Ex Libris [ C. K. OGDEN ./ / - V//C v//., //<-,, ///<-,/ ./,- //,, ////////// 2 ^/ 1. WORDS TO THE LAITY WORDS TO THE LAITY Hbbresses anb papers ON' SUBJECTS OF CONTEMPORARY ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSY VEN. WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D. ARCHDEACON OF LONDON, CANON OF ST. PAUL'S, EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LONDON, CHAPLAIN-IN-ORDINARY TO H.M. THE QUEEN, AND FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF "COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN," "LESSONS ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN," "CHRIST AND OUR TIMES," "THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE," "THE SERVANT OF CHRIST," "THE CHURCH VISIBLE, INVISIBLE, CATHOLIC, NATIONAL," "THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE CANON LAW,' ETC. Eonbon JAMES NISBET & CO, 21 BERNERS STREET 1895 Printed by BALLANTVNE, HANSON & Cr At the Baliantyne Press TO HUGH FIRST UUKE OF WESTMINSTER, K.G. WITH PROFOUND ADMIRATION FOR HIS PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTER 1057671 PREFACE I THINK it is right that those who find in the Church of England, as it was understood from the time of the Eeformation till the Counter-Reformation inaugu- rated by Cardinal Newman, the closest correspondence with Holy Scripture and the Primitive Church which circumstances permit, should be allowed to state their reasons for this opinion without being accused of attacking those who disagree from their view. There is abundance of literature on the other side : perhaps the promoters of the Counter-Reformation may even welcome this little collection of essays and addresses as an exponent of views to which the younger amongst them are unaccustomed. We all have so much in common that it is desirable that we should understand each other, and know where it is that we differ, and why. There need be no acrimony in religious discus- sion ; each side may credit the other with honesty and sincerity. I am in no sense myself a party man; but holding as I do very strongly to the teaching of the great divines of the Church of England, from the Reformers themselves to Waterland, and loving with deep earnestness the simplicity of the reformed English viii PREFA CE worship, I have no hesitation in stating, as far as I can, the grounds for that adhesion and that affection. The plain Christian teaching which is usually heard from the pulpit of St. Paul's, and the quiet dignity of our Cathedral service, encourage me in the hope that we may all some day return to the great primary verities of Christianity as we find them in the New Testament itself. I have said nothing in breach of charity. May the Holy Spirit grant us a right judgment in all things ! CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION. PAGE Archbishop Benson on the disparagement of the Reformation i Duty of protecting our deliberate opinions .... 2 The mechanical organisation of Catholicism .... 2 True and false conceptions of the Church .... 4 Supremacy of Holy Scripture 5 Repudiation of the Infallibility of the Church .... 8 Dethronement of Tradition 9 Restoration of the scriptural model of the ministry . . .10 Return to scriptural view of Lord's Supper . . . .11 Abrogation of unwarranted restrictions 14 Abolition of Imposture 15 No more Intercession of Saints 17 Purification of the lives of the clergy 18 Return to reasonable worship 19 Retention of primitive order 20 Summary 21 CHAPTER II. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION. " The Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist " . . .22 Results of Dr. Newman's movement 25 The School of the Reformation 27 x CONTENTS PAGE Enumeration of thirty-five principles 29 Contemporary clerical opinion . 37 Failings of the Eeformation School 38 Strength of Dr. Newman's School 39 Impossibility of surrender 41 Summary of Prayer-book teaching on disputed points . . 42 Importance of understanding fundamentals .... 44 The Prayer-book arranged by the Reformers . . . -45 The laity not sacerdotal as a whole 46 Wisdom of dropping legal prosecutions ..... 46 Home mission work 47 CHAPTER III. THE POSITION OF THE LAITY IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. Ministers the representatives of the whole body ... 48 Co-ordinate rights of laymen 49 Lay instruction in the assembly 50 Missionary rights of laymen 50 The preaching of Justin Martyr 51 Lay preaching in churches 51 Cause of restrictions . . . . . . . . .52 Lay Baptism 53 Story by Rufinus . 54 Evidence of the Fathers 54 Administration of Holy Communion early restricted . . 56 Election of ministers 56 Laymen in General Councils 57 Lay Patronage 58 Lay meetings in churches for psalm-singing .... 58 Conclusion 59 CONTENTS CHAPTER IV. THE USE AND MEANING OF THE W.ORD CATHOLIC. PAGE Tendency to accept the Church of Rome as its exponent . 61 History of the word . .62 Pearson, Field, and Jackson on its use 64 The word inapplicable to most ceremonies .... 67 As applied to the Church . .68 Field's Notes of the Catholic Church . . . . . 69 Pearson on the Catholic Church 70 Teaching of the Prayer-book 74 Misuse 75 The Prayer-book on Traditions and Ceremonies ... 76 CHAPTER V. MEANING AND USE OF THE WORD PROTESTANT. Use of names : Christian, Catholic So Necessity of new description for Reformed Catholicism . . 81 The Protest of Spires 83 Dividing line in modern Christian thought .... 85 Adoption of the word by Convocation 85 Constitutional use of the word 86 Field, Laud, Bancroft, Jeremy Taylor, Atterbury, &c. . . 89 Protestant Catholics 91 Importance of the word to English Christianity ... 92 CHAPTER VI. A PLEA FOR FORBEARANCE IN DISAGREEMENT. Archbishop Tait on proselytising intolerance 95 Personal religious liberty 96 Free ideal of the Christian Church 98 xii CONTENTS PAOE Bishop Lightfoot's view 99 Dean Church on Newman's movement . . ... 101 Statistics of Newman's movement 102 Archbishop Tait on Comprehension 103 Practices of Newmanism dependent on toleration . . :.. 105 Tendency of Newmanism to intolerance 106 Duty of protecting liberty 108 Protestantism a living principle 109 Hooker on non-Episcopal Churches 1 10 Field, Laud, Cosin, and others on the same . . . . 1 1 1 The authority of General Councils 113 Doctrine of the English Church on the Eucharist . . .114 Waterland's teaching on sacrifice . . . . . " . 115 Duty of maintaining safeguards . . . . . .116 CHAPTER VII. OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS. Sections of Christianity 118 Mutual excommunications 120 Absolute exclusiveness of Rome 121 The Lambeth Conference of 1878 on the same. . . .121 The Lambeth Conference of 1888 122 Romanists in England 123 Relation to Nonconformists 123 Hooker's teaching on the Invisible Church . 124 Lessons of the Donatist Schism 126 Difference in Church Government 128 Jewel, Whitgift, Bancroft, Andrewes, Hall, Cosin . . .130 The policy of Exasperation 131 Policy of Friendliness and Courtesy 134 Social difficulties . 135 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER VIII. SCHISM. PAGE St. Paul's use of the word 137 Schism at Corinth 138 Schism in the Early Church 141 Bingham on different degrees of Schism . . . . .141 Jerome on Schism and Heresy 143 Schisms in the Middle Ages 143 Thomas Aquinas' view of Schism 144 Fortunate position of the English Church .... 146 The Continental and Scottish reformers desired Episcopacy . 147 Baxter on Divisions 151 Bacon on Unity 152 Archdeacon John Sinclair on the Sectarian Spirit . . . 153 CHAPTER IX. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH. 1. Doctrines to be revealed by the Holy Spirit . . .156 2. Secret doctrines taught in the Forty Days . . . .159 3. Doctrines too sacred to be mentioned in the Bible . . 161 4. " Romish " taken to mean only " modern Romish " . . 163 5. "Catholic" 165 6. Use of dangerous words in a special sense .... 167 7. Ambiguity of the word " High Church " .... 168 Duty of the Laity 169 CHAPTER X. INDEPENDENCE AND RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES. Origin of National Churches 171 Dean Jackson on the independence of Visible Churches . .172 Ecclesiastical arrangements in the Roman Empire . . . 173 xiv CONTENTS PAGE Influence of the Teutonic kingdoms . .' . . . 174 No uniformity of practice in primitive times . . . .176 St. Augustine on the Independence of Churches . . .176 Bingham on varieties of customs and traditions . . .180 Instances of divergence 183 The Prayer-book on this point 185 The Prayer-book on Ceremonies 186 Summary of the rights of National Churches . . . .188 CHAPTER XI. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC. Hymns in Apostolic worship . . . . . . . 189 Origin of choral services . . . . . ; . .190 Difference between cathedrals and parish churches . .192 Principles common to all choirs 192 Law of Reverence ' . 193 Prayers in the vestry 193 The General Confession and Lord's Prayer . . , 194 Law of Edification 194 Law of Distinctness 1 95 Principles special to parish choirs 197 Law of Simplicity 197 Softness 198 Law of Unselfishness . . . , . . . . -199 Law of Modesty . . . 200 Gratitude to church choirs . * . . . .201 CHAPTER XII. FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY. Floating notions on Fasting Communion 203 St. Augustine's saying 203 Bishop Kingdon on the authority of individual Fathers . . 204 Mistakes of St. Augustine ... . . 205 CONTEXTS xv PAGE Errors of his age .... .... 205 Necessity of fasting reception not held before fourth century . 206 Scriptural practice . . 206 Change 207 Basil on Fasting Reception 207 St. Chrysostom 208 St. Augustine 209 Early English practices and rules 210 Variety of customs in different churches 211 Difference of circumstances between the ciulisation of primi- tive days and ours 212 Complete abstinence differently understood by the ancients . 213 Difference of computation of hours 213 Difference of length of fast 214 Difference of climate 215 Bishop Samuel Wilberf orce 215 Result of mediaeval restrictions 216 Necessary variations from Rome . . . . . .217 No law of the English Church on the subject . . " . .218 Resolutions of the Bishops of the Southern Province in 1893 . 219 CHAPTER XIII. THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION. Many means of grace 221 Holy Communion in the New Testament 222 The service of edification 222 Change from the Consecrated Meal 223 Our Lord's own meaning 223 No perpetual offering of the sacriBce in heaven . . 225 Teaching of the English Church 226 Teaching of the Council of Trent ..'.... 228 Waterland's view of sacrifices ....... 229 English divines on the Lord's presence ..... 229 Hooker 231 St. Augustine, Bishop Beveridge, Waterland .... 232 Bishop Christopher Wordsworth 233 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. PAGE One Mediator 234. Christ alone to be worshipped in the Primitive Church . . 238 Ths Primitive Church condemned the worship of saints . . 240 Decadence of the Church in the fourth century . . . 243 Origin of the idea of patron saints 244 Pagan influence on Christianity 246 The Roman doctrines of Development and Accommodation . 247 CHAPTER XV. MITRES. Male and female adornments 250 Origin of ecclesiastical vestments 250 Revival of the Mitre 251 History of the word . . 252 Metaphorical head-dress in poetical descriptions of St. John and St. James 252 Rhetorical expressions of Paulinus of Tyre . . . .255 Poetical address by Gregory Nazianzene ... . . 255 Description by Ammonianus Marcellinus mistaken . . . 256 The infula . . . 256 Decisive language of Tertullian . 258 First indisputable appearance of the mitre in the eleventh century 259 WORDS TO THE LAITY i. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION. ' ' I am becoming every day a less and less loyal son of the Reformation." RICHAKD HURRELL FROUDE. His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury has lately, on two prominent occasions, called attention to the habit of treating the Reformation with disparaging remarks. He has himself reminded us that the Reformation was the greatest event in the history of Christendom since the days of the Apostles. And he has borne em- phatic testimony to the fact that the Reformers must always rank amongst the most learned and greatest theologians of any age. I do not think that at the present day the enormous and incalculable benefits of the Reformation are sufficiently studied and under- stood. It is a hurrying age, and innumerable ideas confront our minds ; and it is not everybody who has leisure to think and inquire. It is a time when there is a tendency to consider one set of principles as good as another. The instinct of fair play is a grand characteristic of Englishmen; but it is a travesty of 2 WORDS TO THE LAITY that instinct when it leads you to neglect your own principles in favour of those of other bodies antago- nistic to your own. It is an abuse of that liberal habit of niind when it makes you disparage facts and influ- ences which have been a power for good in the history of your country which is beyond all estimation. It is not my habit to reflect on anybody, whether in the Church of Rome or outside of it. Everybody has the right to believe as he pleases, and to express his belief; but sometimes the recognition of that liberty of conscience and of prophesying is taken to imply that everybody has the right except ourselves. The phrase, " I have as much right to my opinion as you," is sometimes used as if it meant, " I may say what I think, but if you do the same I shall consider it an attack on myself." Now, I think the time has come when through the length and breadth of the country north, south, east, and west all to whom the Reformation is a priceless boon should speak out with perfect calm- ness and moderation, and give the reasons for that ineradicable opinion, for which they have the highest authority, and from which they will never part. The effect of the Reformation in England was not merely the repudiation of the authority of the Western Patriarch ; it was a breaking away from the superan- nuated and darkened theory of the mechanical Catholic Church as it was then understood. 1 The development 1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol.,v. 68, 6. Comp. Bp. Harold Browne, XXXIX. Articles, on ArticleXIX. and Boultbec's XXXIX. Articles, p. 159, &c. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 3 of the hierarchy hitherto had been perfectly regular and by orderly stages. The bishoprics had gradually been united under metropolitans, and the metropo- litans under patriarchs. There were the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Con- stantinople. The Eastern Churches had in time broken off from the Western, and at last, when they were unable to accept the article of the Nicene Creed, which speaks of the Spirit as proceeding from the Son, an article produced at the Western Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 809, and condemned by the Eastern Council of Constantinople, the eighth at that city, in 879, then the split on this and on other grounds became definite. 1 Amongst the other grounds for the great disruption were the increasing encroach- ments of the Western Patriarch on the liberties of other Churches, and his claims for a universal supre- macy, first as Bishop of the ancient capital of the Roman Empire, and afterwards as the supposed suc- cessor of St. Peter. Some of the Western Churches remonstrated at different times against these en- croachments; in particular the Churches of Spain, France, and England. But in the end they submitted. At the time of the Reformation there was nothing different in relationship to Rome between the Church of England and the other national Churches outside 1 Compare Scudamore's Notit. E-uchar., 2nd ed., p. 283 ; Liddon in the Report of the Bonn Conference, 1875, p. xxvii. ; Ffoulkes, "The Church's Creed and the Crown's Creed." 4 WORDS TO THE LAITY Italy which had succumbed to the exaggerated and overgrown jurisdiction of the Western Patriarch. At the Reformation the English nation decided that in the arrangements of patriarchates there was nothing essential to the constitution of Christendom. And as the Western Patriarchate had become exceedingly corrupt in doctrine, and refused to recognise the re- turn to primitive principles promoted by the Refor- mation, it was necessary to fall back on the principle of National Churches, and to break entirely with Rome. But, besides this act of independence, the Refor- mation gave us a true instead of a false conception of the Church. 1 Contrary to the language of the New Testament, where a Church always includes the unofficial members as well as their ministers, in the mediaeval ages the Church had come to mean a hier- archy with a commission handed down from genera- tion to generation, in communion with one visible centre and authority, having branches in different countries, and with power to alter doctrines and prac- tices in accordance with a belief that it was directly inspired so to act. For this wholly unscriptural ideal the Reformation gave us the true and majestic con- ception that " the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly 1 Compare Moulc, "Outlines of Christian Doctrine," p. 202, and Hooker, Eccl. Pol., Bk. iii. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 5 administered According to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." And in the Fifty-fifth Canon we get this defini- tion of Christ's Holy Catholic Church : " That is, the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world." And in the Prayer- book : " We pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church . . . that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." Thirdly, the Reformation restored the supremacy of Holy Scripture as the rule of faith. It is the fashion to say that the Church presents the doctrine and that the Bible is used to prove it. That is not the doctrine either of Scripture, or of the Apostles, or of the Fathers, or of the Reformation. Scripture is supreme because it contains the words of Christ Himself, and the words of inspired men. The Fathers after the time of the Apostles drew the sharpest possible distinction between their own words and those of the inspired writers ; and when it began to be the custom to draw up formularies at Councils, the Council did not prepare a doctrine and then bring Scripture to prove it, but it deduced the doctriue from the very Scripture itself. In the Book of Homilies it is said : " Let us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the New and Old Testa- ments, and not run to the stinking puddles of men's traditions, deceived by men's imaginations, for our 6 WORDS TO THE LAITY justification and salvation. For in Holy Scripture is folly contained what we ought to do, and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God's hands at length. ... If it shall require to teach any truth, or reprove false doctrine, to rebuke any vice, to commend any virtue, to give good counsel, to comfort or to exhort, or to do any other thing requisite for onr salvation, all those things, saith St. Chrysostom, we may learn plentifully from the Scrip- ture. There is, saith Fulgentius, abundantly enough both for men to eat and for children to suck. There is whatsoever is meet for all ages, and for all degrees and sorts of men. . . . Whosoever giveth his mind to Holy Scripture, with diligent study and burning desire, it cannot be, saith St. John Chrysostom, that he should be left without help. For either God Almighty will send him some godly doctor to teach him as He did to instruct the eunuch ... or else, if we lack a learned man to instruct and teach us, yet God Himself from above will give light unto our minds, and teach us those things which be necessary for us, and wherein we be ignorant. And in another place St. Chrysostom saith that man's human or worldly wisdom and science is not needful to the understanding of Scripture ; but the revelation of the Holy Ghost, who iiispireth the true meaning unto them that with humility and dili- gence do search therefor." And in confirmation of this great primary view we may remember that the vast majority of Christians agree in plain, simple, THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 7 fundamental truths : the Fatherhood of God, the Divinity of our Lord, the work of the Holy Spirit, the redemption of the world, the initial rite of baptism, the spiritual festival of the Lord's Supper, the im- mortality of the soul, the power of prayer, the future reward and punishment, and the like. It is the exception when, in consequence of some strong indi- vidual leadership in a different direction, they take a line contrary to any of these primary verities. And so we hold fast as the very palladium of our spiritual liberities the Sixth Article : " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be received as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." Before the Reformation the old medieval Church was practically a Church without a Bible ; a very large number even of the priests could not read it ; to the people it was a sealed book. 1 The Reformation, aided by printing, put the Bible into the hands of the people, drew certain simple summaries of its teaching, and left it to the consciences of the people to apply them to their souls. They did not at once see the full results of the principle of the Liberty of Con- science ; these would only be arrived at gradually in the 1 On going to the diocese of Gloucester Bishop Hooper found that out of 311 clergy, 168 were unable to repeat the Ten Com- mandments, 31 could not say in what part of Scripture they were to be found, 40 could not tell where the Lord's Prayer was written, and 31 did not know who was its author. WORDS TO THE LAITY emancipation of Nonconformists, the enfranchisement of Roman Catholics, the removal of disabilities from the Jews ; but they were inherent in the principle, and their full declaration was only a question of time. A fourth great gift of the Reformation was the repudiation of the principle of the Infallibility of the Church. Hitherto, whatever the Bishops declared to be true must be accepted without question. The English Church at the Reformation took the more modest view of the Apostles themselves: "As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." No ecclesiastical authority could be greater than that of General Councils, which were as far as possible supposed to be representative of the whole Episcopate. Yet about their authority our Church is no less definite in its limitation : " General Councils . . . when they be gathered together (foras- much as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore, things ordained of them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." A fruitful source of error in the mediasval Church was the importance ascribed to Tradition. 1 Nobody 1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol., i. 14, 5. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 9 might be able to tell how a tradition had origi- nated. But if it was there, it was to be accepted without question. It is easy to see how dangerous an element this must be where the supreme authority of Holy Scripture was not maintained, and how anta- gonistic that principle must be to Tradition where it was once declared. The unreformed mediaeval Church of the West subsequently enshrined the equal autho- rity of tradition with that of Holy Scripture in the decrees of the Council of Trent. Borrowing from that unreformed opinion, members of our Church sometimes in the present day say, " The Church possesses the authentic Catholic tradition, and by this interprets Scripture. A part of this tradition is the authenti- city of Holy Scripture, which is therefore received at the hands of the Church, and because we believe the Church. Further, private persons may not search Scrip- ture independently of external help." l The Article on the Supremacy of Holy Scripture will not allow this view, which is an exaggeration of the truth. In the mind of the Reformation the Church is " Testis et Conservatrix " of Holy Scripture. She is not the judge, far less the giver, of Scripture. From age to age she has witnessed to each successive generation, " These are the books which I have received, and these I have sedulously preserved." To this I would add the words of Hooker : " The schools of Home teach Scripture to 1 Goode's " Divine Kule of Faith and Practice," chap, ii.; Buult- bee, XXXIX. Articles, p. 173. io WORDS TO THE LAITY be insufficient, as if, except traditions were added, it did not contain all revealed and supernatural truth, which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved." The Thirty-fourth Article sets traditions aside " It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike, for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word." A sixth blessing of the Reformation was the resto- ration of the Scriptural model of the Christian minis- try. 1 Before the unsealing of the Word of God, all men held that the officers of the Church were a sacer- dotal caste, like that of the Jews, and that every presbyter was a sacrificing priest. The clergy literally held in their hands the keys of the kingdom of heaven . They were mediators between God and man. Every time they said Mass they repeated the miracle of the Incarnation ; and the more often Christ was embodied and offered on the altars, so much the better for the benefit of all present. The priest could cause the short- ening of the time of a soul in purgatory by repeating masses on its behalf. All this was not only contrary to the language of Scripture, but it had the worst effect upon the men themselves. They became tyrants, they interfered in everything, they often lost humility, 1 Bishop Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians, " The Christian Ministry," p. 184, &c. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION u self-control, honesty, and morality. The Eeformatiou stripped the ministry of its sacerdotal character. The Reformers cast out the words "sacrifice" and "altar" in reference to the Lord's Supper and the Holy Table. They retained the word " priest " when it was necessary to distinguish him from the deacon, but in the original and Scriptural sense of presbyter or elder, not of sacrificer. 1 " They taught the people everywhere that the clergy were not the lords of God's heritage, but, like St. Paul and St. Timothy, its servants, ambas- sadors, messengers, witnesses, evangelists, teachers, and ministers of the Word and Sacraments/' They showed in the Ordination Services that the business of the Presbyterate was not to offer up Christ, but " to be messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord; to teach and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord's family ; to seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for His children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever." A seventh gift of the Reformation was the return to the Scriptural view of the Lord's Supper. The teaching of the corrupt mediaeval Church was thus 1 "Whether we call it a Priesthood, a Presbytership, or a Ministry, it skilleth not : though in truth the word Presbyter doth seem more fit, and in propriety of .speech more agreeable than Priest, with the drift of the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . The Holy Ghost throughout the body of the New Testament making so much mention of them, doth not anywhere call them Priests." Hooker, Eccl. Pol., v. 78, 3. 12 WORDS TO THE LAITY subsequently set forth by the Council of Trent : " Since the same Christ, Who once offered Himself by His blood on the Cross, is contained in this Divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass and offered without blood, the Holy Scripture teaches us that this sacrifice is really propitiatory, and made by Christ. . . . For assuredly God is appeased by this oblation . . . for the sacrifice which is now offered by the ministry of the priests is one and the same as that which Christ there offered on the Cross, only the mode of offering it is different." The doctrine of the Church of England is very simple and direct : " The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual ; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." And in the Communion Office we speak of Christ, " Who by His one oblation of Himself once offered made there a full, perfect, and suffi- cient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world ; and did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that His precious death until His coming again." And in the Catechism : " Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained? For jthe continual remem- brance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 13 the benefits which we receive thereby." The special presence of our Lord, which we all desire and to which we all cling, is promised in the faithful use of the Lord's Supper, not locally in the bread and wine. As our great divine Hooker has said, l " The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not to be sought in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament. ... I see not which way it should be gathered by the words of Christ when and where the bread is His body and the cup His blood ; but only in the very heart and soul of him who receiveth them. As for the Sacra- ments, they really exhibit, but, for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really, nor do really contain in themselves, that grace which, with them or by them, it pleaseth God to bestow." That is the meaning of another sentence in the Article : " The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is eaten and received in the Supper is faith." That is the meaning also of the answer in the Catechism, "The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." The means of receiving is faith ; those who receive them are those who have faith. Those who " be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth the 1 Hooker, Ecd. Pol, \. 67, 6. 14 WORDS TO THE LAITY Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in nowise are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing." Again, in pre-Eeformation days the Sacrament was superstitiously hedged round by all kinds of restric- tions obligatory fasting, penance, confession and absolution, and the like. These restrictions also, as far as they were considered necessities, the Reformation swept aside. What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper ? says the Catechism. " To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins ; steadfastly purposing to lead a new life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death ; and to be in charity with all men." Fasting before Communion may be good for some; but, as the Bishops of our Province only last year declared, it is a matter of Christian liberty. If any cannot by self-examination quiet his own conscience, but further requireth comfort or counsel, he is at full liberty to come to his parish clergyman, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God's Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. Our Church prefers self- examination; but in cases where peace cannot be obtained, resort may be had to advice and to instruc- THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 15 tion in those parts of God's Holy Word which speci- ally console and assure His forgiveness to all those who truly repent and believe. The old system of obligatory auricular confession was entirely set aside. No institution of the unreformed Catholic Church had a more corrupting or degrading influence. 1 By it the priests interfered " between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between mas- ters and servants, between landlords and tenants, between subjects and sovereigns, between souls and God," in every conceivable relation of life. When carried to its full extent it ended in the poisonous and immoral system of indulgences. It was used for two great objects : enriching the Church and pro- moting the sacerdotal power. The rescue of souls from purgatory, the enriching of the shrines of favourite saints, the endowment by the dying of abbeys, monas- teries, and chapters with vast tracts of land to atone for evil life, led to such a state of things that in fact, says Burnet, if some laws had not restrained them the greater part of all the estates in England had been given to religious houses. The increase of power came by the same means. Absolution was necessary to Communion, Extreme Unction to salvation. To please the priests was the first of duties ; they were sacred persons, and for a long time had laws of their own. Fuller, the historian, tells us "that in 1489 a certain Italian priest got an immense sum of money in 1 Bishop Kyle's " What do we owe to the Reformation ? " p. 7, 16 WORDS TO THE LAITY England by obtaining power from the Pope to absolve people from usury, theft, manslaughter, fornication, and all crime whatsoever, except smiting the clergy and conspiring against the Pope " (Fuller, " Church History," i. 532). Amongst innumerable other advantages which we owe to the Reformation we must place in the next place the freedom from imposture. 1 Before that era of light the worship of relics and images was universal. You may read about them in Strype, Fuller, and Burnet. At Reading they had an angel with one wing, the spear-head which pierced our Saviour's side, two pieces of the holy cross, St. James's hand, St. Philip's stole, a bone of Mary Magdalene, a bone of Salome. At Bury St. Edmund's were exhibited the coals that roasted St. Lawrence, the parings of St. Edmund's toe-nails, Thomas a Becket's penknife and boots, and as many pieces of our Saviour's cross as would have made when put together one large whole cross. At Maiden Bradley the objects of reverence were the Virgin Mary's smock, a piece of the stone on which our Lord was born at Bethlehem, and a part of the bread used by Christ and the Apostles at the Last Supper. At Bruton, in Somerset, was a girdle of the Virgin in red silk, used in child-births. At Farley Abbey, in Wiltshire, they used a white girdle of St. Mary Magdalene. At St. Mary's Nunnery, in Derby, the Nuns had a piece of St. Thomas's shirt, 1 Bishop Ityle, p. 8 ; Strype, i. 390 ; Burnet, " Reformation," i. 486. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 17 worshipped by women expecting confinement. At Dale Abbey, near Derby, they worshipped part of another girdle of the Virgin Mary, and some of her milk. At Repton the bell of St. Guthlac was in great honour, and those with headache used to put their heads under it. At Grace Dieu, in Leicestershire, they worshipped the girdle and part of the coat of St. Francis. At Hales, in Gloucestershire, a vial was shown on great occasions which was said to contain the blood of Christ. On examination by the Royal Commissioners of Henry VIII., it was found to contain the blood of a duck, renewed every week. At Worcester, in one of the churches, was a huge image of the Virgin, covered with a veil, which on inquiry was found to be the statue of an old Bishop. At Boxley a crucifix was shown which, when copper was offered to it, looked grave ; when silver, it relaxed its severity ; when gold, it smiled. On examination it was found to be worked by wires. To such a low ebb had religion sunk when the Bible was kept from the people. The boast of the unreformed Western Church is that it is always the same; and these absurdities may be matched on the Continent to this day. Yet another boon was of immense importance. It was the shattering of the superstition of calling on saints for their prayers. Of course a moment's reason- ing reflection will show that the saints, however blessed, are not omnipresent; and, without some such Divine attribute, they could not possibly hear the 1 8 WORDS TO THE LAITY prayers of their numerous votaries all over the world. But even if they could, the practice would be super- stitious. The love of our Lord is perfect, complete, and absolute, and any intercession of His mercy, after all the assurances that He has given us, would be an impiety and an impertinence " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ; " " Him that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out." The Eeformation purified the lives of the clergy, and restored the universal obligation of the strictest Chris- tian morality. The lives of the clergy and the monks were the scandal of Christendom. Here and there faithful religious houses might be found, and pious clergy; but the open immorality of the conduct of most was the subject of common satire. The Western Churches had themselves aimed at reform, but to be reformed the clergy refused. The terrible system of casuistry, or setting forth rules for cases of conscience, had provided excuses for the breach of every command- ment, and the practical divorce between faith and morality was complete. That faith without morality is dead is a revived doctrine of the New Testament, which is not the least of the gifts we owe to the Reformation. To the influence and example of the Reformation, even the unreformed Western Catholic Church is itself indebted; there have been fewer Popes of notorious and scandalous wickedness, and the Romish priesthood has been far more consistent and careful than before. In England they conform as much as THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 19 possible to the lives and manners of the best of the reformed clergy. The Reformation gave us a reasonable and intel- ligible system of public worship. When Romanism was prevalent and undisturbed, all services must have been mysterious performances undertaken by the priest on behalf of the people in a foreign tongue and in un- intelligible tones. The Reformers not only gave u.s the English Bible and the English Prayer-book, but they placed the service of edification, described by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 side by side with the service of the Lord's Supper, and they raised the office of instruction and preaching to the dignity with which it had been endowed by St. Paul. They restored the liberty of National Churches to settle their own ceremonies, and made the services as simple as they could possibly be. " Every particular or National Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying." None were to bring back ceremonies not authorised by the provisions of the National Church ; the sole book of ordinances was the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies according to the use of the Church of England. " The particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and 1 i Cor. xiv. 23. 20 WORDS TO THE LAITY alterable, and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein as to those that are in place of authority, should from time to time seem necessary or expedient." " The godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers had been altered, broken, or neglected . . . with multitude of responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals." All henceforth was to be simple and easily understood by the people. The Romish mitre was discarded. The Romish vestments were cut up to make table "carpets," hangings for the pulpit, and in cathedrals sometimes to form copes. At St. Paul's Cathedral, the Dean and Chapter begged thirty albs out of the spoil to make surplices for the ministers and choristers. 1 The plain white surplice, a quiet and primitive costume, became the dress for all the minis- trations of the Church. Public worship was made an exercise for the mind and reason as well as for the heart. I might mention many other particular privileges which we owe to the Reformation. It kept for us the old primitive order of Church government, for which we cannot be too thankful as a starting-point for the future reform and reunion of the Christian Churches. But it ranges together side by side in defence of light and liberty, all Christian Churches 1 Dugdale, Hist. App. p. 58. THE BENEFITS OF THE REFORMATION 21 and bodies who hold the primitive faith of the Gospels. Some may be more perfect in organisation ; some may be, through the necessary misfortunes of history, defective; but all alike we are excommunicated by the unreformed Churches of the Western Patriarchate, and all alike we have the perpetual duty to protest against that excommunication, and the errors, super- stitions, and unscriptural developments to which it is due. Such was the Reformation. It found darkness, cor- ruption, and tyranny; it gave us light, morality, and liberty. It restored the Bible to its position as the rule of faith. It recovered for the laity the place which they had lost. It revived learning throughout Europe. It appealed to Scriptures and to the witness of the Primitive Church. It reunited faith and holi- ness. It opened once more the freedom of access of the soul to Christ for pardon and peace. No human movement is perfect; no human composition is free from error ; but the teaching of the Church of England in Articles and Prayer-book in its simple, plain his- torical sense, is to our minds as near the mind of the Apostles as human documents can be made. The liberty and purity of the English Church have made England great; and, please God, we will support that liberty and purity with all our hearts and minds and souls as the secret of the happiness and prosperity of our people. 11. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORM A TION : THEIR PROSPECTS AT THE PRESENT DAY. " I have long been convinced that there is nothing in the Council of Trent which could not be explained satisfactorily to u, if it were to be explained authoritatively. . . . This involves the conviction that there is nothing in our Articles which cannot be explained rightly as not contradicting anything to be held defide in the Roman Catholic Church." Dr. PuSEY. 1 THERE is nothing gained by concealing from ourselves that there are at the present day, amongst the various divisions of the clergy, two great schools of thought living side by side and intermingling in every direc- tion within the organisation known as the Church of England. One would properly be called Sacerdotal, or Mediaeval; the other Primitive, or Reformed. The terms High Church and Low Church have nothing whatever to do with the distinctions between them, and are altogether misleading. The "Broad" Church is now so much mixed up with the " High " in cere- monial and Biblical criticism, and coheres so little together, that it need not here be reckoned. The subject can be discussed with perfect good- temper and 1 Letter to the Tablet, Nov. 22, 1865. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 23 unreserved freedom, for all of us have intimate asso- ciates on both sides. The laymen of the time do not, to any great extent, enter into the controversies that have been raised, nor do the mass of them understand the issues. The laymen, for the most part, are content with a very plain, simple, and Scriptural type of Chris- tianity. There is every indication that if they could be polled, or if they could be roused to exercise any dis- tinct influence in the affairs of the Church, they would be found in an overwhelming degree on the side of the principles that are Primitive, Eeformed, or Evangelical. In discussing points of difference it is well to re- member that it is mainly, at present, a concern of the clergy. Both sets are ordained by the same bishops ; but while the one set believe that they are accepting no authority or directions except those of the Prayer- book, the others consider that there is a great un- defined body behind the Prayer-book called the Catholic Church, to which they owe an equal or superior allegiance, an undefined set of opinions and practices called by them " Catholic Tradition," which it is their business to teach and to employ. t For the moral effects of the Reformation they are grateful ; but there is much in it which they openly and sincerely deplore. In their latest manifesto (" The Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist") they explain with great frankness some of the changes which they desire. These are many and important : the alteration of the Com- munion Office, to make it resemble the medieval 24 WORDS TO THE LAITY Use of Sarum, which is the object of their affectionate and regretful admiration ; the stamping of the Church of England once for all with the sacerdotal idea ; the reservation of the elements used in Holy Communion ; the restoration of the Mass and the like. "When, indeed,", 1 writes Lord Halifax, in a burst of candour, speaking of English Cathedrals, "shall we see the altars restored in the side-chapels, constant services with throngs of worshippers throughout all the early hours of the morning, and a Chapter Eucharist sung at nine o'clock after the office of the day has been said, as a regular matter of course? In view of all that has been accomplished during the last fifty year?, nothing is impossible. Let us not despair, then, even of such a change as this; the opportunities that are being vouchsafed to the Church of England are indeed wonderful." " Weekly attendance at Mass," 2 writes another in the same volume, "regular instruction, Communion at Easter, and perhaps at Whitsuntide and Christmas that should be the rule to aim at for all as a minimum. For the majority, also, it will be the safest maximum." " Why," writes another, "change the title? why reject the old and certainly inoffensive term ' the Mass ' ? . . . The aim of modern ' Ritualism ' has been simply to restore so much of the old ritual as seemed absolutely necessary for the reverent and Catholic celebration of the Eucharist." 3 1 " The Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist," p. 38. 2 Ibid. p. 94. s Ibid. p. 121. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 25 " Mankind," 1 writes Lord Halifax, " in its present condition can be no more dispensed from the necessity of expiation than it can from the necessity of love and obedience ... we are bound to expiate as far as we can." "The entrance of the high-priest," 2 writes Dr. Linklater, "into the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement with the blood of the victim, we are told in the New Testament, was the type of the entrance of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, with His own blood into heaven itself, there to appear before the presence of God for us. That is what He is doing in heaven for us ... and He has told us to ' do ' on earth at the earthly altar what He is 'doing' in heaven at the altar there. The Jewish priest had nothing better than a poor little lamb to represent this. God puts into the hands of the Christian priest the ador- able mystery of the Blessed Sacrament the Body and the Blood that we may lift it up and offer it to God." "We know," 3 writes Mr. Going, "that in this Blessed Sacrament He has fulfilled His word, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world/ and we will worship and adore Him where we know we can always find Him, viz., in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar." The excellent, earnest, zealous, and self-sacrificing men who, following the teaching of Dr. Newman, and especially of Tract XC., have adopted such opinions 1 " The Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist," p. 4- 2 Ibid. p. 169. 8 Ibid. p. 220. 26 WORDS TO THE LAITY and have such objects in view, are now exceedingly numerous, and increase in number every year. There are already more than lOOO churches in England where the mediaeval eucharistic vestments, the symbol of the sacerdotal doctrine, are worn. Many practices, abrogated at the English Eeformation, are being revived : prayers and masses for the dead, invocation of the Virgin and Saints, withholding the cup from the laity, omission or mumbling of half the words of administra- tion, insistence on fasting communion, insistence on auricular confession, the employment of the Use of Sarum simultaneously with the Communion Office, or in its place. In some places even the cultus of painted images has been restored ; in some, that of the Sacred Heart ; in others, that of pieces of the True Cross. The clergymen of whom we are speaking have recommended themselves by their active work amongst the poor. A still larger number of clergymen hold more or less of their special opinions, though they do not go the length of wearing the vestments, which have been pronounced contrary to the existing law. A number of the clerical seminaries, which prepare young men for orders, are understood to sympathise, more or less, with the revived sacerdotal theology, without going to what are called ex- treme lengths. Seven of the august and exalted Prelates of English sees have shown a visible encouragement for these excellent men by wearing the obsolete mitre, which was discarded at the Eeformation as a symbol of the unreformed Church. The old-fashioned High Church THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 27 clergymen give the men of the movement the counte- nance of their friendly indulgence. The influence of the movement in the press is enormous; it has some of the ablest reviews and journals. One of their organs, in a retrospect of the extraordinary change which has taken place during the last half century, is perhaps justified in its exultant prophecy that when another fifty years have passed the mediasval vestments will be worn and the mediaeval doctrine taught in every parish in the Church of England. Holy Scripture will no longer be the supreme rule of faith. The inspired Church which provided the Bible will be its sole authoritative interpreter. The representatives of the theology and history of the National Church during the last three centuries and a half will, according to this view, if not altogether extinct, be reduced to a small and insignificant set of eclectic and pedantic purists. The other prominent school of the clergy represents Primitive or what are known as Reformation principles. They may be roughly described as those who believe the English Reformation, as represented in the Prayer- book and Articles of the English Church, to have arrived as nearly as may be at the mind of the Apos- tolic and sub-Apostolic ages. They do not regard the Reformers as having any absolute authority like that ascribed to Popes or to inspired teachers ; but they hold that the Reformation was a tremendous and almost unique crisis, and that the subjects in dispute were then thoroughly sifted and the conclusions 28 WORDS TO THE LAITY obtained satisfactory. They do not mean that any mere human set of statements, ranging over a vast variety of matters of the greatest importance, is incapable of improvement; but they consider that the attempt to alter them would let loose such a turbulent flood of discord that the small possible gain would be infinitely overbalanced by the seas of trouble which would follow. And they gladly recognise the close and accurate cor- respondence between the documents to which they have sworn allegiance and the language of Scripture and of the really Primitive Church. They see no reason whatever for altering the principles on which, in accord- ance with that really Primitive Church, the National Communion has rested for three centuries and a half, and under which the country has grown free and great ; and although they are anxious to live at peace with all men, and to tyrannise over no man's conscience, they can find no conceivable ground for altering these principles in order to accommodate what appears to them the ill-omened desire of pious men to revert to the times of darkness and superstition. In all quiet- ness and modesty they hold to their own opinions. What, then, are these English Reformation principles? It would be, of course, impossible to set them forth at length, or with scientific precision, in the limits of a brief article ; but they can be indicated with sufficient clearness in the phraseology of the Prayer-book and Articlea THE PRL\ 7 CIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 29 1. Supreme authority of Scripture. 1 Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary for salvation. 2. Acceptance of the- Three Greats.'* The Three Creeds . . . ought thoroughly to be received and believed : for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture. 3. Justification by Faith. 3 We are accounted righteous before God only fur the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith. 4. The Definition of the Visible Church* The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacra- ments be duly administered according to Christ's ordinance in all these things that of necessity are requisite to the same. 5. Definition of t]\,e Catholic Church. 5 We pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church . . . that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, iu the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. 6. The Church not infallible? As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith. General Councils . . . when they be gathered together (foras- much as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God), they may err, and sometimes 1 Article VI. - Article VIII. 3 Article XI. 4 Article XIX. 5 Prayer for all conditions of men. 6 Articles XIX. and XXI. 30 WORDS TO THE LAITY have erred, even in. things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained of them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture. 7. Orders. It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Con- gregation, unless he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers into the Lord's vineyard. 8. The Orders of an Episcopal Church. It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scrip- ture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church ; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. ... To the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed in the Church of England : no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto according to the Form here- after following, or hath formerly had Episcopal Consecration, or Ordination. 9. Definition of Sacraments. 1 Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of men's professions, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's goodwill towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him. 10. The Two Sacraments.* There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. 1 Article XXV. 2 Ibid. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 31 1 1. Repudiation of the Five Sacraments. 1 Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confir- mation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and- Extreme Unction, are not to be accounted Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures. 12. Discouragement of non-communicating attendance. 2 The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them. 13. Definition of Baptismal Regeneration. 3 Baptism ... is also a sign of Regeneration, or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church ; the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed ; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. 14. Christ's Presence Spiritual* The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Suppe is Faith. 15. Eucharistic Elevation and Worship forbidden. 6 The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordi- nance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. 16. Warning against Superstition. 6 Whereas it is ordained in this office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding 1 Article XXV. 2 Ibid. 3 Article XXVII. 4 Article XXVIII. 6 Ibid. 6 Rubric at the end of the Communion Office. 32 WORDS TO THE LAITY of such profanation and disorder as might otherwise ensue) ; yet lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance or infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be mis- construed and depraved ; It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either itnto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural sub- stances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians) ; and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here ; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one. 17. The Cup for the Laity. 1 The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay people ; for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike. 1 8. Christ's Sacrifice complete for ever. 2 The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual ; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. Who made there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world : and did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that His precious death until His coming again. 19. Object of the Lord's Supper. 3 Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained 1 For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby. 1 Article XXX. Article XXXI. 3 Catechism. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 33 20. No exhortation to fasting reception. 1 - What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper ? To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins ; steadfastly purposing to lead a new life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death ; and be in charity with all men. 21. No change of ceremonies without special authority. 2 It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like ; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Whosoever through His private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly (that others may fear to do the like), as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woumleth the consciences of the weak brethren. 22. Independence of National Churches in their ritual. 3 Every particular or National Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying. 23. No ceremonies recognised except those in the Prayer-book.* The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Eites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England. 24. The particular forms of Worship matters of indifference. 6 The particular forms of Divine Worship, and the Kites and Ceremonies to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and alterable, and so acknowledged ; it is but reason- able that, upon weighty and important considerations, according 1 Catechism. 2 Article XXXIV- 3 Ibid. 4 Title-page of the Prayer-book. 5 Preface to the Prayer-book. 34 WORDS TO THE LAITY to the exigency of times and occasions, such changes and altera- tions should be made therein, as to those that are in place of authority should from time to time seem necessary or expedient. 25. Complexity to be avoided. 1 The godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers hath been altered, broken, and neglected . . . with multitude of Responds, Verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals. 26. Uniformity desirable.'* Whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm ; some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, and some the use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln ; now from henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one use. 27. The Bishop to decide in cases of doubt. 3 Forasmuch as nothing can be so plainly set forth, but doubts may arise in the use and practice of the same ; to appease all such diversity (if any arise), and for the resolution of all doubts, concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute, the things contained in this Book ; the parties that so doubt, or diversely take anything, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same ; so that the same order be not con- trary to anything contained in this Book. And if the Bishop of the Diocese be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution thereof to the Archbishop. 28. Vow of obedience to the Bishop* Will you reverently obey your Ordinary, and other chief Ministers, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you ; following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourselves to their godly judg- ments 1 I will so do, the Lord being my helper. 1 "Concerning the Service of the Church." z Ibid. 8 Ibid. 4 Ordination Service. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 35 29. Pre-reformation Ceremonies unprofitable. 1 Of such Ceremonies as be used in the Church, and have had their beginning by the institution of man, some at the first were of godly intent and purpose devised, and yet at length turned to vanity and superstition ; some entered into the Church by indis- creet devotion, and such a zeal as was without knowledge ; and for because they were winked at in the beginning, they grew daily to more and more abuses, which not only for their unprofitableness, but also because they have much blinded the people, and obscured the glory of God, are worthy to be cut away and clean rejected. 30. Wilful transgressing of a Common Order. 2 Although the keeping or omitting of a ceremony, in itself con- sidered, is but a small thing ; yet the wilful and contemptuous transgressing of a common order and discipline is of no small offence before God. "Let all things be clone among you," saith St. Paul, " in a seemly and due order ; " the appointment of the which order pertaineth not to private men ; therefore no man ought to take in hand, nor presume to appoint or alter any public or common order in Christ's Church, except he be law- fully called and authorised thereunto. 31. Christ's Gospel not a Ceremonial Law. 5 Some [Ceremonies] are put away, because the great excess and multitude of them hath so increased in these latter days, that the burden of them was intolerable ; whereof St. Augustine in his time complained, that they were grown to such a number, that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter, than were the Jews. And he counselled that such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it. But what would St. Augustine have said if he had seen the Ceremonies of late days used among us : where- unto the multitude used in his time was not to be compared ? This our excessive multitude of Ceremonies was so great, and many of them so dark, that they did more confound and darken than declare and set forth Christ's benefits unto us. And besides, Christ's Gospel is not a Ceremonial Law (as much of Moses' Law 1 " Of Ceremonies." * Ibid. 8 Ibid. 36 WORDS TO THE LAITY was), but it is a religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the Spirit. 32. The Royal Supremacy. 1 We give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's Word, or of the Sacraments . . . but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God Himself; that is, that they should rule all states 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. 33. Independence of the Western Patriarchate. 2 The Bishop of Home hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England. 34. Communion every Sunday not absolutely ordered except in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colleges where there are many Priests and Deacons. 3 Upon the Sundays and other Holy-days (if there be no Com- munion) shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion until the end of the general Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth, together with one or more of these Collects last before rehearsed, concluding with the Blessing. In Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colleges, where there are many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every Sunday at the least. 35. Other Grace besides Sacramental.* They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season : they through Grace obey the calling : they be justified freely : they be made sons of God by adoption : they be made like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ : they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. 1 Article XXXVII. * Ibid. 3 Rubrics at the end of the Communion Office. 4 Article XVII. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 37 These quotations are sufficient to sketch the general outline of English Reformation principles. Some of them would, of course, be acknowledged without modi- fication by the new sacerdotal school ; but the sacer- dotal school no longer conceals its discontent with the Prayer-book as well as the Articles. It is beCciuse of the predominance of these principles that those who are re- presented by " the Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist " wish to alter the Prayer-book. Their most sincere and sympathetic adherents amongst the clergy would pro- bably be found now amongst those who subscribe to the great Evangelical societies. Amongst that large central mass of moderate clergymen who conform quietly to the prevailing tone of the time, who do not look very deeply into matters of controversy, and whose weight does not count very greatly in either direction, there would also be a very considerable number who, when the issue should be put to them clearly, would not wish the Reformation undone in such very serious matters as are now suggested. Amongst the old-fashioned High Churchmen the men of the school of Hooker there would also probably be many who prefer on the whole that things should remain as they are. The vast majority of laymen have not the least conception of the meaning of the tendency which is gradually being brought to bear upon them, nor of the proportions to which the sacerdotal movement has grown. They like beauty and solemnity in their services, but all their religious ideas are in the groove of the Reformation. 38 WORDS TO THE LAITY They joined instinctively -some years ago in the short- sighted policy of Lord Beaconsfield's attempt to " put down Eitualism " by Act of Parliament, but they did not in the least measure the forces that were against them, nor see how strong was the grasp which the mediaeval spirit had taken of a large and constantly increasing section of the clergy. Some of the leading men of the Church would rather hear no more about the distinctive principles of the English Reformation. They are justly anxious for the peace and cohesion of the National Communion, and they consider that it should be maintained on the terms of those who have shown themselves to be most in down- right earnest about propagating their opinions the new sacerdotal school. Lord Halifax has some show of reason for speaking of " the Catholic Revival, which has transformed the Church of England, and is now thankfully accepted by the authorities of the Church." l And the adherents of the principles of the Reformation have made many disastrous blunders. They have, in the American phrase, " given themselves away." The policy, pursued by a section of them in appealing to the law the policy, as it has appeared to the new sacerdotal school, of persecution has alike, whether victorious or unsuccessful, given a greater stimulus than any other contrivance could have supplied to the distinctive pre-Reformation sentiment, opinions, and practices. The determination of many of them to 1 " The Lord's Day and the Holy Eucharist," p. 26. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 39 adhere to a merely accidental type of ecclesiastical decoration, arrangement and musical rendering, and the refusal to accept the results in the national char- acter and culture of that great wave of taste known as the Eomantic Revival introduced into this country by Sir Walter Scott, Southey, and Coleridge have withdrawn from their support immense numbers of educated men and women. They have not realised the lesson of the fact that the true home of religious music and oratorio is evangelical Germany. Ninety- nine hundredths of those who think they prefer " High Church " to " Low Church " do so solely because they identify " High Church " with beauty, solemnity, and " hearty services," " Low Church " with ugliness and dulness. And again, the more conscious and strict adherents of Reformation principles have been lacking in leadership. That they have been marvellously abundant in good works is evidenced by the annual report and meeting of the Church Missionary Society, and by the subscription-lists of countless philanthropic enterpises; but they have not known how to make their influence felt in the affairs of the Church and nation at large. They have, to a great extent, stood aloof from Convocation, Church congresses, diocesan conferences. Their training colleges for a growing supply of young ministers have been few and far between. Though their general popular literature is enormous, they have absolutely no propaganda of the distinctive principles which give them their situation 40 WORDS TO THE LAITY in the Church, the distinctive principles of the Refor- mation, as some would say with confidence especially since the latest development of the pre-Reformation school the distinctive principles of the Prayer-book. Young people, becoming alive to these things, and ask- ing for Church principles, have been obliged to receive them from the literature which is more or less tinged with the new sacerdotal spirit. And the very simpli- city of plain Primitive and Scriptural principles will always, as our Lord and St. Paul warned us, attract to itself a very large amount of intellectual scorn. There was something to be seen of this during the days of the Tractarian movement. It shows itself constantly in the writings of even the holiest and best men of that movement. The new school, on the other hand, has had every conceivable advantage : persecution, imprisonment, the ablest possible leaders, the most eloquent preachers, lives of conspicuous devotion, the support of the example of the mediaeval churches in the East and West from the end of the third century to the present day, an unexpected amount of public patronage, a wide encouragement on the part of some of the Bishops some on account of admiration for good works and lives, some on account of sympathy with principles the general acceptance of the theory constantly re- peated that when a diocese, cathedral or parish has once been won to the sacerdotal movement it must never again be conceded to distinctive Reformation principles, the hearty adoption by the movement of the THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 41 simultaneous impulse in favour of Romantic forms in architecture, music and taste, a perseverance and co- hesion amongst themselves which the other side have been unable to show, a skill and ability worthy of their great leader Newman himself (of whom we are told that he almost made the Church of England as we see it), and of the famous Tract XC. Would it not be better to accept the policy of deliberate silence, join heartily with the sacerdotal movement, drop whatever is distinctly non-sacerdotal about the Reformation, never mention its principles in public teaching, and leave them entirely to the Non- conformists ? It is absolutely and fundamentally impossible. Ad- herence to the principles of the English Reformation is no mere esprit de corps or family tradition. It is with those who understand and hold them a matter of vital truth; with them the Scriptures will always be the supreme authority in faith. The men who handed down the Scriptures did not invent the words which give them their sole importance. Their sole importance lies in the fact that they contain the living words of the Son of God, the inspired words of inspired Apostles. Among witnesses to Holy Scripture and its meaning the Primitive Church is pre-eminent in importance, but at no time has the Church been infallible. The word "Catholic" has a spurious use when it is applied to any possible developments or institutions of a Church calling itself Catholic. Its true use was defined by 42 WORDS TO THE LAITY St. Vincent of Le"rins : " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." That must include the most im- portant time of all, the time of the New Testament itself. . The episcopal form of government is true in fact and fitness ; but there is nothing in Scripture to suggest the doctrinal theories of a mystic Apostolical succession. The Christian minister is a Presbyter, not technically a Sacerdos. 1 Baptismal regeneration is a new birth into conditions of spiritual influence. There are many means of grace, of which Holy Communion holds an important place. The minister is not tech- nically, but only metaphorically, a sacrificer; for the sacrifice which is commemorated was Christ's death upon the cross for our redemption, Who made there, by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, per- fect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, and did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory (in no sense a revival) of that His precious death until His coming again. 2 What we offer to God at the Holy Communion is money, unconsecrated bread, unconsecrated wine, oblations in kind, as symbols of His gifts, and prayers : " We humbly beseech Thee most mercifully to accept our alms and oblations, and to receive these our prayers, which we offer unto Thy 1 Bishop Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians, "Christian Ministry," p. 191. 2 Waterland, "Doctrine of the Eucharist," chap. xii. p. 313 (1880) ; Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Book V. chap. Ixvii. 12. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 45 Divine Majesty;" 1 we offer gratitude: " We, Thy humble servants, entirely desire Thy Fatherly goodness merci- fully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanks- giving ; " 2 and we offer ourselves : " Here we offer and present unto Thee, Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee. . . . And though we be unworthy through our manifold sins to offer unto Thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service ; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences." To the adherent of Beforrnation principles the service is rightly called "The administration of the Lord's Supper," and the Board "The Lord's Table." The presence of our Lord is spiritual; the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten only after a heavenly and spiritual manner ; and the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. The adherents of English Beformation principles believe that all rites, ceremonies, and doctrines outside the Prayer- book were, according to the title and prefaces, delibe- rately dismissed at the time of the Eeformation, and they are content that it should be so. They believe that, as to ecclesiastical dress, the custom of three hundred years is a sufficient guide ; they wish to wear what will as little as possible call away attention from weightier things, so long as decency and order are ob- served, in accordance with primitive principle. They 1 Prayer for the Church Militant. - Concluding Prayer. 44 WORDS TO THE LAITY find that in the Primitive Church, as well as at the Reformation, the laity had a due share with the clergy in the settlement of the affairs of the Church, and they are opposed to exclusive clerical domination. They accept equally the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, each in its own sphere. They altogether distrust tradi- tion, remembering that a false tradition about the meaning of our Lord's parting words to St. Peter about St. John was current even amongst the Apostles them- selves. 1 They adhere to the principle of National Churches as an obviously convenient and natural arrangement, dating from the time when the Roman Empire broke up into the Teutonic kingdoms, and they are jealous of the members of one National Church borrowing the prin- ciples and customs of another without due authority. These are, to speak quite generally, some of the distinctive principles and ideas of the Reformation as over against the principles and ideas of the previous era. Perhaps an official who, from his position, is obliged to stand outside all party combinations, is in a better situation to estimate fairly the prospects of these principles and ideas than any who are members of particular sacerdotal or Evangelical organisations. First, these principles will assuredly never die. They appear to be founded alike in history and Scripture, and they have been the strongest moral force the country has ever known. Fortunately, the intercourse between the two sides of the National Church is frequent and 1 St. John xxi. 23. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 45 friendly, and many who believe themselves to be rigidly and exclusively sacerdotal are, in reality, largely under the influence of Reformation ideas. In the general con- sent of the present age to abandon all authority and discipline, except in matters of morality, such a mixture of ideas is a very probable result. The important thing is that those on whom these principles depend for their maintenance should understand in what way they are essential to their position. Secondly, the position of those who accept the English Reformation is immensely strong in the fact that the formularies of the Church of England were arranged by those who carried out the Reformation, and as a plain matter of fact express their convictions. They are, as yet, intact and unchanged. And any serious demand for change on the part of the new sacerdotal school would be in the last degree unwise from their own point of view ; the laity would probably insist on, at least, an equal share in such a revision with that which they had at the time of the Reformation, and it is quite possible, when it should come to an actual matter of practical fact instead of talk, that the sacerdotal school might lose more than it had hoped to gain. An absurd mistake has been made, both by secular journals and by simple and unthinking clergy- men, when they have noticed the advice of some of the Bishops to their dioceses to accept the Lincoln Judg- ment. It has been supposed that all who did not before use the disputed practices were now to adopt them. 46 WORDS TO THE LAITY , What the Bishops meant was obviously that none were to do the things that had been forbidden. All. that has been decided is that such practices are not inconsistent with a conceivable interpretation of the law. Those who did not use them are left entirely where they were. Thirdly, the adherents of the principles of the Re- formation have the laity behind them. There can be no doubt of that. The laity do not know much of mediaeval doctrines, and perhaps less of controversy ; but they understand and love the Bible, and they have an undying and inextinguishable hatred of priestcraft. That is enough. Where the extreme churches have attracted large numbers of men, it has been, in my experience, through the commanding personality and supreme earnestness of individual preachers. In the main, like the system of the great Roman Church, the movement has depended more on the emotions of devout women than on the intelligence of men. Scepti- cism, throughout the course of history, has attended as a Nemesis on distorted and disproportionate re- ligious belief. Fourthly, a great access of strength will necessarily come to the adherents of Reformation principles now that they have dropped the fatal policy of persecution, or prosecution, let it be called what it may. All talk about forming a Parliamentary party and obtaining legislative changes is futile. It can only increase the cohesion of those against whom the weapon is directed, and react unfavourably on the condition and estimation THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 47 of those who employ it. Spiritual matters must be dealt with spiritually, that is, by discussion, arguments, appeals to Scripture and the Primitive Church, by love and by prayer. Fifthly, the friends of the Reformation, it is plain, will now direct their energies to legitimate missionary efforts at home. They will study more deeply the history of the principles which they profess, explain them in clear and simple language, and bring them within reach of every home in the country. The vast sums which they have spent on litigation will now be free for the education of young men for the ministry, and the erection of theological colleges and middle-class schools. Having learnt the lesson that bitterness and invective only recoil on those who indulge in them, all their efforts will be animated by the Christian graces of candour, humility, and patience. III. THE POSITION OF THE LAITY IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH " I would demand what evidence there is, which way it may clearly be showed, that in ancient kingdoms Christian, any canon devised by the clergy alone in their synods, whether provincial, national, or general, hath by mere force of their agreement taken place as a law, making all men constrainable to be obedient thereunto." HOOKER. 1 IN the New Testament we do not need reminding that all Christians alike were termed in a spiritual sense priests, in regard to their holiness and privileges. It is no less certain that in every congregation men were appointed to be rulers. The authority was of two kinds that of the Word preached, and that of the office-bearer within his own sphere. Obedience to the first was absolute, so far as the preaching was true to the Word. The second kind of authority was limited and liable to modification, inasmuch as it was representative of the whole body of the " Church," by whom these office- bearers were elected, with the addition of the sanc- tion of the superior office-bearers already existing. I would refer to such well-known passages as Heb. xiii. 1 Eccl. Pol. VIII. vi. 9. POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 49 17; I Thess. v. 12; i Tim. iii. 5; v. 17; i Tim. iv. 6, II. 1 The laity, however, who were called in the New Testament " The Brethren," retained co-ordinate rights of their own. When Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem it was not merely the apostles and elders who formally received them, but the whole Church. When an official letter is sent to the Gentiles it is not merely by the apostles and elders, but by the whole Church. And the letter was sent "to the brethren" alone; to the brethren alone it contained greeting. The letter itself was delivered, not to the rulers of the Church at Antioch, but to the whole multitude. 2 Again: the precedent was undoubtedly followed by which laymen duly qualified might give instruction among the Jews. In the synagogues, says Mr. Scuda- more in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 3 it was usual for the elder to ask any one of repute to comment on the lesson for the day (Luke iv. 17; Acts xvii. 2), or to deliver a word of exhortation (Acts xiii. 15). This liberty was certainly continued under the gospel in the case of those who had either the gift of prophecy, or of tongues, or of interpretation (Rom. xii. 6 ; I Cor. xii. 10, 28; xiv. 1-6, 31, &c.). St. Paul's rubric is perfectly plain : " When ye come together, every one 1 Compare Moberley's Bampton Lectures, p. 117, and note W. ~ Compare the evidence of the Didach&, and the illustrations of the jurisdiction of the "Church" over its clergy in the Epistle of St. Clement 3 Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Article "Laity." D 50 WORDS TO THE LAITY of you Lath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course ; and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the Church ; and let him speak to himself and to God. Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other -judge. If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all pro- phecy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted." 1 Among unbelievers, continues Mr. Scudamore, all Christians were expected to teach the gospel as oppor- tunity was given. They that were scattered abroad by the persecution on the death of Stephen went every- where preaching the Word (Acts viii. 4). The majority of these would be laymen. Thus St. Paul, before he received the laying on of hands, preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus (Acts xiii. 3 ; ix. 27) ; Aquila and Priscilla expounded unto Apollos the way of God more perfectly ( Acts xviii. 26) ; and Apollos himself mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ (Acts xviii. 28). Hilary the Deacon informs us that "At first all taught and baptized on whatever days and seasons occasion required. . . . That the people might grow and multiply, it was at the beginning permitted to all 1 i Cor. xiv. 26. POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 51 to preach the gospel, and to baptize, and to explain the Scriptures in church ; but when the Church embraced all places, houses of assembly were constituted, and rulers (rectors), and other offices in the Church were constituted. . . . Hence it is that now neither do deacons preach in the congregation, nor clerks nor laymen baptize" (Hilar. Diac. Comm. in Ep. ad Eph. iv. n, I2. 1 An illustrious example of this right of the laity is seen in the case of Justin Martyr. Clothed in the philosopher's cloak, which gave him a title to be heard in public places, Justin devoted his life to the sup- port of his new faith as an itinerant evangelist, with no office in the Church. His calling is expressed in his own words : " Every one who can preach the truth, and does not preach it, incurs the judgment of God." It was the same with most of the other Apologists. The office of Catechist has also an important bearing on the subject. Even inside the Church, in the most settled times alluded to by Hilary the Deacon, lay preaching was encouraged. When Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, complained that Origen, who was not a priest, had been asked by the Bishops of the district to interpret Holy Scripture publicly in church at Caesarea, the Bishops of Jerusalem and Caesarea denied the validity of one . l Hilary's words are very remarkable : " Et coepit alio online et provideutia gubernari ecclesia;" "and the Church began to be governed by another order and plan." 52 WORDS TO THE LAITY ground taken by Bishop Demetrius, namely, that lay- men had never been known to preach before Bishops. "If," said they, "any persons are anywhere found capable of benefiting the brethren, they are encouraged by the holy Bishops to preach to the people. Thus at Larandi, Euelpis was asked by Neon ; and at Iconium, Paulinus by Celsus; and at Smyrna, Theodore by Atticus ; our brethren now in bliss. And it is pro- bable that this thing has been done in other places without our knowing it" (Euseb. Hist. Ecd. vi. 19). Frumentius and .JMesius, while laymen, laid the foundation of the Church in Abyssinia (Socr. Hist. Ecd. i. 19). The same service was rendered to Iberia (Georgia) by a female captive, who having healed by her prayers the king and his wife and son, exhorted them to believe in Christ, through whose Name their cure had been effected (ib. c. 2O). 1 Even as late as A.D. 398 a Council held at Carthage was content with forbidding a layman to teach in the presence of clerics unless they themselves asked him. It was not till 453 that Leo I., writing to Maximus, Patriarch of Antioch, in view of the danger arising 1 The restrictions placed on laymen, and varied from time to time, were rather matters of Church order, to avoid schisms and scandals, than of necessary principles. In the same Avay there are synodical decrees forbidding presbyters to baptize or celebrate in the presence of the Bishop, or without his license ; e.g., the Second Council of Seville, A.D 619. Even Ignatius tells the Philadel- phians that their bishop "had obtained the ministry ivliich per- taineth to all in common" Compare Manley's Hulsean Lecture on the Presbyterate, pp. 2, note, and 56. POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 53 from the growth of the Nestor ian and Eutychian here- sies, with all their intricacies and subtleties, entreats him to take order that beside those who are presbyters of the Lord, no one presume to claim for himself the right to teach or to preach, whether he be monk or lay- man (Epist. 92, c. 6). It was not till A.D. 691 that the Council in Trullo, at Constantinople, declares " that a layman ought not to dispute or teach publicly, thence arrogating to himself the right to teach." With such late decisions in a corrupt age we have no concern whatever. We now pass to baptism by laymen. In the fourth cen- tury there seems to have been an opinion that laymen could not baptize. It was held by the Greek compiler of the Clementine Constitutions, and perhaps by St. Basil. The evidence on the other side is strong. Tertullian, whom St. Cyprian used to call his master, teaches that abstractedly laymen have power to baptize, but that they can only exercise it by permission, expressed or understood. 1 He argues that what is received equally by all can be imparted equally by all; but he adds, How much more is the discipline of reverence and modesty incumbent on the laity, seeing that it is the part of those greater than themselves, i.e., the pres- byters, not to take on themselves the episcopate, which is assigned to the Bishops. 2 Emulation is the mother of schisms (de Baptiz. 17). 1 The same permission was required by presbyter and deacon. 2 The fact that the Bishop's authority is delegated to him by the 54 WORDS TO THE LAITY There is a story told by Rufinus, A.D. 390 (Hist. Eccl. i. 14), of some boys baptized in play by Athanasius when himself quite a child (Socr. A.D. 439, Hist. Eccl. i. 15). The Bishop of Alexandria, who happened to see what was done from a distance, finding on inquiry that water had been duly used, and the right form of words said, decided, after conference with his clergy, that the children should not be rebaptized, but he sup- plemented their irregular baptism by confirming them himself. The story would not have been related by Rufinus, or repeated at length by Sozomen, A.D. 460 (Hist. Eccl. ii. 17), without some protest of the ground on which the Bishop acted had not been widely accepted in the Church at the time. It is from the Council of Elvira, about A.D. 300, that we first learn under what circumstances it was held lawful for a layman to baptize. The 38th Canon decrees that " during foreign travel, at sea, or if there be no church near, one of the faithful, who has his own baptism entire (i.e., not clinic, duly confirmed, and not vitiated by lapse), and is not a bigamist, may baptize a catechumen in extremity of sickness, on condition that if he recover he take him to the Bishop to receive the benefit of the laying on of hands." St. Jerome, writing in 378, says, " Baptism we know to be often people is strongly insisted upon by Alcuin. Churton, in his pre- face to Pearson's works, quotes Alcuin as saying : " Non omnis presbyter episcopus, quia ad unum oinnis sollicitudo ecclesise quasi ad patrem delegata est, qui quasi filios diligat et gubernat, non tribunitia pot estate sed pietate paterna." POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 55 permitted to laymen, if necessity compel. For as one receives, so can he also give." St. Augustine, about 400, says : " If any layman, compelled by necessity, shall have given to a dying man that which when he received it himself he learnt the manner of giving, I know not if any man could piously say that it ought to be repeated. For to do it without necessity is to usurp the office of another ; but to do it under pressure of necessity is either no fault or a venial." Shortly after this he shows a disposition to go farther, and to recognise the outward act under whatever circum- stances performed. He is speaking of several questions which might be raised ; baptism by one unbaptized ; whether it is valid, whatever the faith, motive, or position of the giver and receiver ? He even includes baptism on the stage where the actors are heathens, leaning to the affirmative if the recipient receives a sudden access of faith. He would in all such ques- tions defer to a plenary council ; an answer to the last must be sought by most earnest and united prayer. He adds that, at all events, he would at such a council not hesitate to maintain that they have baptism who have received it consecrated by the words of the Gospel, anywhere and from any one whomsoever without deceit on their part, and with some faith. In a passage in a letter in question ascribed to St. Augustine there is a story, which the writer admits to be uncertain, of a catechumen and a penitent in danger 56 WORDS TO THE LAITY of being shipwrecked together. As they were the only Christians in the ship, the penitent baptized the cate- chumen, and was in turn reconciled by him. What they did was approved. With regard to the administration of Holy Com- munion, the position is different. There can be little doubt that in the earliest days of the Church, after our Lord's ascension, the Christians assembled daily in the houses each of the other and solemnly broke bread at the principal meal of the day, in strict obedience to our Lord's command. 1 It is equally clear that in the Church of Corinth, at any rate, this liberty was turned into licence, and led gradually to the separation of the breaking of bread from the united meal, and so to the service at which the Elder henceforth presided. 2 I pass to another point. The election of ministers was either made directly by the people, or approved by them if the designation were made by the Bishop or the clergy. The consent of the whole congregation was required from the almost apostolic age of Clement of Eome (Epist. I ad. Cor. 44) down to and beyond the development of clerical authority in the days of Cyprian, who calls this " an apostolic and almost universal regulation " (Epist. ix. 3, 4). In the election of a Bishop the " suffragium" of the people accompanied 1 Acts ii. 46. 2 i Cor. xi. 20, 22, 33, 34. Compare also Dale's " Historical Essay," p. 52. The Elder presided when the gathering for break- ing of bread ceased to be purely domestic. The meeting at Corinth was clearly public. POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 57 and often preceded the "judicium " of the clergy of the diocese ; and elections by a spontaneous outburst of the popular voice were held valid in the cases of Cyprian, and afterwards of Athanasius and Ambrose. The rite of ordination was of course necessary for all grades of the ministry. 1 The Council of Carthage in a Synodal Epistle declares that the nominations to all orders in the ministry must take place in presence of the people, before the eyes of all, and not without the knowledge of the bystanding multitude, so that the crimes of the wicked may be detected, and the virtues of the good declared. 2 Laymen bore an important share in the General Councils. The Christian Emperors considered them- selves entitled to select certain learned and distin- guished laymen, conversant with ecclesiastical law and Christian doctrine, to sit in General Councils as members or assessors. These laymen bore the high title of Judices Gloriosissimi, and exercised a powerful and salutary influence over the assemblies in which they sat. In the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon, the Judices Gloriosissimi are described as interposing an interlocution to this effect : Videtur nobis justum esse, si placiterit Divinissime et piissime Domino nostro, &c. Upon this follows their decree; 1 The rite of ordination, Cheirothesia, was as it were the corona- tion, while the election, Cheirotonia, was the delegation to the office of the cleric. 2 Charges of Archdeacon ( John) Sinclair, p. 382 ; cf. also Cone Chalced., A.D. 451, Act xi. ; Labbe, iv. 698. 58 WORDS TO THE LAITY and the Oriental Bishops, so far from considering them to have exceeded their prerogatives, exclaim, Hoc justum judiciv.m. On another occasion the Judices require certain acts, which had been passed in their absence, to be read over, and afterwards inform the Council that they have submitted those acts to the Emperor, adding " JZxpectamus pietatis ejus mandata" One more point should be noticed, and that is the origin of lay patronage. The appointment of local clergy had very early fallen into the hands of the Bishops, though still with the assent, real or supposed, of the congregation. The Council of Orange, A.D. 441, l first extended episcopal patronage beyond a Bishop's own diocese, in the case of churches that he might have built in another ; and a century later the Emperor Justinian, probably sanctioning a growing practice, granted the same privilege to laymen. His law of 541 enacted that any one who should found a chui'ch, and should endow it with maintenance for a clerk, might nominate a person who should be ordained to it. The Bishops were at liberty in such cases to refuse ordination if the individual presented were unfit. In an epistle of Theodosius and Valentinian, the nave of the Church is called evfcrijpiov TOV \aov. In a law of Justinian, A.D. 528, the clergy are exhorted to a punctual observance of their hours of prayer, by 1 Landon's Manual of Councils, ii. 2. Compare Gall's Syna- gogue (Sirapkin, Marshall, & Co.). POSITION OF LAITY IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 59 an appeal to the example of many of the laity, who for the good of their souls constantly frequent the very holy churches, and show themselves diligent in the practice of psalmody. From this Mr. Scudamore infers as probable that at that time laymen often met together in church to sing psalms out of the hours of public worship, and when the clergy were not present. We have now seen that in the beginning the laity were on an equality with the clergy, submitting to the superintendence of the ruler whom they have them- selves chosen, and who has been ordained by authority. We have seen them preaching without limitation out of doors, and with the consent of Bishop or clergy in the church. They baptize at first freely, afterwards in cases of necessity. They elect clergy 1 and Bishops. 2 At first in the very simplest days they break bread from house to house, but they soon lose this privilege through disorder. They receive letters from Apostles and Churches. They are represented by Imperial Com- missioners in General Councils. They at last acquire the right to appoint to churches which they have built. At the present day, when Christian ministrations are 1 This is now very feebly represented by the reading of the "Si quis" before ordination, to give opportunity for valid ob- jection. 2 This is represented by the nomination of a new Bishop to the Crown, as embodying the whole state, by the Prime Minister, who is himself practically the choice of the representatives of the people. 6o WORDS TO THE LAITY needed so sorely on all hands, we may well take these facts into our most serious consideration. 1 1 The Bishop of London has already appointed laymen to preach in churches at times other than those of the regular services. In the dearth of spiritual ministrations amongst the vast masses of our population, perhaps other opportunities may be discovered for lay work, under proper restrictions, in accordance with primitive precedent. IV. THE USE AND MEANING OF THE WORD CATHOLIC. " Those who feel they can with a safe conscience remain with us while they are allowed to testify in behalf of ' Catholicism,' and to promote its interests, i.e., as if by such acts they were putting our Church, or at least a portion of it, in which they are included, in the position of catechumens. They think they may stay while they are moving themselves and others, nay, say the whole Church, towards Rome." J. H. NEWMAN. 1 IT is always difficult when you are close to a thing, and have been familiar with it for a very long time, to survey and measure it in its true proportions. And as the Church of Rome did for some 800 years bear a practically undisputed sway as the seat of the Patri- archate of the West, over Western Christendom, and as even since the disruption of the Eeformation that Church has had by far the largest number of European Christians adhering to her allegiance, there has been a disposition on the part of a considerable number of very well-meaning persons in the English Church to take the customs and practices of the Church of Rome during the last 1200 years as a very fair witness of 1 Life of Ward, Letter of Sept. 1843. 61 62 WORDS TO THE LAITY what ought rightly to be considered Catholic. The argument was, in defiance of St. Vincent of Lerins, that the dress, ritual, ceremonies, customs, and laws of a Church calling itself Catholic, must necessarily themselves be Catholic. I shall show presently that this is not the case according to true Catholic prin- ciples, but that the right to this authoritative title must in each particular case be investigated on its own merits. Many of these customs and practices go back to earlier times before the Church of Rome assumed so decided a lead, and the fact that they are to be found at a remote date seems to satisfy many devout minds that they must therefore be Catholic and worthy not merely of attention, but of deference, and even obedience. It is, therefore, very desirable that we should examine this word Catholic, and settle for ourselves something of its history and of the limits of its jurisdiction. We cannot very well leave the delimitation of the sphere of such an important term to the vague piety and uninstructed enthusiasm of unauthorised persons, how- ever admirable. It was first of all used in its ordinary sense of universal, not only by heathen authors such as Pliny, but also not uncommonly by ecclesiastical writers. Justin Martyr l speaks of the KaOo\ifct) avda- ra Abp. Spottiswoode's "History," iii. 209, ed. 1851. I 130 WORDS TO THE LAITY curred. The celebrated Bishop Hall, 1 Laud's chosen defender of episcopacy, asked men to observe the distinction which he made between the being and wellbeing of a Church, affirming that those Churches to whom the power and faculty of episcopacy is denied lose nothing of the true essence of a Church, though they lose something of their glory and perfection. The great Bishop Andrewes 2 himself, the very model of a saintly English prelate, writes " Though our govern- ment be by Divine right, it follows not either that there is no salvation, or that a Church cannot stand, without it. He must needs be stone-blind that sees not Churches standing without it; he must needs be made of iron . . . that denies them salvation." Bishop Cosin, 3 the typical and familiar standard-bearer of High Church traditions, when in exile at Charenton in France, attended the Huguenot Sacrament, and wrote thus to a friend who had scruples on the point : " Considering there is no prohibition of our Church against it (as there is against our communicating with the Papists, and that well-grounded upon the Scripture and will of God), I do not see but that you ... may (either in case of necessity ... or in regard of declaring your unity in professing the same religion . . . ) go otherwhiles to communicate reverently with them of 1 Hall, "Defence of Remonstrance," 14 ; cf. "Peacemaker," 6. 2 Andrewes, Letter II. 3 Cosin, " Works," Anglo-Catholic Library, iv. 407 ; cf. his " Last Will," ibid. i. xxxii. OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 131 the French (Reformed) Church." The view of Arch- bishop Laud has already been quoted on page 104. And Hooker says "There may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. The whole Church visible being the true original subject of all power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than bishops alone to ordain ; howbeit, as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed, so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from those ordinary ways. . . . And, therefore, we are not simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continual succession of bishops in every effectual ordination." l I have given you the opinions of these, the greatest of our Anglo-Catholic divines : Archbishop Laud, Bishop Cosin, Bishop Andrewes, Bishop Hall, Arch- bishop Bancroft, Bishop Jewel, and Hooker, though certainly it is not the opinion of Bellarmine the Jesuit, not because I want you to undervalue episco- pacy, but because I earnestly pray that you may be able to look with a kindly and understanding eye on those whom a tradition, no less dear to them than your own is to yourselves, has led to look at this question from a very different point of view. I want you to insist, as St. Augustine insisted with the Donatists, that they are your brothers in 1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol., vii. 14. 132 WORDS TO THE LAITY Christ. Without abating one jot of your own legiti- mate convictions, I want you to follow, more than ever before, the impressive command of St. Peter : " Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous ; not rendering evil for evil, . . . but contrariwise blessing." Nothing can be plainer, from the history of our own and all other Churches, than the absolute, total, and grievous failure of the policy of exasperation or perse- cution or unfriendliness. If we want to make our fellow-Christians more our allies and less our opponents, can anything be conceived more senseless, more ridicu- lous, or more disastrous than holding them at arm's length, and saying, "I can have nothing to do with you " ? That was the fatal, calamitous policy in the past, which has been just the very thing that has made those who disagree from us increase in numbers and strength and in dislike of the National Church. I can imagine nothing more exquisitely calculated to confirm them in their bad opinion of ourselves than treatment so ignorant, so cruel, so un-Christian. Yet it is actually heartrending to find that such is the kind of policy which some Christian men and women think proper to pursue towards those whom we all wish to conciliate, whose opposition we desire by our gentle- ness and wisdom to disarm, and whose strong, honest, godly hearts we wish to win over to the great body of historical Christianity in this country. Is it not even more than unwise and senseless ? Is it not disloyal OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 133 .and traitorous to the Church of which we are members, because it is contrary to the teaching and commands of our Lord Himself? The Jews were proud in the same manner of their spiritual pedigree and of their unimpeachable standpoint ; and what was the message which John Baptist was inspired to deliver to them ? " Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father ; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." 1 Nobody could have been closer to our Lord than His own mother and brethren ; but He cast all other ties to the winds in comparison to a holy life : " Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother and sister and mother." 2 There was a time when John, the Apostle of Love, said, "Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is on our part." 3 You cannot attempt to put a greater limitation on Christ's Presence than was placed upon it by the Lord Himself: "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I in the midst of them." 4 Where Christ is welcomed as a Friend, there, surely, we may follow. " If it be possible," urged St. Paul, " as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men." 6 On that exhortation he lays the greatest stress of which he 1 Matt. iiL 9. a Matt. xii. 50. 3 Mark ix. 38. 4 Matt, xviii. 20. 6 Kuiu. xii. 18. 134 WORDS TO THE LAITY is capable. It applies to our dealings even with those who are not Christian. With what infinitely stronger cogency does it rule our conduct towards those in whose company we hope to tread the golden courts of the City of God ! It is important to remember how small are the differences which divide us from the great bodies of the Orthodox Nonconforming Christians of England compared with our bonds of Union in one faith, one Lord, one baptism, in the face of the gathering clouds of infidelity, secularism, atheism, ignorance, sin, and vice. What are questions of Church government, however important in themselves, at their own place, at their own time, compared to the evidences of a holy life, and the indwelling of the Spirit of God ? Shall we not follow great examples, and each endea- vour to see what we can do to conciliate our Christian fellow-subjects, and prove to them that we gladly recognise them as followers of the same Saviour, called by the same name. The best possible defence that we as Christians can offer for those venerable and priceless institutions which we value, not for their privileges, but for their opportunities of work for the Lord is to follow the wise and Christian precept, "In honour preferring one another." Far from uselessly trying to keep our Nonconforming brethren in the background, it should be our delight to take every opportunity of sharing our work with them, and of showing them respect and attention. OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 135 They have now little grievance except that which is purely social. It is our duty as Christians, it is our privilege as members of the National Church, and it should be our pride as patriotic citizens of the King- dom of Christ, to remove any grounds which there may be for this last remaining complaint. From time to time we hear of unhappy and unworthy in- stances of arrogance, coldness, disdain, and pre- sumption. The leading Methodists declare that the position of their body towards the National Church has been greatly altered by the intolerance of too many of the new school of young presbyters in the country villages. That is the sad old policy for exasperation; and if that policy is still pursued, who can wonder if the consequences are hostility? Why should such people expect the Nonconformists to be so much more Christian in their forbearance than themselves ? How deplorable it would be if, when any humble and true servants of God are singing the words of that pathetic psalm of the Captivity, " Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us ; for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud," l it should be of us that they would be thinking ! Nothing is, in truth, more touching than the friendly gratitude with which acts of kindliness and courtesy, performed in the spirit of St. Peter, are always 1 Ps. cxxiii. 3. 136 WORDS TO THE LAITY welcomed by the Nonconformists. It puts us to shame, because, evidently the courtesy is not so general and customary as to be, in the way we might have hoped, a matter of course. If we desire in these days to add to the stability and to the genuine Chris- tian character of that great institution to which we are heart and soul devoted, and to increase the Kingdom of Christ among men, then we shall, each of us, resolve to search out those of our neighbours who have hitherto been ranged in a different part of the field, and we shall unite ourselves to them by friend- liness, and esteem, and affection, and honour. So shall we be helping to realise that prayer in which we join every time when we gather round the Table of the Lord, " Grant, that all they that do confess Thy holy Name may agree in the truth of Thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love." VIII. SCHISM. "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" i COR. i. 10. IT would be well, I think, if we should ask the Holy Spirit of God to enable us to make some attempt to clear up our minds as to the meaning and use of the word "schism." What St. Paul intended by it is very simple. It was the indulgence of party spirit to the verge of forming divisions. He had gone away from Corinth with his disciples Aquila and Priscilla. Aquila and Priscilla he left at Ephesus, and he himself proceeded to Jerusalem, and thence through Galatia and Phrygia. While he was traversing these countries, there was a new arrival at Corinth. Aquila and Priscilla had, at Ephesus, made acquaintance with Apollos, an eloquent and fervid Jew of Alexandria, who had hitherto been merely a disciple of John the Baptist. Under Aquila and Priscilla, Apollos completed his Christian training at Ephesus, and became a Pauline 137 138 WORDS TO THE LAITY Christian. At Corinth he stood forth as a preacher. He preached, indeed, no other than Pauline Chris- tianity, but he presented it in a different form. He had the art of Alexandrian eloquence, and the in- genuity of Alexandrian speculation ; he varied con- siderably from the simple manner of the Apostle; and it is probable that he entered farther than St. Paul had gone into several of the more subtle doctrines of Christianity. It is very important to note that this rift was certainly not based on any divergence in doctrine. Yet, from the variety of individual tendencies among the Corinthians, and from the per- sonal respect and love with which men clung to the old or the new teacher respectively, the rift came to have this hurtful result. Amidst mutual jealousy some assigned the higher place to Paul and some to Apollos. It gradually came to be a point of partisan- ship with them to call themselves adherents of the one or the other. From the pride and irritation thus engendered, mischief and prejudice followed to the two teachers themselves, and to the Body of Christ. 1 The matter did not end with this division into two parties. Apollos returned to Ephesus; and there arrived at Corinth Judaising Christians, provided with letters of recommendation, foolishly labouring to lower the authority of St. Paul, into whose field of work they intruded, and to exalt the authority of St. Peter. It is plain, from the whole of the First Epistle to the Corin- 1 Cf. Meyer's "Commentary," i. 10. SCHISM 139 thians, that they did not put forward any opposition to St. Paul's doctrine ; but with their Judaising ten- dencies generally, with their legal prejudice as to restrictions about meats, with their stringency as to the provisions of the law, it was natural that they found acceptance with that part of the Christian community who had been Jews, for they insisted strongly on their national prerogatives. This addition of a third party in favour of St. Peter to the two which already existed in favour of St. Paul and of Apollos, aroused a deeper feeling of the need for wholly disregarding the authority of men, which had brought about all this division into parties, and had worked for its perpetuation, and for returning to Him alone who is the Master of all, the Lord Jesus Christ. " We belong to Christ " became accordingly a fourth watchword. Unhappily it was not the cry of all. Unhappily it was not used in its right sense and application. Unhappily it was adopted by a section only. In itself it was right ; but it should have been combined with the recognition of the human instru- ments of Christ, St. Paul, Apollos, St. Peter. Un- happily the new party did not themselves keep clear of schismatic proceedings. They ought to have acknowledged all as, like themselves, disciples of Christ. But they organised their little array in such a manner that in their professed sanctity and lofty abstinence from partisanship they became themselves 140 WORDS TO THE LAITY a party. Instead of including the whole community, without prejudice to the estimation due to such servants of Christ as St. Paul, Apollos, and St. Peter, in their ideal they excluded the party of St. Paul, the party of Apollos, the party of St. Peter. Think how grievously would these schisms have been aggravated if it had been in the days of newspapers ! Conceive how the followers of Paul would have gloated over the Peter Review; how the faction of Peter would have shaken their sides over the sallies of the Paul Banner; how the adherents of Apollos would have swelled with satisfaction at the smart virulence of the Apollos Times! They still indeed assembled in one place; but they were in this fourfold division when St. Paul wrote to them this first epistle : " / beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no schisms amongst you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." It is comforting to us to know that when, not many years later, Clement of Rome wrote his epistle to the Church of Corinth, the wise and self -forgetful counsels of St. Paul had so far prevailed that these dissensions had not been of long continuance. Clement speaks of them as something long past and gone, with which he com- pares later quarrels as something worse. To St. Paul, there can then be no question that schism meant the indulgence of party spirit to the verge of forming divisions. SCHISM 141 When we come to the days of the early Church, after the death of all the Apostles, we find schism something more definite. Schism has become the breaking off from communion with the Church, on account of dis- agreement in matters of faith or discipline. In this sense there must be two parties to a schism, the people who break off, and those from whom they become separated. Both may be at fault. But there were no longer inspired Apostles to warn the main body against unwise tendencies ; and consequently the main body was always able to impute the blame to those who broke away. If there had always been the wisdom of St. Paul at hand, there might have been no separation. Schism might have continued a tendency rather than a definite act. But here it is of supremest importance to remember that in these early days there were different degrees of unity and schism, according to the proportion of which a man was said to be more or less united to the main body, more or less divided from its ranks. We read in Bingham's " Ecclesiastical Antiquities " l how, to give a man the denomination of a true Catholic Christian, in an absolute sense, it was necessary that he should in all respects and in every kind of unity be in perfect and full communion with the Church ; whereas to denominate a man a schismatic it was suffi- cient to break the unity of the Church in any one respect, though the gravity of the schism was to 1 Vol. v. p. 431. 142 WORDS TO THE LAITY be interpreted more or less according to the degrees of separation he made from the main body so freely and loosely was the word schismatic used in the third and fourth centuries. And as the rulers of the Church made a distinction between the degrees of schism, so did they between the censures inflicted on schismatics ; for these were proportioned to the quality of the offence. It is somewhat startling to us in these days of liberty of the individual conscience to read of the strictness and severity of the disci- pline of the third and fourth centuries. Those who absented themselves from Church for a short time, probably a period of three weeks, were schismatics. This was the lowest degree of separation, and was punished with a few weeks' suspension of Church membership. Those who attended only some part of the service, and voluntarily withdrew from parti- cipation in Communion, were schismatics. In those days all Christians communicated. These non-com- municants, who were considered schismatics in a more serious sense than those who did not go to church, were excluded for some time from all the sacred offices of religion. The third sort of separatists were those who withdrew totally from intercourse with the main body, and justified their separation. Yet even heretics, excommunicate persons, and pro- fane men were considered in some sense of the Church, as having received baptism, which they always retained, and as making profession of some part of SCHISM 143 the Christian faith ; but because in other respects they were broken off from her, they were not esteemed sound and perfect members of the body. This dis- tinction between total and partial unity, and total and partial schism and separation, is of great use, says this learned and impartial authority, to make us understand all those sayings of the ancients which speak of heretics and schismatics, and even excom- municate persons and profligate sinners, as being in some measure in and out of the Church. It is very desirable that we should notice how St. Jerome, speaking of schism, seems to identify its development with heresy ; in his opinion, apparently, a separation which did not involve heretical doctrine would be less serious. " Schism, at the beginning," he says, " may be understood to be something different from heresy ; but there is no schism which does not invent some heresy for itself, in order to justify its secession." Now we must remember that in the unfortunate and unavoidable divisions of modern Christendom there is in many cases no heretical doctrine at all. In the ages before the Reformation there were even more momentous schisms than those which have since occurred. In the fourth century there was the separation of the followers of Donatus, which involved 400 Bishops and a great part of the flourishing Church of North Africa, until it was swept away by the inva- sion of the Goths. Others, which inundated large tracts of Christendom, were the separations of the heretical 144 WORDS TO THE LAITY churches of the Arians, Photinians, and Apollinarians. There was a great schism in the illustrious Church of Antioch, caused by Lucifer, a Sardinian bishop. In the fifth century there was the notable schism in the orderly Church of Rome between Laurentius and Sym- machus. In the ninth century came the tremendous rent between East and West, between Constantinople and Rome, which has lasted ever since. In the fourteenth century Europe was deluged with blood, because of the schism between the rival popes of Rome and Avignon, which lasted till the end of the Council of Pisa, in 1409. In the thirteenth century we come to an authorita- tive definition of schism, which is totally unlike those which we have already considered. It lands us altogether in a new stage of thought. It points to the real cause of all the subsequent splits and troubles. The great doctor of the Western Church in the thirteenth century was St. Thomas Aquinas. " Schis- matics," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "are those who of their own will and intention sever themselves from the unity of the Church." This unity of the Church, he continues, consists of the connection of its members with each other, and of all the members with the Head. " Now, this Head is Christ, whose representa- tive in the Church is the Supreme Pontiff. And, therefore, the name of schismatics is given to those who refuse to be under the Supreme Pontiff, and to communicate with the members of the Church subject SCHISM 145 to him." It was this intolerable and unchristian doctrine, with all its accompaniments of error, which was the cause of that Reformation which, in the six- teenth century, blazed suddenly forth at once in all the countries of Northern Europe. My brothers, our English Church was indeed favoured by God in being able to retain its ancient historical link of outward organisation with the Church of the Apostles, and at the same time to purify its doctrine in accordance with the standard of the Word of God. It is true that to by far the largest and most ancient body in Christendom we are excommunicated schismatics: the 190 millions of the Church of Rome will not allow us even to be a church at all. It is true that they are openly boasting that our poor little feeble Church is rapidly moving towards them, and will soon be swallowed up by their vast and orderly hosts. It is true that we were obliged to break off from the Patriarchate of the West, which originally sent the mission of St. Augustine to the Saxons, and which we had always acknowledged as it was acknowledged by the Gallican Church of France. It is true that we once stood in much the same relation to the Church of Rome in which the Episcopal Church of America or the Church of South Africa stands to the Church of England. It is true that we were compelled to separate from that Patriarchate because we could no longer hold the Supremacy of the Pope, the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence, the Sacrifice of the Mass, 146 WORDS TO THE LAITY the Worship of the Virgin, the Worship of Saints, the Worship of Images, the Worship of Relics, the Doctrine of Purgatory, the Doctrine of Compulsory Confession and Absolution, the Denial of the Cup to the Laity, the compulsory Celibacy of the Clergy, Works of Supererogation, the equal authority of Tradition with Scripture, and the Superiority of the Monastic Life. It is true that to the eighty- four millions of the Greek Church we, twenty-three millions of English-speaking Episcopalians, are Separatists, because we were once part of the Western Patriarchate, and with them added a clause to the Creed known now as the Nicene. It is true that we are not on terms of full Communion with the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Scot- land, because they have either an incomplete Episco- palian government, or a different form of organisation. But, holding to the Apostolic faith and the Apostolic order in a good conscience, we can bear with patience the name of schismatics, even from those 190 millions, who form probably the majority of Christendom. We remember the wise and beautiful words of the present Bishop of Durham : " There never was an epoch since the Church spread beyond Jerusalem when the 'one body of Christ ' was one in visible uniformity, or even one in perfect sympathy. Time has, indeed, hardened and multiplied the difference between the several parts into which the Church is divided but it is pos- sible to trace already in the Apostolic age the essen- SCHISM 147 tial features of those divisions over which we grieve. And if we look forward to the great promise which gladdens the future, it is not that there shall ever be, as we wrongly read, 'one fold,' one outward society of Christians gathered in one outward form, but what answers more truly to present experience and reason- able hope, ' one flock and one Shepherd.' And in the meantime, let us rate the differences of Christians as highly as we will, there yet remains a common faith, in the presence of which they are almost as nothing. He who believes, to take the ground of the Apostolic message on the day of Pentecost, that Christ rose from the dead ; he who is baptized into Him ; he who rejoices, though trembling, in the pledge of a glorified humanity, is divided from the world without by an interval as wide as that between life and death. In this one faith, one baptism, one hope of our calling, lies a universal fellowship of believers, the symbol and the earnest of the brotherhood of men, the single truths, which taken alone, distinguishes for ever Christian from ancient thought." l My brothers, I said it was of the supremest import- ance to remember that in the earlier days, when there was yet a visible unity, there were different degrees both of unity and schism, according to the proportion of which a man was said to be more or less united to the main body, or divided from its ranks. Degrees in schism ; some necessary, some venial, some more 1 Bishop Westcott on the Creed. 148 WORDS TO THE LAITY serious that is the point for us to recollect. At the present moment there is no Church which is not in schism or division with some other Church : the Roman from the Greek, the English from the Roman, the non- Episcopalians from those who have the episcopal order. Here comes in the principle of difference in degree of schism. Take, for instance, ourselves. We, by God's mercy, and the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, were able to recover our episcopal order. The reformers of Switzer- land, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Poland, from whom all other Protestant bodies have sprung, wished to retain episcopal government, but could not persuade their Bishops to join them. The Augsburg Confession, the basis of the faith of the Reformed Church of Ger- many, says, with a touching pathos, "We would willingly preserve the ecclesiastical and canonical government, if the Bishops would only cease to exercise cruelty upon our churches." 1 Melanchthon wrote to Luther : 2 "I know not with what face we can refuse bishops if they will suffer us to have purity of doctrine." In another place Melauchthon says, "Luther did always judge as I do." Calvin wrote : 3 " Bishops have invented no other form of governing the Church but such as the Lord hath prescribed by His own word." After describing the character of a truly Christian bishop, he adds with great solemnity, "I should account 1 See Bishop Hall's " Episcopacy by Divine Eight," p. n. 2 Brett's " Church Government," p. 121. 3 Calvin, Epist. ad Martin Schaling and Tract, de Reform. Ecdes. SCHISM 149 those men deserving of envy, the severest anathema, who do not submit themselves reverently and with all obedience to such a hierarchy." Bucer wrote: 1 "We see by the constant practice of the Church, even from the time of the Apostles, how it hath pleased the Holy Ghost, that among the ministers to whom the government of the Church is especially committed, one individual should have the chief management of the churches and of the whole ministry, and should in that management take pre- cedence of all his brethren. For which reason the title of Bishop is employed to designate a chief spiritual governor." Beza always warmly commended the English Church polity. 2 "If," said he, with vehement stress, "there be any who altogether reject episcopal jurisdiction (a thing I can hardly be per- suaded of), God forbid that any one in his senses should give way to the madness of such men." I could quote similar opinions from the Reformers of Poland, 8 Hungary, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Scot- land ; 4 from Grotius, 5 and from the Synod of Dort in 1 Bucer, De Regno Christ!. 2 Brett on Church Government, v. 85; Durel, "View of the Reformed Churches," 4to, 1662, p. 280; Theod. Beza, Ad Tract, de Minist. 3 Canon. Eccl. Synod. Corniathince in Hungarid, Hi. 8 ; Zanchius, De verA Reformandarum Ecclesiarum Ratione. 4 Abp. Spottiswoode, Refutatio Libetli, A.D. 1620; Bishop Lind- say, "True Narrative," A.D. 1618 ; Bishop Ross, "Episcopacy not abjured in Scotland ; " Bishop Sage's " Vindication," chap. iv. 5 Grotius, Discussio de Primatu Paptx; de Imper. Summ. Potest. circa sacra, xi. 5. 150 WORDS TO THE LAITY Holland. 1 The fact is, that the original aversion of the Eeformed Churches for the Episcopal form of government has been greatly exaggerated. What drove them from Episcopacy was the cruelty, wicked- ness, blindness, and ignorance of the Catholic Bishops abroad and in Scotland at the time of the Reformation. The attitude they were then compelled to adopt has become since then a time-honoured tradition. To talk of them as deliberately leaving the Catholic Church is to pass over the very plainest facts of history. They wished to carry on the ancient form and the ancient chain of connection just like ourselves. But they could not. They had no Queen Elizabeth, and they had no Archbishop Parker. Subsequent generations, finding that they could enjoy a spiritual life without the ancient order, became less and less inclined to share the regret and anxiety of the first Reformers. And now that which was at first regarded as an imperfect form of government has come to be looked upon as a precious heritage ; and as we recognise the right of the two millions of our Roman Catholic fellow- subjects in this country to have their own organisation, we can hardly refuse that right to the conscientious and hereditary representatives of the influence of the Reformed Churches of Scotland and of the Continent. We remember the ancient principle of the primitive Church, that there are different degrees of unity and 1 Collier, "Eccl. Hist," ii. p. 718; Archdeacon John Sinclair's "Dissertations," 1833. SCHISM 1 5 1 schism, according to the proportion of which a man is said to be more or less united to the Church or divided from it; and that they who retain faith and baptism, and the common form of Christian worship, are in those respects at unity with the Church ; though in other respects, in which their schism or division consists, they may be divided from her. But at the same time we long, with an earnestness which nothing can abate, that they would come back to the main body of Christianity in this country. Our bishops are not the prelatical tyrants that they are sometimes described, but very like the presidents of the early Church first amongst equals. Would that those who are not against us, though they are not outwardly of us, could see the advantage of follow- ing the opinions of the early Reformers in joining once more with that simple and universal type of government ! Would that they could feel with Richard Baxter that divisions are the killing of the Church, or the wounding of it at least; that they are its deformities ; that they are not only our own dis- honour, but the injurious dishonour of Christ, and of religion, and of the Gospel ; that they lamentably hinder the progress of the Gospel and the conversion and salvation of the ungodly world ; that they lay open the Churches of Christ, not only to the scorn, but to the malice, will, and fury of their enemies; that they greatly hinder the edification of the members of the Church, while they are possessed with envyings 152 WORDS TO THE LAITY and dislike one of another ! Would that they could see that, so long as we agree with the main body in essentials, it is not necessary to break off, in con- sequence of any little disagreement, from all the little particular unessential points which have inevi- tably grown round the original system in the changes and chances of a long and varying history ! But, my brothers, it is, lastly, imperatively urgent that each one of ourselves should, to the very utmost of our power, discourage the schismatic spirit in ourselves and others within our Church itself. Lord Bacon, in his immortal essay on " Unity in Religion," told us how men ought to take heed of rending God's Church by two kinds of controversies: the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, nor worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction ; for, as it is noted by one of the Fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the Church's vesture was of divers colours; whereupon he said, " Let there be variety in the robe, but let there be no rent; they be two things, unity and uniformity. The other is, when the matter of the point is great, but it is driven to an overgreat subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather in- genious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they them- selves would never agree; and if it come so to pass SCHISM 153 in that distance of judgment which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, mean the same thing, and accepteth of both ? Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed ; so that, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning." Preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral forty-seven years ago, at Bishop Blomfield's Visitation, a former Arch- deacon of Middlesex 1 said, " In our own Church the same carnal or sectarian humour (which was amongst the Corinthians) has in a greater or less degree at all times betrayed itself. It could hardly be expected that this evidence of the corruption and infirmity of human nature should in our case be wanting; and accordingly not- withstanding all our helps to unity, and all our daily prayers for this blessing to the Divine ' author of peace and lover of concord,' we have always lamentably suffered from religious factions and divisions. The terms High Church and Low Church, Puritan and Cavalier, Orthodox and Evangelical, Arminian and Calvinist, are no sooner pronounced than they suggest to many minds antagonist associations of bitterness and dislike." My brothers, can we say that we are better now than our fathers were forty-seven years ago ? Is not this the true schismatical spirit in the Apostoli- cal sense ? " I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of 1 Archdeacon John Sinclair. 154 WORDS TO THE LAITY Peter, and I of Christ." That was what St. Paul com- plained of. Is it not the same? "I am of Newman, and I of Pusey, and I of Maurice, and I of Wesley, and I of Calvin, and I of Luther ? I am of the vest- ments, I am of the coloured stoles, I am of the black gown, I am of the cope and mitre, I am of the Roman collar, I am of the lighted tapers, I am of the incense, I am of the crucifix, I am of the eastward position, I am of the kneeling at the Epistle, I am of the divided words of administration, I am of the use of Sarum, I am of the First Prayer-book, I am of the English Church Union, I am of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacra- ment, I am of this Society or that? My brothers, are ye not carnal ? Is Christ divided ? These things are harmless and immaterial in themselves, but when pursued factiously and as matters of importance, they are schismatic. How, if some great storm of misguided secularistic fury were to burst upon her, would our Church stand in that evil day if we are so imbued with the schismatic spirit? Oh, my brothers, by the love you bear to your Saviour, by the loyalty which you owe to the English Church, I implore you to cease to exaggerate trifles, to give up banding yourselves together for the propagation of particular phases of doctrine, to look in all things to the Word of God for the estimation of the relative importance of contro- versies ! I urge you to disband these associations, to shake off the trammels of these personal traditions, and to go back in all things to the simplicity that is in SCHISM 155 Christ ! The nearer we are to Him, the nearer we shall be to each other. Human authority, human influence, may be recognised in its proper place ; but when it divides us into parties, and distorts great truths, and destroys proportions, and fills us with the fierce glee of sectarian fury, then certainly it is not of God. I entreat you to depart from these positions and associa- tions, which might in different times be tolerable, but which are now of necessity deeply imbued with the evil spirit of division. "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no schisms among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judg- ment ! " IX. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH. " I firmly believe the influence of your personal ministry does more than the labours of an open enemy to wean from the pure faith and simple ritual of our Church the affections of many amongst her children. . . . You seem to me to be habitually assuming the place and doing the work of a Roman confessor, and not that of an English clergyman." Bishop SAMUEL AViLBER- FORCE to Dr. PUSEY. THERE are certain fallacies by which we are in the present day beset, and about which it would be well for all true adherents of Reformation principles to be perfectly clear in their own minds. The first is that there were doctrines not taught by Christ, and unknown by the Apostles before the Day of Pentecost, which were to be disclosed by the Holy Spirit. The maintainers of this fallacy are much given to quoting the words of St. John xvi. 1 3 : " When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." They do not go on, however, to quote the rest of the utterance in the words which immediately succeed, and which would at once set them right. They are these : " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall IS 6 CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 157 He speak ; and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you." The idea that the Holy Spirit would produce anything not taught by Christ is most perverse. It is entirely precluded by these words. If any additional light on our Lord's meaning is needed, it may be found in the parallel passage in chapter xiv. ver. 26 : " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." As Luther said : " He imposeth a limit and measure to the preaching of the Holy Ghost Himself; He is to preach nothing new, nothing other than Christ and His Word to the end that we might have a sure sign, a certain test, whereby to judge false spirits." Thus the Spirit is conditioned by the Son, as the Son is by the Father. More than onco we are told that the disciples needed interpretation of our Lord's words : " They understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask Him." l " They understood not the saying which He spake unto them." 2 "They under- stood not that He spake unto them of the Father." 8 " This parable spake Jesus unto them ; but they under- stood not what things they were which He spake unto them." * " They understood none of these things ; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they 1 Mark be. 32. a Luke ii. 50. 3 John viii. 27. * Jolm x. 6. 158 WORDS TO THE LAITY the things which were spoken." * " These things under- stood not His disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him." 2 The office of the Spirit was to be that of an interpreter. He was to bring the innumer- able words of our Lord back to the minds of His disciples ; He was to interpret them, show their ground in the Old Testament, and their application to their existing circumstances. But in the most impor- tant period of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, from Pentecost to Bevelation, there is not one single trace of any shred of teaching different from the teaching of our Lord. It is the law of Christ that the Christians are to obey. 3 It is the word of Christ which is to dwell in them richly. 4 It is the Word of the truth of the Gospel that they have heard. 5 The Word is something already known they are to preach it in season and out of season. A bishop is to hold fast the faithful word as he hath been taught. 6 Our Church is abundantly apostolical in this point, when we are taught that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation : so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary 1 Luke xviii. 34. 2 John xii. 16. 3 Gal. vi. 2. * Col. iii. 16. 5 Col. i. 5. 6 Tit L 9. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 159 to salvation." 1 The Apostles taught nothing that Christ did not teach ; the Church can teach nothing but what was taught by the Apostles and by Christ. The second fallacy is that during the forty days after the resurrection our Lord communicated to the Apostles a number of new doctrines which do not appear in the Gospels, Acts, or Epistles. This fallacy is grounded on the simple words at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles : " The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all the things that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after that He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom He had chosen: to whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." 2 Never was tremendous inference laid on less solid foundation. The point here is that all that Jesus did and taught till His ascension St. Luke has already recorded. He maintains that in all necessary particulars his account of the life of Jesus is full and complete. Of the precious words which He spoke of the things pertain- ing to the kingdom of God, St. Luke has already given the most important and characteristic specimen in his account of the walk to Emmaus: "Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken : ought not Christ 1 Article VI. 8 Acts i. i. 160 WORDS TO THE LAITY to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory ? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." l And again in the same chapter, in his account of the interview with the Apostles, St. Luke gives another specimen of what he means : " He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them : Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and ye are witnesses of these things." 2 No shadow of a hint is given of new doctrine, or sacerdotal teaching, or the foundation of institutions. If there had been, the passage at the beginning of the Acts would have been the very place in which St. Luke would sketch them. No hint of such a thing is given in St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. John. No authority of our Lord is invoked for any of the adaptations of Christian institutions to circumstances, where, had the fallacy been true, such citation would have been inevitable. Nothing is attributed to our Lord in all the Acts and Epistles 1 Luke xxiv. 25. 2 Luke xxiv. 44. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 161 that is not taught in the Gospels, except some well- known phrase of His, " It is more blessed to give than to receive" 1 words which, after all, only summarise a large portion of His recorded teaching. Nothing can be more obvious than the meaning of St. Luke. Our Lord's visits to His Apostles after His resurrection are few and far between; the chief of them are recorded by St. Paul. Had He given any new directions, these could not have failed to appear in the text of the New Testament. If once you suppose that Christ, during His brief appearances, gave instructions not recorded in His life, and not alluded to in the Epistles, you may just as easily believe that He prophesied of the invocation of saints, the worship of the Virgin, the doctrine of purgatory, indulgences, the Mass, the celibacy of the clergy, the five sacraments, auricular confession, the Virgin's Immaculate Conception, the worship of images, and the Infallibility of the Pope. The third fallacy, which at the present day meets us, is that there were a number of matters so important and so sacred in the eyes of the Apostles, that they were afraid to mention them for fear of the Jews and pagans, or even to give any hint of them in their Epistles. It is in this way that audacious and uncritical writers explain the fact that the mentions made in the New Testament of the Lord's Supper are not so numerous or important as they would wish, 1 Acts xx. 35. 1 62 WORDS TO THE LAITY the comparatively minor stress that is laid upon it, and the total silence about any liturgical service, or any transfer of the Aaronic vestments to the Christian presbyters. But if that was really the case, or any- thing more than the most gratuitous fancy, it would follow that the Lord's Supper would not be mentioned at all; whereas St. Paul gives an explicit account of its institution. It is sometimes, in the same prejudiced manner, argued that when St. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for abuses, he could not have been alluding to the Lord's Supper, but to the Love Feast. Then, why should he inextricably and fundamentally bind up his rebuke of the excesses with his account of the institution ? 1 And again, the breaking of bread is constantly and frequently mentioned. This argument, that Scripture was silent about matters either too familiar for explana- tion or too sacred to be mentioned, will not bear an instant's examination. Scripture is not silent about them at all, but frequently mentions them, and gives them their due place and proportion. If there had been any real sacrificial teaching in connection with the Holy Communion, the Epistle to the Hebrews would have been the place of all others for such doctrine. If such doctrine had been in vogue, and yet the Epistle to the Hebrews remained silent, it would have been not merely incomplete but mis- leading. 1 1 Cor. xi. 22. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 163 The fourth fallacy I wish to mention is connected with the word " Romish." There is an ambiguity about it which is a most disastrous and unfortunate circumstance in our present controversies. The most extreme of the innovating party declare that they are not Romanising, because there are just two points in the present condition of Rome after which they have no hankering. They do not accept the Infallibility of the Pope and the Immaculate Con- ception of the Virgin Mary, which are recent additions to the Romish Creed. And they lay great stress on the fact that before the Reformation the Church of England sometimes tried to declare its comparative autonomy and independence of the Romish See. But the real point is that, from the time of St. Augustine downwards to the Reformation, the Mediaeval Church of England did follow the developments of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and was as thoroughly " Romish " in her teachings and practice as any other portion of Christendom. The appeal of the Reformation, by which we of the Church of England are all bound, was most distinctly not to the time of St. Augustine, but to the authority of Holy Scripture itself, considerable importance being attributed to the witness and evidence of the first three centuries. This ambiguity, which gives occasion to assert that the doctrines of the Mediaeval Church were not Romish, gives rise to this very grave fallacy, which has momentous consequences at the present day 1 64 WORDS TO THE LAITY amongst the younger clergy. The Use of Sarum, to which they appeal, was not identical with the Use of Rome, but it taught the same doctrines. It is the doctrine which is of importance, not the mere phrases or varieties of ceremony by which it is expressed. The laity at large have no conception of the gravity of this fallacy. They are constantly told that things, practices, and doctrines are not Romish, because there was some variation in the national customs of the unreformed English Church. When the extreme innovators are accused of moving Romewards, they declare they are not moving to Rome, but to Sarum. They mean that they do not propose to accept the Infallibility of the Pope or the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin; and they also mean that they are not going to adopt Romish colours, or distinctively Romish ceremonies as apart from the ceremonies of Sarum. This is in reality only a quibble, although no doubt it represents some important distinction to their own minds; for the doctrines of the Church of England during the ascendancy of the Use of Sarum, towards which these men are desirous to move, were most distinctly Romish. Sarum merely means Rome minus the Infallibility of the Pope and the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. But the protest of England against Rome was three centuries before the Infallibility of the Pope and the Im- maculate Conception of the Virgin were thought of or invented. It is Rome in the guise of Sarum that CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 165 we have thoroughly and once for all repudiated, and that we have once more to repel. The fifth fallacy commonly in vogue is in the use of the word " Catholic. " l Its true use is to distinguish the Church or Churches which hold to the simple teaching of the New Testament from those which are heretical, and which, as holding some peculiar view of their own, are not universal. As regards institutions or doctrines, its proper meaning is that which has been held always, everywhere, and by everybody. The great truths of Christianity taught by the New Testament, and the simple institutions of Bishop, Priest, Deacon, Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the weekly meeting for Prayer, are therefore Catholic. Little else is worthy of the name. To usurp it for the mere usages, customs, and doctrines of a Church calling itself Catholic, whether they themselves have been held always, everywhere, and by everybody, or not, is an abuse of terms. It is a good, useful, and important historical word, and should be vindicated from the slavery to which it has been subjected. Against a sixth fallacy I would ask you to protest with all your hearts and souls. It is in the application of the word " Churchman " or " good Churchman. " " What sort of a Churchman is he ? " is a question that is asked every day. Those who ask it generally mean that they wish the subject of their inquiry to 1 Cf. Chap. iv. i66 WORDS TO THE LAITY be one who puts the mediaeval doctrines of and about the Church above the plain and simple teaching and authority of Scripture; one who places so dispropor- tionate a value on the outward body and its develop- ments that he has become out of harmony with the balance of Scriptural doctrine ; one who thinks more of the mediaeval Church of England than of the principles of the Reformation ; one who thanks God that, in spite of much that was to be deplored at the Reformation settlement, certain unexpected treasures have been handed down, the existence of which has in modern times been rediscovered. Now, in the early Church, a true Churchman was one who, while holding, of course, to the great principles of Catholic truth, obeyed the customs of his own Church, and was guided by his own bishop. 1 If a man wished without authority to copy the customs of other Churches, and disregard the example and advice of his bishop, so far he was not in harmony with Catholic principles. Much was left to be settled by the taste and feelings of individual Churches. That is a principle on which our Church has claimed full liberty. Her own principles are expressed with abundant clearness. It is those who are loyal to those principles who, according to the rules of the primitive and Catholic Church, are the true and genuine Churchmen. It is those who, .under some strange mediaeval hallucination, adopt the principles, 1 Bingliam, " Eccl. Antiq.," bk. xvi. 10. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 167 teachings, and customs of other Churches, which are not really Catholic, but Roman, and which our own Church has by its own inherent authority distinctly repudiated, who incur the censure of faulty and imperfect Churchmanship. Another mistake I may be permitted to mention. It is that of taking up some name or phrase character- istic of the carnal movement, and using it in a new sense as if it were perfectly harmless. It is supposed that, by the fact that you use it yourself, you have taken all the sting out of it. You perhaps hear it said, " I am a sacerdotalist. You are sacerdotalists. We are all sacerdotalist?. The sacerdotalism we all believe in is the sole priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ." Well, of course that is very true in the sense in which it is used ; but if we all go about call- ing ourselves sacerdotalists, in some peculiar esoteric metaphorical sense, we shall only succeed in being considered to agree with those of whom the name is really and truly characteristic. The name sacer- dotalist belongs to those who insist on the sacrificial vicarious priesthood. The name Catholic, in its proper sense, belongs to us. The name Protestant belongs to us. But the name sacerdotalist is obviously misleading, and we have no excuse for meddling with it. 1 1 It is because the sin-offering has ceased that peace-offerings, freewill-offerings, and thank-offeriugs have become possible. These spiritual sacrifices took the concrete form in the early Church of an offertory, which was the life of the whole institution, and was naturally emphasised by preachers, by diptychs, and other 1 68 WORDS. TO THE LAITY One more fallacy before I conclude. The use of the adjective High-church is full of ambiguity. In its application it is a very relative term. In Queen Anne's days it meant something very different from what it means now. But we must not allow its con- centration upon the most extreme or ritualistic section of the Church to persuade us that against those who are not ritualistic we have no point of difference or disagreement. There are many among those who follow the divines of the seventeenth rather than of the sixteenth century who wish to persuade us that only the men who wear vestments are High-churchmen, and that they themselves are the truest members of the Church of England. Now, we do not wish to multiply differences, but at the same time we cannot consent, by any shift- ing of recognised historical terms, to have our minds confused and the teaching of our Church obscured. Otherwise, every succeeding generation would be going further down the scale, until the old framework of the Reformed Church of England would be left like the ark on the top of Ararat. 1 contrivances, and still persists as the Great Entrance in the liturgies. These are real and true sacrifices, whereas the carnal, renewed sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ is untrue to Scripture. To stop at the sin-offering is to stop at the threshold of the Taber- nacle, before the true worship has even begun. The ignorance of the Romanists and their imitators is remarkable. 1 There is a historial High Church party in the Church of Eng- land, who are as distinct from the Ritualists as the Reformers themselves. They should be proud of their name, and not allow it to be usurped by the mediaeval Counter-Reformation. CURRENT FALLACIES IN THE CHURCH 169 You have a glorious position to vindicate, and an unrivalled opportunity of making its establishment sure and certain. The country is waiting to hear what you, as well as the clergy, can say for your attitude and your belief. You have on your side the Bible and the Prayer-book. Of this the innovators are conscious, for they have now made definite pro- posals for the Prayer-book's alteration. You have on your side the great mass of quiet religious men, who dislike ritualism, the confessional, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacrificial priesthood. You have the Archbishop condemning disparagers of the Reformation, and declaring it to be the greatest event since the publication of Christianity. You have the Bishops pronouncing that fasting communion is not obligatory, and that evening communion is under cir- cumstances permissible, whereas the contrary pro- positions have been for years earnestly taught by the medievalists. Oh, make use of this great opportunity. Establish your Pastorate at Oxford. Build your own theological college in the provinces. Maintain Re for- mation principles in every assembly of laity and clergy. Prove to the Nonconformists that the Church is still what for three hundred years she has been claimed to be, the bulwark of an intelligent and truly Catholic protest against Rome. Support Reformation literature. Distribute wise and well-grounded Reformation pam- phlets throughout the country. The ceaseless vigilance of Rome never slumbers ; she uses the medievalists for 170 WORDS TO THE LAITY her own vast, far-sighted, patient, and comprehensive purposes. 1 Have the courage of your opinions. Recom- mend them by the earnestness, devotion, and self- sacrifice of your lives. Win the working-classes by the true brotherliness of your sympathy. And may God Himself continually shield us from pride, pre- sumption, and error, and give us a right judgment in all things ! 1 " The very Establishment which was set up in rivalry to the Church, with a Royal supremacy triumphantly pitted against a Papal supremacy this very Establishment has changed its temper and attitude. Its bishops, ministers, and people are busily engaged in ignoring or denouncing those very Articles which were diawn up to be their eternal protest against the old religion. The sacra- mental power of orders, the need of jurisdiction, the Real Presence, the daily sacrifice, auricular confession, prayers and offices for the dead, belief in purgatory, the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, religious vows, and the institution of monks and nuns the very doctrines stamped in the Thiry-nine Articles as fond fables and blasphemous deceits all these are now openly taught from a thousand pulpits within the Establishment, and as heartily embraced by as many crowded congregations." (Speech of Car- dinal Vaughan when Bishop of Salford, July 1890.) Without adopting the language as wholly accurate (especially his statement about the bishops), we must take note of its general tone and drift. X. INDEPENDENCE AND RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES. " The necessity of polity and regiment in all Churches may be held without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all." HOOKEI:, Eccl. Pol., bk. iii chap. ii. i. IN the anxiety of many excellent persons that there should be as little difference as possible between the chief branches of the Christian Church, they are in danger of forgetting to some extent the indepen- dence of different Churches one of the other, and the unimportance of uniformity, or even similarity, so long as they hold the main essentials of the Christian faith. The origin of National Churches was even to be distinguished in the time of the Apostles, when St. Paul grouped together "the Churches of Judgea," 1 "the Churches of Galatia," 2 "the Churches of Mace- donia." 3 Another instance of nationality is seen in the fact that the converts from Judaism were always allowed to continue the Mosaic worship, while the Gentiles were free from its regulations. It was not 1 Acts ix. 31 ; Gal. i. 22. 2 i Cor. xvi. i. 8 2 Cor. viii. i. 171 172 WORDS TO THE LAITY till the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, about 135 A.D., that the main body of Jewish Christians finally sepa- rated from the Law. Dean Jackson points out that the Churches planted by St. Paul could not appeal to St. Peter, nor those planted by St. Peter to any other Apostle. "Admit- ting," l he goes on, " the laws and discipline of all the Churches planted by St. Peter, by St. Paul, and other Apostles had been the selfsame, yet could they not in this respect be so truly and properly called one visible Church, as the particular Churches planted by St. Paul, especially in one and the same province, were one Church, albeit their laws or ordinances had been more different. It is probable, then, that there were as many several distinct visible Churches as there were Apostles, or other ambas- sadors of Christ. ... It is, then, profession of the same faith, participation of the sacrament, and sub- jection to the same laws and ordinances ecclesiastic which makes the visible Church to be one. It is the diversity of independent judicature, or supreme tribunals ecclesiastic, which makes plurality of visible Churches, or distinguished one from the other. That which makes every visible Church to be more or less the true Church of God, is the greater or less efficacy or conformity of its public doctrine and discipline for adapting or fashioning the visible members of it that they may become live members 1 Deau Jackson's Works, xil chap. viii. 5. RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 173 of the holy Catholic Church (the true invisible body of Christ), or living stones of the New Jerusalem. Every true visible Church is an inferior freehold or nursery for training up scholars that they may be fit to be admitted into the celestial academy. . . . There have been as many visible Churches inde- pendent each on other, for matter of jurisdiction or subjection to one visible head, as there be several free states or Christian kingdoms independent one of another. The subordination of Church to Church is in proportion the same with the subordination of the several states wherein the Churches are planted. The best union that can be expected between visible Churches seated in kingdoms or commonweals inde- pendent one of another, is the unity of league or friendship. And this may be as strict as it shall please such commonweals or Churches to make it. To make the Church seated in one absolute state or kingdom live in subjection to another Church seated in another kingdom, or to any member of another Church or kingdom (head or branch), is to erect a Babel, or seat of Antichrist, not to build up one holy Church to Christ. This practice of usurpa- tion of the Romish Church hath been the reason why the Christian world for these many years hath been more confused and disordered than the synagogue of Mahomet." When Christianity first began its systematic or- ganisation it was all within the limits of one great 174 WORDS TO THE LAITY empire. The Apostles had followed the civil divi- sions in the founding and extent of their Churches, and their followers carried out the system on the same lines. The Eoman Empire was itself divided into dio- ceses with subordinate provinces, and the Churches obviously took their model in setting up metropolitical and patriarchal power and the union of dioceses from this plan of the State. As in every metropolis, or chief city of each province, there was a superior magi- strate above the magistrates of every single city, so likewise in the same metropolis there was a bishop whose power extended over the whole province, whence he was called the Metropolitan or Primate, as being the principal bishop of the province ; and in all places the see of this bishop was fixed to the civil metro- polis, except in Africa, where the primatery passed from bishop to bishop, according to seniority. In the same way as the State had a Vicarius in every capital city of each civil diocese, so the Churches in process of time came to have their exarchs, or patriarchs, in many, if not in all, the capital cities of the empire. 1 It was in consequence of the breaking up of the Roman Empire that Provincial Churches have been succeeded by National Churches. " The external causes of the change are to be found in the history of the Teutonic kingdoms which rose upon the ruins of the Roman Empire. The limits of those kingdoms were constantly shifting, and were 1 Bingham, "Eccl. Antiq.," bk. ix. chap. i. 4. RIGPITS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 175 determined without regard to the limits of existing dioceses or provinces. For, whereas, the latter had been determined, in Roman times, chiefly by the areas of settlement of the original tribes of the Celts, the latter were determined by the areas of settlement or conquest of the intrusive tribes of the Teutons. Each kingdom found an ecclesiastical organisation existing, and endeavoured to incorporate it. The earlier bonds began to give way under the pressure of the new need of keeping the kingdom together. The king gathered together the bishops and clergy within their domain, irrespective of the earlier arrangements. The bishops and clergy obeyed the king's summons without regard to the questions which have been raised in later times as to the precise nature of his authority. . . . " It was in this way, by the holding of meetings at which both the ecclesiastical and civil elements were represented, and which dealt with ecclesiastical no less than with civil questions, that there grew up the con- ceptions of both ecclesiastical and political unity, which, more than physical force, welded together the divers populations of what are now Spain, France, and England, each into a single whole. The older Roman imperial arrangements lasted on, but only for limited purposes. The province was superseded by the nation in almost all respects, except that of internal disci- pline." 1 It is interesting to observe that the first consolidation of the English dioceses into a National 1 Hatch, " The Growth of Christian Institutions," p. 152. 1 76 WORDS TO THE LAITY Church was a purely ecclesiastical act, without any royal assistance ; the summoning of the Council of Hertford by the great Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, which took place on September 24, 673. The unity of primitive times was a unity of the main points of doctrine, not of uniformity of practice. Every Church was at liberty to make choice for herself in what method and form of words she would perform her services. It was no breach of unity for different Churches to have different modes and circumstances and ceremonies in performing the same holy offices so long as they kept to the substance of the institution. What was required to keep the unity of the Church in these matters was that any particular member of any Church should comply with the particular customs and usages of his own Church. 1 The independence of National Churhes is illustrated by a primitive rule that every Christian, when he came to a foreign Church, should readily comply with the innocent usages and customs of that Church where he happened to be, though they might chance, in some circumstances, to differ from his own. " This was a necessary rule of peace, to preserve the unity of com- munion and worship throughout the whole Catholic Church ; for it was impossible that every Church should have the same rites and ceremonies, the same customs and usages in all respects, or even the same method and manner of worship, exactly agreeing in all punc- 1 Bingham, " Eccl. Antiq.," bk. xvi. 10. RIGHTS OF XATIONAL CHURCHES 177 tilios with one another, unless there had been a general liturgy for the whole Church expressly enjoined by Divine appointment. The unity of the Catholic Church did not require this . . . and, therefore, no one ever insisted on this as any necessary part of its unity. It was enough that all Churches agreed in the substance of Divine worship; and for circumstantials, such as rites and ceremonies, method and order, and the like, every Church had liberty to judge and choose for herself by the rules of expediency and convenience." l The idea of one uniform Church throughout the world is merely an unconscious recollection of the long feverish dream of papal supremacy. "This rule is often inculcated by St. Austin as the great rule of peace and unity with regard to all Churches; and, he tells us, he received it as an oracle from the wise and moderate discourses of St. Ambrose, whom he consulted upon the occasion of a scruple which had possessed the heart of his mother, Monica, and for some time greatly perplexed her. She, having lived a long time at Rome, was used to fast on Saturday or the ' Sabbath,' according to the custom of the Church, of Rome; but, when she came to Milan, she found the contrary custom prevailing, which was to keep Saturday a festival ; and, being much disturbed about this, her son, though he had not much concern about such matters at that time, for her ease and satisfaction consulted St. Ambrose upon the point, to take his 1 r.iiighani, " Eccl. Antiij.," bk xvi. 10. 178 WORDS TO THE LAITY advice and direction how to govern herself in this case, so as to be inoffensive in her practice. To whom St. Ambrose answered, ' That he could give no better advice in the case than to do as he himself was wont to do ; for,' said he, ' when I am here I do not fast on the Sabbath ; when I am at Rome I fast on the Sabbath ; and so you, whatever Church you come to, observe the custom of that Church, if you neither take offence at them nor give offence to them.' St. Austin says, ' This answer satisfied his mother, and he always looked upon it as an oracle sent from heaven.' He adds, moreover, 'That he had often experienced with grief and sorrow the disturbance of weak minds, occa- sioned either by the contentious obstinacy of certain brethren, or by their own superstitious fears, who, in matters of this nature, which can neither be certainly determined by the authority of Holy Scripture, nor by the tradition of the Universal Church, nor by any advantage in the correction of life, raise such litigious questions, as to think nothing right but what them- selves do; only because they were used to do so in their own country ; or because a little shallow reason tells them it ought to be so ; or because they have, perhaps, seen some such thing in their travels, which they reckon the more learned the more remote it is from their own country.' Thus he wisely reflects upon the superstitious folly and contentious obstinacy of such as disturbed the Church's peace for such things as every Church had liberty to use, and every RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 179 good Christian was obliged to comply with. ' For,' as he says in the same place, 'all such customs as varied in the practice of different Churches, as that some fasted on the Saturday, and others did not; some received the Eucharist every day, others on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, and others on the Lord's Day only; and whatever else there was of this kind, they were all things of free observation ; and in such things there could be no better rule for a grave and prudent Christian to walk by than to do as the Church did whenever he happened to come. For whatever was enjoined that was neither against faith nor good manners was to be held indifferent, and to be observed according to the custom and for the convenience of the society among whom we live.' This he repeats over and over again as the most safe rule of practice in all such things, wherein the customs of the Churches varied, that wherever we see any things appointed, or know them to be appointed, that are neither against faith nor good manners, and have any tendency to edification, and to stir men up to a good life, we should not only abstain from finding fault with them, but follow them both by our commendation and imitation. By this rule all wise and peaceable men always governed their practice in holding communion with other Churches ; though they did not altogether like their customs, they did not break communion with them upon that account." 1 1 Uinghiim, " Eccl. Autiq.," bk. xvL 10. i8o WORDS TO THE LAITY In the same way, "A great many things were at first allowed to every bishop in the management of his own diocese, which were afterwards restrained by the decrees of national councils. As to instance only one in particular : every bishop anciently had liberty to frame his own liturgy for the use of his own Church. "It is clear that there was no necessity, in order to maintain the unity of the Catholic Church, that all Churches should agree in all the same rites and ceremonies ; but every Church might enjoy her own usages and customs, having liberty to prescribe for herself in all things of an indifferent nature, except where either a universal tradition or the decree of some general or national council intervened to make it otherwise. To this purpose is that famous saying of Irenseus, upon occasion of the different customs of several Churches in observing the Lent fast : ' We still, retain peace one with another : and the different ways of keeping the fast only the more commends our agreement in the faith.' St. Jerome, likewise, speak- ing of the different customs of Churches in rela- tion to the Saturday fast, and the reception of the Eucharist every day, lays down the general rule, ' That all ecclesiastical traditions, which did noways pre- judice the faith, were to be observed in such manner as we had received them from our forefathers, and the custom of one Church was not to be subverted by the contrary custom of another ; but every province RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 181 might abound in their own sense, and esteem the rules of their ancestors as laws of the apostles.' After the same manner, St. Austin says, ' That in all such things, whereabout the Holy Scripture has given no positive determination, the custom of the people of God, or the rules of our forefathers, are to be taken for laws. For, if we dispute about such matters, and condemn the custom of one Church by the custom of another, that will be an eternal occasion of strife and contention ; which will always be diligent enough to find out plausible reasonings, when there are no certain arguments to show the truth. Therefore great caution ought to be used, that we draw not a cloud over charity, and eclipse its brightness in the tempest of contention.' He adds a little after, ' Such conten- tion is, commonly, endless, engendering strifes, and terminating in disputes. Let us therefore maintain one faith throughout the whole Church, wherever it is spread, as intrinsical to the members of the body, although the unity of the faith be kept with some different observations, which in noways hinder or impair the truth of it. For all the beauty of the King's daughter is within, and those observations which are differently celebrated, are understood only to be in her outward clothing ; whence she is said to be clothed in golden fringes, wrought about with divers colours. But let that clothing be so distinguished by different observations as that she herself may not be destroyed by oppositions and contentions about 1 82 WORDS TO THE LAITY them.' This was the ancient way of preserving peace in the Catholic Church, to let different Churches, which had no dependence in externals upon one another, enjoy their own liberty to follow their own customs without contradiction. As Gregory the Great said to Leander, a Spanish bishop, ' There is no harm done to the Catholic Church by different customs, so long as the unity of the faith is preserved ; ' and, therefore, though the Spanish Churches differed in some customs from the Roman Church, yet he did not pretend to oblige them to leave their own customs and usages, to follow the Roman. He gave a like answer to Austin the monk, Archbishop of Canterbury, when he asked him, ' What form of Divine service he should settle in Britain, the old Gallican or the Roman? And how it came to pass, that when there was but one faith, there were different customs in different Churches ; the Roman Church having one form of service, and the Gallican Churches another?' To this he replied, ' Whatever you find either in the Roman or Gallican, or any other Church, which may be more pleasing to Almighty God, I think it best that you should carefully select it, and settle it in the use of the English Church, newly converted to the faith. For we are not to love things for the sake of the place, but places for the sake of the good things we find in them ; therefore you may collect out of every Church what- ever things are pious, religious, and right; and, putting them together, instil them into the minds RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 183 of the English, and accustom them to the obser- vation of them.' And there is no question but that Austin followed this direction in his new plantation of the English Church." 1 "Neither was this liberty granted to different Churches in bare rituals, and things of an indifferent nature, but something in more weighty points, such as the receiving, or not receiving, those that were baptized by heretics and schismatics, without another baptism. This was a question long debated between the African, and Roman, and other Churches; yet without breach of communion, especially on their part who followed the moderate counsels of Cyprian, who still pleaded for the liberty and independency of different Churches in this matter, leaving all Churches to act according to their own judgment, and keeping peace and unity with those that differed from him.' This is further illustrated by the independency of Bishops, especially in the African Churches." 2 Another instance of divergence and independence was the mode in which the Jewish Sabbath was treated. Some Churches, those of the Patriarchate of Antioch especially, not only observed the Christian Lord's Day, but also the Jewish Sabbath. On the other hand, some Churches used to fast on the Saturday, or Sabbath, as well as on the Friday, because on the former our Lord lay in the grave, as on the latter He was crucified. 1 Bingliani, " Eccl. Antiq.," bk. xvi. 15. 2 Ibid. 1 84 WORDS TO THE LAITY Some well-known points of divergence in the first three centuries were these : 1. The time of keeping Easter. 2. Was Saturday a fast or a feast? 3. Was Lent a period of forty hours, or forty days, or other different periods ? 4. The variety of creeds. 5. The differences in the rules of provincial councils ; e.g., Elvira, Aries, and Ancyra. 6. Differences between churches in the East and West as to the canonicity of certain books of the New Testament. 7. The gradual adoption *of the decrees of the general councils. They won their way progressively, by their intrinsic importance. 8. The number of ancient liturgies. Of these there are said to be no less than one hundred. Every bishop had at first power to draw up his own liturgy. They may be classified under five or six families, according to the Churches in which they were origi- nally used ; namely, those of Jerusalem (or Antioch), Alexandria, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Rome. They are also to be distinguished as those of the Oriental and the Occidental Churches. It is, in fact, altogether impossible to use the word "Catholic" of any ecclesiastical custom. Catholic applies to truths and to institutions, but not to cere- monies. The definition of St. Vincent of Le*rins, a well-known presbyter of Gaul, who died about 450 RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 185 A.D., "quod semper, quod nbique, quod ab omnibus," will hold good of truths and institutions, but few if any ceremonies. It is difficult to claim for any mere ceremony so august a usage. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are institutions rather than ceremonies some- thing better than mere ceremonies themselves. They are themselves Catholic, but the way of celebrating them has greatly varied. The descriptions of Pliny, of Justin, of the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," and even of Cyril of Jerusalem, contain the germs of what has been elsewhere developed, but they are not identical with subsequent rites. It is in accordance with these principles that the preface to our Book of Common Prayer lays it down "that the particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and alter- able, and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable that, upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein, as to those that are in place of authority from time to time seem either necessary or expedient." l To the same effect is the Thirty-fourth Article on the traditions of the Church : " It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like ; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of 1 " The Preface to the Book of Common Prayer." 186 WORDS TO THE LAITY countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Whosoever through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly (that others may fear to do the like), as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate, and woundeth the con- sciences of the weak brethren. " Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying." In the same way our Book of Common Prayer, in the Preface on Ceremonies, declares that : " Although the keeping or omitting of a ceremony, in itself con- sidered, is but a small thing ; yet the wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking of a common order and discipline is no small offence before God. 'Let all things be done among you,' saith St. Paul, 'in a seemly and due order.' The appointment of the which order pertaineth not to private men. Therefore no man ought to take in hand, nor presume to appoint or alter any public or common order in Christ's Church, except he be lawfully called and authorised thereto." And again in the same introduction : " Christ's Gospel is not a Ceremonial Law (as much of Moses' RIGHTS OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 187 Law was), bat it is a religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the Spirit : being content only with those cere- monies which do serve to a decent order and godly discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and special signification, whereby he might be edified." And at the close of it : " And in these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but to our own people only : For we think it con- venient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of God's honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition ; and that they should put away other things, which from time to time they perceive to be most abused, as in men's ordinances it often chanceth diversely in divers countries." When, therefore, men go behind the " Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacra- ments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England," and speak of the customs or practices of a Catholic Church to which they owe allegiance, they are not only transgressing a principle of Catholic order, but they are talking of what absolutely does not exist, and is impossible. They mean only that there are certain rites and ceremonies which they admire long i88 WORDS TO THE LAITY in vogue in the Roman Communion, or even going back to the time before the division between East and West, and now laid aside by the Church of England, which was forced, in the course of time, to declare its independence and autonomy. Such, then, are the rights of National Churches : independence of jurisdiction, independence of custom, independence of ritual, independence of definition, so long as there is unity with the principles of the greatest and most important assemblies of the whole of the united Churches, such as the First Four General Councils, in subordination to the supreme authority of the word of God contained in Scripture. And as we are anxious that all Christians living in one nation should belong to the same pure and Apostolical Church, we should take good care, by only insisting strongly on things of primary importance, to make easy to them the way of return. XI. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC. " Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken ? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church." 1 COB. xiv. 9-12. THE element of simple joy and gladness was to be a leading part of the Christian life. He who had done with the world, and whose whole being was fixed on the anticipation of a glorious future, would spontaneously burst forth into happy songs of delight, as the lark cannot help carolling when it soars high and bathes itself in the rapturous glow of the sun- shine. " Be ye filled with the Spirit," the Christians at Ephesus are told ; " speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." 1 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom," 1 Eph. v. 1 8. igo WORDS TO THE LAITY it is said to the little flock at Colossse ; " teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs ; singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." 1 It was part of the common worship of that primitive time that every Christian who was so disposed, or who felt the gift within him, composed his own little sacred poem, or verse of praise, and brought it to the meeting, and chanted or recited it as the case might be. So great was the competition to sing these little original produc- tions at Corinth, that St. Paul had gently to insist that there should be some order and method in the service. 2 You will like to hear the beginning of the system which you see before you in choral services. Gradu- ally the glowing energy of the Apostolic period died away, and the congregations settled down to more regular forms. By the time of the sixth century it seems to have been the custom for the presbyters and deacons themselves to execute the singers' part, the sub-deacons and inferior clerks chanting the Psalms; and this they often performed, as might be expected, very inefficiently. It was Gregory the Great, 3 the re- former of Church music, who seems to have estab- lished at Rome a regular choir school for the education 1 Col. iii. 1 6. 2 I Cor. xiv. 26-40. 3 "Life of Gregory the Great," by John the Deacon; Migne, Patrol. Lat. See Cone. Rom., A.D. 395 ; Decret. Greg., cap. i- ; also "Diet, of Christian Antiq.," vol. ii. i>. 1845, article Schola Cant or uit i. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 191 of youths in ecclesiastical chant and sacred learning, who should be able, not to lead the praise at every religious assembly, but to sing the solemn offices at the several churches of the city on special and great occasions. It was governed by an officer of great dignity, who was sometimes called Prior of the Choir School, sometimes Precentor. The institution has been ascribed to previous Bishops of Rome ; but at any rate it was Gregory the Great who endowed it, and con- structed its own proper college or residence. 1 From Rome the new arrangement spread to other churches, so that by the time of Charlemagne we also find men- tion of such a choir school at Lyons. 2 In this school of Lyons, says their archbishop, several became so learned that they could even instruct others. It was King Pippin, the father of Charlemagne, who first took measures for the introduction of Roman chanters into France to instruct the Gallicans, who appear to have been far less skilled in the execution of this heavenly art. Among the several schools which thus came into being, that of Metz seems speedily to have acquired distinction. In the time of Charlemagne, it was said that, in proportion as the Roman chant surpassed that of Metz, so that of Metz surpassed 1 Boy-singers are mentioned by the "Apostolic" Constitutions, by Basil and Chrysostom ; the " Canonical singers," by the Council of Laodicea ; and Eusebius describes a regular choir at Antioch in the time of Constantine. Jerome speaks of " adolescentuli quibu.-> psallendi in ecclesi& officium est." 2 Lcdrad., Archiepisc. LttgcL in Ep. ad Car. May. 192 WORDS TO THE LAITY that of the other schools of the Franks. Charle- magne himself ordered the establishment of such schools in suitable places throughout his empire, with the object of setting the bishops and presbyters free from the necessity of attending to the music, and so enabling them to execute their offices with the greater seemliness and dignity. A choir school of a some- what similar character appears to have existed in Africa two hundred years before Gregory the Great. There is a touching story that, in the Arian persecu- tions, twelve of the children of such a school were tortured to make them renounce the orthodox faith, and were highly esteemed at Carthage for the stre- nuous resistance that they made. My brothers, we have in these early beginnings the origin of the cathedral choirs and choristers' schools, which have brought sacred music to so great a perfec- tion in subsequent ages and in our own times. Now, in addressing myself to laymen, either as choir- men or congregation, on the present occasion, I would have you remember that, while there are certain prin- ciples in common to all choirs, which all choirs are bound to remember, unless they would fail in their very first duties, yet on the other hand there are certain broad distinctions between the choir of a cathedral and the choir of a parish church which it is equally fatal not to acknowledge. Among the principles common to all choirs alike are Reverence, Edification^ and Distinctness. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 193 There can be no true Reverence unless all who take part in the service, whether the minister who intones or the men and boys who sing, habitually realise every moment that they are at the very footstool of the Almighty, and in His immediate presence. The absence of this consciousness that we are speaking to the Divine Being makes itself felt in a moment. No substitute can be offered for it, either by a pious and melodious drawl, or by sharp mechanical utterance. Words so given by the minister reach neither the ear of the Almighty nor the heart of the people. There is in them none of the penetrating thrill of real conscious reverence. The same difference can be felt when the choir realise to themselves the awful words which they are using, and when they do not. For this end the prayer which is said with the singers in the vestry should be a real earnest supplication, not a mere shibboleth. I have heard it shouted, I have heard it gabbled ; but not often have I heard it in those tones of reality which alone would be acceptable to the awful Being Who inhabiteth eternity. It is probably better said than intoned, because intoning in such circumstances is apt to become perfunctory. It is better varied in words as often as possible, because the stereotyped form of words becomes more like a charm than a prayer. Too often the stentorian and ear-splitting Amen shows how little impression it has made. Such an Amen 194 WORDS TO THE LAITY should be exceedingly soft, like the simple humble words of a little child. The loud boisterous Amen is in truth a very insolent beginning for the humility and penitence of the worship of God. Part of the reverence by which all the service should be characterised should be the whispered softness of the General Confession and of the Lord's Prayer, in whatever part of the service it comes. The note of the General Confession should be dropped, to show the difference of its associations ; and it should never be greatly above a whisper. To hear merry-looking, chubby- faced choristers shouting with jubilant and reckless carelessness aloud to Almighty God that they are miserable sinners, and that there is no health in them, is indeed distressing, and a woeful, almost irreparable shock to the whole devotional spirit of the service. The Lord's Prayer, too, is so infinitely pathetic and solemn that it should always be said with extreme quietness ; otherwise, as the words are so well known, the tendency will be, as, alas ! is so often the case, to rattle them through like a meaningless jig. In the same way the distresses and sorrows of the human heart, which pour themselves out with such inexpressible ten- derness in the Litany, should be rendered in a tone that is throughout gentle, devotional, and sub- dued. When I speak of Edification in Church music, I mean what our Lord said about the day of rest, that THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 195 it exists for man, and not man for it. The service, however beautiful, does not exist for itself, that it should be performed even with the greatest ideal per- fection without regard to the worshippers. Prose and poetry, music and plain unmodulated speaking, are all alike to Him to Whose perfection and delight we can add nothing, and to Whom we can only offer ourselves. Some persons seem to have mistaken the Almighty as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ for some sublime musical deity, like the Apollo of the Greeks, in whose honour the perfection of music must be perpetually offered, without reference to the woes and passions, the joys and griefs, the passing temporary incidents and emotions, of the frail human beings who are worship- ping Him. That is not the view of St. Paul. All must be done to Edification, to the building up of God's people. 1 That is the sole point of view. A cathedral will edify in one way, a parish church in another. A cathedral, by the abundance of its re- sources, and by its daily and continuous practice, can offer a perfection of tone, a delicacy of harmony, a skilfulness of musical art, which will appeal to the highest faculties of educated men. A parish church will aim rather at encouraging all God's people to sing. But the beginning and end of the aim of both must be a thoroughly sympathetic, a thoroughly intelligent aim at Edification. The third principle common to both sorts of choirs 1 i Cor. xii. 7; xiv. 26; 2 Cor. xii. 19; Eph. iv. 12. 1 96 WORDS TO THE LAITY is Distinctness. No possible good can result from either cathedral or parish church unless the words are understood. This object is probably more easily attained in a cathedral, because of the greater perfec- tion of the singers, and the greater space or medium through which the words are heard. But it should always be remembered that, just as by far the greater part of the population of the country are the working classes, so by far the greater part of our worshippers ought to be the working classes, and that they do not catch words or meanings so readily as those whose ear is fully practised and educated. Whether they are in our churches in great numbers or not makes no difference. They ought to be there. We ought to expect them to be there. All our preparations should be as if they were coming. They are by far the most important class of our fellow-Christians in the present day, even if it were only from the sheer weight of multitude. If we conduct our services as if we did not expect them, then they will not come. No trouble can be too great to spend on absolute dis- tinctness of utterance, the avoidance of harsh and screaming resonance, the elimination of confusion and echo, the calculation of accuracy in effect. How strong and clear is St. Paul's rule on the subject ! " Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is -spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 197 without signification. Therefore if 1 know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church." l The principles which are special to parish choirs are simplicity, unselfishness, and modesty, or the absence of ambition. With regard to Simplicity, the greater part of the music should be such as in it even the humblest can join. The tunes of the hymns and chants should be well known and familiar, and all within the compass of average voices. They must not aim at the elabo- rateness of the cathedral choir, because their function is different. The function of the cathedral, except at the specially popular services, is to be a school of Church music in which the most cultivated can from time to time be moved, aroused, and delighted. 2 The function of the parish church is to persuade all to sing. The old fashion, which placed the organ at the west end of the church, was in this respect a help, because it gave support and encouragement to the congregation. An occasional anthem is an encourage- 1 i Cor. xiv. 9-12. 3 Even here there is the danger of approaching the dreamy sen- suousness of opium, or Indian hemp, the mind being passive and inarticulate, while the half-animal psyche alone comes into play. This would not be the " understanding also " of St. Paul, nor the worship in "pncuma" of our Lord. 198 WORDS TO THE LAITY ment to the choir, and has a charm for even unlettered people, if the words have been previously read to them, and they know what it is about. But the parish choir has no time at its disposal for practice and perfection comparable to that which is available for the cathe- dral ; and a bad anthem is a very bad thing indeed, so bad that it only excites pity, contempt, and ridicule, and a vehement desire for its absence. It is felt to be a blot on the service. Connected with this principle of simplicity is soft- ness. There are very few parish choirs that do not sing too loud. They do not reflect that the same body of voice which might sound heavenly and peace- ful in St. Paul's Cathedral, would have an appalling and deafening effect in a smaller church. In the hymns, certainly, a good body of voice is needed, but in hardly any other part of the service is loudness on the part of the choir anything else but a dis- traction and a nuisance. The distinctness of which I spoke has nothing whatever to do with loud- ness. The tendency to loudness is almost a universal failing ; it is no doubt a protection, though but a poor one, against flatness ; but it would be well if the trouble spent on elaborateness were directed to the cultivation of precision of tone and a self-relying softness. It would be well if all choirs could study the exquisite effect of the hushed stillness and whis- pered solemnity of the beautiful choir of the Temple Church. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 199 The next point is unselfishness. The temptation common to most choirs is to think more of their own wishes, skill, and progress than of the good of God's people. Unselfishness is a grace earnestly to be prayed for by choirmaster, organist, and singers. With the exception of the occasional anthem, which we have mentioned, and of special services on week- days for oratorios, when none need come who are not musical, it is of the very utmost importance that in all parish churches the majority of the music should be such as all the people can share and under- stand. 1 The main recommendation which Gregorian chants have is that, when once the people get hold of them, they sing them with heart and soul. The extraordinary effect should never be forgotten of the unison singing at the great Tabernacle of South London, and of the well-known church of St. James' Holloway in the north. There is the help of neither organ nor choir, but the people undertake all the music themselves, and sing like the sound of many waters, with all the magic sympathy of innumerable hearts united in earnestness. That need not be our ideal ; but in no single Church ought the organist and choir either to ignore the congregation altogether, 1 Compare St. Ambrose: "Well is the Church generally com- pared to the seU, which first . . . then, in the praying of the whole people together roars as it were with waves poured back ; and then, in the antiphonai singing of the psalms, a united thunder as of waves bounds to and fro from the voices of men, women, maidens, and young children." 200 WORDS TO THE LAITY or to treat them as a nuisance. I would even go so far as to say that in every group of five or six churches there should be always one with a plain old-fashioned service for those who are not musical, and who now sometimes seek in vain for a place where they can worship God in their own way. And in all churches, if the congregation are to join in as we all so earnestly wish, the choir and organist must not object to their being slow. 1 The majestic style of the German chorale is far more encouraging to congregational music than the light, crisp, quick notes of much of our modern hymnody. You cannot expect people to join in sacred glees without much practice. Lastly, there is the principle of Modesty, or the absence of ambition. The churches which can afford to have practised and skilful singers can adventure more than those that are in humbler circumstances, and are likely to be attended by congregations to whom more scientific music is intelligible and devo- tional. But the majority are not in this position, and it is much to be deplored if there should be a feeling that there can be but one fashion for all alike. If the clergy cannot intone well, it is infinitely preferable 1 An acute friend of mine remarks : " Two sore evils under the sun are the practice of ' putting on the pace ' to cut out the non- experts, to the utter obliteration of entire words and syllables ; and the habit of changing tunes ^o that familiarity shall never be acquired, and the same words shall not go habitually to the same melodies." THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH MUSIC 201 that they should read rather than that they should intone badly. If the choir do not sing the responses, it is infinitely preferable that the responding should be left to the congregation, rather than that there should be a thin, poor, and rough monotoning on the part of those who have not the skill or experience to make their utterance musical and devotional. Ambi- tion is the besetting sin of more than half our choirs ; and a badly performed ambitious service, far from being an attractive influence, is a decided and absolute repulsion. Deep is the gratitude we owe to our choirs for all the trouble and earnestness which they take on our behalf. Wonderful is the progress which music in our churches has made during the last half cen- tury, in consonance with the general advance in taste and education. True and real is the help which they give to our devotions. Inextinguishable is the obliga- tion which we feel to the great masters of modern Church melodies, and to the poets whose hymns purify our thoughts, interpret our emotions, and rouse our best aspirations. Invaluable are our great musical festivals, when the choirs are trained by the most experienced minds, in the purest taste, and learn the majesty of concentrated praise. To carry on the work of the association, your generous sympathy and alms are asked. And may God, around whose glory the eternal melodies are ever echoing, grant to each of us, 202 WORDS TO THE LAITY whether we are leaders or sharers in His Divine gift of music, whenever we meet before His invisible and omnipresent throne, to take in new draughts of spiritual life, because we have sought Him with a true service ! XII. FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY. " As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed and brake it, and gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat ; this is My body." ST. MATT. xxvi. 26 (R.V.). THE minds of some earnest and devout members of our Church have, for some years past, been exercised by the question whether they ought not to follow what is declared by St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest of the Fathers, the universal practice of the Church in his own day, that of fasting communion. Some have even wondered whether our mid-day Eucharist at St. Paul's, with its hundred communicants, was not slightly improper. And I have known candidates for Orders, imbued with these ideas, and not having broken their fast, actually faint at the end of a long ordination service. I desire, with the help of the Holy Spirit of God, to give them what assistance I can on this important subject St. Augustine died in the fifth century, in the year 430. His words are perfectly distinct: "It is be- yond dispute," he wrote, " that when the disciples first received the body and blood of the Lord, they did not 204 WORDS TO THE LAITY receive fasting. Are we, then, to blame the whole Church because every one does receive fasting ? No ; for it pleased the Holy Spirit that in honour of so mighty a sacrament the body of the Lord should pass the Christian's lips before other food, for it is on that account that that custom is observed throughout the whole world. . . . The Lord did not prescribe in what order it should be received, that He might reserve this privilege for the Apostles, through whom He was to regulate the Churches; for if He had recommended that it should be received after other food, I suppose none would have deviated from that practice." l Now, in the first place, it is desirable to remember, as it has been put by a very learned Colonial prelate, Bishop Kingdon, Coadjutor of Fredericton, in a treatise which he wrote on this subject in the year 1873, that the authority of an individual Father, however great, is not absolute. He quotes the Roman Catholic historian, Fleury, to the effect that one of the causes of the relaxa- tion of discipline and the corruption of manners in the later centuries, has been the taking for laws the opinions of individual doctors of the Church. " All must have observed that quotations from the Fathers are apt to be adduced as if they were conclusive on a subject, with- out respect being had to the particular value of the quotation. Such quotations must be received with respect, but they do not bind the conscience, nor do they necessarily cause censure to attach to those who do 1 Augustine, Ep. 118, c. 6, p. 191, ed. Cologne, 1616. PASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 205 not agree with them. . . . Such quotations show that certain opinions were held without blame, or that certain customs obtained, at the time of their being written. But in the matter of customs, that doctors of great name have spoken strongly in favour of them, does not necessitate their being continued always in the Church." With regard to St. Augustine himself, deeply as we revere him, and highly as we value his immortal writings, we are not bound by all his opinions. His curious allegorising on the Old Testament, his exag- gerated views on predestination and the absolute cor- ruption of human nature, his rigorous asceticism, his forced and uncritical suggestion that St. Paul was the author of the obligation of fasting communion, his main- tenance of the right of persecution these were views incidental to his time, but which we are by no means compelled by our admiration of him to adopt. Again, as to the age in which St. Augustine lived, it presents customs and doctrines which we no longer follow. It was an age when the celibacy of the clergy was strongly encouraged, though not actually, as yet, enjoined by authority. The superiority of monasti- cism was strenuously asserted. It was the age of Symeon the Stylite, who lived for thirty-six years on the top of a column ; whose form of devotion, though followed by many others in that period, we do not now imitate. The practice of infant com- munion, then common, we have entirely dropped. 206 WORDS TO THE LAITY The exorcism of evil spirits in baptism was then universal. In certain churches no washing of the body was allowed during the forty days of Lent. It was an age with much to instruct us, but not one that demands implicit obedience to all its opinions and customs. The fact is, that the most careful historians tell us that the necessity of communicating fasting does not appear to be distinctly recognised before the fourth century, the period in which St. Augustine was born. 1 However rapid, therefore, was the spread of the opinion of necessity, it cannot claim to fulfil two of the three requirements of catholicity. That alone is said to be catholic which has been held always, in all places, and by everybody. During the three most important centuries of the growth of the Christian Church the necessity of fasting communion does not appear. If we look a little into the history of the hour of communion we shall see how the opinion of St. Augustine's days grew up to maturity. In the Apostolic age itself it is admitted by the Roman Catholic historian, Cardinal Baronius, that the com- munion took place at the time of supper, or the evening meal. And the Christians of those days had Apostolic example ; for at Troas St. Paul broke bread after nightfall, and the service was not over 1 " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities : " Holy Communion, vol. i. p 418. FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 207 at midnight. 1 In the second century Justin Martyr shows, by his quotations from heathen calumnies, that the religious meetings of Christians took place in the same way after nightfall. As long as com- munion followed the Agapb, or common social meal, it is obvious that it was not received fasting. But a gradual change took place in the tone of thought about the Holy Communion. The Offertory became more prominent than the Supper. The inter- pretation of our Lord's words became more carnal. The rite itself received new colouring and accessories. It gradually grew to be regarded as essential that both celebrant and recipients should be fasting at the time of their communion. Already, Tertullian, who died about 220, contrasts our Lord's practice with that in his own day. 2 But Cyprian, who was martyred in 258, by insisting on the greater worthiness of the morning communion, as compared with that in the evening, shows that the latter was not altogether obsolete. 8 In the fourth century, we find Basil the Great, who was born in 329, urging what we may without offence describe as the non-apostolical view. " None," he says, "would venture to celebrate the mysteries otherwise than fasting." * In the same way St. John Chrysostom, 1 It is important to remember that this was owing to the extra- ordinary length of St. Paul's discourse. It was not an "early celebration," but an exceedingly late "Evening Communion." * Tertullian, De Corond, cap. iii. 3 Cyprian, Ep. 63, cc. 15 and 16. 4 Basil, Horn. ii., Dejejunio, p. 13. ao8 WORDS TO THE LAITY who was born in 347, a few years before St. Augustine, declares that fasting is a necessary preliminary to worthy communion. 1 Those who are not fasting, he urges to come to church, not indeed to communicate, but to hear the sermon. Certain calumniators, he says, had charged him with receiving to communion those who were not fasting; this he denies, with the strongest asseverations. But he displays the gran- deur of his mind, rising above these mere human restrictions, when he continues : " If they still go on to repeat their objection, let them degrade St. Paul, who baptized a whole house after supper ; let them also depose the Lord Himself, who, after supper, gave the communion to His disciples." St. Chrysostom, in spite of the language which he used to accommodate the prevailing prejudice of his day, clearly regarded the matter as a rule of men, not as a Divine ordinance. And it should be remembered that when St. Augustine said that the whole Church received fasting, he was using rhetorical language. A correspondent had asked him what he was to do on Thursday in Holy Week, when the Church always celebrated an evening communion, after a feast, in commemoration of the original institution. 2 Was he to communicate on that day in the morning or in the evening, or at both? St. Augustine is obliged 1 Chrysost. in i Cor., Horn. 27, p. 231. 2 Codex Canonum Eccl. Afric, Canon 41 ; III. Condi. Carthage, c. 29. FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 209 to admit in his answer that the Church did not con- demn communion on Holy Thursday after the evening meal. But if he made that admission, how could fasting communion be a matter of principle? And more than that. The historian of the early Church, who bears the same name as the sage of Athens, Socrates, mentions that the churches of the province that bordered on Alexandria and the Thebaid com- municated, like other churches, on Saturday, but contrary to the general custom, preserved the Aposto- lical habit of taking previously their evening meal without stint. 1 The custom, however widely spread, was clearly not actually universal. St. Augustine, notwithstanding his strong language about fasting, most distinctly taught that our Lord's words as to eating His body are a figure. And it was not till the ninth century that a Frankish monk, Paschasius, caused a vehement controversy in the Frankish Church, by teaching for the first time the doctrine of the Eeal Corporal Presence. 2 But in the sixth century regulations began to be made by sy no- dical councils in Gaul enforcing fasting communion. Now, here it is highly important to remember that there are different kinds of Church councils. There are general councils, national councils, provincial councils, and councils diocesan. Even general councils may err, 1 Socrates, "Hist. Eccl.," v. 22, p. 295. Robertson, " Hist, of the Christian Church," vol. il (ed. 1868), pp. 250, 259, 304-5, 392, 655. O 210 WORDS TO THE LAITY as our own Church insists in her Articles; but their decisions are entitled to receive, at any rate, the greatest respect. But even in general councils, the canons of discipline are always held to differ from the canons of faith. The canons of discipline may vary with time and place ; they are not everywhere binding. St. Augustine himself points out that the canon of the Apostles against eating things strangled was passed out of deference to the Jewish Christians, and had long ceased to be in force. But when we come to these canons of the Church of Gaul and other local Churches, passed at Carthage in Africa, Braga in Spain, Macon and Auxerre in France, Toledo in Spain, and one in the Emperor's palace at Constantinople, these have no force at all beyond their own diocese or province. 1 An English canon of 960 enjoins fasting communion on the laity. In 1549 the Council of Mayence insists that communion must not be given to non-fasters. There was, indeed, a rule in the Book for Penitents put forth by Archbishop Theodore in the seventh century in England, that those who communicated otherwise than fasting were to fast seven days after- wards ; but that, probably, only throws light on the meaning of the word " fasting " at that period. 2 These persons could not abstain from all food for a whole 1 For these Councils, see " Diet, of Christian Antiquities, " Holy Communion, p. 418, and Landon's "Manual of Councils." 2 Bishop Kingdon on " Fasting Communion." FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 211 week; they were ordered to abstain from all but light food. And even that restriction was not in every case binding; for that shrewd archbishop, knowing the habits of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, allowed them, instead of fasting, to repeat psalms. And these rules of Archbishop Theodore do not appear to have been subsequently enforced. Even if a canon of some Saxon king or council were discovered, it has been obsolete for ages. The canons of the foreign provincial Churches about fasting communion were never introduced into England. And even if they had been, it is a well- known principle of canon law that canons which are not directly enforced become nugatory by disuse, even after the short period of forty years. 1 The wonderful variety which was recognised and encouraged in different churches in the earlier and more exemplary ages of Christendom, is a fact which some of us are apt in these days to forget. " History tells us that the Catholic Church is made up of particular local Churches, whose customs have varied without breach of unity. History and the canons of the Church show that particular Churches may have their own liturgies, and introduce alterations in them ; may have customs different at different times, without there being any necessary danger to inter-communion." In primitive times the Churches did not keep Easter at the same date. Some kept Saturday as a feast, others as a fast. Some considered Lent a period of 1 Bishop Kiugdon on " Fasting Communion." 212 WORDS TO THE LAITY forty hours, others of forty days. At one time almost every Church had a different creed. The East and the West did not agree for three centuries as to the authority of certain of the books of the New Testament. Every bishop had the power of drawing up his own prayer-book; at least, a hundred different liturgies can be traced. " History tells us that canons of discipline, and customs unsanctioned by canons, or not enforced by them, have been constantly allowed to fall into disuse by particular Churches without endangering unity. If, therefore, we believe the Church of England to be indeed a living part of the True Vine, we need not fear to accept her relaxation of an ancient custom, when the reason of that custom has been removed by entire change of manners." l The reason of that custom amongst the ancients was that they had fewer meals in the day, and at these they were accustomed to eat far more than is now our custom. St. Clement of Alexandria describes persons " more like swine or dogs for gluttony than men, in such a hurry to feed them- selves full that both jaws are stuffed out at once, the veins about the forehead raised, and besides, the perspiration running all over, as they are tightened with their insatiable greed, and panting with their excess." St. Chrysostom, in one of his Lenten sermons, warns his hearers "to be careful, though perchance with reluctance, of the duty of sobriety 1 Bishop Kingdon on " Fasting Communion." FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 213 before coming to church ; and not to be led away at any time into excess of wine and gluttony. For the thought and expectation of entering the church should teach them to make such use of food and drink as accords with decency: lest after they had come there they should appear ridiculous to all present by smelling of wine, and unmannerly eruc- tation." Elsewhere the same saint praises a Chris- tian lady for not over-eating herself. "It must, then, be remembered that in times when fasting communion was the custom, excess in eating was the rule, and not the exception ; and in order that men might come reverently to communion, it was natural that the rule should be that they should come fasting." 1 And the rule applied not only to communion, but to baptism, confirmation, and ordi- nation, for the same reason of excessive eating, whether as bishop, priest, catechumen, or candidate. So dif- ferent were those times from ours. 2 Four more differences must be remembered. The first is that the ancients did not always mean the same thing by fasting that we mean by complete abstinence. St. Basil's description of fasting is based on the temperate habits of the Nazarite and the 1 The introduction of coffee and tea has made a great difference in this respect. In the Middle Ages beer was the common beverage at breakfast. Subsequent temporary obfuscation amongst illiterate people (the vast majority) would be not unusual. Barbaric rules have lost their fitness. a Ibid. 214 WORDS TO THE LAITY Levitical priesthood. This would exclude eating to excess, but not the ordinary modern early repast. St. Augustine himself says that the most severe fasters of his day used to eat in the night. A man who should communicate at a mid-day service, after a light early meal, would be held to be, in the more general sense of the word, "fasting." We ourselves use the word of those who take light instead of heavy food during Lent. The second additional dif- ference is that the periods of their day and their night varied by some hours from our own. The discovery of new mineral oils, gas, and electric light has worked a wonderful change in the course of this century. In St. Augustine's days they had nothing but small oil lamps. They retired to rest soon after darkness set in, and the hours of work began at four or five o'clock in the morning. Nine o'clock was like twelve of noon with ourselves. The third difference is, that there is no evidence to show that in the days of St. Augustine it would be held that a strict fast should begin at twelve o'clock in the night. That is a more recent refinement, the origin of which we do not know. Even in mediaeval days, a man was held to be fasting, in the strictest sense, who had not eaten for three hours, when digestion might be considered to be complete. St. Augustine indeed says that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were to be the first food to pass the lips ; but since what point of time we are left to conjecture. FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 215 The fourth additional difference is that of climate. The climate of North Africa and of the Mediter- ranean churches known to St. Augustine, was warm, bright, and sunny ; severity of fasting in such a climate was easy and natural. Colder climates require more constant food. More instances of prolonged fasting are to be found in the East. The excessive work, says Bishop Kingdon, crowded into the day. at all events, in London and the other large towns of England, renders more frequent food necessary; and it is to be gravely doubted whether a minister, who lies in bed till eleven o'clock if he has to celebrate at mid-day, in order that he may have fasted from midnight with impunity, is serving God with his time as well as one who takes a light breakfast to enable him to do some work for God before mid-day. And it must be remembered that if a man wished to satisfy all the mediaeval canons of foreign churches, he would have to fast for six hours after receiving communion, as well as the previous abstinence. There is one view of this supposed obligation which was repudiated with earnest and indignant warmth by the illustrious Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. I should have thought it almost needless to oppose such an opinion, because, as we saw, the doctrine of the Keal Corporal Presence was not introduced till the ninth century, when it was taught in France by Paschasius. It can have nothing to do with our 2i6 WORDS TO THE LAITY Reformed Church, which in catechism, and article, and communion office insists with reiterated force on the spiritual character of the Divine Presence. But we know that there was reason for what was said by that great prelate. He pointed out that the practice was not advocated because a man came in a clearer spirit, and with less disturbed body and mind, able to give himself entirely to prayer and communion with his God, but on a miserable, degraded notion that the consecrated elements would meet with other food in the stomach. It was, he declared, a detestable materialism. Physically, it was a contradiction, because, when the celebration was over, the man might hurry away to a meal, and the process about which he was so scrupulous immediately followed. The whole notion, he added, was simply disgusting. The result of these human restrictions was that up to the time of the Reformation very few men ever communicated. Even St. Chrysostom complained that they stood close enough in church to hear him preach, but almost all left the church without communicating. To suit this unhappy state of things the canons began to insist on only three communions in the year; Christmas, Easter, Pentecost. Then it came down to once a year, Easter; then it was alleged conveniently that these were only church regulations, and that by Divine ordinance one recep- tion in a lifetime was enough : that on the deathbed. Our beloved Church at the Reformation set about FASTING CO^fMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 217 to remedy this sad declension from primitive times; and she remedied it by distinctly not insisting on fasting communion. Faith, repentance, charity, good resolutions she requires, not preparatory abstinence. " That the Lord's Supper, " said Bishop Jeremy Taylor, " is sacredly and with reverence to be received is taught us by the Apostles ; but whether this reverence ought to be expressed by taking it fasting or not fasting, the Apostles left the Churches to their choice. " 1 If it is urged that such a difference from the canons of the Church of Eome is a hindrance to any possible reunion of Christendom in the future, the answer is, that so is the marriage of ministers, so is giving the cup to the laity, so is every one of the just and righteous corrections which at the Reforma- tion we were compelled to make of medieval errors. Well may the Bishop of Fredericton ask, " By what right could an individual priest say that to communicate after any food is ' that which God has forbidden,' 'a service which there is great reason to fear He will never accept ? ' To such an one St. Chrysostom would address his scathing words, ' Let them degrade the Lord Himself, who after supper gave the communion to His Apostles. ' Let them excommunicate the Apostles for receiving after their meal. By what right do the priests in England say, as some constantly do, that to communicate otherwise 1 Virgine salivd. 218 WORDS TO THE LAITY than fasting is a mortal sin? By no right, human or Divine. If they know the meaning of what they say, surely they are making the heart of the righteous sad whom God hath not made sad ; if they do not know the meaning, it is unpardonable in them to use such language." It is the duty of us all to come to the Holy Com- munion in as devout and earnest a frame of mind as God's Holy Spirit will permit. To some an early communion without food will be a help ; to others, even this would be a hindrance. There is no rule on the subject. The English Church knows no canon in the matter. The canons of foreign churches bind only themselves. No general council recognised by us has spoken on the case at all. Holy Scripture is altogether silent ; its evidence points the other way. The Church of England lays down in her Sixth Article that whatsoever is not read in Holy Scripture nor may be proved thereby, is not to be thought requisite or necessary to salvation ; in her Twentieth Article she affirms that the Church ought not, beside Scripture, to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salva- tion ; and she exacts from all priests at their ordination a promise that they will teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which they shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture. Then, my brothers, stand firm in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. If any think abstinence is better for themselves, let them FASTING COMMUNION NOT OBLIGATORY 219 fast ; but let them not force their opinion upon others. For ages may our holy mid-day feast of thanksgiving at St. Paul's be the message of the Lord Jesus Christ to many a humble and faithful recipient ! May the numbers of rejoicing communicants continually increase till there are not clergy enough to administer to them the pledges of God's love ! May we at length return to the zeal and loyalty of primitive days, when none denied themselves that high privilege, or went empty away ! Note. Appended are the Eesolutions of the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury, at their sitting on May 5, 1893 : 1. That in the Apostolic age the Holy Communion was ad- ministered in connection with the gathering together of Chris- tians to share in an appointed evening meal. 2. That the practice of communicating in the early morning appears to have arisen about the close of the first century, pro- bably in order to secure a safer as well as a more reverent celebra- tion, and, by the time of St. Cyprian, to have become so fully established that it was regarded not only as the preferable, but as the proper practice, and as commemorative of the Lord's Resurrection. 3. That the practice of communicating in the early morning, together with the common association of fasting with prayer, led to the practice of communicating only when fasting, and that fasting reception of the Communion became the regular and recognised usage of the Church before the end of the fourth century. 4. That from the close of the fourth century this regular and recognised usage was formulated in rules for the clergy in canons of local and provincial councils. 5. That fasting reception of the Communion was the prescribed rule of the Church of England during the Anglo-Saxon period, and continued to be so to the time of the Reformation. 6. That these strict rules were, nevertheless, subject to relaxa- tion in cases of sickness or other necessity. 220 WORDS TO THE LAITY 7. That at the Reformation the Church of England, in accord- ance with the principle of liberty laid down in Article XXXIV., ceased to require the Communion to be received fasting, though the practice was observed by many as a reverent and ancient custom, and as such is commended by several of her eminent writers and divines down to the present time. 8. That, regard being had to the practice of the Apostolic Church in this matter, to teach that it is a sin to communicate otherwise than fasting, is contrary to the teaching and spirit of the Church of England. XIII THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION. "We must take heed, lest, of the memory, it be made a sacri- fice ; lest, of a communion, it be made a private eating ; lest, of two parts, we have but one ; lest, applying it to the dead, we lose the fruit that be alive." " Homily on Worthy Receiving." " That it should be given to man instrumentally by hand and tongue to create God ; to turn common bread and common wine, by a few movements of the hand, and a few utterances of the lips, into the very body and blood of Him who made the worlds ; this was the keystone of that arch of priestly domination which once bestrode the world." DEAN VAUGHAN, "Liturgy and Worship of the Church of England," p. 224. IT is important that we should remember that there are many means of grace. There is the rite of washing, which our Lord Himself ordained as by the outward form of admission to His Church on the condition of faith and repentance. There is our own conscious turning towards God, when we receive His sanction and seal to our profession of service. There is our own private intercourse with our Father in heaven and our compassionate Saviour. There is the common worship of Christian men and women in the sanctuary of God. There is listening to the preaching of His Word. There is the private study of His written revelation. There is quiet meditation 222 WORDS TO THE LAITY on the mysteries of existence. There is the attitude of patient expectant receptivity towards His Divine Spirit. There is the contemplation of the encourage- ments to our faith given in the lives of His saints. There is the help which we get through the advice given us by experienced men of God. There is the spirit of reasonable enthusiasm, which arises from united praise. There is the sympathy which all His servants feel for ideas and facts that are true and noble. There is that doing the will of God, of which our Lord spoke, in earnest and diligent philanthropy, by which, as He told us, we should know of the doctrine. There is the making to ourselves friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness. God's grace means His help and inspiration, and it can come to us in these and many other ways. Now, there is one simple ordinance which our Lord Jesus Christ left us, which seems to sum up in itself many of these means of grace. It was instituted on the solemn occasion of the last farewell supper, and was intended to ensure the remembrance of the Lord's one historical atoning sacrifice, and to enable us more distinctly and completely to share in the blessings secured to us by that Divine act of redemp- tion. The primitive Christians obeyed our Lord's directions with entire and loyal simplicity. " This cup is the New Testament in My blood; this do, as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of Me." l At first 1 i Cor. xi. 25. SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION 223 it appears, iu every family the one principal meal of the day was thus consecrated to the memory of the Redeemer and to communion with His Divine Presence. 1 And it is one of the few forms of Christian common worship which St. Paul describes. There is another form, about which he is no less anxious, which appears to be founded on the worship of the synagogue, the meeting for reading, for prayer, for praise, for-the delivery of exhortations, and for the exercise of the gift of tongues. 2 It is on this custom of worship that has grown up our practice of morning and evening prayer with the preaching of the Word. The Primitive Church did not retain its early love and purity in such a degree as to enable them to preserve the habit of the consecrated meal. The disorders attendant upon it are noticed by St. Paul, and the holy commemoration gradually became more of a service. Forms of arranging the service became usual, and are numerous in the following ages. These became more and more ceremonious and obscure, until at the time of the Reformation our present service was reconstructed on the more ancient models and in harmony with Scripture itself. It is one of the greatest misfortunes in the history of Christendom that this, the simplest and most touching of all ordinances, uniting us to the very days of our Lord Himself, should, through the ambiguities of 1 Acts ii. 42, 46 ; xx. 7 ; I Cor. xi. 20 ; Tcrtullian, DC, Oration*. * i Cor. xiv. 23. 224 WORDS TO THE LAITY human language and the tendencies of human corrup- tions, have become the battleground of party warfare. It is not difficult to understand what our Lord meant by it Himself. First, in His earlier teaching, union of His peoples with Himself in heart and soul and spirit was con- stantly before His mind. 1 When He had been speak- ing of Himself in His accustomed figurative manner as the Bread of Life, and had explained that this Bread was His flesh, which He would give for the life of this world, the Jews, who wished to understand Him, were perplexed. How can this Man give us His flesh to eat? And He, determining that this deep truth should sink into their hearts, drove the seeming paradox further home : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." 2 It was a hard saying for the Jews ; they murmured ; from that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. They misunderstood Him alto- gether. But since the Cross of Calvary we have had 1 John vi. 35, &c. 2 John vi. 53, &c. SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION 225 less difficulty. Christ was the true Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. 1 Christ our Pass- over was sacrificed for us. 2 As the Hebrews showed their faith in God's mercy by all partaking of the Paschal Lamb, so must we. 3 And this the Jews could not do when He spoke to them, because there He was before them. 4 This the disciples could not do in the Upper Chamber, because there He was talking to them and not yet crucified. But in His pitiful love He gave us emblems of His body and blood, by par- taking of which we might concentrate our thoughts on His sacrifice, and become receptive of His special presence and grace. It was not actual flesh and blood that He meant, either bodily or spiritual; it is the Spirit that quickeneth, was His commentary on His own words, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. To the end that we should always remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us, and the innumerable benefits which, by His precious blood- shedding, He hath obtained for us He hath instituted holy mysteries as pledges of His love, and for a con- tinual remembrance of His death, to our great and endless comfort. 5 Then is our faith strongest, then is our recollection sincerest, then are our thoughts most concentrated, then is our humility truest, then is our 1 John i. 29. a i Cor. v. 7. 3 Exod. xii. 3-8. 4 John vi. 63. 8 Address in the Communion Service. P 226 WORDS TO THE LAITY repentance deepest, then is our need clearest, then is our opportunity most available, then is His grace most directly covenanted, then is His presence most felt within us, then is His promise most justly claimed. It is sometimes said that our Lord is perpetually engaged in offering up His sacrifice in heaven. This is mistaken language, and contradicts the article of the Creed, which teaches that our Lord is set down on the right hand of God. 1 There is no separate heavenly act of intercession described in the New Testament; it is His loving presence wherever He is, with all the force of what He did on earth, that is the intervening power. There is no need for Him now to make a daily sacrifice, says the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Every priest standeth daily minister- ing and offering ofttimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sin for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." 2 Can any language be conceived more abundantly clear ? " He needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice first for His own sins and then for the people's : for this He did once, when He offered up Himself." 3 Can anything be more explicitly and peremptorily exclusive of the idea of the perpetually offered sacrifice ? " He made there, by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a 1 Article IV., Heb. i. 3 ; viii. i ; x. 12 ; xii. 2 ; Eph. i. 20 ; i Pet. Hi. 22. 2 Heb. x. 11-14. a Heb. vii. 7. SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY CO.M.MUNION 227 full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." l It is here that our Boman friends, and those who think with them, have departed from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The English Church, whose Orders we bear, reminds us that " the offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, both original and actual ; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of Masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." 2 The sacrifice was complete, once for all ; it is the effect of it that is eternal, and wherever our Lord is, there is the force and meaning of the effect. " Our great High Priest, unlike Aaron, when He enters the Holiest of Holies in the true sanctuary, mounts the throne. The true Aaron merges into the true Melchizedek. When the Throne of Grace is approached, upon it or beside it the Royal Priest is found seated, like the Shekinah above the Ark, to dispense the blessings of His sacrifice once offered and for ever perfect. The great Epistle to the Hebrews insists on the fact that not only the sacri- fice, but the offering of it, is over for ever ; while the royal, high-priestly intercession and benediction based upon it are present and continuous. In His character as Priest it is necessary that this man should have 1 Prayer of Consecration. * Article XXXI. 228 WORDS TO THE LAITY somewhat to offer ; and what that is, is explained to us in a later verse : ' He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.' The Holiest of Holies on earth had no altar ; by passing into the holiest place in heaven our Lord shows that His sacrifice was without the camp c Christ is not entered into the Holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us ; nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the High Priest entereth into the Holy Place every year, with blood of others ; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment ; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.' " l Wherever He is, His Presence is a lasting appeal to that unique and solitary act. We have in these days to defend the freedom of English Christianity, to maintain the doctrine of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross, never to be continued or repeated. The teaching which is very generally given by the adherents of the mediaeval movement that is amongst us is contained in the second chapter of the 22nd session of the Council of Trent. It is in the following words : " Since the same Christ who once offered Himself by His blood on the cross is contained in this Divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in 1 MoTile, " Outlines of Christian Doctrine." 229 the Mass, and offered without blood, the Holy Scripture teaches us that this sacrifice is really propitiatory, and made by Christ. . . . For assuredly God is appeased by this oblation . . . for the sacrifice which is now offered by the ministry of the priests is one and the same as that which Christ then offered on the cross, only the mode of offering is different. And the fruits of that bloody oblation are plentifully enjoyed by means of this unbloody one." The language in the Canon of the Council of Trent in nowise differs from the language of our mediaeval friends, when in their twelve hundred churches they return thanks to Almighty God for being permitted to offer unto Him Christ's perpetually pleaded sacrifice. The fact is, that as praise, almsgiving, and self-devotion are called sacrifice in the New Testament, the word " sacrifice " and the word " altar " became used in very early times in connection with the Lord's Supper, and these words having been once introduced, and having come into ordinary usage, suffer the usual fate of ambiguities. With the progress of doctrinal corrup- tion, there came in the idea of expiatory sacrifice offered by the priests on the altar ; and as with the doctrine of Transubstantiation, so with this. After centuries of oscillating and contradictory language, the doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Eucharist became gene- rally established. But as we have seen, there is no sacrifice at all in Holy Communion in the propitiatory sense of the word. One of the greatest of English 230 WORDS TO THE LAITY theologians, Archdeacon Waterland, in a very im- portant chapter, enumerates eight sacrifices strictly according to the language of the Gospel : l 1. The sacrifice of alms to the poor. 2. The sacrifice of prayer. 3. The sacrifice of praise. 4. The sacrifice of a true heart. 5. The sacrifice of ourselves. 6. The sacrifice by the Church of itself to Christ. 7. The offering up of true converts by their minister. 8. The sacrifice of faith, life, and self-humiliation in commemorating the death of Christ. These are the sacrifices which we offer at all times to God. In Holy Communion we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and we offer ourselves in accordance with the language of St. Paul. With regard to the nature of the presence of our Lord at His Holy Supper, the teaching of our Church is no less plain. It is by faith in the hearts of the receivers, not in the bread and wine itself, which are hallowed emblems of the one great sacrifice. Nobody is more responsible for our present Prayer-book than Archbishop Cranmer ; and this is what he said about it in his most serious moments in controversy with the Eomanists, "Christ is but spiritually present in the ministration of the Sacrament, and you say that He is, 1 Waterland, "Doctrine of the Eucharist" (Ed. 1880), pp. 481, 482. SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION 231 after a spiritual manner, in the Sacrament." l " Christ is not in the bread, neither spiritually, as He is in man, nor corporally as He is in heaven, but only sacramentally as a thing may be said to be in the figure by which it is signified." " The effect of godly eating is the communication of Christ's Body and Blood, but to the faithful receiver, and not to the dumb creatures of bread and wine, under whose forms the Catholic faith teacheth not the Body and Blood of Christ invisibly to be hidden." In the same way Ridley taught : " The Body of Christ is communicated and given, not to the bread and wine, but to them which worthily do receive the Sacrament." 2 " Not that Christ hath transfused grace into the bread and wine." And Bishop Jewell, 3 " We are plainly taught by the Catholic learned Fathers to put a difference between the Sacrament and the Body of Christ ; and that one of them is not really lapped up or shut within the other." " Christ is present with us of His part ' only by His grace ' ; of our part ' only by our faith ' ; by the Sacraments, only as by means of outward in- struments, to move our sense." Bishop Jeremy Taylor, "By spiritually, they (the Romanists) mean present after the manner of a spirit, by spiritually we mean ' present to our spirits only ' ; that is, so as Christ is not present to any other presence but that of faith, or 1 Cranmer's Works (Parker Society), L 155 ; " Answer to Gar- diner," pp. 91, 36, 238, loo. 2 Works (Parker Society), pp. 240, 241. 3 Ibid. ii. 602 ; L 122; iii. 488. 232 WORDS TO THE LAITY spiritual susception; but their way makes His body to be present DO way but that which is impossible, and implies a contradiction a body not after the manner of a body, a body like a spirit, a body without a body, 1 and a sacrifice of a body and blood without blood." Let me quote to you also the greatest of all English divines, Richard Hooker : 2 " The real presence of Christ's blessed Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacra- ment ; and with this the very order of our Saviour's words agreeth ; first, ' Take and eat,' then ' This is My Body which is broken for you ' ; first, ' Drink ye all of this ' ; then followeth, ' This is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' I see not which way it should be gathered by the words of Christ, when and where the Bread is His Body, or the cup His Blood, but only in the very heart and soul of him that receiveth them. ... It appeareth not that of all the ancient Fathers of the Church any one did ever conceive or imagine other than only a mystical participation of Christ's both Body and Blood in the Sacrament, neither are their speeches concerning the change of the elements themselves into the Body and Blood of Christ, such that a man can thereby in con- science assure himself that it was their meaning to persuade the world either of a corporal consubstantia- tion of Christ with those sanctified and blessed elements 1 Real Presence, sees. 1-8. 2 Hooker, Eccl. Pol V., Ixvii. 6, 12. SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF HOLY COMMUNION 233 before we receive them, or of the like trans ubst an tiation of them into the Body and Blood of Christ." So St. Augustine : " This is to eat that meat and to drink that drink; even for a man to dwell in Christ and to have Christ dwelling in him; and. therefore, whoso dwelleth not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, without doubt neither doth eat His flesh, nor drink His blood." 1 Listen also to Bishop Beveridge: 2 "Scripture and Fathers holding forth so clearly that whosoever worthily receives the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper doth certainly partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, the devil thence took occasion to draw men into an opinion that the Bread which is used in that Sacrament is the very Body that was crucified upon the Cross, and the wine after consecration the very Blood which gushed out of His pierced side. The time when this opinion was first broached was in the days of Gregory III., Bishop of Rome." Once more let me quote Waterland. 8 "The words ' Verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful ' are rightly interpreted of a real participation of the bene- fits purchased by Christ's death. The Body and Blood of Christ are taken and received by the faithful, not corporally, not internally, but 'verily and indeed ' that is, effectually. The sacred symbols are no bare signs, no untrue figures of a thing absent ; but the force, the 1 Super Joann., Tract 26. - Beveridge, on Article XXVIII. 3 Waterland, " Doctrine of the Eucharist," chaps. vL and viL 234 WORDS TO THE LAITY grace, the virtue, and benefits of Christ's body broken and blood shed that is, of His Passion are really and effectually present with all them that receive worthily. This is all the real presence that our Church teaches." Lastly, let me place before you the words of one of the most learned of our modern bishops, one of the most rigid and austere of our theologians, Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln. In commenting on the Epistle to the Hebrews, he says : " If the Apostle had supposed that Christ's body and blood is offered as a sacrifice on the Christian altar on earth, he would not surely have omitted to say so in describing the Christian altar and the Christian sacrifice." l Such is the position of Holy Communion in Christian worship. It is a chief and important means of grace, co-ordinate with others, foremost among many, a com- memoration of the atoning sacrifice of the death of Christ, and a means of appropriating the benefits which we obtain thereby. 1 Wordsworth's Commentary, Epistle to the Hebrews. XIV. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. "There is ... one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." i TIM. ii. 5. THE sole mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ between man and God is the cardinal truth of Christianity, and the one great necessary condition of eternal salvation for our race. Through Him alone we know the Divine Father. Through His one sacrifice and oblation once offered we obtain the forgiveness of our sins. Through Him alone we have access to God in prayer. His words alone are our supreme oracle and law. He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. Through Him alone we know of the gift and power of the Divine Spirit. In Him alone we have eternal life. With Him we need no mediator. " Come unto Me," He said, " all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." l " All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me ; and he that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out." 2 " My sheep hear My voice, 1 Matt. xi. 28. 2 John vi. 37. 335 236 WORDS TO THE LAITY and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." 1 "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them." 2 " What- soever ye shall ask in My Name that will I do." 3 " If ye shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it." 4 " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you." 5 " Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My Name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." 6 "I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God." 7 " By Him we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." 8 "Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." 9 "In Him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him." 10 " By the blood of Jesus we have boldness to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us." n No access could be more un- trammelled, direct, complete, full, and absolute. Sin is the only hindrance ; and as to that we know from St. John that " if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins." 12 " The blood of Jesus 1 John x. 28. 2 Matt, xviii. 20. 8 John xiv. 13. 4 John xiv. 14. 5 John xvi. 23. e John xvi. 24. 7 John xvi. 27. 8 Horn. v. 2. 9 Eph. ii. 18. 10 Eph. iii. 12. u Heb. x. 19. 12 i John ii. i. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 237 Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us : if we confess our sins " to ourselves and to God, " He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." l We may come straight to God and say, " Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son." 2 Even if we could find another advocate to plead for us with our Saviour, and even if we could make that advocate hear, the employ- ment of such advocacy would be, on the one hand, unnecessary, and on the other disloyal. It would be unnecessary, because the love of Christ for us is Divine and perfect, and cannot be increased. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? " 3 Remember His own words : " I pray not for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word ; that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them : that they may be one, even as we are one : I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." 4 In virtue of our faith in our Saviour we are already partakers of the Divine nature, we already have the fellowship of the Father and the Son. " If any man love Me, he will keep My words : and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode 1 i John i. 9. * Luke xv. 19. * Rom. viii. 35. 4 John xvii. 20. 238 WORDS TO THE LAITY with him." 1 We need nothing more than that assurance. To that assurance nothing could be added by the prayers of her who was so highly favoured, nor of the glorious company of the Apostles, nor of the noble army of martyrs. For all of these, we may be certain some fitting work is found in the land of the blesssd ; but in face of such Divine promises there is no room for inter- vention, mediation, intercession on their part between us and the Head of that body of which we, like them, are the members. The endeavour to engage such advocates would on the other hand be disloyal. It would be dis- trustful of that near, complete, unhindered love of which we have the pledge. It would be putting Christ further off instead of bringing Him near. " The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise: Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven (that is, to bring Christ down from above) . . . but what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart ; that is, the word of faith which we preach ; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." z It would be giving to a creature the honour, whether in a higher or a lower degree, which is alone due to the Creator. When the mother wished in her fond anxiety to take a part in the work of her Son on earth, He said to her, with quiet decision, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" 3 When the priest of Jupiter would have done sacrifice at 1 John xiv. 23. * Rom. x. 6. * John ii. 4. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 239 Lystra unto the Apostles Pan! and Barnabas, what did they say ? " They rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, and said, Sirs, why do ye these things ? We also are men of like passions with you." x When St. John fell in his vision at the feet of the glorified elder who was given to him as a guide through the courts of heaven, and would have worshipped him, " See thou do it not," said that majestic presence ; " I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testi- mony of Jesua Worship God ! " ! And again an angelic being was showing him the Kiver of Life; again St. John fell down to worship before his feet. Again the same solemn message was repeated, "See thou do it not : for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets." 3 Very earnestly does St. Paul warn his beloved Colossians against those who imagined other beings between themselves and their one Mediator: " Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up in his fleshy mind, and not holding to the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, increaseth with the increase of God." 4 In the Primitive Church it was always esteemed one of the strong arguments for the Divinity of our Saviour that He alone, in right of His Divine being, was to be worshipped. It was then an un- 1 Acts xiv. 15. a Rev. xix. 10. 8 Rev. xxii 9. * CoL ii. 18. 240 WORDS TO THE LAITY doubted principle that no creature, how excellent soever, was to be worshipped with religious worship, but only the living and true God. Use this word however much you please in an ambiguous sense; speak of a man of worship ; you mean merely a man whom you think worthy. Talk if you like of the worshipful the chancellor ; you mean only that the office of the chancellor is worthy of all respect. But when you begin to address your prayers to a created being, then you are using a different idea altogether. As long as these two assertions stand good, that Christ was from the first worshipped with religious worship, and that nothing should receive that but only the living and true God, then the Arian and Socinian can- not evade that argument from antiquity. Once give religious worship, even if it be said to be in a low degree, to saints and angels, and that argument is wholly enervated and destroyed. Justin Martyr often draws the distinction in his Apologies between reli- gious worship and human honour; he tells the em- perors that the Christians worship only God, earthly rulers they cheerfully serve. 1 Tertullian, speaking of the Christians' prayers for the emperors and the peace of the world, said that they asked these things of the living and true God ; and they could ask them of no other but Him, of whom they were sure to obtain them, because He alone was able to give them. 2 This was the answer which the martyrs gave to their judges 1 Justin, Apol. ii. 63. 3 Tertull. Apol. xxx. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 241 when ordered to offer supplications to the emperors : if they had been allowed to give the same homage which a certain section of Christians now give to saints and angels, it might have been argued in the same way that they were not interfering with the supreme honour of God, and they might have escaped. 1 Such expressions are frequent in other early writers : Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, Lactantius, Athenagoras, Tatian. 2 Not only that, but the Primitive Church repudiated the worship of saints and angels in particular, and distinctly condemned it as idolatry. When the Jews at Smyrna desired the heathen judge not to allow the Christians to carry off the body of Polycarp, lest they should leave their crucified Master and worship Poly- carp instead, " this suggestion," answered the Church of Smyrna, "proceeded from pure ignorance, that we could neither forsake Christ nor worship any other. For we worship Him, as being the Son of God; but the martyrs, as the disciples and followers of the Lord, we love with a due affection, for their great love of their own King and Master; with whom we desire to be partners and fellow-disciples." 3 Listen to Origen: " The angels are ministering spirits, that bring the gifts of God to us; but there is no command in Scripture 1 Bingham, " Eccl. Antiqu.," bk. xiii. chap. iii. " See the reff., ibid. 3 Martyr. Polycarp. up, Euseb., bk. iv. cluip. xv. Q 242 to worship or adore them. For all prayers, suppli- cations, intercessions, and giving of thanks are to be sent up to God by the great High Priest, the Living Word of God, who is superior to all angels." 1 And again : 2 " We must endeavour to please God alone, who is above all things, and labour to have Him propitious unto us; procuring His goodwill with piety and all kind of virtue. And if Celsus will yet have us to procure the goodwill of any others after Him that is God over all, let him consider that as when the body is moved, the shadow follows its motion; so in like manner, when we have God, who is over all, favourable to us, that we shall have all His friends, both angels and souls and spirits, favourable unto us also. For they have a fellow-feeling with them that are thought worthy to find favour from God. Neither are they only favour- able . . . but they labour also with them that are will- ing to worship God over all, and are friendly to them, and sympathise with them, and pray with them. So that we may be bold to say that when men who with resolution purpose unto themselves the best things, do pray unto God, many thousands of the sacred powers are praying together with them, unspoken to, without invocation." It had been previously said by Irenaeus 3 . that the Church in his time, though she wrought many miracles for the benefit of men, yet did nothing by invocation of angels, but only by prayer 1 Origen against Celsus, v. p. 233. 2 Ibid., viii. p. 420. 3 Ireneeus, ii. 57. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 243 to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It was said by Athanasins, 1 " No man would pray to receive anything from the Father and the angels, or from any other of the creatures; neither would any man say, God and the angel give me this." And again he reminds the Arians that Peter the Apostle did forbid Cornelius, when he would have worshipped him, saying, " I myself also am a man. . . . Wherefore it belongs to God only to be worshipped. And this the angels may well know, that though they excel others in glory, yet they are all but creatures ; and not in the number of those that are to be worshipped, but of those that worship the Lord." 2 St. Augustine, in his last days, uses strong expressions about the honour due to saints ; but on the point of addressing suppli- cations to them he is most distinct. 3 " Let not our religion," he says, "consist in the worship of dead men; because if they lived piously, they are not thought to be such as would desire that kind of honour; but would have Him to be worshipped by us by whose illumination they rejoice to have us partners with them in their merit. They are there- fore to be honoured for imitation, not to be worshipped for religion." And again: "That which the highest angel worships, the same is to be worshipped by the meanest man. And this we are to believe, that the 1 Athan. Orat. iv. contra Arianos, torn. i. p. 464. 2 Ibid. iii. contra Arianos, p. 394. 8 August de Vcrd Rdigione, c. 55. 244 WORDS TO THE LAITY very greatest angels, and most excellent ministers of God, would have us worship one God with them. And therefore we honour angels with love, not with religious service. Neither do we build temples to them : for they desire not to be so honoured by us, because they know that we ourselves, when we are good, are temples of the Most High God." And Chrysostom exhorts his hearers not to rely on the intercession of others, but to go immediately to God themselves; giving them the example of the woman of Canaan, who was never the better for the Apostles' intercession ; who entreated not Peter or James to beg for her, but went directly to Christ herself, and from Him received a better answer. So he adds, " There is no need of intercessors with God." l For three hundred years after Christ there cannot be produced out of the genuine writings of one ancient father one clear or per- tinent testimony for the invocation of saints or angels. It was in the fourth century, when the Church was recognised by the emperors, and no longer suf- fered the wholesome discipline of persecution, that she began to lose the simplicity of the Gospel. We begin to see the asserted superiority of the clergy over the laity, the undue exaltation of the episcopal order, the germs of the supremacy of the Roman See, the unwise privileges and exceptions of the clerical order, the practice of hunting gifts and legacies, the en- 1 Compare Chrysostom, Horn. V. in Coloss., and Horn. VII. and Horn. IX. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 245 couragement of clerical celibacy as a state of higher sanctity, the fierceness and almost incredible extrava- gances of monasticism, the exaggerated devotion to the mother of our Lord. And it was in this century that we first find traces of the invocation of saints. There were two eminent and holy men in particular to whom the innovation is owing, Gregory Nazianzene and Basil. 1 The one founded his commendation of the practice on a spurious life of Cyprian which was afterwards authoritatively condemned ; the other, in speaking of the forty martyrs of Cappadocia, says that those who were in difficulties fled to them. He may mean merely to profit by their example ; but the words are ambiguous, and are an additional proof, if we needed any, of the danger of using rhetorical flourishes of doubtful meaning. And Chrysostom, in spite of the wholesome sentence I have quoted from him already, undoubtedly said, " He that is emperor stand eth praying to the saints, to the tentmaker and fisherman, Peter and Paul, to intercede with God for him." St. Chrysostom was also a great rhetorician, and sometimes contradicted himsel To this we may gladly oppose the words of St. Augustine : " The emperor, at the tomb of Peter, prayeth not to Peter, but to God." The fourth century was full of the germs of errors contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture, and against these unwholesome tendencies we have to be on our guard. 1 Basil, Oratio in Barlaam, p. 139 ; Greg. Na/ian., i. 449. 246 WORDS TO THE LAITY It was at this time that patron saints began to be selected. A martyr supposed to have a special interest in a place and its inhabitants was called their patron first in the latter half of this same fourth century. Ambrose is the earliest witness of the fact, when in 386 he calls Gervasius and Protasius the patrons of the orthodox at Milan. 1 The usage was much extended by the Gallican poet Paulinus. 2 It was taken up by another poet Prudentius ; 3 then it began to spread. The possession of a relic was thought to give right to the patronage of the saint. About 600 A.D. Theo- delinda built a church near Milan in honour of John the Baptist, that he might be an intercessor for her husband and children. 4 In the 5th century Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, declared St. Peter and St. Paul to be the special patrons of Rome. 5 A great writer, Alcuin, in a subsequent age, informs us that St. Ambrose was the patron of Milan, the Theban legion the patrons of the Pennine Alps, Bishop Hilary at Poictiers, Bishop Martin at Tours, St. Denis and St. Germain at Paris, Remigius in Cham- pagne, and the like. 6 It was about the sixth century that a church dedicated to St. Michael was built at 1 Ambrose, Epist. xxii. n ; Expos, on St. Luke, x. 12. 2 Paulinus, Carm. ii. ; St. Felix, 26, and many other places ; especially his Notatitia. 3 Prudentius, Hymns de Coronis. 4 Paulus Winnfridas, de Gestis Langobard, i. 22. 5 Leo, " Sermons," 80, 5. 6 Alcuin., Homil. de Nat. WUlibrordi, i. THE INVOCATION Or SAINTS 247 Ravenna, the first in honour of the angels. 1 The earliest church dedicated to the Mother of our Lord was pro- bably that on the top of the Esquiline Hill at Rome, built by Pope Liberius about the middle of the fourth century. 2 The solemn invocation of the Virgin for prosperity in state affairs stands recorded in the Acts of the Emperor Justinian; 3 and the great General Narses never ventured on a battle without some sign of her approval. In this extreme zeal to pay to the Mother of Jesus Christ that very excess of honour against which He Himself had warned His disciples, there mingled both a lower feeling of human nature, and a trace of that heathen element which, during the fourth century, began to infect many other usages of the Church. The idea of a female mediator, performing in a higher world offices akin to those labours of mercy and intercession which befit the feminine character on earth, was one which the mind of mankind was ready to receive ; and, moreover, this idea of the blessed Mary was welcomed as a substitute for some other ideas that had been lost by the fall of polytheism with its host of female deities. The veneration of her, therefore, ad- vanced rapidly, although it was not until a much later period that it reached its height. 4 The first who brought her name as an object of the public devotions of the Greek Church is noted by Nicephorus to have been Peter the Fuller, a presbyter of Bithynia, afterwards 1 Cianipini, Vet. Monum. 2 Smith's " Eccl. Hist.," p. 452. 8 Codex L 37, i. 4 Robertson, vol. i. p. 582. 248 WORDS TO THE LAITY the usurper of the see of Antioch, about the year 470 A.D. ; who, though a branded heretic, invented four things very useful, as he said, to the Catholic Church, of which the last was that in every prayer the Mother of God should be mentioned, and her Divine name invoked. As for the Latin Church, it was not till 1 30 years later, in Gregory's time, that this innovation took place. The pagan superstitions connected with growing departure from Scripture and the Primitive Church rapidly increased. Basil calls the saints helpers of prayer. 1 Leo exhorts the people of Eome to keep vigil in St. Peter's, "who will deign by his prayers to assist our supplications, and fastings, and alms- givings." Gregory 8 gives them the same description as Basil. Paulinus 4 tells of a rustic who had lost two oxen by theft, instead of pursuing the robbers, flying at once to the church of St. Felix, whom he declares responsible for their restoration. Theodoret says that Christians made a point of giving the appellations of the martyrs to their children, by that means procuring for them safety and guardianship. In other ways the pagan idea asserted itself. The active assistance in battle of some long-departed hero was the subject of many a Greek and Roman myth. Among the half converts of the fourth century there 1 Orations on Barlaam, Mamas, &c. 2 Leo, Serm. 84, 2. 8 Greg. Nyss., iii. 578. 4 Paulinus, Carm. 5 Theodoret, Grcec. off". Cur. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 249 could not fail to be many on whom these romantic traditions had made a deep impression, and we cannot be altogether surprised at their speedy reproduction under a Christian guise. 1 The patron martyr was re- garded as a faithful ally, both in aggression and defence, of those who served him well. It is, in short, in the heathen fable that we discover the germ of the mediaeval romance which culminated in the conversion of the Apostles into knights-errant. Still more alien from the spirit and faith of the Gospel was the dependence placed on the patron saint for protection from the con- sequences of sin, even at the day of judgment. At the earliest period of the worship of patrons this blas- phemy occurs. Prudentius, the unfortunate poet, whom I have before quoted, actually declares that he desired to be placed on the left hand of the Judge, in order that the martyr Romanus may come to his rescue at that awful moment ! to such a pitch of impious extra- vagance, even at this early period, were men led by the incautious words and the improper license in which the Christian poets indulged. 2 Yon cannot but have been struck by the extra- ordinary contrast between these pagan corruptions and the direct teaching of our Lord, His Apostles, and the Primitive Church. When once, with the Church of Rome, you have admitted the doctrines of Development and of Accommodation, there is no 1 Diet, of Christian Antiquities, Article Patron Saints. * Prndentius, De Coroni'*, x 250 WORDS TO THE LAITY length of blindness and perversity, no labyrinth of contradictions, into which you will not be led. This day, I beseech you, turn aside once more from all these bewildering heresies, and throw yourself, heart and soul and mind, on the sole mediation of Christ your Saviour. Tell Him directly all your sins and sorrows, your hopes and fears. He is ever present in you to listen and to give grace and strength. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He is as ready to hear your cry, as that of the disciples in the storm, or the blind men by the way, or the leper afar off, or the despairing woman who would but touch the hem of His garment. Oh, remember what the result of the small germ of their faith was to these poor people : " As many as touched Him were made perfectly whole." And to our dear brothers of the Roman persuasion, to whom the unbroken development of the Church is of greater consequence than the plain teaching of the Son of God, and to whom the tradition of fifteen hundred years, whatever its origin, is very dear, we would say this : Oh, think once more of the way in which yon are walking ! Christ never guaranteed even His own disciples against error. They thought St. John would never die; they thought the Lord would come to judgment in their own lifetime. It is not only the authority of the body to which you belong that is of importance, but the accordance of the truth that you hold with the teaching of the Son of God. The Jewish Church were splendidly and magnificently THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS 251 continuous: they had Abraham to their father; yet they were wrong, and they crucified Christ When you talk with such hope and confidence of converting us, is it not a duty of Christian humility, in the face of such strong contradictions as those of which you cannot but be aware, to ask yourselves whether you too may not have been misled? Mistakes have been made by all of us in our time, from the Apostles downwards. This access of pagan influences in the fourth century, is it not worth inquiry ? Will you not this day join us, laying aside all prepossession and prejudice, in praying the Holy Spirit once more to take us into His own hands, and guide us into all truth ? XV. MITRES. " Peradventure, because they have not the crook and mitre, as the old bishops had, displeases them." "Works of Pilkington, Bishop of Durham," p. 584. IT lias been remarked by one of the most eminent of living naturalists that in a barbarous condition of human society it is the male who chiefly adorns him- self; as social life improves, or arrives at its middle condition, both sexes alike are splendid in their apparel; but that when civilisation has advanced to the reasonable and reflective stage, the male divests himself of ornaments and colours, and leaves them to the female, who considers them the natural and fitting accompaniments of the beauty to which she always desires to lay claim. In the time of the Apostles, Roman and Greek civilisation were far advanced, and the costume of men was extremely simple. In the early Church the ministers of the assemblies wore merely the dress of ordinary life, and no doubt the soberest and most decent that they could command. It was only as civilisation began to decline and fashions to change 252 MITRES 253 that reverence began to be paid to the obsolete costumes which the clergy, by force of habit and by aversion to change, continued to wear. 1 As the intellectual eleva- tion of the days of Greek and Roman culture con- tinned to fade into the past in the time of the later empire, attention began to be paid to these de- tails, as if they were part of religion. Rich and handsome garments of the particular shape on which the continual change of fashion had fixed the character of ecclesiastical were sent by devotees to bishops and presbyters ; and as civilisation sank even farther into the dark ages, these increased in pagan splendour. The revival of the obsolete and unauthorised mitre, part of the gorgeous paraphernalia of the centuries of superstition, by the present eminent and beloved Bishop of Lincoln in 1885, as one of the stages in the march of the Oxford movement, and the fact that his example has been already followed by six other exalted occupants of English sees, makes it desirable to look into the history of this strange adornment. The mitre is first mentioned amongst ecclesiastical vestments in the middle of the eleventh century, though some kind of decorative episcopal head-gear had been in use considerably earlier. 2 It was first made of embroidered linen, and it does not appear in its 1 Compare "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," Dress ; Stan- ley's " Christian Institutions," &c. 2 Leo IX., Epist. 3 ; Patrol. Lai., cxliii. 595. 254 WORDS TO THE LAITY well-known double or cleft form until the twelfth century had made considerable advance, when it began to be constructed of some rich material, and to be adorned with gold and jewels. 1 It was in the fourteenth century, when ladies' head-dresses became very high, that this peculiar and bizarre object attained its full development. Previously mitres were very low and concave in contour. The words used for it in Latin and Greek are mitra and infula. 2 Mitra is a cap worn by women. Isidore of Seville, in his " Etymology, " says, " It is a Phrygian cap protecting the head, such as is the ornament of devout women. The head-covering of men is called pileum, the head-covering of women mitra. " It was also worn by Asiatics without distinc- tion of sex. Mitra was thus the cap of women and effeminate men. Its prototype, the Phrygian cap, came into startling prominence at the time of the French Revolution. Infula, on the contrary, was the fillet which decked the head of heathen priests and victims. Servius defines it as "a garland, like a circular diadem, from which ribbons hang down on each side. It is usually broad and twisted of white and purple." Virgil often mentions the sacrificing priest wearing this garland. Victims about to be sacrificed, whether beasts or men, were tricked out with 1 Cutts, "Dictionary of the Church of England," Mitre. 2 This paper is throughout indebted to Mr. Sinker's article in the " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. " MITRES 255 tbe same ribbons. We have a gladiator in Suetonius, who, having been guilty of cowardice, was ornamented with a garland on being led to execution. The earliest alleged instance of some sort of head- dress as part of the official costume of the Christian ministry is really only a metaphorical expression, and has nothing to do with the question. The passage occurs in a letter of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, to Victor, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 192-202), on the subject of the Easter controversy (Euseb., "Hist. Eccl., " v. 24; also partly in iii. 31 ; cf. also Jerome, "De Viris Illustribus, " c. 45), in which Polycrates cites the names of different Asiatic bishops and martyrs who are claimed as having held to the Asiatic practice. Amid this enumeration we read : "Yea, moreover, John too, he who lay on the Lord's breast, who became a priest wearing the golden plate (o? eyev^Brj lepeix;, TO TreraXov Trefapetca)*;), and a witness and teacher, he sleepeth in Ephesus." A somewhat parallel instance may be quoted from a later writer, Epiphanius. The reference has been to Christ as heir to the throne of David, which is a throne not only of royalty, but of priesthood. The Saviour thus stands at the head of a line of high-priests ; James, the Lord's brother, being, as it were, successor, in virtue of his apparent relation- ship, and thus becoming Bishop of Jerusalem and president of the Church. Then follows a very extra- ordinary sentence, which can by no possibility be taken literally, unless it is a sheer mistake: "More- 256 WORDS TO THE LAITY over also, we find that he exercised 'the priestly office after the manner of the old priesthood ; wherefore also it was permitted to him once in the year to enter into the Holy of Holies, as the law commanded the high- priests, according to the Scripture. Further, it was permissible for him to wear the golden plate upon his head (aXXa Kal TO TreraXov eVt TT}? K(f>a\f)$ e^fjv avrqi fyepeiv), as the above-mentioned trustworthy writers have testified" ("Haer., " xxix. 4; vol. i. 119, ed. Petavius). Mr. Sinker, the librarian of Trinity College, Cam- bridge, to whose article on the subject, in the " Diction- ary of Christian Antiquities," I have already acknow- ledged my debt, points out that the question must mainly turn on the words of Polycrates, whose position, both in date and locality, would give his words more importance than those of Epiphanius. The probability lies strongly on the side of the language being viewed as allegorical. The passage in general has that character (cf. jjieydXa crTot^eia /ceifol/jujraij, and the perfect participle could hardly refer to a habit. Poly- crates clearly aims at bringing out in a pointed and picturesque way the fact of the supreme apostolic authority of St. John, whose office in the Christian Church was to bear rule in spiritual things over the spiritual Israel, even as the high-priest of old over Israel after the flesh. This is the view of Marriott in the " Vestiarium Christianum. " Epiphanius is no doubt referring loosely to the words of Polycrates; MITRES 257 that James could have been admitted as high-priest into the Holy of Holies of the Temple at Jerusalem is simply an impossibility. One thing, at any rate, Mr. Sinker considers plain enough. Even if the inter- pretation be not allegorical, and even if so remarkable a statement is to be taken as a matter of fact without any other evidence whatsoever, it would in any case have been an ornament special to St. John, or St. James, or both of them, and ceased with them, affecting in no sense the further use of the Church. The metaphorical sense of Polycrates and Epiphanius is emphasised by the language of the oration delivered by Eusebius on the consecration of the great church at Tyre (" Hist. Eccl.," x. 4). This highly rhetorical discourse begins with an address to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre, and his assembled clergy, as " friends of God and priests (te/aefc), who are clad in the holy robe that reacheth to the feet, and with the heavenly crown (aTeavov) of glory, and with the unction of inspiration (TO xpla-fjia TO ev9eov), and with the priestly vesture of the Holy Ghost." These words are an exact parallel to St. Paul's description of the Christian armour. They are no more to be taken literally in the one case than the other. Hefele, who argues for the early use of the mitre, does not suppose that arefaivos, even if taken literally, could mean more than the tonsure, which often went by this name. Another poetical passage of the same character occurs in one of the discourses of St. Gregory Nazian- 258 WORDS TO THE. LAITY zene (died A.D. 389), where he addresses his father, then Bishop of Nazianzus, who sought to associate his son with him in the duties of his office. He remarks : " Thou anointest the chief priest and clothest him with the robe reaching to the feet, and settest the priests' cap (rov tclSapiv, one of the Septuagint words for the head-dress of priest and high-priest) about his head, and bringeth him to the altar of the spiritual burnt- oflering, and sacrificest the calf of consecration, and dost consecrate his hands with the Spirit, and dost bring him into the Holy of Holies" ("Orat.," x. 4; " Patrol. Grsec.," xxxv. 829). There is no reason why one of these expressions should arbitrarily be taken as literal, while the burnt-offering, the calf, the hands, and the Holy of Holies are metaphorical. Another passage, which is sometimes misinterpreted, is from a heathen writer, Ammonianus Marcellinus. He describes (xxix. 5) the outbreak of an African chief, Firmus (A.D. 372). Against him is sent Theodosius, afterwards emperor. Firmus is compelled to sue for peace. The pagan historian describes the sending of " Christiani ritus antistites oraturos pacem." Two days afterwards Firmus restores " Icosium oppidum . . . militaria signa et coronam sacerdotalem cum coeteris quae interceperat." This was clearly the golden crown worn by heathen priests (cf. Tertullian, "De Specta- culis," c. 23; "De Idololatria," c. 18; "De Corona Militis," c. 10). The evidence of the Council of Elvira on the wearing of the crown by heathen priests is very MITRES 259 curious. One of its canons ordains that " (those who have been heathen) priests who only wear the crown, and do not perform sacrifices, nor contribute from their own funds to the expenses of the sacrifices, may be admitted to communion after two years" ("Concil. Illib.," can. 55 ; "Labbe," i. 976). The use of the word infula has similarly been mis- understood. In classical usage it came to mean any ornaments or insignia of magistrates, and even the magistracy itself. In later ecclesiastical Latin it is used for a chasuble. In the absence of evidence pointing the other way, Mr. Sinker remarks that the natural explanation of the early use of the Chris- tian infula is that the word betokens in a poetical or rhetorical sense the official dress, or hardly more than the quasi-official position of ordained persons. The Christian poet Pmdentius, dwelling on the names of famous martyrs connected with Saragossa, says (" Peristeph.," iv. 79) : " Hie sacerdotum domus infulata Valeriorum," where the reference is to Valerius, Bishop of Sara- gossa. The meaning is, " Here is the family of the Valerii, adorned with the episcopate." The whole poem is written in a highly wrought strain of metaphor, and is a palpable imitation of classical imagery. There are other passages where the word infula, is used in a classical way of episcopal authority. 260 WORDS TO THE LAITY Gelasius (died A.D. 496) speaks of certain character- istics in a person rendering him " clericalibus infulis reprobabilem "episcopal authority ("Epist. ix., ad episc. Lucaniae," Patrol., lix. 51). A biography of Willibald, a disciple of St. Boniface, speaking of his consecration, says : " Sacerdotalis infulse ditatus erat honore" endowed with episcopal authority (c. xi., Canisius, "Thesaurus," ii. 116). In a biography of Burckhardt, of Wiirzburg, another disciple of St. Boniface (written probably two hundred years after his time), he is spoken of as " pontificali infula dignus " worthy of episcopal authority ; and the Pope of the day is said to be "summi pontificatus infulss non incongruus." There is absolutely no weight in two other pas- sages. Ennodius, a poet of the fifth century, says of St. Ambrose : " Serta redimitus gestabat lucida front e, Distinctum gemmis ore parabat opus " " He wore shining garlands on his brow, and the work of his mouth was glorious with gems." It is a poetical passage speaking of his noble appearance and his brilliant eloquence. And Theodulf of Orleans (died A.D. 821), contrasting a Jewish high-priest with the spiritual character of the Christian minister, says: " Illius ergo caput resplendens mitra tegebat : Contegat et mentem jus pietasque tumn" MITRES 261 "The Jewish high-priest's head was covered with a spendid mitre ; and so may your mind be covered by justice and piety. " None of these passages really point to a Christian head-dress. On the contrary, Tertullian asks : " Quis denique patriarches . . . quis vel postea apostolus aut evangelista aut episcopus invenitur coronatus?" " What patriarch, what apostle, or evangelist, or bishop is ever found with a crown on his head ? " (" De Corona Militis, " c. 10). This ought to settle the question. The remains of Christian art furnish no evidence whatever for the use of such a head-dress, but distinctly point the other way. We have every reason to agree with Menard that " vix ante annum post Christum natum millesimam mitrae usum in ecclesia fuisse " (" Greg. Sacr., " 557). Menard justly insists on the fact that in numerous liturgical monu- ments (e.g., a Mass for Easter day in the Cod. Ratoldi, before A.D. 986, where the ornaments of a Bishop are severally gone through), as well as in early writers who have fully entered into the subject of Christian vestments, as Rabanus Maurus, Amalarius, Walafrid Strabo, Alcuin (Pseudo-Alcuin), there is no mention whatever of a mitre. Mr. Sinker will pardon the free use that has been made of his article in view of the practical importance of the subject. The first indisputable mention of a mitre is in A.D. 1049, when Archbishop Eberhard of Treves was at Rome, and Pope Leo. XI. placed on 262 WORDS TO THE LAITY his head, in St. Peter's, on Passion Sunday, the Roman mitre: "Roman& mitra caput vestrum insigni- vimus, qua et vos et successores vestri in ecclesiasticis officiis Komano more semper utamini" "We have decorated you with the Roman mitre, so that in virtue of it you and your successors may always employ the Roman usage in ecclesiastical affairs " (Epist. iii., Patrol, cxliii. 595). It is a Roman ornament, introduced in a corrupt age. It is rightly associated in the minds of the people of England with superstition, error, and tyranny. Heraldically it is a symbol of dignity, like the coronet or the helmet: for peers to wear their coronets, and knights and gentlemen their helmets, whenever they are on official duty, would be as reason- able as the revival of this obsolete Roman adornment. By declaring what the dress of a bishop should be, the Prayer-book has declared what it should not. May we not humbly hope that the seven august and venerated personages, who in deference perhaps to the contem- porary taste for antiquarian and mediaeval decoration, have adopted it, will gradually lay aside what can hardly be considered consistent with the simplicity that is in Christ? Printed hy BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. Edinburgh and London LIST OF NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED BY JAMES NISBET & CO. GENERAL. NEW BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYERS: Morning and Evening for one Month. By the Rev. F. B. MEYER, B.A. 3s. 6d. WORDS TO THE LAITY. By the Venerable the ARCH- DEACON SINCLAIR, D.D. Extra crown 8vo. 6s. THE HOLIEST OF ALL. An Exposition of the Hebrews. By the Rev. ANDBEW MURRAY. Pott 4to. 7s. 6d. WHY DO YOU NOT BELIEVE? By the same. Ex. pott 8vo. Is. Roan, gilt edges. 2s. SUGGESTIVE SCRIPTURE REFERENCE BOOK. By the Rev. G. F. BOWES, Author of "Illustrative Gatherings," &c. &c. THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Being Lectures on Foreign Missions delivered under the Duff Endowment. By the Rev. A. T. 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