which completes the system of Christianity and
enables it to become life and power to the individ-
ual believer. Compare Atonement and Personality,
chapter viii.
7. The ENRICHMENT OF PRIVATE PRAYER is a
Church Congress paper read at Derby in 1882, and
published by the S. P. C. K. in 1897. This paper is
rather devotional than theological ; but it comes with
some fitness after the preceding papers, and especially
the last, as an illustration how the writer would trans-
late his theology into devotion.
PART II: ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS
8. CONSIDERATIONS UPON DISESTABLISHMENT AND
DISENDOWMENT is a thorough analysis of the prin-
ciples which should guide the Churchman-citizen in
taking action either for or against "disestablishment."
The pamphlet owed its origin to the agitation in 1894
for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales,
and in particular to certain circumstances which are
alluded to in the prefatory remarks, and an account
of which is here extracted from the Guardian of
October 3rd, 1894.
"The Conference met on Wednesday, September 26th,
in the Sheldonian Theatre, at 10.30 a.m. . . .
' ' Welsh Disestablishment.
" The Earl of Jersey moved 'that in the opinion of this
conference every effort should be made to oppose the dis-
establishment and disendowment of the four Welsh dioceses
of the province of Canterbury.'
"Mr. Arnold Burrowes seconded the motion, . . . and it
was carried nem. con.
"Lord Stanmore, in a somewhat lengthy speech, moved
xii PREFACE
' that the formation of a diocesan committee and of parochial
committees, as recommended by the two archbishops, is
expedient and should be at once undertaken.' . . . The
motion was seconded by Mr. Barnett^ of Glympton.
" Canon Moberly proposed an amendment, the object of
which was to retain the diocesan, but to omit the parochial
committees. He argued that the cause of disestablishment
was, unfortunately, identified with one political party, and
that it was not well to marshal the whole array of the Church
in a matter on which a Churchman might hold one view or
the other without forfeiting his character as a faithful Church-
man . . . The amendment [which was seconded by the
Rev. Charles Gore] was lost."
9. UNDENOMINATIONALISM AS A PRINCIPLE OF
PRIMARY EDUCATION, a pamphlet published in 1902,
was Dr. Moberly's last work. It needs no explanation,
as it was occasioned by the education controversy
which is still with us. As an argument against the
possibility of basing religious teaching upon "un-
denominationalism," it should be read together with
Reason and Theology: it should also be read in the
light of The Doctrine of the Holy Ghost, as showing
what a practical bearing that doctrine has upon the
problems of human life.
10. Is THE INDEPENDENCE OF CHURCH COURTS
REALLY IMPOSSIBLE? is a strong argument, based on
the practice of the United States of America and the
Established Church of Scotland, to show that autonomy
of the Church in relation to its judicial system is quite
compatible with "establishment." The argument also
leads to the criticism of some common but fallacious
views of the meaning of the "royal supremacy." The
pamphlet was first published in 1886 (Parker), and
then reissued in 1899 with a prefatory Letter to the
Dean of Christ Church (Dr. Paget, now Bishop of
Oxford).
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS xiii
11. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP AND THE LAWS OF
MARRIAGE. In the years 1883-4 a determined effort
was made to legalise marriage with a deceased wife's
sister, which was met by a counter effort on the part of
the Church. It was a subject on which Moberly felt
deeply, and he did not keep silence. Some of the
leaflets of the Marriage Law Defence Association came
from his pen, but his chief services were rendered
locally. In the winter 1883-4 ne thoroughly examined
the Church's doctrine on the matter in four addresses
to the members of the Chester Clerical Society,
which were afterwards published as The Light of
the Revelation of God upon the question of Marriage
with a Sister-in-law (Phillipson and Colder). These
addresses are not reproduced here, because of their
length and because the pith of the argument is
presented in a more vigorous and incisive manner
in a paper which he subsequently wrote, and which
is here reprinted. This paper was read on November
yth, 1884, in the Public Hall at Warrington, at the
annual meeting and conversazione of the local branch
of the English Church Union. It served excellently,
moreover, as a popular pamphlet, of which form of
literature we have another instance in Undenomina-
tionalism. In this short paper little or nothing is said
about the arguments drawn from the Old Testament ;
but the deficiency was fully supplemented by a speech
made by Dr. Moberly in the Canterbury Convocation
on May gth, 1901, seventeen years later. This speech
is accordingly reprinted in the text, being taken from
the Chronicle of Convocation for 1900-1, pp. 207-9.
12. DOCTRINAL STANDARDS. The question how far
subscription to creeds can be compatible with the
freedom of the individual conscience is a perennial
xiv PREFACE
problem. It has been brought before us of recent
years in a very acute form, as affecting the very core
of the Christian faith, viz. the Apostles' Creed ; and in
view of this difficulty these lectures were delivered by
Dr. Moberly at Pusey House, Oxford, in the autumn
of 1897, and afterwards published as No. i of Pusey
House Occasional Papers (Longmans).
13. THE PASTORAL OFFICE OF THE BISHOP. In
this sermon, preached at the consecration of Dr. Gore,
Bishop of Worcester, in Lambeth Chapel, on St.
Matthias' Day, 1902, Moberly gave utterance to his
deep conviction of the need of a great increase of the
episcopate to enable both the bishop to carry out
the true ideal of his office, and the Church to realise
in practice the ideal of episcopal government according
to which she is constituted.
%* Hearty thanks are due to the following pub-
lishers and editors for leave to reprint the various
papers : more particularly to Messrs. Longmans and
Co. for allowing us to extract Nos. 1-3 from Reason
and Religion, and to reprint No. 12 ; to the Committee
of Direction of the Journal of Theological Studies for
Nos. 4 and 5 ; to the Editor of the Cambridge Review
for No. 6 ; to the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge for No. 7 ; to Messrs. Parker and Co. for
Nos. 8 and 10 ; to Messrs. Phillipson and Golder for
No. ii ; and to the Editor of the Guardian for No. 13.
R. B. R.
Ascensiontide, 1904
CONTENTS
PART I : THEOLOGICAL
PAGE
1. BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD (1891) . . 3
2. REASON IN RELATION TO CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES (1891) 14
3. REASON AND THEOLOGY (1895) . . 26
4. A RELIGIOUS VIEW OF HUMAN PERSONALITY (1902) 48
5. THE FULHAM CONFERENCE ON COMMUNION WITH
THE ATONEMENT (1901) , 66
6. THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY GHOST (1894) . 113
7. ENRICHMENT OF PRIVATE PRAYER (1882) . . 131
PART II : ECCLESIASTICAL
8. CONSIDERATIONS UPON DISESTABLISHMENT AND Dis-
ENDOWMENT (1894) . . . 143
9. UNDENOMINATIONALISM AS A PRINCIPLE OF PRIMARY
EDUCATION (1902) . . . 221
10. THE INDEPENDENCE OF CHURCH COURTS
A LETTER TO THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH
(1899) . . ... 250
Is THE INDEPENDENCE OF CHURCH COURTS
REALLY IMPOSSIBLE? (l886) . . .261
11. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP AND LAWS OF MARRIAGE (1884) 327
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CHRISTIAN
LAW OF MARRIAGE (1901) . . . 343
12. DOCTRINAL STANDARDS (1897) . . . 348
13. THE PASTORAL OFFICE OF THE BISHOP (1902) . 397
INDEX . . . ... 409
PART I
THEOLOGICAL
PROBLEMS
AND PRINCIPLES
BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD
(A paper read at the Rhyl Church Congress in 1891.)
ET me say, first, that the word "God," if
it means anything, must mean, to me, at
least this supreme perfectness of Being. By
God I must mean the highest. I cannot without
contradiction conceive at one moment both God
and a higher or more comprehensive than God.
If, then, I am asked whether I believe in a
personal God, the question to me must mean,
not whether I imagine, amongst existences, that
of one extra, invisible, but indefinitely magnified,
shadow of humanity, but whether I am convinced
that the supreme sum and crown of all existence
is Personal.
Again, a few words as to what Personality
means to me. I cannot frame an abstract defini-
tion of it. If I call it self-consciousness, the
emphasis is upon the "self." And in fact there
is nothing else, except itself, by which we can
understand or explain personality. But if I still
4 SUPREME BEING [No.
try to describe what the word suggests to me,
I would rather say not so much the presence of
intelligence, will, etc., but more eminently the
fact of being a centre to which the universe of
being appears in relation, a distinct centre of
being, 1 a subject, whereof reason, affection, will,
consciousness itself, are so many, not separate
parts, but several aspects or activities. For the
moment I must rest with this.
I. Now, the fact of intelligent consciousness
in man has led on by necessary steps to the
postulate of a supreme universal consciousness,
whose thought is the world. It is not urged that
this follows as demonstrative knowledge, but as
necessary hypothesis never, indeed, scientifically
demonstrable yet as hypothesis so necessary, so
fundamental, that without it all knowledge and
thought whatever becomes unrelated, irrational,
chaotic. I may explain that I mean to refer to
such an argument as that of Mr. Green, in his
Prolegomena.
Without another word I must take this argu-
ment, in the main, for granted. But may I remark
that the word "consciousness" is apt to be am-
biguous ; and consciousness is not the ultimate
fact in man except when it is tacitly taken as
equivalent to self-consciousness, the realisation
of his own personality? More ultimate in man
than the Cogito is the Ego sum which has been
1 [See page viii.]
i] MUST BE PERSONAL, 5
based upon it. Not the fact that he thinks, but
the fact that he is that of which thought-capacity
is an aspect or corollary, is the primary datum of
all knowledge and thought. He thinks, indeed,
likes, wills, acts ; but that central fact of which
these all are but so many partial aspects is the
fact that he is a self.
Now, if the argument is to proceed, as it must,
from the basis of our own self-consciousness, it
would seem to be more in accordance with the
data to use, not only the secondary fact of man's
intelligence, but the primary fact of his self-hood,
as carrying us on by necessary steps to the
postulate, not merely of a supreme universal
intelligence, whose thought is the world, but of
a supreme Personality, of whose self-existence
the thought that constitutes and informs the world
is but one aspect or mode.
Here, again, as in the former case, we have
rather a necessary hypothesis than demonstrative
knowledge. But is not the hypothesis at least a
necessary one ? If, for the very idea of a kosmos,
we must assume one all-informing, omnipresent
intelligence, how can we stop short, in our in-
tellectual necessity, of a Person whose intellig-
ence it is? Intelligence is an inconceivable
abstraction in the very act of mounting the
throne of universal sovereignty it dissolves, after
all, into voidness without a meaning, except it
be an activity or aspect of the being of an in-
telligent personality.
6 ELSE HUMAN PERSONS [No.
But if intelligence is really inconceivable apart
from an intelligent one, the supposition that an
intelligent one can be only intelligent a living
reason without affection, moral character, or
whatever else belongs to our necessary conception
of a self this, if not inconceivable, is at least
gratuitous. It is an arbitrary imagination, not
following out the lines of any data which the world
of experience either presents or suggests to us.
Or, to put this differently, it is plain that in
our experience of existence there are moral data
everywhere, not less obvious, though perhaps
more complex, than the rational ; and that moral
personality is in fact the highest phenomenon to
be found in experience: not intellect, not will,
not even all-sacrificing love in impersonal ab-
straction ; but these as aspects of personality-
personality as that in which these really are, and
which itself is in them. Either, then, there is no
supreme existence, in which case everything is
irrational, and there is really neither knowledge
nor universe ; or the supreme existence is in-
definitely lower than its own lower manifestations ;
or the supreme existence is Personal.
Personality, involving, as necessary qualities
of its being, reason, will, love, is incomparably
the highest phenomenon known to experience,
and as such has to be related with whatever is
above it and below it by any philosophy based
upon experience. But among personalities there
are higher and lower. The highest phenomenon,
i] WOULD BE SUPERIOR 7
then, known to experience, is moral personality
in its most advanced stages of beauty, verging
more and more towards its own ideal, growing
with visible approach into the lineaments of
perfect goodness.
Either, then, the highest phenomenon known
to experience is a more and more glorious
approach towards the blankness of an abstrac-
tion which is really non-existent a view which
gives the lie not only to every kindling aspira-
tion, but to every essential condition of intellect,
or supreme existence is that towards which
the most beautiful fulness of human personality
is but an approach. But in this case it cannot
be lower than personality in its stages of imper-
fectness. Supreme existence is either inferior to
man, with an inferiority which is literally im-
measurable, or it is all, at least, which we have
known, or can conceive, in Personality. The
universe is a chaos void of relations, and man's
existence an intolerable enigma and bathos, if
the supreme existence does not comprise, as well
as transcend, everything in human personality
which makes that personality what it is the
crowning phenomenon of experience, the crown-
ing conception, open to us, of existence.
II. Now, in all this I have been starting from
myself that is, from human experience of per-
sonality ; that is, from personality which, at best,
is plainly finite, not self-caused, dimly feeling
8 IN GOD ALONE IS [No.
after the conditions of its own existence, con-
scious of innumerable limitations, most imperfectly
realising itself; so that, when I come to think of
it, even when I try to speak simply of my own
experience of myself, I am speaking of something
which, though suggested by experience, is not
realised in experience, something which tran-
scends the limitations under which alone I have
known it, something to which nothing that I
know fully corresponds. This is true, not only
of some imaginary absolute, it is true of any idea
I can possibly form of the meaning of the word
" personality " as applied to myself. Even this,
as I cannot but conceive it, is always more than
any momentary, or any collective, experience of
mine.
Now, the moment I realise that experience of
human personality, though the only knowledge
by which we can conceive personality is yet but
a dim approach to an idea not attained by it,
nor (we may say) attainable, I begin to under-
stand a little better what I am aiming at in
arguing for Supreme Personality. It is not that
human personality is a realised completeness to
which we desire to make our conceptions of
Divine Being correspond, but rather that human
experience gives us indications of what Per-
sonality, in its fuller realisation, would mean.
Personality that lives only under material con-
ditions in a world of dying, personality whose
existence and origin are alike wholly independent
i] PERSONALITY FULLY REALISED 9
of its own thought and will, and which only by
degrees discovers a little as to the conditions of
its own being whatever rank it may hold in
relation to other present phenomena is plainly
a most limited and imperfect form of personality.
Only, then, Supreme Being can attain the full
idea of Personality. The ideals which hover
behind and above human experience are sugges-
tions, are approaches more or less, towards that.
III. And then, by consequence from these
thoughts, one step more namely, that created
personalities, which themselves are finite, will
only attain their own finite personality perfectly
in union with the Infinite Divine.
The relation of the sanctified spirit of man
with the Spirit of God that sanctifieth it may be
said, perhaps, to involve no difficulty of thought
so long as the man is only too sharply differ-
entiated by sin or imperfection. But carry the
thought on from all imperfect stages to the per-
fection of ultimate Beatitude no trace left of
independency of self- hood, no divergence of
thought, feeling, or will perfect Oneness at last,
in the highest conceivable fulness of the words,
"he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit"; 1
and what, then, exactly, in that supreme unity
of spirit, constitutes the distinction between the
beatified spirit and its God ? Or is perfect beati-
fication, after all, but a Christian form of Nirvana,
1 i Cor. vi. 17.
io WE ATTAIN PERSONALITY [No.
a merging of separate personality in the life
Divine ?
I have, indeed, a further object in raising the
question. For the difficulty, whatever it be, of
conceiving personal distinctness where there is
flawless unity of mind and spirit, coupled with
the fact that both the distinctness and the
unity must be true, if beatification is not to
be Nirvana after all, is suggestive also in refer-
ence to the Christian doctrine of the Holy
Trinity.
I am very far from meaning that the unity of
a beatified spirit with God is wholly the same as
the unity which binds the Persons of the Blessed
Trinity, or that the distinction of Persons in the
Blessed Trinity is the same as that which would
distinguish a spirit in bliss from its God ; but
I do suggest that the intellectual difficulty of con-
ceiving the coincidence of distinctness and unity
is so far not dissimilar in the one case and the
other, that if you could prove to me that the
Athanasian doctrine was irrational, you would by
the force of the same proof compel me to choose
between eternal separation of spirit from God, or
eternal obliteration of myself.
Now, even to raise this question seems to me
to help forward our thought. The beatified soul
is not God, yet is one with God. What is
that, then, which constitutes at once its eternal
distinction from, its eternal union with, God ?
Perhaps the nearest answer that can be given is
i] IN UNION WITH GOD n
Reciprocation of love. To the nature of this
belongs at once essential unity and essential non-
identity a unity which, but for the personal dis-
tinctness, would be but the dead shadow of a
living unity, a unity which mere identification
would instantly destroy. (I can but glance, in
parenthesis, at the scriptural view of the unity of
husband and wife, and that mystery of meanings
behind, to which the loveliest ideal of marriage
unity stands only as shadow of suggestion.)
IV. But if union with God is necessary for the
full personality of created persons, is union with
created persons equally necessary for the Person-
ality of Supreme Being?
The question would only be difficult to those
who, in their adoration of Divine unity, insist on
seeing a merely numerical oneness. For this
they are content to strip Supreme Personality of
some of the conditions which, to us at least,
make Personality intelligible ; perhaps even to
shrink from contemplating Supreme Being at all
(as Dr. Martineau says that Unitarians commonly
do), 1 except in manifested relations to a visible
universe, of which, however much it may be in-
formed by Him, this must at least remain eternally
true, that He is more than it. But, indeed, the
mutual love between God and created beings,
even where it has reached its perfectness, though
1 Essays, vol. ii. : "A Way out of the Trinitarian Controversy,"
PP- 5 2 7. 533. 534-
iz DIVINE PERSONALITY [No.
it exhaust the whole possibility of the creature,
cannot perfectly fulfil the Being" of God.
We seem, then, to ourselves to be uttering only
a truism when we say that Supreme Personality
must not lack, it must have within itself, as parts
of its being, every condition of Supreme Person-
ality. Foremost among" such conditions we can-
not but conceive that wherein even reason and
self-consciousness find their climax satisfaction
of perfect love. But love that is not mutual is
not perfect love.
Without this, then, we must still doubt whether
any conception of supreme existence can be, for
us, quite real ; whether any true meaning can be
put into such words as that God is an Almighty,
or Eternal, or Infinite Personality ; whether the
conception of the existence from eternity of a
single Personality, sole, unrelated, unique One
within whom there is not both active and passive,
both subject and object, both contemplating and
being contemplated, both loving and being loved
is so much as a consistent possibility ; whether,
that is to say, the meaning of eternal existence,
as applied to such an one, is, after all, for us,
distinguishable from eternal non-existence.
Brevity has compelled me to omit a score of
apologies. But, once for all, let me say that
I do not dream either that human reason can, by
arguing, prescribe the conditions of Divine exist-
ence, or that these things which I have tried to
indicate are themselves achievements of reason.
i] INCLUDES DISTINCTIONS 13
Rather it is that in these things, when revealed,
Reason finds a harmony which she elsewhere had
sought in vain.
V. Does anyone say that those who find
relatedness, mutual knowledge, mutual love,
within the necessity of Supreme Being itself,
are, at all events, qualifying, straining, the con-
ception of unity ? I submit that they are rather
strongly reinforcing it. It might possibly be
urged that in eternal reciprocity of Infinite Love,
not only is there a real unity, but a unity pro-
founder, more living, truer, even as unity, than
the loneliness of a merely numerical singularity ;
at the least, we may venture to doubt whether a
conception so external as oneness of mere num-
ber can exhaust the meaning of the unity of the
Living God ; at the least, we may claim that for
us our faith in a Monad is a faith, not with less,
but with more richness of meaning, when it
images to us, as its inner principle of oneness,
not barely the unit of arithmetic, but also the
Unity of the Spirit, which is Love.
REASON IN RELATION TO CHRISTIAN
EVIDENCES
(Portions of a sermon preached at Bowdon, in Cheshire, on
January nth, 1891 First Sunday after the Epiphany.)
*
I AM to speak as in introduction to the
work of a Christian Evidence Society. Now,
Christian evidences may be said, as such, to
be an appeal distinctively to the intellect ; the
business rather of the reason than the conscience,
of the head than the heart. On the other hand,
it is clear that it is not only the reason or in-
tellect it is at least as much the heart and
conscience of men that we, as Christian wit-
nesses, desire to convince. Indeed, objection is
sometimes taken on principle to anything like
an argumentative Christianity any appeal which
can be scornfully described as "logical." It is
love, we are reminded, not logic, that will make
the Christian. Again and again, we are told,
ten thousand instances have proved that when
every argument had been tried and failed, it was
Christian sympathy that leapt past the barriers
of the heart ; it was the warm real touch of love
without, at which, beyond all hope, love burst
14
No. 2] THE APPEAL IS ADDRESSED 15
into flame within, and in the melting of love the
soul was transformed and convinced. No doubt ;
it is true ; we readily concede all this. But does
it follow, indeed, that therefore the argumenta-
tive appeal to evidence is an appeal in vain ?
Or, if we know that it does not, why does it not ?
We might make answer, no doubt, by drawing
sharply the distinction between man's different
powers between the reason, the affection, and
the will ; by conceding, indeed, to the heart and
its affections a place of primary greatness, yet
pleading that at least the reason also has its
sphere, and in its sphere its necessities. We
might urge that even if it be through the affec-
tions, and in the second instance, yet reason has
to be convinced ; that it asks questions, and must
in its turn be satisfied ; that even if reason touch
not the highest regions, yet spiritual truths must
not be irrational, and therefore not only that in
the sphere of reason special charges must be
met, special difficulties explained, but the essen-
tial coherence of religious truth, with the utmost
that reason is capable of, must be shown; and
so that there still remains for intellectual argu-
ment a work which, even if subordinate, is none
the less essential.
All this, no doubt, is, in its own way, true.
Yet this is not quite what I desire to say to-day.
For this depends too much upon the sharpness
of distinction between the intellectual and the
spiritual sides of man's nature. What I should
16 NOT TO ABSTRACT INTELLECT [No.
prefer to say, tends rather, as I hope, to draw
them nearer together.
When Christian believers, fired with the glow
of a burning heart-conviction, disparage by com-
parison the merely intellectual aspect of their
faith ; or when sceptics, disparaging everything
that is not intellectual, challenge us to convince
their reason alone, distrusting devotion, enthu-
siasm, and every kind of deeper experience, as
so many perversions and disturbances to the
rightful sovereignty of pure reason ; are not both
guilty, more or less, in the fact that both imply
the possibility of abstracting reason, and dealing
with it, in isolation by itself, guilty of what is
really both an intellectual and a practical mistake?
No doubt there is a sense in which we can think
of any two things apart the eye apart from the
brain, the concave apart from the convex, the
world apart from its course ; so, if we please, we
can by mental analysis distinguish in man not
only the body and the soul, but also the soul
and the spirit; the affections, the reason, and
the will ; the judgment and the conscience, and
so forth : yet we need to be reminded that
these several so - called parts of a compound
nature are not parts like the parts of a building,
aggregated but separable ; they are more like the
different qualities of a flame which is burning
and is light ; they are so many aspects or work-
ings of one central reality, distinguishable only
in idea, but in fact indivisible for ever. The
2 ] BUT TO AN INTELLIGENT PERSON 17
reason in any man is no abstract power, separable
from himself. His reason is the reason of a
person. It is a person, viewed in respect of his
consciously intelligent insight. It is himself in-
telligent, himself understanding. But he himself,
as an intelligent being, having insight and under-
standing, cannot be separate from what he him-
self is. The intelligence may, indeed, be trained
to do certain special duties which seem to have
little relation with the character of the man ; but
the intelligence, as a whole, in its widest meaning
and range the total man's power of perceiving,
assimilating, knowing cannot be independent
nay, it is itself but one aspect of what the total
man is.
If we are to say that evidences, or judgment
upon evidences, are really affairs of the intelli-
gence, we must at the same time give its full
range of meaning to the word "intelligence."
We must not shut it off as a mere, perhaps
narrow, department of man's conscious nature ;
for it is as wide as is his consciousness, except in
so far as we admit that there are elements in his
consciousness which would be rightly described
as ^intelligent. Evidences? They are, indeed,
of more kinds than one. There are some kinds
of evidence, of which a man (if there were one)
without any character at all, a mere calculating
machine, neither soul nor spirit, would be the
best and most unerring judge.
i8 INTELLECTUAL POWER [No.
It is, then, not only the evidence that is
different in this case ; the faculty of apprehending
and pronouncing upon the evidence (though in
name identified) is different also. There are
elements in the evidence which are not patient
at all of a strictly logical or mathematical state-
ment ; which words cannot fully express, though
they may indicate, but indicate only to the moral
perceptions of those who have a moral apprehen-
sion. For, indeed, merely external facts, though
given with photographic exactness, can never be
evidence, apart from the intelligent insight which
gives interpretation to them. That interpretative
power which makes them relevant, and gives
them meaning the unifying, vivifying creative-
ness of intelligence flashes out upon them from
within, from the personal apprehension which
takes cognisance of them. And therefore, in a
case like this, the part of the evidence that could
be made intelligible to an intellect wholly non-
moral, would be but an insignificant fraction of
the whole.
If these things be true at all, they may per-
haps, at least, suggest a further step. I have
spoken of moral experience. The Christian
religion believes in possibilities higher still than
this. If St. Paul found Christians whose Chris-
tianity knew nothing of the life of the Holy
Spirit, he could but ask them in amazement,
" Unto what then were ye baptized ? " If there
be any truth at all in this higher aspiration, this
2] CANNOT BE SEPARATED 19
belief in spiritual life, which is what life in the
Church of Christ means, it is only natural to sup-
pose that something" analogous will be true in
this case also. If the truths of a religion which
is spiritual, not less than historical, be a question
of "evidences," to be decided by the "reason,"
yet neither the evidences which have to be under-
stood and pronounced upon, nor the reason
which has to sit in judgment upon them, are in
all points wholly identical in kind with the evi-
dence produced, or the intelligence pronouncing",
in matters into which no spiritual element enters.
Do we suggest, then, that spiritual truths are
to be apprehended by something- that is other
than intelligent ? other than intelligence ? No ;
not for a moment. Any more than morality
which is not, above all things, intelligent, could
pronounce in a moral perplexity. Intelligence,
reason, it must essentially be but it must be
spiritual intelligence ; intelligence of which
spirtual sensitiveness, spiritual experience, forms
a vital element ; intelligence which, uninformed
spiritually, would be ^^intelligent would be
"foolishness" on a spiritual subject-matter;
in a word, no mere abstract intelligence, but
the intelligence of a spiritual personality.
There are parts, indeed, of the teaching of
Jesus Christ, of which it was characteristic, that
they habitually appeared to the dry light of the
reasonable Jews to be not untrue only, but
essentially unreasonable. I can but refer in
20 FROM MORAL AND [No.
general terms to the third, the sixth, and the
eighth chapters of St. John. But it is not only
that there are some subjects which are more
exclusively spiritual. It is not only that it is
worse than useless to bring in the shrewdness of
the counting-house or of the laboratory, in order
to gauge aright the character of regeneration or
of penitence, or to measure the possibilities of
sacramental grace : such a question as that of
the presentment in the Gospels of the story of the
Incarnate Life, even that of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, which may seem,
above all, to be a question of the barest historical
fact, is none the less mixed in character. In
the full appreciation of the evidence there are
elements involved deeper than the merely histori-
cal ones considerations which go to the root of
our spiritual consciousness. It is vain to protest
against them. They are there. The evidence
which omits them, however conscientiously mar-
shalled, will still be but part of the whole.
It is no bare fact, the fact of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. It cannot be separated from
what it means, and is. It is full of meanings-
meanings which interpret and illuminate, and
receive again illumining interpretation from,
every deeper craving and experience of man.
All history led to it, culminated in it, is explained
by it ; all history, not the outward history only of
kingdoms and peoples, but the inner record of
man man's failure and need, man's progress,
2] SPIRITUAL CAPACITY 21
aspiration, possibility, man's self-sacrifice, sancti-
fication, blessedness hinge and depend on it.
There are points in its total evidence which can
be more truly apprehended by an old woman
practising self-denial for love's sake, or a peni-
tent tender from his first humiliating confession,
than by the most consummate mathematician, or
metaphysician, or logician in the world. Some-
thing in this direction perhaps all would allow.
My point is that the difference between them is
not merely one of moral or spiritual excellence
that the penitent or the old woman excels not
merely in deserving, but in capacity (in a certain
direction) for rational apprehension ; the differ-
ence is in the intelligence as well as in the
character. The intelligence of a rational animal,
the intelligence of a moral consciousness, the
intelligence of a spiritual personality, though one
in name, are in content and quality not identical.
What does our Lord Jesus Christ mean when
He says, " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these
things from the wise and understanding, and
didst reveal them unto babes"; and, "If any
man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the
teaching, whether it be of God " ; and, " It is
the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth
nothing : the words that I have spoken unto you
are spirit, and are life"? 1
1 St. Matt. xi. 25 ; St. John vii. 17, vi. 63 ; cf. i Cor. i. 18-31, ii.
11-16, etc., etc.
22 ALL REASON FINDS [No.
I must not, indeed, stay to illustrate ; but there
are one or two things more to be said.
This first. It is by no means suggested that
one man is simply a rational animal ; another is
a morally conscious being ; and a third, alone of
the three, is a spiritual personality. On the con-
trary, I suppose that every one of these three
assertions may probably be made, with more or
less truth, of every man living ; but at least these
three strands of the complex being may, and do,
predominate very varyingly in varying persons ;
and, with corresponding variety, their powers of
intelligent apprehension in different directions do
differ not quantitatively only, but qualitatively
not in degree only, but in kind.
Again, if there is a sense in which we protest
against abstracting reason from the individual
personalities reasoning, and insist that with
varieties of character it too, and its possibilities,
will be found to vary, this does not mean an
ultimate scepticism as to the unity or reality of
reason ; it will not end by making every person
a standard of reason to himself. No ; man may
differ from man, while all are imperfect, in quality
as well as quantity of intelligent reason. But
the different qualities are not ultimately in con-
trast ; in their highest perfection they are trans-
fused into one world-embracing unity ; all the
wisdom that seemed merely intellectual is seen
to be moral also ; all the moral, tinged with new
force and fire, is transfigured into celestial glory.
2] AN ULTIMATE UNITY 23
All are spiritual then, when the world and all
that is in it has plainly become a working", and
therefore a revelation, of the eternal God.
For the reason which the processes of the
universe are found to obey ; the reason which
discerns and appreciates some sequences of fact
as moral laws ; the reason in which certain reve-
lations as to holiness and sin, pardon and love,
and the being and character of God, find their
profound reflection and acceptance ; all this is
but an echo, more or less complete and true,
in the spirit of man, of the Supreme Reason
the Reason, or Wisdom, or Utterance (Ao'yo?) of
God. " For she is the brightness of the ever-
lasting Light, the unspotted mirror of the power
of God, and the image of His goodness. And
being but one, she can do all things : and remain-
ing in herself, she maketh all things new : and
in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh
them friends of God, and prophets. For God
loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom." 1
This is He in whose image man was made; with-
out whom " was not anything made that was
made "; "who, being the brightness of His glory,
and the express image of His Person, and up-
holding all things by the word of His power . . .
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high."
" Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying,
I am the Light of the world." So the great words
1 Wisdom vii. 26-8.
24 IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST [No.
of challenge ring out to our intellects and con-
sciences still. They are the challenge of the
religion of Jesus Christ to the world. There is in
them no call to abnegation, no limiting of the
freedom or power of intellect. But there is a
warning that the perfect way of intellect lies in a
direction otherwise than men might have sup-
posed ; that the intellect cannot in the end be
abstracted from the total character ; that the in-
tellect is only perfectly intellectually true when it
is perfectly in harmony with other necessities and
powers of the personal life ; when intellect and
conscience, mind and will, the logical, the moral,
the spiritual capacities, are but different aspects
of one central light, and that light a true reflec-
tion from the perfectness of light wherefrom it
came; there is a warning, in short, that the way
of intellect will be missed after all, except it be
found, in its highest culmination, to coincide with
an absolute homage mental, moral, and spirit-
ual, all in one to the Divine glory of One who,
though more, was, and is, for ever amongst and
above men. Study, then, in thought and word
and deed ; study, with all the fulness of homage
of which you are capable, the Personality of Jesus
Christ. He Himself promises you, in this, the
light of life. And, indeed, He Himself absolutely
demands this of you. There are those and I
challenge you to find an alternative, I do not say
more lovely, more winning, more beautiful, but
more strictly according to the exigencies of the
2 ] WHO IS THE LIGHT OF LIFE 25
highest reason, there are those who so feel His
measureless superiority, and the unconditioned
allegiance which they, in every fibre of their
nature, owe to Him, as to know that intellectual
subordination to Him, if at any time they cannot
follow Him, is no degradation, but a glory to
themselves and their intellect for intellect is only
perfectly illumined in harmony with goodness,
and this is a step towards the harmony which so
illumines ; nay, who would even, if the paradox
could conceivably represent anything but para-
dox, rather ten thousand times, for Reason's own
sake, be as fools in conjunction with Him, than
wise with the uttermost wisdom that could con-
ceivably be apart from Him Him who, intel-
lectually, morally, and spiritually, is their supreme
perfection and their God !
REASON AND THEOLOGY
(A sermon preached before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary's, on
January 2Oth, 1895.)
" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was -with
God, and the Word was God" (St. John i. i).
T)OSSIBLY it would be right to begin with
-L some form of apology for venturing to pre-
fix to any sermon whatever words of import so
vast as these. Nevertheless, however much, from
the outset, the text must shame the discourse, it
may yet be true that no words would connect
themselves more directly with such thoughts as
the discourse would fain try to suggest. For I
desire to speak a little of what, for us, the very
term " theology " means ; and of some of the
characteristics which differentiate the study of it
from other fields of human study or knowledge.
"In the beginning was the Word." If I ven-
ture to set out from this verse of St. John, need I
begin by reminding you, in connection with this
verse, how much wider is the scope of the Ao'yo?
of St. John than of the English " Word "? How-
ever true it may be that the title as used by
St. John has its direct and primary reference
to revealed utterance rather than to indwelling
26
No. 3] THE BASIS OF THEOLOGY 27
wisdom, that the Ao'yo? to him is "Word" rather
than "Reason," yet it must needs remain that
whatever of truth was meant, or was being felt
after, in the Hebrew personification of Wisdom,
or the Greek speculation as to underlying Reason
or Mind, is still necessarily within both the verbal
scope and the religious truth of the Ao'yo?, as it
hardly can be within the English "Word."
"The Word was with God, and the Word was
God." A wonderful commentary, then, upon the
name 9eo\oyla, is for us in these words with which
the verse culminates, #eo? yv 6 Ao'yo?.
"The Word, the Ao'yo?, was God." This, with
the context of the next few verses, is vindication
indeed of language, of reason, of mind. What-
ever there is in the human mind of reasonable
consciousness, whatever capacity there is in human
utterance of expression of the living character
within, is it, in its ultimate nature, tentative, or
capricious, or illusory? The illuminative light
of human consciousness or character, if ever or
wherever these realise without perversion their own
true being, is the Ao'yo?, who is the "effulgence
of the glory, the very image of the substance "
of God.
"The Word was God." In the revelation of
these words is found the essential, because the
Divine, informing reason of scientific inquiry and
knowledge ; they are the guarantee that those
who seek may find the working out of a Divine
process in language and literature and history ;
28 THEOLOGY AND [No.
or, again, that the insight of metaphysical thought
is a Divine insight into the character of existence.
Though there be ten thousand distinguishable
branches of thought or knowledge, yet all forms
of thought or knowledge meet in this, that they
are all Divine, and their Divineness is the ultimate
truth of them all.
They all are Divine. Again, this attribute of
Divineness is no mere abstraction, no neutral or
dead word. Word, Wisdom, Reason, Ao'yo? it
is the expression of the life of God. The God
whom it expresses is alive, is reality of being, is
life ; is all that our dim consciousness of being, of
personality, really means. Our reason is reason-
able ; our character is moral ; our personality is
personal, is free just so far as each truly reflects
what personality, character, wisdom are in Him,
the expression of whose living Personality they
are.
There is, then, a sense in which theology is
quite literally the Scientia Scientiarum, as actually
including every thought that is true. Neverthe-
less, most knowledge is not approached from the
side of theology ; and there are reasons, no
doubt, why it is, at the least, convenient that it
should be so. Indeed, though all scientific
methods presuppose the unity of reason a pos-
tulate which belongs immediately to metaphysic,
and ultimately to theology for all ordinary pur-
poses the scientific method stands in contrast
against the theological. The scientific method
3 ] THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 29
of knowledge, while it implicitly takes for granted
the whole rational process and machinery alike
of our own minds, and (I must add) of the uni-
verse which it explores, finds much of its robust
strength in the explicit refusal to take for granted,
in any other direction, either specific facts or
interpretations of the meaning of facts.
So splendid have been the achievements of this
method, that we are accustomed to meet, and
need to be on our guard against, not merely a
claim for the acceptance of scientific results within
their own sphere, but (what is more formidable)
a claim that the scientific canons and methods of
thought, and the hypotheses upon which they
work, are the only canons and hypotheses upon
which knowledge can be based. We are met,
I say, by such a claim. Often, perhaps, it would
be more accurate to say that, without the formula-
tion of any such claim, we are met by a wide-
spread instinct, more imperious still because more
unconscious of condition or limit, that all thought
or knowledge whatever must work upon these
assumptions and methods only. Of the assump-
tions I have, so far, already spoken. Mind is
assumed, within and without, everywhere ; and
character, so far at least as it is indispensable for
the discipline and working of mind. But while
the existence of truth is so far assumed, the con-
tent of truth is not. Rather it is as the primary
condition of the scientific method to assume
nothing as true beyond the fact of truth and mind
30 AN INDUCTIVE STUDY [No.
itself. The building up of knowledge is a gradual
and progressive achievement. Mind feels its way
by patient observation and reflection everywhere.
Its method is hypothetical, tentative, inductive.
It is a process of perpetual evolution, of endless
advance, magnificent indeed in actual results, yet
such as can hardly be thought of except as a finite
advance towards a total practically, for us, in-
finite. Moreover, in most branches of knowledge,
even the truths that are most definitely ascertained
are still, in a certain sense, tentative. The most
dogmatic principles are acquired principles, in-
ductively built up ; and however little we can
practically believe that future discoveries of truth
could qualify, or, by dwarfing, seem to supersede
them, such a contingency is never, at least in the
abstract, inconceivable ; nor would it, if realised,
contradict or overthrow, but rather enrich the
more, the whole fabric of knowledge.
Is it true, then, that assumptions or canons of
thought, based upon the experience of acquisition
of knowledge such as this, can be transferred into
the sphere of distinctive theology and found to
work livingly or fruitfully there ?
No doubt it is perfectly possible, in reference
to the subject-matter and history of religion, to
construct a scientific inquiry of a strictly inductive
kind. It is possible to inquire into the origin
and development of the religious sense ; into the
history and phenomena of religious beliefs ; into
the consequences, as observable in character and
3] OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF 31
life (so far as these things can be observed from
without), which are, or seem to be, the outcome
of different forms and developments of creed.
The mental attitude necessary for such a study
as this may be, in strict accordance with the
assumptions and canons of scientific thought, an
attitude of perfectly impartial equilibrium con-
vinced, indeed, that truth of some kind will
be ultimately evolved from the careful study of
religious phenomena, but unbiassed by any per-
sonal religious loyalty ; and rather assuming that
truth, if found among practical religious societies,
must be found as distributed somewhere amongst
them all, and likely to be at once most seriously
endangered by the surrender of complete allegi-
ance to any.
Upon a study, such as this, of creeds, or types
of character as moulded by creeds, upon the
assumption on the part of the student at least
for his scientific purposes as student of astringent
mental neutrality, I make no other comment for
the present but this, that whatever its place or
value may be in the intellectual life of the com-
munity, or of individuals, it has at all events
hardly anything, if anything, in common with
the study of Christian theology. I do not dis-
parage its use, or in many cases its necessity.
Nevertheless, it could only be by some confusion
of thought that a study such as this could be
ranged under the heading of theology. It can
only become theology when the entire Christian
32 CANNOT BE 'THEOLOGY' [No.
hypothesis, and with it all idea or hope of the
possibility of any theology properly so called,
has first been explicitly laid aside.
For Christian theology differs from such a
study as this, not accidentally, but fundamentally ;
differs in its hypotheses, in the character of its
certainties, and therefore in the nature of its
canons, and the direction of its processes, of
thought. If the scientific method is inductive
and evolutionary, Christian theology is character-
istically deductive : that is to say, it is based
fundamentally not so much upon a gradual edifice
of religious ideas, a process of tentative con-
jectures, more or less satisfactorily verified in ex-
perience, whilst, bit by bit, they slowly advance
towards some far-off goal of remote theological
certainty ; but rather upon the actual manifesta-
tion of a historic life, accepted as Divine. What-
ever may have led up to this acceptance in the
history of the individual, theology begins as the-
ology from the acceptance of this life as a Divine
revelation ; and its central work consists in the
exploration and appreciation of the consequences,
not to the intellect only, but to the entire character,
which flow out from such acceptance. Theology,
however minutely she may explore and verify it,
does not set out, with blank mind, to make dis-
covery of this fact, or of the essential interpreta-
tion of it. It is from this fact, and from the
Divine interpretation of it, that theology starts.
It is upon this that theology, as such, is based.
3 ] WHICH IS DEDUCTIVE, 33
Now, to say this does not mean that theology is
out of relation with the inductive achievements of
a priori reason. On the contrary, the main fact
and character of these is taken for granted, as
the necessary substructure and preliminary to
theology. As it was not, historically, until after the
work of Greek thought and Hebrew discipline of
character that God was revealed in Christ ; so,
intellectually, is it always true that Christian
theology does not set aside, but rather postulates
and assumes the preliminary work of reason its
inherent interrogativeness, its demands, enigmas,
efforts, and (so far as it has reached them) achieve-
ments. Theology, as a system of thought ad-
dressed to the reason, presupposes the conditions,
the necessities, and the struggles of reason as
unillumined by revelation. Nor are the pro-
cesses of reason checked in the least, but stimu-
lated and fortified in the light of this revelation.
The revelation itself is not the revelation of a
dead text, but of a living Person, a revelation as
multiform, as inexhaustible, as life. Still, what-
ever the Christian theologian may have to say
and he has doubtless much about the relation
of reason to theology, it remains fundamentally
true that the basis and certainty of his theological
work rests not so much upon the interrogation of
inductive experience as upon the acceptance and
study of a revealed Life.
To him, indeed, the very antithesis will ulti-
mately be a formal rather than a real one. To
D
34 BEING BASED UPON [No.
him it is clear that the work of preliminary reason
only finds its verification and completeness, as
its otherwise insoluble problems only find their
solution, in the theology which flows out from
the acceptance of the revealed Life. Still, his
basis is the revelation even more than the in-
duction : and so far, in scientific theology, the
process of other study seems to be reversed. It
follows that, as judged from the point of view
of secular science, the methods and hypotheses
of theology must appear sometimes anomalous.
Theology, as a system of intellectual thought,
if wholly apart from revelation, would be at its
best of the nature of metaphysic an attempt to
build up conviction as to the ultimate meaning
of life and consciousness from the various data
which experience supplies ; but chiefly from the
interrogation of the phenomenon of consciousness
itself and its character, and the postulates which
are involved in it. For this must always be the
primary nay, in some sense (however largely
interpreted by history or science) the all-inclusive,
the ultimate as well as the primary datum of
those who fain would know the source and the
goal, the meaning and character, the value and
destiny, of the life of man's conscious spirit.
Now, no one who honestly, however externally,
studies Christianity, can fail to see that for the
Christian intellect the conditions of this ex-
planation are transformed by the revealed Life.
If that, the fundamental Christian hypothesis, is
3 ] THE INCARNATE LIFE 35
true, thought hangs no longer helpless in mid-
air. There is at once a real source and goal.
The exemplar, the ideal, exists, at once of human
reason and of moral character ; and of both at
once because of either ; and of both not as really
two, but rather as inseparable aspects of one.
It exists nay, it is the reality of existence.
And as to the meaning of the ideal exemplar,
which is the all-inclusive reality ; the Incarnate
Life by what it reveals and involves of the Being
of God, the essential unity, yet threefoldness in
unity, of mutually inclusive personalities, the in-
herent self-relatedness in eternal Being, becomes
itself, even on the side of mere intellect, however
much not discoverable, nay, even (if you will)
imperfectly apprehensible by mere intellect, yet
becomes the solution of the hitherto insoluble
enigmas, the crowning and perfecting of the
insight, nay, of the very capacity, of intellect.
The Christian theologian cannot but claim, not
only that his illuminative revelation is in most
perfect accord with reason's reasonableness, but,
moreover, that reason itself has never found its
own reasonable vindication or completeness else-
where; that, so far from stultifying or superseding
reason, it alone lifts reason up to the true level
of reason's own highest independence or capacity
as reason.
If, then, the theologian's attitude or method
is different, perhaps even anomalous, from the
point of view of the assumptions and hypotheses
36 THEOLOGY DOES NOT [No.
of the scientific mind, ordinarily so called, it can
never be true to the theologian that theological
truth, because based upon revelation, and there-
fore in its characteristic method deductive, is,
intellectually speaking, on a lower or less rational
level than the truths of inductive exploration.
On the contrary, to him it is reason which is
instantly hemmed in and fettered in its capacity,
whenever, whether in the name of reason or on
any other ground, it shuts out the hypothesis of
revelation, and endeavours to struggle with the
complexity of life and thought alone. Reason,
taken apart as reason, is reason by hypothesis
dwarfed. Intellect really isolated can, in fact,
apprehend nothing, except so far as there are
propositions quite exclusively intellectual. But
no truth that is not narrowed down by artificial
abstraction is an exclusively intellectual truth,
and, apart from the region of abstractions, isolated
intellect is intellect incapacitated. If mere in-
tellect cannot thrill to the bracing joy of moral
effort or victory; cannot put meaning into the
overshadowing conscience of sin, or the new
dawning of life in the sense of pardon, accept-
ance, sanctification ; cannot enter at all into the
wonders of the consciousness of loving and being
loved ; it is assuredly true that intellect, taken
apart as intellect, is without the very capacities
of consciousness by which the intellect of the
spiritual consciousness sees and knows. But it
is in this insight of the intellect of the spiritual
3 ] FETTER REASON 37
consciousness that alone mere intellect rests from
its weary round of Tantalus' labours, and finds
itself not quenched, discouraged, superseded, but
satisfied, illuminated, reconciled ; its old efforts
after truth all included, its old antinomies
harmonised, its old aspirations glorified, its old
impossibilities melted away.
You remember the mathematical puzzle of the
race between the hare and the tortoise the hare
which ran ten yards while the tortoise ran one ;
the tortoise which nevertheless, usque adinfinitum,
was always one-tenth of its old distance ahead,
as often as ever the hare had cancelled the
former arrears. As in that puzzle, by the abstract
and arbitrary hypothesis of an infinite subdivi-
sion, the possibility of which was hypothetical
and abstract only, the intellect was (as it were)
walled in, and could never get outside the arti-
ficial limitation of a hypothesis purely imaginary ;
so reason, regarded as the reason of a being only
rational, and not recognising yet that its own
highest possibilities as reason belong to it only as
it is the reason of a moral consciousness, nay, of
a spiritual personality, is retained in the old circle
of barrenness and hopelessness by the artificial
hypothesis, the unreal abstraction, which would
separate off the reason as a non-moral, non-
spiritual thing ; and so, by the attempt to regard
reason merely as rational, stunt all the highest
capacities of reason itself.
But to return from what is in part a digression,
38 THEOLOGY IMPLIES [No.
though hardly an unimportant one, as to what
reason is from the point of view of revelation. If
the basis of theology be the revelation of a Per-
son, whose Personality is a revelation of God : if
therein all the old processes and problems of
reason go on, not checked, but taken up, steadied,
completed, crowned in the light that flows from
the revelation ; and the scrutiny, meanwhile, of
the truths or aspects of truth, which do follow
from acceptance of the revelation, is in its charac-
ter, as I have urged, a deductive more than an
inductive scrutiny : it will follow that theology, if
it is to be theology at all, if it is not to abandon
its own characteristic being, and throwing the
revealed Life to the winds, to become once more
a metaphysical speculation, or further still from
its own essential nature, a mere inquiry, intel-
lectually impartial, because morally and spiritually
uninformed, into the phenomena and history of
religious creeds and societies, must be built upon a
hypothesis of certain truth : and as possessing, and
based upon, definite truths, must have, at the core
of its life, such a reality as the old word orthodoxy
represents. There must be such a thing as an ortho-
doxy if there is to be a theology. However diffi-
cult it may seem to be to determine what is ortho-
dox, whatever confusion may have arisen amid
diverse judgments embodied in diverse societies :
whatever excuse there may therefore be for the
easy assumption of external criticism, that an
orthodoxy must be a narrowness and an error in
3] AN ORTHODOXY, 39
itself: it remains true, after all, that theology
without a deposit of truth, without therefore some
data of definite creed in reference to which indi-
vidual judgments may differ as orthodox from
heterodox, as true from determinably false, would
be not theology at all, but a sea once more of end-
less speculation, on which Reason, not exalted
but degraded, as well as disabled, by setting out
alone, would toss and wander, compassless and
rudderless, in eternal and pathetic impotence of
effort. It is only so far as bodies of men can agree
upon the contents of an orthodoxy, that it is pos-
sible for them to share in a theology. If different
bodies hopelessly disagree, they can, indeed, have
their diverse theologies, corresponding to their
diverse views of orthodoxy, but they can have no
common content of theology. Nor can those claim
a theology at all to whom the word orthodoxy has
no meaning. Herein is a contrast, characteristic
and fundamental, between the conditions, neces-
sary from the very outset, for theology, or for other
fields of speculation and knowledge, viewed apart
from theology a contrast which issues directly
from the fact that the basis of any Christian
theology is in the revelation of a Personal Life,
accepted as Divine.
So far I have tried, however imperfectly, to
enlarge upon what is really one single thought
only, the character of Christian theology as based
upon revelation rather than induction. But there
are other thoughts which I should desire at least
40 WHICH MERE INTELLECT [No.
to mention along with this. The very phrase,
"revelation of a Personal Life," carries us really
much further. For a person can only be known
by personal intimacy and interchange. Only a
person can know a person ; and the knowledge
of a person can never be a knowledge merely intel-
lectual. As a living person could not really be
intelligible to mind divorced from moral character,
but community of life and experience and affection
is, through avenues conscious or unconscious,
the method of realising personal knowledge ; so
Christian theology, being what it is in fact, the
knowledge of a personality revealed in human
life, cannot, in the nature of its own essential
being, be ever adequately measured or appraised
by the comparative method, from without. An
impartial science of comparative religions, so far
from rising intellectually beyond it, or above it,
necessarily falls back as from the moral so from
the intellectual conditions, which are indispen-
sable for capacity of understanding it. It is, of
inexorable necessity, only from within, only by
intercourse of personal affection and communion,
that its revelation can be, in any real measure,
intelligible. But I do not attempt to dwell further
upon a thought which has been so strikingly
interpreted from this pulpit not many months
since.
To some extent I have dwelt already upon the
thought that the highest truth would not be
apprehensible by mere intellect, even if there
3 ] IS INADEQUATE TO APPREHEND 41
were, or could be, such a thing as intellect
abstracted from content of personal character.
Nowhere is this truth so clear, nowhere is the
inadequacy of pure intellect, even for intelli-
gence, so conspicuous as in the subject-matter of
theology. I suppose it is universally true that
there is as truly character in intellect, as intellect
in character ; but what is elsewhere discernible,
just perhaps indicatively, is true with overwhelm-
ing directness here. It is the long discipline of
the moral character by which the eyes of the
understanding are opened. I said just now that
theology must have an orthodoxy. Of course
I do not deny that there is an orthodoxy which
is blind, conceited, unintelligent ; the substitute
of indolence or cowardice for intelligence and
honesty. But possession, real and intelligent, of
spiritual truth, is as plainly a moral as an in-
tellectual thing. It is only by moral affinity, real
likeness of moral character in the apprehending
intelligence, that moral truth can be really appre-
hended. It is only by that deeper spiritual reality
of which moral consciousness is the immediate
expression, which itself is the origin and root, the
key and the crown of moral consciousness, that
truths which transcend the conditions of present
existence, or seem at first sight to contradict
common logic ; truths such as Atonement or
moral reality of effectual pardon ; truths such as
Regeneration, or Sacramental feeding on the
Body and Blood of a Divine Humanity ; truths
42 THEOLOGY BELONGS [No.
such as Resurrection, or Eternity of being ; cease
to be, as at first sight they seemed to be, mean-
ingless nonsense, and become in very deed, to
the soul, illuminating and transforming, tran-
scendent and eternal, realities.
It is correspondingly, on the other hand, the
penalty of aspirations after spiritualism, which are
not the crown and perfecting of moral experience,
to stand self-condemned as both intellectual and
moral rubbish.
True theological apprehension postulates not
the ingenious exercise of a single faculty, but the
allegiance of the whole man. Nay, there is often
more theological insight in moral dutifulness,
though it seem unintellectual, than in the most
ingenious hypotheses of an intelligence which
seems to be independent, because it is deficient
in moral dutifulness.
Again, as nowhere else is the inadequacy of
the intellect so conspicuous if abstracted from the
total of the intelligent person, so nowhere else is
the individual personality so inadequate if taken
apart from the community. As reason, for us, is
without each apprehending intellect before it is
within it, and the life of humanity precedes that
of our own several human experience, and the
capacities as well as rights of the individual are
in large measure what his membership of a
society has made them ; so Christian theology is
for men as joint members of a Catholic Church.
If on the one hand, it is true and strikingly true,
3 ] TO THE CHURCH 43
that theological insight, like all other Divine
insight into knowledge and character, comes to
the corporate body through the inspired mind
and life of individuals, it is none the less true
that the individual mind or conscience appre-
hends, and acquires apprehensiveness, in and
through both the moral discipline of gregarious
life, and the intellectual dutifulness of lowly
Church membership. True theological insight
can never be the pride of individual ingenuity.
Theology always has been as a historical fact
must we not add, theology by its inherent
necessity always must be ? the theology of a
coherent corporate body, the illuminative know-
ledge and light of a Church.
So incompatible with the true insight of
theology is the secret lust after intellectual emi-
nence or independency, that it has been, in all
ages of the Church, an experience characteristic
at once and most pitiful, that those who seemed,
it may be, in all other respects, both of intellect
and character, the most richly qualified to inter-
pret Divine truths to men, yet warped, a little
and a little, by a vein of individual ambition of
intellect, where there should have been loyal and
lowly dutifulness, have after all been eminent
only to mislead and to perplex, to distract and
to divide, the minds and hearts of their brethren.
Again and again this one failing has availed to
turn what should have been the very light of
heaven, into the misleading lanterns of the marsh
44 DUTIFUL SUBMISSION [No.
and the wilderness. Though Divine insight be
through individuals, it is never as an individual
property. Nothing could be more anomalous
than an esoteric Christian theology, the secret
intellectual pride of a few ; and nothing is more
pitiful than the spectacle of the shipwreck of
theologians in whose theological intelligence the
element was lacking of dutiful loyalty. Divine
truth is the animating possession of a corporate
Church ; and the man who sets himself apart
from the Body loses the inner touch of the life
which illuminates and informs the members of
the Body. We have known it in ancient history.
We know it only too familiarly in modern
Europe. If independence is, in one sense, a
necessary note of intellectual as of moral
strength, in a sense that is but slightly per-
verted it is the characteristic snare and ruin of
intellectual people. To be independent, if duti-
fulness demands it, is the very test of strength.
But a vein of desire for independence of intellect
is already the beginning of dissolution. The
solidarity of humanity, the deep interdependence
of man with man, the inadequacy, nay, the
disaster of the individual, if taken apart as a
solitary being, when he was made for orderly
membership in a mighty living and life-giving
whole if it is sufficiently noticeable elsewhere,
is nowhere more conspicuously or peremptorily
true than it is in the study of Christian theology.
What then ? Are thoughts like these thoughts
3 ] OF INTELLECT 45
of discouragement more than of inspiration ? or
are they in any way far-fetched, or uncertain, or
unnecessary? "The Word was with God, and
the Word was God." If the opening verses of
St. John be not folly, but Divine insight, how can
Christian theology be less than (in proportion as
it is realised) a positive certainty, a communing
of the illumined soul with truth ? 'Do not, then,
be misled into vainly imagining that theology can
be either constructed or maintained on the basis
of wide information about opinion, as distin-
guished from dutiful submission to the truth as
true. Do not be taken in by the shallow fancy that
mental indifference is higher intellectually than
surrender, independence than devotion, or that
the role of all-tolerating indifference is possible to
the Christian theologian. Devotion to the truth
is not lowered or fettered because it sets out with
the most immovable certainty that its own quest
is neither quixotic nor indefinite that the truth
is, is reality of existence, is perfection of life ; life
in whose realised completeness, intellectual wis-
dom, personal goodness, the boundlessness of
spiritual capacity, are no longer even imaginably
separate ; they are aspects of a unity which is each
one of them simultaneously, perfectly ; they can
differ only as diverse manifestations of a Being
essentially One.
Again, if the Word be God, how could devo-
tion to that Word be the devotion only of a single
faculty of man's being, and that neither the high-
46 GIVES INSIGHT INTO [No.
est element in his being, nor that which is most
characteristically himself? How could devotion
be devotion, if it were of the intellect more than of
the character and the will ? But if theological
truth thus necessarily makes its demand upon the
whole man, it also exalts the whole man. Every
faculty that it uses, it braces and purifies. If the
inadequacy of an isolated faculty, as intellect, is
nowhere so conspicuous ; nowhere, on the other
hand, is the intellect so refined and perfected as
intellect, as here where it begins to be identified
with the moral conscience, while it abdicates every
dream of individual eminence for ever, in loyal
submission to the eternal lordship of a Living
and Loving Truth.
Again, it hardly even seems an addition to these
thoughts, so much is it implied in them already,
that theology throws a man back upon his fellows ;
its insight is only possible to those who, as breth-
ren amongst brethren, have learnt the discipline
of a life of love. It requires a lowliness of intel-
lect as well as of action ; the lowliness of the man
who, though he thinks, and prays, and learns, and
judges for himself, yet does so with even increas-
ing distrust of his separate sufficiency ; whose
insight into real good gives him keen conscience
of moral imperfectness ; whose conscience of moral
imperfectness makes intellectual self-assertion im-
possible ; who would be not elated but dismayed
to find himself moving towards apparent contra-
diction I will not say necessarily of the majority
3 ] THE HIGHEST TRUTH 47
of surrounding Churchmen, but of that Apostolic
and Catholic Church in whose Divine foundation
and guidance he believes.
Only one word more. On such a representa-
tion as I have endeavoured to make, you may tell
me that it is difficult indeed to search and find,
here or there, some one or another who can with
any confidence be said to deserve the name of
theologian. I know not. Something indeed there
was said about things hidden from the wise and
prudent, and revealed unto babes : something also
about the relative order of the first and the last.
God's verdict is not always as man's ; and true
inward affinity with the highest truth is often
growing on by silent degrees, even, it may be,
where, or how, men suspect it least. Meanwhile
I can but reply that the very fact of the rarity, if
rarity it be, bears, in its own way, witness to the
transcendent reality of theological truth.
A RELIGIOUS VIEW OF HUMAN
PERSONALITY
(A sermon preached before the University of Oxford on
October 26th, 1902.)
" For as the Father hath life in Himself y even so gave He to
the Son also to have life in Himself (St. John v. 26).
ARE these words spoken primarily of the
~\ Logos the eternally pre-existent Image
of the Father, or primarily of the Son Incarnate,
the human revelation of God ? I must venture
to think that all words spoken by the Christ in
flesh of Himself the speaker, must have direct
reference to the Incarnate Christ ; and that these
words are no exception to the rule. Such a view
is emphasised by the phrase with which, in the
next verse, the sentence concludes, "And He
gave Him authority to execute judgement,
because He is the Son of man."
I venture, then, to take the words as having
reference not exclusive, perhaps, but direct to
human being in the Person of Christ. But if to
human being in the Person of Christ, then, in
some sense at least, to the consummation, and
therefore to the ideal, of what human being is.
I do not stay now to ask in what precise way the
4 8
No. 4 ] TRUE HUMAN LIFE, 49
relation ought to be stated between humanity in
us and Humanity in Him. At the very least,
there is an instructive analogy between the two ;
so that what is a leading principle of humanity in
Him has in it a lesson about our humanity, and
for us. At some risk, then, of seeming abrupt-
ness, I must venture to begin by assuming that
the words of the text have a direct application to
humanity, even our humanity, in its true ideal
meaning, as designed and discerned by God.
Any such a priori assumption is greatly
strengthened when we begin to observe what it is
that the words assert. They assert two things,
and the two make a paradox ; for they seem, on
the face of it, to contradict each other. " Even
so gave He to the Son also " it is, then, a gift,
derivative and dependent. " To have life in
Himself as the Father hath life in Himself" : it
is, then, an inherent possession, and compared,
in this point of its inherency, to the inherency of
the life of God. It is Life at once given and
inherent : at once dependent and distinct : at
once at outcome of the Father's being, an act or
expression of the Father's love, and an existence
over against the Father, like in sovereign self-
completeness to the Father's own. Such a
paradox contains, in fact, an exactly true account
of the actual reality, or at least the full ideal
reality, of human conscious being.
The two sides are both present together, and
E
5 o BEING BOTH DEPENDENT [No.
the two sides are both to be taken account of.
Logic may, or may not, succeed in correlating
them : but to ignore either is to fly in the face
of experience. It is easy for thought so to em-
phasise either side of th'e reality as to exclude
the other altogether. It is easy to think of the
inherent possession as everything. It is easy to
see nothing, as characteristic of man's conscious
selfhood, except the independence ; to find its
whole differentia in distinctness ; to imagine that
separateness is the great reality. One man is
distinct from another : and both are distinct from
God. I am what I am apart, alone ; for good or
for evil an object, a centre, and a goal, to myself.
Now no doubt very much of prima facie consci-
ousness is like this. And no doubt also this
sense of self-sufficing independence may be said
to have been closely connected, as condition,
with not a little of human enterprise and of
human excellence.
On the other hand it is not difficult, nor un-
natural, at least to reflective thought, to conceive
of created consciousness as a mere mode or part
of universal consciousness, of the particular as
but a partial presentment, a rendering in detail,
of the general purpose or mind, of man at his
most as a mere element in God. This is the
opposite extreme. So far from finding the whole
differentia of particular being in distinctness, it
really breaks down all distinction whatever. It
explains the wonder of created personality quite
4 ] AND INDEPENDENT, 51
simply by explaining 1 it away. It merges the
individual in the absolute. Whether, on those
terms, it would ultimately succeed in conserving
any conception of personality at all, even as
applied to God, is a question which we need not
now ask. Human personality it certainly does
not conserve. No doubt it has been at many
times usual for thinkers to conceive of personal
consciousness, for all purposes, in terms too
exclusively of conscious intelligence of thought,
that is, rather than affection, of mind rather than
will. Now it is much easier to think of the
particular mind than of the particular will as a
mere part or reproduction of the universal. It
was therefore perhaps no very unnatural result of
this exclusive over-emphasis upon thought or
intelligence, if men were unduly disposed to let
the idea of real individuality go : or at least if
they found themselves in some intellectual diffi-
culty, when they tried to show that their system
of thought would not end in the loss of it.
These are the two extremes. But in point of
fact either of these by itself is really one-sided.
It may be easier, no doubt, as far as simplicity
goes, to adopt either view by itself than to bring
the two into harmony. But it would be (what is
often tempting to the thinker) a simplicity pur-
chased at the cost of truth. A truer fidelity
to experience would make impossible the ex-
clusion or exclusive adoption of either. The
logical dilemma is here, as it is so often, out of
52 FINDS ITS CONSUMMATION [No.
place. Each may have, indeed, in some sort to
be explained by the other. But the reality, on
the one side, of individuality distinct and in-
herent, and on the other, of fundamental union
with, and dependence on, God, seeing" that both
are certainly, in some sense, true cannot con-
stitute any real or final antithesis.
It is to be noticed that they seemed most
opposed to each other in the earlier and more
imperfect stages of consciousness ; the conscious-
ness, that is, of children ; or of many, it may
also be, of us, who are apt to remain as children
in things like these. We seem to begin with
feeling ourselves wholly by ourselves and to our-
selves. This life within with its capacities, and
its aims, its records, and its hopes, it is all my
secret. I know : and no other knows or can
know but I. If there be risk run, it is my risk.
If there be achievement, it is my achievement.
If there be weakness or wrong, it is alone, it is
apart, it is mine, only mine. This sovereign
separateness is the very essence and prerogative
of my being.
How different from this is the later conscious-
ness especially of the noblest and the holiest of
men ! If we look to the picture of them, as it
has been again and again unfolded to us be-
hold ! there are no secrets jealously shut off ; but
rather every inmost motive and thought laid
bare. There is the growing sense of an eye
which sees and has seen through every secretest
4 ] IN UNION WITH GOD 53
veil ; of a power which has guarded and guards
every step of the path ; of a wisdom which has
revealed itself to and in the soul with consummate
wisdom of patience ; of a power and a love, not
originated from within, which have more and
more made the consciousness of the very self
what it has been, and is, and is capable of be-
coming. Till the end is at least a conscious
approximation towards real union of thought and
of spirit the man characterised through and
through by the reality of the indwelling Spirit
of God.
Such union is not for a moment the dissolution
but the consummation, not the merging but the
crowning, of the several self. Never is the man
so perfect in insight and wisdom as when he
sees as God sees, and knows according to the
truth itself : never is the man so perfectly free as
when he can will and does will in absolute accord
with the meaning and will of God, which is the
highest harmony and perfectness of the nature,
made in God's image, which God has bestowed
upon him : never is he, as self, so completely all
that self had meant, or been, or aspired to mean
or become, as when he is at last a conscious and
living and willing and joyous reflection of the
very being and character of God.
It is true of course that this is transcendently
beyond what any man has realised in his ex-
perience here and now on earth. The best man,
54 MAN IS A TRUE [No.
perhaps, has but glimpses and his glimpses,
though real, may be fitful and overcrowded even
of what he himself really is, and is to be. But
it is true also that this is the end towards which
the experience of saints is, even visibly, tending
in present experience : saintliness is, even here
and now, however incompletely, a growth to-
wards the capacity of real mirroring, through
God's gift of power, of the character of God.
And it is at the same time true that it is in the
final end or goal, it is in the consummation, un-
attained, indeed, yet more or less certainly dis-
cerned it is not in the essential imperfectness of
its first, weak rudiments that we shall rightly
distinguish the real differentia and the true defini-
tion of the conscious selfhood of man.
No doubt our language, at its best necessarily
figurative, may sometimes, and to some minds or
in some parts, obscure the truth which it can but
roughly represent. We may speak, as St. Paul
spoke, of created human being as, in its ultimate
reality, "reflecting, as a mirror, the glory of the
Lord " ; a but reflection and mirror are metaphors
which require to be guarded very carefully. So
if we speak of human being as an echo, or a like-
ness, a reproduction, or an image, or a response ;
our best words not only say at most but a part of
the truth, but with that part they are apt to say
also, verbally at least, something else which is
not quite true. Take such words, for instance, as
1 2 Cor. iii. 1 8.
4 ] IMAGE OF GOD, 55
"reflection" or "response." We need to make
quite clear to our thought the contrast between
an active and a passive reflection, between a
living and a dead response. The response we
speak of must be one of living will : the reflection
we mean must be an activity of willing love. Our
words will fail at the pinch, unless these things,
will, love, life, are found to be implied within the
words.
But, if we think, we shall find that they are
so implied. There is a sense, indeed, in which
all created being is a reflection of something of
the Being of God. The snowflake and the crystal
have the impress of Him : they are a real part of
His revelation. So, in other ways, are the sunset,
and the thunder. So, in other ways, are the un-
conscious growth of an infant, or the instincts of
animals, or the motions of the stars. Something
there is a real being, a real beauty, which is given
to them : which is stamped on them : a stamp, a
gift, from the beauty of the Being of God. But
there is in them no inherent life. There is ex-
pression, Divine expression, through them : and
yet it is not really they who express. They ?
There is no real "they." They are but channels,
methods, fragments, glimpses, through which
God indicates some separate aspect or detail of
the expression of Himself.
How far different is it with the living self of
man ! It is the prerogative of his created being
to have a life which, though none the less abso-
56 HAVING LIFE INHERENT [No.
lutely given, is yet given as inherent, when given.
It is the true meaning of man's nature not only
passively to reflect, as a mirror, some fragment of
God's being ; not only metaphorically to respond
to some isolated attribute of God ; but to be a
living image radiating as He radiates : willing
as He wills : loving as He loves : nay, even will-
ing with His will, and loving with His love, ani-
mated by His Spirit, and radiating the very glory
of His Person : a response to His essential being;
a reflection of His inmost character : a living
image of His very self. " Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that
we should be called children of God : and such
we are. For this cause the world knoweth us
not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are
we children of God, and it is not yet made mani-
fest what we shall be. We know that, if He
shall be manifested, we shall be like Him ; for
we shall see Him even as He is. And everyone
that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself,
even as He is pure. . . . And he that keepeth
His commandments abideth in Him, and He in
him. And hereby we know that He abideth in
us, by the Spirit which He gave us." 1
The reflection of the crystal and the snowflake
is partial, is passive, is dead. But the reflection
of will as will, of life as life, of character as
character, of love as love, of sovereign personal
being as personal and as sovereign : this cannot
1 i John iii. 1-3 and 24.
4 ] BUT DERIVED FROM GOD 57
be less than personalky royally complete in love
and character, in life and reason and will. These
are the very things in respect of which man is, in
his ideal, the living image, the response to the
being, the mirror of the glory, of God. As
response, the response would fail, as reflection,
the reflection would be untrue, if it did not neces-
sarily contain and imply the livingness of these
things.
The union with God, for which man yearns,
and which is the consummation and ideal mean-
ing of man's being, is no mere selfless merging
in the Divine. The goal of man's being is union,
not extinction. " I in them, and thou in Me,
that they may be perfected into one "* ; this is the
crowning of the perfectness, it is not the oblitera-
tion, of man. Merge man's selfhood in the Being
of God, make him a mere part or mode of abso-
lute existence; and it would be idle to talk of
either reflection or response. The very words
necessarily imply such living distinctness as is
essential to the possibility of communion and
unity. Oneness of Spirit is not mere unity of
number. There can be no reality of communion,
there can be no living oneness, in simple identity.
" As the Father hath life in Himself, even so
gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself."
The ideal goal of man's being is life, a life in-
herent, with inherency like to the inherency of
the life of God : for to image God, to reflect His
1 John xvii. 23.
58 ARE CREATED PERSONS [No.
very being, is the ideal end, which is the real
meaning, of man. There would be no living re-
flection, no radiating, no willing, no intelligence
even, if the individual were absorbed within,
were a mere part or aspect of, one divinely self-
conscious whole.
And yet all this inherency upon which we
insist, is itself, as we no less insist, essentially
givenness. It is derived, relative, dependent,
creaturely. It is not cannot be apart, either
by itself, or for itself, any more than it is from
itself. Its whole excellency depends upon its
relativity, upon its reality of communion, upon
its oneness of thought, will, love, with God who
is its goal as truly as He is its source. It is self,
not maintaining its selfhood by separateness, or
by the possibility of separating, but rather per-
fected in the final surrender of all that tends
really to separate, glorified in the attainment of a
union never again to be impaired or qualified, at
rest in perfect harmony with Wisdom and
Righteousness and Love, at rest, in oneness of
Spirit, in Christ and in God.
In God because in Christ. What is there in
the ideal Christian consciousness which is not,
to a St. Paul or to a St. John, in Christ ? The
directness of the phrase may stagger us. We
may set ourselves to soften it ; we may explain
what it actually says away : but however we deal
with it mentally, we cannot deny that it pervades
4 ] WITHIN OR WITHOUT GOD? 59
the thought of the New Testament, and pervades
it in this form.
The phrase must needs be the right phrase.
But how much does the phrase mean ? The
question is sometimes raised and it is at least a
legitimate, if it is hardly an illuminating, question
whether created persons are to be conceived of
as within God, or without ? Is God limited by
them ? Is their being an addition to the Being
of God? and does the addition constitute some
existence, besides God, which is not God ? The
question is a question of logic rather than of
reality ; a question, that is, not so much of what
zs, as of what human distinctions, of thought and
of phrase, are subtle enough to define.
In the light of what has already been said I
hope that we shall recognise that there is some-
thing really artificial in a question like this ;
artificial, that is, in the antithesis which it im-
plies, and upon which it depends. But if the ques-
tion be raised, then neither the simple "yes" nor
the simple "no," neither the simple "within"
nor the simple "without" is wholly true as
answer without the other. If there is indeed a
sense in which created persons are without, yet
almost all that is ordinarily meant by that
withoutness is in fact a departure from the true
law of their being, and is therefore no part of the
ideal truth. If there is assuredly a sense in which
they are within, that withinness, even in its ideal
consummation, leaves them not the less, but so
60 SIN, THE REAL WITHOUTNESS, [No.
much really the more, self-identical as them-
selves. There is indeed a true sense in which it
may be said of us all, from the beginning, that
we are within God: for "in Him," as St. Paul
preached to the Athenians, "in Him we live, and
move, and have our being." 1 But the truth here
expressed is but shadowy, incomplete, unrealised,
when compared with that to which St. Paul
looked forward as the far-off ideal, the perfect-
ness which shall be consummated at last " when
all things have been subjected unto Him, then
shall the Son also Himself be subjected to Him
that did subject all things unto Him, that God
may be all in all." 2
Are created persons an addition to God's being,
so that His being can be said to be limited-
limited by what they are? In so far as they can
be said to be an addition at all, they are certainly
an addition which can be said to utter and so
to enrich, to express, and to glorify by expressing,
rather than in any sense to limit Him. Limita-
tion of God ? It would be far nearer to the truth
to conceive of them as constituting a new out-
pouring and enrichment of Divine self-expression
through the willing and living reality of selves
of Him, by Him, and unto Him, of selves whose
meaning and whose glory it is each in his
several part, or aspect, or quality, to image
faithfully, and to make adequate response to, the
very character and reality of His being.
~* Acts xvii. 28. a i Cor. xv. 28.
4 ] IS A CONTRADICTION OF LIFE 61
It is indeed only too true that though, in Divine
idea, and in dim underlying possibility, men may
be, from the first, within God ; there is in them
also that which tends to withoutness, and does
set them without and apart in some painfully real
measure of experience, in proportion as they have
rebelled, and have identified themselves with sin.
Sin is, in its essence, withoutness. We all, who
know what sin is, have some dim instinct at least
as to what such withoutness means. And the
tendency of sin, progressive and habitual, is
towards that consummated separation from the
being and nature of God, which is spiritual
death. But the sense of withoutness, with which
our self-consciousness begins, and which sin
terribly accents and tends to make more and
more real, is no proper reality it is rather the
contradiction of the proper reality of what
human life means. Only sin is the real without-
ness. Very different from this is that element of
withoutness (if so it is to be called) or quasi-
withoutness, that negation of mere self-destroying
identity, that gift of inherency of being, which
gives meaning and life to unity. If men's first
rudimentary and most imperfect experience lays
a wholly undue emphasis on their separate dis-
tinctness, as distinctively separating, yet on the
other hand, as men grow in divineness of
character, and learn more and more how the
true meaning of their being is to be One in the
Oneness of the Spirit of God ; more and more
62 LOGIC AND LIFE : [No.
obvious is the sense in which they are not
without, but are within, Him "their life is hid
with Christ in God." 1 They are without just so
far as to be really that is, livingly and lovingly
within. They are without in the sense that
they are not self-identical with Him. They are
not God, that their surrender, through Him, to
union with Him, may be real. They are within
more vitally by far than without : yet with a
withinness, no doubt, of which a sort of without-
ness the distinction which makes mutually
conscious relation possible, the distinction im-
plied in every real unity of Spirit, is itself a
necessary aspect or condition.
If there is difficulty in this, the difficulty lies
in the application of logical distinctions and
dilemmas to the complex simplicity of life.
Logic fits perfectly only to things which human
thought can wholly analyse and comprehend.
Very rarely can human thought so compass (as it
were) all round as to comprehend and formulate
wholly anything so fundamental as conscious life
uncreated or even created. But whatever the
difficulty of statement may be, to experience at
least the reality, if complex, is not perplexing
nor difficult at all. Experience knows that both
sides of the truth are true, whether logical forms
can correlate them fully or no. It would not be
after all very profoundly philosophical to ex-
plain away either side of a complex experience
1 Col. iii. 3.
4 ] CHRISTIANS ARE TO REALISE 63
because it seems hard to adjust it logically with
the other.
Christian life, then, our own life, our life in
this University, or elsewhere, is it pitched high
enough ? Its view of itself, its aspirations for
itself, the meaning of its own work, the upshot
of its own being, do they not fall continually
below the dignity which is inherently theirs ?
Men feel sometimes the significance and the
solemnity of dying : do they feel the intense
solemnity, the Divine significance, of living of
being men ? Remember that it is not only im-
morality or wilful rebellion ; it is not only religi-
ous indifference or contempt : but it is all pride
and bitterness of spirit, or levity of life, or idle-
ness, or unworthy conversation and amusement,
it is every form of self-concentration or self-
worship, which gives the lie to the true meaning
and purpose of human life. In real right, and in
real power, are we not more, far more, than we
are willing to be ? Is it hyperbole if St. Peter
speaks of our becoming "partakers of the Divine
nature"? Is St. John's conception of "fellow-
ship with the Father " or of being " in Him that
is true " is our Lord's supreme teaching about
inherence in Himself so much high-flown and
misleading metaphor? The real meaning of you
is not to be found so much in your imperfect
rudiments as in your ideal consummation ; not in
your worst, but in your best ; or rather in that
64 THE DIVINENESS OF [No.
transcendently better, which your best can as yet
but faintly adumbrate. In the imperfect stages
of human consciousness the meaning of created
personality is obscured, and discernible only
most imperfectly. In its consummation it is
what only the Incarnate has revealed in Hu-
manity : so that even the opening phrases of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, or such words as I have
taken for my text, are found at last to have a
degree of relevance to it which at first we should
never have even dared to dream.
This is the goal and the ideal. It may be that
the method of reaching it has some sore surprises
and perplexities. Of these we do not speak to-
day. Discipline, Sacrifice, Crucifixion, or, what
may be even harder to understand, confusion,
conviction, even (as it seems) utter mental or
spiritual overthrow ; all these have a place, a
strange place sometimes, even a staggering
place, in the education of saints. Yet do not,
even for these, lose the meaning, or lower the
aim, of your own human being. It is hard,
through gathering darkness, to keep the ideal
very high. Yet in the height of the ideal, there
is hope, and there is life. To be men is as it
seems to be capable of suffering, of sorrow, of
perplexity, of remorse, and of shame. Yet to be
men indeed is, after all, to be as gods ; echoes
of God ; adequate responses to God ; not illustra-
tions only of some attribute of Divine power or
beauty, but rather alive with His life, and
4 ] TRUE HUMAN LIFE 65
aflame with the brightness of the Spirit of His
love, and possessed through and through with
the fire of adoration towards Him light of His
light, and fire of His fire, and righteous will of
His righteous will ! real, personal, living reflec-
tions, or images, of Himself: of His character,
and of His Being.
THE FULHAM CONFERENCE ON
COMMUNION WITH THE ATONEMENT
(Journal of Theological Studies , April, 1901.)
" " I "HE occasion, the action, and the full
-L words, of the Institution, all define the
sacred Body in our Lord's thought to be the
Body as in Death, and the sacred Blood to be
the Blood as in Death ; that is, as in the act and
process of the One Sacrifice which is our Re-
demption. By the Body and the Blood I thus
humbly understand to be 'signified' the Means
of our Redemption themselves belonging to the
past, but in their redeeming Effect ever present."
These are Dr. Moule's words, written very
carefully beforehand for the Round Table Con-
ference at Fulham. They represent a position
very deliberately taken, and maintained as crucial,
by the " Evangelical " representatives generally
on that occasion. The same position was affirmed
with the same emphasis and agreement at a dis-
cussion upon Eucharistic doctrine held a year or
two ago at the annual Islington Conference. We
may probably take it, at this moment, that the
position stated is the fundamental basis of the
1 Report of a Conference held at Fulham Palace in October, 1900, p. 29.
66
No. 5] THE EVANGELICAL VIEW 67
theological teaching, upon this particular subject,
of our Evangelical friends. In the words of
Mr. Dimock, "the Res sacramenti is not Christ
as He now is, but Christ's Body and Blood as
separated in Sacrificial Death for our sins." 1
The words quoted from Dr. Moule so nearly
express the very truth, that if we heard them for
the first time without context or comment we
might be inclined to welcome them as true. But
the more we examine his position in full, and
take it in all its context at Fulham and Islington,
the more shall we feel that it just misses, after
all, the very truth at which it aims ; while in that
margin of exaggeration, between the truth at
which it aims and the thing which it actually
says, there has crept in the beginning of a some-
what far-reaching misconception. But before
commenting upon it, I may express something
of my own satisfaction and thankfulness in find-
ing that the difference in Eucharistic doctrine
between High Churchmen and Evangelicals
between, that is, two classes of minds which differ
in some real respects, but are apt to imagine their
differences much greater than they really are
can be brought to a clear theological issue like
this. Here is a question strictly theological ; a
question which can be argued dispassionately,
and, if need be, at patient length ; a question
outside the turmoil of party cries, or the heat of
party feeling. We shall learn to be grateful for
1 Ibid., p. 12.
68 THE REPRODUCTION OF [No.
the Fulham Conference, if for nothing else, yet
for this, that it has brought clearly to light a quiet
theological issue upon which, nevertheless, a
very large part of the whole great controversy
rests.
And I should like also to acknowledge from
the beginning that the position which is thus
cardinal to modern Evangelical theology is in its
origin neither new nor partisan. A doctrine
strenuously maintained as cardinal to Eucharistic
truth by Archdeacon Freeman and by Canon
Trevor, based by both upon emphatic words of
Bishop Andrewes, l and by Canon Trevor upon
a long catena of passages from distinctive and
distinguished Anglican divines, is no device of
modern "Low Churchmanship. " It has a long
history, and many-sided support. It is no more
partisan than it is new. Those who think that
there is in it, nevertheless, a core of mistake,
will not only have to show their own grounds of
principle against it, but will also have to account
for the large amount of apparent historical con-
sensus which can be urged on its behalf.
With this prelude I pass at once to the con-
sideration of certain objections to the doctrine.
I. First I would urge that this doctrine, if
pressed, is open to one of the objections which
we have been in the habit of making and
1 See Freeman's Principles of Divine Service, vol. ii. p. 209, ed. 1873
(chap. i. end of 12), and Trevor's Catholic Doctrine of the Holy
Eucharist, p. 176.
5 ] THE MOMENT OF CALVARY 69
making, as I believe, truly and rightly against
transubstantiation : namely, that it introduces a
new and unnecessary miracle. Christ was but
is not dead. His Body as dead, His Blood as
separated in death, are not, anyhow or anywhere,
now. It is obvious to urge that the gift given in
the Sacrament is what is, and not what is not.
There is no cadaver. There is no blood of a
corpse. In whatever sense the bread and wine
either represent, or are, or so represent that they
may be said to be, certain realities beyond them-
selves, they at all events are, or represent, realities
things existent, not non-existent. There is
indeed a " Christ who died " : but there is no
"dead Christ." Now the answer, if I understand
it, on this particular point, appeals really to the
Divine power of making a past moment present.
I am not sure whether it would be right to apply
to this point Mr. Dimock's quotation from Ridley
on a cognate point, that it "could only be effected
by the ' omnipotency of Christ's Word.'" 1 But
I have no doubt that this is the meaning of
Bishop Andrewes, where he says, " By the in-
comprehensible power of His eternal Spirit, not
He alone, but He as at the very act of His offer-
ing is made present to us." 2 "He at the very
act of His offering " clearly means, to Andrewes,
Christ dying on Cavalry, not Christ, risen and
1 Fulham Conference, pp. 48, 49.
3 Sermons of the Resurrection, preached on Easter Day, vii. (Library
of Anglo-Catholic Theology : Andrewes' Sermons, vol. ii. [1841] p. 302).
70 INVOLVES AN [No.
ascended, presenting the blood of His sacrifice
in the Holy of Holies : and he conceives this
perpetual reidentification of the Church with the
moment of Calvary this reproduction of a point
in the past as present to be an act of the " in-
comprehensible power of Christ's Eternal Spirit."
I shall have by and by to point out that if, by
whatever exercise of miraculous power, this
precise point of the past were reproduced as
present, it would not be the moment, after all, of
the consummation of the sacrifice. It would be,
on the contrary, a moment in the process, a
moment indeed of transcendent importance, but
still a moment at which, if you could indeed
break off there, the sacrifice would be still not
fully consummated. But my present point is
that whether that moment is the moment of con-
summated sacrifice or no, in asking to have it
reproduced by " incomprehensible power " as
present, you are asking in fact for a miraculous
inversion of realities.
I do not say that Mr. Dimock would allow this.
On the contrary, I rather think his language is
intended to avoid it. He says, of the res signi-
ficatae that is, the dead body, and the separated
blood that they are " thus verily and indeed
taken and received by the faithful, being really
present for the manducation of faith, 'cui prae-
sentia sunt omnia praeterita ' " ; and again he
claims that "there was no novelty in maintaining
that things of the past may be things present to
S ] UNNECESSARY MIRACLE 71
faithy^ I think, perhaps, this "presence to
faith " is meant to be conceived of as a mode of
presence expressly not miraculous, but normal.
Now, I pass by the point which Canon Gore
made as to the whole sentence of Rupert of
Deutz 2 from which Mr. Dimock quoted a phrase;
for I am more concerned with Mr. Dimock's
meaning than with Rupert's. Mr. Dimock then,
at all events, puts it as a general principle, that
things past may be present to faith. In what
sense may they ? I quite understand their being
present to memory, or to imagination ; both of
which, it is to be observed, imply that whatever
kind of reality may be asserted of the presence,
the absence is comparably more real than the
presence ; the presence is only a sort of quasi-
presence, or substitute for presence, of the really
absent ; but it is plain, I suppose, that Mr.
Dimock's " presence to faith " means something
more than the imagination or memory. He puts
it as a normal principle, of universal application.
To faith "omnia praeterita " are present. Are
they ? I must venture to challenge the principle
in this form. If in any sense "all things" are
present to faith, assuredly they are not all present
in the same sense ; and directly you begin to
discriminate, the principle as principle is gone.
It is no longer a property of faith to make all
things present. But you have to ask what that
property is, in some things which causes them to
1 Fulham Conference, pp. 48, 49. 2 Ibid., p. 49.
72 FOR NOT ALL PAST FACTS [No.
be, and in other things which causes them not to
be, present eternally to the faculty which can
discern them as present.
For it is important to observe that faith is not
a cause of existence. It does not make things to
be when they are not. It is rather a power of
corresponding with what is. It sees what cannot
be seen, it realises what cannot be realised, save
by special capacity. But it does not invent, or
create, what is not. It is true that there is a
sense in which things may be said not to be,
except to the capacity for discerning them. As
there is no light save to the seeing eye, nor
harmony save to the ear that is capable of music,
nor spiritual discernment save to spirit : so Divine
things, save to faith, may be said not to be, in
the same sense in which it is true that a poem is
not a poem to the fire that burns it, or to the
animal that tears it to pieces. But the man who
rescues the poem and apprehends it, does not,
by apprehending, make it. When these various
things are, to faith, it is not faith which is the
cause, or author, of their being. The musician
hears, as the eye sees, what is. And faith re-
ceiving and discerning what, save to faith, is not,
does not create, but discerns what it receives, and
both receives and discerns only what is.
Only that, then, can be present to faith which
is present really ; that is, which is present to
God. Is it true to say that to God <( praesentia
sunt omnia praeterita " ? I must submit that it is
5 ] ARE ETERNALLY PRESENT 73
not true. Some things are eternal presents as
others are not. It is true indeed that all accom-
plished facts tend to be, in their measure, an
element in the abiding present. But some are so
very faintly ; some very mightily ; and some can
cease to be so altogether. And since they can
cease to be so, the presentness is not an inherent,
or universal, property of the past.
It is the haunting terror of conscious sin that
it is contained within the present self. It is the
inherent presentness of the past which is naturally
its sting, or its power. But there is such a thing
as consummated redemption, consummated for-
giveness, consummated beatitude. There is such
a thing as a real elimination and undoing of the
past. The fact is that some past things are
present in a sense in which others are not. Cui
praesentia sunt omnia praeterita is misleading.
Abraham's call, Abraham's faith, are they, in the
sight of the Eternal, eternal predicates, eternal
truths of Abraham ? I can well suppose that
they are. Is the treachery of Judas an eternal
reality ? Our hearts may say w yeWro, while we
dare not, even for that, usurp the seat of the
Judge. Is "slainness" an eternal attribute of
Christ? Emphatically it is. From the founda-
tion of the world, and to eternity, He is the
" Lamb as it had been slain." Not by an act of
miraculous reproduction of a single point in the
unfinished record of the past ; but inherently, be-
cause He is what He is, therefore His fact of death
74 IT DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN [No.
is an eternal attribute, an inherent and inalienable
present. Not that He is always in the present
dying, or in the present dead ; not that some-
times, or often, His moment of dying is by God's
power reproduced, or recalled ; but that it always
is an indivisible part of what He is, and He,
apart from it, would be less than Himself. Here
is an instance indeed, without special miracle,
yet as a property of God, in which " praesens est,
usque ad aeternum, id quod est praeteritum."
But is St. Peter for ever lying, or for ever a
liar ? Is the moment of his betrayal is the
moment of every Christian's fall and sin alike
part of God's eternal present ? Emphatically it
is not. Else were the Cross a failure after all,
and real sanctification a delusion. I will not try
to elaborate this further. To say that a certain
past act is of such character as to constitute an
eternal attribute, predicate, or property, is one
thing. To say that a certain point in a past
process is by God's power miraculously repro-
duced, to say that the perfect wholeness of a
consummated work can be so (as it were) rolled
back, that men can be set by God's power at a
special moment when the work was prepared and
waiting to be consummated eternally, is another.
The one is to conceive of Christ's death, as I
believe that Scripture conceives of it, as an
eternal element or attribute, inseparable from
what Christ is. The other is to bring back the
actual moment of Christ's dying itself a point
5] TWO BODIES OF CHRIST 75
(albeit a transcendent point) in the work as yet
unconsummated and uncrowned to bring it
back, unnaturally and unnecessarily, by a divine
act of "incomprehensible power," into the midst
of the perpetual present.
II. The second objection I would urge is one
which was explicitly made at Fulham. It is that
the doctrine makes an unreal distinction between
the sacrificed and the glorified Body : as though
there were two Bodies of Christ, when there is
but one. The sacrificed is the glorified Body,
and the glorified Body is the sacrificed. It is
the distinctive glory of the glorified Body that it
is the Body of sacrifice. The slainness is not a
mere past fact, which is naturally ever more
remote but supernaturally resuscitated into the
present. The slainness is an eternal fact ; an
essential for the purpose we may even say the
essential element and character of the eternal
present. To me it seems essential to theological
truth to insist upon the indivisible oneness of the
Body. It is as the characteristic attribute of the
glorified Christ that His sacrificial death is
present eternally : not as an undoing of the
glory ; a going back into the desolateness of the
past ; a cutting of the redemptive work of Christ
into halves ; a stopping short (per impossibile] in
the moment of the blackness. It was never a
dead Christ, as dead, but a Christ who could not
be holden of death ; it was a Christ who died and
lived through dying ; a Christ who by dying
76 BUT THE SACRIFICED BODY [No.
conquered death ; a Christ not veKpos but 6 u>v,
eyevo/uLtjv ve/cpoy, Kal ISov u)v el/ui et"? TOI*? aiu>va$ TWV
it was such a Christ, and as such, who triumphed
and who atoned, not in, but through, death. I
would fully adopt on this point the words of
Canon Gore, as given in the report : "He could
not separate the sacrificed from the glorified
Body of our Saviour, and could not conceive of
our partaking of the former except through the
latter. The latter, he urged, is the only Body
now existing, or that ever has existed ; and it is
the same Body which, once in a crucified, is now
in a glorified state." 1 I would add only the
reminder that even the two states must not be so
contrasted as to seem to be mutually exclusive ;
that as the crucified state was itself a mode or
condition of the glory, so the "glorified state"
does not by antithesis exclude, but rather
includes, and is based on, and is characterised
by, the inalienable fact of "crucifiedness."
A reply on this point was attempted by
Chancellor Smith, 2 which seems to me to in-
volve a good deal of misconception. There
must, he seems to argue, be some such dualism
as is implied in the antithesis between the cruci-
fied and the glorified Body of our Lord, because,
at the institution, Jesus in bodily form, and the
bread and wine which He gave as His Body and
Blood, were separately present, side by side with
each other. In what sense does Chancellor Smith
1 Ibid., pp. 50, 51. 2 Ibid., p. 52.
S ] AND THE GLORIFIED ARE ONE 77
suppose that the bread and wine, at the last
supper, were the Body and Blood of Christ?
And were they the crucified or the glorified
Body? If the crucified Body by antithesis against
the glorified, then, in whatever sense of the word
"were," they were the same Body as the Body
which handled and delivered them. This may
possibly raise some question about the word
"were"; but if both "were" the same Body
of crucifixion, what becomes of the necessary
antithesis between the crucified and the glorified
Body? The very fact that the bread and wine
could really "be" that which, in an obvious
sense, at the very same moment they were not,
is (to say the least) a strong suggestion in the
direction rather of identification across apparent
antithesis, than of antithesis breaking up identity.
On the other hand, if they were the glorified
Body, what would become of the whole argument
for the sake of which the antithesis is desired ?
The only remaining alternative, that the palpable
Body of Jesus which went that night through the
agony, and through the crucifixion next day, was
itself the glorified in contrast with the crucified
Body, could of course not even be suggested.
On the face of it, then, this answer does not
appear to be very formidable, or to shake our
position when we maintain that there neither are,
nor were, two Bodies of Christ ; but that the
crucified Body is glorified because crucified, and
that the glorified Body is, both now and for ever,
78 THE REALITY OF THE CHURCH [No.
essentially characterised as crucified. Would you
find the crucified Body? Do not go back and
peep into the tomb. Behold it ! alive and glori-
fied for ever ! " Why seek ye the living among
the dead? He is not here, He is risen." The
crucified Body is on the throne of God.
I do not care, then, to adopt exactly the
sentence with which Canon Gore first raised this
question at the Conference. 2 I do not suppose,
in the light of his words which I quoted just
now, that he would himself regard it as theo-
logically felicitous, though it effectually served to
raise his point. Neither "the crucified Body
directly and the glorified Body consequentially,"
nor "the glorified Body directly and the crucified
Body consequentially, " seem to me quite happy
or quite true phrases. 3 Our communion in the
Eucharist is communion with, or of, the Body of
Christ which is. And the Body of Christ is the
crucified Body glorified. We are made partakers,
in the Eucharist, of humanity sinless and glori-
fied ; but sinless through sacrifice, and glorified
by that victory over death which could only
have been won through dying. But Chancellor
Smith's answer suggests, no doubt, a deeper
point than this comparatively superficial argu-
ment. And this leads us naturally on to, and
will arise naturally under, the third of the
1 Luc. xxiv. 5, 6. 2 Fulham Conference, p. 44.
3 Compare the clear statements made by Canon Gore in The Body of
Christ, pp. 6 1, 62, 66, 94, etc.
5 ] IS IN THE SPIRIT 79
principles which I had desired to advance. It
is this.
III. It seems to me clear, as I have tried to
set forth with greater fulness elsewhere, that
every reality in the Church of Christ, is in Spirit,
spiritual. Pentecost is the extension and the
perpetuation of the real meaning and power of
the Incarnation. And the Spirit of Pentecost
constitutes the Church what it is. The Church
may fall short, in all directions, of her own ideal
meaning. But in her own ideal meaning, the
Church is the Spirit ; and the ordinances of the
Church are what they are of, and by, Spirit.
" Ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est
Spiritus." This is true, broadly, of the ideal
meaning of the Church as a whole. It is true
distinctively of the Church's distinctive principle
and experience the feeding upon the Body and
Blood of Christ. It is the Ascension and that
which the Ascension implies which is the key
to the truly spiritual understanding of spiritual
things. "Doth this offend you? What and if
ye should see the Son of Man ascend up where
He was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth;
the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I
speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are
life." 1
Nothing, then, in the Church of Christ has its
own real meaning or being, save in and through
Pentecost. It is within the sphere of Spirit, and
1 Jo. vi. 61-3.
8o IT IS THROUGH THE [No.
by the power of Spirit, and it is not except by,
and within, Spirit that the Communion really is
what the Communion really is. What is pre-
Pentecostal is preparatory merely. It had the
form, the organs, the discipline ; but not yet the
full living spiritual essence. It was necessary
that one mode of Christ's presence should be
withdrawn, before the second which was the
real object and climax of the first could be
made a living reality. " Nevertheless I tell you
the truth ; it is expedient for you that I go away ;
for if I go not away the Comforter will not come
unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto
you." 1
As the Church, as Church, was called and
shaped and welded and instructed and disciplined
by the Incarnate Christ, yet was not, as Church,
alive till the Breath of Christ till Christ as
Breath was breathed into it, and it lived by His
life, now become its own ; as the Apostles of
Christ were personally called and trained and
fitted to be Apostles before the Ascension, and
yet were not really what the word "Apostles of
Christ" properly connotes till the Spirit of Christ
possessed them (the Simon Bar-Jonah who denied
the Lord, though by a more than possible use of
language he can be said to be, yet was not, for
all purposes, to quite strict thought, the Apostle
St. Peter) : so the last Supper, as instituted on
the night before the Crucifixion, was not yet
1 Jo. xvi. 7.
5 ] ASCENSION AND PENTECOST 81
actually all that the Christian Eucharist which
nevertheless it was, and which was it was to be
in the Church of Christ.
This is a principle as to the necessary truth of
which I feel very strongly ; and yet it is one
against which I should anticipate very earnest
protest. Do you venture, it will be asked, even
to suggest that the Supper as instituted as
celebrated by Christ Himself, was in any respect
other, or less, than that Christian Eucharist,
whose highest conceivable perfection it would be,
to be exactly what Christ's Supper was ? It is
indeed the highest conceivable perfection of the
Christian Eucharist to be what Christ's Supper
both ordained and signified. But why must it
have had, at that moment of its preliminary
institution for the life of the Church, all that
inner essence which belongs to it as within the
sphere of the life of the Church, which is the
enabling Spirit of Pentecost ? Does any principle
of reverence for the word of Christ preclude us
from believing that the Church first became what
the Church means : that the Apostles first were
really Apostles indeed : that the breathing of
Christ upon them for the power of remitting or
retaining sins sprang to its essential fulness of
living power: and that the institution of the Last
Supper became alive with all its inherent spiritual
reality ; at the moment when the consummation
of God's work as Incarnate, through the crowning
of the Ascension and the entry in glory into the
G
82 THAT THE LAST SUPPER BECOMES [No.
Holy of Holies, first made possible as He
Himself had taught before His return, as Spirit,
to be the Breath and Life, the vital essence and
reality, of His Church, and of all that His Church
meant and was ?
Christ, as Incarnate, condescended to a world of
before and after. It was part of this condescen-
sion to the natural limitations and distinctions of
before and after, that the Birth, the Life, the
Death, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the
Spiritual Indwelling 1 , became so many separate
and contrasted moments. It was incidental to
this condescension, that He prepared and or-
dained beforehand what was to have its full life
afterwards : that He in bodily presence, before
His death, instituted an ordinance whose whole
vital significance depended not only upon the
accomplishment of His death, which was not
then, even as death, accomplished, but also upon
the triumphant character of His death ; upon the
fact that His death was not death only, not death
so much as the destruction of death ; upon the
fact that His death was but a stage, or mode, of
eternally victorious life. Had the death ended
in death, it would not have had the significance,
or the power, which the institution (itself prior to
the death) implied. In any case the institution
precedes that which gives it its significance.
Why should it not be recognised at once that
that after-reality which gave it its significance was
itself still incomplete, till the (yet future) Resurrec-
S ] THE LIFE-GIVING EUCHARIST 83
tion as well as the (yet future) Death till the
Ascension as well as the Resurrection had been
consummated? In the picture of Christ, handling
with His Body the elements which He delivers as
His Body, we are really to recognise not a dis-
tinctness of two Divine Bodies, but the simple
truth that in a world of before and after, He
ordains beforehand, and in palpable form, that
whose full significance implies, and depends upon,
and so far waits for, the things which are to
follow, and are impalpable.
To take the ordinance which is most vitally
distinctive of the life of the Pentecostal Church,
outside the region of the Pentecostal Church : to
say that it is, or that it ever was, what it
essentially is, otherwise than precisely within
the sphere, and by virtue of the efficiency, of
the Pentecostal Spirit, seems to me to be, in fact,
a form of materialism ; a substitution of the dead
for the living, of the mechanical for the vital ; an
abandonment (at the central point) of the dis-
tinctively spiritual character of the Church and
her ministries and sacraments.
Any real union and communion of our real
selves can only be, not with dead symbols as
dead, but with the living Christ, the redemption
and perfection of humanity. Any real union and
communion with humanity as perfected in Christ
can only be by Spirit, of Spirit, in Spirit. The
material, the symbolic, are vehicles are means
of this. But to make the material or the symbolic in
84 THE EUCHARIST CONNECTS US [No.
any way a substitute for this ; a truth more primary
or more real than this ; a reality from which
communion of Spirit ("that we may evermore
dwell in Him and He in us ") follows only as a
secondary sequel, or inferential corollary : this,
so far as it goes, seems to me to be an obscuring
of the spiritual which is the real truth ; a
materialising of the spiritual which is the
highest reality.
All these three points which I have urged seem
to me to be real and weighty, and to be sugges-
tive of much beyond what I have been able to
say. I do believe that the doctrine in question
assumes a superfluous miracle ; that it dis-
tinguishes Christ's sacrificed and Christ's glori-
fied Body as two bodies ; and that it takes the
most characteristic experience of the Pentecostal
Church in the teeth of our Lord's direct words
in St. John vi outside the sphere of the Pente-
costal Spirit, in and by which alone I believe it
to be what it is. And I believe these objections
to be really invincible. And yet after all it is not,
I think, mainly upon these that the controversy
as to the truth or falsehood of the doctrine will
turn. It is really knit closely up with a certain
form of the doctrine of the Atonement ; and with
that, in the long run, I believe that it will stand
or fall.
Now it is precisely here, as I conceive, that we
really touch one or two questions which are, to
the whole matter, cardinal. It is here that we
S ] WITH THE ATONING SACRIFICE 85
touch the real animating motive of the whole
Evangelical contention. It is here also that we
find the key to the real meaning of the Anglican
language quoted by Canon Trevor ; and learn at
once, both what it really means, and wherein
what it really means is, or may be, in part mis-
represented by the form of language in which it
is often conveyed.
IV. The animating motive in the whole Evan-
gelical contention is, I believe, the instinct, strong
and clear, that the Eucharist immediately con-
nects us with the atoning sacrifice of Christ
with the Blood of the Atonement, with the Body
that died. This causes an instinctive protest
against any Eucharistic theory which would con-
nect us, in communion, with something other
than atoning sacrifice with something that may
seem (as it were) to shirk atoning sacrifice with
glory merely as glory, with bliss as bliss. Now
with this instinct, and this protest, I desire to
associate myself without reserve. I would say,
as strongly as Dr. Moule, or Mr. Dimock, or Dr.
Wace could say it, that it is with nothing so much
as the sacrifice as sacrifice, the atonement as
atonement, that the Eucharist was ordained to
associate us.
If I were asked whether I believed the union
of the communicant to be primarily with Christ
in glory as victorious or primarily with the Blood
of the Atonement, I should utterly protest
against the antithesis, as in itself misleading and
86 THROUGH UNION WITH THE [No.
untrue. But if you press anyone to choose be-
tween two thing's as alternatives which are not
alternatives and cannot be separated, it is a
matter largely of temperament, or of mood,
which of the two will at a given moment appear
to be the more primary or vital. It is to me quite
certain that I could not choose or mean, by the
res significata, anything which was not itself, in
its most essential being, the Body and Blood of
the atoning sacrifice. We do not mean any sub-
stitution of fruition instead of sacrifice, of blissful
presence instead of atoning blood. But then it is
no less clear to me that I cannot be made one
with the Body and Blood of the atoning sacrifice
in any way that is at all distinguishable from that
living identification of the spirit of the self,
through Spirit, and in Spirit, with the Spirit of
the Christ, who was sacrificed and triumphant
through sacrifice ; which, however inconceivable
to my natural self, is, none the less, my only
possibility or hope the presence of me in Christ,
and of Christ in me.
For such reasons I cannot but think that Dr.
Robertson's summary of the first discussion at
Fulham, if correctly reported, was unfortunate, 1
though both Dr. Moule and Canon Newbolt are
said to have concurred. "The question is," so
the summary runs, " whether the virtue of the
Sacrament depends upon our receiving the
benefits of Christ's passion (a) by commemora-
1 Fidham Conference, p. 47.
5 ] LIVING BODY THAT DIED 87
tion of His death, or (3) by union with His living
Body." To this I object, first, that the alterna-
tive is not an alternative ; and secondly, that
whilst each of the two phrases is true, and each,
for its truth, requires the truth of the other,
neither of them hits the true point quite fully.
For " union with His living Body " does not
make explicit reference to His death. It would
characterise the truth more precisely to say
"union with His Body that died." But then
" His Body that died " would emphatically mean
"that died and is alive." We are made par-
takers of His Body w? eV^ay/zeW. So far I agree
with my whole heart. It is the very core of the
truth. But <J>9 venpov? Most emphatically not.
With much, then, of the Evangelical meaning
I can heartily concur. When Dr. Wace 1 says
that "the Holy Communion is a commemora-
tion, as well on the part of God, by whom it was
instituted, as on the part of man, of the one
sufficient sacrifice offered by our Lord on the
Cross, and a visible means for assuring and con-
veying to us the benefits of that sacrifice," I
could accept his saying, not indeed without some
added explanation, but without the alteration of
a word. When Mr. Dimock 2 urges the extreme
importance of "bearing witness to the truth,
that for outcast lost sinners, there was no access
to life in communion with God, save by the
reconciliation which we have by the death of
1 Fulliam Conference, p. 38. ' 2 Ibid., p. 45.
88 THE SYMBOLISM [No.
His Son no way of entering into fellowship
with the resurrection life of Christ except by
being made partakers of His Body and Blood,
as sacrificed for the remission of sins," I am, so
far as these words go, with him altogether.
Even when Dr. Moule 1 urges that it is " involved
in the terms of institution that our Lord put for-
ward His Body and Blood as sacrificed the
Body as dead, and the Blood as shed to be
participated in as a sacrifice," I could still adopt
the words, if only I may put my own interpreta-
tion on "dead"; making it clear that I mean the
Body which died and is not dead, not the Body
in a state of death ; and again, that by the
"Blood as shed" I mean really the "shed
Blood," not the Blood as now in a state of
separation from the Body.
I know of course that against this there will be
urged, first, the fact, so often supposed to be
symbolic, that the bread and the cup are sepa-
rately consecrated and received ; and secondly,
the present tenses in the words of institution (if,
or so far as, they are genuine) the Si86/j.vov,
K\(t)fJiVOV, and K*Xyv6lJ.VOV.
As to the first of these, I would answer, with
all reverence, that if bread and wine are to be
consecrated to represent Christ's Body and
Blood, the symbol cannot, save in very general
outline (as it were), represent the thing sym-
bolised. Bread and wine do not naturally com-
1 Ibid., p. 44.
5 ] OF THE ELEMENTS 89
bine into a single entity : and the soaking of the
bread in the wine, which is the one method of
combination, would produce a form of unity
singularly unlike the unity which (it is implied)
would have symbolised Christ as alive. Blood
contained in body, not body steeped in blood, is
the natural condition of material life. If bread
and wine are to represent body and blood, it
seems to me so far the more natural thing that
they should represent them severally, rather than
in a forced combination, which would fail sym-
bolically, that I cannot admit that the fact that
they represent them severally, rather than by an
artificial commixture, carries us exegetically any
way at all towards determining that they repre-
sent them in a state of death. Moreover, it is,
after all, not so much in a state of material life
before death, as in a state of spiritual life through
death, a state of which " having died " is an
eternal predicate, that I conceive the bread and
wine as representing them. So far as the sym-
bolism of the separateness of the elements is con-
ceived of merely as reminding us that the Body
and Blood are not as in the ordinary condition of
material life, but are those which died and,
through death, are alive, I of course should have
no ground for demurring to it. But it seems to
me in any case clear that a precise detail of sym-
bolism of this kind must be ruled by what we
believe to be the true, revealed, and experienced
doctrine of the Eucharist : not that our concep-
go ANGLICAN EMPHASIS [No.
tion of the doctrine of the Eucharist can be
shaped or ruled by it. So far as the bread and
wine represent the Body and Blood in some
reference to death, just so far there will be, in
the suggested symbolism, an element of truth.
But the suggested symbolism is far too uncertain
to determine for us the precise truth of the
doctrine.
In reply to any argument from the present
participles, I would ask on what conceivable hypo-
thesis they could have been otherwise than in the
present tense, while Christ was still on the way
to Calvary? From the point of view of the
eve of the awful sacrifice they were inevitably
as inevitably upon my hypothesis as upon
Mr. Dimock's the Body that was being broken,
the Blood that was being poured out. But from
the point of view of the Pentecostal Church the
sacrifice is already fully consummated : and the
Body and Blood are, therefore, whatever they
are in, and in view of, the consummation of the
sacrifice. The tense is the one thing which
cannot be simply carried over to the Pentecostal
Church. If, as tense, it is strictly true in the
Pentecostal Church, this must be shown on
weightier grounds of its own. It certainly does
not follow as an inference from the fact that on
the night before His death Christ spoke of His
sacrifice as being still in process, and incomplete.
I return, then, from argumeuts like these, to
the more central question of doctrine. This
5 ] UPON THE DEAD BODY 91
question I have already raised as a question
between ecr^ay/AeVoi/ and vexpov. Need the truth, or
can the truth, which is expressed in the words to?
eV^ayyueW, be translated into the form w? veKpov, as
though a>? veKpov were an equivalent phrase? My
contention is that it neither need nor can.
But the transition is one which can be made
very easily, very imperceptibly. And it is pre-
cisely this transition which seems to me to have
been made without any consciousness that there
was a transition by certain Anglican divines,
whose language is now insisted upon as cardinal
to the Evangelical exposition of the Eucharist.
Let me try first to exhibit the fact, and then to
explain the meaning and moral of the fact.
No one does it more completely, not to say
brusquely, than Bishop Andrewes. The passage
quoted is from the seventh of the sermons
preached on Easter Day upon the resurrection. 1
Now, in this sermon, it seems to me plain that
the really underlying object is (as I said of the
modern Evangelicals) to insist upon the direct
connexion of the Eucharist with the atoning
sacrifice of Christ. When he writes : " It is not
mental thinking, or verbal speaking, there must
be actually somewhat done to celebrate this
memory. That done to the holy symbols that
was done to Him, to His Body and His Blood in
the Passover ; break the one, pour out the other,
1 Sermons of the Resurrection, vii. (Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology :
Andreives' Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 300-2).
92 BISHOP ANDREWES' [No.
to represent K\u>/a.evov, how His sacred Body was
'broken,' and exxwo/mevov, how His precious
Blood was 'shed.' And in corpus fractum and
sanguis fusus there is immolatus " : I do not
really need to critcise a word ; though I would
remark, in parenthesis, that the process of "out-
pouring " has never been, in fact, so prominent
a ceremony in the consecration of the Eucharist
as some of the language often used on this
subject would appear to imply. But Bishop
Andrewes does not draw the distinction which
I have asked for between, on the one hand, the
Blood in its character as having been shed, and
so as directly representing the Life which died,
and in its aspect as having both died, and atoned
by living through death ; and on the other the
Blood conceived of as stopping short and re-
maining in a state of death. Nor is Bishop
Andrewes the man to refrain from expressing his
thought in the most pungently epigrammatic
form : while even in a Bishop Andrewes it
remains that pungent epigram is apt to be
theologically perilous. It is tempting, no doubt,
to culminate in a biting phrase. But biting
phrases, as such, are apt to lack somewhat of the
delicacy of truth. I submit, then, that it is
exactly the exaggeration of his true insistence
when he reaches the climax of his paragraph
in the word cadaver. "If an host could be
turned into Him now glorified as He is, it would
not serve ; Christ offered is it thither we must
s] 'AD CADAVER' 93
look. To the Serpent lift up, thither we must
repair, even ad cadaver ; we must hoc facere, do
that is then done. So, and no otherwise, is this
epulare to be conceived."
In the paragraph which leads up to this climax
the sentence which seems to me to be most
argumentative asserts that Christ " as now He is,
glorified, is not, cannot be, immolatus, for He is
immortal and impassible." It is true, of course,
that Christ cannot now a second time go through
mortal sufferings. It is true, of course, that He
is not, and cannot be, immolandus. But I should
have supposed that if there was one proposition
more certainly true than another, it is that Christ
as He now is, glorified, both is, and shall be for
ever, zmmolcLtuS TO apvlov TO e<r^)ayinevov cnro /cara-
/3oA>7? Koa-fjiov 1 ev [tea-w TOV Opovov KOI TU>V Te<r<rdpwv
/cat ev /u.e<Tu> TOOV irpecr/SvTepwv, apviov ecrr>//co? eo? e
KepotTa eTrra /cat 6<j>da\/u.ovs CTTTOL, o7 etVt ra eT
TOV 0eof. 2
Besides Andrewes, Canon Trevor quotes some
five-and-twenty other Anglican writers, of more
or less imposing authority, upon the same side.
They include Laud and Lake, Bramhall and
Jeremy Taylor, Patrick and Dale and Waterland,
and many others. As was to be expected (if I
have been even approximately right in my state-
ment of the case, and of the slurred distinction),
many of the passages quoted by Canon Trevor
would fall in as well with my view of the truth
1 Apoc. xiii. 8. 2 Apoc. v. 6.
94 JEREMY TAYLOR, BISHOP BULL [No.
as with his own. I will quote just three. Thus
when Jeremy Taylor says: "It is but an imperfect
conception of the mystery to say, it is the
Sacrament of Christ's Body only, or His Blood ;
but it is, ex parte rei^ a sacrament of the death of
His Body, and, to us, a participation or an ex-
hibition of it, as it became beneficial to us, that
is, as it was crucified, as it was our sacrifice.
And this is so wholly agreeable to the nature of
the thing, and the order of the words, and the
body of the circumstances, that it is next to that
which is evident in itself, and needs no further
light but the considering the words and the
design of the institution M1 : it seems to me that
what Jeremy Taylor claims as " next to self-
evident " is not (as Canon Trevor seems to say)
the proposition that the Body and Blood are
received "as in a state of death," but (as I have
said) that they are the shed Blood, and the Body
sacrificed which is not the same thing. So,
again, either side of the controversy might
equally receive the words of Bishop Bull, when
he says : "In the holy Eucharist, therefore, we
set before God the bread and wine as ' figures or
images of the precious Blood of Christ shed for
us, and of His precious Body ' (they are the
very words of the Clementine Liturgy), and plead
to God the merit of His Son's sacrifice once
offered on the Cross for us sinners, and in this
sacrament represented ; beseeching Him, for the
1 Real Presence, vii. 7 (Works, ed. Heber, ix. 494)
5 ] WATERLAND 95
sake thereof, to bestow His heavenly blessings on
us." 1 Or of Waterland, when he says: "The
Apostle's account of it is briefly expressed, in its
being a communion of Christ's Body and Blood ;
that is to say, of the Body considered as broken,
and of the Blood considered as shed ; as is very
plain from the terms of the Institution."
In saying this, however, I do not mean to deny
that, as a whole, the writers quoted do certainly
tend, with more or with less distinctness, to
shape their thought and language on the subject
in the same direction as that of Bishop Andrewes ;
or to assert that any of them draws the precise
distinction which seems to me so important. 3
1 Bishop Bull's Works (ed. Dr. Burton), vol. ii. p. 252.
2 Waterland, Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, ch. viii. ad init.
(Works, ed. 1823, vii. 199; ed. 1843, iv. 613). Waterland's statements on
the next page, however, are quite unequivocally on Canon Trevor's side.
3 There is, no doubt, a tendency in some of these writers to regard
their special doctrine of the Eucharist as a bulwark against Rome. Un-
fortunately, its controversial aspect, as against Rome, seems to be
connected with just its own most doubtful elements. Thus, there is first
a natural and legitimate prominence given to the word " commemoratio "
as used of the Sacrament. Then "memory" is contrasted with
"presence," and emphasised as the contradictory of presence. Men's
minds are influenced, more or less definitely, by the idea which Bishop
Ridley had expressed in the form of a quasi-scientific maxim, " Com-
memoratio non est rei praesentis sed praeteritae et absentis " ( Works of
Bishop Ridley, Parker Society, Cambridge, 1843 : see the Disputation
at Oxford, pp. 199, 442).
As a result of this (more than questionable) corollary from the word
avdfj.vr)<ns, it becomes not only permissible, but a positive principle, of
value for its own sake, to maintain that nothing is, or can be, the " res
significata " except what is plainly "absens et praeterita." What is
signified in the Eucharist must be something which, having no existence,
cannot possibly be, in any real sense, present.
It is on the basis of such a process of thought as this that an argument
like that of Bishop Lake becomes clearly intelligible (as quoted by Canon
Trevor, p. 183), when he complains that "the Church of Rome, not
96 BISHOP LAKE : [No.
So far as they tend to insist upon the res
significata as dead, I should certainly suggest
that their tendency is not that of the language of
patristic or liturgical devotion. It would be well
if someone who has knowledge would furnish
adequate evidence on this point. I have but
glanced at Dr. Pusey's volume, 1 and gleaned,
almost at random, a few phrases. Yet even
distinguishing between Christ crucified and glorified, or rather not
building their conclusion answerable to this undeniable principle the
sacraments represent Christ crucified, not glorified are driven to coin
so many new articles : i. of real presence corporal ; 2. of a metaphysical
transubstantiation ; 3. of an ill-applied concomitancy. All which easily
vanish, if we consider Christ's purpose to represent Himself in the
Sacrament, not as He is now, at the right hand of God, but as He was,
upon the Cross. Not but it is the same Body and Blood which is in
glory, but it must not be so considered as it is in glory. Which will
necessarily enforce us to acknowledge that the union between the thing
earthly and the thing heavenly can be no more than sacramental, and
that respective also to what was done on earth, not what is in heaven ;
was, I say, done formaliter on the Cross, but is effective, working in
heaven."
It seems to be assumed that, if the elements signified anything which
existed anywhere at all, questions on the subject of " presence " might
arise, which are happily excluded so long as the " res " is, by abstract
necessity, absent save only in the way of memory or effect. The worship
of the Church on earth is not, even ideally, identified with the worship
of heaven. It is a symbol, from which " reality" is absent ex hypothesi.
All this, though it can hardly stand as patristic or permanent theology,
is at least more consistent than Canon Trevor's own position appears to
be. Somewhat strangely, in criticising Johnson's "unbloody sacrifice,"
he complains (Catholic Doctrine, p. 208) that, "like the Romanists, he
confounded presence with existence. Because the .Body and Blood no
longer exist in the condition represented in the Eucharist, he argues that
they cannot be so present. Just so the Romanist argues conversely, that
because Christ is present in the use, the elements are His Body in the
condition now existing." Whatever may be said for or against Bishop
Lake's position, it is certainly hard to follow Canon Trevor's. A man
must feel himself very cogently bound, by other considerations, to
maintain the'reality of "presence," before he would call it a confusion of
thought to assume that that which is " present " must " exist " !
1 The Doctrine of the Real Presence, as contained in the Fathers, &c.
5 ] PATRISTIC AUTHORITIES 97
these seem to me to bear clear witness to a quite
different strain of language and thought. It is
not, of course, that people who hold with Mr.
Dimock could not explain them, or would be at
once refuted by them. 1 Yet I cannot imagine
that anyone who ever dreamed of making a
point of that of which our Evangelical theo-
logians make a point, could have expressed his
devotional feeling in such language as some of
the following.
Thus the Eucharistic bread is entitled by
Ignatius* the <J)dp/u.a.Kov aOavatrias, avriSoTOs TOV firj
airoOaveiv dXXa i}v ev 'I^uou Xpj<TTa> Sia JFavTOS- " I am
thy nourisher," says Clement of Alexandria,
" who give thee myself as bread, of which whoso
tasteth no more tasteth death, and who daily
give thee the drink of immortality." 3 From
Eusebius he quotes: "to eat the living bread,
and His life-giving flesh, and to drink His
saving Blood." 4 From Julius Firmicus : "Seek
ye the grace of the immortal cup ; in the heavenly
food renew ye the lost man": 5 and again, "we
drink the immortal Blood of Christ ; to our
blood is the Blood of Christ united." From
1 any more than, e.g., Bishop Ridley; see The Oxford Disputation (as
above), pp. 201, 202, and appendix i. p. 444.
2 ad Eph. xx.
3 7r6/ua d0aracr/as (Quis diues, 23, p. 948, ed. Potter; p. 18, ed. Barnard).
4 in Ps. xxxvi. 4, p. 149, ed. Montfaucon. The passage proceeds,
TOVTOIS Tpv<t>6/J.evos Kal iua.ivbfj.cvos, T?JS IvOtov jitdovs diroXavuv ' Kararp^rjaov
TOV Kvplov, Kal St&crei crot ra alr-fi/mara TTJI Kapdlas vov. '
5 Salutaris cibi gratiam quaerite et inmortale poculum bibite . . .
caelesti cibo renouate hominem perditum (de Err. Prof. Relig., xviii. fin).
H
98 DWELL UPON THE [No.
Cyril of Jerusalem: "That thou by partaking of
the Body and Blood of Christ, mightest be made
of the same Body and the same Blood with Him.
For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because
His Body and Blood are diffused through our
members ; thus it is that, according to the
blessed Peter, ' we become partakers of the
Divine nature.' '
From Ephrem Syrus : "Thou hast given me
Thy Body to eat, and Thy living Blood
to drink " : and again, " From hateful desires
free me, through Thy living Body which I have
eaten": again, "Thy living Body and Thine
atoning Blood which I have received from the
hands of the priests " : again, " Spare us who
have eaten of Thy Body and drunk Thy living
Blood": again, "Thy Body and Blood, as a
pledge of life, are hidden in their members."
From Ambrose: "This is the bread of life:
whoso then eateth life cannot die. For how
should he die whose food is life ? how should he
fail who hath a vital substance? 8 approach to
Him and be satisfied, because He is bread ;
approach to Him and drink, because He is a
fountain ; approach to Him and be enlightened,
because He is light ; approach to Him and be
1 Lect. xxii. (Alyst. iv.) ad init.
2 Dr. Pusey's references are Paraen. 11, p. 429 ; ib. 30, p. 480 ; ib. 31,
p. 482 ; ib. 34, p. 487 ; ib. 73, p. 545. I have not been able to pursue
them.
3 quomodo deficiet qui habuerit uitalem substantiam (query, "who
hath life in his substantial being " ) ?
S ] LIVING BODY AND BLOOD 99
set free, because 'where the Spirit of the Lord
is there is liberty ' ; approach to Him and be
absolved, because He is the remission of sins.
Ask ye who He is, hear Himself saying, 'I am
the bread of life; whoso cometh to me shall not
hunger, and whoso believeth in me shall never
thirst.'" 1 Again, "In that sacrament Christ is,
because it is the Body of Christ ; it is not there-
fore bodily food, but spiritual. Wherefore also
the apostle says of its type, Our fathers did eat
spiritual food and drink spiritual drink ; for the
Body of God is a spiritual Body ; the Body of
Christ is the Body of the Divine Spirit ; since
Christ is Spirit, as we read, ' the Spirit before
our face is Christ the Lord. ' '
From Augustine: "Let them then who eat,
eat on ; and them that drink, drink ; let them
hunger and thirst ; eat Life, drink Life. That
eating is to be refreshed ; but thou art in such
wise refreshed, that that whereby thou art re-
freshed faileth not. That drinking, what is it
but to live ? eat Life, drink Life ; thou shalt have
Life, and yet the Life is entire. But then this
shall be, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ
shall be, each man's Life, if what is taken in the
sacrament visibly is, in the truth itself, eaten
spiritually, drunk spiritually." 3
Finally, from Cyril of Alexandria: "The
Word, therefore, by having united unto Him-
1 in Ps. cxviii expositio, serm. xviii. 28.
2 de Mysteriis, ix. 58. 3 Serm. cxxxi. $ i.
ioo THE ANGLICAN LANGUAGE IS [No.
self that flesh which was subject unto death, as
being God and Life, drove away from it corrup-
tion, and made it also to be the source of life,
for such must the Body of (Him who is) the Life
be." After quoting, like others, the passage from
John vi about the living bread ending with,
"As the living Father sent me, and I live because
of the Father ; so he that eateth me shall also
live because of me" -Cyril goes on, "When,
therefore, we eat the holy flesh of Christ, the
Saviour of us all, and drink His precious Blood,
we have Life in us, being made, as it were,
one with Him, and possessing Him also in us."
Again, "God, humbling Himself to our in-
firmities, infuses into the things set before us
the power of life, and transforms them into the
efficacy of His flesh, that we may have them for
a life-giving participation, and that the Body of
(Him who is the) Life may be found in us as
a life-producing seed." 1
But to return to Canon Trevor's Anglican
authorities.
What is the explanation of the phenomenon ?
Or how can any one be acquitted of presumption
or worse in suggesting that there can be
anything, in such theologians as these, which
can be in any way capable of correction ?
The answer is that their mode of thought and
phrase about the Eucharist, however (so to say)
1 Serm. cxlii. (on Luc. xxii. 17-22). The translation from the Syriac
in this case is Dr. Payne-Smith's, not Dr. Pusey's.
5 ] DUE TO MISCONCEPTION OF 101
eucharistically correct, was coloured by their
mode of conceiving the rationale of Atonement.
Now, however audacious it may seem to criticise
their precise phraseology about the Eucharist, I
do not think it will be generally felt to be any
such monstrous audacity to wish to modify some
of the current phraseology of two centuries ago
on the principle of Atonement. I do not believe
that the truth about the Eucharist, as I am trying
to represent it, differs in any single particular
whatever from what these Anglican writers really
meant. But I believe that they somewhat over-
stated what they really meant. They really meant
to insist on the o>? eV0ay,ueW, and they allowed
themselves, more or less explicitly, to put this
as if it were correctly expressed by ? vexpov : not
because their conception of the Eucharist, or its
relation to Christ's sacrifice, was really different,
but because they were accustomed to a mode of
speech about the Sacrifice, as though it con-
sisted simply of the fact of death as death, and
therefore were for all purposes, and in all senses,
fully consummated when Christ's Body was laid
in the tomb on Good Friday evening.
Is this correct? Is the Sacrifice to be con-
ceived as a single point only in the remote, and
ever remoter, past? and not, as I think we
should say, an eternal present ? not indeed, as it
were, generically, as though all pasts were pre-
sent alike ; but uniquely, in a sense in which no
other past event is, quite as this is, inherent to
102 THE PRINCIPLE [No.
eternal being? Was the dead Christ, as dead,
the consummated atonement of man with God ?
Which is the truer way of putting it : that Christ
is our propitiation, or that something which
Christ once did was our propitiation? Had He
remained unrisen, unascended, unglorified, un-
partaken of as living Spirit, would the fact that
He was dead and done with have been our holi-
ness? Was God pleased by His death, regarded,
merely and finally, as death ? I have no doubt
that very much mediaeval phraseology, from the
time, at least, of Anselm and onwards down to
Dr. Dale, would fall in most naturally with such
a mode of stating the theory as this. And if
this language be accepted, then the distinction
between eo-^ay/xeVoi' and vKp6i> is merged : and the
ad cadaver of Andrewes is fully justified.
Our first instincts do indeed not unnaturally
tend to think of the sacrifice as identical with
the suffering ; to identify, in phrase and thought,
sacrifice, as such, with that portion of the sacri-
fice which was painful and costly. But to think
seriously that death, simply as death, ended the
sacrifice, or struck the central note of what sacri-
fice meant, is to go against the emphatic teaching
alike of the Old Testament and the New. This
is to ignore the significance of the ritual of the
Day of Atonement, and to represent, in very
deed, that God was propitiated by penal suffer-
ing, as suffering ; and that death, the death of
His Son, was the thing which His Spirit desired.
S ] OF THE ATONEMENT 103
It is to reject the conception that the death which
atoned was not a death which was dead, but a
death which by dying conquered and annihilated
death. It was the aliveness through death ; that
is, not merely the fact of so holding on to life
that death did not extinguish it, but more than
this, the fact of achieving, through dying, the
perfect fulness of life, which could only be
achieved in the form of a life that had died and
was therefore eternally alive ; it was the presenta-
tion before God for ever of humanity through
death victorious, through death alive, through
death, in the consummation of penitence, sinless
and glorified, with the glory of the Life of God ;
it was this, not the deadness of a corpse, which
made the consummation of the sacrifice, and
which constituted the life and holiness of man.
And it is this death, not as stopping short in the
state of death, but as the death of the eternally
victorious, as the death of the eternally alive,
with which the Church is for ever identified in,
and by, living Spirit, in the Christian Eucharist.
It was the holiness of man which involved
penitential suffering but it was the holiness, not
the suffering ; it was the life of man which
could only be through death but it was the life,
not the death ; which the Spirit of God desired :
not that it might purchase from Him, but because
it was, the life and the holiness of man. The
essence of the Divine Atonement consisted, not
in the slaying of humanity, but in the presenting
104 IT IS THE LIFE [No.
of humanity through death quite triumphantly
holy and eternally alive in the face of the all-
holy God. Here is indeed an atonement. But
death, as mere death, could be no "atonement"
at all. And this "presenting" is not more vitally
a past than it is a perpetual, an ever present,
reality.
It may be that this point has been brought, in
modern thought, into a prominence which it had
not possessed for at least many centuries, though
not greater than it had shall I say in the Penta-
teuch, or in the Epistle to the Hebrews? I do
not believe that it would have seemed in any
respect strange to St. Athanasius or to the pre-
Athanasian Church, while I believe it to be, on
examination, absolutely required alike by the
Old Testament and the New. Yet it is a point
which I would venture to say was not in this
form before Andrewes and his fellows ; and
which, though their words ignored it, they cer-
tainly never intended to deny. But I am at
a loss to understand how any one could now
read the eighth and ninth chapters of the Epistle
to the Hebrews after, say, the commentary of
Bishop Westcott without accepting at once, as
true and as cardinal, this most scriptural, though
not mediaeval, conception of the true rationale
of sacrifice.
It would be too long to go into the whole
matter thoroughly. But it may be well to refer
to a few sentences of Bishop Westcott's which
5 ] THAT HAS DIED WHICH ATONES 105
have reference to the two thoughts (a) that
"blood" does not signify "death" but "life,"
and (d) that the ritual of sacrifice culminated,
not in the act of slaying, but in the presentation
of the "life" which had been slain. We may
express the thought by saying that the climax
of sacrifice was the cu^are/ex 1 " 7 "* not in the
English sense of blood-shedding, i.e. killing,
but in the Levitical sense of pouring out, or
sprinkling, the blood (i.e. the death-consecrated
life) in the Holy Presence. A very remarkable
emphasis upon this doctrine is found in the words
of Leviticus xvii. n, " For the life of the flesh is
in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the
altar to make atonement for your souls ; for it is
the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the
life." It is as certain as anything of that kind
can be, that the mediaeval theology of the Atone-
ment (from which we are by no means quite free
as yet) would have expressed this last clause in
exactly the opposite manner, viz. "for it is the
blood that maketh atonement by reason of the
death." And here we have, as in a nutshell, the
antithesis between the scriptural and the mediaeval
conceptions.
Bishop Westcott says, " Death, -which makes
the blood available^ is the seal of the validity of
a covenant. " : " It will be observed that it is not
the death of the victim as suffering, but the use
of the Blood (that is, the Life), which is presented
1 These italics are mine. 2 On Hebrews ix. 14.
106 'THE BLOOD' DENOTES [No.
here as the source of purification." 1 "It is
important to observe, that it is not said of the
first covenant that it was inaugurated 'not without
death' but 'not without blood.' By the use of
the words ' not without blood ' the writer of the
Epistle suggests the two ideas of atonement and
quickening by the impartment of a new life which
have been already connected with Christ's work
(vv. 14, is)." 2 "The position of eV aT/xari is signi-
ficant. Blood was the characteristic mean for
cleansing, though fire and water were also used.
It is the power of a pure life which purifies?
Under this aspect the Blood becomes, as it were,
the enveloping medium in which (ej/), and not
simply the means or instrument through or by
which, the complete purification is effected."
" The Scriptural idea of Blood is essentially an
idea of life out of death. " 5 "/ the Blood of Jesus
not simply ' through ' it we have boldness
to enter into the Holy place."* "The direct
references to Christ's Death are naturally less
frequent than the references to His Blood. Death,
with its unnatural agony, was the condition, under
the actual circumstances of fallen man, whereby
1 Ibid. 2 On Hebrews ix. 18. 3 These italics are mine.
4 On Hebrews ix. 22. May I say that this thought, if worked out,
would seem to me to lead to the true answer to Bishop Westcott himself,
when he sometimes (as on viii. 3 and ix. 15-22) seems to limit the idea of
the blood as if it were only the means of entering into the Divine Presence,
and hesitates to use the word "offered" of the blood. The blood w r as
solemnly sprinkled by the High Priest, when he was already within the
Holy Presence. And, as representing- life, it is surely the condition, or
"enveloping medium," of the perpetual presence of the true High Priest
within the veil. Cf. Westcott on Hebrews viii. i, 2 (p. 230), and on vii. 25.
5 Additional note on Hebrews ix. 12. R Ibid.
5 ] LIFE OUT OF DEATH 107
alone the Life of the Son of Man could be made
available for the race (ii. 9, 14 ; cf. i Cor. xi. 26 ;
Rom. v. 10, vi. 3 f. ; Phil. ii. 8, iii. 10 ; Col. i. 22).
The Blood was the energy of Christ's true human
life, under the circumstances of earth, whereby
alone man's life receives the pledge and the power
of a Divine glory." 1
Compare also these statements in the Bishop's
additional note on i John i. 7. "It will be evident
that while the thought of Christ's Blood (as shed)
includes all that is involved in Christ's Death,
the Death of Christ, on the other hand, expresses
only a part, the initial part, of the whole concep-
tion of Christ's Blood. The Blood always in-
cludes the thought of the life preserved and
active beyond death. This conception of the
Blood of Christ is fully brought out in the funda-
mental passage, John vi. 53-6. Participation
in Christ's Blood is participation in His life
(v. 56). But at the same time it is implied
throughout that it is only through His Death
His violent Death that His Blood can be made
available for men. . . . The simple idea of the
Death of Christ, as separated from His Life, falls
wholly into the background in the writings of
St. John (John xi. 50 f. ; xviii. 14 ; xii. 24 f., 33 ;
xviii. 33). 2 ... By 'sprinkling' of Christ's
1 Additional note on Hebrews ix. 14.
a It is true that Bishop Westcott speaks of St. John's usage herein as
differing- "from that of St. Paul and St. Peter." But is the difference
more than apparent ? In any case they both supply many illustrations of
St. John's conception. See, e.g., the passages quoted by Bishop Westcott
at the end of this same note.
io8 IN THE SPRINKLING OF BLOOD [No.
Blood the believer is first brought into fellowship
with God in Christ ; and in the imperfect conduct
of his personal life, the life of Christ is con-
tinually communicated to him for growth and
cleansing. He himself enters into the Divine
Presence 'in the Blood of Jesus' (Heb. x. 19)
surrounded, as it were, and supported by the Life
which flows from Him. Compare [he adds in a
footnote] a remarkable passage of Clement of
Alexandria : SITTOV Se TO aT/ma TOV Kfp/of, TO fjicv "yap
<TTIV O.VTOV (rapKtKOV, o> TJ/s 1 0$o/>a? AeAvTpa>/ue0a, TO Se
TrveujuLariKov, TOVTCO-TIV <5 Kexpi(r/u.e6a. KOI TOUT' e<rrt
TO aZ/xa TOV 'Itjcrov Ttjs KvpiaKqs /uLeToXafteiv a<pQa.parla$' l(
Se TOV \6yov TO Trvev/ua, w? a?/xa aap/co'? (JPaed. ii. 2,
line 19)."
To these may be added a passage from the
essay on "The Relation of Christianity to Art "
at the end of the commentary on the Epistles of
St. John. 1 It is a suggestive passage, and has a
wider application than to pictorial representations
only. " It may well be doubted whether the
Crucifixion is in any immediate shape a proper
subject for Art. The image of the Dead Christ
is foreign to Scripture. Even in the record of the
Passion, Death is swallowed up in Victory. And
the material representation of the superficial
appearance of that which St. John shows to have
been life through death defines and perpetuates
thoughts foreign to the Gospel. The Crucifixion
by Velasquez, with its overwhelming pathos
1 p- 358.
5 ] THE SACRIFICE CULMINATES 109
and darkness of desolation, will show what I
mean. In every trait it presents the thought of
hopeless defeat. No early Christian would have
dared to look upon it. Very different is one of
the earliest examples of the treatment of the
Crucifixion on the Sigmaringen Crucifix. In
that, life, vigour, beauty, grace, the open eye,
and the freely outstretched arm, suggest the
idea of loving and victorious sacrifice crowned
with its reward. This is an embodiment of the
idea : the picture of Velasquez is a realisation of
the appearance of the Passion."
Under the second head mentioned above,
namely the culminating point of the ritual of
sacrifice, it may be enough to quote such ex-
pressions as these : " Maimonides, in speaking
of the Passover, lays down that 'the sprinkling
of the blood is the main point in sacrifice ' " ; l
and "This [i.e. the application of the blood] was
the most significant part of the sacrifice." 2 But
I should like also to call emphatic attention to the
comments upon <f>epe<r0ai ix. 16 ("for where there
is a covenant the death of him that made it must
needs be presented" ) : and upon e^avia-Qrivai ix. 24,
" In Christ humanity becomes the object of the
regard of God " ; Christ is " described as the
object of the vision of God," and not God
"spoken of as seen perfectly by Him"; "The
'appearance' of Christ alone is, to our concep-
1 Westcott on Hebrews ix. 22.
2 Additional note on Hebrews ix. 9 (p. 291).
i io EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE [No.
tion, the adequate presentment of the whole
work of the Son to the Father (cf. c. vii. 25
note)." So completely is this a piece with the
whole principle, that I should only demur to
regarding it as appearing "strange at first," or
needing "explanation."
Now in all this I need hardly say that the
principles which I have desired to advocate seem
to me to be taught, with ringing clearness, by
Bishop Westcott. But clear as the essential
principles are throughout his teaching, I should
perhaps admit that he does not, in every par-
ticular, appear to go quite the full length of his
own principles. With his commentary, therefore,
I should like also to make reference to the seventh
chapter of the Rev. Geo. Milligan's volume on
the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Mr. Milligan is full, as is natural, of the
thoughts on this subject which are familiar to
us in the writings of his father, the late Dr.
Milligan. And there are certainly some points, as
e.g. the exegesis of Hebrews viii. 3 odev avayKaiov
ex^y TI KCU TOVTOV o Trpocreveyitf], and of the 09 Sia
Trvev/maTOS aitovlov eavrov irpoan'iveyKev of Hebrews IX. 14,
in which Mr. Milligan clearly seems to me to be
nearer to the full truth than Bishop Westcott.
I must not go further in the theological exposi-
tion or defence of this position. Something I
have had the opportunity of saying about it
before now. But it is upon this question as to
the interpretation of sacrifice, and the theology
5 ] DEPENDS ON THE ATONEMENT in
of the Atonement, that (I feel convinced) the
exact statement of the Eucharistic doctrine
depends. If the whole significance of the
Atonement, as Atonement, was completely con-
summated when the tomb closed over the dead
Christ, so that all that followed after was but the
sequel which ensued upon, but was no vital part
of the significance of, atonement or sacrifice ;
then, and then only, can the Evangelical exposi-
tion of the Eucharist, as a reception of the dead
Christ, seem to be really adequate ; because
then, and then only, could the partaking of
Christ at that point, as a corpse, be conceived
of as a real communion with His sacrifice, a
living upon the Blood of the Atonement.
Let me end by quoting a few words which
throb and glow with life, as words of Canon
Scott Holland are wont to do :
"Yet again," he says, "the main character-
istic of the deep religious revival in this last half-
century, in all its varied forms, has been a return
to the realisation of the transfigured humanity of
Jesus Christ, and of His kingship over earth
through the might of His Resurrection. His
Glory has been felt anew as it smites down from
His living plenitude into our poor flesh and
blood, and makes it His own. Once again men
have apprehended the splendour of the primitive
and creative ideal of the brotherhood bonded
together, by the covenant of Blood, into the new
manhood, into the One Body, which possessed
ii2 ISSUE OF THE CONFERENCE [No. 5
the soul of St. Paul. All these convictions, now
so potently stirring 1 , meet and gather into the
Eucharistic Action. There is their fulfilment ;
there is their arena of manifestation ; there they
must find their realised climax." And presently,
" Every influence now active makes, then, for
the disappearance of what now creates the
cleavage [i.e. between High Churchmen and
Evangelicals]. This is the hopeful outlook with
which the Conference closes. It has failed to
reach the desired conclusion. But it has
detected what exactly it is which hinders it at the
moment ; and this detected hindrance is one
which, under examination and explanation,
ought to be found to be gradually yielding and
breaking. And I cannot but believe that even
those who now hold back would not continue
their resistance, if once they were convinced of
the utter wholeheartedness with which we who
cling to union with the glorified humanity of the
Lord still find all our hope and all our peace in
the pardon won for ever by the outpoured Blood
in the absolute, unique, unqualified, and limit-
less Sacrifice done once for all at Calvary.
Every Eucharist is but a reiterated declaration of
the sole and unlimited and inexhaustible value of
that undying Act of Death."
THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY
GHOST
(A sermon preached before the University of Cambridge at
Great St. Mary's on May 2oth, 1894.)
"For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are"
(i Cor. Hi. 17).
r I ^HE Christian seasons culminate in Whitsun-
JL tide : and the Whitsun octave closes with
the consciously articulated worship of the blessed
Trinity. The transcendent worship set before us
in the Trinity services : this is the final aspect,
the consummation, of the revelation of the Holy
Ghost.
The doctrine of the Holy Ghost, though from
the first the distinctive truth of universal Christen-
dom, has yet strangely faded oftentimes from the
prominence which of right belongs to it. And
as at some moments historically it has been
obscured in the collective Church, so our own
experience may testify to some among us, how
much we have tried to live, how far we have
even conceived of our own Christianity, as if
apart from it. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost
holds a place in Christianity which, if in one
aspect it may appear subordinate, is found in
I "3
n 4 BELIEF IN THE HOLY GHOST [No.
another to be so pre-eminent nay, so absorb-
ing, so exhaustive, as well-nigh to include all
else.
It has, indeed, been often pointed out that the
doctrine is not itself, like that of the Personality
of the Eternal Son, set as a test or challenge to
the faith of men ; it is not propounded directly
as a theme for contemplation ; the manner of its
announcement seems incidental ; in the awe of
the closing discourses of our Lord, it grows, as
it were, unexpectedly, indirectly, in and through
other necessities, upon the consciousness of
Christ's disciples. Most true : yet when by and
by the time has come that Christ's Church has
her own life, and her characteristic conscious-
ness : behold ! this doctrine not only is present
to the Church's consciousness : rather this is
what consciousness of the Church means. The
breath, the life, the consciousness, alike of the
general Church and of its members individually,
is the Holy Spirit of God. " Know ye not that
ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of
God dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the
temple of God, him shall God destroy : for the
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
These words are patient of an interpretation
alike in reference to the corporate body and to
the individual life. May I ask you to think,
in both, what practically is involved in the
simple profession of faith, "I believe in the Holy
Ghost " ?
6] MEANS, CORPORATELY, 115
The corporate meaning precedes the indi-
vidual : even if the corporate truth is true only
in individuals, yet the individual after all is
through the corporate. What, then, in the
corporate reference, is the meaning or shape of
belief in the Holy Ghost? I believe in His
presence where? in His working how? in the
sphere of His working is there a sphere recog-
nisable? in the method of his working are there
definable methods ? My belief in Him after all
becomes an unreality, except it includes things
like these, the sphere, the methods, the channels,
the effects, the power. That there are things
such as these I need not stay to argue now.
These are the things which constitute, on any
shewing, the true life of the Church of Christ on
earth.
As in Genesis ii, or in the vision of the thirty-
seventh of Ezekiel, so at Pentecost, the breath
of life is breathed into the fabric that has been
built up for it, and the Body of Christ's Church
is alive. Belief in the Holy Ghost carries with
it as necessary corollary .belief also (with what-
ever definition) in the Holy Catholic Church.
Belief in the Church is an interpretation of belief
in the Holy Ghost. Whenever I would explore
in more detail what my belief in the Church
really means and involves, I am examining still
the methods and the channels of the work of the
Holy Ghost. The history of His working is the
true history of the Church. The methods of
n6 BELIEF IN THE CHURCH, [No.
His working are the appointed methods of the
Church. The conditions of His working are
the necessary conditions of the Church. So
that there is a sense in which we may even say
that belief in the Holy Ghost, here and now, is
belief in the Church of Christ : as belief in the
Church, in its true depths, means and is belief
in the presence and work of the Holy Ghost.
"There is one Body and one Spirit" : one Body,
whose meaning is Spirit : one Spirit, the life of
the Body.
I do not need, in order to justify such words,
to examine or deny a working of the Spirit out-
side the utmost limits of the Church of Christ.
In one sense indeed His work is as wide as life.
Is there any life apart from the life of God ?
any life that is not of the breath of God? Life
vegetable, animal, rational ; the light that is in
imperfect efforts of religion, of the ancient or the
modern world ; again the calling of patriarchs,
the inspiration of prophets, the training of
apostles ; are not these in their varying degrees,
as they too are life and light, part of that unique
light and life which is the breath of the Spirit of
the One God ? No doubt that they are so. Yet
I need not pursue this now. Enough to say that
in the language of Scripture not all these affirma-
tives together qualify the negative which fences
off, as unique, the spiritual reality of the Pente-
costal Church. In whatever sense it is true that
the light of Sinai was not light but darkness, not
6] THE BODY OF THE SPIRIT 117
life but condemnation and death ; in whatever
sense it was true at the Feast of Tabernacles that
the Holy Ghost was not yet ; that if Christ went
not away it followed that the Comforter would
not come ; or that the least in the kingdom was
greater than the greatest born of women other-
wise ; in the same it is true, all seeming qualifica-
tions or contradictions notwithstanding, that the
Church's life is, as the breath of the Spirit,
unique : that to a Christian, even here and now,
belief in the Holy Ghost is, if interpreted, belief
in the Church, as belief in the Church, if inter-
preted, is belief in the Holy Ghost.
Again, I do not need to raise the question of
the outward tokens, the proofs, or the perplexi-
ties, of the visible Church. As we look out upon
the east and the west, upon the confusion of
heresies and the riot of schisms, we have to ask,
no doubt, where we stand and where is truth.
We ask what relation remains between this out-
wardness, so broken and tangled, and the purity,
the unity, the power, which belong to the charac-
ter of the true ideal, the pure Body of the Spirit
of Christ. This question too, in its time, has to
be raised, and can (it may be) for each one be
truly and sufficiently met. But enough now that
even before we attempt to grasp the relation be-
tween the visible Church or Churches, and the
true ideal, it is certain at least that there is such
a true ideal, and that the ideal is the real of the
Church. There is no doubt what the life of the
n8 WE ARE MADE PARTAKERS [No.
Church means. Whatever may be the definition
of its relation to ecclesiastical organisation or
police, whatever place may belong, historically
or mystically, to apostolic ministries or ordained
sacraments ; whether these dissentients, or those,
are, or are not, to be said to be within the limits
of the Church ; it is clear at least what the true
idea and meaning of the Church is : " there is
one Body and one Spirit." "In one Spirit were
we all baptized into one Body."
The Spirit of Christ is the consciousness of the
Church : the true meaning of Churchmanship.
Thus it is not only true that the Church is much
to a Christian ; there is a sense in which it may
without exaggeration be said to be everything.
It is not only true that belief in the Holy Ghost
is an integral part of the Creed, one-third of the
whole, of equal rank and value with the other
two. There is a sense in which the value of the
other two may be said to be wholly dependent
upon it. Remove from the Creed this faith-
remove from the Church this life of the Holy
Ghost, and there fades away into thin air not a
scheme of Church doctrine only, but the breath
of spiritual life. In vain, then, should we try to
appeal to our faith in the Fatherhood of God, or
the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Even while we appealed to them they too would
melt away from us. We could no longer get at
them nor grasp them. They would cease to be
for us alive. Though the Incarnation of our
6] OF CHRIST'S REDEEMING WORK 119
Lord Jesus Christ remained still a fact, yet the
fact would be nothing to us. Though we might
seem to believe in Jesus Christ, in His Divine
Eternity, and condescension of Love, in His
Incarnation and Atonement, His Resurrection
and Ascension : yet what then ? These mighty
events by themselves reach their conclusion and
end in the moment of the Ascension. Of them-
selves they leave the world, from the moment of
the Ascension, only so much the more a blank.
They may be true : but we have no access to
them, and, therefore, no hope through them.
What is it to me but despair that the Son of God
came to save, if I cannot come near Him ; if I
and that salvation can never meet? But what
access have I, save in the dispensation, through
the work, of the Spirit ; save (that is) through the
life, in the work, of the Church ? Only through
the Church's life and work are the effects of
Incarnation and Atonement wrought out into the
lives of individuals. By the life of the Church
we live : into the life of the Church we have been
brought. The ministry of the Church, as a
whole, in all its fulness, is the ministry of
regeneration and of sanctification, of reconcilia-
tion and absolution. We may say all that we
will of the meaning of the Cross on Calvary, or
the glory of the Easter morning. But it is in
and through the Church that the effect of these
things reaches me. By the love and power
which are in Her I have been brought near, by
120 IN THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH, [No.
the wisdom and teaching which are in Her my
understanding is trained, and I too learn know-
ledge ; the ministry of the Church as a whole,
in Baptism, in Communion, in all daily services
and teachings the ministry of the Church, as a
whole, is the ministry of salvation and forgive-
ness to me : the life which is in the Church is the
life of Divine Holiness and Power.
It is through the dispensation of the Spirit,
which is the life of the Church, that I and the
Incarnation can ever meet. " Hereby know we
that we abide in Him and He in us, because He
hath given us of His Spirit." Life in the Pente-
costal Church : this is contact with God.
"Touch me not," He said, "for I am not yet
ascended unto my Father." It is only in the
post-Ascension era, only in the Church, only,
that is, through the Spirit, that God and we,
that Jesus Christ and we, can really meet and
touch.
Only through the Spirit. As it is true that
whatever is the working of the Spirit belongs
to the working of the Church (for the life of
the Spirit indwelling is the life of the Church,
and the living power of the Church is the Spirit's
revelation): so, conversely, whatever belongs to
the method and life of the Church is only in
and through the Spirit. If the Spirit clothes
itself with body and works through organs
and methods, the meaning of the organs and
methods, the life of the Body, is Spirit. The
6] THE REALITY OF WHICH 121
ministries, the ordinances, of Christ's Church
are essentially spiritual, not carnal. Their true
character is only to be looked for and found,
not in a material, but a spiritual direction. " It
is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth
nothing : the words that I have spoken unto you
are spirit and are life."
Baptism, and the Holy Eucharist (in close con-
nexion with which these last words were spoken),
Ordination, Absolution, and every other form
that exists of ministry, or service, or teaching, or
public or private devotion : all must be under-
stood to be, in their only reality, wholly spiritual
things. Their whole true meaning is on the
spiritual side. It is not to be found in them as
ordinances or observances, carnal or material,
but rather as mystical possibilities, as experiences
in a spiritual history. We cannot, indeed, insist
too strongly on this.
Yet, to insist that their whole true meaning is
spiritual does not mean, of course, that they have
no material form or conditions. Neither does it
mean that the connexion which subsists between
their outward form and their inner reality be-
tween their body (as it were) and their spirit, is
itself not a vital one, but rather variable because
(in the literal sense of the word) unessential. We
can draw no such conclusion about spiritual
ordinances at least, until we can draw it about
spiritual men. For we too, Christian men, all of
us, essentially are spiritual beings, made for
122 IS IN THE SPIRIT, SPIRITUAL: [No.
spiritual life and joy as St. Paul even passion-
ately insists, in language which sounds to us
perhaps perilously unqualified: "They that are
in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But, if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."
Our whole reality is spiritual. " Ye are not in
the flesh." Does this at all mean of us either
that we, as Christians, have no bodily life, or
that, for us, the connexion between our outward
bodily actions and our inner spiritual reality is
not a vital one ? It is clear that it does not.
But if our true nature and meaning wholly is
spiritual, and yet this our spiritual existence is so
wrapped up in the bodily that we have now no
avenue, no means, no possibility of spiritual life
save through what is bodily : we shall not
hesitate to say in like manner also of the
ordinances, greater or smaller, of the Church of
Christ first that their essential character is
wholly, is only, spiritual ; and yet, that of this
their spiritual character and meaning, the
material form may still be a real or may even,
without inconsistency, be the only avenue.
Thus, then, in the presence of the Spirit we
recognise the existence of the Church ; and in
the Church, as its very life, we reverence the
Spirit. But if this is true, as doctrine, of the
corporate Church, and if the truth of the Church
precedes its exemplification in personal lives :
6] INDIVIDUALLY, A CHRISTIAN 123
yet the Church is made of men, and it is only
after all through its truth in personal lives that
it can be true of the Church.
What, then, is the distinctiveness of Chris-
tianity to a Christian consciousness ? Is it the
system of thought which he owns as true ? Is
it his theology viewed as truth, articulated as
creed ? His creed indeed is to him truth, and
truth is to him Divine. But God is more than
truth : and it is not truth only, as truth,
certainly not truth articulated as creed, which is
itself the heart of his consciousness. Is it the
standard of morality which is set before him ?
the revelation of right and wrong, the aim of
character? The Christian standard of right is
indeed unique ; but unique for no reason so
profoundly as for this, because it never presents
itself mainly as a standard ; because it is not a
scheme rigid or definite or dead ; but multiform
as life is multiform ; not a rule after all, but a
presence, not definable, but alive.
Beneath, then, the theological creed, though
in closest correspondence with it ; beneath the
moral standard, though the source and the life
of its morality ; the true note of the Christian
consciousness is the Holy Spirit, in Personal
Presence, indwelling.
The distinctiveness of Christianity lies far less
really in its creed-character, or in the excellence
of its moral standard, than in its inner secret of
living power. Though its theology may claim to
124 IS ONE IN WHOM [No.
interpret, as well as transcend, the whole range
of rational thought ; though its theology may be
the perfectest image that is possible, to finite
insight, of infinite truth, yet Christianity is not
mainly a theology. And though its morality
matches, as no other morality, the measureless
capacity of a living character, its morality is not,
as morality, the measure of Christianity.
We know, perhaps, what it is, in polemics or
in fiction, in conversation or in thought, to try to
compare Christianity as a system with other
systems, a morality with other moralities. Do
we realise to what an extent, in order to isolate
thus its thought or its moral standard for pur-
poses of comparison, we are leaving out from
them both what is in fact their most vital charac-
teristic ? If we wish to compare Christianity
with other religions, let us at least try to take it
as it is to understand it as it understands itself.
Whatever be in its eyes the necessary rank or
place of theological truth or of moral character, it
never mistakes its own vital essence for either. To
be a Christian means not to hold such and such
a creed, or to own such and such obligations, but
to be anointed with the anointing of Christ, to
be alive in the Spirit. " Because ye are made
partakers of the Christ ye are rightly called
Christs ; and it was of you that God said, Touch
not my Christs," so St. Cyril of Jerusalem
teaches his pupils, reminding them how Christ
was anointed with the Spirit upon His baptism,
6] THE SPIRIT DWELLS 125
and how they too on their baptism received
that chrism, which represented the anointing
of the Christ. " Because ye were vouchsafed
this holy chrism," he adds, "ye are called
Christians."
"As, till He had ascended to the Father,
Mary because without the Spirit might not
touch ; so," says his namesake, "those who own
His Godhead, and have confessed our faith, and
join us in the reciting of the Creed, we shut out
from the holy table, while they are still in their
time of preparation, and therefore not yet made
rich by the Holy Spirit. For He does not
inhabit those who are unbaptized. But where it
is plain that they share the Holy Spirit, then is
there nothing to restrain from the touch of our
Saviour Christ."
There is small need to multiply quotations to
illustrate a truth so fundamental to the Christian
consciousness as this. But you will pardon one
familiar echo more, in words of St. Cyprian :
"When once the stain of the old life had been
washed away by the succour of regenerating
water, and light from on high flooded into a heart
now forgiven and pure ; when once I drank the
breath from heaven, made by rebirth a new man ;
forthwith, in a marvellous way, doubts cleared,
secrets opened, what was dark became plain ;
power grew in what was hard before ; possibilities
dawned in things which had seemed impossible ;
and I knew that the life was of earth which was
126 THE TEACHING OF [No.
born in flesh and lived in the power of sin ; but
that that, whose animating breath was already
the Holy Spirit, was even now the life of
Heaven."
And what receives thus the comment of after
Christian experience, is no less central to the
consciousness of St. Paul or St. John. It is
St. Paul who says of the Jewish heart, "when-
soever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken
away. Now the Lord is the Spirit : and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty "
(2 Cor. iii. 16, 17). It is St. Paul who says of
the Christian Church, " as many as are led by
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"; and
again, "if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ,
he is none of His " (Rom. viii. 9, 14) : he appeals
to Church members not as outsiders that they
should try and win, but as partakers, possessors,
that they should " not quench the Spirit "
(i Thess. v. 20) : he recognises, not less em-
phatically than St. John, that the living core of
Christian character, that which is more than
tongues of men or angels, more than prophecy,
more than all mysteries, and all knowledge, more
than all faith, though enhanced to the point of
tremendous miracle, more than all that self-dis-
cipline, apart from it, can conceivably be, is the
Spirit which manifests itself in human relations,
as love (i Cor. xiii. 1-3). And St. John he is
obviously, before all things, the " man with a
secret," a secret of joyous power bubbling up,
6] ST. PAUL AND ST. JOHN 127
bubbling- over, within him, "that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you also, that
ye also may have fellowship with us ; yea, and
our fellowship is with the Father, and with His
Son Jesus Christ" (i John i. 3). But the test,
and proof, of this secret of communion lies here :
" hereby we know that He abideth in us, by
the Spirit which He gave us" (iii. 24).
If, on the intellectual side, the discrimination
between the true Spirit and those which will
plausibly counterfeit it is to be a dogmatic one,
"every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not
of God " ; yet none the less emphatically it is
repeated forthwith, of the Christian's own con-
sciousness in practical life, " If we love one
another, God abideth in us, and His love is
perfected in us : hereby know we that we abide
in Him and He in us, because He hath given
us of His Spirit" (iv. 3, 12, 13). This was to
have been from the first the distinguishing char-
acter of Christian life. Long ago, at the Feast
of Tabernacles, had Jesus cried, " He that be-
lieveth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out
of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
"This spake He," adds St. John, "of the Spirit,
which they that believed on Him were to receive:
for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus
was not yet glorified " (John vii. 38, 39). I need
not dwell on the history of the Day of Pentecost,
or St. Paul's amazement at those who could not
respond to his challenge, " Did ye receive the
128 THE WORK OF FAITH IS [No.
Holy Ghost when ye believed?" (< Unto what
then were ye baptized ? " (Acts xix. 2, 3)
Christians, like ourselves, who have been
baptized into Christ's Church, who have had
our baptismal prerogative, signed, sealed, per-
fected, through the unction of the Spirit in
apostolic laying on of hands; do we believe in
that which we have, and are ? do we dare to draw
upon the possibilities, which, without acquiring
or deserving of ours, are yet within ourselves, as
St. Paul or St. John believed, and dared, and
found ? How much of our despondency or in-
effectiveness, of the twilight or the failure, of
our days, is due to our narrowed conception of
Christian life? We dare not hope, we cannot
effect, we will not therefore desire, where desire
and hope, because they were based on God,
would have proved effectual. We believe perhaps
in Christian ideals which do but confound us :
but not in the vital power of the Christian life.
We know that the spiritual life is, in some sense,
of one piece with the life of nature. We have
learned therefore, it may be, to translate the
supernatural into the natural. We have lost the
immense impulse of victorious force which belongs
to those who, in and through all the natural,
rather read and feel still the presence and move-
ment of the supernatural. We, therefore, in the
midst of ideals, or difficulties, are just what we
feel ourselves to be ; our natural consciousness
of capacity limits our character : when our char-
6] TO USE THE POWER WE POSSESS 129
acter should have been expanding 1 its capacities
to match a faith in supernatural empowering;
and we might have been learning to feel and find
ourselves to be what (if we would but have it
so !) we are !
Yet, if by thoughts like these we cannot but
convict ourselves, we do it not for the sake of
rebuke or discouragement. If we own that in
thought, or practice, we have fallen below Chris-
tian life, it is that we may be not relaxed, but
braced braced to new daring, of ideal at once
and of action. We will not abandon faith,
because we feel that it is still above us : that
we have fallen below it. The faith, below which
we have fallen, shall be our strength and life
still.
They cannot fail, after all, who can still believe
that if they will continue devoted to It, in affec-
tion and passionate desire, the living Spirit of
Holiness is theirs. Not to acquire, or deserve,
a spirit or power which are surely beyond their
reach : but rather to believe that they have ; to
stir up ; to reverence ; in wonder and in dread to
dare to use it is this which is the characteristic
effort of faith. The Spirit within them, too, for
real holiness, for real crushing of evil, is the
Spirit of God and of His Christ.
Only one word more. The culmination of the
revelation of the Holy Ghost is, as our Whitsun
octave truly proclaims to us, the vision of the
supreme Worship of Heaven : and it may be that
K
i 3 o THE SPIRIT AND WORSHIP [No. 6
in reverent, and progressive, recognition of the
Spirit within, we may gain such deepening
insight as we are capable of into the mystical
worship of the Trinity services, into that trans-
cendent Holy, Holy, Holy, which is to us the
crowning glimpse at once of the adoration and
the bliss of Heaven.
ENRICHMENT OF PRIVATE PRAYER
(A paper read at the Derby Church Congress in 1882.)
A MAN is upon his knees. He tries to lift
up his soul and speak to God. But too
soon the tongue falters, mists gather before the
sight, sounds of this world come floating through
the ears, the mind wanders dreamily on, the
stammered words have become monotonous, un-
meaning, or have died altogether away. Some-
thing is greatly lacking. What can we say
of it?
Now first there is, no doubt, real prayer, which
knows no words nor any defmiteness of thought.
To be dumb, and yet to long to speak ; to be
prayerless, and yet to long for prayer ; this is
prayer, no doubt, already. But this is a rudi-
mentary condition, and cannot in its own nature
be long continued : neither is it the object of our
thought now.
The prayer which properly belongs to the
Christian life is conscious, and is intelligent.
It is more than dumb feeling. For there, in the
midst of the felt Presence of the Eternal, the
mind is to be arranged, thought disentangled, the
heart disciplined, desire made clear and strong :
132 WHICH IS THE TRUE [No.
and this purified thought, this strengthened will,
to be consecrated, in the utterance of words, to
God.
If I start with a narrow conception of what
prayer means, my prayers will themselves be
narrow. If then I am set to see that my prayers
be rich, various, comprehensive as they ought,
my first point is this, to ask myself what I find
that I mean by prayer. The present purpose
may be served by distinguishing two conceptions :
the first, that it is my asking God for what I feel
that I want ; the second, that it is my practising
to think, and to will, and to speak, face to face
with God.
If mine be the first of these, I shall pray for
preservation and safety, for concord at home, and
good government, and victory abroad, for good
seasons and prosperity, and the like ; and more-
over for repentance and amendment, for wisdom
and love, for pardon and happiness, for grace
and for salvation and all this for many others
besides myself for my household, my relations,
my friends, my country. I shall pray all the
more intensely when any of these things are
withdrawn, and (if I am consistent) shall not
fail to thank God for them when given. But
yet, in all these, however good and right in
themselves, it is still true that I myself really
remain the central point of thought and interest.
No doubt it may be urged that I do right to
pray specially for the things in my own sphere,
;] CONCEPTION OF PRAYER? 133
seeing that my own sphere is also my own re-
sponsibility. It may be admitted that even if
prayer reached its ideal perfection, these things
would have no mean place in it, though (it may
be) somewhat newly set. It may be admitted,
too, that there is a sense in which the praying
soul cannot but stand in the centre of its own
praying. But we may take the sting from this
admission at once, by adding that this is only
a necessary truth about the prayer of a man, just
so far as it must be conceived necessary in an
angel's prayer also.
And so, for all that, if I have the other con-
ception of prayer, I shall be on my guard ex-
pressly against self-centred praying. Rather I
shall even strain to win for myself a centre other
than myself. It will not satisfy me that my range
of topics is sometimes wide and bold, so long as
this merely increases (as it were) the size of my
circle, and leaves the centre unchanged. It will
be object both of care and pains first to find,
then to practise some rule of prayer which more
fitly corresponds to the truth of God the Creator,
and of this great Creation of God's, and of my
place in it. I shall feel that to pray aright after
God's will, I must try to take my right place
in the universe of God's truth. I must pray, not
by the rule of my own conscious want, but by
the rule of Truth. The presence of God is the
presence of all Truth ; and prayer is a rehearsing
of Life in the presence of God. In my prayer,
134 LEX ORANDI [No.
then, I enter into relation with all truth. What-
soever I am able to recognise as true ; all that
I know, and all that I believe ; when I shut my
eyes to the world, and open them as before God,
I am in the presence of nothing narrower than
this. When I speak with a man it is mind that
touches mind ; when I pray to God my prayer is
my approach to the mind of God.
That I should enter into the mind of God
completely would be the perfectness of prayer.
That I should try to enter into it is necessary,
even with a view to success in prayer. For if
my conformity were perfect I could not pray
otherwise than as He loved to order. Will it
not follow that my prayer and my knowledge
(of what kind soever, so it be knowledge) will
not move on different planes ; but the more I
know, the richer will be or might have been
my capacities of prayer? And will it not also
follow that all prayer, to be intelligent, must be
based on knowledge ? I ought not to be stupider
than I can help in praying to God. If I inter-
cede for my friends in their difficulties of life, in
their pains ; if I pray for plenty in the earth ;
if I appeal to God in the turmoil of popular
upheavings, or the clash of arms, I must not
be blinder than I can help to the laws of His
government to whose government I appeal. I
must not scorn, but use rather the lessons of
science, the lessons of history, as well as the
revealed truths of religion. For these, too, are
7] LEX CREDENDI 135
parts of the revelation of God's mind. And
the best prayer is necessarily that which enters
into His mind most perfectly. So far from for-
getting science or history, let me rather study
both, or, at least, let me use all the insight God
has given me into either, in order that I may
pray with intelligence, entering the more into
the mind of God when I kneel to speak before
Him.
Prayer, then, is not less wide than knowledge
of truth. Can we get this in any more tangible
shape ? Without working precisely from the one
point to the other, or staying to compare or con-
trast exactly, we may catch perhaps one aspect
of this lurking under the old form of words,
"Lex orandi lex credendi." Whatever is an
integral part of my soul's realities will find place
in my soul's intercourse with the God of all truth.
My prayers will reflect and measure my real con-
victions. What is left out of my prayers, is left
out, practically, of my belief.
But this maxim, "Lex orandi lex credendi,"
suggests at once a practical standard by which
to test the range and scope of my prayers. This
standard is the simple "lex credendi" the
Apostles' Creed. Is there anything in the
Apostles' Creed which finds no place in my
prayer? Of course mere repetition of the words
of the Creed does not constitute a place. Is
there anything which never intrudes into my
heart's thought and purpose when I kneel to
136 THE THOUGHT OF GOD [No.
pray? If so, my prayer is too narrow still in
its range of thought. This is a test which,
with a little thoughtfulness, may be made most
practical.
But passing quickly by this point as to range
or number of topics, I may use the thought of
the Creed in another way. The Creed is the
shortest formal expansion of our belief in God.
But even this is a formal expansion. Shortened
still more, we have our Creed essentially in the
Gloria ; we have it clearly in the utterance of the
threefold Name of God ; we have it, most shortly
of all, yet completely (if only we understand
it) in the mysterious cry of heavenly worship,
"Holy, Holy, Holy."
The fact that this is so may help the present
thought in two ways. First it will make clear
to me what following the "Creed" as my "lex
orandi" ultimately means. It means that all
prayer is to have but one scope and one theme.
It means that the central thought and interest of
the praying soul is no longer to be self, but God.
The centre round which the whole revolves is
changed.
But the same fact will give another ray of light
as to my prayers, and the richness of meaning
in them. If it be true that the whole Christian
Creed is contained in the "Holy, Holy, Holy,"
it follows that these words are not understood
unless they suggest to my mind the whole
Christian Creed. A child may repeat them
7 ] IS THE CENTRE OF PRAYER 137
reverently enough in his prayers, but with only
the slightest idea of what they convey, with little
beyond an instinct of reverence. An old man,
whose life has been lived to the threescore and
ten or fourscore, in the presence always of the
Eternal realities, who has prayed much, learned
much, meditated much, may use in his prayer
also the same triple title ; and at each stroke
of the word his heart will be thronged with
memories and images. It is to him no vague,
dim repetition of a thrice-told attribute ; but
each strong note struck will awake a long series
of vibrations, one after another in countless
numbers, dying away into the distance of the
far-off places ; not one of them really fanciful,
but every one the real expression or echo of
some apprehended truth of the being of God.
The meaning of this to me in respect of my
prayer is obvious. It means that, be the topics
or the language what they may, the richness of
my prayer will depend not so much upon these ;
it will not be found by looking, so to speak, at
the index hardly even by reading the text itself
of my private devotions but more vitally upon
the richness of meaning to me of my own simplest
words ; upon the depth and fulness of the music
which old plain notes can set vibrating in my
heart. On my own life and mind, what they
are ; on my intimacy in spirit with the eternal
truths of God's being and the revelation of it, on
the reality in short of all that which is, perhaps,
138 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [No.
most nearly expressed to me by the name and
habit of "spiritual meditation," will depend my
richness of prayer.
This meditation is no merely separate exercise
a minute study of a special and narrow depart-
ment only of knowledge. It is the due ordering,
arranging, and interpreting of all facts of life,
of all knowledge of truth. Every fresh piece of
knowledge that comes to me, every fresh open-
ing, every fresh need known, should be reflected
in my prayerful mind. But all these would come
in, not so much as new things, rather as new
reflections of the old lights, new aspects of the
old words. Do we not find, e.g. perhaps every
year of our lives, the old words, "Thy king-
dom come," acquiring two or three new hints
of meaning shall we say two or three times
newly antiphoned ? (And let me use this word
" antiphon " for a parenthetical reminder that
the actual use of the old antiphons, though
impossible to our public worship, is still often
wonderfully suggestive, especially on Holy Days,
to private prayer.) But to return. The range of
knowledge, the variety (so to speak) of sensitive-
ness, may be almost limitless ; yet all may be
found, when perfectly harmonised, to fall into a
very few simple strains. We can imagine how
the experience of an aged apostle might gather
itself into few and ever fewer words, seeming to
contract its range of materials, while in truth it
only more perfectly simplified their harmony.
7 ] IS THE ENRICHMENT OF PRAYER 139
We can imagine how truth after truth would
come to be seen merely as a new expression of
some Divine attribute, and to be described not
otherwise so fitly as by the reiteration perhaps
of a single word, as e.g. " Love " or " Father-
hood." Not that there really were, or seemed
to be, fewer interests or truths in the world : but
that all were seen so to converge, that the ultimate
expression of them all would be "God."
And so, for us, the Apostles' Creed is no com-
pendium of special knowledge, but it contains
the whole world.
Not so much, then, a clear sight of my own
wants, but insight, such as religious meditation
gives, into the Truth of God, and specially those
attributes, relations, and offices of His threefold
Being, which the shortest formal summary of our
Christian faith opens out to me, with a rule of
method which will preclude me from omitting
any part of this in my regular devotions, will be
such a discipline of prayer as I may desire.
There is one revealed standard of prayer.
" Lord, teach us to pray. . . . He said unto
them, When ye pray, say, ..." What follows
is, of course, not merely a form of words to be
repeated, whether once or oftener ; but it is an
exemplar, by study of which we learn the true
lineaments of Christian prayer.
To that, in conclusion, I appeal. Will not a
reverent study of the topics of that prayer, their
place, and their proportion, make good this plea,
140 THE PERFECT PRAYER [No. 7
that the first meaning of prayer is the reverent
contemplation of God, His attributes, His glory;
and that all else comes in only through this, as
it is united with this, and thereby vivified ? One
can fancy that a lifelong learning to pray might
be crowned at last with the power of once using
the Lord's prayer perfectly.
PART II
ECCLESIASTICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
UPON DISESTABLISHMENT AND
DISENDOWMENT
WITH SOME REFERENCE TO A DISCUSSION IN THE
OXFORD DIOCESAN CONFERENCE,
SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1894 *
PRELIMINARY
IT was my misfortune, at the recent meeting
of the Oxford Diocesan Conference, to feel
myself obliged to move an unpopular amend-
ment to a popular resolution. Of the treatment
which, under such circumstances, I received,
I have certainly no cause to complain. It is
wholly impossible to explain an unpopular posi-
tion in ten minutes ; and to many members of
the Conference my attitude may well have ap-
peared much more perverse and unintelligible
than they, in their kindness, allowed themselves
to show.
Nevertheless I had a meaning. And the same
considerations which made me then feel it a duty
to record an adverse vote, and to say so much in
explanation of my vote as the time permitted,
persuade me still that I am bound, so far as in
1 [See page xi.]
143
144 LOYALTY TO SUPERIORS: [No.
me lies, to make that meaning intelligible to my
fellow Churchmen.
I spoke under the disadvantage which natur-
ally (and not unfairly) belongs to those who are
thought to differ from their superiors. But what-
ever advantages may legitimately belong to the
judgment of the majority, and of those who
direct and inspire it, I must plead once more
that it is not only compatible with perfect
respectfulness, rather it is a necessary element
in the reality of perfect respectfulness, that
inferiors whose judgment is invited should ex-
press it quite truly. A request to a deliberative
assembly to affirm approval of the judgment, by
identifying itself with the action, even of its own
direct superiors, is, ipso facto, a request to them
to affirm their disapproval no less distinctly, if in
judgment and conscience they cannot but dis-
approve. And what is true of the deliberative
assembly as a whole, is no less true also of its
individual members, as parts, in detail, of its
deliberation. I am convinced that I should have
shown, by holding my tongue, more disrespect
to authority than can ever be shown by any
frankness of criticism, if that criticism is made
in a serious and respectful manner, and on a
fitting occasion. It is difficult to conceive how
any occasion could be more fitting than that on
which an expression of opinion has been ex-
pressly invited from a deliberative assembly.
And I trust that the Conference would acquit
8] UNANIMITY 145
me, at all events, in my actual argument, of any
lack either of seriousness or of respect.
Before proceeding to the subject itself, I should
like to add a few words more on this important
question of respectfulness, or loyalty, of criticism ;
and in reference to one or two of the censures
which I actually incurred at the Conference.
First, then, it was said, by way of deprecating
any criticism at all, that we were in the position
of subordinate officers in an army marshalled by
its generals for battle ; and that, whatever
opinion we might privately hold about the wis-
dom or unwisdom of the dispositions of our
commanding officers, it was not consistent with
loyalty, at such a moment, to express or betray
them in any way at all. I should like to protest
against the use of this language. We all know
that illustrations are apt to be misleading ; and
a parallel from physical to moral combat is
especially dangerous. The secret of physical
victory is aggregate of force. The secret of
moral victory is adherence to truth. In a great
and complicated moral struggle, in which we
can only hope to win ultimately by force of truth,
everything which contributes to truth contributes
to success. Conceive for a moment, if only for
the sake of hypothesis, in an organisation which
claims to represent not partisan warfare but the
battle of absolute truth, that efforts are being
made however generally or however authorita-
tively on lines which cannot ultimately be the
146 IS NOT TO BE PURCHASED [No.
lines of truth or true success : and on that hypo-
thesis I submit that every voice raised, within
the organised ranks themselves, against com-
promising mistake, and on the side of truth,
even though it be at the price of some moment-
ary appearance (or reality) of disunion, is really
a direct accession, not of moral weakness, but of
moral strength, to the cause. I especially empha-
sise the words within the ranks themselves. Such
voices raised outside the host do but tend to its
overthrow. Only if raised within do they (all
appearances notwithstanding) contribute to its
stability.
I must add (what I think will come home to
those who recall with any vividness the Church
politics of twenty years ago), that as even one or
two voices audibly dissentient in a body which,
fighting for truth, is not fighting altogether
according to truth, carry a moral value out of all
proportion to the importance of those who utter
them ; so, on the other hand, the suppression of
individual divergence of judgment, in deference
to whatever laudable motive, and the unreal
appearance of unanimity among those who are
not unanimous, and who are sacrificing far more
than any individual judgment or dignity in pro-
fessing to the world, and brandishing as a weapon
of moral warfare, a unanimity which is not ac-
cording to truth, is a disaster of the first magni-
tude ; is capable indeed of becoming, just in
proportion as the questions at stake are questions
8] AT THE EXPENSE OF TRUTH 147
of eternal truth and sacredness, a nearer and
nearer approach to irretrievable catastrophe.
The same sort of thought may serve as answer
to the charge (advanced in the subsequent dis-
cussion) that the objections raised were "aca-
demic," that they had reference to the contingent
possibilities of another generation, that they were
therefore irrelevant to those whose business was
with the things at their feet. In an argument
which must rest ultimately upon truth, it is quite
as practical to be particular that the position
which we take up is true, as to show zeal in
obeying the call to take up a position at all.
Considerations tending to show, by reference to
the possibility of future modifications of circum-
stances, that the lines of our present contention
are not absolutely right, and may become, by
quicker or slower degrees, manifestly untenable,
possibly may appear for the moment academic,
but only, I must submit, to a temper of intel-
lectual impatience. They are really of crucial
importance, if we are to distinguish between
truth and untruth in our present attitude ; if we
are to avoid the catastrophe which is, sooner or
later, incurred by all those who endeavour to
maintain even a just contention upon untenable
grounds.
Again, it was suggested that, if it is a misfor-
tune for the Church, as a whole, to be ranged
exclusively with one of the two political parties
in the State, this misfortune is simply the fault
148 NOR THE CHURCH TO BE [No.
of the political party which attacks the Church,
and that Churchmen are therefore not respon-
sible for it at all. This I cannot concede. It is
true, of course, as simple matter of fact, that an
attack upon Church privileges from the Liberal
side is, in large measure, the cause of the rallying
of Churchmen to the Conservative party. This
no one disputes. Nor is it doubtful at all that
there is, under the circumstances, a prima facie
danger lest Churchmen should hastily become
merely party Conservatives, that there is a natural
temptation to them to do so. I concede, more-
over, that if the attack of a political party should
be upon what is essential to the life of the
Church, upon her sacraments, her constitution,
her fundamental doctrine or discipline, it might
be impossible for any Churchman, without dis-
loyalty to his Churchmanship, to be otherwise
than, for the time, a political partisan. But
however necessary this might become in some
cases hypothetically, or whatever temptation there
may be now for Churchmen to adopt this attitude
over-hastily, I maintain that it is precisely for
them, as wise Churchmen, to distinguish, with
the utmost care, between situations which do,
and situations which do not, necessitate a con-
sequence so deplorable. That it follows legiti-
mately from the present question about dises-
tablishing, I unhesitatingly deny. To such a
necessity we have, in fact, been indefinitely
nearer in former years that we are now. Not
8] IDENTIFIED WITH PARTY 149
even the clearest opinion about the political duty
of corporate religion, or the wrongfulness or
robbery of State interference with it, or the
extent to which Church activity may be indirectly
dependent upon either property or status, would
quite justify a contention that these, or things
like these, are, or can be, of the essentials of
Church life. If it is not so, then the question
is not one in which Churchmen, as Churchmen,
are bound to be all entirely of one mind. There
are, for Churchmen, real arguments on the side
of disestablishment as well as against it. But if
the question is, so far, an open one, then it is
not a case in which Churchmen are bound to
submit to the misfortune of becoming political
partisans. The opponents or rivals of the Church
may be glad enough to see Churchmen all rush-
ing one way ; may be glad to incite and impel
them to this fatal unanimity. It is for Church-
men themselves to draw the essential distinctions ;
and by their own calm insight and moral firm-
ness, to avert a political identification which
would be only the prelude to ecclesiastical as well
as political catastrophe.
But if, in a question like this, which is not
a question necessarily foreclosed to Churchman-
ship, it would be a profound misfortune if all
Churchmen thought and acted the same way ;
the misfortune would be enhanced, beyond all
calculation, if it were not only, in fact, the
aggregate of Churchmen as individuals, but the
150 HOSTILE ARGUMENTS [NO.
Church herself in her corporate existence, the
Church through every organisation which gives
expression to her life, the Church through her
united episcopate, through her provincial convo-
cations, through her diocesan assemblies, through
her archdeaconries, rural deaneries, parishes, the
Church in all her completeness, and in every one
of her representative institutions and persons,
which declared herself wholly committed to the
approval of one, and to the condemnation of the
other, of the views (neither of them inherently
impossible to Churchmanship) about established
privilege and perpetual endowments. Unfortu-
nately it was precisely this very purpose which
appeared to be aimed at ; and with which the
Conference, by the proposal made to it, appeared
to be invited to identify itself. The extreme
improbability of any perfect success in such an
enterprise is, I must submit, no adequate justifi-
cation for embarking upon an attempt in which
success, if attained, would be so disastrous. It
may be granted, perhaps, for argument's sake,
that it is our antagonists who have created for us
this condition of strong temptation towards an
attitude of simple conservatism. But it will be
our critical failure if we fall into the temptation :
and to me at least it seems I will content myself
with saying a very inadequate rejoinder, to meet
a warning on this point, not by measuring gravely
the principles which are involved, still less by
trying to avert the risk, but merely by urging, in
8] MUST BE FULLY WEIGHED 151
effect, that, if it is a snare, and if we do fall into
it, the fault is with those who laid it for us, not
with ourselves.
I am quite aware that the value of these con-
siderations depends on the truth of the pro-
position that disestablishment itself is not a
question foreclosed by eternal principles of right
and wrong, but is open to argument. This is
precisely what I contend : and it is to this that
real argument ought to be addressed.
I have been taught to regard it as a funda-
mental precept in serious discussion, that a man
should give full weight to his adversary's argu-
ment. This is to me no mere ideal of chivalry :
it is a condition necessary to practical success.
Every argument between disputants is really
a pleading before a tribunal, the tribunal of the
ultimate truth and conscience of mankind. If a
man ignores what is true in his adversary's case,
it follows ipso facto that his own position cannot
absolutely be true. In the long run, the untruth,
which he thereby nurses in his own case, will
damage him far more than any untruth which his
adversary urges against him. In the present
case I am not in the least concerned to deny
that many untruths are urged as arguments for
disestablishing. But if there be in that pleading
any elements of truth, I must submit that the
marshalling of the Church to fight against dis-
establishment as though it were a thing inherently
unrighteous, involves the ignoring of those ele-
152 DISESTABLISHMENT IS NOT [No.
ments, and makes the Church case at once not
wholly identical with truth. I utterly disbelieve
in fighting Church battles on any other principles
than those of exact truth. Whatever may be
their place in other warfare, diplomacies are out
of place here. A little untruth of defence is more
damaging to what ought to be the cause of
absolute truth than is much untruth of attack.
One criticism more was made at the time, to
which I may briefly refer. The Conference was
warned that I had " slurred over " the fact that
disestablishment was one thing with disen-
dowment, and that it was even authoritatively
admitted to have no other meaning than this. I
did say, and I repeat, that it seems to me indis-
pensable for clearness of thought on the subject
to discriminate carefully between the two. That
they are apt to be "slurred" I am well aware.
That, with many of those who clamour for dis-
establishment, no thought underlies that word
but the thought of disendowment, I should not
dream of denying. But the more others confuse
themselves and us by blurring the words, the
more incumbent upon us do I hold it to be to
insist upon discriminating. I am not aware of
any arguments seriously urged for disendowing,
except upon the hypothesis of disestablishment.
But, assuming first the possibility of disestab-
lishment, the question should be, as I conceive,
whether disendowment, either in whole or in
part, ought to follow as a necessary corollary of
8] ONE THING WITH DISENDOWMENT 153
disestablishment. I submit that the question
cannot be properly answered until disestablish-
ment has been first discussed ; until, in fact, it
has been settled, first, what is the general idea
intended by disestablishment, and secondly,
what are the grounds on which, if on any, it
is right to disestablish. I should certainly not
have anticipated that this plea of mine for dis-
criminating carefully between the two things
would be described as a slurring of the " fact "
that they were not two but one.
I will add just one word of a very different
kind. If any of my brethren whose minds are
clear for disestablishment should feel disposed
to claim these pages as their own on the ground
that so much is admitted of the premises upon
which they are accustomed to argue, I would
earnestly ask them, before they lightly assume
that the conclusions here drawn must needs be
inconsequent or pusillanimous, to review the
steps of their own reasoning, and the cogency of
consequences which they now draw therefrom.
It is just because I can agree with so much of
their principles that I feel myself specially en-
titled to challenge their conclusions ; and to
invite them to consider again, with all judicial
seriousness, what does, or does not, legitimately
follow from positions which are common to us
both.
154 DISESTABLISHMENT IS [No.
DISESTABLISHMENT
Let me begin by saying that I am not en-
deavouring to argue with opponents of the
Church. Rather my object is to clear my own
thought as a Churchman, in reference to pro-
posals about disestablishment, and therein of
course to suggest to other Churchmen the lines
upon which, according to my judgment, it is right
for Churchmen to be acting in the matter. I am
writing as a Churchman [to Churchmen, in the
desire to discriminate, from the point of view
of Churchmanship, between the true and the
false lines of Church conduct.
I have already pleaded that it is necessary for
clearness of thought to consider the case of dis-
establishment first of all by itself, uncomplicated
by any corollaries about disendowment, and to
determine our attitude towards it.
Our hypothesis is, then, that the nation is
challenged with proposals for the disestablish-
ment of the Church. What will such proposals
mean ?
It is notoriously almost amusingly difficult
to state in concrete detail what are at present the
consequences which follow upon establishment,
or what change disestablishment (apart of course
from disendowment) would actually make. After
the statement of one or two insignificant details,
the attempt at definition is apt to break ignomin-
8] A POLITICAL QUESTION 155
iously down. But whatever difficulty there may
be about practical details, I submit that as a
matter of principle it cannot be questioned that
what the word "establishment" really expresses
is a certain attitude of the State towards the
Church; and that the essence of "disestablish-
ment " would be an alteration by the State of its
relation to the Church. The Church is the
Church, whatever may be the attitude of the
State towards it. A proposal, then, for disestab-
lishment is a political proposal addressed to the
citizens of the State. It is a proposal to which
the Church, as Church, is not, in any strictness
of thought, a party at all. National favour or
disfavour, national aggrandisement or persecu-
tion, though not of course unimportant in all
sorts of ways, is nevertheless, strictly speaking,
external to the life of the Church.
" Establishment " is an active relation of the
State. The Church could not in any case
"establish" herself: neither could she, in whole
or in the least part, by any action of her own,
"disestablish" herself. Establishment and dis-
establishment are alike outside her. She in
respect of them both is necessarily passive.
It is not necessary for the truth of this state-
ment that we should be able to point to a single
explicit act of establishing on the part of the
State. The relation may have grown up at first
without any active political consciousness. But
there was political consciousness, in increasing
156 WHICH CONCERNS CHURCHMEN [No.
degrees, in its maintenance in succeeding ages.
And at any time, just so far as there was political
consciousness at all, it was consciousness of this,
which indeed was true even without any con-
sciousness whatever, that established status
meant a status of political character, which
the State had conferred, and which the State,
and the State alone, could either modify or take
away.
It seems to me of primary importance to insist
that when proposals for disestablishment are
made, there is no ecclesiastical proposal what-
ever before the Church there is only a political
proposal before the State. It is not Churchmen,
as such, but citizens, and Churchmen so far as
they are citizens, who have a proposal before
them. No doubt Churchmen, in point of fact,
are citizens also. Nevertheless it is upon them,
not in their character as Churchmen, but in
their character as citizens, that the duty is
laid of forming a political decision, and acting
upon it.
It will be felt, of course, that their character
as citizens is dominated and informed by their
Churchmanship. No doubt it is, if they know
what Churchmanship means. But however
largely it may be their Churchmanship which
forms their conscience as citizens, it is not a whit
the less true that in their conduct as citizens they
act politically : and that their duty is to do what-
ever is politically right. Christianity does not
8] ONLY AS CITIZENS 157
supersede either political or economical duty.
The Christian conscience may introduce new
factors and may appear therefore to revolutionise
political or economical science. But the duty to
which it points in either sphere ultimately, it
points to as economical or as political duty ; it
reinforces, it illuminates, but it does not super-
sede, either social or civic life. The fact, then,
that the conscience of a member of the Church
of Christ is with him in all his relations as para-
mount, does not qualify in the least degree the
truth of the principle that proposals for disestab-
lishment are political proposals, which come
before Churchmen only in their character as
citizens.
From this first form of statement there follows
another, which seems to me no less crucially
important, namely that a proposal for disestab-
lishment, coming before us, as it does, not qua
Churchmen so much as qua citizens, is in its true
nature an active, not a passive, proposal. The
question before us really is, not whether we
should or should not submit to be disestablished,
but whether we should, or should not, disestab-
lish. The passive form of question is misleading
and unreal. If it were a practically possible form
of question at all, it would, by the force of its
terms, necessarily be a question before members
of the Church as such. But I have already
insisted that establishment and disestablishment
are questions necessarily outside of the sphere of
158 THE QUESTION IS [No.
the Church as such. The Church, as such, has
strictly no business with them. It is indeed,
I conceive, a matter of high importance for the
Church, in her essential life as a spiritual body,
as the temple of the Holy Ghost, to be, and to
shew that she is, passive and neutral to such
political questions as this. I know that it is a
matter of some practical difficulty for Churchmen
to show to the world, with sufficient clearness,
a distinction which may be nevertheless clear to
themselves ; to show, for example, that it is as
citizens representing the State, rather than as
Christians representing the ideal attitude of the
Church, that they in this matter take one line
or resist another. But though it may often be
difficult, it is not therefore either impossible or
unimportant. At this moment I submit that it
should be one of the first anxieties of Churchmen
to show that if they take an active and stirring
part as against disestablishment, it is not the
Church which is fighting in them. She is what
she is, and in strict speech is unconcerned. But
they, if they stir, stir as citizens in jealous devo-
tion to their country. For the country it is which
is challenged to political action, and their con-
cern is that the country should not, in them,
do political wrong. I need hardly say how
grievously this point of important distinction
seems to me to be blurred by a cry to the Church,
as Church, to rally in the struggle against "being
disestablished."
8] 'SHALL WE DISESTABLISH?' 159
But whilst the question in this direction seems
to me in itself unreal, it has the added disad-
vantage of carrying away men's minds from the
real form of the question that is pressing upon
them. It precipitates an antithesis between the
Church and the State, between Churchmen and
citizens, and causes Churchmen-citizens to range
themselves in protest, as if against the hostility
of the State, just when it is of primary import-
ance that they should be rallying to the State as
citizens, to help her to determine her political
question according to political right. Preoccu-
pation with the (misleading) question whether
we ought to submit " to be disestablished "
obscures for us the great fact that there is really
a question practically before us all in our national
relation the question whether we ought "to
disestablish."
The distinction between these two questions is
not a formal one. Not only will the lines of
argument be, to a considerable extent, different
according as the one question is raised, or the
other ; but the conclusion itself will not neces-
sarily be the same. There are cases in which
the question, "Ought I to submit to be disestab-
lished?" might receive the answer "yes": whilst
nothing but a resolute " no " might be returned
to the question, " Must I disestablish ? "
I say, then, that the question of disestablish-
ment is a political question, which comes before
us in our capacity as citizens ; and that the only
160 ESTABLISHMENT DEPENDS [No.
legitimate form of the question is Are we, or are
we not, to disestablish ?
It is, then, upon this basis that I should desire
to examine the different considerations that may
be urged as grounds for disestablishing.
It has already been urged that " establish-
ment " is in its nature a political fact ; the
adoption, or maintenance, of a national relation
towards the Church. It is difficult to see how
anyone can admit this statement without thereby
admitting also that continuance of establishment
must be dependent on the continuance of the
national will to establish. There is no ground
on which establishment can claim to outcast the
national will. The divine character of the Church
does not constitute a divine obligation on the
nation to maintain a particular political attitude
towards it. An unestablished Church is not of
itself, ipso facto, a political sin.
The Church, if it be a small minority of the
nation, can claim no divine right to be " estab-
lished " in despite of the nation. " Establish-
ment" is a national act, and national acts depend
necessarily upon national will. National will can
mean only the will of the clear majority of the
nation. There may be, no doubt there is, an
immoral rashness in rushing into large revolu-
tionary changes on the basis of a narrow, a
doubtful, or a temporary, majority. But given
a majority at once large, indisputable, and un-
hesitating, on the side of disestablishment, and
8] ON THE NATIONAL WILL 161
it seems to me that, upon that hypothesis, there
is no ground of claim which could be raised from
any other source for continuance of establish-
ment. If this is true and to me it seems little
else than a truism I submit that it is most
desirable for truth that it should be clearly dis-
cerned and avowed by Churchmen. I can only
maintain a true defence of establishment by clearly
detaching myself from such lines as are false.
It is desirable to sweep away all vestige of sus-
picion that we try to maintain establishment, as
if by inherent right of divine appointment, upon
any directly supernatural sanction. We have no
right to maintain it, except by persuading the
political majority, on political grounds, that it
is their political wisdom not to let it go. I desire
that not only the national power, but the national
right to the power, should be freely and fully
admitted.
Once more, then, is it right to disestablish ?
and here let me introduce, in order to dismiss,
two or three considerations which do sometimes
present themselves as pertinent arguments but
which, I venture to think, are not adequate to
carry the conclusion.
First, then, the fact that I hold that disestab-
lishment ought to follow upon the will of an
undoubted national majority, is not for one
moment any legitimate reason for my so talking
or acting as to help to produce such a majority,
unless I, quite apart from the majority, think for
M
162 REASONS FOR [No.
myself that disestablishment is the right course
and deliberately choose to adopt it as my own.
So, again, my conviction that, as a Churchman,
I ought impartially, or even willingly, to accept
disestablishment, carries me in itself no way
towards persuading me that, as a citizen, I ought
to disestablish.
Nor, again, does such a conviction, coupled
with a strong persuasion or forecast that sooner
or later disestablishment is "sure to come,"
constitute, as yet, any justification for my help-
ing it to come. I have no right so to help it,
until I am persuaded that both I, and all other
good citizens, ought, upon the principles inherent
in true citizenship, to be, under the circumstances
which actually exist, disestablishers.
Further still : though I were honestly per-
suaded that disestablishment would be, in smaller
or in larger measure, a direct emancipation and
benefit to the highest interests of the Church,
not even so should I be justified in endeavouring
as a citizen to promote it so long as it could be
conceived that the advantage to the Church was
a loss to the nation. Only where the argument
took this form, namely, that disestablishment
is a gain to the Church, and therefore, through
the improved efficiency of the Church, an advan-
tage to the nation; only, that is, in its political
or national aspect, would even the gain of the
Church become an argument valid and adequate
for the purpose.
8] DISESTABLISHING 163
Putting, then, considerations like these on one
side as inadequate, I endeavour once more to
approach the question on what grounds are we,
as citizens, to be persuaded that the existing
relation of the nation towards the Church is no
longer nationally desirable : that it would rather
be to the advantage of the nation to discontinue it.
Three distinct forms of possible answer occur
to me.
The conclusion would follow if I could be satis-
fied (i) that it is not desirable in itself that the
organisation of national life should have a reli-
gious basis, or any public relation to religion :
or (ii) that, though such a religious basis is in
itself desirable, yet the existing relation with this
particular body, known as the Church of England,
has become nationally detrimental, and ought to
be changed : or (iii) that though such a reli-
gious basis is in itself desirable, and though it is
admitted that the Church must be the established
body if there be one ; yet circumstances have
gradually brought it to pass that the total separa-
tion of the public polity from a public profession
of religion, though in itself naturally an evil,
is nevertheless the lesser of two evils ; and there-
fore, relatively, is not an evil, and is to be
desired.
With respect to the first and the second of
these alternatives, it is almost enough for the
present purpose to name them. The abstract
discussion of the first might lead far afield. But
164 (i) NO RELIGIOUS BASIS [No.
in truth it is not a proposition which is likely
to commend itself to thoughtful Churchmen. I
venture to doubt whether it would present itself
as plausible at all if our imaginations were able
to realise more completely what it would mean.
So profoundly are we accustomed to the underly-
ing religious hypothesis in administrative govern-
ment, that we probably hardly realise how help-
ful towards what is good are these our half-un-
conscious national assumptions ; or how much
harm would follow from the sudden avowal that
the whole machinery of national life was, and was
meant to be, deliberately non-religious. And,
in any case, such a theory of government, adopted
on principle as the best and truest, seems to me
to degrade enormously the whole conception of
the nature and function of government. If
government is understood to be merely a sort of
laborious police committee, the inference may
perhaps logically follow. Certainly for my own
part I have still far too profound a reverence for
the meaning of government on its ideal and
sacred side to regard the necessity of its separa-
tion (if necessity there be) from a publicly avowed
basis of religion any otherwise than as matter
of profound regret. I have, moreover, the satis-
faction of being able to believe that the more
secular and degrading conceptions of the function
of government are already becoming, from a
variety of causes, more and more generally dis-
credited.
8] (ii) A STATE-MADE RELIGION 165
The second proposition, that the nation should
in some way establish religion, but should not
establish the Church, may take either of two
different forms. It might mean, first, that the
nation should adopt and establish some other
religious body, whether Roman, Wesleyan,
Baptist, Unitarian, or any other, in the place of
the Church : or, secondly, that without adopting
any body that exists, it should endeavour to create
for itself, by State enactment and definition, a sort
of establishmentarian organisation, a body, under
whatever religious claim or title, which would be,
in fact, a merely political creation, the outcome
of the sagacity of parliamentary compromise.
The former of these two alternatives may, for
practical purposes, be dismissed. The latter is
not by any means an imaginary peril. It has
been the ideal of able men. It is not displeasing
to the instinct of a considerable number. The
history of religious education for the last half-
century has brought us apparently, in that de-
partment, almost within sight of the verge of its
abyss. But, for the present purpose, I must be
content to say of it only two things.
First, then, whatever existence it may have
politically, it can never have any existence as a
religion whatever. It may be a possibility,
temporarily at least and within somewhat narrow
limits, for bodies which have real existence
on a really religious basis to compromise for
certain purposes and work together politically,
166 IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY [No.
or even in a measure religiously, on positive
lines which are common to them all. It may be
a possibility, though, as I am convinced, no more
than a perilous possibility, and a limited, and a
temporary one. But for a religion, or a religious
body, to be created by the enactment of political
majorities is a total impossibility ab initio. And
it is to be remembered that whatever Parliament
had made, Parliament could freely vary, or un-
make. The new creature would, therefore, be in
its ultimate essence the mere breath of a hetero-
geneous national majority, the ghost (as it
were) of the kaleidoscopic fancy of a perverse
and ignorant world. If, on such terms, it is
indeed possible that a body might be created,
certainly it would never have a religious exist-
ence at all.
And, secondly, I will say that, even if it were a
religious possibility, it could be, to the mind of a
Churchman, nothing but horror. If indeed such
an attempt were ever contemplated in serious
politics, Churchmen at all events would be com-
pelled to demand, in a tone and temper utterly
unlike anything that they have been called upon
to use hitherto, that it should utterly let the
Church alone. Any attempt by political means
to coerce the Church into part or partnership
with it, would be, to a Churchman, the worst
kind of sacrilege. Better the establishment of
the least orthodox of Protestant sects ; better, a
thousand times, an absolute national neutrality
8] AND A SACRILEGE 167
about religion, than the horrible mockery and
degradation of the very conception of the Chris-
tian Spirit, which is involved in the bare idea
of an avowedly Parliamentarian Church. This,
to a Churchman, is the enemy indeed. This is
not merely exclusion, or contempt, poverty, or
hardship, or persecution. Such things as those
are not, to the life of Christ's Church, wholly
uncongenial. But this is a sacrilegious parody of
her essential holiness. The attempt to make use
of her position as politically established in order
to compel her to submit her very being to the will
of the world, is not injustice merely, or persecu-
tion, but outrage. A Churchman may be in-
different to disestablishment, may even smile at
persecution or martyrdom ; but the attempt to
turn the very being of the Church into dishonour,
an attempt which, if per impossibile it could be
conceived to be successful, would literally destroy
her out of being, is an attempt which he would
feel it a sort of blasphemy in himself to witness
without a passion of resentment.
But there remains the third of the three pro-
positions mentioned above. And this one, no
doubt, is for us the most practically important of
the three. We suppose it, then, to be urged
upon us that the course of events has brought
about a national condition, in which it is the truer
and more upright course, however little it may be
ideally desirable, to separate, frankly and com-
pletely, the entire fabric of national administration
168 (iii) RECOGNITION OF THE FACT [No.
and government from any national profession of
religion.
Thus, assuming now that the only practicable
profession of national religion is the maintenance
of the establishment of the Church, there is the
obvious fact that the Church is not, any longer,
even approximately, coextensive with the nation ;
and that, if the nation nationally professes Church-
manship, there is a necessary, and a considerable,
unreality in the profession. Moreover, as there
is an obvious lack of right in the Church to
claim to represent the entire community, 1 and an
obvious element of unreality in the complete
national profession of Churchmanship ; so, too,
in detail, the maintenance of the official pro-
fession does involve us, from time to time, in
scenes of painful religious unreality. We have
indeed swept away the profanations familiar in
former time through the use of the Holy Com-
munion as a civil qualification, or test; and we are
becoming accustomed, more and more, to judges
of assize who are not Churchmen, or mayors
1 I am aware that this has been met with the reply that if, in the fact
of the establishment of the Church, we allow what is only a majority to
stand as the public representative of the whole, this is only what we not
merely tolerate, but maintain as a fundamental principle in the working of
our political system. For it is a necessary result of the system of party
government, that the actual government, which is at any moment in
power, is really representative of the opinions only of a majority. Inas-
much, however, as it is plain that the equity of government by party
depends upon the explicit recognition beforehand of the perfect equality of
rights of the different parties, and that every shifting of majorities shall be
forthwith a shifting of governments, I must say that the theory of Estab-
lishment defended by this parallel seems to me to have little relation to
the existing status of the English Church.
g] THAT CHURCH AND STATE 169
who (it may be with doubtful political propriety)
parade their official dissent from the official
Church, or public officers, of one grade or another,
who are not qualified to take public oaths ; but, if
such changes diminish the flagrant insincerity,
they do so only by making it so much more
manifest that the public Churchmanship is the
Churchmanship really of only a portion of the
public. Again, the unreality in question is no
merely curious defect in logical symmetry, such
as distresses no one, and is but racy of English
political growth. It does in fact give rise to
various misconceptions, jealousies, heartburn-
ings, which go to create a movement towards
disestablishment, such as, from time to time, in
one detailed form or another, has long engaged
the attention of politicians.
Considerations like these, then, go to suggest
that the maintenance of a public profession of
Churchmanship is less and less, in fact, either
true or politic. Thus the conclusion that ''dis-
establishment " has become, under the circum-
stances, right and wise, would follow simply as
the honest recognition of the plain (if deplorable)
fact that the nation is too much religiously
divided to be able any longer to retain any single
corporate religion ; and Churchmen, advocating
disestablishment on these grounds, would be to
be blamed, if at all, not because they recognised
the fact, or allowed its legitimate consequences,
but only in so far as their own shortcomings as
170 ARE NO LONGER IDENTICAL [No.
Churchmen had allowed the fact to become a
fact at all. It is to be observed, moreover, that
this acquiescence in the practical impossibility,
under the circumstances, of a corporate national
religion, is not incompatible with a general
national desire for religiousness. It is indeed
greatly to be doubted whether a broadly irre-
ligious movement for disestablishment would,
under the circumstances which exist at this
moment, have very much chance of coming
within the sphere of practical politics at all.
Such, in general, will be the character of the
argument. Are we to acquiesce in its conclusion ?
This, I submit, would be somewhat hasty travel-
ling. We have hardly, at all events, reached
that point yet Nevertheless, if the question is
rightly put in this fashion at all, as I believe it to
be, it has become plain that it is essentially a
question of degree and detail, rather than one
simply of principle, and arguments which ignore
the reality of the case for disestablishment, and
treat it as if it were simply immoral or wrong,
must, from this point of view, be felt to be in-
effectual, because not quite relevant to the truth.
For good or for evil, we have advanced a
considerable way from the old possibility of
assumption of the identity of Church and State,
which was the natural basis for establishment.
It may be held that the divergence has proceeded
so far, in fact, that disestablishment has become
the only right course. There is nothing immoral
8] A QUESTION OF DEGREE, 171
in such contention, which at least has an obvious
prima facie case. On the other hand, it may be
held that the divergence in fact, though real, yet
is not such as to justify disestablishment : that
the national disadvantages in maintaining estab-
lishment on its present basis are at the most far
less than those which would necessarily follow
from any measure of divorce, at the present
moment, between Church and State.
But what I am concerned at this moment to
insist, is that this question is a question essen-
tially of degree it depends upon a mass of
evidence in detail.
The moment it is understood to be in this
sense a question of degree, a multitude of con-
siderations in detail come in, which would not
strictly have been relevant before ; and about
which few people probably have at present quite
adequate knowledge for a final judgment.
The question of numbers becomes an important
one. What proportion of the people are Church-
men ? what Dissenters ? what indifferent to
religion ? What proportion of Dissenters feel a
serious grievance, or make a serious demand for
disestablishment? How far is the grievance
that exists religious, or social, or political ?
How far is the agitation against establishment a
genuine movement ? How far is it rather a manu-
factured agitation, the work of a discontented
minority making a noise disproportionate to their
real numbers and importance ? Again, what
172 OF NUMBERS AND FEELINGS, [No.
sort of motives are at work in it? Assuming
that in this, as in every cause, there are good
motives and bad, honest agitators and dishonest,
how large a part is played by the dishonest agita-
tors or the discreditable motives ?
Again, even upon the quite untenable assump-
tion that all cry for disestablishment is honest,
and all motives creditable, what is the comparison
between these, at their best and greatest, which
disestablishment would satisfy, and those, on the
other hand, which disestablishment would out-
rage ? I said just now there were heartburnings
against establishment which had long been well
known to statesmen as elements in the political
condition. And certainly, on the other hand,
though the fact may be less aggressively familiar,
there are hundreds of thousands of Churchmen
to whom disestablishment would cause not heart-
burnings only, but such sense of outrage and
insult, as no wise politician can afford to despise.
I speak of men who do not admit the things
which I have admitted, who do not even see that
disestablishment is so much as arguable. I am
not agreeing with them. But if politicians are
listening to the sound of jealousies and griev-
ances, and are inclined to be by them persuaded
that the time is ripe for revolutionary political
changes, I would certainly have them pause at
least to give full weight to those other and, it
may be, more widespread and bitter grievances,
which are not eloquent now because they do not
8] OF THE POLITICAL TENDENCY, 173
yet exist, but which might spring in a moment
into formidable life, if such a change were pre-
maturely and unwisely made. No doubt on a
point of this kind I have little right to an opinion,
yet for my own part I cannot but surmise that
the grievance to be allayed would pale into
absolute insignificance in comparison with that
which would be created, if disestablishment were
to be carried into effect under anything like the
conditions existing at this moment.
I said at an earlier stage of the argument that
a persuasion that disestablishment was "sure to
come " would not justify a Churchman in helping
it forward, unless he believed himself that it was
right. But since then our context is somewhat
altered. In the present context, that is to say
after the distinct recognition that things have
advanced a certain way in the direction of
disestablishment, and that the essence of the
question is not, in abstract form, whether dis-
establishment is right or wrong, but whether the
conditions which make towards disestablishment
have, or have not, advanced so far as to make
its consummation desirable ; if, that is, it is a
question of measurement and of degree, it does
become relevant to consider, and to give weight
to, the general character and direction of pro-
gressive development. If we are persuaded that
for many generations past things have advanced
unswervingly, and that they cannot but continue
to advance, towards a consummation in which
174 WHICH IS NOW CHANGING, [No.
government, as such, must be detached from
religion : this persuasion would go some way to
justify our setting our faces towards disestablish-
ment, and gently helping to pave the way towards
it, even (it may be) long before the time for its
accomplishment was ripe. But are we to be
persuaded of this ? Even if, for a long time past,
the development has seemed to be all in this
direction, is it so clear that the tide is not begin-
ning at this very moment to run with gathering
volume the other way ? Progress for a long time
past has seemed to identify itself with a steadily
increasing development of individualism. The
sacredness of the individual, and his liberty, and
his rights, and his opportunities this has been
its keynote, and its victorious achievements have
been towards this. But ideals of progress at this
moment seem more and more to be collective
ideals. It is the aggregate which is sacred. The
individual is to be, after all, for the sake of the
community. Government, which seemed on the
point of becoming utterly mechanical and secular,
begins to recover its sacred and mystic character.
Not the individual only, but the community, has
a moral responsibility ; and the people, the State,
if it is to be moral ultimately, must be somehow
corporately religious. I make no attempt to dis-
cuss positions like these. I would only ask, Are
not things like these in the air? Are they not
parts of the tendency and development of these
days? And if they are, of what sort are the
8] AND THE LOSS TO THE NATION 175
corollaries which they naturally suggest on the
subject of religious "establishment"? Is it so
clear that the whole current is, and must be,
straight towards disestablishing ?
But whilst, for manifold reasons, the case for
disestablishment is not clear, there can, on the
other hand, be no question at all that there would
be very much and very direct loss in the inevit-
able throwing away of the national homage
towards God, the national corporate acknow-
ledgment of the Church of Christ. If I admit
that even this might become, through our sad
complications of dividedness, a political necessity
but only as a relative duty, as the lesser of two
evils ; what are we to think of its character, if
caught at in rashness, prematurely, when it was
in truth not the lesser of two evils, but, it may
be, immeasurably the greater ? The implications
contained in corporate national Churchmanship
are of great value anyhow. The national sacri-
fice in parting from them would in any case, even
if necessary, be very considerable. The responsi-
bility of making it in a spirit of national levity,
with all its reckless throwing away of history and
cutting to pieces of associations, the best prob-
ably and most deeply rooted, in many instances,
of all the associations which go to the growth of
our national English character, is a responsibility
which must which ought to make the lightest-
hearted grave. For if we did this thing without
need, on false motives, wrongfully, the penalty
176 A MATTER, NOT OF PRINCIPLE, [No.
which we should nationally pay for our hastiness
would assuredly be neither light nor transient.
So far my object has been to put the question
of disestablishment in what I conceive to be its
true proportions, and on its true grounds. I
cannot express how anxiously I look upon an
attempt to organise the Church, ecclesiastically,
in protest against "being disestablished." I
cannot express how important it seems to me,
for practical purposes, to insist that the question
is a political one, and to preserve the Church, as
Church, from being wholly identified with either
side of an arguable political question. I cannot
say how much of clearness of thought seems to
me to turn upon shaping the question in an
active, not a passive, form ; or how fatal a result
I apprehend if the position taken by Churchmen
at this juncture should be one of undiscriminating
opposition to all "disestablishing," as though it
were, per se, irrespective of circumstances, an
immoral or ungodly proposal. I cannot but
believe, for my own part, that disestablishment
may only too easily be incurred, through the
error of the defenders themselves, if they resist it
on grounds in themselves untrue ; and I firmly
believe that the attitude which most completely
accords with truth is to admit that the question
is a real and arguable one, a question of mea-
surement and degree rather than of sweeping
principle ; that conditions do in some measure
already exist which suggest "disestablishment";
8] BUT OF POLITICAL NECESSITY 177
that, as the years go on, it is fully possible that
it may become right for us to disestablish ; but,
nevertheless, to say that whilst it is very far from
certain whether that time will ever come or no, at
all events as things now stand, the case for dis-
establishing, involving so mighty a breach with
the national past, and so grave a responsibility
for the national future, falls far short of being
made out.
I could not but venture, to this extent, to for-
mulate my own conclusions. But I do not linger
upon the conclusion now. Not less important,
perhaps, even than the contention that the time
for disestablishment, if it should ever come, has
not come now, is the insistence that if, or when,
it so comes, it will come as in itself a thing un-
ideal, as a relative necessity, as a duty proceeding
out of, and attended by, very much that is to be
deplored. It will never be an ideal for its own
sake. I give prominence to this thought at this
point, because I am anxious to go on to a con-
sideration of the question of disendowment also ;
a question which I conceive ought not to be even
raised until the main lines of the position in refer-
ence to disestablishment are settled : not only
because it has itself no place except as a further
inference, upon the hypothesis of disestablish-
ment, but also because its treatment largely
depends upon the grounds upon which if upon
any disestablishment has itself been first ac-
cepted as right.
N
178 THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE [No.
If ever, by and by, the nation should, rightly,
determine that continuance of " establishment "
has ceased to be nationally expedient, she will
of necessity do so, not in the interests of irre-
ligion, but although, if not because, she still
ardently desires religiousness, and still looks to,
and depends upon, religious bodies, and there-
fore especially the Church (which can never, I
trust, be less than the most important of religious
bodies within the nation), to do for her priceless
national services, services which while she can
never do them, as State, for herself, she owns to
be absolutely essential for her life.
The nation's act of disestablishing, on such a
basis as this, will be a more than respectful
separation of political and religious ideas ; a
separation animated by no shadow of desire that
the Church should be weakened thereby, but
rather by the fervent hope that she might con-
tinue as strong and effective as ever, nay, if
possible, more effective still and stronger, not
indeed for her own sake simply, but in the
interest of every legitimate object of administra-
tive government or of national life.
DISENDOWMENT
If ever the hour of disestablishment should
come, what are we to hold to be the real right
and truth in reference to disendowment? Is
the disestablished Church to continue, as of
8] PROPERTY IS NOT ABSOLUTE 179
course, to hold all her property as before, with-
out interference from the State ; or does it follow,
as a consequence involved in disestablishing,
that the State which abolishes the political
status will also withdraw her historic endow-
ment from the Church ?
It is my desire to deal with this question, for
myself and for any other Churchmen who may
accept my reasoning, as far as possible with
exact fairness and truth. And I feel that I
cannot do so without saying a few words first
about the general conception of property and its
relation to the community as a whole. I must
begin by suggesting that no right of private
property is absolute. Within any organised
nation, however generally, or upon whatever
principles, rights of private property are in
ordinary cases respected, I suppose it is clear
that at least in exceptional instances, and for
adequate causes, the community does claim and
use an ultimate right to override all individual
rights whatever. Every Railway Act is, in some
measure, an instance of the exercise of this right.
The exclusive rights of a private owner, though
acknowledged, are not allowed to be carried to
a point at which, in the judgment of the com-
munity, they would directly contradict public
interest.. If there is any controversy about the
matter, the whole judgment lies with the com-
munity. It is true that the community thinks it
right so to exercise this right as to secure to the
i8o IT DEPENDS ON THE SENSE [No.
owner, under normal circumstances of peaceful
government, adequate compensation for his com-
pulsory sacrifice. But even so, the conditions of
compensation are determined by the community.
The individual may be heard on his own behalf;
but he does not bargain with the community on
equal terms. And no one, I suppose, would
dispute that in cases more exceptional and
urgent the case of foreign invasion for example
the community would not hesitate, where it
seemed to be necessary, to treat any private
property whatever at discretion ; or that, if any
question of compensation should afterwards be
raised, the question would be absolutely settled
by the community itself. Whether full com-
pensation were given, or partial, or none at all,
would be wholly determined by the community
upon its own principles, and according to its
own circumstances. To these the owner would
absolutely have to submit. Moreover, whatever
opinions might be held as to the expediency or
justice of the decision made by the State in
particular cases, no one would think of disputing,
in principle, the right of the State to make its
decision for itself I do not mean its right to
decide without principles, but its right to decide,
on its own principles, what was right, without
reference to the consent of individual holders ot
property.
But if even this is true and I do not see how
it can be denied we seem to have got, in it, a
8] OF NATIONAL EXPEDIENCY 181
principle at once of extreme importance for the
purpose. It appears to amount to nothing less
than this, namely, an explicit disallowing of any
theory which would make the right of property
in itself a sacred thing, valid, as if upon a sanc-
tion directly divine, in the face of all gainsayers.
It is, on the contrary, unmistakably implied that
the best rights of property are relative, and that
there is an inalienable right in the community as
a whole, for adequate cause and under fitting
circumstances (of which circumstances and cause
the community must be the judge), to vary or
overrule them. But if we explicitly disallow an
inherent sacredness of right to private pro-
perty, what is the sanction upon which the
scrupulous maintenance of property really de-
pends? Probably the first and most obvious
thought that will present itself for reply will be
the thought of the national expediency of security
of property. There is no doubt that enormous
stimulus is given to every kind of activity by the
steady possibilities of profit ; and that anything
which was felt as a disturbance, great or small,
of the general security of industry and owner-
ship, would be politically inexpedient to the most
frightful degree ; indeed, that it would go a very
great way towards dislocating the whole fabric
of society by which alone civilised life is possible.
This is weighty enough. But is this all that we
have to say in reply ? Is the maintenance of
property rights to be exclusively based upon
i8 2 AND ON THE DIVINE RIGHT [No.
political expediency? Is the worst that the
State can do towards private property only to act
inexpediently ? Is it impossible for it to act un-
justly? Is the word "wrong" only partially, or
indirectly, applicable to its possible acts of con-
fiscation for political purposes ?
Perhaps I need hardly argue in the abstract
that there is such a thing as national right, or
wrong, doing. We, for instance, are the suc-
cessors of the men who abolished slavery. It is
probable enough that in various ways, more or
less direct or indirect, that great act may have
more connection with our actual national well-
being than most of us would recognise ; but it is
perfectly certain that, at the time, the appeal
of those who promoted it must have been to the
national conscience of right and wrong, as such ;
any appeal then made to the hope of material
advantage, however much in the long run it
might be true, could not possibly have failed to
mislead. But whence came, in that case, and
whence comes in the case of property, that new
element which lifts the question above distinc-
tions merely of expediency into the atmosphere
of right and wrong ?
I must answer that, as a simple historical fact,
the development of the Christian conscience has
made certain fundamental ideas a necessary part
of the furniture of the minds of the men and the
nations which are products of Christianity. I do
not say that men or nations cannot possibly get
8] OF THE INDIVIDUAL 183
rid of such conceptions as are essential to the
Christian evolution. But I do say that they can
be got rid of effectually only by a very gradual
process of deterioration ; the mere abjuring of
the Christian faith will hardly eliminate them for
many generations to come. Now, whilst I do
not admit that the inherent sacredness of
private property is to be found among these
essential conceptions, I must maintain that they
do nevertheless absolutely require that the in-
dividual personality should be treated with
reverent fairness. If the Christian revelation
is the highest ideal manifestation of the brother-
hood of humanity, that is, of the very crown
of collectivist or socialist aspiration, it is at
least as strikingly true, and as characteristic,
that it reveals, as nothing has ever revealed,
before or since, the divine sacredness of the
individual personality ; and that it is by magnify-
ing, not by suppressing, the reverence for the
individual that it works towards its ideal of
collective brotherhood. It was, as we all know,
many centuries before this essential truth of
Christianity gradually worked out in the con-
sciences of Christians the sense that slavery was
an absolute wrong. But there is no question
that, when the conclusion came, it came in this
form not another. And it will be long before
the consciences of Christianly descended nations
will be able to set up the slave-trade again, with-
out unmistakably knowing that in so doing they
i8 4 TO FAIR TREATMENT: [No.
are guilty of no merely reactionary unwisdom,
but of an eternal wrong.
Now this deeply inwrought conception that
the individual has an absolute, a divine, right to
equitable and reverent treatment, has to be
worked in with the considerations of the national
expediency of security of property tenure before
we are able to describe aright the character of
any claim, against the nation, to private pro-
perty ; or of acts, on the other hand, of national
confiscation, to which public expediency might
appear, from time to time, to point. The
individual has no divine right to such or such
property, but he has a divine right to be treated,
in all matters, as equitably and reverently as
possible ; and therefore, so long as the system of
private property is held to be nationally expe-
dient, he has (not directly, but inferentially) a sort
of divine right not to have his property inter-
fered with, except upon such principles of equit-
able and reverent treatment as the circumstances
admit. The community which interferes with the
property of individuals, without reference to this
condition, a condition which is itself the pro-
duct of the evolution of the Christian conscience,
is guilty not only of inexpediency, but of
positive injustice. And I suppose it may be
added that there is at least a certain presumption
of such injustice in every case in which any one
individual property is interfered with, on excep-
tional principles, without obvious and overwhelm-
8] CORPORATE PROPERTY 185
ing national necessity. At least, to overcome
the presumption of injustice, the case for interfer-
ence must be very strong.
Hitherto I have spoken simply of individuals,
and only so far of property-holding corpora-
tions, as their case may be assumed to come
under the same principles which apply to
individuals.
But I have now to point out that the presump-
tion of injustice which arises from any exceptional
intervention, in reference to property, on the part
of the State, is, or tends to be, somewhat less in
the case of a corporation than in that of a private
person. I do not of course mean that it must be
so in every instance. But a corporate body,
so far as it has legal rights, has them by political
permission in a sense in which it would hardly be
true to say the same of individuals. The State
has an option about recognising corporate bodies,
or allowing them publicly to exist, which it can
hardly have, in any similar sense, about the exist-
ence of those who are born its citizens. And
when they politically exist by virtue of the State's
permission, the State claims naturally a certain
power of positive superintendence and authorisa-
tion in regard to them, beyond the negative
restrictions with which it keeps the individual
life from illegality ; their conduct is felt to be
matter of public concern, as the (not illegal)
conduct of any private person is not : there is
felt to be in them always some element of the
i86 HAS LESS CLAIM TO RESIST [No.
character of a public trust : a corporate body
which claimed the irresponsible discretion of an
individual with regard to its property would be
felt to be, ipso facto, an anomaly. This inherent
visitatorial power, based upon the fact that no
corporate body can exist, in a legal or property-
holding sense, except by continuous consent of
the State, makes it natural for the State to exer-
cise a revision over corporate properties which it
does not exercise over private possessions : and
for that very reason it is felt that the impolicy of
interference, on account of the risk of general
unsettlement and insecurity, which is near at
hand when the usages of private property are
touched, is at least more remote in case of the
public revision, by the community, of the tenure
of a corporate body.
Again, I must submit that the presumption
of injustice in a national overhauling of the
property and tenure of a corporate body tends to
diminish in proportion to the greatness of the
corporate body itself, and of the property held by
it. It is, I suppose, quite obvious that if, by
any combination of historical accidents it could
be conceived that any corporate body, existing
for any imaginable purpose whatever, should
have come to hold in its hands, say, four-fifths
of the entire total of the national wealth ; it would
become at once a pressing political necessity for
the nation to review, and to modify, a condition
of things so extraordinary and so perilous. Of
8] REVISION BY THE STATE 187
course I have deliberately put an extreme and
even absurd case : but the very absurdity will
illustrate the truth which I want to point out.
The smaller the scale of the corporation and
its property, the more is it equitably possible,
other considerations apart, to treat it as a single
individual would be treated ; but the larger the
proportion of its property to the property of the
nation, the more does the whole question of its
property become, in equity, a national question.
Once more, the presumption of injustice, in
regard to such a corporate property, tends to be
less, not more, in proportion to the antiquity
of its title and tenure. I do not mean that it
is true, from beginning to end, to say that the
newer the title the better its authority : but I
have no doubt that it is true that, after a certain
lapse of time, every addition to the remoteness of
antiquity tends to produce an actual diminution
of stability. If any tenure of property in the
world could now be carried back to the great
political and economical settlement made by
Joseph in Egypt some 3,500 years ago, the pre-
sumption, from the mere fact of the date alone,
would be practically almost overwhelming against
its being applicable, or tolerable, under the altered
conditions of to-day. Perhaps it will be felt that
while this supposition is extreme, a tenure of
some 1,200 or 1,500 years would constitute a
wholly different case. Why different ? Will the
answer be because the earlier date belongs, in
i88 NEITHER ITS SOURCE [No.
effect, to a really different world ; but the latter
falls within the limits of Christianity, and within
the limits of Christianity the conditions are
essentially unchanged ? I think that such a dis-
tinction would tacitly concede the very point I
am aiming at. It would imply that the value
of an ancient tenure was not based upon its
antiquity ; that it depended rather upon the con-
tinuity into modern time of such ancient con-
ditions as justified the original appropriation of
the property. And if so much is conceded as
this, I do not see how the further admission can
be withheld, namely that the remoter the time of
the original appropriation, the greater, prima
facie at least, is likely to be the task of showing
that the essential conditions are unchanged.
And here perhaps I may venture to suggest
that the circumstances of the historical origin
of such a property hardly appear to me to be
a consideration so crucial for determining the
rights of the community in respect of it, as they
are often thought to be. In the case of a private
individual, indeed, I doubt whether they are
material at all. Suppose, for instance, that the
property left behind by the conqueror of Blen-
heim was based, in the main, upon grants from
Queen Anne and her parliaments. I fail to see
that such a fact would confer upon the nation the
least moral right to treat it in any exceptional
manner now. The ultimate right to revise or
overrule, if necessary, is (I submit), upon this
8] NOR ITS DEDICATION TO GOD 189
hypothesis, exactly what it is in every other case
of private property neither more nor less. I do
not say as much as this of corporate property.
But I should neither concede, on the one hand,
that a public, or even a parliamentary, origin of
a corporate property would be adequate proof,
in itself, of unlimited national right to control or
cancel : nor, on the other, that the fullest proof
of an origin wholly private would carry the pro-
perty, for a moment, beyond the reach of inherent
national rights.
There is yet another, and perhaps a more
serious, application to be made of this sort of
thought. As the question does not seem to me
to be foreclosed by the legal circumstances of the
origin of the property ; so neither does it by the
simple fact either of the holiness of the motive
or the divineness of the purpose for which the
property was originally given. Whatever natural
rights in respect of it would have validly existed
otherwise are not estopped merely by the fact of
a dedication, once for all, to the service of God.
If a pious landlord should spend ,1,000 a year in
maintaining a chapel, chaplain, choir, schools,
etc., on his estate for the glory of God, this fact
would not take away from his descendants their
natural discretion as to the perpetuation of the
expenditure, nor make it sacrilegious in them,
under altered circumstances, to arrange their
property otherwise. Should he leave money in
trust for such a purpose, there would be, of
igo EXCLUDE REVISION: [No.
course, a legal barrier to their discretion : but
inasmuch as the difference would be legal rather
than moral, no charge either of sacrilege or
wrong need necessarily lie against those who
should seek or obtain, for adequate reasons, a
legal removal of the legal impediment. Any
suggestion that a dedication once for all to God's
service makes God so the owner (in the human
sense) of a property that it cannot, without
sacrilege, be diverted from divine use for ever,
suggests (I own) nothing to me so directly as the
warning word " Korban." I cannot admit, then,
that the plea, " This was dedicated to the service
of God," is of very great weight, by itself, to
bar any natural rights that may exist. It is
obvious, of course, that the plea, if it takes the
form, " This was meant to do, and has been doing,
and is continuing- to do conspicuous service to the
cause of God in the world," is at once altered in
character. The very alteration is for my present
contention significant. And if it should take the
further form, " This is doing such service to
religion as to be of priceless value to the
community," the plea, if made out, is of over-
whelming force not to prevent the community
from raising the question of its continuance, but
to persuade it to determine the question, when
raised, on the side of continuing. But this of
course is a wholly different thing from a
claim of divine ownership, which it would
be sacrilege even to call in question. I cannot,
8] THE PECULIAR CASE 191
however, pass away from this thought with-
out the remark, to which I may have to refer
again later on, that things not wrong in them-
selves may be wrongly done. What is not
sacrilegious in itself may too easily become
sacrilegious in the doing.
Now all the things which I have said hitherto
it has been possible to say in an abstract form.
Though they are said, of course, with a view to
the Church of England as endowed, their truth
does not depend upon anything specially distinc-
tive of the established Church. I have, there-
fore, still to raise one consideration which these
more general principles do not touch.
From the beginning of English history the
Church has been, in fact, "established" in
England. In the fact of establishment she has
(without alteration of her essential life) acquired
a secondary existence of a political kind. Qua
Church, she is a spiritual body, of divine consti-
tution and life. But qua Establishment, she has
become a political body also. In a sense, no
doubt, every spiritual association is political also,
directly it has an existence recognisable by the
State, directly, for instance, it owns any property
at all. But the Church, qua established, has
had, and has, a political existence of very much
more developed character than this. As a
political body she has been conterminous and
co-ordinate with the State : I will not say poli-
tically created to be, but politicially accepted
i 9 2 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, [No.
as being, the authorised presentment of the
religious life of the nation ; and therefore, so
far, capable of being described as an aspect of
the national existence. The corporate body of
the nation, religiously organised as Church, has
represented, no doubt, very different ideas and
sanctions from those expressed by the corporate
body of the nation as State. Nevertheless, in
both cases the actual corporate body has been,
in idea, at least the same one corporate body.
If, then, the Church, being (not essentially but)
in this secondary or political sense a presentment
of the religious aspect of the State, received and
held corporate property, the question may be
asked whether she held this property simply in
her proper character as Church, without refer-
ence to the fact that politically she was also the
religious presentment of the State, or simply
as the State in its religious aspect, without
reference to her own essential independence as
Church. It may well be, indeed, that the
question could not possibly be answered : for
by the hypothesis, neither alternative without the
other could be absolutely true. Nevertheless,
"disestablishment" is a raising of the question ;
and the question so raised must be dealt with,
even though no answer simply given may be
quite the whole truth. Is this property the
property of the Church, as such, however widely
the Church may be sundered from the State ? or
the property of the State, as such, of the State
8] ONCE IDENTICAL WITH THE STATE 193
(no doubt) for Church purposes, while the State
still chooses to be, in one aspect, one with the
Church, but still of the State ultimately, sup-
posing 1 the Church aspect of the State should
come to an end ? and those who at different
times have conferred wealth on the Church,
whether kings, or public councils, or private
men, how far did they in every case endow, or
intend to endow, the Church whether nationally
established or not, or the Church because she
was nationally established ?
It has seemed to some minds that because it is
difficult to claim either of these propositions as
absolute truth, therefore the truth must lie
nearer possibly to one than to the other, but
still somewhere between them : and that, if the
truth lies between them, it would follow that, in
the case of this particular corporate property, the
State may claim not only on general principles
an ultimate oversight, but something approach-
ing, more or less, to a joint ownership. How,
it is asked, can we suppose that the property
would have grown as it did, or would have been
preserved as much as it has been, except upon
the hypothesis of the identity of the Church and
the State, except, that is, by virtue of the contri-
bution of the political guarantee, worth practically
(if indirectly) no small sum of money, for which
the Church is indebted to the State ? And if,
after all these centuries of identity, the union
is at last to be dissolved, ought not the State, as
o
194 THE RIGHT OF THE STATE [No.
<
in the case of a dissolution of partnership, to
claim at the least some, perhaps indeterminable,
mixedness of ownership with the Church ?
I cannot but think it well worth while to put
this case, not only because some such feeling has
a place, in fact, in many minds, but also because
I am persuaded that there is in it some element
at least of truth, which it would be perilous for
us to ignore.
For the present moment, however, I merely
make use of this thought as a sort of climax to
the considerations going before : and upon them
all I must certainly say for myself that, in the
event of the great political change known as
'disestablishment, I concede, ex ammo, that the
State would have not only the power, but the
right, not only the right, but the duty, to go most
fully into all the details involved in determining
the question of disendowment. So far from
being able to agree in any claim that all question
of property should be left alone, as if either
sacrilege or robbery or injustice would be neces-
,sarily involved in touching it, I should rather
.hold that it would be a palpable dereliction of
.duty on the part of the community to let that
.mighty revolution take effect without trying to
get, even painfully, to the bottom of the question
of the .continuance of the endowments, as a com-
plex question of the highest political responsibility.
I concede,. moreover, that whatever exaggeration
there may be in simply calling Church endow-
8] TO REVIEW BEING CONCEDED, 195
ments national property, there is some exaggera-
tion also in simply denying that they are national
property at all. The phrase requires, indeed, to
be examined most carefully : the more so because
it is at once both passionately asserted and
passionately denied ; and those who assert and
those who deny alike, do so with conscience of
a truth, and the certainty that nothing which
contradicts them can itself be perfectly true.
But, after all, though it has seemed to me
important to say these things, they are but pre-
liminary to the main question. Is it, then, or is
it not, upon all the data, expedient, or right, that
the property, in whole or in part, should be
diverted from the disestablished Church ?
Again, in this question, as in the previous one
about disestablishing, I must insist that the
active form is the only form in which it ought
rightly to be put. We approach the question
as citizens, as part of the voice and conscience
of the nation which has to determine it. The
question is not whether we, as Church, ought to
suffer disendowment. The Church, as Church,
is in such matters necessarily passive ; accepting
justice with gladness, and injustice with patience,
but in either case accepting, as of course. The
question is, whether we, as State, ought or
ought not, on the hypothesis of disestablishment,
to determine to disendow. If we had nothing
to do with the matter except as Churchmen, we
should have no question to determine at all. If
196 THE QUESTION IS [No.
we had nothing to do with the matter directly,
as Churchmen, but indirectly only as helping to
influence the judgments of those who were to
determine it, the question we should try to deter-
mine indirectly in them would still be the ques-
tion in its active form, whether they were, or
were not, to disendow. But, as it is, we have
not an indirect, but a direct responsibility, in
determining a question which is laid upon our-
selves : a question, moreover, of which I will
venture to predict that it depends upon Church-
men-citizens to settle in this sense at least, that
it will not, for many generations at all events, be
settled against the clear conscience and voice of
united Churchmen.
If the question were merely "Ought we to
submit to disendowment ? " there would be much
to be said for the answer "aye," which must
now be dismissed as irrelevant. The question
laid upon us is a graver one than this, namely,
" Ought we, all things considered, in conscience
and in truth, to take ourselves a part in dis-
endowing? "
Now when the question is raised in this, its
true form, it seems to me obvious to suggest at
once that the true answer must, in the main,
depend upon the grounds for disestablishing.
Thus, if it should be determined to "dis-
establish " the Church on the ground that the
nation had changed its mind about religion, and
thought Church doctrine and morality hurtful to
8] 'OUGHT WE TO DISENDOW?' 197
the State, I think that the public relation to the
property is such that the case would be very
strong for refusing to listen to any plea that it
should still be left in the hands of the discarded
corporation, and for insisting upon its transfer,
in large part at least, to other and more valuable
purposes. I mean, of course, that on such a
hypothesis the State would be not only likely,
but right to divert the property in greater or less
degree. Those, therefore, who really hold this
to be the case are consistent, upon their premisses,
in disendowing. To a Churchman-citizen, how-
ever, this hypothesis is itself impossible. If a
majority of others adopted it, however right they
might be on their own premisses, he could merely
be in the position of submitting to a wrong.
But if ever the time should come when dis-
establishment should be accepted as the right
course, even by Churchmen, on a ground very
different from this : because, as suggested above,
the dividedness of national religion had reached
such a point as to make establishment, though
ideally as desirable as ever, yet no longer fairly
justifiable, and this is the only ground (as I
conceive) on which real Churchmen have a right
to become disestablishers, what would be the
practical meaning of the situation ? The nation,
if it acted on this hypothesis, would not desire
irreligion, but religion. Even for its own essen-
tial national.. life, it would earnestly desire the
highest possible welfare, and the most effective
198 THE NATION WOULD DESIRE [No.
practical success, as of other religious bodies
within the State, so, not least emphatically, of
the historical Church with which its own life had
been for so many centuries linked, and from
which it had at last severed itself, not for sever-
ance sake, but under necessity ; not in contempt
and hostility, but with reverence and regret.
Now in case of a separation, such as this, of
Church and State, every possible motive would
exist for the most reverent and sympathetic
treatment of the separated Church, which was
compatible with equity. The single fact, itself
felt as a pity, that it seemed right to sunder the
national organisation from the Church, would, if
anything, rather go to enhance, than to diminish,
the national desire for the Church's well-being.
It is obvious that it makes an enormous difference
in what way the question of disendowment is
raised. If the question should be raised in a
form which, assuming that disestablishment must
carry disendowment, merely asked, in disendow-
ing, first, how much, nevertheless, (if any) of the
property it might still be necessary to leave in
the hands of the Church, and then, what methods
the secular nation could most prudently devise
for the spending of the newly-gotten treasure ;
I fear that, human nature being what it is,
answers to questions so framed would have little
chance of being in accordance with any very dis-
interested principles of equity. But to me it seems
to be almost axiomatic that, if the question is
8] THE CHURCH'S WELL-BEING 199
not decided according to disinterested principles
of equity* it is bound to be decHed amiss. Self-
interest, entering on this point into the national
decision, would be as a taint of poison, incom-
patible with healthiness. For the possibility of
a rightful decision to disendow, purity of motive
is a sine qua non. I submit, then, that the
question raised should rather be, assuming that
the disestablishing nation sincerely desired the
; best success of the Church, and was bent upon
according her, in all equitable ways, the most
reverent treatment possible, how far, neverthe-
less, the truth of the highest national interest
or equity might demand and require that the
revenues so long occupied in Church work
should, in whole or in part, be diverted to some ;
purpose of more national importance for the
future.
If the revenues which the Church possesses
are regarded as being, in fact, the property of
the Church ; if the question to be decided is
therefore regarded as being, in the main, the
question of the attitude of the State as a whole,
at a moment of important political change, to-
wards the property tenure of an exceptionally
large, and reverend, and ancient corporation,
which has long held property within it : there
would be in, the first instance, as I conceive, an
equitable presumption that at least under the
circumstances just supposed the property of the
corporation would not be interfered with.
200 IS HER PROPERTY TOO LARGE? [No.
There are two considerations, however, which
occur to me, either of which might rebut this
favourable presumption. These would be, first,
that the amount of property was so great, even
in relation to the total national wealth, that its
retention in the hands of a single corporation
would be in itself a cause of political or economical
risk to the welfare of the community as a whole.
I profess no knowledge of statistics. If this, or
anything like this, could be made out, I for one
should be ready to admit that the State was called
upon to interfere. But meanwhile it is difficult
to believe that there can be even a serious con-
tention of this. Again, the presumption might
be rebutted, if the amount of the property, with-
out being perilously large in proportion to the
wealth of the nation as a whole, were neverthe-
less so large as to constitute a foolish and mis-
chievous excess, in proportion to the value of the
work sustained by means of it. It is, I think,
both striking and pertinent to observe that any
such assertion as this would be nothing less than
a manifest absurdity. Large as the income of
the Church, regarded by itself, may seem to be,
it is a fact only too glaringly patent, that it is,
even miserably, insufficient for the mightiness of
the work which has to be done, and which in fact
is being done, by means of it. Nor would it be
easy to find a stronger form of testimony to the
value of the Church, as viewed even from with-
out, than this, that its work is so vast as to make
8] THE CLAIM OF THE STATE 201
its actual endowments, in spite of any superficial
appearance of largeness, thus miserably, nay,
appallingly, inadequate : so inadequate that the
underpayment, not to say the actual poverty of
the clergy, though for many causes largely dis-
guised, has nevertheless itself, in the last few
years, been approaching to something almost like
a national problem.
In the face of these facts it would certainly
seem to me that, in the event of a disestablish-
ment conceived and carried out upon the hypo-
thesis sketched above, the balance of equity
would certainly lie not towards, but against a
national removal from the "disestablished" cor-
poration of whatever property could be fairly
regarded as having really belonged to the cor-
poration before.
But it is necessary to remember that there is
another hypothesis, the hypothesis that the
property was not, or was not altogether, the
property of the Church before, the hypothesis,
if not of an ultimate national possession, at
all events of a divided ownership with the
State.
Now I have been anxious to concede to the
uttermost (at the least for argument's sake) every-
thing that had, or might have, truth behind it.
For this reason I have felt constrained to admit
that there is something of real truth in the mind
of those who plead that endowments conferred
at different times and in different ways upon the
202 TO A PART OWNERSHIP [No.
Church, while its identity with the State was, in
the minds of all, a matter of course, can hardly
be claimed as private corporate property in quite
the same sense as if they had been conferred
upon the Church as a separate, private, and
exclusively spiritual body. But if I concede that
there is exaggeration in such a claim on the
Church side, I must certainly insist that there
would be (to put it at the lowest) a similar
exaggeration if it were claimed upon the side of
the State, that the property had never been
either meant to be conferred, or conferred, in
fact, upon the Church, as Church, at all ; but
that it had always been, and that it is wholly
now, the property only of the nation, as such, a
property in which the Church, in the event of
disestablishment, would have no proper right or
interest at all. I fancy that historians could
make, if not a flawless, yet a fairly strong case
for thinking that the political character of the
Church, without having so much as is sometimes
assumed to do with its original aggrandisement,
became afterwards almost, if not quite, as effec-
tive in limiting, or alienating, as in conserving
its property. I fancy that no one except a
theorist, arguing a priori out of modern ideas,
could seriously contend that the Church alone
among ecclesiastical bodies, in spite of the age-
long devotion of the thousands who have striven
to dedicate of their lands or their wealth to her
service, is now and always was without property
8] DOES NOT HOLD 203
of her own at all. Any such extremer form of
theory, therefore, which would claim all Church
endowment as property simply national, I must
put altogether aside.
Still there remains the theory that, however
impossible it may be to ascertain the proportions,
there is at all events some case for a claim on
either side : that there is really, therefore, a
divided ownership, and that in the event of
disestablishment, as in the case of a dissolution
of partnership, the true equity would be, by some
compromise, albeit in this case necessarily a
rough one, to recognise the justice of the case of
either claimant.
I am not prepared for my own part to contend
that such a view is without foundation; or to
speak in any strong language of those who would
endeavour to frame a serious policy upon such a
basis as this. Nevertheless, in a question of
infinite complexity, in which the one thing wholly
plain is the exceeding difficulty of exact truth, I
must say that I am not convinced that this is, after
all, what the justice of the matter really requires.
And certainly in some respects this language
requires careful scrutiny. Thus an analogy with
dissolution of partnership is at the most an im-
perfect analogy. The union, indeed, of a capital-
ist partner, who does no work, and a working
partner who brings no capital, is a familiar case.
If it could be contended that, in the union of
Church and State, the State had found the money
204 ILLUSTRATIONS [No.
and the Church the work, the dissolution of
partnership might perhaps be carried out upon
intelligible principles of finance. But it will hardly
be urged, as matter of history, that Church en-
dowment means endowment simply conferred by
the State upon the Church. It would be, if less
simple, at least as plausible an interpretation of
their pecuniary relation to maintain that the
property was given to the Church by those who
gave it (amongst whom some more or less re-
presented the State) very largely upon the
strength of the State's guarantee. But this is
hardly a case of partnership. It is not that A
does the work, while B finds the capital. Rather
it is that A, without capital, sets himself to work,
with a subscription, perhaps, and the strongest
of recommendations from B ; and other owners,
one by one, gradually subscribe to enlarge and
maintain A's work, moved thereto partly by direct
affection for A, partly in deference to B (who
gives A his name and guarantee), and to A
because backed by B no one, it may be, dis-
tinguishing, or even knowing, how far he really
loved A for his own sake, or for B's because B
loved him. And in this case, if subsequently B
withdrew his support and insisted that A should
stand altogether alone, it would be very hard to
make any equitable statement of a claim on B's
part to the capital subscribed for A's work even
though he himself might, to some unknown
extent, have attracted the subscriptions, and
8] OF THE RELATIONSHIP 205
might have been from time to time amongst
the subscribers.
Or suppose the case of an independent mediaeval
barony, or a modern African chieftainship. The
baron or chief introduces the Church its
priests, its bishop encourages, establishes,
supports them. He himself finds them a habita-
tion, builds them a church, and gives them gifts,
and encourages all his followers to do the same.
Gradually, by innumerable offerings, there is
built up an important, though, it may be, not
superfluous endowment for the ever increas-
ing work of the Church there localised. The
gifts, themselves in time and place countless, are
given, many of them, out of genuine gratitude for
spiritual benefit, to the Church and her work ;
some, on the other hand, from clan-feeling, and
mere loyalty to the lead of the chief. After some
generations, the descendants of the chief or
baron, for one cause or another, wholly withdraw
all patronage, friendship, or help. What then ?
It will perhaps be assumed that at least in any
imperfectly settled society, such as the words
chief or baron may suggest, the withdrawal of
favour will naturally be followed by despoiling.
Possibly : but for us the question rather is how
far, in the highest development of moral civilisa-
tion, with all its evolved conceptions of reverence
for every detail of personal right, with all its
evolved conscience of Christian equity, it is right,
and necessary for perfect justice, that the great
206 DISENDOWMENT REQUIRES [No.
act of withdrawal of chief- and clan-friendship
that friendship which before it was withdrawn
was itself one great factor in the Church's en-
riching should constitute for either chief or clan
a claim to part possession in what had at least
been supposed to be the property of the Church.
I cannot help fancying that, at least in the cases
supposed (even if the withdrawal of countenance
were, more or less, unfriendly much more if it
claimed to be an act of conscientious and re-
spectful necessity), the pressure of any such claim
would be felt, by the conscience of civilised equity,
to be a retrograde and shortsighted step. And I
cannot help asking whether the cases, as sup-
posed, do not supply an analogy at least as
pertinent to our present question as any phrases
about joint property or dissolution of partnership :
whether, therefore, any claims in the direction of
disendowment, based on such phrases, are really
justifiable, after all, in the light of the highest
equity.
The question is fraught with difficulties in
detail. For perfect acquaintance with its con-
ditions a vast mass of antiquarian knowledge
would be requisite. It is possible that accumula-
tion of knowledge might alter the balance of
evidence as at present apparent. In such case,
I think I may fairly profess myself open to con-
viction. But meanwhile I must say that I am
not convinced.
Before I put my hand to a work so morally
8] PURITY OF MOTIVES 207
perilous as "disendowing," I am quite sure that
I ought to be clearly convinced of its necessity.
This follows to me not only upon the true con-
servative principle that prescription and authority
have a right to prevail until the case for change
is certainly made out ; but because in this par-
ticular proposal there are risks of national
catastrophe which nothing, I believe, could
justify the nation in running, upon less than the
clearest conviction that conscience of equity
absolutely demanded them. The risk to the
nation that disendows is enormously great. It
is to be remembered that what is not immoral
in re may in modo very quickly become immoral,
and what is not sacrilegious in itself may easily
turn into sacrilege in the doing.
The real quality of such an act on the part of
the nation would depend ultimately, I suppose,
upon the purpose and meaning with which it was
done. What is the reality of the motive towards
it, of the meaning in it, with which we should
enter upon it, if we entered upon it now? No
doubt, in great and difficult political movements,
mixed and doubtful motives often, as it were
automatically, unconsciously, I had almost said
by a sort of professional necessity, clothe them-
selves as conscience. Is the inner heart of
this measure, both in those who propose it
and in those whom they conciliate by proposing
it, a genuine obedience to the prompting of con-
science and duty?
208 THE DANGER OF [No.
But even if the original motive be, in the main,
pure, there is very much in the detail of what
would follow which might, only too imper-
ceptibly, turn to demoralising. It seems to me
abundantly clear that there is in no sense any
other great object of at all primary importance,
upon which there is anything like a call of
national necessity or conscience in this genera-
tion to be spending the endowments which have
hitherto been regarded as the property of the
Church. I do not, of course, say that objects,
of more or less interest, may not presently be
found. But if the Church should be disendowed,
the question will spring at once into existence,
as a new question not without its own special
embarrassments, how best the nation can spend
the fortune of which it has suddenly possessed
itself. This question itself makes appeal to, and
lets loose, a host of ignoble desires. It is in-
evitably fruitful in suggestiveness of evil. States-
men may try to minimise this evil by answering
the question as rapidly as possible, and making
believe that they have answered it before it has
arisen. But the conspicuous absence of any-
thing like an alternative use, which can even
seem to compare, for one moment, with the
dignity or sacredness of that use from which the
endowments would be transferred, makes the
question, with all its suggestiveness, to be already
present, as an inherent element, in any serious
proposal to disendow.
8] NATIONAL DEMORALISATION 209
Moreover it is not only at first that the ques-
tion will present itself. More and more, the
working out of the details of any possible answer
or set of answers will tend to nourish and stimu-
late, progressively, the very feelings and motives,
the existence of which must frightfully imperil
the moral character of the entire proposal. The
moment the instinct of greed, the temper or
spirit of despoiling, was fairly awakened, and
men yielded to the natural pleasantness of divert-
ing a store of money to uses which immediately
touched themselves, I believe that the individual,
or country, or nation, which so accepted and
rejoiced in this comfortable sense of self-enrich-
ing, would be directly, through its handling
of the money, on a lower level morally. And
if to this pleasantness there should be added also,
albeit in the second instance (but increasingly
when it once has begun), some element of
jubilant, perhaps mocking, exultation over the
impoverishment of the Church, and the difficulties
and humiliation of Churchmen because they were
Churchmen : who will venture to say that the
policy entered upon, it may be with the fairest
promises, arguments, and hopes, might not
prove to have turned, imperceptibly, uncon-
sciously, irresistibly, to the consternation of its
sponsors, and the deep and abiding degradation
of the people, into a monumental act, after all,
of national immorality, perhaps even of national
sacrilege ? These certainly are not imaginary, or
p
2io NO ADEQUATE CAUSE [No.
light, perils. They are not contingencies which
thoughtful-minded statesmen can afford to ignore.
Nor can measures of such vast and revolutionising
import as disendowment be entered upon, in light-
ness of heart, as experiments. I am far from
saying that a just or moral disendowment is
never conceivable. But if in this matter the
nation should, without adequate cause, upon
motives which either began, or ended, in greed
and levity, do rashly what really was wrong,
before God and man ; I cannot doubt that the
disaster to the national life, incurred thereby,
would be at once profound and irreparable.
I must, then, conclude by saying that, even
upon the hypothesis of disestablishment what-
ever I may hold that the Church should passively
accept in the way of "being disendowed," which
is emphatically not the question, I am by no
means yet convinced that it is nationally right
to disendow. I am open, indeed, to be convinced.
I am far from thinking that I have the whole
data before me. Complete judicial knowledge
of all that is involved would require innumerable
details of intricate, and often most obscure,
history, national alike and local, which are very
imperfectly known to most of us. By all means
let every possible form of responsible and serious
inquiry go on, searching out facts and accumu-
lating light upon this great question, whereof
nothing is quite so manifest as its immense com-
plexity. But till that large body of Churchmen
8] HAS BEEN SHOWN AS YET 211
(upon whom, more than upon any others, the
determination of this great question does, I am
convinced, ultimately depend) have surer reason
than appears at present to be convinced that
truth and equity demand disendowment, I must
hold that it is their duty to refuse to disendow.
THE QUESTION OF WALES
After venturing to say so much in reference to
the subjects of disestablishment and disendow-
ment in general, it would seem undesirable to
conclude without a few words upon the special
question of Wales. It is assumed, in reference
to Wales, that disestablishment is to carry dis-
endowment. Indeed, there are strong reasons
for supposing that those who support the change
do so much more directly with reference to dis-
endowment than to disestablishment. I have no
doubt that this is beginning at the wrong end,
and that it exposes the entire movement, with
some justice, to suspicion. Solid reasons for
disestablishment are quite conceivable, and real
grounds for disendowing as a result of disestab-
lishment. But in no case whatever can the desire
to disendow become itself a legitimate ground
for disestablishing. I shall not, however, dwell
upon that now ; and after merely pointing out
that that which actually is proposed in Wales
appears to be, in fact, a disendowment, by the
method, and under the name, of disestablish-
212 THE ARGUMENT FOR [No.
ment, I shall be content to go on, for the present
purpose, simply calling the proposal, as it calls
itself, a proposal for disestablishment.
What I do desire is to make one or two re-
marks upon the form of argument by which the
measure is urged upon us as an act of necessary
justice and right. Practically that argument
appears to be addressed to our thought in syl-
logistic form, thus : In any nationality in which
there is a clear national decision for disestablish-
ing, establishment ought to be abolished : Wales
is a nationality in which there is a clear national
decision for disestablishing : therefore in Wales
establishment ought to be abolished.
After what has been already said, I do not
desire to argue the major premiss : though I am
not sure whether it is sufficiently, as yet, beyond
the reach of argument to be generally accepted
as the major premiss of an important consti-
tutional argument. As to the minor, it will be
observed that it contains two assertions, both
of which are assumed, for the purpose of the
argument, to be truths beyond challenge. These
are, first, "Wales is a nationality," and secondly,
" In Wales there is a clear national majority for
disestablishing." Now it is necessary to insist
that both these statements are assumptions.
There is something to be said for each of them.
But there is also a good deal to be said against
both. They need both of them to be made good
by argument. Even supposing that careful argu-
8] DISESTABLISHMENT IN WALES 213
ment could make them both good, assuredly
neither of them may be assumed at the beginning
of argument.
As to the first proposition, "Wales is a nation-
ality," it seems to me that those who try to watch
the whole controversy with dispassionate minds
have some reason to complain of the little effort
that is made, on either side, to examine seriously
into the truth or falsehood of this statement, upon
which the whole edifice of argument absolutely
depends. It is apt to be assumed, on the one
side, that because Wales is a distinct nationality,
therefore such and such things follow indisput-
ably. It is apt to be assumed, on the other,
that because Wales is not distinct, but an integral
part of a larger nationality, therefore certain
precisely contradictory conclusions must hold.
But though the cogency of either argument
depends wholly upon the original aye or no in
the fundamental assertion, strangely little effort
has been spent upon a serious examination of the
truth, or even the meaning of the assertion itself.
Is Wales a nationality ? What is meant by being
a nationality ? If it is true, what, and how wide,
and how varied, are the consequences which
follow from the truth ? I must own that it seems
to me quite an absurdity to suppose that, if the
proposition is true, it can be true for the purpose
of disestablishing the Church in that district, and
for no other purpose whatever. What national
prerogatives has Wales, or ought it to have, if it
2i 4 IS WALES A NATION? [No.
is a nationality? It would be arguing in a circle
indeed to claim that it has a right to disestab-
lishment because it is a nationality ; and then
only to be able to define a nationality as that
which has a right to claim disestablishment. If
the plea is good at all, it must clearly be good
for a great deal more than this. I do not desire
to be understood as simply denying the claim.
Obviously there is a great deal more of real
meaning in claiming nationality for Wales than
there could be in a similar claim for Devonshire
or for Yorkshire. But whatever dim image of
truth may lie beneath the words, truth of a sing-
ularly indefinable kind, but still not without its
own magic of historical and poetical sentiment,
it is obvious that the assertion of distinct exist-
ence, as a fact of modern politics intended for
prosaic and practical use, is beset with enormous
difficulties. All that I am concerned at present
to do is to insist that when there is obviously
a good deal to be said on both sides, neither
party to the argument has a right simply to
assume its own view, as if it were self-evident.
The exact meaning, and the exact truth, of the
proposition that Wales is a nationality ought
to be fairly faced, argued out, and determined,
before either the proposition itself, or its con-
tradictory, is tacitly introduced into a syllogism
which is meant to convince.
Is there not, then, some reason to complain
that on neither side is the importance of this
8] IS THERE, IN WALES, 215
necessary task appreciated at its proper value?
Of course each side is ready to proclaim, and
in some measure to argue for, its own view : but
has either seriously grappled with, or tried to
do justice to, the amount of truth which under-
lies the opposite case ?
Perhaps it may seem at first sight as if the
other assertion, " In Wales there is a clear
national majority for disestablishing," were at all
events safer as an assertion of fact. It will, no
doubt, be urged that an enormous majority of the
Welsh members of Parliament are in fact, and
were elected because they are, on the side of
disestablishment ; and, at the same time, that
the counting of elected members is the one con-
stitutional and legitimate method of testing the
real force of public opinion anywhere. The fact
about the Welsh members is, of course, undeni-
able ; but the accompanying doctrine, though
it is in some sense true, is not true to the extent,
or in the sense, which the argument requires.
Given a real, undisputed nationality entire,
independent, sovereign, legislating for itself with
the freedom at once and the responsibility of an
imperial people and I shall grant that it is as
unwise as it is unconstitutional to attempt to go
behind the verdict of the elections to Parliament.
But I cannot admit that it follows that it is in
any respect either unconstitutional or unwise for
the imperial nation, as a whole, in dealing with
any specific portion of the country, to refuse, if
216 A NATIONAL MAJORITY [No.
need be, either to frame local legislation in
accordance with the most indisputable local
desire, or even to assume in all cases that the
local parliamentary majority is the only, or of
necessity the most trustworthy, evidence of the
nature or extent of local desire. It would be a
distinct abdication of imperial duty, if Parlia-
ment were to accept the principle that because
a parliamentary majority of the entire nation
cannot but be the ultimate arbiter of national
questions, therefore a parliamentary majority in
any portion of the nation ought of right to be
the final arbiter or the only evidence in all
questions locally raised. The mere fact that
Welsh disestablishment is proposed in the
Imperial Parliament, while it necessarily leaves
the responsibility of the decision upon imperial,
and not locally upon Welsh, members, at the
same time destroys the adequacy of the appeal
to the local parliamentary majority, as if it were
the only, or the final, evidence as to facts and
feelings in Wales. It is part of the wisdom and
duty of the Imperial Parliament to open its eyes
to every form of relevant evidence, not to close
them to all but one.
Even in the case of the sovereign nationality
the method of counting the elected members is
a rough method : it works unevenly ; a small
majority in the country may produce a large
majority in Parliament ; it is by no means im-
possible that a working majority in Parliament
8] IN FAVOUR OF DISESTABLISHING? 217
may even be produced by an actual minority of
the total aggregate of voters. The parliamentary
verdict is, nevertheless, final, not at all because
it is perfect, but rather because its finality is a
kind of compromise, which in the case of an
imperial and responsible people it is more ulti-
mately dangerous to challenge than to accept.
Moreover, there are, in this case, at least two
palliating considerations : the one, that the very
fact that the nationality constitutes a whole,
manifold and complete, gives fair ground of hope
that mistake or disproportion in one part will be
counterbalanced by very different tendencies in
another ; and the other, that a sovereign Parlia-
ment, having of necessity to bear the full burden
of its own blunders by virtue of the very fact that
it is sovereign, is apt to acquire a deeper sense
of responsibility than a local and subordinate
council.
Until, then, it has first been settled that Wales
is a nation, I cannot admit the legitimacy of
either of these two propositions ; either, that is,
that the counting of its parliamentary members
is the only constitutional, or necessarily the best,
method of gauging the force of local conviction,
or that the local majority, even if it be conceded
in fact to the fullest extent, can therefore be
called a national majority. But the change of
adjectives would be fatal to the minor premiss of
the syllogism. Just try how it runs : In every
nation in which there is a clear majority for
2i8 THE QUESTION OF [No.
disestablishing, disestablishment ought to follow :
Wales is a section of a nation in which there is
a clear local majority for disestablishing : ergo
. . . but it is plain that no conclusion will issue
at all. Who would dream of allowing that even
if the entire population of Kent or Oxfordshire
were keen for disestablishing, either Kent or
Oxfordshire would therefore be entitled to a local
disestablishment ?
Thus, then, in the minor premiss of our syllog-
ism, until the first of the two propositions implied
has been made good, the second has not yet any
relevant meaning. Moreover, it may be pointed
out, that until that first proposition may be
assumed, the major premiss also is somewhat at
fault. For we have been compelled to state it in
the awkward form : "In every nation in which
there is a clear majority for disestablishing, dis-
establishment ought to follow " ; a form which at
once provokes the question ought to follow by
whose act ? or at whose hands ? No doubt the
proposition should have run more simply, " Every
nation which has a clear majority for disestab-
lishment is justified in disestablishing." But it
would have been too obvious from the first that
such a proposition could have no relevancy ex-
cept to a nation exercising national powers.
It is no part of my present purpose to carry
the argument further. I have tried to show that
there is a prior question, of no slight magnitude,
which must be really resolved, before it is pos-
8] WELSH NATIONALITY 219
sible to rule by sweeping principles the intricate
and difficult question of Welsh disestablishment.
It would be far more in order to determine the
principles first, and then to consider the question
how far they were locally applicable to Wales,
than to bring forward first a local measure of
practical revolution in Wales, without fairly dis-
cussing either on what terms disestablishment is
nationally right, or what is the equitable relation
between disestablishment and disendowment, or
whether Wales is a nation ; but with the certainty
nevertheless that the decision in Wales, though
crudely made upon most entangled issues, will,
as a precedent, become, in fact, the tacit affirma-
tion of principles by which the whole country will
find itself practically bound. I think, moreover,
that I have at least vindicated the relevancy of
the plea, which I do not go into, though I con-
ceive that it has a weight which neither has been,
nor can altogether be, at present disposed of,
that any appeal to the fact of immense numerical
majority comes with singular lack of grace and
ineffectiveness of force from those who have suc-
cessfully resisted the simplest and most authentic
form of numerical scrutiny.
I do not enter at all into narrower particulars ;
I do not try, for instance, to measure the crooked-
nesses and enigmas, the hopeless inequalities and
elaborate wastefulness of (perhaps) any possible
financial proposal in detail ; or, again, to scru-
tinise the false motives, the jealousies, petti-
220 MUST FIRST BE SETTLED [No. 8
nesses, covetousnesses, which sorely threaten to
poison the entire proposal, argued upon whatever
disinterested principles, with the taint of corrod-
ing unrighteousness.
All that I have been really concerned to urge
in respect of the particular case of Wales, is that
it is impossible rightly to determine, and mis-
leading to raise, any part of the question, unless
and until dispassionate consideration has exam-
ined and established the principle, without which
every part of the argument falls to pieces, that
Wales is, in fact as well as in idea, in prose as
well as in poetry, a nation with the coherence,
the responsibility, and the rights of distinct
nationality.
UNDENOMINATIONALISM AS A
PRINCIPLE OF PRIMARY EDUCATION
(1902)
THE Education controversy has been a sad-
dening one. So little has there been of
mutual understanding, so much of deep-seated,
if not determined, suspicion and bitterness. Now
there is a pause for a time ; a pause of an uneasy
and anxious character.
There are, after all, important questions at
stake. There is a most serious question of
religious liberty. There is even a question of
fundamental theological truth. And the pause
in itself seems to constitute something more
than an opportunity for reviewing the principles
involved. There may seem indeed to be little or
no political value or meaning in any words said
on the subject so far away from the din of
politics, or the assumptions which men call prac-
tical. And yet it may possibly be a duty to say
them.
There is no need to dwell upon the familiar
data of the problem. The fact that education
was voluntary before it was national : that it
grew up largely from the religious motive, and
222 THE EDUCATION [No.
under the shadow of the Church : the consequent
fact that, when the State set itself to organise
education as a whole, it found the field already
occupied to a large extent, though by no means
adequately, by denominational schools : the fact
that one particular religious body, with an imme-
morial history, has lived in exceptional relation
with the State whether of dependence or of
privilege : the fact that Christian denominations
in England are sharply sundered one from an-
other (though with varying degrees of sharpness)
in their theologies, and their ordinances, and
their estimate of the value of ordinances and
theologies : the fact that, in spite of all differ-
ences, the community as a whole does not desire
at all to be either irreligious or non-Christian :
these facts, and facts like these, may safely be
rather assumed than expounded at large.
The attitude of the community as a whole
towards conditions like these has been twofold.
First it has tolerated denominational schools.
Toleration has included general regulation, an
exacting scrutiny as to efficiency, important
pecuniary assistance in relation to secular results,
and, as far as possible, a complete ignoring of
all that constituted denominational or religious
value. Side by side with this toleration, which
on one side encouraged, while on another side
it studiously ignored, "denominationalism"; the
community has very largely supplemented all
machinery that existed by establishing a large
9 ] FKOBLKM 223
and ever-increasing system of schools, in the
name of the nation, and with practically un-
limited command of public money, from which
every kind of denominationalism was on principle
excluded.
The system, then, has been a dual one. The
community has pretty clearly identified itself
with the principle of undenominationalism ; while
it has tolerated the existence of denominational
schools. Its toleration has included subvention,
upon conditions, on the whole, of an undenomi-
national kind. But its toleration, and its sub-
ventions, have not been such as to promise any
permanent continuance of the denominational
system. On the contrary, the present crisis
largely results from a general recognition that a
persistence in the methods of the last thirty
years must almost certainly lead to the gradual
disappearance of all other than governmental
schools.
The present Government bill aims, on the
whole, at preventing the disappearance of de-
nominational schools. Probably the larger part
of the opposition would prefer that they should
disappear. The strength of the opposition rests
perhaps mainly in this, that this " undenomina-
tionalism " is only the true logical completion of
the principle which, on the whole, has been taken
for granted as the basis of the national attitude
concerning education, since education became a
national affair. On the other hand, the difficulty
224 UNDENOMINATIONALISM [No.
of the Government position turns largely upon
this, that they appear to be endeavouring to
counteract an outcome of the basal principle
which has been for many years taken nationally
for granted, without challenging the justice of
the principle itself. It is very difficult to justify
a large measure of relief to denominational
schools on a basis of undenominational principle.
If it is an axiomatic principle that all education
provided nationally by the community ought to
eschew denominational distinctiveness of every
kind ; then a national measure for preserving
denominational education from being superseded
by undenominational is an inconsistency which is
open at every turn to the most damaging attacks.
To a very large part of the community, strangely
enough, the principle just stated does appear to
be axiomatic and, indeed, self-evident. No won-
der that opponents of the bill are often jubilantly
confident : ,n their consistency, and that its sup-
porters, even though they feel themselves at
bottom to be right, are conscious of a most
uncomfortable uncertainty of logic.
But is the principle true ? Is it compatible
with any real justice or any real liberalism ? So
long as national "undenominationalism" appears
only as a supplement to a serious machinery of
denominational education, the inherent vicious-
ness of its assumptions is less apparent. But
when there is danger of its occupying the whole
ground, it begins to be easier to discern its real
9] AS THE PRINCIPLE 225
character. What does undenominationalism, as
a principle, imply ?
The question, it is to be observed, is about
undenominationalism as a principle. Undenomi-
nationalism as an accident is quite a different
matter. By agreement among individuals for
temporary purposes, it would be perfectly pos-
sible for Romanists and Anglicans in one direc-
tion, or for Congregationalists or Plymouth
Brethren and Anglicans in another, to arrange
to share common lessons in some particular
religious subjects. But the essence of this possi-
bility depends altogether upon the voluntary and
limited character of the alliance. It might be
possible, even to a considerable extent, to fall
back upon " undenominational " methods, avow-
edly as a pis aller } under difficult and undesir-
able conditions, in the teaching of schools. But
undenominationalism as a positive principle, im-
posed without consent and without limitation ;
undenominationalism as a sort of higher unity,
carrying with it the forcible prohibition of all
distinctive teaching, in the teeth of the judgment
and conscience of those to whom distinctive teach-
ing is of essential value it is this which is in
question. What does undenominationalism, as a
positive and coercive principle, imply? It implies
that there is a real essence of Christianity which
is capable of being detached alike from all specific
forms of dogmatic conviction, and from all par-
ticular organisations of government or ministry,
Q
226 IS UNPHILOSOPHICAL [No.
and from all corporate obligations of a sacred
society including, amongst other things, the
whole range of sacramental experience. It im-
plies that creeds, ministries, sacraments, corporate
responsibilities, and all other such things, whether
in themselves more or less desirable, are at most
subordinate to, as they are in any case quite
separable from, a certain central knowledge and
essence of Christianity. The central core, it is
conceived, both can be, and is to be, maintained,
while the subsidiary expressions, or methods, or
outworks, are not only insisted on, but are care-
fully, and on principle, suppressed.
This distinction between the reality itself, on the
one side, and, on the other, all the expressions
and methods, and even interpretations, of the
reality, is profoundly unphilosophical. The fact
that men greatly differ as to interpretations, ex-
pressions, and methods, does not in the least
degree make it more possible to secure the
central reality by dispensing with them all. If
impartiality is the object of the community, it is
in some other direction than this that impartiality
is to be found.
Besides being unphilosophical, which means
really, in the last resort, inherently unpractical,
the effort of undenominationalism is also intensely
narrow-minded and unjust. No doubt it is, at
the first blush, rather tempting to treat all de-
nominational differences as subordinate. It is
the outsider's rough and ready method of attempt-
9 ] AND UNJUST 227
ing to be rid of all questions which he sees to be
difficult, and does not care to understand. But
to treat them as subordinate, and to try to dis-
pense with them, is in fact already to pronounce a
judgment about them. It is to pronounce them to
be at best unimportant, and inherently beset with
doubt. Men think of undenominationalism as
purely negative, as though it taught nothing at
all about the things which it omits. On the
contrary, it teaches that they are to be omitted ;
and this, in respect of such things as creeds,
ministries, and sacraments, necessarily amounts
to teaching that they are, at the most, im-
material ; and this is hardly distinguishable, if
distinguishable at all, in experience, from teach-
ing that any earnest teaching about them is
positively mischievous because positively false.
It cannot be too often or too strongly insisted
that there is no such thing as purely negative
teaching. Every negation contains an affirma-
tion, and every omission implies a positive
precept. You cannot, by any possibility, forbid
the teaching of what is distinctive which will
include all creeds, catechisms, ministries, sacra-
ments, Church duties and privileges, and every-
thing that belongs to Christian theology or
experience without thereby necessarily teaching,
through the very prohibition, that insistence on
these things may be amiable but must be untrue.
You are not only teaching this, but teaching it
with a force the more irresistible because it is
228 IT CREATES A NEW [No.
silent, and (as it were) automatic. You are teach-
ing* a fundamental habit of mind which the pupils
whom you mould will never wholly forget. It is
only, indeed, by a serious revolt against the whole
principle of their own education that they will
ever escape from its practical influence. Nor is
the position that all denominations are really, in
respect of their differences, more or less wrong, a
position which makes in fact (as might superficially
be supposed) in the direction of a general peace.
It makes only towards general contempt for
theological definiteness, a general lack of con-
viction, and superficiality both of character and
of mind.
The fact is, that undenominationalism, so far
from being really unsectarian in character, is itself
an instance of the sectarian spirit in its most ex-
clusive and aggressive form. It is really itself of
the nature of an attempt at a new denomination,
more latitudinarian and rationalistic in basis, more
illiberal and persecuting in method, than any that
before exists. It sins so flagrantly against the
first principles of liberalism as actually to attempt
the suppression by force of the liberty of every
denomination other than itself. And the people
are, for the moment, so infatuated with a music
of soft phrases, as to applaud the attempt, and
believe it to be a triumph of large-hearted
liberality.
What has been said by no means exhausts the
injustice of undenominationalism. It professes
9] AND ILLIBERAL DENOMINATION 229
to be at least a measure of equality to all. It
is found to be, in working fact, the most galling
of inequalities. It only suits precisely the out-
sider, who, with a sort of vague instinct of reli-
giousness, has no particular principles or con-
victions. It is, indeed, exactly what he holds
to be true. It is an attempt to force his in-
definiteness and indifference, by legal compulsion,
upon the whole community. It invests him with
an importance that is ludicrously undeserved. It
does direct injustice, whether more or less, to
everyone who has serious convictions upon theo-
logical subjects at all.
Meanwhile the injustice which is done to these
is very far indeed from being a general equal, or
(in that sense) approximately "just " injustice.
To a very large number of Nonconformists, and
(unfortunately) to a very appreciable number of
Church people, it is a comparatively slight in-
justice ; so slight that they feel that little or no
real sacrifice is involved in the acceptance of
it. Indeed, there are those who even accept
it with eagerness as a price which they will
readily pay for certain immediate advantages :
sometimes even, it is to be feared, for the mere
satisfaction of seeing it enforced upon those more
thoughtful Church people to whom it is an incal-
culable wrong.
Why is it an incalculable wrong to anyone ?
Here is a second point (besides the essentially
positive character of every negation), which the
2 3 o THE TRUE DIFFERENTIA [No.
opponents of the bill either generally overlook,
or, at all events, make singularly little effort
to understand. It is well worth thinking out
a little.
There are widely different conceptions as to
where the true differentia of Christianity lies.
There are those to whom Christianity means
primarily an exalted moral standard. The De-
calogue, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the
moral ideal of character exhibited on the Cross
these, as ethical ideals, represent the whole core
of the matter. It is a great appeal to men to
conform themselves to a certain type of character.
The moral ideal is the great thing, and the
greatness of the ideal constitutes in itself an
effective appeal. Now, of course, this is one
absolutely true aspect of Christianity, an aspect
inseparable from its central reality. And, since
it is so, there is no difficulty whatever in finding
the weightiest scriptural testimony to this most
necessary and important aspect of the truth. It
constitutes perhaps, nowadays, the most super-
ficially popular view of the matter ; while it
certainly can claim weighty names among pro-
fessed theologians. But is it the heart of the
Gospel ? Does the Gospel mean an appeal to
motives, a standard of conduct, a rule of life
however lofty, or beautiful, or true, or divine,
the appeal as appeal, the standard as standard
may be ? This is a view of Christianity to which,
indeed, churches and ministries and sacraments,
9] OF CHRISTIANITY 231
creeds and catechisms and theologies, from the
least of them to the greatest of them, may well
be made to appear subsidiary and almost irrele-
vant. But is it, in any sense, distinctively Chris-
tian ? Of course it is true that the ethical stan-
dard of Christianity is at once saner and loftier
as ethical standard, than that of any other religion
in the world. But it is probably also true that it
is in respect of excellence of ethical standard that
some non-Christian religions approach most
nearly towards a real comparison with Chris-
tianity. There are phases alike of Greek philo-
sophy and of Oriental asceticism, which, so
far as insight and aspiration go, are very nearly
as Christian as Christianity itself. What they
lack is not so much moral insight, or the appeal
which a moral ideal can make, as any effective
means of entering into relation with the ideal.
What they lack is power. They see, but they
cannot do. They desire, but in the attempt to
attain they break to pieces. They are impotent
yearning more than they are living experience.
Again, there are those to whom Christianity
means primarily a clear knowledge and a loyal
acceptance of Bible history as history and as
truth ; an acceptance of the Old Testament as
preliminary, but more vitally still, an acceptance
of the events of the earthly life and death of
Jesus of Nazareth. To know these thoroughly,
and accept these loyally, as accomplished and
significant facts, this is the Christian's great
232 LIES IN POSSESSION OF [No.
reality. Now here is a view of Christianity
which puts the main stress upon knowledge of
certain events. So far it may seem to be a
matter of simple teaching. But the knowledge
must be believing knowledge ; and belief re-
quires something more than study of a text.
This conception, then, does not so easily dis-
pense with creeds. For if the facts are more
than an appeal to ordinary human motives of
conduct, their significance must be expounded
theologically. Theology becomes indispensable :
and if theology, then orthodoxy also. There
must be right understanding ; and there must be
right belief.
Once more, it may be admitted that this is an
absolutely true aspect of Christianity, and that as
such, it may be abundantly vindicated alike in
Scripture and in Christian experience. More-
over, to speak of these things as aspects is more
than to allow them a place as parts of Chris-
tianity. It means that it is quite reasonably
possible, for certain purposes, and in certain
relations, so to view the whole range of Chris-
tianity in the light of either of them that either
may seem, for the moment, to be a form or
rendering of the whole, and either may in certain
contexts be so described. But still, is the heart
of what the Christian Gospel means quite ade-
quately expressed either as ideal moral standard,
or as belief in the events of the Gospel story,
or even as both combined ?
9 ] THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT, 233
There is a third view of the matter ; a view
which, while insisting 1 indeed upon the moral
appeal which Christianity makes ; and insisting
upon the vital necessity of faith in the Gospel
facts ; yet holds that both of these are aspects
and outcomes of something else which is even
more the differentia of Christianity than either of
them. This something is living power, a power
infused by supernatural gift, a power which
qualifies, and informs, and transforms, the
natural personality. This power is the Spirit of
the Christ, which is the Spirit of God, indwelling
in man, and constituting him what, in the Spirit,
he is capable of becoming. Belief in this Power
is belief in God the Holy Ghost.
The sphere of this Power is corporate and
social. The true meaning of the Church of
Christ is the Spirit of Christ. The Body is
before the individual, and the individual is
through as well as within the Body. The
normal methods of this Power are sacramental.
No doubt the Church can become political and
corrupt. Historically it has done so, on a large
scale. But this does not touch the true meaning
of the Church, which remains the Brotherhood
of the Spirit. No doubt God can work outside
either Church or Sacraments ; and the Sacra-
ments, like the Church, can be abused by the
grossest superstitions and degraded by mechani-
cal use. But abusus non tollit usum. The
Church remains after all the Brotherhood of the
234 WHOSE SPHERE IS THE CHURCH : [No.
Spirit ; and the Sacraments remain the outward
channels, by Divine appointment, of Spiritual
Life.
Now, according to this third view, it is the
supernatural life, the life of power, the life which
is the meaning of the Church, the life of
which Sacraments (spiritually conceived and
received) are the normal channels, the life which
is the Spirit, and therefore is Christ ; it is this,
and this alone, which constitutes the possibility
of true faith in the Gospel story, and which con-
stitutes the possibility of any real relation, in
personal experience, with the moral ideal of
Christianity. It is into this that a child is bap-
tized at the first. In the fulness of this he is
sealed in confirmation. The devout communi-
cant life is this. This is the faith, which is also
the experience, in which, and to which, he is
nurtured in the Church. It is this which is
administered, in and by the Body, through the
divinely authorised ministers of the Body. It is
this which is guarded, explained, familiarised, in
creeds, catechisms, theologies. And this is the
only access into anything else. Cut off this,
this living faith, this living experience of the
Holy Ghost in the Church, and the Gospel
story becomes, at most, only a very touching and
beautiful, but quite unattainable, episode in
history ; and the moral and spiritual standard of
Christianity becomes, as such, an overwhelming
despair.
91 THIS FAITH OF THE CHURCH 235
Of course, it is here implied that this third view
represents, and has always been, the unexagger-
ated and unhesitating faith of the Church of
Christ. But it is not necessary for the present
purpose to attempt to argue that it is true. On
the other hand, it is not the least relevant as an
answer to all this, if anyone chooses to think
that it is false. It is quite enough that, whether
rightly or wrongly, it is firmly believed to be the
truth by scores of thousands of good Churchmen
and citizens. And I think it may fairly be pleaded
also for the purpose that, so far from showing
any sign of being a merely vulgar prejudice of
the more ignorant, it is held most characteristic-
ally and clearly, in this as in almost every earlier
generation, by those who, as saints and as theo-
logians, have entered most deeply into the inner
knowledge of Christian faith and experience.
Cuique in sua arte credendum. This is what,
speaking broadly, saints have meant by saintli-
ness, and theologians have understood as theo-
logy. It is supernatural Power. It is the non-self,
or that which had been outside the self, and
known to the self almost wholly in the way of
contrast, now more and more essentially charac-
terising the self.
To return to the inherent injustice of unde-
nominationalism. Undenominationalism would
in practice prohibit the whole of the teaching
which alone, to this third point of view, gives
either meaning or possibility to the other aspects
236 WOULD BE SUPPRESSED: [No.
of Christianity. The earthly events of the Gospel
story might be known : but there could be no
exposition of the work of the ascended Christ ;
no unfolding of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost ;
no appreciation of the Church as what it is ; no
experience of the Sacraments as what they ought
to be. The Decalogue and the Sermon on the
Mount might be taught, but only as a standard,
that is, as Law, not Gospel. The ideal might
be held up. But of the experience of Power, by
which alone the ideal would become possible,
there could be no real word. To those who see
no great importance in Church or creeds or
ministries or sacraments, it may seem no great
injustice to insist on treating them as immaterial
accessories. But what is the injustice to those
to whom they constitute the real intelligence
and possibility of all the rest ? It is not that
the Churchman undervalues moral character, or
wants to have Church observance added on to it
also, whether as of higher or of lower value. It
is no question at all of Sacraments as an addition
to character ; but of the Holy Ghost as the one
possibility of character. The devout communicant
does not look down on the life of simple good-
ness as inadequate ; but his communion is to
him as the core of his experience of Christ, and,
therefore, of any simplicity of goodness. What
adequate measure can there be of the injustice of
the suppression of all distinctive Church teach-
ing, in the interest of those who dissent from it,
9 ] THE REMEDY 237
to those to whom the Christian ethical standard
and even the events of the Gospel story would,
apart from the experience of the Pentecostal
Church, be a dream without hope or power ?
But if the undenominational method, adopted
as a positive principle, and enforced by com-
pulsion of law upon those who regard it with
abhorrence, is found to be so profoundly un-
philosophical in basis and so gallingly unjust in
incidence ; where is the remedy ? An education
law has become in modern times the business of
the community as a whole. The community as a
whole does not believe in the Church, and Church-
manship cannot be imposed upon the community.
Of course it cannot. The community as a whole
can only be perfectly just by being perfectly im-
partial between denominations. Such perfect
impartiality can never be attained by imposing
upon them all what is unjust to almost all of
them, but unjust in almost incredibly unequal
degrees of injustice. How, then, can it be ob-
tained ? By precisely the opposite method : the
method which gives expression to the only true
justice, the only true liberalism ; the method of
rigidly impartial denominationalism.
The community as a whole need not be, and
is not, indifferent to religion. It need not, and
does not, acquiesce in deliberately non-Christian
education. But it must deal with the fact which,
whether deplorable or not, is at all events funda-
mental for the purpose, that Christians are sharply
238 IS A RIGIDLY IMPARTIAL [No.
divided from one another. It is not, then, to be
impartial as between religious and irreligious
education. In England, at least, it does not
need to be impartial as between Christian and
non-Christian education. But so long as the
different forms of Christianity differ as they do
differ, it cannot wisely identify itself for this pur-
pose with any one denomination more than an-
other. Least of all can it, without frantic un-
wisdom, invent a new denomination of its own,
under whatever specious title, and identify itself
wholly with that. It is necessary to insist the
more clearly upon the duty of impartiality,
because, as a matter of history, the religious body
known as the Church of England has had, or
been supposed to have, as the nationally " Es-
tablished Church," some special, if not exclusive,
right to be the exponent and standard of the
national religion ; and because it was, to an in-
definitely large extent, from the religious motive,
and under the shadow of this Church, that the
fabric of national education in England grew up.
It would, therefore, have been perfectly natural
if, in the earlier stages of the education contro-
versy, some claim had been put forward, on the
Church side, for exceptional rights over public
education. But any shadow of such claim is
definitely at an end. Whatever Establishment
may still mean for other purposes, at least in
relation to national education the disestablish-
ment of the Church is an absolutely accomplished
9 ] DENOMINATIONALISM 239
fact. Not a shadow of claim is, or is to be, put
forward by Churchmen for Churchmen in this
matter, which they would not put forward as
emphatically in England for every other Christian
body and probably elsewhere, say in India, for
instance, for every non-Christian religious body
that was morally and politically tolerable.
How is the community to maintain its attitude
of religious impartiality among denominations ?
Not by superseding them all, or trying the im-
possible task of inventing a new one. But by
treating them all with respect, and with precise
equality of respect. Respect will mean, in this
matter, something more than cold toleration. It
will mean something like this.
The State, as State, will desire the education
of all its citizens. The State, as State, will recog-
nise that the education which it desires means not
only the acquisition of knowledge, but also, and
even more importantly, a real training of moral
character. The State, as State, will recognise
that the basis of moral character is religious
experience. The State, as State, will therefore,
for its own purposes, not tolerate, but most
earnestly desire, the religious training of all its
citizens. But the State will recognise that, as
State, it cannot provide religious conviction or
experience. Religion can only be taught, with
real effect, by those to whom it is a definite reality.
For religious training the State must look, in the
nature of things, to the bodies which are animated
2 4 o THE PRINCIPLE OF [No.
by religious conviction. The State is not, and
cannot make itself, a Church. The State can, of
course, if it pleases, select any form of Church,
and confer upon it exclusive privileges. Even
so, for the religious impulse, it would have to
look wholly to that Church. The State might
support, but could not be, that Church.
But in point of fact, in respect of education at
least, we have reached a point in England at
which this exclusive choice of any one denomina-
tion has become inconceivable. The State must
remain impartial amongst denominations. And
yet it must look to the denominations for the
religion which for itself it intensely needs, but
which it cannot, save through them, supply.
The State desires religious citizens. The pur-
pose of the State would therefore be served best
of all if schools avowedly denominational, and
educating on the basis of religious conviction,
could cover the whole ground. The State does
not decide whether Anglicanism is better than
Wesleyanism, or Wesleyanism better than Agnos-
ticism. But the State does realise that religious
conviction is better than indifference. It would
be served best if all the Anglicans in it were
convinced and religious Anglicans, and the
Romans religious Romans, and the Wesleyans
religious Wesleyans, and the Congregationalists
religious Congregationalists, and so on to the
end ; the Agnostics conscientious Agnostics, the
Mahommetans scrupulously true as Mahom-
9 ] DENOMINATIONALISM 241
metans, the Buddhists thoroughly sincere and
aspiring Buddhists.
This is denominationalism. It is utterly dif-
ferent in principle from an establishment, in the
first instance, of a great system at the public
expense of " undenominational Christianity " ;
and the toleration, in the second instance, on
exceedingly unequal terms, of denominational
schools. This would put denominational schools
as the thing first and most to be desired not
from the point of view only of the denominations
severally, but from the point of view of the com-
munity as a whole. On this basis a measure
to preserve denominational schools from extinc-
tion by national action would lack no logic
and require no apology. And this, in principle,
is the true way of reconciling the maintenance of
religion with a strictly impartial neutrality among
forms of religion. It is probably the only
effective mode of conservation. It is certainly
the only true liberalism. It is only this which
treats different forms of Christianity with respect ;
and with precise equality of respect. The forcible
exclusion from national education of all definite-
ness of religious creed, even if it could be con-
ceived to be otherwise desirable, is essentially
incompatible with liberal principle. And it is
astonishing to try and follow the processes by
which so-called " liberalism " has been seduced
into the ways of extreme religious intolerance.
Denominational schools, then, as such, should
242 THE TRUE PLACE OF [No.
be, to the true liberal, the most to be desired,
(including", if it be so, amongst them, the "unde-
nominational " sect) and certainly, where such
schools already existed, they would be the first
and most to be encouraged and sustained by the
State.
But it is true, no doubt, that denominational
schools, however liberally encouraged by the
State, do not and cannot cover the whole ground.
It becomes, therefore, matter of national necessity
to supplement them, in the second instance, by
schools belonging to no denomination in particu-
lar. But these schools should not, therefore,
forget the importance of the denominational
principle to national well-being. In these schools,
no less than in the former, though many denomi-
nations meet in them, it should be the denomi-
national principle which the State should most
earnestly desire to carry out in every possible
way. Wherever and however it were possible,
all facility should be given for the provision of
denominational instruction for the children of all
sorts of denominations. The whole of the direct
religious instruction should be if only it could
be denominational.
But this again would be too much to be practi-
cally hoped for. Denominationalism, that is to
say, organised religious conviction really definite
and really alive, though encouraged to do the
utmost that it could, would necessarily, it is to be
feared, leave very much undone. It is in that
9 ] UNDENOMINATIONALISM 243
case only, as the third alternative, to be fallen
back upon as a makeshift, when both the more
desirable methods have unhappily broken down,
that there is a real place for "undenominational"
teaching", that is, for the attempt to give some
general foundation of religious knowledge, with
a neutral intention, and apart from any particular
convictions or ordinances. There may be very
considerable importance in such teaching of reli-
gious knowledge, if conscientiously given, where
more serious training in religion is unhappily
impossible. Whether more satisfactory or less,
it would at least be an honest attempt to supply
deficiency, not a piece of religious oppression.
As has been said already, it is undenominational-
ism all round, undenominationalism as a positive
principle, with the positive prohibition of more
serious training in religion, which is a tyranny
wherever it is imposed by compulsion, and a
tyranny of more and more galling character, just
in proportion as the convictions which it overrides
are more and more specific and profound.
There is a further point about which it is
important to speak plainly. If denominational
schools of all kinds were present everywhere, no
doubt every such school might be absolutely con-
fined to children of its own denomination. But
in point of fact it happens every day that children
of one form of faith are, through pressure of
necessity of one kind or another, practically com-
pelled to attend a school whose principles their
244 EQUITY TOWARDS DISSENTERS: [No.
parents do not approve. And there is a great
number of parishes in which there is, and can be,
only one school, although there may be many
denominations. In such cases it is most impor-
tant, for denominational principle, that provision
should be made for the full maintenance of de-
nominational liberty. And therefore it is matter
of the most profound regret to many Churchmen
that the Bill was introduced without an express
enactment of the principle that, in any or every
primary school in the land, parents might law-
fully provide religious instruction for their own
children in accordance with their own faith. It
is important, for that equity toward Dissenters
which is essential to liberal principles, that this
liberty should be secured wherever there is one
school only, and that one school is Anglican.
It is no less important, for that equity towards
Churchmen which is essential to liberal principles,
that the same liberty should be secured, wherever
there is one school only, and that one school
is Dissenting or is "undenominational."
There would, of course, be difficulty of all sorts
in detail. You cannot suddenly equalise con-
ditions everywhere, especially when the inequali-
ties which exist are largely the outcome of a long
and serious history. But it is the principle
which matters the principle of perfect religious
fairness. Once get the principle true, and just,
and illuminating ; and much can be done, after
all, in the way of making the best of difficulties
9] THE EDUCATION ACT 245
in detail. Such a provision was an essential
feature in the scheme that commended itself to
the Committees of the Convocations in July,
1901. Its omission is a grievous wound alike
to the logic and to the fairness of the bill. Its
omission has done much to clothe a measure
of justice to the Church with the aspect of a
measure of injustice to the Dissenters.
The present bill is of the nature of a national
attempt to prevent the abolition of denomina-
tional schools. The instinct of at least a large
part of the community recognises that so far its
object is true and good. But it is, or is very
largely supposed to be, an attempt to maintain
them upon the old false hypothesis or at least
without any challenge or reversal, and therefore
in apparent subordination to the old false hypo-
thesis that denominational defmiteness is only
as a sort of private fancy, to be tolerated in
certain individual bigots or enthusiasts, but that
the whole national policy and the whole public
machinery must of course be "undenomina-
tional." The new measure is not easily com-
patible with the old hypothesis. No wonder
that upon the old hypothesis it has largely failed
to convince, and even given new heart and
cohesion to the professional opponents of the
Government.
The present bill may conceivably be the best
practical way of attempting to do what certainly
needs most urgently to be done. But as things
246 IS DEFECTIVE BECAUSE [No.
stand, it is no wonder if it does not seem a very
perfect measure to anyone. And certain it is
that it is infinitely perilous. It seems to aim at
saving denominational schools from abolition.
But a very little alteration, such as those which
were proposed on clause 7 in great numbers,
would convert it outright into a measure for the
ultimate, if not immediate, undenominationalis-
ing of denominational schools, which would be
their abolition as denominational. So altered,
the bill would be a measure of deadly hostility
to the whole system which it seems to be de-
signed to protect. Yet the alteration seems a
plausible one, because the present fashion of
thought, the average unexamined presupposition
of argument, is for the most part antidenomi-
national. For precisely the same reason, the
alteration, if made, could hardly fail, in the
present average temper, to be fatal in its work-
ing. The present popular temper has little
respect for religion which it does not under-
stand. It thinks it admirably just to control by
the voice of the majority the consciences of all.
The alterations, as urged, would everywhere
make the average majority supreme even with-
in the special work of the minorities. But
indeed, whether, under the circumstances of the
moment, they appear to be plausible or no, the
alterations as urged, are, in themselves, amazing.
It comes to this, that a measure may be passed
for keeping denominational schools, as denomi-
9] OF ITS PRINCIPLE 247
national, alive, provided they cease to be managed
denominationally. What could be the use, or
sense, of denominational schools, if the denomi-
national principle were surrendered once for all ?
It is the attempt to conserve denominational
schools on an apparent basis of undenominational
presupposition, which makes possible this most
paradoxical claim that denominationalism itself
shall be undenominational ! Truly the presup-
position of undenominationalism leads to strange
conclusions. But it is this presupposition of un-
denominationalism which is really the primary
untruth.
Is it mere waste of time to denounce, as
primary untruth, what has been, and is, so
largely taken for granted as axiomatic ? Is it
an absolutely vain crying in the wilderness ?
Perhaps so. Certainly these pages are not
written under any illusion as to probabilities.
They are written rather under pressure of con-
science than with any special hope of usefulness.
But the very fact that the general mind is
dominated so largely by this idea may serve to
illustrate the principle if any illustration be
needed that it is ideas, as such, which, whether
for good or for mischief, do dominate the world.
It is in the principle that the importance lies.
Opponents will concede a good deal, in practice,
for the moment, to denominational schools, pro-
vided that the principle of undenominationalism
be paramount. They are perfectly right in their
248 THE CONFLICT IS BETWEEN [No.
estimate of the comparative value of ideal
principle. And conversely, the most convinced
Churchmen might accept a good deal of neutral,
undenominational effort in practice, provided
only that it were done in strict subordination to
the denominational principle the principle of
real religious liberty. The real conflict is a
conflict of principles, of ideals ; and the conflict
of principle is the conflict that matters. It is
religious liberty which is at stake. It is religious
liberty which Churchmen really claim for them-
selves alike and for all.
The dominance of ideas is conspicuous in
every department of popular history. Most
peoples have had their innate ambitions or anti-
pathies. Again and again there have been
places or times in which some one broad general-
isation or other has so completely dominated the
general imagination and, as it were, possessed
the very atmosphere of thought, that any protest
on the other side sounded, to the popular ear,
like a voice of foolishness, to be laughed down
rather than to be considered seriously. So
verbal inspiration has had its day ; and unlimited
Church authority ; and unlimited individualism ;
and materialism ; and philosophic utilitarianism ;
and the root principle "every man's hand against
every man " as a scientific basis of economics or
of politics. It is ideas like these or (too often)
prejudices more degraded and ignorant than
these, but not less sweeping in momentary
9 ] IDEAL PRINCIPLES 249
power which seem to men in their day almost
self-evident ; which sweep men along with irre-
sistible power ; which it is thought almost idiocy
to disbelieve, and sheer madness to challenge.
There is nothing in the world so practical, so
irresistible in practice, as an idea once fully
accepted as principle. And now undenomina-
tionalism seems to sway the public mind, in the
manner of ideas like these. Men do not examine
it. They assume it. And by that assumption
they test and judge all rival theories.
Our contention, then, is in the region of
ideal principles. Ideals do not always show
their full import at the first. But they work
themselves out with a relentless exactness, from
which, sooner or later, there is no escaping.
False ideals carry their own fatal nemesis. The
materialistic hypothesis, or the utilitarian, or the
fatalistic, or the agnostic, work, in one way or
another, bitter havoc in the powers of the spirit-
ual life. And similarly it is to be feared, or
something more than feared, that undenomina-
tionalism, once established as sovereign principle,
plausible though it may seem, and obviously
just and delightful to the average imagination at
the moment, would mean ultimately the decay
and death of all specific religious conviction, and
therefore also, at the last, of all really religious
character.
THE INDEPENDENCE OF CHURCH
COURTS
A LETTER TO THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH
(1899)
MY DEAR DEAN,
It is said that the Convocation of Canter-
bury, of which you are a member, will next week
be invited to consider important proposals in
connection with the work of the Ecclesiastical
Courts Commission, appointed in 1881. I hope
you will allow me at such a moment to ask your
attention to the contents of a pamphlet on the
subject, which I was bold enough to write, as
Vicar of Great Budworth, in the early weeks of
1886.
You will not, I hope, think that I am inter-
fering with things that are beyond my reach. I
am not dreaming, of course, of criticising any
practical measures, of which I cannot fully know
whether they are, or are not, to be proposed ;
and can much less know the exact, or even the
general, contents and character. But for that
very reason this would seem to be a moment at
which it is exceptionally convenient to call atten-
tion to some underlying principles ; and, I must
add, to some fallacies as to underlying principles,
250
No. 10] A CURRENT FALLACY 251
which have (it is to be feared) an almost exclu-
sive possession of the minds of men in this
country, who rely (as for practical purposes I
admit that men are often almost compelled to
rely) rather upon current impressions than upon
careful thought of their own.
One such current fallacy meets me, alas ! in
pages no less representative than those of this
last week's Guardian, as a " principle which in "
its "general outline must be frankly recognised
if any good is to come of the proposed legis-
lation." It is the belief, held largely in this
country, without the least examination, because
it is honestly believed to be a self-evident axiom,
that the national establishment of a Church
necessarily means the subordination of its judi-
cal procedure, in the last resort, to the review of
the secular power. If this belief, instead of
being assumed as self-evident, were seriously ex-
amined, the formidableness of its power would
quickly dissolve. Happily the evidence is close
at hand by which it can be proved, to absolute
demonstration, that neither establishment in the
abstract, nor establishment under the British
Crown and Constitution in particular, is for a
moment incompatible with a real freedom of
either Church councils or Church courts. There
is one other Church besides our own, which has
been all this time, and is at this moment,
nationally established, on British soil and under
the British Crown. In it no appeal lies from the
252 THE EFFECT ON CHURCH COURTS [No.
Church courts to the secular power. Because
the Church is established under Royal Supremacy,
therefore the supreme court of the Church repre-
sents the Sovereign in the act of speaking the
last word for Church purposes, in precisely the
same way in which, for civil purposes, the judg-
ment of the secular court of appeal is the Sove-
reign speaking her 1 last word. There is no more
appeal from the highest ecclesiastical court to the
Sovereign, than there is from the highest secular
court to the Sovereign : nor does the absence of
appeal infringe the sovereignty of the Sovereign
in the one case any more than in the other.
There is no more appeal from the highest eccle-
siastical to the highest civil court than there is
from the highest civil court to the highest eccle-
siastical. I am speaking, of course, of the
Established Church of Scotland. If anyone
would take the moderate pains required to read
the article by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, in the
recent volume of Essays on Church Reform, he
would find it a simple impossibility ever again to
assert that the ultimate dependence of Church
courts upon secular revising was in any sense
a necessary element in, or consequence of,
establishment. On the contrary, I fearlessly
assert that it is a direct infringement of what
national establishment does, of right, either
historically or logically mean. It was not even
in England the real meaning of the theory, either
1 [written in 1899]
io] OF ESTABLISHMENT 253
of King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth, on the
one hand, or of the Churchmen who accepted
the principle of Royal Supremacy, on the other.
I speak positively as the directest method of
challenging 4 inquiry on this matter. And mean-
while I protest against the use of language, by
those who take either or any point of view in
the approaching discussions, as if there were any
reason whatever in the nature of things why
English Churchmen should lay down a principle
so inherently untrue as this.
I am not one of those who regard the main-
tenance of establishment as being, in principle
at least, of capital importance. The reasons for
shrinking from the responsibility of disestablish-
ing are indeed serious : but they are practical
and historical (to my mind) rather than of ab-
stract theory. The point is one as to which I
hold that a Churchman, at least as Churchman,
should be neutral. But in any case disestablish-
ment is always open to the nation. Because (if
it be so) the nation disapproves of the legislative
or judical development of the Church ; because
the nation considers that the Church has become,
or is becoming, other than that which it had at
first meant, or is willing now, by establishment
to recognise and endorse ; or, indeed, for any
other cause, good, bad, or indifferent it is open
to the nation to disestablish, at any moment, a
Church with which it no longer wishes its
national life and procedure to be identified. If
254 ESTABLISHMENT [No.
the nation wishes no longer to accept the organ-
isation of the Church as an aspect of itself; if it
declines to accept Church legislature, Church
judicature, Church corporate life with all the
corollaries that are necessary to the corporate
life of the Church the first step in logic and
equity would be to disestablish.
I have tried once before, and am certainly not
trying now, to discuss, on its merits, the problem
of disestablishing. But so long as establish-
ment remains, let it be clearly understood that
establishment is a condition not of servitude, but
of privilege. However far I may be from advo-
cating disestablishment, I am quite sure that the
Church's worst enemies are those who would
conserve establishment as a means of controlling
and enthralling the Church. The existing con-
dition in Scotland is the true and direct outcome,
in logic and equity, of the idea of establishment,
and of the principle (I do not say of the practice)
of the Tudor Sovereigns in England. It is by
a tacit growth, the result largely of inattention
and accident, that establishment has come to be,
in England, the expression of a principle which
precisely contradicts its proper meaning ; and yet
is now genuinely believed, by I know not what
majority of intelligent people, to be as irreversi-
ble as a law of nature, or as self-evident as an
axiom of Euclid.
I should indeed be very far from admitting
that the loss of freedom to legislate for herself,
io] AND FREEDOM 255
and conduct her own justice, within the things
which properly belong to her sphere, would
rightly or reasonably follow even from the dis-
establishment of the Church. The Church in
America, a purely voluntary association in a
democratic state, is for these purposes no less
substantially free than the Established Church
in Scotland ; though of course not armed, like
the Scottish Establishment, with the majesty of
national recognition and secular power. If the
instinct of modern thought is wholly wrong in
supposing that a Church should be the less free
because it is established; it is at least right in
assuming that a non-established Church ought
to be free. Strange to say, even this, though
true elsewhere, is far from being true, according
to existing tradition and practice, in England.
But I must not enter into detail on these points.
This letter, at least, is meant rather to draw
attention to them than to argue them. There is
something more about them in the pamphlet
which I venture to send : not based, of course,
on any expert knowledge of my own, but on that
which the Blue Book of the Commission of 1881
made public to the world.
I will only add here that, when I speak of
" ecclesiastical " legislature or judicature, I am
far from meaning, of necessity, the legislation
or the judgment of what are commonly called
"ecclesiastics." The place of Church laymen,
as Church laymen, in Church courts or councils,
256 VISITATORIAL POWER [No.
though immensely important, is yet, in principle,
a question of detail. An ecclesiastical council,
committee, or court, is one (however constituted
in detail) which is, for the purpose in hand, the
genuine outcome and dona fide representative
of the Church.
Meanwhile there is one other form of the
fallacy I have spoken of, to which attention is
not drawn directly in the pamphlet, which I will
ask leave, for that reason, to make plain here.
It is very frequently supposed that even if
Royal Supremacy does not absolutely require an
appeal from the highest ecclesiastical to a secular
court ; yet at least some reference to such a court
or committee may be justified as if it were part of
a (supposed) inherent visitatorial power in the
Crown, or as if it were parallel to the historical
principle of the appel comme d'abus in the
Gallican Church. The inherent visitatorial
authority of the Crown in respect of ecclesias-
tical judicature will be more convincing when
it is an established principle and practice in
respect of secular judicature. Whether anything
of the kind might be tolerable in principle, or in
policy, if the historic Church in England were
disestablished, is open to argument. But it has
certainly no legitimate place while the courts
ecclesiastical are themselves the Queen's 1 courts
for ecclesiastical matters.
And the reference to the Gallican Church and
1 [written in 1899]
io] OF THE CROWN 257
the appel comme d'abus is altogether fallacious.
The appel comme d'abus was the national self-
protection against an extra-national system of
judicature. As long as Church courts rested
ultimately on a basis not national but foreign ; as
long as their system of canon law was in the
main a foreign system, and the ultimate sanction
and authority which lay behind the administra-
tion of it was the authority and sanction of the
Roman court, that is to say, of an irresponsible
foreign power, claiming to be more august
than the national sovereignty ; so long it
was an imperative necessity that the national
sovereignty should have some mode of check-
ing and limiting Church courts. No doubt
in practice, when the Crown was strong,
the appel comme d'abus gave the Crown an
almost unlimited opportunity of interference,
unreasonable as well as reasonable. But so long
as the basis of the Church's authority was foreign,
some visitatorial power on the part of the Crown,
some power of review and veto in the name of
the nation, was indispensable for national free-
dom. Now no such machinery of protective veto
is, or can be, necessary to guard the freedom of
the nation or Crown against a judicature, which
is already the judicature of the Crown itself.
There is nothing at all of an Erastian nature in
acknowledging, what is as true in principle as it
is in practice, that all power of exercising a
public jurisdiction within the nation comes
s
258 THE APPEL [No.
ideally from the ideal source of all national
jurisdiction, that is, from the Crown. There
is no other source of jurisdiction in this realm,
within the region of material things, except only
I do not say (where a Church is nationally
established) the secular power, but the Sovereign,
who is the sole executive head, whether of secular
power or of ecclesiastical. The Sovereign has no
need of a power of visitatorial scrutiny to check
or to veto herself. 1
Royal Supremacy represents one theory, the
theory of a jurisdiction exclusively national. The
appel comme d'abus represents another, and an
incompatible, theory, the theory of an extra-
national jurisdiction in Church courts. It must
be one theory or the other. The appel comme
d'abus cannot illustrate, or proceed from, Royal
Supremacy. To try to combine these two incom-
patible principles, or to make the one the method
of the other, is mere confusion.
Such machinery, then, as this is quite illogical
in a Church established under Royal Supremacy.
It would be illogical also in a disestablished
Church.
Nevertheless, though I have been driven to
write under stress of conviction that some of these
most fundamental principles are generally neither
recognised nor believed in at all ; I am sincerely
anxious, on the other hand, to disclaim the pre-
sumptuous desire of interfering with the efforts
1 [written in 1899]
io] COMME D'ABUS 259
of my betters to handle practical difficulties in a
practical way. And, therefore, if anyone should
urge that, in view of its unique national history
in the past, the Church of England, if disestab-
lished, would still hold so mighty a position
within the nation that some machinery analogous
more or less to the appel comme d'abus, though
corresponding neither to precedent or principle,
might yet be as a political expedient wise, if not
permanently, yet during a period of transition
and experiment; I should not be very careful to
resist the contention. I will go one step further,
and venture to add that even if, on somewhat
kindred grounds, such an expedient should be
proposed in an established Church, as for the
moment prudent diplomatically, though in prin-
ciple unconstitutional and irregular ; even that
might lie outside my present argument. I
scrupulously abstain from saying one word in the
region of present practical politics. I am only
endeavouring to protest against false theories of
constitutional principle. But, at least, if any-
thing should be proposed on politic grounds,
which is irregular and illogical in principle, I
may urge that it is of the highest practical
importance that it should be advocated rather as
being, what it is, a politic irregularity, than as if
it were, what it is not, an illustration or outcome
of principles constitutionally true.
I cannot but hope that my disclaimer of any
desire to enter (save by clearing fundamental
260 REMEDY FOR DISORDER [No. 10
principles) within the region of immediate practi-
cal politics, may moderate somewhat of the grave
displeasure which perhaps I must on some sides
expect as the penalty of venturing to speak at
all. But at least in parting I may say, in general
terms, that I write as one who is sincerely con-
vinced that the difficulties of the Church in what
is called her present crisis (it is strange how few
parishes through the length and breadth of the
land are conscious, newspapers apart, of any
crisis at all) will be settled in the best, the
wisest, and the most permanent manner, by the
unfettered action of the Church herself. They
will be settled effectively just in proportion as it
becomes freely possible, in the present and the
future, for the Church herself, in councils and
courts of her own, without imported excitement
or pressure from the outside, to work out by
degrees, with all the gravity of the responsible
action of a body that is effectively self-governing,
the methods and the needs, the judgment and
the discipline, of her own life.
Forgive me, if you can, for my sudden intru-
sion upon you. I do not of course venture to
presume upon your agreement in the things
which I have said. But, indeed, I only wish
that I could hope to be as indulgently interpreted
by others as I am sure that I shall be by you.
Yours affectionately,
Ch. Ch., R. C. MOBERLY.
Jan. 30, 1899.
IS THE INDEPENDENCE OF CHURCH
COURTS REALLY IMPOSSIBLE?
(1886)
" r I ^HAT religion should be absolutely free
JL from State control is impossible." This
principle, in one form of phrase or another, is so
familiar just now upon the lips and in the minds
of men, that it is worth while to distinguish some
of the possible meanings which may underlie it.
The words themselves are borrowed from a recent
Charge of Archdeacon Palmer's ; and their con-
text in that Charge may suggest at once a dis-
tinction which will be convenient at the outset.
After asserting the principle Archdeacon Palmer
goes on : "The well-known example of the Indian
Thugs will illustrate my position. A State can-
not tolerate murder, because there is a set of men
within its borders who believe it to be the fittest
expression of devotion to the deity of their choice.
Another instance nearer home may be adduced.
Polygamy is a cherished practice with the Mor-
mons. Yet surely it is not wrong for a civilised
nation to forbid the reintroduction of such a
practice." If these be accepted as illustrations in-
terpretative of the meaning of the principle, the
261
262 STATE CONTROL [No.
principle itself will readily be conceded. But what
in that case does the principle mean? It means
that whereas it is essential to the constitution of
a State to prevent certain kinds of action which
would injure the State, it would become necessary
for the State to interfere with any religion which
should inculcate or encourage such actions. Not
even religion would be a sufficient defence for
actions which are, per se 1 offences against the laws
of a civilised community. The very statement
implies a certain instinct that the rules and con-
stitutions of religion should, prima facie, be held
to be outside of the cognizance of the State.
Only it is asserted that this natural presumption
might conceivably be rebutted ; that it is not a
truth so absolute as to be incapable of exception ;
that in certain extreme cases, capable of being
hypothesised, the natural immunity of religion
might and would be overruled, the State might
and would so far overthrow the proper order and
distinctions of things as to interfere and coerce
within the sphere of religion. The emphasis is
upon the word "absolutely": "That religion
should be absolutely," i.e. under all conceivable
circumstances, and in all its conceivable aspects,
so only that it could claim the name of religion,
"free from State control is impossible."
Now in such a sense as this the principle is an
undoubted truth. And because there is a sense
in which it is true, therefore the words themselves
cannot be denied. And because they cannot be
io] OF RELIGION 263
denied, therefore the statement remains, and is
apt to be appealed to as a fundamental axiom in
discussion about the relation of the Church to
the State. But then the words are ambiguous.
And there can be little doubt that the ordinary
conception of their meaning, as they are generally
used in such arguments, is something extremely
different from that which has just been stated.
" That religion should be absolutely free from
State control is impossible." We know that
under existing laws and customs in England no
religious body is free from State control. This
is the case, in point of fact, in a very much wider
sense than that just given. It is not only that
under the administration of our law no religious
body is allowed to interfere with the fundamental
moralities of social and national life, but that in
all disputed cases whatever, within the circle of
any religious body, the civil courts are in fact
the ultimate courts of appeal.
Many typical cases of disputes in Dissenting
congregations have within recent years illustrated
this fact. If only the dispute be persisted in, its
decision will come at last from the civil judge,
however many subtle questions of ecclesiastical
polity, or of theological doctrine, may be involved
in the decision. That this is so in fact has been
abundantly insisted on in recent controversy.
I quote two or three sentences from an article,
which is full of information on the subject,
published in the Church Quarterly Review of
264 THE PRACTICE OF [No.
April, 1885: "Our contention is that Noncon-
formists are hopelessly subject to the jurisdiction
of the State courts for the interpretation of the
doctrines in their trust-deeds, and absolutely
subject to the discretion of Parliament for their
alteration." "Even then [i.e. if they should
resign all their property in order to purchase
freedom] the Dissenting communities would not
be free from State control in matters of religion,
for, after all, in such a case there would still
remain some necessity in their purely voluntary
and non-property-holding communities to exercise
discipline, and in relation to their exercise of
this right they would still be liable to have their
ecclesiastical proceedings reviewed, and their
sentences, if need be, reversed by any judge of
the civil court to whom an aggrieved party might
make an appeal according as we have shown."
Again, " It would be sufficient for the purpose
of his argument to admit that State control, such
as we have described, does not extend beyond the
question of interest in property. But though
such an admission would be sufficient for the
purposes of the argument, it would not be an
adequate admission and representation of all the
facts of the case, for the truth is that State
control extends to questions of discipline of a
purely voluntary society, meeting in a weekly-
rented upper room, holding no property, and
having, as a society, no interest in property
whatever." And finally, with reference to the
10] THE ENGLISH COURTS 265
"Huddersfield case": "Never was the subjection,
absolute and helpless, of any religious body in its
religious concerns more manifestly and un-
questionably complete ; and the more the case is
inquired into and discussed, the more readily and
candidly this will be admitted by all persons
whose minds are open to the irresistible force of
the facts stated, which overwhelmingly show that
in such a case there is no getting away from State
control in matters of religion, even by those who
imagine that they are altogether free from it."
Now when facts like these are loudly insisted
on ; when they are urged upon us as arguments
of immense force to show not only that the in-
dependence of the Church of England would not,
but that it could not be attained, either by any
smaller change, nor even by the formal separation
of "Church" and "State" as they have been
urged on many a Diocesan Conference platform,
and in many a private discussion ; and when in
this connexion words are used like those which in
a limited sense were admitted just now, " that
religion should be absolutely free from State
control is impossible " ; is it not plain that the
words themselves have begun to carry a totally
different force and meaning from that which we
admitted ? They have now become the erection
into an abstract principle, and the enunciation in
the form of a necessary axiom, of that rule of
procedure which is asserted in the extracts just
given and no doubt asserted truly to be the
266 DOES NOT REPRESENT [No.
existing practice of the English courts. They
now lay down that it is inevitable, in the nature
of things, that any questions, religious or other-
wise, in any religious community, established or
non-established, must (if the dispute be suffi-
ciently persevered in) come up, for their really
ultimate decision, before the court of the civil
power. Is it at all too much to say that it is in
this sense, and with this purpose, that maxims
like that which has been quoted are continually
being laid down ? laid down as at once of indis-
putable authority, and as the basis alike of many
arguments, and of many homilies ?
We have now reached the precise question
which it is the purpose of this paper to raise.
The question is this : Is it in the least necessary
in the nature of things, or is it in the least
desirable, that questions of Church discipline
(such as almost all the "disputes" in religious
communities practically are) should receive their
last word of settlement from civil courts? I decline
to be answered by any evidence as to what does
happen in our law-courts now, whether in re-
ference to the Established Church or to Dis-
senters. I am ready to concede absolutely that
this is the existing and traditional maxim and
practice of English courts. That fact is, of course,
a weighty one. But whatever may be the exact
significance of that fact, I deny that it is any
proof that the thing is necessary in the nature of
things, or that it could not possibly be otherwise.
io] AN INEVITABLE NECESSITY 267
I deny that it is any adequate justification for
that popular sense which would, I believe, at
present be almost universally understood to attach
to such a maxim as "That religion should be
absolutely free from State control is impossible. "
Does the received practice of the English
courts represent in this matter what is absolutely
necessary or right ?
That it is by no means necessary in the nature
of things is indeed a proposition easily demon-
strable. But I submit that any such demonstra-
tion, however obvious it may be, is at this
moment of very real importance. The circum-
stances of the present time make it exceedingly
desirable that the minds of Churchmen should
look forward as clearly as possible to the issues,
and to the different alternatives which may open
themselves in the future. But so long as it is at
all generally supposed that the ultimate deter-
mination of its religious questions by civil courts
is a necessity which no religious community can
escape, so long the whole conception as to the
conditions of the future problem, and as to the
lines upon which we ought even now to be
advancing to meet the future, is, in one most
important respect, fatally prejudiced and over-
clouded. And yet at this moment I venture
to submit that it is, very generally indeed, so
supposed ; that is to say, that it is really a general
belief not only that the courts do act in this way,
but that there is no alternative possible but that
268 A POSSIBLE [No.
they should act in this way : I submit that this
supposition does, in effect, go a very long way
towards preventing Churchmen in general from
even considering how far the present condition of
things in this respect is, or is not, desirable (for
no doubt it is futile to argue upon the desirable-
ness of what could not be otherwise) ; I submit
that the prevailing supposition has really no
other ground than the admitted fact of the pre-
sent English maxim and practice : and I submit,
finally, that if once the phantom of its supposed
necessity were really and completely dissipated,
there are grounds for thinking that the wisdom
of the English people, as it ceased to think the
existing practice a necessity, might very probably
cease also to think it in any degree desirable
or wise.
If the present condition is arbitrary, and not
necessary, what other alternatives are open be-
side it?
I am concerned only to make clear my alter-
native, without staying to ask whether it is, or
is not, the only form of alternative possible. And
I may add that, at the present stage, I am only
bound to show that an alternative is fairly con-
ceivable. Whether it would or would not be also
reasonably practicable in this country or in this
generation, is a question which I do not as yet
profess to have reached.
But surely a condition of society is at least
imaginable in which ecclesiastical societies would
io] ALTERNATIVE 269
be allowed to frame their own rules of discipline,
and to carry them out, deciding for themselves
all questions that might rise within their own
body as to the doctrine, ritual, or procedure,
discontents or complaints of aggrieved individual
members or ministers notwithstanding. Of course
there would be a limit to the scope of ecclesias-
tical discipline. The religious tribunals might
pronounce whether an accused man was, or was
not, heretical was, or was not, capable of re-
taining his post as an official of his society ; and
if they pronounced him heterodox, or insubor-
dinate, or otherwise unfit, they might proceed
to dismiss him : but of course in no case would
they be able to interfere with his citizenship,
or any of its rights they could not order him,
for punishment, to be fined, or flogged, or im-
prisoned. Neither could they, of course, except
at their own peril, impose upon any of their
members the duty of making overt war against
the fundamental laws of society. Subject, how-
ever, to the principle that they could not interfere
with citizenship, or make war against society,
their decisions upon all questions involving the
rules of their own community or the enjoyment
of its privileges might be final, and might be
accepted as such by the civil tribunals ; so that
the civil tribunals, without re-trying the question
of rules or privileges, would (if need were) compel
recalcitrant members to submit, on matters be-
longing to the discipline of their community,
270 -RELIGIOUS BODIES HAVING [No.
to the decisions formally given by the formal
tribunals of the community.
It would, of course, be necessary that religious
communities should constitute tribunals and pro-
cedure which might be able to be recognised as
the accepted tribunals and procedure of the
community. Till this were done it would be
impossible to say whether the case of Mr. A
or Mr. B, appealing for the retention of their
position in such or such a religious body, had
ever been properly decided upon its merits by
the body they claimed to belong to. But the
moment it can be said "Mr. A claims or appeals
so-and-so : the proper tribunal or synod of his
religious society has tried the case according
to its own rules, and has pronounced against
him " ; from that moment it is possible for the
civil tribunals to say "We have nothing what-
ever to do with Mr. A's claims : he belongs to
a society which has, and ought to have, its own
rules and its own power of interpreting its own
rules : if they decide that under their rules he
is not one of them, then he is not one of them ;
if they attempt, indeed, to assault or maltreat
him we, of course, are ready to afford all legal
protection : but for us, after their decision, to
attempt to re-try the question on its merits,
whether he is or is not loyal to their doctrine,
whether he is or is not to be accepted by them as
an orthodox representative and officer, would be
much worse than superfluous. It would not only
io] THEIR OWN TRIBUNALS 271
be useless, but in reference to the proper dis-
tinction between the political and religious ad-
ministrations, it would be disastrously unwise,
and full of nothing but peril to the peace and
order of the commonwealth."
But there is one point which, according to the
existing manner of thought on these subjects,
would almost certainly be urged here. It would
be said these things might perhaps be conceiv-
able if no questions of position or property were
involved. But every such decision necessarily
affects, not only the doctrinal position of a com-
munity, but the pecuniary position of an indi-
vidual ; and all questions affecting position or
property must in the nature of things come before
State courts, and therefore the position you speak
of is not really imaginable. Now if the eccle-
siastical tribunals were affecting to inflict fines by
way of penalties, whether of $ or .5,000, this
objection might be valid : but they do not. The
most which they do, or would do, is to declare
that a certain ecclesiastical position is forfeited ;
and the pecuniary loss complained of is only
a necessary incident (direct or indirect) of the
ecclesiastical position. It is true that Mr. A's
private estate cannot be touched upon to the
extent of a single penny. But Mr. A has no
private right whatever to the salary, or other
advantages, which are the incidents of his eccle-
siastical position. If he has forfeited the position,
he has forfeited also its emoluments ; and no
272 AND EXERCISING [No.
right whatever which really belongs to him,
whether of citizenship or of property, is affected
at all. It is necessary that the line of distinction
should be drawn in the strongest way between
property to which there is any private right,
and property to which the only right, actual or
possible, is a mere result of the tenure of a
particular responsible post. It is a distinction
which, broad as it is, appears to be continually
lost sight of. I utterly deny that there is any
necessary reason, any reason involved in the
proper constitution of a state, why decisions
which affect property that is of the nature of
a salary must be capable of being referred to
civil courts. If the Wesleyans appoint an officer
with ; 1,000 a year, chosen on account of his
loyal exposition of Wesleyanism, to perform cer-
tain functions of importance to the Wesleyan
community ; and if he is subsequently dismissed
on account of the formal judgment of the Wes-
leyan tribunals that his teaching is no longer true
to their principles, I utterly deny that the fact
that the position which he forfeited was a valuable
one constitutes the slightest reason why the
Wesleyan tribunals should not have been the
bodies best able to judge of the weight of the
grounds on account of which alone it was pro-
posed to dismiss him, or why the State should be
supposed to neglect any one of its own essential
functions, or any just claim of citizenship on the
part of the person concerned, if it declines to
io] THEIR OWN DISCIPLINE 273
review the merits of the decision, but lets it stand
as a matter of course, as a point decided by those
to whom it belonged to decide it, as much if
salary is involved as if it is not.
I do not, indeed, deny that there might pos-
sibly be issues, collateral to the main one, which
might have to come before the civil courts, and
might carry damages ; as e.g. if a man were
avowedly dismissed on the ground of immorality
or drunkenness who could prove to the satisfac-
tion of the civil court that the imputation in
question was false in fact and slanderously and
maliciously made and received against him, it is
possible that he might claim from the court
not, indeed, forcible restitution to the ecclesiasti-
cal position (which the court would have nothing
to do with) but adequate, and possibly very
heavy damages, for the stigma falsely affixed
upon his character. But without staying to think
further of other extreme or exceptional hypo-
theses which might make an indirect appeal to
civil courts still undeniable, I do claim that, as
a general principle, and in all ordinary cases of
discipline such as have come in fact before the
English courts in recent years, whether from the
Established Church or from Dissenting bodies,
it is entirely conceivable as a working condition
of things, that the civil power should leave to the
ecclesiastical the entire determination of its own
questions, and the entire exercise of its own dis-
cipline ; and should accept the formal decisions
274 THE PRINCIPLES [No.
of the accredited tribunals of the several bodies
as the proper decisions of those bodies, to which
all citizens who chose to be members of the
bodies must, as a matter of course, submit their
own natural rights of citizenship being always
untouched so long as they desired to maintain
their membership. The State would thus be
absolved from the somewhat absurd possibility of
solemnly pronouncing the " Baptist " orthodoxy
of one whom the whole Baptist body had re-
pudiated as unorthodox ; or the inadmissibleness
in the Church of teaching or practices which the
Church herself had formally pronounced to be
Catholic.
I decline to despair of the acceptance of these
principles. I decline to despair of the prospect
of hearing them by and by enunciated as incon-
trovertible maxims, at once of common law and
of common sense. Can we not imagine the sort
of severely grave simplicity with which some
impartial Law Court in the future might lay
down the lines of its accepted theory as to the
due relation of secular and ecclesiastical juris-
diction ? lay them down in maxims sweeping
and decisive as these? . . . "The decisions of
ecclesiastical courts are final, as they are the
best judges of what constitutes an offence against
the Word of God and the discipline of the
Church." "Civil courts have duties and respon-
sibilities devolved upon them, and a well-defined
jurisdiction to maintain. The Church has more
io] OF INDEPENDENCE 275
solemn duties, more weighty responsibilites, and
an authority granted by the infinite Author of all
things. We shall not enter in and ' light up her
temple from unhallowed fire." "We have no
right, and therefore will not exercise the power,
to dictate ecclesiastical law. We do not aspire to
become de facto heads of the Church, and, by
construction or otherwise, abrogate its laws and
canons." "The Church should guard its own
fold ; enact and construct its own laws ; enforce
its own discipline ; and thus will be maintained
the boundary between the temporal and spiritual
power." The Church members "joined the
Church with a knowledge of its defined powers,
and as the civil power cannot interfere in matters
of conscience, faith, or discipline, they must sub-
mit to rebuke or excommunication, however
unjust, by their adopted spiritual rulers." " Free-
dom of religious profession and worship cannot
be maintained, if the civil courts tread upon the
domain of the Church, construe its canons and
rules, dictate its discipline, and regulate its trials.
The larger portion of the Christian world has
always recognised the truth of the declaration :
'a Church without discipline must become, if not
already, a Church without religion.' It was as
much a delusion to confer religious liberty with-
out the right to make and enforce rules and
canons, as to create government with no power
to punish offenders." "In this controversy is
involved a greater question, and of deeper mo-
276 INDEPENDENCE IS [No.
ment to all Christian men, indeed to all men
who believe that Christianity pure and simple is
the fairest system of morals, the firmest prop to
our government, the chiefest reliance in this life
and the life to come. Shall we maintain the
boundary between Church and State, and let
each revolve in its respective sphere, the one
undisturbed by the other ? All history warns
not to rouse the passion or wake up the fanati-
cism which may grapple with the State in a
deathly struggle for supremacy."
There is, it must be owned, a trumpet-like
ring, and a very sweeping inclusiveness about
some of these last extracts ; but does anyone
suppose them to represent a state of things
literally inconceivable ? Can such a relation
between civil and ecclesiastical courts be found
only in the misty places of the imagination ? Is
there anything in the nature of things, anything
in the essential constitution of states, to make
such an ideal relation impossible in the prose of
common life ?
But even if it be admitted to be in a real sense
conceivable, we shall still be told, I imagine,
that it is not a relation which the practical in-
stincts of modern nations will ever really be
content to accept. We shall be told, with I
know not what precise delicacy of phrase,
perhaps that " no state can tolerate the existence
of an imperium in imperio," perhaps that "every
subject retains always an indefeasible right of
io] POSSIBLE IN PRACTICE 277
appeal to the sovereign power," or under the
spell of some other equally celebrated and
equally fascinating dictum, that States, even
though, if they would, they might do this, yet
will never consent to give so much independence
to Churches. No inherent necessity but the
jealousy of States will prevent it. They desire
to keep Churches more entirely under their own
authority. They will not part with any power,
with any element, or any means of control.
They would be afraid to do it. Out of fear, out
of jealousy, out of desire to control and restrain,
out of anxiety as to the disorders and discontents
which might grow out of overmuch independence
they might indeed do it, but they never will.
Now I might well argue in reply to such an
assertion of jealousy, that the conclusion sup-
posed to follow from it was, even upon the
hypothesis, mistaken and impolitic in the highest
degree. The State will best maintain its own
dignity and authority, and the order and content-
ment of all its citizens, not by retaining in its
own hands the maximum of direct authority, but
rather by devolving as much as possible, retain-
ing so little only as is indispensable. Every step
in the practical independence of Churches is a
step, not to say a stride, in the direction of
national contentment and security. The nation
as such, and from its own point of view, ought
earnestly to desire such a consummation. The
task of deciding all the doctrines of all the
278 AS IN SCOTLAND [No.
Churches, the burden of universal papacy, is a
burden heavier, and more dangerous, than it can
bear.
But to develope arguments such as these is
hardly part of my present purpose. I prefer to
ask whether, already, the instincts of practical
nations have not given the very answer which
some of us are inclined to think that they can
never give. Does not the testimony of facts
already show that the practical immunity of
ecclesiastical tribunals from all State revision
whatsoever is not conceivable only, but an ac-
cepted and most living reality in the States of
the modern world ? and if this be so, is it even
necessary to plead that the contrary practice in
England has not been conducive to greater
smoothness among us of relations between
Church and State, greater contentment amongst
citizens, or, by consequence, greater national
dignity or stability ?
I point to two instances only, but they appear
to be the two which should naturally be of
greatest weight as examples pertinent to the case
of our own Church in England. Besides the
Church of England itself (whose condition in this
respect is the point now in question) there is
one other conspicuous instance of a Church
" established " under the British Crown and
Constitution, that is the " Established Church
of Scotland." On the other hand, if we wish to
see the bearings of the matter apart from estab-
io] AND THE UNITED STATES 279
lishment, by far the most considerable instance
of a non-established Anglican Church is the
" Protestant Episcopal Church " of America.
But whether we look to the great alternative
instance of an Anglican Church non-established,
or to the great alternative instance of a non-
Anglican Church established under the British
Empire, in either case, strange to say, we see in
full operation that very condition of things which
many of our friends at home still seriously regard
as hopelessly impracticable at least, if not incon-
ceivable.
As setting forth the accepted doctrine on this
subject of the United States of America, there
is an elaborate American judgment printed in
full in the appendices to the Report of the
Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. The judg-
ment is that of the Supreme Court of Illinois, and
was given in January, 1871. But its significance
is even wider than its direct authority ; for it is
introduced into the English Blue Book not only
on the ground that "the very full way in which
the relations between the Anglican Church and
the State in America are gone into seems to
make it desirable that it should be given at
length," but also apparently because "that part
of the doctrine laid down which is agreed to by
the whole court appears to be generally recog-
nised in the United States."
What, then, is the nature of the doctrine there
laid down ? Possibly it may be a surprise to
280 THE ILLINOIS CASE [No.
some who did not at the moment recognise them,
to hear that all those somewhat ringing quota-
tions which were made two or three pages ago
are taken verbatim et literatim from the text of
this formal, and representative, judgment. It
may be added that they all (with the possible
exception of the second extract) are taken from
that part of the judgment which was " agreed to
by the whole court."
The general principles, then, upon which
American State courts would approach or
decline to approach such questions are singu-
larly clear. But it will be worth while to describe
the case itself a little more exactly. A clergy-
man was accused of omitting certain acts or
words which the rule of the Church required
him to make use of in public service, but to
which he himself entertained objections on doc-
trinal grounds. The case was tried before the
tribunal provided in the diocese for such a pur-
pose ; and the clergyman was condemned and
deprived of his position. He thereupon made
appeal to the civil courts. The grounds of his
appeal which are material were of the following
nature : (i) That the diocesan tribunal, purporting
to be constituted according to the canons of the
Church, was in fact not constituted strictly in
accordance with those canons ; (2) that the
diocesan tribunal did, through prejudice, decide
unfairly upon the merits of the case before it ;
(3) that inasmuch as the clergyman's salary and
io] CHASE v. CHENEY 281
position were involved, and as indeed the very
right to preach was in itself property, therefore
the deprival of these was an infringement of the
clergyman's civil rights ; and that for this cause,
if for no other, it was necessary that the diocesan
sentence should be reviewed by the courts. The
court decided against the clergyman on all three
points. It not only decided against him, but
decided against his right to a hearing upon the
merits of his arguments. It did so in respect
of the second and third of these three pleas
unanimously ; in respect of the first not unani-
mously, but by a majority. The decision of the
majority in respect of the first plea was of this
nature. After alleging the facts that the diocesan
officials had intended and attempted to organise
a proper court for his trial, and that the clergy-
man complained of a misconstruction or neglect
of the canons on their part, and a consequent
want of authority in their tribunal to try him,
they say: "The same point was made to that
[i.e. the diocesan] court, and its power denied.
It was urged with the same earnestness, and
enforced with the same arguments, there as here.
That court overruled the objection, and decided
that it had jurisdiction. Five intelligent clergy-
men of the Church, presumed to be deeply versed
in biblical and canonical lore, were more com-
petent than this court to decide the peculiar
questions raised. Why should we review that,
and not every other decision which involved the
282 THE ILLINOIS CASE [No.
interpretation of the canons ? It is conceded
that when jurisdiction attaches, the judgment
of the Church court is conclusive as to purely
ecclesiastical offences. It should be equally
conclusive upon doubtful and technical questions,
involving a criticism of the canons, even though
they might comprise jurisdictional facts. It re-
quires no more intellect, information, or honesty,
to decide what is an ecclesiastical offence than
to determine the authority of the court according
to the canons. The distinction is without a
difference."
To this particular doctrine, however, in the
judgment, viz. that the diocesan court was the
exclusive judge of its own jurisdiction, two out
of seven judges demurred. 1
There is, then, a clear difference of opinion
upon the one question, whether or no a civil
court is at liberty, before compelling acceptance
by Church members of the decision of a Church
1 The statement of the two dissentients is as follows : " We concur in
the decision of the case at bar announced in the foregoing opinion, and
we also concur in the opinion itself, except as to one principle therein.
We understand the opinion as implying that in the administration of
ecclesiastical discipline, and where there is no other right of property
involved than the loss of the clerical office or salary, as an incident to
such discipline, a spiritual court is the exclusive judge of its own jurisdic-
tion, under the laws and canons of the religious association to which it
belongs, and its decision of that question is binding upon secular courts.
This is a principle of so grave a character, that, believing it to be
erroneous, we are constrained to express our dissent upon the record.
"We concede that when a spiritual court has once been organised in
conformity with the rules of the denomination of which it forms a part,
and when it has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject-matter, its
subsequent action in the administration of spiritual discipline will not be
revised by the secular courts. The simple reason is that the association
io] CHASE v. CHENEY 283
tribunal, to entertain or examine for itself the
question whether that Church tribunal was regu-
larly constituted according to the rules of the
Church under which it professes to act ; though
even here a majority of five judges to two
affirmed the immunity of the Church tribunal
from all such examination. But upon every
other point raised the decision of the court was
unanimous. As to the plea that the clergyman's
citizen-rights were infringed by the penal with-
drawal of emoluments, or of that authorised
status as minister and preacher, which was itself
(he urged) of the nature of "property," or as to
his claim to a "vested right" in his status or
office, they say : " No parish can form a part
of the diocese of Illinois unless with the consent
of the bishop and the formation of a constitu-
tion, as provided in canon 8, by which it
'accedes to, recognises, and adopts the consti-
tution, canons, doctrines, discipline, and worship
of the Protestant Episcopal Church.' The
is purely voluntary, and when a person joins it he consents that for all
spiritual offences he will be tried by a tribunal organised in conformity
with the laws of the society. But he has not consented that he will be
tried by one not so organised, and when a clergyman is in danger of
being degraded from his office, and losing his salary and means of liveli-
hood by the action of a spiritual court, unlawfully constituted, we are
very clearly of opinion he may come to the secular courts for protection.
It would be the duty of such courts to examine the question of jurisdic-
tion, without regard to the decision of the spiritual court itself, and
if they find such tribunal has been organised in defiance of the laws of
the association, and is exercising a merely usurped and arbitrary
power, they should furnish such protection as the laws of the land will
give. We consider this position clearly sustainable, upon principle and
authority."
284 THE JUDGMENT AND [No.
minister, having been previously ordained, and
pledged conformity to the rules and doctrines
of the Church, is installed as rector, according
to canon 10, by the production of a proper
certificate from the bishop. The vestry is
required, by canon 12, to obtain the amount
stipulated for his support by ' the gathering of
offerings in divine service, or by the procurement
and collection of subscriptions or of pew-rents.'
It would be a mockery of language to say that
the agreement for a salary thus made constituted
a vested right, a right which could not be sus-
pended. The salary depended upon the con-
tinued performance of the duties of rector. The
contract must be construed and enforced by
reference to the canons which form a part of it.
If the minister was suspended or deposed for
any ecclesiastical offence, the payment would
cease. . . .
"It is also claimed that there is value in the
right to pursue any lawful avocation. Of this
we entertain no doubt. We have no doubt either
of the absolute right of every citizen under our
constitution to teach and preach the gospel to
whomsoever will listen. But in an organised
Church, with written or printed rules, and estab-
lished doctrines and modes of worship, the right
is qualified. The continuance, power, and
emoluments of the position depend upon the
will of the Church. The right is contingent and
restricted, and as a thing of value is very much
io] THE CLAIM OF 'PROPERTY' 285
lessened. The sentence of the Church judica-
tory, in a proper case, deprives of the position,
and salary and emoluments are gone."
It is, no doubt, obvious to remark that the
facts here recounted are in some respects different
enough from those with which we are familiar ;
but across all such differences the leading princi-
ple of the judgment on this point will be none
the less significant, viz. that emoluments or
privileges incidental to the tenure of an eccle-
siastical position can neither possess nor confer
any title more durable than the position itself to
which they belong, nor are they, in any neces-
sary or natural sense, the " property " of the
incumbent of the office. If we in England have
in any degree artificially made them so, that is a
peculiarity of our own, the value of which may
usefully be called in question. But perhaps it
needs neither Royal Commissions, nor Blue
Books, nor Liberationist energies, nor studies of
America or any other country, to make thought-
ful Churchmen desire that the system of " free-
hold " tenure of English incumbencies might be
greatly modified. There is always a slightly
strange ring about the word "freehold" as
applied to a pastor's position. And yet it is
just this word, and fact, of " freehold " which
seems sometimes to be treated as though it were
our one foundation-principle. There is a sort of
mysterious spell and fascination about it. We
are warned not to come near to touch or to
286 EXTRACTS FROM [No.
question it. It is clung to, it is idolised, with
an almost superstitious reverence. But it is the
stronghold of the scandals which discredit and
weaken us through the length and breadth of
the land.
As to any appeal upon the merits of the case
itself, the answer of the court, with its sweeping
repudiation of the functions thus attempted to
be thrust upon it, has been already sufficiently
given in the vigorous language of the quotations
upon pp. 274-5. Without repeating these again,
we may add to them an extract or two more.
First there are the words (which could not con-
veniently be quoted then) of semi-apology for
entertaining or noticing some parts of the argu-
ment at all. The court preface the substantial
judgment by saying : "Without asserting the
power of this court in cases of this character, yet
on account of the earnest and elaborate argument
of counsel, we will notice the objection that the
spiritual court had no authority to adjudicate
upon the alleged offence." Then, a little further
on, they quote, and accept, the following lang-
uage of another typical judgment in a somewhat
similar case: "The only cognizance which the
court will take of the case is to inquire whether
there is a want of jurisdiction in the defendant
to do the act which is sought to be restrained.
I cannot consent to review the exercise of any
discretion on his part, or inquire whether his
judgment or that of the subordinate ecclesiastical
io] THE JUDGMENT 287
tribunal can be justified by the truth of the case.
I cannot draw to myself the duty of serving their
action, or of canvassing its manner or foundation,
any further than to inquire whether, according
to the law of the association to which both of
the parties belong, they had authority to act at
all. In other words, I can inquire only whether
the defendant has the power to act and not
whether he is acting rightly. . . . The refusal of
the defendant to issue a commission to take testi-
mony, his refusal to grant a new trial, the alleged
misconduct of one of the court, are all matters
which relate to the mode of procedure, and not
to the right to proceed ; and I repeat that it is
the latter only that I can take cognizance of."
There is still one more quotation to be offered
from the text of the judgment. "The minister,
in a legal point of view, is a voluntary member
of the association to which he belongs. The
position is not forced upon him, he seeks it.
He accepts it with all its burdens and conse-
quences, with all the rules, laws, and canons
subsisting or to be made by competent authority,
and can, at pleasure and with impunity, abandon
it. If they were merciful, and regardful of con-
scientious examples, he knew it ; if they were
arbitrary, illiberal, and attempted to chain the
thoughts and consciences, he knew it. They
cannot, in any event, endanger his life or liberty,
impair any of his personal rights, deprive him of
property acquired under the laws, or interfere
288 INDEPENDENCE IS POSSIBLE [No.
with the free exercise and enjoyment of religious
profession and worship, for these are protected
by the constitution and laws. While a member
of the association, however, and having a full
share in all benefits resulting therefrom, he
should adhere to its discipline, conform to its
doctrines and mode of worship, and obey its laws
and canons. If reason and conscience will not
permit, the connexion should be severed."
And now we have done with this most striking
and suggestive judgment, and with the con-
ception which it so vigorously sets forth as to
the proper relations of civil and ecclesiastical
discipline. It can hardly be necessary to dis-
claim the supposition that it is applicable in all
points, as it stands, to the existing condition of
things in England. But at least for the purpose
for which it was adduced it is most pertinent,
and most effective. It demonstrates incontest-
ably that it is not ideally only, but most rationally
and practically possible, in the most prosaic and
modern constitution of things, for the decisions
of ecclesiastical tribunals upon questions of eccle-
siastical things and persons to be accepted, with-
out review, as conclusive, by the highest State
courts, if anyone should be so ill-advised as to
attempt to move the State courts to review or
restrain them. It shows that the American
courts not only see their way to affirming this
independence, but that they are ready. to affirm
it in vehement I had almost said impassioned
10] IN A MODERN DEMOCRACY 289
language, as the one great safeguarding principle
against indefinite confusion and peril. "Shall
we maintain the boundary between Church and
State, and let each revolve in its respective
sphere, the one undisturbed by the other? All
history warns not to rouse the passion or wake
up the fanaticism which may grapple with the
State in a deathly struggle for supremacy."
Such is the condition of things with a non-
established Church in the midst of a democracy ;
a condition essentially different, quite as much
from that of any non-established as from that of
the established communion amongst ourselves.
No doubt it cannot but occur to those who read
the account of it, and notice the difference of the
circumstances implied, to ask themselves how far
the relation described is to be connected, in the
way of consequence, either with the democratic
principle of the Constitution, or with the fact
that the Church is there in the simple position
of a voluntary body. And there is sometimes a
disposition to lay it down that independence and
non-establishment stand in a necessary con-
nexion with each other ; and that a Church
which accepts the privileges of establishment
must necessarily purchase them by a greater or
less surrender of liberty.
To this opinion we will refer again presently.
Meanwhile that this independence of the Ameri-
can Church is not inseparable from either of the
two conditions, non-establishment or democracy,
u
290 AND IN THE ESTABLISHED [No.
is shown sufficiently plainly by the fact that the
Scottish Kirk, an established communion under
the British Crown and Constitution, is itself no
less independent. We are indeed told, in refer-
ence to the Established Church of Scotland, that
it would be rash to deny that cases might con-
ceivably arise of such extreme departure from the
recognised condition of Church settlement, as
might possibly be held by the courts to justify
interference : but a proviso of such character as
this serves really rather to emphasise than to
limit the actual independence for all normal pur-
poses whatever.
The general statement upon the point in the
Blue Book appendices runs thus : " No appeal
lies to a civil court in matters of discipline or
on the ground of excess of punishment. But if
under the form of discipline the Church courts
were to inflict Church censures (involving civil
consequences) on a minister for, e.g., obeying the
law of the land, a question would arise similar to
some of those questions which arose in 1838-43
in connexion with the Strathbogie ministers, and
might be brought before the civil court on the
ground of excess of jurisdiction. It is believed
that in no case would the civil court entertain
an appeal from a judgment of an ecclesiastical
court on a question of doctrine, or enter on an
examination of the soundness of such a judgment
before enforcing its civil consequences.
" Any questions which have arisen on matters
io] CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 291
of ritual, such, for example, as the introduction
of instrumental music in the services of the
Church, or the postures to be observed in public
worship, have hitherto been decided exclusively
by the Church courts. But it can scarcely be
affirmed that cases might not arise of such flag--
rant departure from the ' form and purity of
worship' established by the Act 1707, appended
to the Treaty of Union, as might be held to
constitute a violation of the provisions of that
Act, and consequently to justify, on the failure
to obtain redress from the General Assembly, an
appeal to the civil court."
The position is further illustrated by the quo-
tation of a judgment of Lord Lee in 1880. A
minister who had been condemned by the pres-
bytery, and, after appeal, by the General Assem-
bly, attempted to carry the case to the civil
court, on the ground of alleged irregularities in
the proceedings. The action, we are told, was
at once dismissed as incompetent. The follow-
ing is an extract from the judgment :
"All the questions raised by the complainer
are questions of Church law and procedure in a
case clearly within the province of the Church
courts. In such cases it has always been held
that the Court of Session cannot interfere upon
an allegation that the forms of ecclesiastical
procedure have not been observed. As Lord
Fullerton said in the case of Campbell, ' If the
presbytery have power to proceed independently
292 LORD LEE'S [No.
of the remit, there is an end of the case. But
even if it were assumed that they had not, what
is the result ? Only that they, an ecclesiastical
court, did, in a case clearly within their province,
something which, according to the form of eccle-
siastical procedure, they were not entitled to do.
But on such a ground the Court of Session is
clearly not entitled to interfere.' The opinions
of the other judges in that case, and in the later
cases, appear to the Lord Ordinary quite con-
clusive against the competency of interfering
upon such allegations as are here presented.
Thus the Lord President Boyle, in Lockhart's
case : ' We have just as little right to interfere
with the proceedings of the Church courts in
matters of ecclesiastical discipline, as we have
to interfere with the proceedings of the Court
of Justiciary in a criminal question.' Lord Ivory,
as well as Lord Fullerton, explained the distinc-
tion between such cases and the Auchterarder
and Strathbogie cases. 1 Again, in the case of
Paterson, where a presbytery was said to have
oppressively and illegally proceeded with a prose-
cution, disregarding medical certificates of the
insanity of the accused, Lord President McNeill
1 At the same time, a little further on, Lord Lee remarks : " It is
impossible to read the opinion of Lord Ivory and the judges who con-
curred with him in the final stage of the [Strathbogie] case, without
seeing that there was ground for difference of opinion as to the com-
petency of interfering even in the exceptional circumstances there
presented." Certainly it may be doubted whether this case, as the one
prominent exception quoted, does not do more to prove, than to shake,
alike the fact and the credit of the usual rule.
io] JUDGMENT 293
laid it down that the Church courts alone could
regulate their own order of procedure in regard
to the matter. ' If there was anything wrong or
irregular in what the presbytery did, I think the
proper appeal was not to the court, but to the
superior Church tribunal. It is said that in the
meantime evidence might have been led in sup-
port of the charge. But that would have raised a
question of order of procedure in the ecclesiastical
court with which we do not interfere. ' The opinion
of Lord Moncrieff (L.J.C.) in the case of Wight
is still more distinct and emphatic. ' If there-
fore, ' he said, ' this were a case in which we
were called upon to review the proceedings of
an inferior court, I should have thought a strong
case had been made out for our interference.
But whatever inconsiderate dicta to that effect
may have been thrown out, that is not the law
of Scotland. The jurisdiction of the Church
courts, as recognised judicatories of this realm,
rests on a similar statutory foundation to that
under which we administer justice within these
walls. It is easy to suggest extravagant instances
of excess of power, but quite as easy to do so
in regard to the one jurisdiction as to the other.
Within their spiritual province the Church courts
are as supreme as we are within the civil, and
as this is a matter relating to the discipline of the
Church, and solely within the cognizance of the
Church courts, I think we have no power what-
ever to interfere.' "
294 OTHER SCOTTISH [No.
To these quotations from the appendices of the
Commission's report may be added the following
extract from Mr. MacColl's evidence before the
Commission : " In delivering judgment in the
case of Sturrock v. Greig (in 1849), Lord Justice
Clerk Hope used these words : 'The first section
(of the Confession of Faith) announces a great
truth of the Church, liable to misapprehension,
doubtless, but a doctrine which is the foundation
of the whole authority and government of the
Church over its members, that is, that in the
matter of discipline, whether as to doctrine or
evil practice, or non-observance of Church ordi-
nances, the Church is exercising a government
through its Church officers, appointed by the
Lord Jesus, distinct from the civil magistrates.
Whatever questions have been raised as to the
wider effect of this declaration, to which I need
not now advert, this is undeniable, that in regard
to discipline, the authority of the Church, as a
distinct and separate government, is derived from
that source. To that declaration, as the founda-
tion of the exercise of Church censure over the
members of the Church, I think courts of law
must give full effect as much as to any other
statutory enactment. It is not our business to
consider the truth of that declaration ; if it were,
I should be prepared to defend it. Neither are
we to consider whether it will arm men with
alarming power, capable of producing great
mischief. The statute has given the remedy in
io] JUDGMENTS 295
the courts which it trusted in the appeals com-
petent to the superior Church courts.' He goes
on to say that the Church courts ' have been
trusted as a separate government. The declara-
tion of the authority under which they act
assumes that it must be separately administered,
free from control, from subjection, or subordina-
tion to civil tribunals. They are distinct and
supreme, and the authority under which they sit
excludes any inquiry into their motives by civil
courts.'
''Then, in the case of Lockhart v. the Pres-
bytery of Deer, the four judges of the First
Division of the Court of Session laid down the
law in similar terms. The Lord President said,
' We have just as little right to interfere with the
proceedings of the Church courts in matters of
ecclesiastical discipline as we have to interfere
with the proceedings of the Court of Justiciary
in a criminal question.' 1
Now, in the face of all this unimpeachable
evidence, it is surely not too much to assert, that
much of the current thought and language in
England about the impossibility of the ultimate
independence of spiritual courts has been shown
by the work of the Commissioners, not with any
greater or less amount of probability, but to
absolute demonstration, to be simply a fallacy.
It is surely not too much to claim that the
current language on the subject that confident
laying down of sweeping principles in an abstract
296 ESTABLISHMENT NEED [No.
form should be discontinued ; and that those
who still assert the "impossibility" should under-
stand and admit the very different and qualified
sense in which alone their assertion is admissible
at all. What the assertion may mean still, and
what it can only mean, is (i) that such independ-
ence is not compatible with the received tradition
and practice of English law ; and (2) that any
change in this tradition and practice, such as to
admit of it, is (in the opinion of the particular
assertors) utterly improbable. The first of these
two propositions is undeniable. The opinion
which follows may or may not be true. But it is,
in any case, arguable ; and I have to submit that
it greatly concerns the present generation, alike
on the side of the Church and on the side of the
State, to examine it far more narrowly, and with
far more openness of mind, than has been even
possible for those to whom the " impossibility " of
independence has appeared a foregone conclusion.
I said just now that it is often asserted that
(whatever may be the case with voluntary
societies) establishment necessarily involves a
surrender, more or less, of ecclesiastical liberty.
The assertion has a fair and plausible sound, and
is apt to be, therefore, accepted without scrutiny ;
and yet it is a singularly hollow one. For first, it
has been already pointed out that establishment
and ecclesiastical independence do actually coin-
cide in the case of the Scottish Kirk. And more
than this ; the Scottish Kirk is more completely
io] NOT INFRINGE LIBERTY 297
independent of State control than any merely
voluntary association could be. I quote a para-
graph from Mr. Spencer Holland's Summary of
the Ecclesiastical Courts Commissioners Report
(pp. 256-7) :-
" Such being the admittedly independent
position of the Church courts in Scotland, its
establishment as a fact secures it more liberty of
action than if it were an independent corporation.
" ' As to forms of procedure, the Established
Church of Scotland,' says Mr. ^Eneas Mackay in
his text-book of Scotch law, ' has wider powers
(than a Dissenting Church), it having a statutory
form of legislation as well as a statutory judiciary,
and it can make laws or rules of procedure
having statutory authority ' ; while as to Dissent-
ing Churches, although they equally may delegate
governmental duties to representative bodies
[here the quotation from Mr. Mackay is resumed],
'a question may, however, be raised as regards
their constitution which could not be raised as
regards the courts of the Established Church,
namely, how far provisions excluding the juris-
diction of the civil courts are legal.'
" Again, where the existence or constitution of
the Established Church comes in any way before
a civil court it is accepted as a body having
forms and procedure recognised by and known
to the law, whereas a Dissenting Church would
have to prove its terms of association and contract.
" ' The former ' (says Mr. Mackay) ' possesses a
298 ESTABLISHMENT SHOULD BE [No.
jurisdiction proper directly derived from the
Crown, while the latter has only a prorogated
jurisdiction derived from the consent of its
members.'
" This, as he says, is the sole distinction
between the position of the Established Church
or any other religious corporation in the eyes of
the law ; a distinction, as has been pointed out,
to the advantage of the Established Church."
Now without going further into this, or caring
to settle how far what is here said agrees, or not,
with the dicta of the American judgment, it may
be useful, from the point of view of this last
extract, to canvass for a moment the meaning of
the supposition that an established Church is, or
should be, less " free " than a non-established
one. I submit that such a view, however
plausible at first sight, or however generally held,
will not bear examination for a moment. It
absolutely depends upon a conception of the
nature of establishment, which is alien to every
possible reading of historical facts ; a conception
on which, had it been true, the Church never
would have been established. Moreover, it so
completely inverts the leading idea of "establish-
ment," as to make it a condition of exceptional
disability instead of being one of exceptional
privilege. And yet surely if establishment means
anything, it means at least this : that the religious
association which is " established " is more ac-
cepted by the State, more trusted, and endowed
10] A POSITION OF PRIVILEGE, 299
with more powers and facilities than those which
are not established. Men allow themselves to
speak as though the essence of establishment
were that the State gave to the Church money,
or something analogous to money ; sometimes
as though by its supposed gift of money the State
purchased, and paid handsomely for, the right of
trampling at will over the Church; or even as
though, by authenticating, it had actually created
a Church, where no Church before was ! No
doubt the State may give money, or it may not ;
but in any case this is but an accessory. What is
of the essence of establishment is that the State
accepts, facilitates, authorises with the stamp of
secular as well as spiritual authority, that which
the Church is, whether established or no. The
Church is what it is. The Church is, before it is
established ; for otherwise certainly no establish-
ment ever will bring it into being. The State, so
far as it establishes, accepts the Church for what
it is and authenticates it to the nation. The
State has no knowledge of unestablished com-
munions : but the Church which the State
establishes is known to the State, and acknow-
ledged, and authorised by it. Its standards, its
principles, its constitution, its procedure, the
nation adopts and incorporates as a part of the
national system. Is it not an extraordinary in-
version of any meaning that could ever rightly
attach to the conception of establishment, to re-
present that the Established Church means the
300 NOT A DIMINUTION [No.
one among Churches that the State distrusts,
gags, fetters with disabilities ? that all others are
free, but that she alone is in servitude ? that all
others have, or may have, rules, principles,
authorities whom the State may, if it will, treat
and listen to with respect, but that she whose
whole system the nation has in such sense both
known and trusted that it has received and
adopted it as being, in its view, the truest and
best presentment of Divine Truth, that she by
virtue of this very act of acceptance and homage
should become the one society, professing to be
divinely constituted as a Church, which is to be
held, for ever and necessarily, incapable of finding
out or of determining any of her own principles or
practices for herself? Certainly this is something
as remote as possible from anything that " estab-
lishment " ever was historically conceived or
intended to mean. And if this is what statesmen
understand by it now, or if it is for this that they
or any of them vlesire to maintain establishment,
then the sooner it is plainly avowed that the so-
called position of privilege means nothing really
but the most degrading of servitudes, the better
it will be for us all.
It is probable indeed that there are very few,
other than professed enemies, who would acknow-
ledge such a principle. But there are a great
many who indirectly imply it, and use it, and
build upon it. There are a great many who lay
down and think that they are laying down an
io] OF FREEDOM 301
unimpeachable, almost axiomatic, principle that
the Church by the fact of establishment has
naturally and necessarily lost its freedom of life
and being" as a Church ; as though, indeed, the
grip of the State were so fatal that it could not
embrace a Church without strangling it ; as
though, in a word, the very title " Established
Church," instead of representing a great historical
reality, were a contradiction in terms !
Undoubtedly the truth ought to lie the other
way. The position of an established Church
ought to be better, not worse, than that of an
unestablished. Whatever amount of recognition
or respect is capable of being paid, in America or
elsewhere, to a Church which is unestablished, a
fortiori, much more of the same respectful re-
cognition ought to be paid, as a consequence of
course, if the Church were recognised and
accepted as the established Church of the nation.
It cannot be admitted for a moment that the free-
dom can reasonably be an incident of the non-
establishment. The argument from the one to
the other, from the non-established to the estab-
lished, can only be an a fortiori argument. In
the case of Scotland it has been indicated already
that this is so, at least to a perceptible degree,
in fact. It should be an essential element in the
fact of establishment. Establishment without
this is a caricature of establishment.
It may be worth while to notice incidentally
one point about the Scottish procedure which is
302 THE QUESTION OF THE LAITY [No.
sometimes urged as if it constituted an answer to
any arguments based on the autonomy of the
Established Church of Scotland. We are re-
minded that the General Assembly (which is the
final court) " is composed of representatives
elected annually by every presbytery in the
Church, and numbers about 440 members, in the
proportion of about 260 ministers to 180 elders ;
the four universities and the royal burghs also
send representatives to the Assembly " ; and we
are asked whether, if we emulate their independ-
ence, we are prepared to imitate the constitution
of their Assembly by a large infusion of laymen
in our governing bodies? As an argument
nothing could be more irrelevant than this ques-
tion. We might quite as well be asked whether,
because we admire their position in some points,
we are therefore ready to adopt their presby-
terianism. The point is that their final Church
court (however according to their system it may
be constituted) is really final unrevised by either
State or Crown. If the question is meant to
imply that the court is any more a civil, or any
less an ecclesiastical court, because lay or semi-
lay persons are (by the constitution of their
Church) seated as members, it is simply a con-
fusion of thought on the part of the questioners.
And yet on no other ground is the question
strictly relevant. If, however, it is merely meant
that we should do well to consider in what way,
if we could obtain a similar independence, our
io] IS IRRELEVANT 303
Church courts should be constituted, and how
far both in them and in councils it is right to
hear the voice of laymen, the answer is simple.
Of course we should do well to consider. Every-
thing* ought to be considered. And the particular
question of the admission of laymen to such posi-
tions, and its limits, appears to be a burden laid
specially upon the Churchmen of our own genera-
tion. But neither their admission nor exclusion,
which is purely an internal Church question,
affects in the smallest degree the question of the
compatibility of establishment and freedom, or
the relation which a Church established ought
to bear to the nation.
We are drawing towards the close of our
present argument ; but there are still two matters
on which it will be worth while (if it be not too
presumptuous) to make some remark, viz., first, as
to the nature and grounds of the present method
in the English courts ; and, secondly, as to the
meaning and outcome of the English " Royal
Supremacy."
It may not unnaturally be felt that even if
everything were conceded which has been either
said, or inferred, about the Scottish and American
Churches, yet the most that is hereby proved
the most, indeed, that has even claimed to be
proved is that things can possibly be otherwise
than they are in England. Moreover, it may be
urged that, without any insular boasting of the
superiority of our own ways, we are at least
304 THE PRACTICE OF [No.
entitled to consider that a system which has
grown with our growth in England must have a
good practical account to give of itself. It may
be urged that the mere fact that the English rule
and practice are what they are towards every
every religious society constitutes an argument
of the gravest weight on behalf of them ; and
that there is at least undue self-confidence, if not
some flippancy, in freely conceding the fact as to
English law courts, and yet ignoring the argu-
mentative weight of the fact. Why should
English law courts and lawyers consistently have
taken for granted one view of the proper relation
between the courts of the realm and the rules of
all religious societies, unless it be that that view
is in itself inherently reasonable ? Now if it were
impossible to return any direct answer to this
question, the argument which is implied in it
would be more formidable. But the argument
fails directly an alternative answer can be given.
Just a word or two to clear the ground first,
before suggesting an answer. The conduct of
English courts towards the Established Church,
on the one hand, and towards the " Free
Churches," on the other, must be kept as distinct
ideas. The thought which is here meant to be
suggested is not so much that the English con-
ception of establishment standing by itself is its
own justification, but rather that the treatment
by English courts of the " Free Churches " is
an argument on behalf of the treatment of the
io] THE ENGLISH COURTS 305
Established Church ; or at least that the corre-
spondence between the conduct of the State
towards the one and the other, the fact that
State courts eventually overrule both alike im-
partially, is an argument to prove that she does
nothing wrong or unnecessary towards the Estab-
lished Church. It is implied that if there were
anything oppressive or unjust in the treatment of
the State Church, we should see it brought into
relief by the contrasted independence of Dissent-
ing Churches ; for that it is extravagant to sup-
pose that there can be anything but the strictness
of equity in the conduct of the State towards
them. Is not the subjection of the " Free
Churches " an evidence that the subjection of the
Established Church is no tyranny? And how,
except on good grounds of principle and history,
is it possible to account for the undoubted sub-
jection of the "Free" Churches? Here lies,
then, the real point of the question ; and to this
question, in this form, it is perhaps not so difficult
to suggest an answer.
For has not the custom of dealing, as law
courts deal now, with the rules of religious
societies grown up as a half-unconscious but not
indirect result of that theory of the Royal
Supremacy, which has traditionally been a sort
of underlying principle of all dealing in England
with the Established Church ? No doubt it is a
growth, and a modern growth, the necessity of
dealing with voluntary Churches at all. When
x
306 IS DUE TO A THEORY OF [No.
the necessity began to arise, was it not dealt with
by men whose minds were saturated with the old
establishment theory of the Royal Supremacy ?
The practical outcome of that theory has been
the reservation, as a matter of tenacious, almost
(so to say) of sacred principle, of a revising" power
to the Crown behind all ecclesiastical judicature.
If the minds of lawyers have come to be tradi-
tionally imbued with this as a sort of sacred
principle of the constitution, it is natural that
when first religious questions in nonconforming
bodies began to be brought up to be dealt with
by them, they should, as a mere result of the
training and atmosphere of which their lives and
their courts were full, take for granted that the
civil power was to go to the bottom for itself of
every question, interpreting all documents and
pronouncing upon all creeds (as under the shadow
of the theory of the Royal Supremacy) without
accepting anything as authoritative from the
members of the religious societies themselves.
In the Established Church itself something
analogous to this was done though, it is true,
upon a different theory and under circumstances
which, if scrutinised, would be found to be
different. In the Established Church the Sove-
reign claimed the power as (so to say) from
within the Church, by virtue of his Church
authority, as supreme Church governor. But I
submit that it was the shadow of this theory and
practice in dealing with religious questions,
io] THE ROYAL SUPREMACY, 307
which, before men's minds were awake to the
nature of the question, caused the law courts
instinctively to deal with Nonconformists' disputes
in a method of analogous kind ; and on a
principle which, when analysed, is referrible to
the Established Church conception of the Royal
Supremacy. They acted conservatively as was
natural, and by instinct, at a time when the
real nature of the choice before them, or its
magnitude could hardly have been recognised
by anyone. Of course it is not meant that they
consciously applied the theory of the Royal
Supremacy to the case of unestablished com-
munions : but that they used ideas which only
the case of the establishment really supplied to
them, not being conscious to what they owed
them, or from whence they came. Practically,
then, their minds were prejudiced by the force
of their traditional atmosphere ; and were far less
open than e.g. the American law courts to per-
ceive in its true bearings, and decide upon its
real merits, the question how best to deal with
disputes as to conscience or discipline internal to
the life of religious societies. May I compare
this unconscious debt of the lawyers to the
received principles and atmosphere of the Estab-
lished Church to the unconscious debt which
as has often been, and will have to be oftener,
pointed out modern Agnosticism lies under to
the principles and instincts of Christian morality ?
It acts by them, thinks by them, and knows
308 WHICH HAS LED TO [No.
not whence or why it is moral : rather it falsely
attributes its morality to causes incapable of pro-
ducing it. So the lawyers instinctively and
unconsciously borrowed from the methods tradi-
tionally in use in respect of the Established
Church (which methods themselves were due to
the theory of the Royal Supremacy) the principles
on which they acted, and still act, supposing
now, erroneously, that the principles have their
foundation in some abstract reason, towards
the disputes of religious societies. Were not
the American law courts, after all, more prescient
and more practically wise ?
But if there be any shadow of truth in this
suggestion, then it is plain, of course, that the
fact that the practice of English law courts is
towards Nonconformists what it is will not bear
the weight of any argument at all. Being itself
a mere shadow of the English tradition towards
establishment, that practice can contribute noth-
ing whatever to determine that which, after all, is
the main subject under discussion, viz. the ques-
tion of the necessity or wisdom of the English
tradition.
But possibly what has been said upon this
matter may lead us to perceive more easily that
which appears to be the greatest paradox of all.
The implied thought in the above argument was
that the independent Churches must be presumed
to be treated, as far as it was a possibility, on
principles of independence. Therefore, if they
io] A PARADOXICAL RESULT 309
were overruled, such overruling could be no
infringement of the utmost independence possible.
Our suggestion in reply, which we believe to
be perfectly reasonable and true, is that the
independent Churches have really been treated
on the pattern of the treatment of the State
Church. But if Churches really meant to be
treated as independent came to be treated after
the pattern of the State Church, is it possible
that this may be interpreted after all, and almost
per impossibile, into meaning that the pattern
of the treatment of the State Church is itself,
in its real proper truth, a pattern not of sub-
jection, but of independence ?
Paradoxical as it may sound to some ears, and
opposite as its modern results have been to the
State Church first, and afterwards, by conse-
quence from her, to the Free Churches also this
is precisely what appears to be the truth. I sub-
mit that the treatment of the Free Churches
in English law courts is the more, in a sense,
paradoxical, because while it has grown imper-
ceptibly as a shadow of the treatment of the
State Church, the historical attitude meanwhile
towards the State Church (of which it is a shadow)
has itself precisely contradicted the real principles
on which it was based. The practice which has
grown up, indeed, is that all Church decisions,
on what points of doctrine soever, are liable to
authoritative revision and overruling at the hands
of the lawyers. But the theoretical and consti-
3io THE ORIGINAL IDEA [NO.
tutional position of the Church is independent.
The transition from the one state to the other,
great as it seems to be, is yet made not un-
naturally nor otherwise than easily, under cover of
the really ambiguous term, "Royal Supremacy."
If I may, without extreme presumption, venture
to comment upon the phrase at all, it will at
least be a modest contention to begin by insisting
that the phrase " Royal Supremacy " is one
which has undergone a very practical and very
considerable modification. That which it really
was first meant to signify, or at least that under-
lying principle which first gave it crucial import-
ance, was (I suppose we may safely venture
to say) the competency of the national Church
to determine all its ecclesiastical questions for
itself, without being bound by the ties of extra-
national allegiance towards Rome. But passing
by all discussion of this sense, in which it is
directly equivalent to an assertion of Anglican
independence in respect of those without, and
looking only to the mutual relation which was
signified by it between the Church and the Crown
at home; yet can it be doubted that it meant
something wholly different from what it either
does or can mean now? No doubt there were
practical usurpations and transgressions of its
meaning, but, usurpations apart, did it not mean
that the Sovereign, being naturally the fountain
of all coercive jurisdiction within the realm, and
being moreover himself within the Church, was
io] OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 311
acknowledged by the Church to be both within
the Church and without it, both according to the
ancient traditions of the realm, and with the full
consent of the Church herself, the proper source
of all other than strictly spiritual power ? It was
not he indeed who conferred upon spiritual
officers their spiritual office. But it was he who
commissioned them to be a State power in Eng-
land. Quite apart from him, bishops of the
Church would indeed have been bishops, and
would have been possessed of all rights and
powers which belong to the inherent authority
of their office : but apart from him they would
have had no licence to act in any way as bishops
within the laws of this realm, and would have
exercised their spiritual influence at their material
peril. To him as Sovereign they acknowledged
that they owed all their public authorisation, all
right to act in and through the ecclesiastical
processes of the State, all jurisdiction in the
region of material things. There was a sense,
no doubt, in which the Crown, even if heathen,
must still have had sovereign power over all
its subjects. But the acceptance by the Church
of the Royal Supremacy was a recognition that
to a Christian sovereign, himself in things
spiritual a dutiful son of the Church, the Church
in all its persons and all its processes owed a
directness and alacrity of obedience by which the
merely necessary submission and loyalty of sub-
jects were transfigured into something of a reli-
3i2 A CHURCHMAN SOVEREIGN [No.
gious character. The Church was willing to
receive from him all the civil and national sanc-
tion of its functions ; and in acknowledgment of,
and in reliance upon, his dutiful Churchmanship,
to exercise its high office as spiritual council and
legislature only by and with his consent. Apart
from his consent indeed, its acts, however spirit-
ually regular, could in no case have had any
legal validity ; and persons, or actions, or tri-
bunals of the Church which were non-legal,
could hardly then have been other than illegal
also. The loyalty, then, of Churchmen as
Churchmen became his due, not merely as sym-
bolising the national independence of Rome, but
because the Church exercised national rights and
powers, and because he was, whilst himself
loyally and wholly of the Church and in the
Church, the personification of all lawful execu-
tive power in the realm.
There was in all this not so much a submission
to an alien power standing coldly without and
above, as a cheerful acknowledgment that, in
things not expressly pertaining to God, the
Churchman sovereign was indeed sovereign over
Churchmen. But then this sovereignty of his
was to be exercised in a Churchmanlike fashion ;
and what fashion this meant was not ambiguous
at all. In exercising it he was to be, not the
supreme secular person overriding the Church,
but rather the Churchman to whom God had
entrusted all executive force, and whose privilege
io] SOVEREIGN OVER CHURCHMEN, 313
therefore it was to give public effectiveness to
the Church. He was supreme as Churchman,
acting Churchmanly ; just as in the State he was
supreme as Englishman, acting within the Eng-
lish constitution and laws. He was no more
meant to be supreme as against or above Church
principles, or the proper ministers of them, than
on the civil side he was meant to be supreme
as against or above the laws of the land, or the
judges who administered them. In either case
the judges, ecclesiastical or temporal, were, when
acting in their capacity as judges, independent
of him ; even whilst in either case they were per-
sonally, and for their public position as judges,
and for their authority to act in that position,
dependent upon him. In either case his supre-
macy was the sort of personified, yet half-
mysterious force lying behind, to give effect
to we may say (if he acted dutifully) to give
effective independence to that system (secular
or spiritual) behind which it lay. It still signified
really the independence, not the subjection,
whether of the civil or the ecclesiastical law
and judicature.
I do not contend that there were no exaggera-
tions or perversions of this conception on the
part of the sovereign, or that there were no
high-handed acts of usurpation which had to be,
and were, more or less expressly submitted to on
the part of the Church (as well as on the part
of the secular Parliament and courts) ; but that,
3M NOT THE SECULAR POWER [No.
exaggeration and usurpation apart, the true con-
ception of the Royal Supremacy, that conception
which made the submission of Churchmen to
it an honest and a reasonable thing, that con-
ception which was really present to the con-
science of Churchmen from the beginning, and
did not die away, but outlived all the more
dangerous threatenings of usurpation, was of
such a nature as this. Now, herein there is no
such thing really as the "temporalty" overriding
the "spiritualty." The sovereign, who was
ideally supreme, was by no means identical, as
a conception, with the temporalty. Rather he
was the incarnation of a divinely Sovereign
Power, lying behind and over all ecclesiastical
and all temporal machineries alike. They are
side by side, they are co-ordinate, in their dis-
tinct domains, the ecclesiastical and the tem-
poral ; they neither override the other : they do
not meet, save only in that unique sovereign
personality, who is conceived of as the ideally
majestic fountain of all the legal jurisdiction
of them both.
In what it came afterwards to be, the " Royal
Supremacy " is almost the exact antithesis to
the principle which underlies the American judg-
ment so largely quoted just now : but in its
original conception it would not have contra-
dicted it at all. Nay, it is the American method,
and not the English one (however lineal the
descent of the latter may be), which really illus-
io] OVERRIDING THE SPIRITUAL, 315
trates and gives exact practical expression to the
proper meaning of the old English principle.
So directly is this the case that that very Ameri-
can judgment can appeal to the old English
principle as the direct and original expression
of its own controlling idea, in a way in which no
modern Privy Council judgment could have done
without a manifest distortion of meaning. " The
controlling principle " (I quote once more from
the text of the American judgment) " is declared
in the 24th statute of Henry VIII : 'causes
spiritual must be judged by judges of the spiritu-
ality, and causes temporal by temporal judges. ' '
This statement of principle is not merely com-
patible with, but is part of the necessary exposi-
tion of, the real purpose and meaning of, the
Royal Supremacy.
But the posture of times has changed. The
royal position itself is modified. It is impossi-
ble that Royal Supremacy can have for prac-
tical purposes an unchanged meaning. Usurpa-
tions still quite apart, the growth of events
itself has been reading new senses into the
phrase. The "sovereign" is now, in fact,
identified with the total civil administration.
The phrase contains less and less of the person-
ality of the personal ruler, be he Churchman
or Mohammedan, and more and more simply
represents the civil or secular power. It is
obvious at a glance that the "supremacy of the
secular power " will mean something different in
316 WHICH HAS RESULTED [No.
kind from what the " Royal Supremacy," on any
admissible hypothesis, could ever have been
properly intended, or understood to mean. It
now becomes the direct contradiction of that
which was once, in its own way, in England, and
is now elsewhere, and for justice and for safety
should everywhere and always be, the maxim at
least of modern States about Churches, viz. that,
established or unestablished, they should them-
selves be the guardians of their own rules, and
should execute their own discipline within them-
selves. The State can certainly nowadays dis-
establish a Church which it no longer trusts.
But to attempt to overrule a Church in its own
subject-matter is, at least in modern States,
fundamentally impolitic. And this is precisely
what we have been brought to in England not
so much with open eyes and deliberate intention,
as by the gradual shifting of the import of
political terms, by the modification nay, the
reversal of the meaning of the once all-import-
ant phrase, "Royal Supremacy." As pressed
upon us nowadays it is really pressed with no
other outcome of meaning except that the civil
power shall override the spiritual ; except (in
other words) that the Church shall not be inde-
pendent ; except (that is) in direct and fatal con-
tradiction of its own proper meaning and value.
Is this inevitable ? The Royal Supremacy was
once, it is suggested, an ideal sovereignty, lying
behind both ecclesiastical and secular machin-
io] THROUGH POLITICAL CHANGES 317
eries, both the "spiritualty" and the " tempor-
alty, " which were themselves, in the constitution,
parallel. In both these spheres the phrase and
the idea remain. Call it fiction, or call it con-
stitutional principle : it is retained equally in
both, but with the most widely diverse significa-
tion. In the temporal sphere it now means
practically that the " body temporal " is guaran-
teed in perfect independence. In the ecclesi-
astical sphere it now means that the " body
spiritual" is held in subjection to the "body
temporal." Is this contrast of meaning inevit-
able ? Is it impossible that in the spiritual as
well as the temporal sphere it should mean (that
which would be now, I submit, its proper mean-
ing according to the modifications of the modern
conception of sovereignty) a guaranteed inde-
pendence ? If this is really impossible, if it is
really true that Royal Supremacy nowadays can
have no meaning except such as necessarily
contradicts what it ought to mean ; is it wise,
is it conservative, to continue to be enamoured
of the phrase ?
If indeed it should be urged that the ideal con-
ception of sovereignty has but been gradually
transferred in fact from the personal sovereign
to the "body politic"; and that all else that has
followed has only followed as a necessary corol-
lary of that transfer ; it must be answered that
the considerations half practical, half mystical
which really justified to the conscience of
3 i8 THE PRIVY COUNCIL COURT [No.
Churchmen once the recognition of an excep-
tional Church position in a loyal mediaeval
Churchman sovereign, could not possibly be so
transferred as to be made applicable to the hetero-
geneous Parliament of modern days. Such a
many-headed despot cannot possibly be supreme
as Churchman, or as the Church's half-con-
secrated champion. Supreme it can be, no
doubt ; but supreme only as Caesar, the great
impersonation of secular authority, the power
of this world, external to and in contrast with
the Church.
Until the last two or three years, indeed, we
might have been told that the Privy Council was
no more external to the Church than the Sove-
reign had been conceived to be ; but that the
voice it spoke with was indeed a Church voice.
They are no adverse court (it would once have
been said) overriding the Church, but they are
themselves the supreme court of the Church ;
they are the Church's own last word. So long
as this language was capable of being used, it
greatly aggravated the Church's wrong. Church-
men could far better have borne the undisguised
yoke of coercionist, or even of persecutor ; but
to be relentlessly overruled by a will and force
essentially alien, and yet told in all sweetness
that this alien and unintelligent force was itself
but the voice of the Church claiming spiritual
loyalty, was the bitterest injury and insult of all.
The Ecclesiastical Courts Commissioners have
io] IS NOW NO CHURCH COURT 319
probably saved us from all such language in the
future. They have done all that seemed to them
practicable to narrow the sphere of the Privy
Council Court ; and to strip it of all appearance
of being a final overriding court of appeal.
Every single thing that they have done in this
direction has been of real value, and deserves
lasting gratitude. And yet, in their tenderness
to the venerable but shifting conception of the
Royal Supremacy, they have, after all, essentially
left the court, and with it the elements of the
former complications. Men can see now that the
Privy Council Court is no Church court. Men
can see now that the Privy Council Court
ought to have no power of final overruling,
no voice in really ecclesiastical decisions. Yet
in the last resort it retains the power ; nor
is it easy to doubt that practically all the ecclesi-
astical tribunals, as lower courts subject to
its ultimate revision and overruling, would (if
ever the recommendations of the Commission
were tested in practical working) come by and
by to administer and interpret Church principles
and rules, and be, in effect, compelled to admin-
ister and interpret them, not independently of,
but in accordance with, the administering and
interpreting of the court of the Privy Council.
But if it be so, the essence of the confusion has
not yet been removed. Neither will it be, until
the Church of England, whether it be disestab-
lished, or still more, much more, if it con-
320
THE NEED OF REFORM
[No.
tinue to deserve and command the national trust
as established, shall have been in all its ecclesi-
astical processes and discipline, and in all their
rightful consequences, wholly and absolutely
emancipated from all secular overruling.
It is possible that the change in English tradi-
tion and procedure which I venture to plead for
may still seem, on many sides, exaggerated.
Possibly some would say that so great a modifi-
cation of existing conditions necessarily involves
perhaps even that it amounts to disestablish-
ment. Others, with no less show of reason, might
answer, No : but it rather is the prudent reform
which most truly conserves the establishment by
averting at once the danger and the need of revolu-
tion. Upon any such dispute as this I have no
concern now to intrude. Only upon whichever
hypothesis, and under whichever title, I submit
that the modification is in itself a reasonable one ;
and is necessary for the preservation of health. 1
1 [The following are the references to the Report of the Ecclesiastical
Courts Commission:
The quotations on pp. 274-6, 279-88, are from Report II. 638-41
290-1 II. 601
291-3
294-5
321
322
323-4
324-5
II. 600
II- 313
1-35-6
1-73
II. 367
II. 1-
io] HENRY VIII ON ROYAL SUPREMACY 321
APPENDIX
EVEN Henry VIII himself, whose exaggerated pre-
tensions are undeniable, could write and urge [I quote
from Bishop Stubbs' historical appendix to the Com-
mission's Report] " that the title should not be strained
so as to imply a denial of the sole and supreme lord-
ship of Christ, or to claim a headship of the mystical
body of Christ, or as more than meaning headship of
the clergy of England ; he insists that the headship is
not limited to temporal matters, but that 'all spiritual
things, by reason whereof may arise bodily trouble
and inquietation, be necessarily included in princes'
power': that the spiritual things, the ministration of
which is by Christ committed to the clergy, are not so
far extended as the modern use of the word spiritual
assumes, but that as to persons, property, acts, and
deeds, the clergy are under the king as head ; that
this headship does not imply superiority in things in
which emperors and princes obey bishops and priests
as doers of the message of Christ and His ambassadors
for that purpose ; the addition in temporalibus would
be superfluous, ' as men, being here themselves
earthly and temporal, cannot be head and governor
to things eternal.' If spiritualities 'refers to spiritual
men, that is, priests, clerks, their good acts and deeds
worldly, in all this both we and all other princes be at
this day chief and heads.' He alleges, as illustrations
of the existing headship, the Convocations assembled
under royal authority, the fealty of the bishops, licence
and assent to the election of abbots, cognisance of
certain offences of the clergy ; ' so as in all those
articles concerning the persons of priests, their laws,
their acts, and order of living, forasmuch as they be
Y
322 QUEEN ELIZABETH [No.
all temporal and concerning this present life only, in
those we, as we be called, be indeed in this real caput,
and, because there is no man above us here, be indeed
supremum caput.' "
Queen Elizabeth's explanation after the abandon-
ment of the supremum caput, is, perhaps, more entirely
reassuring. "And further, her Majesty forbiddeth
all manner her subjects to give ear or credit to such
perverse and malicious persons which most sinisterly
and maliciously labour to notifie to her loving subjects
how by the words of the said oath it may be collected
that the kings or queens of this realm, possessors of the
crown, may challenge authority and power of ministry
of divine service in the Church, wherein her said sub-
jects be much abused by such evil disposed persons ;
for certainly her Majesty neither doth nor ever will
challenge any authority than that was challenged and
lately used by the said noble kings of famous memory,
King Henry VIII and King Edward VI, -which is
and was of ancient time due to the imperial crown of this
realm; that is under God to have the sovereignty and
rule over all manner of persons born within these her
realms, dominions, and countries, of what estate, either
ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be, so as no other
foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over
them. And if any person, that hath conceived any
other sense of the form of the said oath, shall accept
the same oath with this interpretation, sense, or mean-
ing, her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such
in that behalf as her good and obedient subjects, and
shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contained
in the said Act against such as shall peremptorily or
obstinately refuse to take the same oath." With this
runs the language of the 37th Article: "Where we
attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief government,
by which titles we understand the minds of some
slanderous folks to be offended ; we give not to our
io] ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL 323
princes the ministering either of God's Word or of the
Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately
set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly
testify ; but that only prerogative, which we see to
have been given always to all godly princes in holy
Scriptures by God Himself; that is, that they should
rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge
by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal,
and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and
evil-doers."
The following passage from Dr. Liddon's evidence
may be added :
" I should like to be allowed to refer to the language
of Abp. Grindal, soon after he was appointed to the
see of Canterbury, when a difference had arisen be-
tween him and Queen Elizabeth about the Puritan
prophesyings. It shows how little the legislation of
Henry's reign had destroyed in the representatives of
the Church of England the sense of what was due to
the spirituality in matters of Christian doctrine and
discipline. I quote from his ' Remains ' in the Parker
Society's edition, p. 387. ' I beg you, Madam, that
you would refer all these ecclesiastical matters which
touch religion, or the doctrine and discipline of the
Church, unto the bishops and divines of your realm ;
according to the example of all godly Christian
emperors and princes of all ages. For indeed they
are things to be judged (as an ancient father writeth)
in ecclesia, seu synodo, non in palatio. When your
Majesty hath questions of the laws of your realm, you
do not decide the same in your court, but send them
to your judges to be determined. Likewise for doubts
in matters of doctrine or discipline of the Church the
ordinary way is to refer the decision of the same to
the bishops, and other head ministers of the Church.'
Then he goes on to address to Elizabeth the language
which was used by St. Ambrose to Theodosius and to
324 JAMES I, LORD COKE [No.
Valentinian ; and he quotes with approval the state-
ment of the same father, that Constantius fell into
Arianism 4 because he took upon him de fide intra
palatium judicareS Grindal represents what may be
termed the extreme point of the Puritan impulse which
succeeded the Reformation ; Grindal is more of a
Puritan than either Parker or Whitgift. This language
shows how mistaken it is to suppose that the sensitive
feeling about the transfer of purely ecclesiastical duties
to the Crown or to laymen began with the High
Church Caroline reaction.
"7389. Have you any evidence that Elizabeth con-
ducted her ecclesiastical business in that way, that she
withdrew the business from the House of Commons
because not fitted for the laity ? Yes, she did.
"739O- Was that her interpretation of it? That
was her interpretation of it. The 37th Article refers
to her injunctions. And there is a passage in James
the First's ' Apology for the Oath of Allegiance ' which
shows how he himself understood this oath of supre-
macy. James had sufficiently high notions of the pre-
rogative, yet he writes as follows : ' I never did nor
will presume to create any articles of faith, or to be
judge thereof; but to submit my exemplary obedience
unto them [the bishops of the Church] in as great
humility as the meanest of the land ' (p. 269). To the
same effect Bishop Andrewes, who was selected by
James to defend his supremacy against Bellarmine
(Tortura Torti, p. 380) : ' Docendi munus vel dubia
leg-is explicandi Rex non assumit."
Mr. MacColl concludes his evidence with a further
quotation: " If I might express my opinion in the
language of Lord Coke, I should like to be allowed to
do so. What he lays down is this : ' As in temporal
causes the King by the mouth of his judges in his
courts of justice doth judge and determine the same
by the temporal laws of England, so in causes eccle-
io] MR. GLADSTONE 325
siastical and spiritual . . . the same are to be deter-
mined and decided by the ecclesiastical judges accord-
ing to the King's ecclesiastical laws of this realm.'
And in the fourth of his Institutes he says : ' And
certain it is that this kingdom has been best governed,
and peace and quiet preserved, when both parties
that is, when the justices of the temporal courts and
the ecclesiastical judges have kept themselves within
their proper jurisdiction, without encroaching or usurp-
ing one upon another. And where such encroachments
or usurpations have been made they have been the
seeds of great trouble and inconvenience.'"
Mr. Gladstone, in his letter to the Bishop of London
in 1850, wrote : " It is an utter mistake to suppose that
the recognition of the royal supremacy in matters
ecclesiastical established in the Church a despotic
power. The monarchy of England had been from
early times a free monarchy. The idea of law was
altogether paramount in this happy constitution to that
of any personal will. . . . Thus everybody knew
that there were laws superior to the Sovereign, and
liberties which he could not infringe : that he was
king in order to be guardian of those laws and liber-
ties, and to direct both the legislative and all other
governing powers in the spirit which they breathed,
and within the lines which they marked out for him :
... in making Church law he was to ratify the acts
of the Church herself, represented in Convocation, and
if there were need of the highest civil sanctions, then
to have the aid of Parliament also ; and in administer-
ing Church law he was to discharge this function
through the medium of bishops and divines, canonists
and civilians, as her own most fully authorised, best-
instructed sons, following in each case the analogy of
his ordinary procedure as head of the State.
" It is a well-established principle that the Sovereign
cannot administer justice in his own person, unless
326 MR. GLADSTONE [No. 10.
authorised to do so, as any officer of state might be,
by statute. ' Edward I frequently sat in the Court of
King's Bench ; and in later times James I is said to
have sat there in person, but was informed by his
judges that he could not deliver an opinion.' l And it
is now an undisputed principle that 4 though the king
should be present in a court of justice, he is not
empowered to determine any cause or motion but by
the mouth of his judges, to whom he has committed
his whole judicial authority.' 2 The doctrine of this
passage is, I believe, that of the great legal authorities.
Thus while the immense latitude of nominal preroga-
tive was overshadowed, on the one side, by the superi-
ority of the combined legislature, it was, on the other,
barred from arbitrary excess by the necessity of
operating through responsible instruments. The ideal
or legal monarch was invested with these high attri-
butes, while the living one was on almost all sides
limited by law, in order that the actual authority under
which the work of government is carried on throughout
the country in its details might be one and undivided,
revered and resistless."
It may perhaps, then, be also remarked that, however
fair and constitutional it may sound at the first blush,
there is no more logical ground for laying down that
there must be an essential right of appeal to the person
of the Sovereign in ecclesiastical than in ordinary civil
or criminal cases. It is no principle of the constitution
that the Sovereign in person, or through his personal
counsellors, may always be called upon to re-hear and
revise what the Lord Justices of Appeal have pro-
nounced upon. Neither is it necessary for the safe-
guarding of any constitutional or essential rights of
the subject, that the ecclesiastical courts of appeal
should not be final.
1 Blackstone, iii. p. 41, note. 2 Allen on the Prerogative, p. 93.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
AND LAWS OF MARRIAGE
(A paper read at Warrington on Nov. 7th, 1884. ) l
1 r* ROM city to city the Apostles of Christ went,
JL and in every place that which they did was
this : they organised a society. They were estab-
lishing a great association which was to be
world-wide, and they never obtained a footing
anywhere without inaugurating and properly
organising a branch of this great society. The
society which they everywhere organised had, of
course, its officers, its rules, its ceremonies ; but
the question it mostly concerns us to notice to-
night is that it was a society for personal holiness.
No matter what nation or country it might be
established in, those who became members of the
society were bound by the society's rules of
personal holiness. Need I say that this great
association for personal holiness which the
Apostles everywhere so industriously formed and
ordered was that which we by Baptism became
members of that which we in the Apostles'
Creed declare our belief in the Holy Catholic
Church ?
1 [See page xiii.]
327
328 THE CHURCH HAD [No.
Now it was to be expected, if the society thus
divinely founded was to be a society for personal
holiness, that it should have its own strict laws
on the subject of marriage. And so we very
quickly find that it had. If a man transgressed
the principles of the Church about marriage, he
was turned out of the Church, and to be turned
out of the Church meant to be turned out of the
society of Christ, which alone possessed either the
means or the hope of holiness ; it meant to be
handed over to Satan for chastisement and bodily
ruin in the hope indeed that out of that ruin
and misery the wretched soul might in penitence
humbly seek to be reconciled and restored to its
place among the brethren again. I am not using
the language of any corrupted Christianity, of
Jesuits, or of Popes ; I am using the language
of St. Paul. Let anyone examine for himself the
language used by St. Paul to the Corinthians
in the fifth chapter of i Corinthians and the
second chapter of 2 Corinthians, about that
Corinthian whom he first solemnly turned out
of Christ's Church by excommunication, and
afterwards on his penitence restored, and see
whether I have at all exaggerated. And
what was the offence of this man ? He had
flagrantly disobeyed the law as to restrictions
upon marriage, which was binding on the con-
science of members of Christ's Church. We
see then very clearly that this great society of the
Church had its own rules and its own discipline,
n] ITS MARRIAGE LAW 329
and in particular that it had its own rules about
marriage, which if a man disobeyed, he must
be turned out without pity as a heathen and an
outcast from the Church.
Of course at this time the Church had no
shadow of political power ; on the contrary, as
far as lawyers or judges knew of it at all, they
would have had to treat it as an illegal society.
But this Church, however humble, or despised, or
persecuted, had nevertheless her own rules. A
man could disobey them no doubt without doing
anything illegal only he would cease to be a
Christian. If he wished to be a loyal Roman
subject, he had to obey the laws of the Roman
Empire. But if he wished to be a member of
Christ's Church, he must obey the Church rules ;
if he defied the rules of Christ's society he could
not be a member of the Church of Christ. There
was nothing in this which would be in the least
perplexing to the mind of St. Paul and his
contemporaries.
But, in process of time, there came a certain
great change over the circumstances, no less a
change than this : that the Roman Empire itself
became Christian, and accepted for itself the
fundamental laws of Christ's Church. And it
followed before long, as a natural consequence,
that the rules of the Church of Christ on the
subject of marriage became the basis of the
imperial laws. I do not suppose that this made
any very great change at the time in respect of
330 WHICH BECAME [No.
forbidden degrees of relationship ; for even the
laws of Pagan Rome on this subject had been
guided by so sound an instinct that no great
contrast of principles was needed. The subject
on which they were incredibly lax, and on which
the Christian principles made necessarily an
enormous change in the imperial laws, was the
subject of divorce. Whether, however, the
changes which had to be made in the old Pagan
code were greater or less, the point which concerns
us now is this : that as a consequence of the con-
version of Constantine and the Empire, the rules
of the Church of Christ became, and in all the
Christian nations of Europe continued to be for
centuries, without dispute, the basis of all the
national laws and customs of marriage.
I will ask you to notice particularly what
followed from this. This consequence followed :
since the laws of each Christian nation were
absolutely based upon the rules of Christ's Church
on earth, Christian men and women no longer
needed, as in primitive days, to ask themselves
two separate questions, viz. first, whether their
union was permitted by Christ; and secondly,
whether it was legal according to the laws of the
land. But since the laws of the land were framed
upon the rules of the Church, they were able to
take it for granted, without further question, that
whatever the law of the land allowed was allow-
able also in the Church of Christ. I say they
were able to take this for granted, and they did so.
ii] THE LAW OF THE STATE 331
In the times of St. Paul, of course, no Chris-
tian could have dreamed of considering only the
laws of heathen Rome. He must have asked him-
self not only, Is this marriage legal ? but also, Is
this marriage permitted in that society of holiness
to which I belong, i.e. the Church of Christ
upon earth ? Whereas for hundreds of years
past it has been enough for us and our fathers
simply to ask ourselves, Is such and such a
marriage "legal"? because we have learnt by
immemorial habit to assume that the laws were
Christian, and that as Christians we could rely
upon them.
So inveterate, indeed, has this habit become,
so completely have even Christian people learned
to rely upon the law, and to look to that only,
that if the law were to-morrow to legalise some-
thing which was plainly forbidden to Christ's
Church, I am afraid that we should find a great
many respectable people, meaning to be good
Christians, who would at once begin to think
that the thing, because it was legal, ought there-
fore to be tolerated among Christians. Christian
people have learnt to forget, to an extent which
is most astonishing and full of peril, that they
must look for their rule of right and wrong to
Christ, and to that great society of Christ upon
earth of which they profess to be members, and
only to the laws of the land if, or so far as, they
are conformed to the rule of Christ's society.
Now I want to insist with all the emphasis I can
332 BUT THE TWO LAWS [No.
that it is absolutely necessary for Christian
people to remember that Christ's rules for His
Church, and the laws of this or any other par-
ticular country, are really two different things. If
they coincide, so much the better for us. But
even when they speak the same things they are
still two voices which happily agree together ;
they are not the same voice ; and they may
differ. It is perfectly within the power of the
English or any other nation to pass a law which
shall flagrantly contradict the plainest commands
of Christ. No one would deny in the abstract
that an English Parliament or a French Assembly
could do this; and yet, incredible as it may seem,
such is the power of old habit with us that even
if an English Act of Parliament did plainly
contradict Christ's rules, there would be found a
great many respectable ladies and gentlemen,
meaning to be Christians, who would not notice
the fact that the law of marriage was being
paganised, but would cling still to the old instinct
of supposing that because a law allowed a thing,
therefore a Christian might do it without forfeit-
ing his membership in Christ.
Do I seem to anyone to be making a violent
supposition ? Alas ! it is not supposition at all :
the thing is already plain fact and notorious fact.
Persons who have been divorced in the law courts
consider themselves at liberty to marry whom
they will ; even guilty parties those with whom
they have been guilty. Am I not speaking of
ii] MAY AGAIN DIVERGE 333
things which are notorious ? for they have not
been done in a corner. Now I say nothing at
present of the question of the second marriage of
the innocent party while the guilty one still
lives ; because, though I might have much to say
in argument about that, I know at least that some
doubts may be pleaded, and that doctors of the
Church have held conflicting opinions on the
question. But as to the marriage of the guilty
party with his or her paramour, surely if words
mean anything, the lips of Christ Himself have
pronounced that it is adultery for ever. Yet by
the laws of England it is lawful marriage.
Am I dreaming if I say that I fear there
are many, even among educated English gentle-
men and ladies, even among loyally minded
Christian men and women, communicants them-
selves in the awful Communion of Christ's
Church, who are prepared to condone such
things as these, and though their taste may be
somewhat offended for awhile, yet in time at
least, to accept the adultery as marriage, and to
frown with a sort of spurious indignation if the
officers of Christ's society dare to remember
that the Body of Christ committed to them
is holy ?
But what does all this mean ? It means that
people are so much accustomed to rely upon the
law, that when the law begins, after long cen-
turies of union to part company with the rules
which bind the consciences of members of Christ's
334 WITH CONSEQUENT [NO.
Church, there is a most imminent and fearful
danger of a great confusion of Christian con-
sciences ; and that even in this matter of divorce
and marriage after divorce, where, to Christian
consciences, there ought to be no doubt at all. I
fear it cannot be denied that the deliberate de-
parture of an English law in modern times from
Christian principles has produced a great con-
fusion among many Christian consciences. I am
not complaining at this moment so much of the
direct harm done by that law as of the indirect
harm to the general conscience. Nor am I speak-
ing of the more thoughtful minds of the more
accurately informed Church members ; but it is
true, I fear, of a great mass of our people, not
specially thoughtful or well informed, yet honestly
desiring to be Christian, that by that unchristian
law their conscience as to right and wrong will
become, and is becoming, perverted and con-
fused; their old instinct of keen discrimination
between good and evil is blunted ; they are be-
ginning in some cases to accept wrong as right.
Yet the Church of Christ and her ministers can-
not pare away or make exceptions to the rule
of Christian holiness. Now, I say, if this pro-
cess of confusing of the national conscience
proceeds much further, and Church and State
differ more and more in their standard of marriage,
and men and women are misled (as they will be
misled) thereby, then the struggle and agony of
soul which will be caused by and by in many
ii] CONFUSION OF CONSCIENCE 335
individual cases is fearful even to contemplate.
And, alas ! it is not future only, this very thing
is already beginning.
I have spoken of one point in which already
the law of the land and the law of Christ stand
in the sharpest conceivable contradiction. The
divorced adulteress and her paramour may be
legally married, but do you suppose that any-
thing in the world could justify my receiving
them in the Church as lawful man and wife?
And now, from this point of view, I ask you
to think for a few moments of another change
in the national marriage law, about which there
has been, as you know, a most persistent agita-
tion for many years past. It is proposed to
legalise marriage with a wife's sister. But how?
What is it exactly that is proposed ? It is pro-
posed to pass an Act of Parliament which shall
stamp such unions with legality. Now, of course,
an Act of Parliament can make them legal, as
it has already made marriage with a woman
divorced because of adultery legal, and might
another time, if it pleased, make a man's marriage
with his own mother legal ; but it must be borne
in mind that though Acts of Parliament can make
any divorce or any union legal, they cannot do
more than this ; they cannot make them per-
missible to members of the Church of Christ if
they are really against the Church's law. Is it,
then, a matter on which the society of Christ's
Church has no judgment and no rule of its own ?
336 MARRIAGE WITH [No.
Is it a matter of indifference to the Christian
society ? Are we prevented from these marriages
only by Act of Parliament? If we are prevented
only by Act of Parliament, then, and then only,
can a new Act of Parliament make them allow-
able to us.
Now I am perfectly well aware that there are
many who advocate the change, both in Parlia-
ment and out of it, who really are of opinion that
it is, from the point of view of Christ's Church,
a fairly open question ; and, moreover, I quite
believe that there is so little general desire to
make a contradiction in the matter between
English law and Christian right, that the measure
would not command anything like the support it
does if it were not for this opinion. But it must be
remembered that this is only at most the opinion
of individuals, and an opinion, moreover, which
hardly bears examination. Is it seriously con-
tended that the Church in any age has regarded
these marriages as within the Christian right? Is
it in the least capable of being disputed that if
the Church should sanction and bless them now,
she would be doing a new thing turning her
back upon the whole of her own historical judg-
ment in the matter and for the first time scatter-
ing to the winds the whole of one of the two clear
and consistent principles upon which her code of
marriage prohibitions has been based from the
beginning ?
But then, in the private opinion of many in-
] A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER 337
dividuals, Scripture would warrant her even in
this gigantic change. Now, I am not here to
attack the right of private judgment, though I
think we have run a little wild upon it. But do
let us remember that all this is private judgment.
Is it so much as suggested in any serious or
businesslike way that the Church in this land
should remove her prohibitions?
Are there any proposals for the enactment of a
new canon? Surely no informal declaration would
suffice for the purpose even from the most august
ecclesiastical bodies. But who is expected to
make even such a declaration ? The Bishops ?
the Convocations? the assemblies of dioceses,
whether clerical, or lay and clerical combined?
And do you know what these bodies would say if
they were invited to make such an innovation in
the rule of Christian life ? Indirectly, indeed, the
question has been already before them, almost
every one of them. There is hardly a diocese in
England which has not spoken. Do you know
what they have said ? It is really almost as idle
to imagine that the Church would sanction such
a revolutionary innovation now as to contend
that it would not be a revolutionary innovation ;
that it would not be a tearing to pieces of the
whole judgment of the Church in all ages as to
what Christian marriage meant and was, if she
did sanction it. But why do I use such strong
words ? Why do I speak of it as a gigantic
change and revolutionary innovation ?
338 THE PRINCIPLE OF AFFINITY [No.
I think I can justify the phrase by this simple
thought. If my wife's sister is to me before God
a marriageable person, then it follows that re-
lationship by marriage is no relationship. She
is my sister by marriage. If relationship by
marriage is a reality, I cannot, by God's law,
marry her. If I may, under God's law, marry
her, this must mean that relationship by
marriage is before God no relationship. But if
relationships by marriage, relationships (as we
call them) of affinity, are nothing, then these
two great results follow first, that the table of
marriage prohibitions received in the Universal
Church from the beginning is altered, not in one
single particular only, but from top to bottom ; for
then so far as God's law is concerned I may marry
my wife's mother, or niece, or daughter, or grand-
daughter, or my step-mother, or my son's widow,
for they are all to me nothing whatever in the
way of relationship : secondly, that man and wife in
their marriage were not really altogether one, and
that sequels deduced from their real oneness were
gratuitous mistakes, for that really they still were
two. In that case the Church has been at fault
in all ages in her interpretation of the Master's
most solemn declaration about the meaning and
nature of marriage ; and that declaration itself, so
far from really bearing its most obvious meaning,
would be understood more easily and more
correctly if it were paraphrased thus "they
twain shall be one flesh; but so that they continue
n] IS BASED UPON CHRIST'S WORD 339
still to be two separate persons, distinct in all
their relationships, and not merged in one ; not
one, still essentially twain " ; and yet "no more
twain, but one flesh," were His words. It is, I
think, impossible for anyone to dispute the truth,
in history, of these two historical facts first, that
the whole scheme of Christian law and custom
about marriage has been built upon the belief
that relationships by marriage are absolutely real
relationships ; and secondly, that this belief in
their reality has itself been understood to be
based upon, and asserted in, the words of our
Lord's great declaration about marriage in the
Bible. The Church has seen this meaning in her
Lord's declaration, both according to the plain-
ness of its own words, and also as they are further
commented upon and elucidated by the whole
course of God's revelation of His will in respect
of marriage from the beginning of the Bible to
the end.
Now, if anyone holds the opposite opinion as
to what the Church's judgment ought to be accord-
ing to the Scriptures, I submit that his task must
be to persuade the Church (if he can) to modify
the judgment which she has held from the begin-
ning. I have not been arguing this question
this evening. There may be a time to raise the
question for discussion whether the Church's
immemorial judgment is right or wrong; to open
and discuss the whole Scriptural argument. I
may be allowed just to mention that a few months
340 THE DISASTROUS EFFECT [No.
ago, at a series of meetings with my clerical
brethren in the neighbourhood of Chester, I
ventured to attempt this very thing, and to draw
out from the Scripture the whole outline of argu-
ment as I conceived it, which proved that the
Church's interpretation was the right and neces-
sary one. 1
To-night I have barely indicated that argu-
ment ; I have been concerned rather to call
attention to what the facts are ; rather to remind
those who have allowed their thoughts to become
confused, that the Church always had, and must
always have, her own laws ; rather to insist upon
the importance and the reality of the marriage
laws which do exist for the society on earth of
Christ's Church than to prove from Scripture that
those laws were absolutely true and right. Yet
absolutely true I am convinced that they are ;
and I am quite certain that you cannot possibly
alter them in respect of sisters-in-law without
shattering to pieces one of their most funda-
mental principles, and letting in what will soon
prove to be a great tide of unchristian and un-
natural licence.
The proposal, then, if carried at all, will be
carried, I affirm, only because misconceived. It
will be carried by the support of those who,
through confusedness of thinking, will think that
Parliament has power to make such marriages
lawful for Christian people ; and who, if the
1 [See page xiii.]
ii] OF LEGALISING MARRIAGES, 341
marriages should be legalised, will actually sup-
pose them to be lawful to Christians. There is a
true point of view from which it might really be
held to be less mischievous if a law were passed
which bade us marry at once our mothers, sisters,
and daughters, for at least no Christian conscience
would be deceived by that. There is not one
who would not know that the use of that law
would mean the rejection of Christ. But now,
alas! there is in the proposal as made a certain
kind of uncertainty and seeming ambiguity. Yes,
our long dependence upon the law in Christian
countries, followed by the blow which was dealt
to Christian consciences by the Divorce Acts,
and the mischief of the persistent agitation for the
present proposal, have wrought this grievous
wrong, that the consciences of our people are so
far confused that they no longer think and feel
with the strength of a keen and sure instinct
between right and wrong as to marriage.
Yes, that ambiguity, that confusedness of clear
sight, that misleading uncertainty as to the voices
which profess to guide us, it is that which I fear
most of all. It is humiliating, indeed, to think
of the national wrong which will be committed if,
as a nation, we adopt a standard of marriage laws
inconsistent with that of Christ's Church ; but I
grieve most deeply of all to think of that vast
tale of yet unwritten agonies of soul and con-
science which will wring the hearts by and by of
many of our sons and our daughters if, through
342 WHICH ARE SINFUL [No. u
the fatal confusedness of the public conscience,
they shall be (as they will be) misled and betrayed
into condoning or making unions, which they
indeed may not intend as sin, but which never-
theless are, and cannot but be for ever, in the
sight and conscience of Christ's Holy Church,
sinful.
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE
CHRISTIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE
(A speech delivered in the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury
on May gth, 1901. ) l
[The report of a Committee on marriage with a deceased
wife's sister having been presented, its adoption was proposed
as a gravamen. In due course Bishop Barry moved the
adoption of clause (2), viz.: "That such unions [i.e. with a
deceased wife's sister] are, in the belief of the undersigned,
contrariant to the principle of marriage revealed in Holy
Scripture, a principle recognised in the Church from early
times and emphatically reaffirmed by the Church of England. "]
I AM sincerely sorry that there is no possibility
of hoping that this clause will be affirmed
unanimously, but I still venture to hope that it
may be affirmed, if not unanimously, at all events
by the voice of a great majority. I should like
to say a word or two about the principle [viz. of
marriage] which has been challenged. The Dean
of Chichester has spoken of what the principle
exactly is [viz. "the great principle of Christian
marriage is announced in our Lord's words, that
man and wife become one flesh, and therefore
the relations of the husband become the relations
of the wife "]. I should just like to ask you to
1 [See page xiii.]
343
344 THE OLD TESTAMENT [No.
recollect for a moment further the relation on this
subject between the Old Testament and the New.
In the Old Testament there is, as far as I can
see, no clear enunciation of a principle which
would, as a principle, luminously assert itself in
all possible relations. But there is a very con-
siderable amount of what I may call education
in detail towards the understanding of a principle.
Take the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, for
instance. It is full of particular enactments.
But these enactments do not, I apprehend, cover
the whole ground. Every possible instance is not
enumerated ; but there is instance after instance
which, if you ask for anything that underlies
them, will point towards one great leading prin-
ciple. That great leading principle is in fact
affirmed by our Lord in the Gospels as a principle
which had been in fact inherent in the institution
of marriage from the Creation forward. The Old
Testament is most important for our purpose, not
because we are bound either to one or more par-
ticular enactments in the Book of Leviticus, as
serving for us in place of explicit statute law,
but because we desire in the light of the Old
Testament to interpret aright the principle which
we find in the New. Now, it is perfectly true
the principle as announced in the New might,
so far as words are concerned, be capable of
more interpretations than one. We want to know
the true and right interpretation of the principle
which conies to us from our Lord, and we find
ii] AND THE MARRIAGE LAW 345
it by observing the line along which the religious
education of the chosen people had been pro-
ceeding before. If we suppose for one moment
that the principle as given by our Lord in the
Gospels does not so affirm the relation of man
and wife as to carry with it what we should now
call the recognition of a principle of affinity, then
I submit that we should have before us this
curious phenomenon a series of educational
precepts delivered in the Old Testament as part of
a process of the religious education of mankind
which led up to nothing at all. They would be
left entirely suspended. Whereas the Old Testa-
ment at once falls into its absolutely true place in
relation to the New, if we recognise it as being
the gradual leading towards what in the Christian
Church is to become luminous and complete. If
we are not able to affirm that principle, which
seems to me to be absolutely true ; if we are not
able to affirm that the legalisation of marriage
with a deceased wife's sister is in our judgment
contrariant to the principle of marriage revealed
in Holy Scripture, then it really becomes a
matter of extremely little practical importance
whether we have anything to say about the
matter at all. I submit, first of all, that it is
eminently desirable that we should now affirm,
it not unanimously, yet by the greatest possible
majority, that a certain proposal contravenes the
principle, the clear and far-reaching principle
progressively made manifest in the religious
346 THE WESTERN CHURCH [No.
education of mankind, and culminating in the
announcement of our Lord Himself. And I
would suggest that the allusion to this principle
by reference to the relation betwixt Christ and
His Church is something more than merely an
illustration. The union betwixt Christ and His
Church is rather the fact which the sanctity of
the marriage union approximates and expresses,
as it were, in another form. So much then as to
that point.
In reference to the second clause, I venture to
think that this principle has been in fact recognised
throughout the course of Christian history. It
may be true that there have been from time to
time differences of opinion and of usage. But I
venture to suggest that all those instances which
were referred to by Canon Gore this morning,
though they may point to some hesitation as to
the precise way in which those Christians were to
be treated who had contravened the principle,
yet, nevertheless, even in treating them one way
or another, more or less leniently, the principle
was recognised. I suggest also that, whatever
may be said and whatever perplexity may arise
from what was done in the Western Church from
time to time in the way of dispensations, yet the
very fact of these dispensations constitutes a
recognition of the essential principle. And I
hardly imagine that if we recognise that fact we
shall be disposed to let our minds be influenced
to any great extent this afternoon by the existence
n] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 347
of somewhat exaggerated claims to a power of
giving dispensations.
One word more. As to this last point, that the
principle has been emphatically reaffirmed by the
Church of England, I cordially agree with every
word spoken by Bishop Barry. I feel myself
somewhat at a loss to understand what it is which
the Archdeacon of Lincoln proposes to put over
against the fulness of the title of the Table of
Prohibited Degrees. But I should rather quote
the words which the Archdeacon has referred to
in the Marriage Service itself [viz. "otherwise
than God's word doth allow "] as enormously
accentuating the solemnity which attaches, in
the corporate teaching of the Church of England,
to that principle which is expressed not only in
the title at the head of the table, but in almost
every line of the table from end to end. When
I read in the Marriage Service the caution that
" so many as are coupled together otherwise than
God's Word doth allow, are not joined together
by God, neither is their matrimony lawful," I
feel that the Church of England is laying down a
principle which is in itself of the most tremendous
solemnity, and which finds its own further inter-
pretation in detail in the schedule, as it were,
attached in the Table of Prohibited Degrees at
the end of the Prayer-book. 1 .
1 [The clause was carried, with only one dissentient.]
DOCTRINAL STANDARDS
(Two lectures delivered at Pusey House in the autumn of 1897.)
I. THE CREEDS
I SUP POSE that every thoughtful man who
is, and desires to be, a Christian, must at
times have asked himself, in all seriousness of
candour, if not with anxiety and misgiving,
whether he does, after all, believe the character-
istic doctrines of the Christian religion to be the
very truth. Thus, the doctrine of the Incarna-
tion, that Jesus, the Son of Mary, the carpenter
of Nazareth, was, in the fullest sense of which
the words are capable, the actual personal revela-
tion, within human nature and conditions, of the
Eternal God this, as against every higher and
more reverential form of Arianism ; it is what
the Church has always insisted upon ; it is the
basis and kernel of the Church's historic creed :
but is it, actually and exactly, without overstate-
ment of fancy, the mere truth of fact? Again,
the doctrine of the Trinity, the essential three-
foldness and mutuality of Divine Personality :
it may be said to have grown out of the Christian
form of the doctrine of Incarnation ; but is it, as
stated in the Creed, so essential to truth, that to
348
No. 12] THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 349
lose touch of it, in the understanding of the
Spirit, would be to wander from the possibilities
of a spiritual insight into truth ? Or is it per-
haps, after all, a corollary of old-world meta-
physics, based just upon the materialising over-
statement of the true Incarnation doctrine, and
maintained as if it were a fundamental of spiritual
thought, by a spiritually unintellectual conserva-
tism ? Or again, the Christian doctrine of Atone-
ment the life of obedience, the Death, the
Blood the reconciliation through Blood : I do
not of course attempt now to characterise or
explain it : it is difficult ; it needs to be
explained ; it needs to be thought over, with
the most absolute sincerity of soul ; but is it,
after all, more or less fictitious a strange, old-
world, rather hideous way of putting things,
which, whatever be their kernel of allegorical or
indirect truth, cannot possibly be the cardinal
truth of the relation in this world between God
and man, in the form or in the sense in which
Christian thought has conceived them, and apart
from which they would not be that which
Christian faith has always meant in believing
them?
I have pointed to what seem like very central
doctrines. But then, perhaps, does it occur to
us that there are others? and are we inclined
to distinguish, and perhaps resent what we are
disposed more or less to think an unnecessary
multiplication of secondary beliefs ? Such beliefs,
350 A CLERGYMAN'S BELIEF [No.
perhaps, as the virgin-birth, the resurrection
of the body, the catholicity and the unity of the
Church, or the practical use of the Sacraments ;
are these, or any of them, accretions unnecessary,
at least, if not disputable ?
Now, as such questions as these must at some
times, as I conceive, have presented themselves,
with the utmost possible seriousness, to almost
every baptized Christian who was both intelligent
and sincere upon the religious side : so, to young
men who have thought, in any degree, of the
possibility of seeking Holy Orders, they can
hardly fail to come home with even exceptional
directness of emphasis. Do I really, and not
conventionally, accept and believe it all ? What
are the intellectual and spiritual obligations to
which, in reference to these, a clergyman is com-
mitted ?
Well, if he is a sincere man, he will have done
his best to think what the doctrines of the Trinity,
and the Incarnation, and the Atonement, and the
coming of the Holy Ghost, and the Church,
really mean to himself. We cannot wish him to
shirk or cover up anything : we can wish him
to be docile and humble-minded as well as sincere
in his attempt ; to be able to receive things which
he cannot fully understand, where it is reasonable
that he should receive them and reasonable that
he should not understand them ; we can see for
him how the temper of docility and intellectual
lowly-mindedness really contributes to his capacity
12] MUST BE SINCERE 351
of spiritual insight, and is not a mere method or
excuse for accepting insincerely : but whatever
place we may assign to humility of character as
a method of insight, we do wish him to be per-
fectly true. We would not have him deceive
himself any more than us. We do not want him
to pretend to accept what he thinks that he does
not accept ; or blind himself into thinking that
he accepts what, if he were more transparently
straight and true, he ought to know that he really
does not. We do not want him to compromise
truth by accepting the doctrines in one sense,
when he feels in his heart that their real and
proper meaning is another. We do desire that
his acceptance of them in the end should honestly
mean, that he honestly, and not unreasonably,
believes himself to believe what he honestly, and
not unreasonably, believes to be the true and
proper meaning of the doctrines in the Church
of Christ. For him and for ourselves we do
desire to take our stand quite unreservedly upon
truth. We do not believe in taking liberties with
truth ; or that the cause of truth can be sub-
served by anything that is not perfectly sincere.
Well, we have before us the thought of our
young man, feeling his feet, clearing the eyes
of his soul, upon these central principles of the
Christian faith. I am not, of course, going to
attempt, here and now, to go through them,
exegetically or apologetically. Nothing, it may
be, in his life is more vitally important than the
352 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS [No.
work, intellectual and spiritual, which he goes
through, while he is trying to understand and be
sure that he does personally believe and mean
these things. But this stage, at all events, I
must assume. I can say only that for anything
like honesty in clerical life, I believe the positive
result to be a sine qua non. If he cannot believe,
himself personally, that Jesus Christ is very
God ; if he cannot believe that Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, died upon the cross for the sins of
the world ; and that He rose again and ascended
into heaven ; and that the Spirit of Jesus, who is
the absolute revelation, in humanity, of God
Himself, is the Breath and Life and Being the
beginning and the consummation of the Church :
whatever else his spiritual history may be (and I
do not say that it may not be rich, in its own
way, with blessings to himself and to mankind ;
but whatever else his spiritual experience may
be), I at least can have no hesitation whatever in
saying that he would not be in place as an author-
ised officer and interpreter of Christ's Church
upon earth. He cannot rightly, without that
basis, seek to be ordained.
Assuming, however, that he is, thus far, in
essential harmony with the Christian position,
there are questions which will confront him again
in a somewhat different form. He has no doubt
that he is, essentially, a Christian believer. But
he is not quite sure whether his agreement is
absolute with the forms in which Christian belief
12} THE BELIEF OF THE CHURCH, 353
is expressed, and the interpretations and assump-
tions with which Christian belief has historically
been, and is generally, held, within the society
of the Church. He is not sure whether he fully
agrees with, or can be formally identified with,
the "belief of the Church."
Now, this phrase, the "belief of the Church,"
as I have just used it, covers various things.
I should like for the present to distinguish them
as three : viz. first, the creeds the formal and
official utterances and declarations of Catholic
belief; secondly, the more or less authorised
theology a great body of theological comment
upon Church doctrine, some of it possessing a
considerable measure of formal authority, at least
locally and temporarily, in the form of concordats,
articles, catechisms, synodical declarations or
judgments, some of it just the writing of private
theologians, held for various reasons in high, but
varying, respect ; and thirdly, the general popular
instinct or opinion of the mass of ordinary
Christians.
Now, the moment I divide this belief of the
Church up into three heads, you will feel that it
is capable of being subdivided into many more.
Even the first head, "the creeds," is not quite
homogeneous. The Apostles' Creed is, in the
most absolute sense of all, a conditio sine qua non.
It is the test with which every candidate for
Baptism is challenged. Then and there he is
required to profess it ; and only on condition of
2 A
354 AS REPRESENTED [NO.
that profession is he received to Baptism at all.
And when he is baptized into Church member-
ship, he is expected to repeat his Christian
profession in the form of his baptism that is, in
the form of the Apostles' Creed weekday and
Sunday, day and night, as part of his unchanging
worship, practically, you may say, every time
that he enters the House of God for worship
at all.
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is not
similarly used as a test, nor is it part of every
morning's and every evening's aspiration. Never-
theless it stands as a monument for ever of the
most deliberate affirmation of theological truth
ever reached by the Church, as Church, through
those sore struggles of the fourth and fifth cen-
turies so ancient in mere time, but as intellectual
problems so vividly modern and living ; and it
remains as an immemorial and inherent element,
if not in the quasi-private worship of every day,
yet in that which is most characteristically
Christian worship, the very heart and soul of
what Church faith and Church life mean, the
Communion of the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ.
The Athanasian Creed, of unknown origin and
authority primarily moral, though capable enough
of being called a creed, and certainly in its own
way wholly invaluable, yet belongs to a some-
what different set of conditions. It is an en-
thusiastic outpouring of Christian adoration the
i 2 ] IN THE CREEDS, 355
jubilant worship of truth. It is not a test formula ;
its phrases have not been, one by one, hammered
out through the Church's agony. It is conse-
crated indeed by the Church's joyous acceptance
of it, through the centuries, as true ; and yet, to
say the least, it would be impossible to rule
that a discussion, say as to the balance of some
incidental phrase in it, would be as prima facie
inconsistent in a Christian as a demur to some
article in the formal baptismal creed. I say this
not in the least with a view to depreciate in any
sense the Athanasian symbol, or any clauses in
it, but because there is, after all, some perspective
in these things ; and because in the interest of
truth, which is often delicate and difficult enough
to ordinary minds, it is very desirable that per-
spective and proportions should not be lost
sight of.
I say "perspective." You will observe that
the practical meaning which this word perspective
represents is something like this : viz. that "the
creeds " mean essentially the baptismal creed ;
and the other two as legitimate expansions of
that. The three are not, in their own nature,
of perfectly parallel authority. I am, of course,
not now speaking of the question of their merely
legal authority in the established Church. But
going back behind that, I say that the real
answer to any hesitation about the terms of the
two later creeds is to show that they do not
really travel outside of what is virtually contained
356 DEPENDS ON HIS ATTITUDE [No.
in the baptismal creed. It is obvious, of course,
that this is the nature of their historical claim.
Neither in the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon,
nor in the more informal acceptance of the
Quicunque^ did the Church ever dream of adding
one iota to the sum of faith. Expansions of
statement had no meaning but to conserve, and
no justification if they did not rightly conserve,
the simplicity of the one essential creed.
But still, with all their possibilities of distinc-
tion, we take them broadly together. A man
believes the essential faith of the Church as faith.
What is his attitude to the creeds of the Church
as creeds? What is his attitude, that is, to par-
ticular forms of expression of his faith, regarded
as authoritative ?
Now, I cannot help feeling that, from the out-
set, his mental attitude towards creeds, as such,
will be profoundly affected by the nature of his
conception of a corporate Church. If the cor-
porate character of the Church is to him a truth
primary and essential, a necessary result of the
nature of man, and of God ; then the abstract
necessity of a corporate expression of truth will
be so obvious that, though of course he is not
thereby dispensed from any personal responsi-
bility for truthfulness in his own acceptance of
any particular creed, yet at least the presumption
in favour of a creed which can fairly be said, as
matter of history, to represent the corporate faith
of the body will be enormous. The presumption,
12] TOWARDS THE CHURCH 357
a priori, will be immense on the side of the
creed, in proportion to the completeness of its
de facto acceptance historically.
On the other hand, if his mental instinct is to
think of his faith primarily as a principle working
in the recesses of the individual conscience, and
rather to resent the corporate organisation with
all its necessary conditions of external order and
government, as a more or less unfortunate ad-
junct to the Church's real being a clumsy
human expedient, overlaying, if not caricaturing,
the methods of the Spirit ; the creeds, as such,
will only at their best be part of the imperfect-
ness which he deprecates ; and there will be,
from the first, some presumption that they will
have to be carefully watched, if not struggled
with, in the interests of spiritual truth.
For the purpose, you will see that the differ-
ence between these two is very great. In the
latter case, indeed, he may be able to accept the
creeds glad to find that there is nothing in them
after all which is positively wrong, or incapable
(at all events) of a fairly reasonable explanation :
but they are always just a little irksome to him ;
he is instinctively on the defensive towards them ;
he would rather dispense with them ; ideally he
feels that they ought not to be ; and the moment
a question arises about any phrase in them which
let us say is capable of receiving, or has
received, a popular interpretation, somewhat
exaggerated or materialistic, on the side of un-
358 A BELIEF IN THE CHURCH [No.
truth, or which asserts as true a fact of the truth
of which he cannot independently convince him-
self, his whole natural instinct is to criticise and
object to the expression of the creed.
I will ask you to notice by contrast the sort of
thing which happens, under similar conditions,
to the other man. To him, corporate existence,
and organisation, and order, and government,
and expression, are in themselves, in the abstract,
not antithetical to spiritual life, overlaying or
caricaturing it, but are the indispensable expres-
sion, in outwardness, of spiritual reality. They
are, to the Church, what a man's body is to
himself. A human body is the necessary is the
only method and condition, on earth, of spiritual
personality. It is capable, indeed, of expressing
spirit very badly ; it is capable of belying it ;
indeed, it is hardly capable of expressing it quite
perfectly ; it is, in fact, almost always falling
short of at least the ideal expression of it. And
yet body is the only method of spiritual life ;
even as things are, spirit is the true meaning of
bodily life ; and bodies are really vehicles and
expressions of spirit ; whilst the perfect ideal
would certainly be, not spirit without body, but
body which was the ideally perfect utterance of
spirit. He does not, therefore, wish to separate
between the Church's belief and its formal utter-
ance ; it is by no unfortunate condescension, but
essentially and even ideally, that the Church's
faith implies to him the Church's creed. And
i2] AS THE BODY OF THE SPIRIT 359
when he is dealing with those forms of words
which, as a matter of history, undoubtedly are
the formal and authorised expressions of the faith
of the Church as a whole throughout the cen-
turies that is, the Apostles' Creed, in the
directest and completest sense conceivable ; the
Nicene Creed (so called), with a completeness
practically almost indistinguishable from that of
the Apostles' ; and at least all the positive and
actual meaning of the so-called Athanasian Creed :
so far from being on the defensive against
what may be expected to be more or less mis-
leading, he is in the presence of what may
naturally be presumed to be the simplest and
most necessary utterance of that which is the
very life of the Church's faith.
Now, if such a man is confronted with contro-
versial questions about particular clauses say,
the descent into hell, the resurrection of the
body, or the virgin-birth you will observe the
practical effect of his mental premisses. The
first impulse of the other man was to think the
expression more or less at fault. " Oh, these
creeds ! Yes, a materialism, an exaggeration,
a superstitious overgrowth sure to be something
in these human efforts to express the inexpres-
sible ! " But this man, starting as he does on
his own principles, at least, quite reasonably and
rightly with an immense presumption in favour
rather of the devotional profession in all ages
of the Church's creed, than of any critical capa-
360 GIVES A PRESUMPTION [No.
cities of his own or of others, finds that his first
instinct is to assume that, though he may well
have understood the creed imperfectly, at least
what the creed really means must be right.
He is, indeed, perfectly conscious that human
language is far less than a perfect instrument.
He knows that spiritual realities are larger and
subtler than our words. He knows that to
different minds, to the same minds in different
moods, the same words convey varying capacities
of meaning. He is therefore prepared, as on the
one hand for all sorts of possibilities of misinter-
pretation or difficulty, so on the other for such
progressive, or at least varying, capacities of
spiritual apprehension in individuals or in the
Body, that the same simple utterance of funda-
mental faith, being throughout in essential
character the same, may yet have different
aspects, and a deepening significance ; may not
suggest to the imagination of one generation
precisely what it suggested to that of another,
just because it itself is greater and deeper in
itself than any of that interpretative scenery by
which, at different times, men have made their
approach towards such apprehension of it as
matched their capacity. If he is conscious, for
instance, that such clauses as the descent into
hell, or the resurrection of the body, or even the
forgiveness of sins, have been variously inter-
preted, or that he himself cannot compass and
does not fully understand the nature of the truth
i2] IN FAVOUR OF THE CREED 361
which finds an expression in them, this is to
him only a natural outcome of the conditions.
But whatever room there may be for discovery
of his own ignorance, or of the depths which lie
behind the simple statement of the Church's
faith ; whatever protests may have to be made
against materialising misinterpretation ; what-
ever, as it were infinite, advance in the under-
standing of the simplest words, " I believe in
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost";
what does seem to his mind antecedently impos-
sible far more impossible than any extent of in-
tellectual or spiritual incapacity on his own part
is that either the Church's fundamental belief,
or the forms of her devotional confession of it in
all ages, should be absolutely or inherently wrong.
You will observe that this antecedent instinct
of reverence towards creeds as creeds is a part,
and a legitimate part, of that form of thought
which conceives of all the things that belong
to the Church's external utterance, creeds, cere-
monies, ministries, sacraments, organisation, as
not a condescension, but the divinely appointed
and spiritual (nay, the only possible) method of the
Church's spirituality, and which, moreover, while
it thus conceives of the place of what may be
summed up on the whole as "Body," conceives
also that this spiritual consecration, as opposed
to setting aside, or contempt, of Body, is itself
one of the most vital characteristics of the reli-
gion and theology of the Incarnation.
362 ITS ACTUAL WORDS, [No.
You will observe that, while there is this strong
a priori presumption in favour of creeds in the
abstract as creeds, the authority, to him, of any
particular creed will vary just in proportion as it
can be said, with more or with less approximation
to truth, to be the very form with which the heart
of the faith of the Church in all ages and places
has been identified, and in which the devotional
aspiration and worship of the whole historical
Church has expressed itself with most undeviat-
ing conviction and joy.
You will observe, also, that the sense of a
distinction between the reality of the truth which
the creeds represent, and the ideas about the
truth which those who repeat the creeds may
have learnt to attach to its words, becomes itself
a greater and a deeper reality of distinction
precisely in proportion as the instinct of reverence
towards the Church's creeds is real.
If a form of words, as such, has no great value
to me, directly I find them misunderstood, or
directly I recognise in the truth behind them
something which they had not at first suggested
to me, my impulse is to modify the words. If
there is any special association of reverence or
authority attaching to the words, I should natur-
ally go very much further in conserving the words
as long as I thought that I conveniently could.
But if there is anything like a divine authority
attaching to the words, as, for example (to a
Christian), in those of the more startling sayings
12] HOWEVER INFINITE THEIR TRUTH, 363
of the Sermon on the Mount, or the third or
sixth of St. John, I unhesitatingly cling to the
words and repeat them, through all varieties and
developments of interpretation, confident that
whatever else may vary both the truth behind
the words is invariable, and the words have a
relation to the truth which at least is deeper than
any human power of discrimination or criticism.
Now, the man I have described has a somewhat
similar relation to the words of those creeds
which have been, and so far as they have been,
from time immemorial, the consecrated modes of
the Church's expression, in worship and council,
of her faith. He is prepared to comment on
them to any extent. He is prepared to recognise
and to protest against all prejudices, however
venerable, which may have attached to them,
and tried with more or less success, but as he
thinks in his conscience not rightly, to identify
themselves with them. He is prepared to find
unknown vistas of possibility of bona fide inter-
pretations within them. Do they not, after all,
in their brevity, represent a truth the explanation
of which is infinite ? But it is a conviction in
him which springs from something far deeper
than any form of prejudice, or cowardice, or
unconsciously interested worldliness, when he
feels that to part with the profession of what
is really the Church's creed ; to have to say of its
words, not only that generations of Christians
may have in some points attached to them false
364 HAVE A DIVINE AUTHORITY: [No.
or inadequate meanings, but that that which they
truly and properly do both say and mean is itself
inadequate or false, so that they must either
be denied or by conscious acts and force inter-
preted to mean the very contradictory to what is
admitted all the time to be their natural and
proper meaning ; that this would be to him a
real personal separation from the consecrated
life because from the consecrated conviction
and faith of the Church, which is the Body
of the Spirit of Christ.
Now, I must frankly say that the attitude
towards the creeds which I have tried to describe
is the attitude which comes to myself most natur-
ally, and which I myself believe to be both
reasonable and right. My object at this moment
has been not so much to press it as to justify it.
It seems to me perfectly to cohere, and I have
been anxious if possible to explain its coherence,
with the simplest requirements of reason in
spiritual things.
Before leaving off, however, I should like,
avowedly indeed upon the basis of such a mental
position, to glance at one or two other positions
not identical with this.
Take the case, for instance, of the man who, as
I said just now, starts with no antecedent
reverence for the Church as Church in any par-
ticular its government, its ordinances, or its
creeds ; admitting that something of the kind
may be practically necessary, and submitting
12] AN ATTITUDE OF DOUBT 365
with more or less docility to what he finds (him-
self not otherwise than a Churchman and com-
municant), but on the defensive always, as to-
wards a merely human system, whereby men
have cloaked, and which they are always mistak-
ing for, the working of God's Spirit in the world.
Yet in his allegiance to the Incarnate Christ he is
real. He believes Jesus Christ to be the Son of
God, and to have lived and died for the souls
of men ; and therefore, also, whatever may be
the form of his theory as to their relation to the
things which men call "natural," he believes
that the things which men call "supernatural"
are real and true.
Now, first, I must say of him that I cannot for
my own part admit that this is at all an ideally
true position. I do not think that that is the
truth or completeness of the Christian attitude
towards the Christian faith.
And, secondly, I must say that the things
which he accepts do seem to me implicitly to
carry the things as to which he doubts. The
principle of the Incarnation, with its consecration
of the material and the bodily ; and a belief in
the Spirit of the Incarnate as that, behind the
material and the bodily, which, while working
through the material and the bodily, gives to the
material and the bodily all its ideal that is, its
real meaning ; ought, as I conceive, to carry
him a great deal further into what I may perhaps
intelligibly call the loyalty of Churchmanship,
366 IN A LAYMAN [No.
than he is the least prepared to realise. So far,
therefore, as I could be conceived to have any
power of influence with such a man, it would
certainly be exercised in the direction of trying
not to combat any position really held by him, or
to inculcate any principles which were really
strange to him, but rather of trying to convince
him, if possible, that he did already implicitly
hold the things from which he seemed to himself
to shrink.
And, thirdly, if (as is only too probable) such
discussions left him more than ever unconvinced
and suspicious shall I say, of the whole human
side of the Ecclesia Episcoporum, with its coun-
cils and its creeds what then ? Perhaps I can
answer better by drawing a distinction. Think
of him first then, if you please, in the character
of a Christian layman. And I think I may
venture to say that the characteristic of his
position which strikes me most is his reality.
Here is a man of whom I feel, more than of most,
that the haunting fear of conventionalism and
unreality is laid at rest. He is neither on the
one side a conventional Churchman, nor on the
other a conventional disbeliever or critic. He
does not indeed illustrate the fullest completeness
of the joy of communicant life in the Church of
Christ. Yet, putting aside just the few who
have entered most into the radiant possibilities of
Churchmanship, I could but be thankful if the
bulk of those who may appear to be most ortho-
i 2 ] IN A CANDIDATE FOR ORDERS 367
dox conventionally were as vitally Christian as
he. In saying this, no doubt I am a little
unfairly slurring* over the case of the convention-
ally orthodox, but it is in order to bring out what
is positively true in the way of sympathy with the
case supposed. He at least should be, as I
conceive, one of those to whom the heart of the
Master, and of the Master's true servants, would
go out.
But think of him again in the character of
a candidate for Holy Orders. Now here, as a
conscientious man, he is apt to put the points
of his doubt somewhat prominently into the fore-
ground. What shall we say ? This first : that
from what we said of him as layman, it follows
that, if he has the heart and the will to desire it,
we should heartily desire to see him ordained.
It is to be remembered in many contexts, and
it is certainly to be remembered in this, that it
is a fundamental fact, and a principle because
a fact, in the Church of Christ, that there is
no ministry on earth to mankind but the ministry
of man. That which teaches man, ministers to
man, represents God to man, is necessarily part
of the lump of man. Priesthood is a movement
a Divine movement of course but a movement
of, and within, humanity ; not an intermediary
between humanity and God. It is part of the
distortion of the priestly idea so to separate
priesthood and laity, as to forget that they rise
and fall and struggle and grow and learn together.
368 A DISTINCTION [No.
Antecedently, therefore, we should welcome into
ministry whatever is genuine and real in Christ-
ward effort and growth within, and for the sake
of, the Body. Yes, but there are necessarily
conditions. There are external disciplines, and
ordinances, and obediences, and formularies, and
creeds. Of course he cannot defy these. But it
is exactly this question, in respect of creeds,
which is the question before us just now. Is his
position, as it stands, one of sufficiently real
acceptance of the creeds ? There is no question,
you will remember, about his thinking the creeds
fundamentally false. That which is their central
core of meaning (and which, as I should myself
endeavour to explain, carries and covers every
word contained in them) he believes to be funda-
mentally true. But he does not think that its
truth covers quite the whole of the creeds, and
cannot forget that he doubts whether some of
their phrases are true. I have already said that
there is strong presumption for wishing to admit
him to Ordination, if he is admissible. Is he,
then, admissible or no?
Now I can only speak for myself. But so
speaking, I would venture to offer a certain dis-
tinction. If his position is either^ in case of
phrases which can be understood with different
degrees or depths of meaning, that he doubts
whether the current historical meaning is ade-
quate, and thinks that their true exposition is
one which goes beyond the popular one ; or, in
i2] MUST BE DRAWN 369
case of statements, the meaning" of which is not
capable of any ambiguity, that he is unable
to convince himself independently that they are
a part of certain or necessary truth, and is not
yet ready to accept them as fully guaranteed by
the fact of their historic place in the creed ; if, in
other words, he either honestly accepts the words,
though perhaps not quite the current view of
them, or even doubts in the sense of not being
able to feel personally certain that the truth
of the words is quite a certain and necessary
truth ; he need not be necessarily out of place
even as an office-bearer and teacher in the Church.
To exclude him in the first case would probably
be to exclude not a little of the highest theo-
logical capacity. And in some instances, at
least, it is possible that to exclude him in the
second case might be to undervalue the educa-
tional effect, on a spirit which you have reason to
believe to be at once distinctively Christian and
scrupulously truthful, of a growing experience,
both intellectual and practical, of what life and
loyalty in the Church's ministry mean.
On the other hand, if his doubt goes further
than this, and means that there are clauses in the
creeds which he honestly believes to be untrue
in the only interpretation which he feels that he
can honestly call their proper one ; so that he
either openly leaves them out from that faith
of the Church which he is prepared to accept, or
includes them only by forcing on them an inter-
2 B
370 A DELIBERATE ACQUIESCENCE [No.
pretation, which is not only not the current one,
but is, to his own mind and conscience, not the
proper or natural one, but as far as that form
of words is concerned, a consciously non-natural
gloss ; I must certainly maintain that he would
be quite out of place as an authorised exponent
of that faith, whose age-long expression he can
only accept by putting a conscious force upon his
own instincts of truth.
I should be prepared to tolerate elements of
anxiety and of doubt ; I should be prepared to
tolerate an honest conviction that the truth
underlying the words which the Church has
learnt from Scripture really means in Scripture
and in truth something other, or more, than
Churchmen have generally realised ; I should
be prepared nay, I should be forward to dis-
claim the idea that any popular interpretation,
as such, even with a prescription of centuries
behind it, is the final measure or test of the
meaning of those utterances of truth which the
Church (receiving them from her written gospel
as words of authority) has cherished again and
again with most imperfect apprehension ; but I
should not be prepared to tolerate an acceptance
of creeds which, while really thinking that they
really mean and say what is false, is yet ready so
far to blunt the edge of truthfulness as to use
false words as a vehicle of truth, putting upon
them by deliberate forcefulness a meaning which
it does not believe to be theirs.
12] IN A NON-NATURAL SENSE 371
It will be felt, perhaps, on some sides that
I have after all evaded the point of difficulty ; for
that I have given no way of testing the difference
between a perfectly honest acceptance of a doc-
trine in an unusual sense for example, a belief
in the resurrection of the body or in the Catholic
Church, which, while it was the real very truth
of the doctrine to the man himself, might possibly
seem to others like a gloss ; or an acceptance
which depended, to the mind of the acceptor,
upon a conscious and deliberate acquiescence in
glossing. I do not care, for the present purpose,
to offer any such test. I am discussing abstract
principles, not trying concrete cases. But the
difference in the abstract is to me the difference
on which everything turns. I could go very far
in admitting what, however unusual, was yet
perfectly honest exegesis of a formula honestly
accepted as formula. But I could go no way at
all in the direction of admitting glossing as a
principle.
You will observe that we have now in reality
got a rather long way from the case of the man
I was considering a few minutes ago. He indeed
had little reverence for Churches and creeds as
such. He had misgivings as to his agreement
with some points of formulated doctrine. But his
essential character was exceptional candour and
most scrupulous veracity. It would have been to
him a pain to be told that he was contriving to
keep terms with the faith only by refinements
372 IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH [No.
of verbal ingenuity reading indirect and novel
meaning's into words which both historically and
properly meant something different. To defend
glossing as glossing, and make a positive principle
of accepting words the fundamental words of the
Church's faith in a sense which is admitted to
be non-naturally imported into them, is to have
passed into a very different attitude indeed.
For a catechumen so to treat his baptismal
creed, and to make solemn answer to the chal-
lenge which it makes to him at his baptism, by
saying in effect, " I am willing to say these
words, because I think I believe in that which
lies at the heart of the Church's faith ; but this
form of words does, at least in part, misrepresent
the Church's faith as it ought to be ; and in some
phrases, even while I repeat them, I shall mean
the very opposite to that which the Church has
universally and invariably cherished as her faith,
and which these words were always meant to,
and do quite unquestionably, say " ; I cannot
admit that his position could be reconciled with
the commonest principles of truth.
Nor do I see that his position is in any way
improved if, in the same attitude to the Church's
fundamental creed, what he now is seeking at her
hands is not merely admission to membership,
but the office of her accredited interpreter and
minister. To put this, indeed, into a positive
form, as a theory formulated and avowed ; to say
that in subscribing to creeds we none of us mean
i 2 ] MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH 373
what we say, and that if we mean rather less
of what we say than others, we all are still alike
in respect of compromising merely literal truth ;
or even that those who in former times, or now,
have dared to go the furthest, in saying, from
what they meant, have really served truth most,
by most emancipating mind from fetters with
which it ought never to have been bound ; this,
in relation to the creed of the Church, would
appear, I own, to me a position so wholly inde-
fensible as to be ultimately subversive both of
truth and character.
I have endeavoured this afternoon to keep my
thoughts fixed upon the Church's creeds, as being
that which I believe, and have tried to represent,
them to be to the Church's life. But it would
probably be desirable, even for a completeness
of thought on this subject, to go further, and
make some comparison between the Churchman's
obligation to the Church's creed, and his attitude
to those other utterances, of more kinds, it may
be, than one, which he also is called upon to
accept.
II. THE ARTICLES
I made some attempt last week to suggest
a working view as to the obligation of a Church
teacher or minister to the creeds of the Church.
Speaking broadly, I must reckon this obligation
as very high and complete. It seems to me to
run back into the question of the very nature and
374 CHURCH UNITY INVOLVES [No.
being of the Church. If the Church's character
as an organised body is an unfortunate necessity
to which the Church is compelled, by reason of
her failures, to submit, then I can understand
that everything which belongs to the Church's
outwardness, and therefore the outward and
formal expression of her faith, will be more or
less an object of suspicion. I think this is a
mistaken temper of thought, philosophically (if I
may say so) and theologically at least as much as
ecclesiastically ; and specifically I think it a mis-
apprehension of the consequences which outflow
from the characteristic doctrine of the Incarna-
tion, which sees in what is outward and bodily
the consecrated method, not the imprisonment or
mere degradation, of Spirit. Of the doctrine of
Incarnation in that aspect, Church unity and
Creed unity are, as it seems to me, a necessary
corollary.
But the moment I think of creed unity as on
this level, the moment I regard it as part of the
necessary corollary of the Incarnation and the
Church, I am conscious, of course, that what I
mean by creed unity can only be that which is a
necessary corollary from the Incarnation. I do
not mean that all intellectual ideas or definitions
throughout the Church should be of one mould ;
I do mean that that fundamental conviction which
constitutes, in one aspect, the Church's very life
should have a single expression in which all
should unite. I am speaking, it is plain, of the
i 2 ] CREED UNITY 375
simplest necessary utterance of the essential faith.
Unity of fundamental profession that is, unity
of creed seems to me in this sense as inseparable
from the conception of Church unity as Church
unity is from the conception of the unity of man
or of God.
Such a creed must necessarily be simple not
theologically argumentative : a statement of the
central truths of the revelation of the Incarnation,
and of such essential facts and principles as are
necessary to make belief in the central revelation
articulate. If it may be said that the simplest
form of such a creed would be the one word
thrice repeated, "Holy, Holy, Holy," it must be
admitted that a form so short as this would be
too short to convey itself at all, without some
expansion, to the apprehension of those who
used it. " I believe in God, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost," is the simplest of expansions.
But, for practical purposes, even this leaves the
conception of Incarnation and Atonement too
wholly undetermined. God, the Father, Al-
mighty ; Jesus Christ, born, crucified, buried,
descended, risen, ascended, in glory ; the Holy
Ghost, the life of the Church of Christ, and its
possibility of forgiveness, to eternity : I have
ventured to paraphrase thus, in order to exhibit
the sort of character of that outward profession,
or creed, which can be conceived to occupy the
high place I am claiming ideally for a creed, as a
necessary method of the Church's life.
376 TWO ATTITUDES [No.
If it be urged that even the Apostles' Creed
contains phrases besides these, I hold that it
should be our effort to show that it contains
nothing which is really separable from these ;
nothing certainly which the Church in any part,
or in any age, has ever admitted to be separable
from these.
But, in speaking thus, I have not intended to
urge that one who really doubts about other
propositions of the creed should attempt to stifle
his doubts, in simple submission to the mind of
the Church. On the contrary, I should almost
certainly urge him to go right into them, right
through with them, that he might come right out
of them. Only, in this inquiry, I conceive that,
if he understands the rest of his creed, he will
not be without a very strong presupposition of
reverence towards what the Church has, in all
ages, really held ; a presupposition which will
not, presumably, carry him all the way, but which
ought to be very real among the data. Even,
indeed, a simple submission to the Church's
judgment, as such, is a possibility which, in a
matter such as this, I cannot admit to be
irrational, or always unwise. Still, it is not what
I myself should be likely to urge, or even to
imagine to be generally possible, amongst minds
trained to anything like independence of judg-
ment. But, on the other hand, to attempt to
marshal the evidence for or against (say) the
truth of the virgin-birth, as if it could be a new
12] TOWARDS THE CREED 377
question to be determined by itself in this age,
apart from either its historical connexion with
the immemorial faith, or its theological connex-
ion with the primary and basal conceptions of
Christianity, does seem to me beyond all words
superficial and unreal.
If, however, there is anyone after all who,
with an inadequate idea, as I should conceive, of
the nature of the Church, cannot bring himself
beyond all doubt as to what seem to him still to
be added phrases, I should certainly desire to act
towards him with every conceivable tenderness in
his honest uncertainty ; but, should his doubts
lead him on to a positive decision that these
things ought to be removed from the creed as
wrong, or (worse still) accepted in the creed in a
sense which is recognised as not being their own ;
I must think that he is really, so far, separating
himself from the faith of the Church.
But does this sort of thought really apply to
anything of wider range than creeds ? Or rather,
since "creeds" can only be in the plural, on the
ground that they are not many, but one, will it
really apply to anything outside that one un-
changing creed which is the fundamental inter-
pretation and utterance of the meaning of the
Church's life ? How far will it apply, for in-
stance, in our own case, to the Thirty-nine
Articles ?
Now, if anyone has really followed the line of
thought which I have tried to put before you, he,
378 THE CASE OF ARTICLES [No.
at least, will not be surprised, but prepared, for
what would seem to others a sudden and enor-
mous change of attitude. I have been trying to
argue that a fundamental creed-utterance, so far
from being an unfortunate result of spiritual
failure, is itself part of the internal necessity, a
true element in the primary ideal, of a spiritual
Church ; at least in a world where all expression
of spirit is through body, and in a religion which
emphatically recognises body as the only, and the
true, method of spirit.
But it must surely be obvious, at a glance, to
anyone, however highly he may think of the
theological exposition given in the Thirty-nine
Articles, that language like this would be, in
relation to them, even grotesquely inapplicable.
Whether they are in every syllable very excel-
lently good, or no, it is plain on the face of it,
that the fact of their existence at all in that form,
as Thirty-nine Articles, is exactly what I have
been protesting that the baptismal creed is not ;
that is to say, that it is a consequence and an
aspect not of the Church's existence, but of the
Church's failure.
I think that we are right in putting this, as
principle, quite unreservedly. The Church, with-
out a creed, would not, in human life on earth,
however ideally perfect, have been a Church at
all. But if the Church on earth had been ideally
perfect, or anything even remotely like it, there
would never have been any Thirty-nine Articles.
i2] IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT 379
The one is a necessary feature of spiritual reality.
The other is an unfortunate consequence of
spiritual failure.
Nothing, as it seems to me, can result but
confusion from any attempt to understand our
relation to these two, which fails to take account
of the enormous contrast between the one and the
other, when you come to their ultimate rationale,
on abstract principle. Try to exhibit our real
relation to the articles in terms of our relation to
the creeds, and your statement will obviously be,
in relation to any reasonable view of theological
history, overstrained and untenable. Try to ex-
hibit our real relation to creeds, in terms of our
relation to the articles, and you will have been
compelled to give sanction to principles of in-
dependence and critical detachedness which will
probably in the end be incompatible with the
existence of a Church at all. This seems to me
clear enough as principle. And, moreover, I
believe that much of the confusedness and mis-
take which in fact often confronts us in relation to
these subjects, is the result of a failure to dis-
criminate between two things which are in them-
selves not merely distinguishable, but radically
different.
It is not improbable that the distinction which
I am now insisting upon may be disputed, upon
the ground that in either case our obligation, to
creeds or to articles, is, if stripped to its nakedest
form, a legal obligation, and that the legal obliga-
380 OBLIGATION TO THE CREED [No.
tion is, in either case, one and the same. I
cannot possibly admit a contention such as this.
The real obligation of a Christian to the creeds
of the Church was not created, and cannot be
measured, by any Acts of Uniformity. The real
obligation rests upon the very nature of the
Church. The acceptance of her baptismal pro-
fession creates the obligation, which is again
acknowledged and reinforced by every act of par-
ticipation in her services a participation in itself
indispensable to reality of membership. It is to
be added that the baptismal creed is itself that by
which our faith is to be examined, according to
the Church's Visitation Service, when we lie in
our last sickness, face to face with death. Such
an obligation as this is assumed before it is en-
forced by any law ; and assumed by any law
which purports to enforce it. It is true, no doubt,
that when a law subsequently essays to enforce
the natural obligation of a Churchman to the
Church's creeds, it creates a new legal obligation ;
and that the newly created legal obligation is
measured only by the terms of the law. It is
true, no doubt, that in a national Church which
has long been established, popular feeling is apt,
by long custom, to measure all Church obligation
by its legal obligations ; and that if a law were
passed relaxing obligations to creeds, there would
be many who would assume at once that Church-
men were so much ecclesiastically the freer
whilst even the wisest would be sorely perplexed
12] IS ESSENTIAL TO CHURCH LIFE 381
to draw clear definitions or determine exactly
the line between what had been effected by the
change of law and what not. But in point of
fact, the power which the law has, as mere law,
to relax obligation to creeds in some details, is,
ultimately, only the same power which it un-
doubtedly has to proscribe creeds altogether, or
to enact the use of blasphemy in their place.
That is, it is ultimately its power to oppress and
to persecute. The obligation of a Churchman to
the Church's creeds may be either enforced by
law or denounced by law ; but it really is ante-
cedent to and independent of law. If the law
should denounce it, it would be nevertheless real
in a sphere that is higher (or at least, other) than
law. And while the law enforces it, we certainly
cannot admit that the law so enfeebles it in the
act of enforcing it as to take all its own meaning
utterly out of it. The law adds a new kind of
sanction, but does not take anything away from
the natural Christian sanction, which it had
before. If it is true that the Church of England
could only touch an unbelieving clergyman by
process of law, and could therefore only try him
by his legal obligation the other being legally
treated as if it were not that is only one of the
accidental consequences, more or less unfortun-
ate, which are apt to follow in the train of a legal
establishment. We see their failure ; but they
are admittedly difficult to remedy, and we tolerate
them, at least till they are intolerable. Still, how-
382 ARTICLES ARE LOCAL [No.
ever much it may remain a truism that only the
legal obligation can be legally enforced, and
however much it may be an accident of our his-
torical position, fortunate or unfortunate, that
nothing can be corporately enforced save by legal
process, we must still regard it as a manifest
absurdity to contend that a Churchman's obliga-
tion to his creeds begins and ends with that legal
obligation to which the law courts will statutably
and penally bind him. This would, in fact, only
be true if the Church had really no other existence
as Church, except just so much as had been con-
ferred upon it by statute law. In that case it is
clear that for at least two centuries after the death
of St. John there existed no Church at all, or at
least no Church with boundaries that could be
defined, or discipline that could be enforced by
any real sanction.
Now, with articles the case is exactly altered.
These are no part of the inherent life of the
Church. It is obvious, upon the face of it, that
they are local. Whatever complaint we may be
inclined to make against the Churches of Rome
or of the East, no one would dream of an
absurdity so manifest as denouncing them because
they do not accept the Thirty-nine Articles. And
it is hard for us to regard as anything but
amusing, if not grotesque, the proposal made
the other day in a Church Council in Japan to
embody the Thirty-nine Articles as an integral
part of the Prayer Book of the Japanese Church.
12] AND TEMPORARY EXPEDIENTS 383
Again, it is obvious upon the face of it that
they are temporary. As they stand they are
inconceivable as a part of the vital constitution
of the Church of the first ten centuries. More-
over, it is obvious that, however necessary they
may be thought to have been in the sixteenth
century however necessary they may be thought
to be now, or to be likely to be for generations
or centuries yet to come at all events no Church-
man could conceivably be held to be in any way
disloyal to his position in the Church of Christ,
if he looked forward to a time when the Thirty-
nine Articles as they stand, being less and less
applicable to the circumstances and the thought
of the Church, would at last be outgrown alto-
gether. If the final supersession of the articles
might, on one side, be a quite possible result
of increasing laxity and worldliness ; it is on the
other side a possibility, no less conceivable, that
it might be the final result of a mighty deepening
of spiritual insight and unworldly life. In any
case it seems to me necessary to truth that we
should conceive of them as being essentially local
and temporary expedients. They are somewhat
elaborate definitions, full of controversial colour-
ing in reference to the particular circumstances
of an age of sharply accentuated division and
controversy. And so, without suggesting for a
moment that the time has come when the articles
could be dispensed with it has neither come,
nor is yet, I fear, at all in sight I must never-
384 OBLIGATION TO THE ARTICLES [No.
theless, for one, rejoice sincerely at everything
which calls attention to the thought how separable
they are from the essence of the Church's life ;
everything which recognises that the stringency
of identification with the letter of their theological
expression must needs become, as generations
roll on, less and less absolute ; everything, in
short, which puts them into their place, as
the expression of a theological standpoint in
reference to the extravagances of contemporary
controversy, of very high local and temporary
value a value which is far from being yet ex-
hausted for us but which it would nevertheless
be the merest confusion to rank along with the
essential creed, which is an inseparable aspect of
the life, of the Church.
I am not suggesting, you will observe, that
we are not meanwhile bound to the articles. But
if I am bound to them, my obligation is really,
in this case, of the legal kind. It is simply and
only what the law has made it, and maintains it,
so long as the law is unrepealed. I have nothing
but this legal obligation to take account of. In
saying this, I do not mean to suggest that it is
matter of secular law distinctively, as opposed to
ecclesiastical ; the obligation has an ecclesiastical
character as well as a secular; but in either aspect
it is what a positive enactment has made it a
local enactment, which might at any time locally
be repealed. Whilst, then, I acknowledge my
obligation both to creeds and to articles, I must
i2] IS PURELY LEGAL 385
say that my attitude towards creeds and articles
respectively is an immeasurably different one.
I cannot but accept, as towards articles (still
speaking in the abstract), what I described last
time as the false attitude towards creeds. The
articles are a more or less regrettable adjunct to
the Church's real being as Church ; they are
incidental to that imperfection and dividedness
which we cannot but deprecate. Antecedently,
therefore, it is neither unnatural nor unreasonable
if we start with a certain sense of nervousness
towards them, as towards statements elaborated
under very human circumstances of controversy
at a particular epoch, which we feel that we may
have to scrutinise very carefully, and are some-
what relieved if after all we have no need to
quarrel with them, in our loyalty to the scrupulous
exactness of spiritual truth. Such an antecedent
attitude towards any elaborated exposition, in its
origin local and temporary, and by lapse of time
necessarily somewhat old-fashioned in expression,
does not seem to me at all disloyal in an in-
telligent Churchman. Towards the fundamental
propositions of the baptismal creed I think it
would be so ; but it is very different with the
legal confession of a national or local branch of
the Church.
But though, speaking thus in the abstract, I
may have seemed to speak hitherto of the articles
in too slighting a tone, I of course admit that
the Church of England whatever she may claim
2 c
386 BUT IT IS NOT DIFFICULT [No.
to be besides is in fact a legal body, and legally
established ; and that so long as she continues
without protest so to be, I cannot in honesty
claim her membership or seek office at her hands
unless I am able to accept what she deliberately
maintains as a formal statement of her position
and belief. If theoretically she might vary the
articles at any time, practically there would be
very great difficulties in the way of her doing so.
In any case, till she does so, their obligation
upon those who represent her is real.
And when we come to examine the articles in
detail, with whatever antecedent nervousness or
even suspicion, I cannot but say for myself, and
for any others, whose minds I could succeed in
influencing, that what we find, even if some of us
may be happily surprised in finding it, is that the
statements are such as we need feel no scruple in
accepting. It might so easily have happened
that statements drawn up amid the stress and
the strain of the vehement passions which were
raging in the struggle of the Reformation, would
have been just in the form which we, in the sober
thought of the nineteenth century, could not
have endorsed. But this is just what has not
happened. Condemnation of Roman theory or
practice, failing to make any necessary distinc-
tion or allowances, might so easily have had just
the irremediable trace of exaggeration upon them.
Approximations to Calvinism or to Lutheranism
might so easily have gone just beyond the line of
i 2 ] TO ACCEPT THEM HONESTLY 387
what was, in the long run, rationally defensible !
It may even be admitted that, prima facie, there
is a certain aspect of ambiguity in some of these
directions. And yet, on examination, after all,
in one article after another, the almost expected
overstatement has not been made. You may say
that the seventeenth article comes very near to
Calvinism, or the eleventh to the characteristic
formula of Lutheran solifidianism. But, on the
other hand, as the mind begins to recognise that
the lengthy and apparently Calvinistic phrase-
ology of the article about Predestination just
stops short of all that is really offensive in con-
nexion with that theory, remaining after all with-
in those aspects of it which are edifying and true ;
and again, that the apparent embrace of the
cardinal Lutheran principle of justification by
faith only is exactly not in the paradoxical terms
in which Luther loved to overstate it ; there
begins to be a certain definite and growing sense
that, though the articles may carry us into for-
gotten controversies, and make some statements
which have but little relevance to our modern
difficulties, at all events there was, amongst those
who drew them, too much of genuine conservatism,
of reverence for what was good in the old ways,
of self-restraint and moderating wisdom, to allow
of their committing themselves or us to the ex-
tremer and more unguarded statements even of
those with whom they greatly sympathised.
The twenty-eighth and some phrases of the
388 TAKE THE INSTANCE OF [No.
twenty-ninth articles may have seemed, to those
who read them for controversial purposes, off-
hand, to intend a low view of the mystery of the
Christian Eucharist ; but I can hardly imagine
that anyone could weigh them judicially and
devoutly, with a view to his own possibility of
conscientious acceptance of them, without realis-
ing that their condemnation is reserved for what
are really unspiritual exaggerations of the truth.
On the other hand, I must maintain that the
teaching of the ninth and tenth articles about
original sin and freewill is such, that if, on first
thoughts, we felt afraid of the music or associa-
tion of the phrases, we must, on second thoughts,
recognise that it would only be a superficial
theology which could take serious exception
against what they really have said. Even in the
case of the thirteenth article, which perhaps has
been thought the most disquieting of all ; which
undoubtedly is not expressed in the form in which
a nineteenth-century theologian would have pre-
ferred to express it, and which, as it stands, is
capable of interpretations which we certainly do
not mean ; I must still maintain that it is a per-
fectly genuine attempt to express what is itself,
after all, not false, but true. The truth which I
believe that they really meant, I mean. And if
there be verbal ambiguity, and the possibility
of a verbal interpretation which we instinctively
protest against, this is only exactly what is true
about the Scripture itself, with which herein it
12] ARTICLE XIII 389
rather corresponds than conflicts. The only sin-
less manhood is the manhood of Christ. Only
so far as it represents and shares in the Spirit
of the Christ can human working be really accept-
able to God. The sinlessness of Christ is unique.
Sinlessness in man is through and in the Christ-
Spirit alone.
But when I use language like this about the
thirteenth article, I shall rather expect to be told,
first, that I am attempting to make it mean what
is not what it does mean ; and secondly, that
in so doing, and in justifying my acceptance of
it on such a plea, I am introducing in fact the
very principle of unnatural interpretations which
I had professed to exclude.
I should like to meet such a suggestion quite
directly. It is suggested that I am making the
article mean what is not its meaning. What, then,
is its meaning? and what is the standard or test
by which its actual meaning is to be measured ?
For myself I must answer that the only really
binding standard is its words. It will doubtless
be held, on some sides, that the true test of its
meaning is either the meaning of those who first
shaped the words, or of those who now tender
them to us for our acceptance. The latter alter-
native would mean the present Church of Eng-
land as a whole in her total complex character,
as Catholic at once, and "protesting," and es-
tablished. The former alternative would similarly
mean the Church of England as a whole, as she
390 THEIR ACTUAL WORDS ARE [No.
first gave her assent and acceptance to the article.
I will speak of each of these in a moment.
But first I must say, speaking in the way of
abstract principle, that it is not without some
reserve that I should admit that either of these
is itself, quite strictly or properly, the standard
for me of honest and truthful interpretation and
acceptance of articles. Even in the case of
creeds, whose inherent authority is far more
august, I was anxious to disclaim the view that
any general popular interpretation as such, even
with a prescription of centuries behind it, was
the final measure or test of words which it was
at least conceivable that the Church might have
repeated for centuries with inadequate intelligence
of their meaning. In the case of articles, if on
the one side their phrases are less near to in-
spired Scripture (and therefore less likely to be
full of unexplored meanings), on the other side
(as I urged just now) they have very much more
of the character of a merely legal document, to
be interpreted, like a legal document, not so
much by what any one means or did mean in
them as by what they actually say. If, indeed,
my honest understanding and acceptance of any
article is one which the whole organised Church
agrees to pronounce inadmissible, I do not dis-
pute their power to extrude me as heterodox :
and there is, I believe, such a thing as real
spiritual martyrdom of this kind. But not even
in the case of so extreme a suggestion as this
12] THE SOLE TEST OF THEIR MEANING 391
should I admit that my acceptance of them, in the
sense which I believed to be their legitimate and
real one, had been in any sense, in me, dishonest
or untrue. But this, after all, is only abstract
and hypothetical.
Descending from hypothesis, I should totally
deny the suggestion that, in fact, I am taking any
liberty with the meaning at all. I say that the
words are a genuine attempt to express a truth
which I recognise as true. If anyone tells me
that the meaning which I should repudiate was
the meaning of the Church which drew the words,
I certainly dispute the fact. I do not deny that it
may have been the meaning of some of the writers
of them. I do not deny that it may even have
been the current sense of the majority. But I do
maintain, first, that the words do not necessarily
carry, though they may suggest, such a meaning ;
and secondly, that in this article, as in others, the
fact that the words have this element of ambigu-
ity about them after all, was itself (far more than
is generally supposed) a deliberate result of the
instinct and purpose of the Body as a whole which
drew the articles ; none the less so, even if it were
admitted that they, most of them, individually,
would have accepted a rigidity of interpretation
which I trust that no one would dream of accept-
ing now. Even at the moment that I refuse to
admit that I should be tied by their purpose in
the words, I must also doubt whether it was even
their purpose to tie me.
392 THE ARTICLES ARE [No.
That, in spite of any appearance to the con-
trary, the articles were not accidentally, but de-
liberately, inclusive, is affirmed in a striking pas-
sage which has been suggested to me a passage
by one who was no friend to Churchmanship, or
to standards of doctrine, and who cannot, even in
the passage itself, refrain from flinging his taunt
at all pronouncements of Church councils Mr.
Anthony Froude. He is writing about Dr. New-
man and his famous attempt to show that the
articles bore a really Catholic sense. He says :
"As far as Tract xc is concerned, public opinion,
after taking time to reflect, has pronounced New-
man acquitted. It is historically certain that
Elizabeth and her ministers intentionally framed
the Church formulas so as to enable everyone to
use them who would disclaim allegiance to the
Pope. The English Catholics [he means, of
course, Roman Catholics], who were then more
than half the nation, applied to the Council of
Trent for leave to attend the English Church ser-
vices, on the express ground that no Catholic
doctrine was denied in them. The Council of
Trent refused permission, and the petitioners,
after hesitating till in the defeat of the Armada
providence had declared for the Queen, conformed
(the greater number of them) on their own terms
. . . Newman was only claiming a position for
himself and his friends which had been purposely
left open when the constitution of the Anglican
Church was formed.'
12] DELIBERATELY INCLUSIVE 393
I may add that if it was the deliberate purpose
of the articles to be inclusive towards the elder
Catholics, while their very raison d'etre was pro-
test against Rome, it can hardly, on any hypo-
thesis, be thought disloyal to the Church which
framed them to accept whatever interpretation, in
other directions, is found compatible with their
words.
But if there be any, even the smallest, colour
for suggesting that it was not the purpose, even
of the Elizabethan Church, to tie all minds to the
rigider conceptions of which such words were
patient though such conceptions were, it may
be, overcurrent in those days how immeasur-
ably less could it be contended, even for an in-
stant, that such rigidities are part of the pur-
pose of the Church as she tenders the articles
for our acceptance now ! A sufficient practical
testimony to this, if testimony were needed,
would be furnished by the anxiety which cul-
minated thirty years ago in the alteration both
of statute and canon, in order that the terms
of legal adhesion to the articles might be felt
to be quite general in character. I do not
think, indeed, that even the previous terms were
so searching as they are sometimes supposed to
be. The language of the Act of Uniformity of
1662 seems to be the most stringent: "I do hereby
declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all
and everything contained and prescribed in and
by the book intituled the Book of Common
394 THEOLOGY DOES NOT FETTER [No.
Prayer," etc., which, of course, included the
articles, though without any special reference
made to them. The language embodied in the
thirty-sixth canon had obliged a man to say that
he "acknowledged all and every the Articles,
being in number nine and thirty, to be agreeable
to the Word of God." The present requirement
at the time of ordination is the solemn making of
the following declaration : "I assent to the Thirty-
nine Articles. ... I believe the doctrine of the
Church of England as therein set forth to be
agreeable to the Word of God."
I do not think that it was a very heavy burden
to say that "the Articles were all agreeable to
the Word of God." But the change from this
into saying that "the doctrine of the Church of
England as set forth in the Articles is agreeable
to the Word of God," be it greater or smaller in
itself, undoubtedly was, and was meant to be, a
change for the express purpose of avoiding even
the semblance of an over-rigid identification with
every detail of perhaps imperfectly applicable
phraseology.
I have now, perhaps, come to the end of what
I immediately set out to do. I have had before
me the thought of the practical relation of young
men, as Christians, and particularly as possible
clergymen, to the acceptance of the doctrinal
standards which challenge them. I have spoken
of the essential creeds of the Catholic Church,
and of the articles of the Church of England as
i2] INTELLECT TO BELIEVERS 395
by law established, and of the greatness of the
contrast between them. Of the Old Testament
I have not spoken at all, though doubtful at one
time whether it should be introduced in this con-
text or no. I can only say, summarily, that any
question as to the legitimateness of our entire
adhesion, in the Ordinal, to its truth, seems to
me altogether unreal. The full reality of my
belief in the truth of the Old Testament will not
in any case be affected by my new conceptions
(if my conceptions are new) as to the right
historical interpretation of its meaning. But that
is, perhaps, a rather different subject.
I have tried, then, to represent that jealousy
against doctrinal standards, as creeds, is wholly
misplaced ; and that anxiety about our particular
articles dissolves when they are examined.
And I must say finally that I cannot think
that, whether in the direction of creeds, or of
articles, or of Ordinal promises, the intellect of
the Anglican clergyman need be under any ap-
prehension at all. Rational intellect is not
narrowed, nor fettered, by any true conditions of
Christian theology. Christian theology is if
anything is in this world a deep, and large,
and progressive, because living, reality.
It is true, no doubt, that the insight of Chris-
tian theology is only for those to whom the In-
carnation, with its corollaries in thought and in
life, is true. To outsiders, who are really out-
siders, and do not know what this means, it may
396 IN THE INCARNATION [No. 12
be perhaps a natural instinct to look upon any
acceptance of any transcendent truth anything
which makes their own unaided intellect not ulti-
mate as disabling. But to those who have had
any real grasp of personal experience upon the
meaning of the religion of the Incarnation in
the life of the Church, which is the Personal
Spirit of the Incarnate such an instinct will be
only more and more astonishing. It is in unre-
served allegiance to the Christ, and in the
progressive transformation of the imperfect,
sundered, lonely " individual " with whom the
experience of each one of us seems to start into
the freedom and power of the life of the Spirit of
the Incarnate, that man, in that consciousness of
the Pauline paradox " I ; yet not I " begins
really to find "himself." It is in the Pentecostal
Spirit that man's own personality, in every aspect
of which it is capable as Love, as Will, as
Might, even as Reason begins to be raised
towards the realisation of those possibilities of
which the self of man is inherently capable, and
in which alone his personality is perfected. But
that perfecting of personality involves a change
nay, a transfiguration of the self, such as in its
earliest challenge had looked, perhaps, like a
betrayal, or at least an abandonment, of what the
naked self once seemed to demand, that it might
even be a <( self" at all.
THE PASTORAL OFFICE OF
THE BISHOP
(A sermon preached at the consecration of Charles Gore, Bishop of
Worcester, in Lambeth Chapel, on St. Matthias' Day, 1902.)
" The care of all the Churches " (2 Cor. xi. 28).
With this I would venture to connect, in all reverence, the
memory of our Lord's own words
"For their sakes I sanctify myself" (St. John xvii. 19).
THE wonderful list of St. Paul's apostolic
sufferings has a climax, and the climax is
this : this daily, incessant demand, this care, this
anxiety, this relation to souls, and to grouped
communities of souls, which is inherent in Chris-
tian pastorship. The very word " pastor " has a
sense essentially Christian. Its meaning has been
transformed by Him who was "the Good Shep-
herd," and who has taught for ever, by word as
by act, what the meaning is of that name "the
Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."
Mediaeval thought would define priesthood by
the ceremonial acts which it was distinctively
empowered to perform. But these, after all,
were but symptoms, were but methods, of a more
far-reaching and essential relation to souls, which
included, indeed, which was characterised by,
but which transcended, the ministerial privilege,
397
398 THE BISHOP IS [No.
whether of enacting the Eucharistic rite or of
absolving penitents.
So it is with the Bishop. It is not the dis-
tinctive power of confirming, or ordaining, or
consecrating, or blessing, still less is it any
dignity of prelacy or lordship which constitutes
the reality of bishopric. These, at most, are
rather the natural symptoms, the inevitable
methods or utterances, of an essential spiritual
relation (the true fatherly relation) to the flock.
Not a flock without a shepherd, nor a shepherd
without a flock ; not a family without a father,
nor a father without a family : this is the constitu-
tion which formed itself under the hands of
Apostles, and which the apostolic generation has
bequeathed to the Church. The pastor, the
father, without whom the spiritual community
cannot be complete : this is the Bishop. He is
the father, not in things secular primarily, but in
spiritual things : the father who preaches and
teaches, the father who counsels and guides, the
father who meditates and prays, and therefore the
father who holds responsibility, who rules and
decides, who reproves and corrects. His juris-
diction is a necessary aspect (or correlative) of his
fatherliness ; but pastorship more than jurisdic-
tion, fatherliness rather than rule, is the basis and
heart of the matter. He is an official exercising
jurisdiction only because he is first the father who
intercedes and teaches and loves. Of this
essential relation of fatherliness to that flock
i 3 ] THE PASTOR OF THE FLOCK 399
which finds its own completeness only in him,
the power to confirm or ordain are the natural,
the inevitable, methods and channels. They are
no added ornaments, nor are they irrationally
restrained to the Bishop's office, to give him a
factitious dignity. They are effects which out-
flow, corollaries which are inseparable, from his
inherent relation to the spiritual life of his flock.
For the Bishop is indeed the chief pastor, the
spiritual father, of the souls of his people.
"I entreat thee, " writes Ignatius to Polycarp
the Bishop " I entreat thee, in the grace where-
with thou hast been clothed, to run with thy
might, and to exhort all men, that they may be
saved. Vindicate thine office in all diligent care,
of body and spirit. Be thoughtful for unity,
than which nothing is better. Be the bearer of
all men, as the Lord beareth thee. Be forbearing
with all men, in love, as indeed thou doest. Be
incessant, be unhurried, in prayers. Ask for
wisdom more than thou hast. Be wakeful ;
keep thy spirit from slumbering. To all, man by
man, speak after the character of God. Bear the
sicknesses of all, as a perfect athlete. Where
more labour is, is much gain."
I have wished to strike first this note the note
(as I cannot but believe) of the primitive, the
true, the spiritual, may I say the believing?
view of episcopate. Leisure for prayerfulness ;
directness of spiritual influence, in patience, in in-
timacy, in love ; in a word, pastoral fatherhood.
400 OUR DANGER OF LOSING [No.
From such a point of view, may I venture to
look in the face the risk which we too often run,
even while we anxiously conserve the framework,
of yet losing too much, of the heart of what
bishopric means ? For human capacity is very
limited ; and true bishopric over millions is im-
possible to man. A Bishop who is drowned in
necessary secular business cannot be felt mean-
while as a father of souls. To be the official
head of department over the formal organisation
of huge numbers of clergy : to be not the head
only, but in large part also the hands, of a great
and undermanned office or bureau : to be im-
mersed in correspondence largely secular, tech-
nical, or even merely legal : to travel about here,
there, everywhere, over an area in which he
cannot, save mediately and indirectly, either
know or be known : or to be a dignified ecclesias-
tical official, intervening, largely as a stranger,
and, therefore, without obvious rationale, to
consecrate or to confirm : things like these we
know do not come near to an adequate rendering
of the richness of the Bishop's pastorship. Do
they not come, sometimes, dangerously near to
the limit of a Bishop's possibilities ? Eagerly we
still call our Bishop the chief pastor of all his
diocese. Is there any episcopal title which is in
so much peril of losing its essential meaning?
For human capacity is very limited : and it may
be that duties technical and secular are more
insistent than those which belong to that "silence
i 3 ] THE IDEAL OF EPISCOPATE 401
of the Bishop" which Ignatius praised. 1 It is
a serious thing, indeed, if, by impossible demands,
we kill our Bishops. But it is more serious by
far if, in any measure, we run the risk of killing
the very conception of the ideal of bishopric.
Are words like these a transgression of the
preacher's duty, or right ? At least, let us ask
ourselves two practical questions meant, both of
them, to suggest how largely our own popular
conception of episcopate has, in fact, been
affected by the existing conditions. First, has it
not become a familiar fashion of mind, among
dutiful Churchmen, to see no need of any con-
siderable increase of episcopate ? I am not now
at all concerned with any question of practical
difficulties, financial or political, but simply with
what is ideally desirable. Are there not vast
numbers who have ceased to see anything ideally
desirable in the thought of more, or at least of
many more, Bishops? who have so framed their
ideal of bishopric upon what Bishops can do,
under modern conditions in England, as rather
to find reasons for themselves against subdividing
dioceses, even in the cases where subdivision is
most urgent most urgent, possibly, for this very
reason, because in the absence of any real con-
ception of what effective chief pastorship would
mean, the very desire for the oversight of chief
pastorship is gone ? Consider what it means, as
a phenomenon, this widespread acquiescence,
1 Eph. vi.
2 D
402 THE CHURCH NEEDS THE BEST [No.
and more than acquiescence, in the present
conditions of great episcopal dignity indeed,
but of fatherhood too largely paralysed.
Again, another phenomenon. Are there not
very many who are inclined to grudge our best
and holiest, our most learned and most weighty
preachers, or theologians, or men of wise and
spiritual influence, to that wearily overladen
official life which they have felt themselves com-
pelled to recognise as the practical meaning of
bishopric ? Are there not, or have there not been,
men whom not because of any weakness of
health, but because of their very excellence of
spiritual leadership it has been supposed to be
something like a waste to burden with the harness
of a Bishop ? Is this feeling not familiar ? And
is it not a disaster, just so far as it is a fact?
Could anything make any real compensation to
the Church if our Bishops are not to be, in the
fullest sense, our real chiefs and leaders in things
spiritual ?
We must have, in the council of the Bishops,
our best, our wisest, our most spiritual, our true
leaders and teachers. Could anything com-
pensate to the Church, if men such as these, the
men of real insight and influence, should hold
tightly to their pulpits or to their studies, and
should leave the office of a Bishop to be discharged,
not by men of special spiritual wisdom, but by
officials of specialised capacity for organising
business, or with a turn for the shrewd dexterities
i 3 ] FOR THE EPISCOPATE 403
of secular diplomacy? It is the true fatherly
chief pastorate of souls, it is episcopal wisdom
in council, the best because the most spiritual
guidance of the body of the Church, which the
Church always needs, and cannot dispense with,
in her Bishops. She needs that which she cannot
have, unless the wisest, the greatest, the most
influential, the holiest of her sons are within, not
without, the council and the responsibility of the
Bishops. She needs them, and she needs them
there. And therefore it is that in spite of
obvious or (it may be) of personal losses so
many of us can rejoice, with a rare fulness of
heart, in the thought of this morning's service.
She needs them, and she needs them there. But
she needs them there, not that they may then be
wholly immersed in organisation of details ; not
that they may never again have leisure even to
think ; not that the spiritual capacities may be
starved, or almost starved, even in their own
lives ; but that they may be able effectively to
meditate, and teach, and direct, and inspire, and
be the true fountain and guide of the spiritual
experience and subordinate pastorship of many ;
many who lean on and are wise through them.
Do these last phrases sound Utopian, so
Utopian as to be almost sarcasm ? The idea of
the presbyters of any diocese leaning on the
Bishop, or being wise through the wisdom that is
in him ? But, indeed, the paradox, if paradox it
be, serves to illustrate, from another side, the
404 THE BISHOP [No.
harm that may ensue from any paralysis of the
spiritual effectiveness of episcopate. As it is
harm to Bishops and harm to the general com-
munity of the Church, which loses the true
appreciation of bishopric, and the whole moral
attitude of those who submit to rule and over-
sight in spiritual things, so is it emphatically a
harm to presbyters, and to the conception and
ideal of presbyterate.
Is it not true, or what does it mean if true,
that the presbyter in modern England not in
proportion to his failure, but in proportion rather
to his success, in proportion as by diligent self-
sacrifice in work he approaches towards realising
his own ideal is only too often found to be one
who has absorbed, or is absorbing, into himself,
not only almost all the distinctive duties and rights
of the Church laity, but no small part also of the
ultimate responsibility and judgment which are
inherent in the chief pastorship of the Bishop?
This is through no fault of his own. It results
from the pressure of age-long conditions. But
so it is, that the very name of " pastorship," and
almost all the direct associations which belong to
it, tend to be almost monopolised by presby-
terate. And so too presbyterate has, by custom,
only too completely monopolised that title and
prerogative of "priesthood " which used to
belong, even more distinctively, to the Bishops.
Things like these have peril enough. But the
claim to a final voice of responsible judgment in
i 3 ] AND HIS PRESBYTERS 405
respect of the administration of spiritual things ;
the claim to relegate the Bishop to a special
department of his own dignified, but strictly
circumscribed and practically very remote ; to
allow him only, perhaps, a sort of visitatorial
power for interpreting obligations of statute law
while the presbyter assumes as his own all the
ultimate decision, all that responsibility of judg-
ment as to details of pastoral service (whether in
church or out of it) which is felt to be inherent
in cure of souls ; this is, so far as it anywhere
appears, an even more direct invasion of that
jurisdiction, which is correlative to the father-
hood, of bishopric.
Is it not true, therefore, that if there is one
thing more than another which would bring back
again to its orderly place whatever there is now of
irresponsible presbyteral action, or claim, it would
be the effective restoration of the Bishop to his
proper possibility of direct pastoral leadership in
spiritual things ? A restoration this would be, to
the presbyterate and to the community, of their
dutiful relation (not as to an officer of police, or
even an official head of department), but of their
dutiful relation in things spiritual, not temporal
or legal, to the fatherhood not the lordship of
the Bishop. And such a restoration, whatever
else may be made to subserve it more or less
importantly, will surely never be a thoroughly
accomplished reality until the impossible width
of the Bishop's sphere in modern England is
406 THE CONSECRATION [No.
very largely diminished by a very large multipli-
cation of sees. No doubt the question will ask
itself, "Where are the men?" But belief in
episcopacy as a system, as an apostolic inherit-
ance, is a very different thing from belief in the
personal greatness of individual Bishops, or in
the indispensableness of the qualities, intellectual
or otherwise, which go to make secular greatness.
To ask for too much in the way of human dis-
tinction is not to believe in the Divine sanction
of the institution of episcopate. It is rather to
reduce it, after all, to the level of a merely human
expedient.
But I do not stand here to discuss political
possibilities, nor to advocate schemes, whether of
greater or of less far-reaching innovation. I
point rather to ideals, and have ventured to say
thus much not to misuse such an occasion as this
for purposes alien to our prayers this morning,
but rather to give direction and emphasis to our
prayers.
Let us pass from all the region of things
disputable ; still more from every memory of
recrimination, or suspicion, or carnal heat of
feeling. Not controversy, not apology, not
enthusiasm for experiment, but Divine quiet is to
be the real note of our service this morning.
We are withdrawn from the rush of the world ;
withdrawn for a special realising of the presence
of God. The presence of God is not primarily
local, however much it may be subserved by
i 3 ] OF THE BISHOP, 407
locality. It is primarily spiritual ; a presence to
spirit, of Spirit. According to the spiritual
sincerity, according 1 to the capacity of corre-
sponding with spiritual reality, the reality of the
presence itself is, in very truth, less or more.
We are withdrawn for a special entering into the
presence of God ; withdrawn for a special con-
secration from God, and to God. A scene of
consecration ? Yes ; and we too, all of us, are
to take our part in it. The effort of our spirits,
responding in earnest, fervent desire to the Spirit
of God within us, is to form part of the spiritual
atmosphere part of the Divine quiet and the
Divine strength which are to be, from this day
forth and for ever, elements in the consecration
of him whose consecration specially it is. Think,
if you will, what the preparation must be, what
the reflecting and ordering of heart, of one who
comes to receive consecration as Bishop. Think
not that we may intrude but that we may
realise what it is with which we have to corre-
spond, what it is to which we have to contribute
our spiritual part. Think also of what we can
conceive a Bishop, with his consecration upon
him, as representing, wherever he goes, in his
diocese. Think of the atmosphere of prayer, the
realisation of peace, the gentleness of sympathy,
the patience of love ; think of him as a fountain
to all the diocese, and to its thirsty places, of
spiritual hope, and spiritual life ; so that,
wherever he goes, something is felt, in him, of
408 ABIDING UPON HIM [NO. 13
the manifestation of the character of God. By
his thoughts and his ways ; by his aims and his
method of working towards his aims ; by his
patience and fortitude ; by his radiant cheeriness
and kindliness, his inherent gladness of heart ;
by his wisdom and tact, his self-denial and self-
devotion, men and women are to see glimpses
such glimpses as the heart can discern and thrill
to of the Spirit which is his life ; and are to
recognise and own that he has been with, that he
has come from nay, that he carries with him, in
what they feel that he is the very Spirit of Jesus.
For a consecration is upon him, a consecration
abiding and effectual. And the consecration is
this. To the atmosphere of such a consecration
we are to contribute. We are called, by what we
are, to help it as we can, by what we are,
hinder it.
The Body of Christ is one Body. And he,
the Bishop elect, for what he is to become to the
diocese of Worcester must we not go on, dare
we venture not to go on to say with uttermost
reverence ? He, the Lord Jesus Christ, for what
He is to become in the souls of all His children,
demands, and in a true sense needs, this day, the
effort of the uplifting of our spirit, consecrating
itself in sincere and dutiful prayer as in His
Presence, as through His power.
INDEX
Affinity, Relationships of 338
Andrewes, Bishop 69, 91-3, 104
Anglican authorities on the Eu-
charist 93-5, 100-2
Appeal from the ecclesiastical
courts to the secular 252, 326
Appel comme d'abus, The 256-9
Articles, The 373-96 : their case
differs from that of the Creeds
378-9, a sign of the Church's
failure 378, 385 ; local 382, tem-
porary, 383, obligation to them
legal only 384, only test their
words 389-91, meant to be in-
clusive 391-3, form of subscrip-
tion 394 ; difficult articles 386-9
Ascension, The 79, 81, 83
Atonement, Communion with the
66-112: 85-6, in; principle of
the 101-4, 105
Bishop, Pastoral office of the 397-
408 ; pastor and spiritual leader
398-9 ; and presbyters 403-5 :
see Episcopate
Blood : meaning of " the of
Christ" 105-8
Body : the sacrificed and glorified
- of Christ 75-8, 85-8. See
Spirit
CHRIST, the Light of life, 24-5; "in
Christ " 58
Christianity, The differentia of
123-5, 2 30-5
CHURCH, The : called into life at
Pentecost 80 :
the Body of the Spirit 115-8,
233-4. 356, 361, 364: s in the
Spirit, spiritual 79-80, 83, 120-2;
is the Spirit 79
through its ministry we partake
of Christ 1 18-20 ; a society for
personal holiness 327 :
has its own discipline 328-9 :
its theology 42-5, 47 ; its faith
348-9 375 J how expressed 353 :
is independent of the State 155,
1 5%> I 95> 2 99 ? its relation to
Parliament 167, 318, 335, and
the Royal Supremacy 310-3 ; no
longer coextensive with the State
168 ; as a political body 191 (see
Property) ; not to be identified
with a political party 147-9, *7&
Church Quarterly Review, article
in 264-5
Consecration of a bishop, The
407-8
Courts : the practice of the English
in relation to religious bodies
266, 303-4 ; due to what 304-9.
See Independence
Created beings reflect the Being of
God 55 ; are they within or with-
out God ? 59-62
Cyprian, St. 125
Cyril of Alexandria 99, 125; of
Jerusalem 124
Creeds, The 348-75: the three
Creeds 353-5 ; obligation to them
of the essence of Church life
380-2 ; Creed unity a corollary
of the Incarnation 374 ; summary
of the Creed 135, 375
Dedication of property to God,
effect of 189-91
409
410
INDEX
Denominationalism the remedy
237 ; the true liberalism 237, 241 ;
its principle 239-40 ; claim that
it shall be undenominational 247
Dimock, Rev. N. 67, 69-71, 87
Disendowment 178-211 : an active,
not a passive, proposal 195-6 ;
requires purity of motive 199,
207 ; morally perilous 208-10
Disestablishment 154-178 : a politi-
cal proposal 156-60, active, not
passive 157-9 reasons for it
163 ; a loss to the nation 175-7 5
in Wales 211-20
Dissenters and the English Law
Courts 264, 304-9 ; in Scotland
297 ; equity towards 244
Divorce Acts 232-4, 341
Ecclesiastical Courts Commission
25, 295, 318-9; Report of 279,
290, 294-5, 321-5
Education problem, The 221-3 5
Act criticised 244-7
Episcopate : ideal of 398, popular
idea of 400 :
need of increase of the 400-1,
of the best men for the 402-3
Essays in Church Reform 252
Establishment : meaning of 154-6;
depends on the national will, not
divine right, 160-1 ; effect on the
Church 191 ; compatible with in-
dependence of Church Courts
251-5, 289-98 ; a condition of
privilege, not servitude 254, 298-
301
Eucharist, The holy 69, 78, 81, 83,
86, 112; and the Atonement
85, 91, 101, in; Evangelical
view of 66-8, 87, 91
Evidences, Christian 14-7
Faith 72 ; the effort of 129
Fathers, The on the Eucharist
97-100
Freehold tenure of benefices 285
Froude, Mr. J. A., quoted 392
Fulham Conference, The 66-7 ;
issue of 112
Gladstone, Mr., quoted 325-6
GOD, Belief in a Personal 3-13 :
God must be personal 3-7 ; and
the type of personality 7-9 ; dis-
tinctions in the Divine Unity
11-13 : God the centre of prayer
133-7
Gore, Bp. 71, 76, 78 : consecration
of 407-8
Government,Thefunctionof 164, 174
Green's Prolegomena, Mr. T. H. 4
Holland, Mr. Spencer 297
Holland, Canon H. S. 111-2
Humanity 48-65 : is consummated
in Christ 48, 53 ; differentia of
human personality 50-4 ; the ideal
human life 55-8, 63-5 : human
faculties are inseparable 16, 22
Ideal, Christians to realise the
63-5, 128-9
Ideas, The power of 247-9 : see
Truth
Ignatius, St., quoted 399
Illinois case, The 279-288, 274-6
Incarnation, The : the basis of
theology 26-8, 32-3, 38-9, vindi-
cation of reason 23, 35 ; the in-
carnate life 48, 64 ; effects of
made ours 118-20; the doctrine
348-9, and principle of 361,
36S- 6 . 374. 396 5 allegiance to
24-5. 45-6. 396
Independence of intellect 42-4 :
of life 50 :
of Church Courts 250-326 :
the principle 274-6, and practice
278-95 : see Establishment
Individual, Christianity taught re-
verence for the 182-4
Inductive study of religion is not
Theology, An 30-2
Intelligence : abstract 5-6, 16-7,
could not apprehend the truth
36-7 ; moral and spiritual 18-21,
37, 41-2 : see Reason
John's teaching on the Spirit, St.
126-8
INDEX
411
Laity, The 255-6, 302-3 ; 366
Lake, Bp. 95 n.
Last Supper, The 76-7 ; and the
Eucharist 80- 1
Logical difficulties and experience
50-1, 62 ; 37
Love, reciprocity of 10-11, in the
Godhead 13
Marriage, Laws of 327-47 : the
mystery of 1 1 ; principle of 342 ;
in the O.T. 344-5 : law of
the Church 328, becomes law
of the State 329, consequent con-
fusion of conscience 330-4, 341-2 :
with a deceased wife's sister
338-9 346-7
Martineau, Dr. n
Milligan, Rev. G. no
Ministry is through men 367 ; con-
ditions of 367-73
Moule, Bp. 66, 86, 88
Orthodoxy is implied by theology,
An 38-9, 41, 232
Past facts eternally present? Are
70-4
Paul's teaching on the Spirit, St.
126
Personality : meaning of 3-4, the
highest phenomenon known to
experience 6 ; supreme being
must be personal 4-7 : human
personality 48-65, is fully realised
in union with God 9-11, 53, 58
Political tendency is against in-
dividualism, The 174
Prayer, The enrichment of private
131-140 ; the true conception of
132 ; brings into relation with all
truth 134
Principles, The Education Con-
troversy is of 247-9 : see Truth
Privy Council Court, The 318-20
Property : the right of private is
not absolute 179-81 ; its sanction
181-5 : rights of corporate
185-91 ; dedicated to God
189-91 : church , does it be-
long to the State? 191-3, 202-6,
is inadequate 200 : ecclesiastical
status regarded as 271-3,
283-6
Reason and Christian Evidences
14-25 ; and Theology 26-47 : ulti-
mate unity of in " the Word"
23, 27-8, 45 : see Intelligence
Resurrection not a bare fact, The
20
Ridley, Bp. 69, 95 n.
Robertson, Bp. 86
Royal Supremacy, The 256-8, 305-
26: its original meaning 310-3,
modification 314-7 ; the theory
at the base of the practice of
the English Law Courts 306-9:
Henry VIII. 's view 321, Q. Eliza-
beth 322, Abp. Grindal 323, Lord
Coke 324, Mr. Gladstone 325
Saintliness 52-3, 54, 64, 235
Sacraments are spiritual, The 121,
233. 236
Sacrifice.The atoning what 101-3,
105, 109
Scientific method and Theology,
The 28-30
Scotland, The Established Church
of 252, 254, 290-5, 297-8, 301-2 ;
judgments of Scottish Judges
29-1-5
Sin is withoutness 61
Sincerity is required in ministers
35o-i
Smith, Chancellor P. V. 76
SPIRIT, The : the doctrine of the
Holy Ghost 113-130,79-85,233-7,
407-8 ; its place in Christianity
113-4, the differentia of Chris-
tianity, 20 :
spirit and body, inward and out-
ward 121-2, 358, 361, 365, 378:
is the mode of Christ's presence
80, 81, 234, 408, and the means
of union with Him 81, 83-4,
119-20 :
corporately, implies the Church,
His Body 115-118; is the life
INDEX
and reality of the Church and
its ordinances 79-82, 83, 1 14, 1 18,
120-2, 233-4, 2 3 6 35 2 > 47 :
individually, His indwelling
makes the Christian 123-8 ; He
is the living 1 Power 233, 235-6,
of holiness, 9, 53, 129
His revelation culminates in the
worship of the Trinity 113, 129-30
State control of religion, how far
necessary26i~3 ; made religion
165-7 : see Establishment, Inde-
pendence, Property
Stubbs, Bp. 321
Symbolism of the eucharistic ele-
ments 88-90
Theology and Reason 26-47 : is
based on the Incarnation 26-8,
32-3, 38-9 ; Scientia scientiarum
28 ; deductive 32 ; does not fetter
reason 36-7, 395 ; belongs to the
Church 42-3 ; implies an ortho-
doxy 38-9, 41, 232
TRINITY, The Blessed 10, 11-13,
13. 136, 348, 375
Truth : devotion to 455 : and prayer
133-4 : ' n argument 145-7, the
question of not "academic"
147, peril of untruth 151-2 ; of
the words of the Creeds 363
Undenominationalism 221-49, cf.
165-7 : as a principle 224-6, is
positive not negative 226-8, un-
just 228-9, 2 35~6 5 the place for
242-4 ; dominant idea, 248-9
Union with God, without identity
97". 53. 57.62
United States of America, The
Church in the 279-89
Wace, Dr. 87
Wales, Disestablishment in 211-20
Westcott, Bp. 104-10
WORD, The 23, 26-8, 45 : see In-
carnation
Worship 129-30
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRBNDON AND SON, PKINTERS
A 000 678 369 c