whilst “every puny whipster” who thinks himself aggrieved, will only proclaim “with outstretched throat,” the impossibility of obtaining equal justice, and the corruption of the law. No man can doubt it is the paramount duty of those concerned in its administration to “abstain from all appearance” of this “evil,” and give no possible colour to its existence. In truth, so sacred is the subject I have here handled, that nothing but the most weighty considerations should induce us to mention at all the circumstance of so just a rule having ever been disregarded. These however do exist in reference to the present matter; and where the question at issue is the preservation of the true faith in our branch of the Church of Christ, we dare not omit the notice of any of the dangers which beset it. We dare not, for peace’ sake, or for the sake of a worldly expediency, “keep silence.” We dare not, for fear of casting an imputation (not, observe, a vague one, but supported by fact and testimony) on the administration of humanlaw, run the risk of its being cast upon the truth of God, and the Church of Christ. Much have these things pressed upon me, in reference to our present state, and future prospects: and many times have I weighed them before venturing thus to bring my thoughts to light. “My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue.”[48]
But it is more than time that I turn from these, however very important, yet somewhat preliminary considerations, to the more direct purport of your letter, and to the answer I may be able to give to the charge contained in it. What this is, your title-page sufficiently declares: “The want of dogmatic teaching in the reformed Church of England:” and my answer is plain and simple: such as you will not quarrel with for want of distinctness and pertinency, if only I sustain it. I join issue as to the fact. I maintain wehavea rule of dogmatic teaching in our Church’s constitution on all those points on which it is essential a Church should have it. I think, in and by God’s good providence over us, (and if it be so, you will yourself allow it is a most singular mark of his gracious favour towards us,) this has been preserved as to what weoughtto teach, though I acknowledge in practice and in fact, we fall lamentably short of teaching, and our people of believing according to it. I imagine, however, you will not charge it as any conclusive argument against the catholicity of either ourselves, or any branch of the Church of Christ, that gross andfrequent cases of practical short-comings may be adduced, if it can nevertheless be shown, that the Church’s rule requires what is right, and, rightly understood, dogmatically inculcates it.
You may be curious to learn upon what basis I think myself able to sustain so direct a challenge to the whole principle and bearing of your second letter; and, strange to say, I know no one, whose words so aptly enunciate, and give expression to my argument as your own. You will think, I doubt not you have disarmed the quotation I am about to make, (which by this time you anticipate,) by having already brought it forward yourself, and stated you can no longer rely upon it. But you must excuse me for not so easily parting with it, and for endeavouring to prove you right in your earlier view, even against your own subsequent change of mind. “It is a miserable matter,” (you say, after having given various authorities among our ritualists to confirm your view of absolution,) “it is a miserable matter merely to be able to escape from condemnation. I am not content to think the interpretation which I insist upon is but one of many whichmayormay not, according to individual caprice or individual ignorance be held without rebuke by our people, and taught by our clergy. If any one of the above theories is the true one, all the rest are false. And are we for ever to remain disputing? Is there no voice by which we may learn the truth? I believe that there is a voice, long neglected and long forgotten, the voice of the Church of England. Let us listen to her teaching, and we shall find that now, as of old, by the great grace of God, she doesnot speak with a doubting or hesitating tongue.”[50]
This was your opinion at the close of the year 1848, and this is what I still claim. I am prepared, even against yourself, to maintain, and I believe I can shew, its soundness. Do not suppose that I dream of quoting this or a further passage which I shall have occasion to extract presently, merely in order to show a discrepancy between what you asserted then, and what you hold now. I do not desire to cavil with your right to be inconsistent in search of truth, if that were all; and I must allow besides such things have “come to pass in these our days,” between then and now, as may much diminish our surprise at inconsistency or change of mind in any one. At any rate, it would be, I am well aware, a most idle task to endeavour to provemyposition in favour of the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England, merely by convicting you or any man of inconsistency, and showing that what you think and say now is different from what you thought and said a year and a half ago. In all truth this is not my object; but I cite these passages, because I know not how better, nay, not how so well to express my own meaning; that I may also comment a little upon the passages I cite, and your reasons for thinking the position they take up no longer tenable; and that in so doing I may add a few words beyond what you said even in 1848, for believing in their soundness. Let me turn to your words. You say, “Here though open to the charge of repetition, I must again lay down the principle upon which alone we can possiblydecide what the judgment of the Church of England really is; and to which principle we are bound to bring for proof as to a test every doctrine which we assert or deny.”
Then this principle follows, most clearly enunciated:—
“We declare, therefore, that the Church of England now holds, teaches, and insists upon, all things whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught and insisted on before the year 1540, unless she has since that time, plainly, openly and dogmatically asserted the contrary. This we declare in general. And in particular, as regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add: that whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the one) hand fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.”[51]
“We declare, therefore, that the Church of England now holds, teaches, and insists upon, all things whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught and insisted on before the year 1540, unless she has since that time, plainly, openly and dogmatically asserted the contrary. This we declare in general. And in particular, as regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add: that whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the one) hand fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.”[51]
* * * * *
“Few persons will deny that the existence of a doctrine known, acknowledged, and taught in the Church of England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, coupled with the fact that no reformation or alteration of that doctrine has at any time since been made—and therefore that it was intended to be still known, acknowledged and taught, is strong evidence by itself that such a doctrine mustbe true. The obligation to enquire accurately into it, and if possible overthrow it, is in the first place, upon the shoulders of those who are inclined to doubt or to dispute. It will then be for us to see if it can be defended. One thing only I am bound to say before I pass on. And it is this: that, equally on this matter of absolution, as upon all other essential portions of the One Faith once delivered to the saints, I believe that the Church of England holds the true and complete doctrine of the holy gospel, and follows in her practice of it, the example of the primitive age. Our Church now claims, in right of her succession, all the ordinary powers and privileges which the Apostles received from their and her Almighty Lord; now offers to her children all the means whether in aid of, or as being necessary to, the salvation of each one which were offered from the beginning; and now, as of old and ever, either insists upon the reception, or entreatingly urges the acceptance, according to their various nature, of all and every of those means of grace.”[52]
“Few persons will deny that the existence of a doctrine known, acknowledged, and taught in the Church of England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, coupled with the fact that no reformation or alteration of that doctrine has at any time since been made—and therefore that it was intended to be still known, acknowledged and taught, is strong evidence by itself that such a doctrine mustbe true. The obligation to enquire accurately into it, and if possible overthrow it, is in the first place, upon the shoulders of those who are inclined to doubt or to dispute. It will then be for us to see if it can be defended. One thing only I am bound to say before I pass on. And it is this: that, equally on this matter of absolution, as upon all other essential portions of the One Faith once delivered to the saints, I believe that the Church of England holds the true and complete doctrine of the holy gospel, and follows in her practice of it, the example of the primitive age. Our Church now claims, in right of her succession, all the ordinary powers and privileges which the Apostles received from their and her Almighty Lord; now offers to her children all the means whether in aid of, or as being necessary to, the salvation of each one which were offered from the beginning; and now, as of old and ever, either insists upon the reception, or entreatingly urges the acceptance, according to their various nature, of all and every of those means of grace.”[52]
I think I am justified in saying that you admit yourself, by inference, in your second letter, that if the principle of these passages can still be sustained, the case and position of the Church of England will be tenable against the charge of being without necessary dogmatic teaching. But you explain in your recent letter that you feel you must give up the soundness of these views; that you cannot now believe the same things concerning our Church’s ruleof faith. Let me give this comment in your own words:—
“Here, very probably, some one may object against me my own language, published rather more than a year ago. I allude to my book on the doctrine of absolution. Let me quote it.” Then follows the quotation I have already made as to our Church retaining the teaching she held previous to 1540, except where expressly repealed; upon which you add: “When that passage was written, it was written in entire assurance that every word might be established. I do not think so now. And with whatever pain I say this, it is not because my belief has altered from accepting the fixed principle that all essential Christian truth is one and eternal; and that every part of the Church-Catholic is bound of necessity to hold it whole and undefiled. Believing, as at that time I did, with the strongest confidence and trust that the Church of England was a living and a sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church,I could not but assert, as being capable of undeniable proof, her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the Catholic faith. If I searched into her foundations it was with no shadow of fear lest they should be seen not to be resting on the rock, but much rather in the undoubting hope that the more she was tested and examined the more triumphantly she would declare herself to be divine.
“If the end of long enquiry and consideration has resulted in disappointed hope, and what seems to be evidence of the fallacy of former expectations; if I am compelled to own that the utmost we arejustified in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and teaches’ &c., but—that the Church of England howsuffersandpermitsto be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the prayer book, not ‘mustbe understood,’ but ‘maybe understood:’ let none suppose that I have lightly yielded up that ground upon which alone a minister of the Church of England, as a minister of the Church Catholic, can stand securely.”[54]
Now, the first observation which hereupon occurs is this:—you state you can no longer think that ground tenable; but you do not sufficiently give a reason why you thus change your mind. I do not say you givenoreason, because I suppose we are to take the whole of your second letter, as in fact the reason; but I mean, you do not go into the particulars of the matter, nor in detail state the grounds why you should think the Church of England does not still appeal to her doctrine before the year 1540, wherever unrepealed, to supply the defect or short comings (if any) of her later teaching. You seem to have condemned her on herpracticalorexternaldeficiencies, not as going into and proving her to have changed her internal rule. Indeed, it seems to me you have hardly weighed at all, either in asserting or denying the principle you formerly maintained and now yield up, the external evidence for its truth. This, perhaps, was originally not an unnatural omission, since you held the view co-ordinately with, and as an essential part of, your belief in the Catholicity of the English Church,not as a proof of it, nor as an answer to objections. You then so unhesitatingly believed the Church of England to be “a living and sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church,” (and were not engaged inprovingany thing about this at that time, your argument quite allowing you to assume it;) that, as you say, “you could not but asserther claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the Catholic faith.” It followed directly as a natural and necessary consequence from the position you assigned her, that shemustbe able so to teach; and, I repeat, you had no need to do more than assume it, because none of those with whom you were arguing, denied it; and your point was to show what followed from this unquestioned statement as to the particular doctrine you were then treating of, not to give the proofs of it in detail, if at all. That the Church of England was a true and living branch of the Church Catholic was therefore your premiss: that she taught necessarily the one essential Christian truth, all necessary dogmatic teaching, was your natural and just inference. And to show what this Christian truth was on absolution, you referred to the prior teaching of the Church of England, and of the Church Catholic as received by her before the reformation. But no wonder, when upon other grounds your premiss was shaken, the truth (asIstill believe it) of the inference was shaken also in your mind. It could not be its own proof. If you are no longer certain the Church of Englandisa true and living branch, you loseyourevidence, I mean the evidence adduced by you in that treatise, and on which you were then resting, that she embraces all necessarydogmatic teaching. But ifIcan shew by plain reasoning in the nature of things, or by external proof, without first assuming her Catholicity, that shehasthis rule of faith; that she is linked up to, and holds on by, the whole of her teaching previous to the reformation, except where she has “plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary,” I shall have just so much proof to give that she does not fail in point of dogmatic teaching, and therefore so far an answer to your difficulty and your enquiry, “What am I to teach as the faith and doctrines of the English Church?” If by this process I can make it reasonably clear that, “by the great grace of God,” the Church of England has had preserved to her a strict rule by which she does teach the whole Catholic faith, then shall I meet all the objection of your recent letter, so far asprincipleis concerned, and sustain, asmyconclusion, what wasyourpremiss, that (in so far, at any rate, as her dogmatic teaching is concerned,) we have no right to doubt her claims; but that she is still what you so unhesitatingly believed her to be in 1848, a living portion (though it may be now a wounded one) of the one holy Catholic Church.
You have touched upon, though without entering into proofs to sustain it, (which as I have said before, your argument did not there require,) the principle by which the said dogmatic rule is to be established; viz. “the Church of England now holds and insists upon all things, whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught, and insisted upon before the year 1540, unless she has since that time plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary.” . . .Again:—“Whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (on the one hand) fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.”
You do not say preciselywhy it mustbe so received, unless we are to understand (a position with which I make no quarrel) that common sense and the nature of things declare it to be a self-evident truth, immediately the proposition is announced. But I venture to think, beyond this strong support it has other and more particular evidence, and so rests altogether upon a much wider basis than is overthrown by the general and sweeping rejection of it in your assertion, that you do not now think it tenable. It appears to me in the first place, as I have said, to rest on principles of reason and common sense, and next to admit of particular proof, that the Church of England does retain such teaching.
Let me ask you to examine with attention the evidence I am about to adduce. I would arrange it under the following heads:—
I. Common sense, and the nature of things.
II. Appeals of our Church to antiquity, and the teaching of the Church universal, as well as to her own previous constitutions and canons.
III. Recognition of such previous teaching by the civil power; if not proving the same point positively, yet at least shewing negatively that it is not contradicted.
IV. Some confirmation of the above view from considerationsof what the Church of England would deprive herself of, (which no one has ever supposed her to have done) if the principle were to be carried out that her existence is to be dated from the sixteenth century only; and nothing to belong to her rule of faith but what was then determined, and in words set down.
I. Surely it is most certain on grounds of abstract reason and common sense, that things will stand as they are, if they neither fall to decay of themselves, nor are altered by any external power. No one pretends that the dogmatic teaching of a Church will fall to decay of itself. The other alternative, therefore, is all we have here to consider. I say then that, of any building, what you do not destroy, remains. You find such or such a fabric standing. It is, in your opinion, out of repair, or deformed with unnatural or unsightly excrescences, which in process of time have overgrown, or been engrafted upon it. Additions you may conceive them to be to the original structure, and now, injurious or inconvenient. You resolve that these, whether accidental or evilly contrived, shall be removed, and you address yourself to the task. Surely, your own principle in 1848, that what is not removed, remains, is most sound: I know not how to consider it less than axiomatically true. If a tower be taken down here, or a turret there, a window blocked up on this side, or a door opened in that, still the foundations remain the same as ever, unless you absolutely root them up. The basis of the building, except in such case, cannot be imagined to be moved, and just so much of the superstructure as you do not throw down, must stand as heretofore. It may be obscured by something else; it may be much less noticed, ornoticeable, than it has been; it may be disregarded in the public eye; one whole side of the building may be clothed in shadow, but yet, if not destroyed, there it will remain, and remain as an integral part of the building to sustain its uses, and to be claimed for them when need is by the owner of the whole, and by his servants at his bidding. And so in that “city set on a hill,” her foundations are the same for ever; and, unless the Church of England at the reformation destroyed the foundations;—save where she may have “plainly and openly” pulled down any thing which had before-time been built up;—that which was laid, and that which was built remains, and is our heritage at this very day. So great is the absolute and essential difference betweenFORMATIONandREFORMATION, and such the argument in favour of your principle in 1848, from abstract reason and the nature of things![59a]
But further, we are not without an abundance of external proof, if I may so call it, besides this common sense reasoning, shewing that the Church of England at the reformation, if we gather her intentions not from opinions of individual reformers, but from her own authoritative acts, did not mean to adopt a wide and indiscriminate destruction of her previous teaching, anddidmean to keep all that she did not mark to be destroyed. This point was the foundation of a large part of the most learned and able argument of Mr. Badeley before the Committee of Privy Council, by which he asserted, and as it seems to me, proved (although the Court appears to have taken absolutely no notice at all of this part ofhis speech) the certain and positive connection of the Church of England with the previous Church in this country, and with the Church universal, and this, not only by the links of the same apostolical succession, but in the maintenance of a connected doctrine. And the general principle as to antiquity, and the sense of the Church precedent to the reformation, which Mr. Badeley laid down expressly with a view to the matter of the suit in which he was engaged, and in order to apply it immediately to baptism; that same principle, be it observed, is applicable in exactly the same way, and the same fulness to every other article of the faith, unless any where it can be shown that the Church ofEngland at the reformation did “plainly, openly, and dogmatically contradict it.” It would therefore be very much to my present purpose to cite here nearly the whole of this part of Mr. Badeley’s speech, but as you know it well, and can easily refer to it, I shall but extract a few of the more important passages, where the proofs of this principle being the rule of the English Church are given.
“I shall next appeal” Mr. Badeley says, “to antiquity in order to shew more fully that this doctrine for which I contend,” (of course the immediate doctrine which Mr. Badeley had in view, was baptismal regeneration: but his argument reaches, as I have just said, to the full purpose for which I cite it;) “has always been, and must necessarily still be, the doctrine of the Church of England. * * * If there can be any doubt at all about the sense and meaning of our Church, if it can be supposed by any criticism or minute construction, that these Articles and Formularies do leave any question open—do omit in any degree to declare with certainty the doctrine of the Church, resort must be had not to the writings of the reformers, not to the opinions of any individuals, however respectable they may have been; the only appeal can be to the early Church, and the doctrines which that Church professed. That is indisputably the standard to which we are referred, not only by our Prayer Book and our Homilies, but by those who took the most prominent part in the reformation in this country, and it is natural that this should be so, because what was in fact the reformation, and what its object? My friend, Mr. Turner, the other day, spoke of the Church of England in 1552, as being then in itsinfancy: but according to my understanding, it was then at least more than 1200 years old, for we have evidence of British bishops having attended some of the earliest councils. Some are supposed to have been present at the Council of Nicea, and it is positively stated that three attended the Council of Arles, which was prior to that of Nicea. The Church of England, therefore, is an ancient and an apostolic Church, deriving its succession from the primitive Church, and one and the same through all ages. The Reformation was nonew formation, not a creation of anewChurch, but the correction and restoration of an old one; it professed only to repair and reform, not to found or create—and it assumed to do this, according to the doctrines and usages of the primitive Church. The reformers well knew, that if they did not stand upon that ground, they had no resting place for the soles of their feet; they were fully conscious that if they attempted to alter the Church any otherwise than according to its ancient model, it would crumble to pieces altogether, and probably bury them in its ruins. All they professed, was to strengthen it where it was decayed, and to strip off those additions, which have encrusted or grown upon it in the lapse of time, without the authority of the Scripture, or of primitive tradition; but to this they declared that they adhered; they bound themselves down by this rule, and appealed to antiquity for all they did.”[63]
“I shall next appeal” Mr. Badeley says, “to antiquity in order to shew more fully that this doctrine for which I contend,” (of course the immediate doctrine which Mr. Badeley had in view, was baptismal regeneration: but his argument reaches, as I have just said, to the full purpose for which I cite it;) “has always been, and must necessarily still be, the doctrine of the Church of England. * * * If there can be any doubt at all about the sense and meaning of our Church, if it can be supposed by any criticism or minute construction, that these Articles and Formularies do leave any question open—do omit in any degree to declare with certainty the doctrine of the Church, resort must be had not to the writings of the reformers, not to the opinions of any individuals, however respectable they may have been; the only appeal can be to the early Church, and the doctrines which that Church professed. That is indisputably the standard to which we are referred, not only by our Prayer Book and our Homilies, but by those who took the most prominent part in the reformation in this country, and it is natural that this should be so, because what was in fact the reformation, and what its object? My friend, Mr. Turner, the other day, spoke of the Church of England in 1552, as being then in itsinfancy: but according to my understanding, it was then at least more than 1200 years old, for we have evidence of British bishops having attended some of the earliest councils. Some are supposed to have been present at the Council of Nicea, and it is positively stated that three attended the Council of Arles, which was prior to that of Nicea. The Church of England, therefore, is an ancient and an apostolic Church, deriving its succession from the primitive Church, and one and the same through all ages. The Reformation was nonew formation, not a creation of anewChurch, but the correction and restoration of an old one; it professed only to repair and reform, not to found or create—and it assumed to do this, according to the doctrines and usages of the primitive Church. The reformers well knew, that if they did not stand upon that ground, they had no resting place for the soles of their feet; they were fully conscious that if they attempted to alter the Church any otherwise than according to its ancient model, it would crumble to pieces altogether, and probably bury them in its ruins. All they professed, was to strengthen it where it was decayed, and to strip off those additions, which have encrusted or grown upon it in the lapse of time, without the authority of the Scripture, or of primitive tradition; but to this they declared that they adhered; they bound themselves down by this rule, and appealed to antiquity for all they did.”[63]
Then having quoted a passage from Bishop Jewell’s Apology, appealing to antiquity as our Church’s guide,and shewing (to use Mr. Badeley’s words) “that the intention of our reformers in departing from the Church of Rome, was not at all to depart from the doctrine of the Catholic Church,” he goes on to cite confirmatory authority to the same point in even more weighty documents.
“In the preface to the Prayer-book, as well as in the Articles, we have frequent references to the Fathers and the Primitive Church. We have the same in the Homilies; in almost every page they teem with quotations from the Fathers, and support themselves upon the ancient doctrine and the Catholic tradition; and therefore, in inquiring into what was the doctrine of the early Church upon the question now in issue, we are following precisely that course of inquiry, and appealing to that tribunal, which was marked out for us by the reformers themselves. They referred to the primitive doctrine as an indication of their meaning; and of course, if they had departed from that, they would have departed from the Church itself, because the Church, and the faith of the Church, can be but one.”* * * * *“I can show, that at the time of the Reformation there certainly was no intention to depart; and was no real departure in any respect from the doctrine of the early Church, on this or any other matter, certainly not on the Sacrament of Baptism, or upon the Sacraments generally;AND WHATEVER WAS NOT ALTERED AT THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION, REMAINS, AND CONTINUES TO BE THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF THE CHURCH TO THIS DAY.”[64]
“In the preface to the Prayer-book, as well as in the Articles, we have frequent references to the Fathers and the Primitive Church. We have the same in the Homilies; in almost every page they teem with quotations from the Fathers, and support themselves upon the ancient doctrine and the Catholic tradition; and therefore, in inquiring into what was the doctrine of the early Church upon the question now in issue, we are following precisely that course of inquiry, and appealing to that tribunal, which was marked out for us by the reformers themselves. They referred to the primitive doctrine as an indication of their meaning; and of course, if they had departed from that, they would have departed from the Church itself, because the Church, and the faith of the Church, can be but one.”
* * * * *
“I can show, that at the time of the Reformation there certainly was no intention to depart; and was no real departure in any respect from the doctrine of the early Church, on this or any other matter, certainly not on the Sacrament of Baptism, or upon the Sacraments generally;AND WHATEVER WAS NOT ALTERED AT THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION, REMAINS, AND CONTINUES TO BE THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF THE CHURCH TO THIS DAY.”[64]
Again, Mr. Badeley says, “we have authority for looking to antiquity in one or two public documents which are of importance; for in the canons which were made in the year 1571, in that very Convocation which ratified the Thirty-nine Articles, we have this in the directions to preachers:—
“Imprimis vero videbunt, ne quid unquam doceant pro concione quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinæ veteris aut Novi Testamenti,quodque ex illâ ipsâ doctrinâ,Catholici Patres et veteres episcopi collegerint.”—Pp. 100, 101.
“Imprimis vero videbunt, ne quid unquam doceant pro concione quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinæ veteris aut Novi Testamenti,quodque ex illâ ipsâ doctrinâ,Catholici Patres et veteres episcopi collegerint.”—Pp. 100, 101.
There can be no doubt that what the Convocation considered to standnotwith this foundation, they lopped off and pulled down: what, therefore, they left,of what was in their time so taught, is to beso taught still; and remains as the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England.
“Again, we have,” (continues Mr. Badeley, for I know not how to omit these links in his argument, so much are they to the purpose of my own,) “we have, in the directions given to the bishops by the lords of the council in the year 1582, with a view to their disputations with the Jesuits and seminary priests, a similar rule laid down. ‘If the latter shall show any ground of Scripture’ (says this order in council), ‘and wrest it to their sense, you shall call for the interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I., for that in his time began the first claim of the supremacy, &c.’ So that in these we have public directions by authority as to the rule to which parties are to conform,—there is that of Convocation with reference to the clergy in their preaching, and there is this of the council withreference to public controversies and disputations; and therefore there is plenty of authority, as I conceive, for appealing to the early Church, for the Church and State both send us to the same source. No doubt it was the case in all the disputations which were held about the period of the Reformation, to appeal to primitive doctrine and tradition. In one of the statutes of Elizabeth (stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1), there is a direction as to what is to be regarded as heresy, and that is to be judged by the authority of the first four general councils, or any of them, and any other general councils which declare it heresy in the words of Scripture.[66a]We come, therefore,” (thus Mr. Badeley concludes this part of his argument) “under such sanction to the ancient Church, and to primitive and Catholic tradition, and I think we shall see beyond question that these prove the doctrine of baptism, &c.”[66b]
“Again, we have,” (continues Mr. Badeley, for I know not how to omit these links in his argument, so much are they to the purpose of my own,) “we have, in the directions given to the bishops by the lords of the council in the year 1582, with a view to their disputations with the Jesuits and seminary priests, a similar rule laid down. ‘If the latter shall show any ground of Scripture’ (says this order in council), ‘and wrest it to their sense, you shall call for the interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I., for that in his time began the first claim of the supremacy, &c.’ So that in these we have public directions by authority as to the rule to which parties are to conform,—there is that of Convocation with reference to the clergy in their preaching, and there is this of the council withreference to public controversies and disputations; and therefore there is plenty of authority, as I conceive, for appealing to the early Church, for the Church and State both send us to the same source. No doubt it was the case in all the disputations which were held about the period of the Reformation, to appeal to primitive doctrine and tradition. In one of the statutes of Elizabeth (stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1), there is a direction as to what is to be regarded as heresy, and that is to be judged by the authority of the first four general councils, or any of them, and any other general councils which declare it heresy in the words of Scripture.[66a]We come, therefore,” (thus Mr. Badeley concludes this part of his argument) “under such sanction to the ancient Church, and to primitive and Catholic tradition, and I think we shall see beyond question that these prove the doctrine of baptism, &c.”[66b]
What Mr. Badeley cites for the special purpose of his particular case, I conceive holds good, and may be asserted precisely in the same way for the whole range of doctrine which our Church maintains; and with this persuasion it is that I have so largely cited passages from his most lucid speech. This part of his argument, though of course limited in its application by him to the special circumstances in which he stood, and the case then before the Privy Council, is evidently notexclusive; and I think proves thus much at least satisfactorily; that the Church of England at the reformation never intended for a moment to shut out previousdoctrine, (though she might not actually mention and repeatit,) any more than she could have intended to shut out previoushistory. Whatever may have been saidofher, orforher, since, the idea that she was then a new Church; making a beginning for herself, creating herself, as it were, and her doctrine; not being joined to the whole early Church, and not acknowledging her own previous existence, was evidently not only never in her mind, but the exact contradictory was so entirely an essential part of her life and being, that it is everywhere felt and assumed, and the only wonder is, it is as much stated as it is.
I have just said that Mr. Badeley advances these proofs of the character of our Church as to dogmatic teaching for one particular purpose, and in order to support one specific doctrine—baptismal regeneration. To that subject he confines himself in the application of what he had said, and, of course, most properly; because such only was the subject-matter in the appeal on which he was pleading; such the doctrine which, on behalf of his client, the Bishop of Exeter, he was bound to clear. But what I venture to say generally, from all these considerations and proofs as advanced by Mr. Badeley, is this,—that his mode of meeting the attack on the Catholic doctrine of baptism is precisely the just mode, and the right mode for us to meetanyassault upon the faith of the Church of England; because those considerations of the nature of her rule of faith, and those proofs of her appeal to antiquity, and to the unrepealed dogmas of preceding ages, connecting herself with them, and showing her mind to retain the same teaching, are general, and apply not merely to baptism, or to any one doctrine, but to all our doctrines. And this defence,as it appears to me, is not only legitimate but sufficient: at any rate sufficient until specific exceptions are made and particular defects named, and proofs given, (if they may be,) of a contradictory teaching, by reference to the later authoritative expression of our Church’s mind; a position however which, as I shall presently show, you do not yourself assert. One thing further I would here observe before I proceed; that this line of argument and mode of defence of the Catholic doctrine of baptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with this particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to show the Churchdoesnot andnever willacquiesce in the decision of that court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been authoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all that it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case. The court cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side, however it may disregard them. The court is not sitting to try the arguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I suppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not gain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound. What may be justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not accepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an implication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is nothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness; nothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again arise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same, and, much more, before anothertribunal, being weighed, being allowed, and being successful.[69]
Under such sanction then it is that we claim the Catholic teaching of the universal Church, and the teaching of the Church of England prior to the reformation asourdogmatic teaching still, in all points save where it may be shewn (if it may) to be since plainly and expressly contradicted or repealed. And let us observe, more particularly, to what this principle will reach. Mr. Badeley’s beautifully connected statement has given as many grounds to think we know theChurch’smind upon the matter: it has also touched upon the injunction of theStatelooking in the same direction: (to this point, however, I shall have occasion to return). But I say at once, observe to how much doctrine this principle will take us; how much, at the very outset, it will claim and secure for us. Surely,every matter of faith embraced in the first four general councils is retained; for no one I presume will dare to say that the Church of England at the Reformation repealed, or intended to repeal, any single article, canon, or doctrine of those four councils. “Yea, even as it were a thing unreasonable,” says Hooker, “if in civil affairs the king (albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing by their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home, in prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force throughout the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms dependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian religion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought, if either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any respect hath to that whichof old time had been reverently thought of throughout the world, and wherein there is no law of God which forceth us to swerve from the way wherein so many and so holy ages have gone. Wherefore, not without good consideration, the very law itself hath provided,” he continues, quoting the section of the same act of parliament (1 Eliz. c. 1, § 36,) already referred to by Mr. Badeley, “‘that judges ecclesiastical appointed under the king’s commission shall not adjudge for heresy any thing but that which heretofore hath been so adjudged by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general councils, or by some other general council wherein the same hath been declared heresy by the express words of the said canonical Scriptures, or as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the convocation.’ By which words of the law,” Hooker adds as his comment, “who doth not plainly see how that in one branch of proceeding by virtue of the king’s supreme authority, the credit whichthese four general councilshave throughout all churches evermore had, was judged by the makers of the foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be mentioned in that case as a requisite part of the rule wherewith dominion was to be limited.”[71]
The admission, then, of the decrees of these four general councils, which I see not how any man can dispute to be admitted and received by the reformedChurch of England, will surely give us a certain large, definite, important body of theologyfromandbywhich to teach our people; not perhaps all that we may want, explicitly set forth, however implicitly contained, because it was of course not until “emergent heresies” pressed upon the Church that she saw, or could see, in what direction her declaratory acts required to be put forth. But certainly in the adoption of these councils and their decrees, the Church of England both indicates her love and reverence for antiquity; and clears herself from all suspicion of attempting to begin “a new thing” at the reformation; as well as establishes a wide and satisfactory basis, on which to rest her further teaching. Can you yourself deny that so far we build upon a good and sure foundation? Or will you say that, after all this isbuta semblance? that whatever the ecclesiastical appearance or tendency of these matters may have been, the erastian current swept them practically away? Will you say? “Even if I grant you the first four general councils, yet this isall; and this is insufficient; at the reformation, whatever her own wish, the Church was so grievously oppressed by the civil power (as she is now) that all the further links connecting her with the doctrine held previously to 1540 were snapped asunder: the enormous jurisdiction claimed by, and conceded to, and used by, King Henry VIII. swept away that Catholicity which you are bent to shew, and which the Church herself might have been glad to keep.” Will you say? “Whatever may be the vague expressions of some at that time or afterwards appealing to antiquity,yet look at the acts of Parliament of that date, and you will see all this is a delusion, and no real adherence to the prior doctrine is sustainable.” Even this charge I am not afraid to meet. I promised to return in order to consider a little more fully the secular recognition, at the least, non-condemnation of the principle, that whatever previous teaching is “not plainly, openly, and dogmatically contradicted” at the reformation or since, remains to us; and I will endeavour to fulfil my pledge. I think I shall be able to show, that whatever claims of an erastian nature might be made or might be conceded in the sixteenth century (I am not arguing how great they were), yet they did not reach to the point, and were not used to the end, you now suppose, but in God’s good providence over us, left your own principle of 1848 still untouched. By whatever constraint or chance it may seem to man’s eye to have occurred,—with whatever view, or by whatever mind devised, there is something where we should least have expected to find it, in the famous statute called “The Submission of the Clergy,” so much and often lately brought under notice (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which, if it do not expressly prove the point in hand in favour of the Catholicity of the English Church, yet at any rate, to my mind, much supports it; and, at the very least, shows that the law of that day leaves the matter as it found it; and therefore does not militate against the position of our Church as it stands and is maintained in Mr. Badeley’s statement, nor exclude any of the general arguments from abstract reasoning on the point. “Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? unto Cæsar shalt thou go.”
I turn to theSubmissio Cleri—the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. The first section recites that several canons have been made in time past prejudicial to the king’s prerogative as well as to the laws and statutes of the realm; and thereupon refers to the petition of the clergy that the king’s highness with two-and-thirty commissioners may examine, confirm, or abolish such canons, ordinances, and constitutions. It provides also that henceforth the clergy shall not enact or promulge any constitutions or ordinances without the king’s assent; and that convocations “alway shall be assembled by authority of the king’s writ.” The second section empowers the king to name the two-and-thirty commissioners, and makes provision for the supply of the said number in case of the death of any of them. It also further prescribes their duties. Then after sundry enactments in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sections as to the courts and modes of appeal, and “the restraint of appeals” to Rome, the seventh section contains a proviso, thus stated, and commented upon by Lord Coke, in his fourth Institute: “But by the said act of 25 Henry VIII. their jurisdiction and power” (i.e. the clergy’s in convocation) “is much limited and straitened concerning the making new canons; for they must have both licence to make them, and after they be made, the royal assent to allow them, before they be put in execution. But in the end of that act there is an express proviso that such canons as were made before that act, which be not contrariant nor repugnant to the king’s prerogative, the laws statutes or customes of the realm, should be still used and executed as they werebefore the making of that act.”[75]This is Lord Coke’s comment, and it is much to be noted that he should stop where he does in citing the words of the proviso; because, as thus given, no one would entertain a doubt that all previous canons and ordinances, so far from being abrogated, were by this very act specially confirmed, except just in so far as they might be found contrariant or repugnant to the king’s prerogative, or the laws of the realm. It is manifest, too, that this is no oversight (lawyers will smile even at the supposition) on the part of Lord Coke, but that such indeed is his reading of the proviso; for he immediately applies it to a matter which he wishes to show was not binding in law before that time, to bar it, as it were, fromclaimingunder the powers of that very act, which evidently it could not do, unless that proviso were understood to confirm precedent canons. “But before that time,” he continues, “a disme” (i.e. a tenth) “granted by the clergy at the convocation, did not binde the clergy before the king’s royal assent.” The argument of Lord Coke in this place appears to determine the point, that he so read the proviso, as to make it absolutely confirmatory, even under the terms of this very act “for the submission of the clergy and restraint of appeals,” of all “canons, constitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial being already made, which be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customes of this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal,” and that these should, as the proviso directs, “now still be used and executedas they were afore the making of this act.” I repeat that this view of the force of the said proviso, and this method of quoting it, is certainly remarkable—remarkable because there are further words in the latter part of the section appearing to qualify the sense, which yet are wholly passed over by Lord Coke, not merely in his quotation, but actually in his argument. I mean that his argument touching the previous power of the clergy to grant a disme, implies his belief that thegeneralprevious powers of the canon law still prevailed and this, (whether he considered the said disme to infringe the king’s prerogative or not) shews that the remaining apparently qualifying words of the proviso are by him advisedly set aside. Nevertheless, I will here add them, lest, in spite of such authority for the omission, I should be, or seem to be, acting unfairly, and not making the most of the adverse argument. The words I allude to are these: “The previous canons, constitutions, &c. shall now still be used and executed as they were afore the making of this act,till such time as they be viewed,searched or otherwise ordered and determined by the said two-and-thirty persons,or the more part of them, according to the tenor, form, and effect of this present act.”[76]It would no doubt appear from these words, as well as from Section 2 of the act, that there was an intention at that period of reviewing the whole body of the canon law, with a view to the obliteration of everything in the previous enactments which might appear to those commissioners unsound or inconvenient.This design, however, was never carried into effect. I know not how to regard it as other than a special mark of God’s great mercy and gracious goodness to this branch of his Church that it was frustrated. Perhaps it is not quite clear that the powers of these commissioners were intended directly to touch doctrine, or to reach beyond the abolition of canons and constitutions appearing to be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm, though I think the terms employed embrace a wider field, and at any rate in the temper of that day, might very probably have been understood and used to a wider purpose. “Great and manifold” indeed would have been the perils attendant on so sweeping a reformation of all the previous doctrine and discipline received by the English Church; and not without a trembling thankfulness as well as, to my mind, a heart-felt acknowledgment of the divine mercy, are we to think of our escape from so great a danger. To have had only so much of the laws and usages, doctrine and discipline of the primitive Church, or of the distinctive teaching of our own Church previous to the passing of this act, as such a board of commissioners might have thought good to leave us, would indeed have been to be put to the utmost hazard as to the measure of dogmatic teaching left us at all, and to the greatest risk of our being cut off from Catholic antiquity altogether. Of course even then, the mere act of parliament, and its authority to the commission could not have effected this. The Church might, theoretically at any rate, have broken from the bondage, and severing her connexion with the State at whatevercost, have preserved her purity and freedom.[78a]But, considering how little likely any such resistance appears to have been, if that commission’s work had been carried out, we may well thank “the Lord our defence,” that in another mode we were delivered from the danger; and that although in the reign of King Edward VI. the two and thirty persons (at any rate one and thirty of them) were appointed, yet they never accomplished the review in question. “It is not necessary,” says Mr. Gladstone, “to discuss the wisdom or propriety of this petition of the clergy,” (i.e. to have such a commission appointed) “since the enactments passed in consequence of it never took final effect; and however material they may be as illustrating the spirit and tendencies of the day, they have not in any direct manner entered into the constitution of the English Church.”[78b]“The review of the laws ecclesiastical, indeed,” he says again in a further passage, “has no longer any effect for us, as the scheme ultimately failed of effect, and has now no legal or practical being.”[78c]It is not, indeed, that the whole act is repealed. As we well know this is not the case. Itwasrepealed by the 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, but revived by the 1 Eliz. c. 1, so that, if it bind some things upon us now which the Church might wish otherwise, we yethave the advantage of that proviso in its last section, establishing previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England, (with the exception of such as may be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws,)untila contingency should arise, which has never been fulfilled. That it never was fulfilled, may perhaps explain Lord Coke’s comment upon the proviso in question as an absolute assertion of the previous canon law, and his having apparently passed over as entire surplusage the, at first sight, qualifying words with which it concludes. And thus we may see there is an actual statute of the realm declaring, however unintentionally, yet really and practically, the authority, so far as statutes can declare it, of that very rule of the Church’s teaching previous to 1540, which you yourself so happily, as it seems to me, explained and enforced in 1848. Thus the very act of parliament, and the very proviso in it which threatened to be the destruction of the Catholic character of our Church, (i.e. if those commissioners had done the work contemplated,) become not only a witness in its favour, but actually declaratory by law of its connection with the Church previously existing. Henry VIII., and his act “for the submission of the clergy,” become the one,—really “Defender of the Faith,” and the other,—so far as the temporality can effect it, absolutely a charter, securing the Church’s dogmatic teaching by legally binding upon us the general body of the canons and constitutions, ordinances and synodals provincial of the previous ages. Surely we should be slow to say it is a straining of the eye of faith if herein it seems to see an accomplishment of the prophet’s word, “No weaponthat is formed against Thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against Thee in judgment, Thou shalt condemn: This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”
I have spoken of the proviso in this act of parliament (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19) as confirming generally the canons precedent to its enactment. Of course I have not forgotten that the statute itself makes two exceptions, or rather, excepts two classes of canons and constitutions from that confirmation. 1. Such as may be “contrariant or repugnant to the laws and customes of the realm.” 2. Such as may be “to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal.” It may be well to pause a few moments, just to point out, though it is so plain it will require only to be mentioned to be allowed, that these limitations in no wise affect the argument as to the dogmatic teaching of the Church on doctrine. They point evidently to the claims of the papacy, and the powers of the supremacy. Indirectly, no doubt, the question of the supremacy may come toaffectdoctrine, as we plainly see at this time, but I mean that, as to previous canons upon doctrine, properly so called, these limitations of the act do not touch our assertion, that they remain as they were, except they may be shown to be plainly and openly repealed. Thus the two exceptions made have no bearing upon those great doctrinal points, whereon you and I alike desiderate dogmatic teaching; for no man will contend that the doctrine of the Church Catholic on baptism, on justification, on confirmation, on the holy eucharist, or on absolution, though carried ever so far, will in any wise clash with the king’s prerogative, (“that only prerogativewhich we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself:”) nor are we asking that any doctrine shall be received which may be,if it be, repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm. All that we assert is, that where previous canons be not so, (and we fully believe those for which we contend do not come into collision with either law or prerogative at all,) and where the Church has not herself directly annulled them, there these same doctrines remain, as they have ever been received by the Church Catholic, and by the Church of England as a branch thereof;—as indeed she has, and had received them from primitive times and sources;—as she had accepted, guarded, and enforced them prior to the year 1540.
Of course in matters of law and legal construction I desire to speak with all deference and submission. Here, less than any where, should I wish to argue with over-confidence. I trust I shall not be doing so, if I sum up this part of my argument by saying, that it appears to me we are entitled to believe that the proviso in the 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 (the condition stated in the “until,” &c. never having been fulfilled), either actually asserts the force of the general body of previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England; or, at any rate, and at the very least, that it offers no bar, even secularly, to the general reasons as stated before, from common sense and the nature of things, as well as from the Church’s own appeals to previous teaching that those canons must remain in force, and that, to use again Mr. Badeley’s words: “Whatever was not altered at the period of the Reformation,remains and continuesto be the doctrine and law of the Church to this day.”[82]
IV. I have said that there appears to be another confirmation of this view, from the consideration of what the Church of England would deprive herself of, if the contrary principle were to be carried out, and her existence dated only from the sixteenth century, and if it were ruled that nothing could belong to her faith and doctrine, but what was then determined and in words set down. It will not be necessary to enlarge upon this topic, but a few instances it may be well to give.
What then could we say is the teaching of our Church upon the inspiration of Scripture, if we had no appeal to ancient law, usage, or belief? The whole, which it was thought necessary to declare upon this matter at the reformation, is contained in the sixth Article, and that deals not with the inspiration of Scripture at all, a point not in dispute, but with its sufficiency, as containing all things necessary to salvation, as opposed to a particular view of tradition. That article also enumerates the canonical books, and speaks of their “authority;” (the Church also, we may remember, is said to have “authority,” in another article, but many who assent to that would scruple perhaps to say they believe in her inspiration); and I do not think any man can say that there is in the article in question any declaration either that those books which are canonical are inspired, or those which are uncanonical are uninspired; not of course, in the least, that it was intendedto throw a doubt upon the inspiration of the Scriptures, but that the articles, and even the formularies of the Church of England were not drawn up to declare all points of belief, because the Church unhesitatingly threw herself upon all previous doctrine, except where in any particular case she saw cause to alter, correct, or repeal. Just in the same way consider many other points. What strict belief should we have, upon the other hypothesis, as to the existence and power of evil spirits; or the eternity of punishment; or what rule for the observance of the Lord’s Day (save just as any other holy-day); or what mode of ascertaining the Church’s mind upon very many other subjects which have arisen or may arise, especially with regard to the pantheistic tendencies and theories of modern times, not treated of because utterly unknown and uncontemplated in the sixteenth century, if we were tied down to the mere wording of the reformation documents, but which are all of them capable of refutation in the broad expanse of doctrine preserved from the beginning! It will, I think, be plain to any one who will pursue this subject into its details, that the connexion of our Church with the Church previous to the reformation, is a fact necessarily to be assumed by us all, unless we would bring the whole question of her doctrine into a manifestly false position. To suppose this connexion to be wholly dissolved, is in truth such an evident reductio ad absurdum, as amounts to a full proof that no party of men, I do not say of great ability, but of an ordinary reason, could have intended to adopt that theory. Therefore it is impossible to believe that our reformers, in drawing up articles of religion, “toavoid diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true religion,” and which treated of course of the diversities which then prevailed; and in putting forth practical offices of devotion, could, I say, have designed to ignore all that previous body of doctrine, which happened not to come into direct mention in those documents. If they had not purposed to retain the provincial ordinances of their own country, they might be expected plainly to have said so; but even if they had done this, theymusthave cast themselves upon the general teaching of the Church Universal, in a manner from which after all we should have nothing to fear, or, they would have left the Church they were reforming in such a bareness and nakedness of doctrine altogether, as no opponent of the Catholic character of our Church has ever pretended to imagine or assert. On this ground therefore, once more, I cannot but believe that the conclusion which you held and so lucidly expressed in 1848 is tenable and sound; and therefore that what we are still bound to teach, is the exclusive doctrine of the Church Catholic, unless the further explications on any matter at the reformation render it not merely ambiguous, as far as the documents of the reformation are themselves concerned, (this is insufficient to harm us, and nothing to the purpose,) but positively heretical, and absolutely contrariant to “the faith once delivered to the saints.”
You will see what I mean by saying that mere ambiguity in our reformation documents will not harm us, is this, that we have a prior and superior rule to appeal to, (if the preceding argument be sound,) by which such ambiguity will be corrected. No onepretends there can be any hurtful ambiguity or insufficiency in the connected teaching of the Church Catholic; and therefore wheresoever we may take refuge in that to cover any omissions or defects, if such there be, on essential doctrine in our later rule, we shall take no damage. The only thing which would really harm us, would be absolute contradiction of the truth, or positive assertion that such or such essential points were intended to be left vague and ambiguous. But this would be harmful, because in fact such declarations would not be merely declarations of vagueness or ambiguity, but would be heresy; would not be to assert, of two conflicting doctrines, that the Church teachesboth, but, in fact, to rule that she teachesneither. No one however will, I think, pretend to say that the Church of England has said any where, in so many words, that she means to leave open such or such a doctrine, which the Church Catholic has closed. Perhaps you will say, “Not in so many words:—but by inference she does it; by her undecided manner where she has dealt with the topic, by the laxity which her words too evidently permit, by the known bias and opinions of many of those who framed them.” This, however, is just what I have been saying amounts to nothing against the previous unrepealed doctrine to which she is to be referred, and the consent of Catholic antiquity, by which she is really bound. I do assertsucha repeal, if it be no more, is no repeal at all.Nostatute law can be so set aside, and assuredly not this, the law of Christ and his Church. If, indeed, wehad onlywhat the Reformation left us; if we were constrained to think allneedful doctrine was there treated, and fully treated of; if any document of authority of that period had declared that no previous doctrine was admissible, unless then repeated and specially recognized; that nothing was important as a matter of faith beyond what the writings of that time included in their summaries, or embraced in their definitions; if the reformation had thus pronounced itselfaὐτάpχης, and thus separated its Church and doctrine from primitive antiquity and the faith of Christendom, then indeed should we see that we were “in evil case,” to be required “to make bricks,” and yet to have “no straw given us.” But, since there is no such document, and no plausible evidence of even any such design, we trust we may put aside all fear that we are in this dilemma, and still build up our doctrine upon the sure foundation of “that which hath been from the beginning.”
Will you say? “I allow you have the old teaching upon points not mentioned at the reformation, but on no others: where any thing is treated of at all, it is definitely settled by whatever is set down; and thereupon no regard must be paid to any complement of doctrine derived from earlier teaching.” I answer, on what authority are we to receive this arbitrary distinction? Surely not upon the shewing of any direct evidence: if so, produce it. Not on the implied injunction or animus of the Church at the reformation, for she is full of appeals to precedent teaching on all points. Not on that of the state, for, as I have been shewing, at the very least, and if it do not enjoin the direct contrary, it enforces no such prohibition. And if the reformers of the ecclesiasticalpolity of that day intended any such restriction in their appeals to earlier times, (which I do not think they did) yet in that case, as it appears to me, God has overruled their intention, and brought to nought their counsel, by their having left no record to bind any man’s conscience in the Church of England to such a denial of Catholic theology. Andwhoshall say, if they “intended to include” but “did not include”, the latitudinarian rule;[87]if these things be so indeed, it was not for this very purpose they have fallen out after such a fashion; that even after so many practical abuses as we know have crept in among us, after so many years when the ancient landmarks have been well nigh removed from sight, after so much deadness of heart among mere formal religionists, and so much running after novelties among the more earnest, enthusiastic, or self-willed, after all these things, and after so long a period of darkness on the land, yet now when there has been again a brightening, an awakening, “a zeal” more “according to knowledge,” a regard to antiquity, and a longing for the religion of apostles and apostolic men of old time, that now we might indeedhave thatto fall back upon which should prove our safety: might find the landmarks were only buried, not removed: might experience indeed and in truth that “heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and might in that morning’s light be able to clear the path again which leadeth “into all truth,” and so walk onward into the “bright shining of the perfect day.”
Here too you will perceive why I said in the earlypart of this letter that it was important to state plainlywhatit was to which I had committed myself with respect to the animus of the reformers, and that this matter of intention being clearly understood, would be found to have a necessary bearing upon our present subject as we proceeded. If I had asserted the authority of the animus of the reformers to explain the meaning of the documents they put forth, interminable questions might be raised as to the subjects on which there could or could not be considered enough of ambiguity to allow the appeal to the previous Church. But, as I have before explained, not any where intending to assert that the sense of those documents was to be determined by the intentions or opinions of their framers, I trust I am in no dilemma here when I cannot admit the animus of the reformers, even if it were proved to have been to exclude such appeals, to be a reason for their exclusion. Even if the animus of ever so large a body of them could be absolutely shewn to have been to conciliate all parties by leaving open questions on essential doctrines in the formularies they put forth; if even they believed of themselves they had attained this end, yet as they forgot (if we may use the term) to break asunder the bond which connected the Church of England at that date with herself in the preceding ages, and with the Church Catholic, they left us all we want, to maintain the one faith once delivered, the faith of Christ our Lord, and of his Church from the beginning. If this result came by inadvertence, (as perhapstheymight say) but of God’s great mercy, and the stretching forth of his arm over us, (as I should affirm) i.e. not by the oversight of man, but by the overseeing ofGod, still, any way, the rule of a Catholic theology has been retained, and their counsel has been brought to nought, so as merely to give us, as perhaps I may allow, from one point of view thesemblance, but in no wise therealityof a lax rule of faith.
There is one argument indeed which, if it could be supported, might prove the rule to be really lax. I mean if it might be maintained with truth, that there are declarations in our articles, or doctrines in our formularies not merely ambiguous, or less clearly defined on the Catholic side than we might wish, but actually repugnant to the faith and contradictory to it. Of course this would be a fatal objection to the whole line of argument I have been using; for it would show, so far at any rate, a repeal of the previous doctrine, and preclude our gaining that reference to it on which I have been insisting. But I shall need take no great time or toil to show that this is not the case. You grant me the point yourself, not merely in your treatise on absolution, in 1848, but in the very letter to which I am now replying. Thus you concede it in the passage already quoted, and even in the very charge you make—“I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and teaches, &c.;’ but—that the Church of England nowsuffers and permitsto be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the Prayer Book, not ‘mustbe understood,’ but ‘maybe understood,’ to mean all that was meant before the year 1540.”[89]Yourcharge against the present state of the Church, you will observe isno morethan that questions are left open; it is not that heresy is exclusively maintained or enforced. Again, to the same purport are the following passages: “Remember, I am in no degree withdrawing from the full extent of the assertion, repeated more than once, that the Church of England leaves ‘open’ so many deep and important questions.”[90a]So, in another passage, where you speak of the Eucharistic sacrifice—“Again I remind you that I am very far from saying now that the Catholic doctrine is denied and repudiated . . . for I have for many years taught (and as you know, have lately published in a sermon) that in the blessed Eucharist the body and the blood of our Lord are truly offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.”[90b]It is plain you do not think this denied by the English Church; but your complaint is, that the articles and liturgy do not peremptorily enforce it.
Again, in commenting upon the “real presence,” and the words of the Catechism, that the body and blood are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful, you say, “At the risk of weary repetition, let me once more say, that of course this place of the Catechism does not assert that the body and blood of Christ are not verily and indeed taken by all; and if there were in other places of our formularies anything even approaching to a statement of the reality of the presence of our blessed Lord in the consecrated bread and wine, independentlyof any qualifications or dispositions in the soul of the receiver, we might be able to show at once and distinctly that these passages in the liturgy and catechism cannot justly mean what they are generally brought forward to prove.”[91]I need not multiply quotations on this head, though I believe I have not nearly exhausted the passages I might cite. In short, your whole letter merely charges the heresy of “open questions” upon our Church, not the heresy of our being forbidden on any point to teach the catholic truth. And I say again, if this be all, we fall back at once upon your own former principle, though now by you abandoned and forsaken. We say, that we are not left to these the documents of the reformation alone, and therefore, if there are in them deficiencies merely negative, which is all your charge, we can supply the necessary teaching from those deeper wells of truth from which, whether intentionally or otherwise, the promoters and managers of the reformation have not debarred us. Neither the Church nor State enactments hinder, as I contend, this appeal; and observe,if weMAYmake it,weMUST. We are not at liberty to use it if we please, and discard it if we please, for it is “the voice of the Church of England,”—a voice, as I firmly believe, which, if duly listened for, and scrupulously obeyed, will clear up every open question which the Church Catholic demands should be cleared up, and will answer every charge which a shallow observation of only the later documents, of the reformation, might bring against us. So fair and strong from theseconsiderations do the grounds of hope and confidence appear, that I am tempted to paraphrase, though in a contradictory sense, one of the most despairing pages of your letter. You argue, “It is not necessary to pretend to know the dealings of Almighty God with men and nations so accurately, as to attempt to lay one’s finger upon the one, two, or three special acts which may avail to cut off any portion of the one holy Catholic Church;”[92a]and then you further bid us think whether with us the actual cutting off may not have been at the reformation, although a certain life may have been found for a time even in the severed limb. I am not concerned indeed to deny that there may have been much in the reformation to wound the branch; but I also maintain that its connection with the parent stem never having been severed, the life remains, and the wound may be wholly healed.[92b]‘As regards the Church of England in particular, it may be that the so-called reformation contained—perhaps unknown to the original promoters of it’—precious ‘seeds’ of good ‘to bring in a certain though slow’ revival of all vital powers weakened by so great a shock; ‘and that then either’ old principles were secretly preserved,which in their after development would most surely avail to the restoration of all essential truths, or new principles were, unintentionally perhaps, so guarded and circumscribed that ‘the gradual course of time,’ as they came to be applied, would show them to be harmless. ‘Or, once more, it may be with portions of the Church Catholic as with the vine her mysterious type. “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” were the words of our blessed Lord, speaking of his body the Church, of which he is himself the Head. And we may well conceive how a branch,’ partially injured by some disease or canker, may suffer from the pruning-knife which endeavours to eradicate it; and yet in a period,—longer or shorter, as the case may be,—never having been severed from the stem, but deriving fromITthe fulness of its life and sap, may wholly recover from the wound which the knife has made, and after a time flourish again in its pristine vigour, even as in its days of early youth, before any corruption had laid hold upon it, and bring forth fruit again an hundredfold for its master’s use; though requiring time to heal its wound, yet certain to be restored, if no fresh accident befall it, because of its union with the parent tree.’