The kingdom of Christ; or, Hints on the principles, ordinances, and constitution of the Catholic church, in letters to a member of the Society of Friends

Front matter

THE UNIVERSITY

Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below.

.IS FEB 1915

Contents

part {Continued.)

CHAPTER IV Section II. — The Creeds.

PAGE

Section III. — Forms of Worship

Varieties of worship in different countries . . . . .19 The existence of common Liturgies belonging to different nations,

a strange fact ......... 20

Explicable only upon the hypothesis, that there is a spiritual and

universal kingdom ........ 20

Quaker objection to Liturgies — Prayer is given by the Spirit,

prepared forms make it the utterance of the will and reason

Objection of the pure Protestant — " P'orms of Prayer cannot be

adapted to changes of circumstances and individual feeling " 25 vii viii Contents

PAGE

Objection of the modern Philosopher — *'The idea of Worship is

inconsistent with the immutabihty and perfection of God " . 31

The Romish System — Romish Prayers not distinguished from

Catholic Prayers by a chronological line .... 38

True distinction — The one treats the Church as if she were admitted into the presence of God, the other as if she were not 39

Section IV. — The Eucharist

Evidence of permanency and universality in this sign ... 43 Scripture explanation of it . . . . * . . . .45

Inference — This Sacrament is an actual and not an imaginary bond between God and man, and fulfils the idea of the Jewish Sac7Hfices . . 47

Quaker Objection — ''The Sacrifice required of Christians is real

and personal — the Eucharist Sacrifice is formal and fantastic " 49

Division of Protestant Objections ...... 54

General Objection — " If any sacrificial character be imputed to the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was not complete" ....... • • • 55

Zuinglian Doctrine — "This Sacrament is merely the memorial of

a past Transaction "... 58

The Calvinistical Doctrine — ''There is a real presence in the

Sacrament to those who believe " 64

Lutheran Doctrine — " The divine body and blood are consub-

stantiated with the elements 65

Rationalistic Objection — "The Christian mysteries are only a

continuation of the old heathen mysteries" ... 67

The Romish System — The Romish doctrine respecting the eucharistic sacrifice and respecting transubstantiation, is in more direct opposition to the Catholic idea of this Sacrament, than it is to the doctrine of the pure Protestants . . ; 76

Participation of the Spiritual body practically denied by the

Priesthood degraded by the Romanist 80

Section V.— The Ministry. Character commonly imputed to a Sacerdotal caste — Spirit of

Domination — Disposition to enslave — Narrowness . . 82

Idea of the Christian Ministry — All who belong to this caste, servants — Its principal office, absolving or setting free — Its highest office, a witness to the universality of the Church . 83

Contents ix

PAGE

Connexion of this sign with the general idea of a Spiritual

How expounded in the New Testament ..... 88

Inference. — ''^ A Ministry grou7ided upon an Episcopal order ^ a7td possessing an absolving power ^ is a per7nanent institution of the Christian Church'" . . . . . . -91

Quaker Objections — ** A true minister is made such by an inward call" — '*The idea of succession belonged to the Old Dispensation " — A minister is fitted for his work by the teaching of the Spirit " 92

Presbyterian Objections — "Christ is the only Bishop of His Church" — "The Bishop is not in Scripture distinguished from the Presbyter" — "The Episcopal order has introduced corruption and secularity into the Church " .... 109

Objections to the absolving power in Ministers — **The minister sets the conscience free by preaching ; when he tries to • absolve in any other sense, he usurps the power of his Master" 116

Objection of the followers of Mr. Irving — "There should be an

order of Apostles superior to that of Bishops " . . .120

Philosophical Objections — "Men of letters and of science are the

The Romish System — The Romish System maintains a vicarial, the Catholic Church a representative priesthood — These two ideas are in direct contradiction to each other . . .130

How the Romanist has destroyed the idea of absolution by his

vicarial doctrine . . . . . . . . .132

How he has set at nought the Episcopacy . . . . -134

How he has destroyed the connexion between the Jewish and

Christian economy . . . . . . . .136

Section VI. — The Scriptures

The Scriptures interpret the other signs of the Spiritual Kingdom,

but are also themselves signs of it . . . . -137

The Canon explained by looking at the Scriptures in this light . 138 Different methods of interpreting them reconciled . . -139 The question, Where are the interpreters of the book to be found ?

The question, How criticism can be applied to the Scriptures?

considered 141

X Contents

PAGE

The question of inspiration, and of the relation of Scriptures

to other books, considered ....... 148

The question of miracles considered . . . . . .156

The question of the Gospel narratives considered . . . 160 The Romish System — The Romish doctrine respecting the concealment of the Scriptures from the Laity — The inspiration and miracles of particular men, and the lives of particular saints, considered in reference to this subject . . . . .164

CHAPTER V

ON THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH AND NATIONAL BODIES INTRODUCTORY

Different views as to the permanence of the Jewish institutions 171 The Ten Commandments . . . . . . . .172

Illustration of these commandments from Pagan history . .174 The institutions to which these commandments refer, exist in

Modern Europe . .176

They ma.y he jiationa/ insiitutions Sind yet divine . . .177 Punishments, Oaths, War, belong to the religion of the Jewish

State 178

And of every heathen State 179

They cannot belong to our Dispensation if they are prohibited in

the New Testament — They may belong to it, though they are

not enjoined in the New Testament . , . . .180 The relation between Spiritual and National life exhibited in the

Old Testament ......... 182

Exhibited in Pagan history — Lost under the Roman empire . 183 The Christian Kingdom felt to be incompatible with this empire . 184 Attempted union with it . . . . . . . .184

Overthrow of the Roman empire, and gradual rise of national

societies under the influence of the Church . . . .185

Section L— Objections of the Quakers.

The Sermon on the Mount annuls the laws of the old dispensation" 190

A national provision for ministers is unchristian " . . . 220

Contents xi

PAGE

Section II.— The Pure Theocratist.

"The Nation is to use its sword for religious purposes" — The

Covenanter — The Millennarian — The N on -juror . . . 223

Section III.— The Separatists. ' ' The union of the Church with the State is the union of an anti-secular with a secular body " 227

Section IV.— The Patrician.

The golden age of the Church was that which existed before the rise of national life in Europe" 231

Section V. — The Modern Statesman.

*'If the Church and the nations be united according to the idea set forth in this chapter, the education of each nation must belong to the Church — Such a pretence was always dangerous, is now intolerable " 250

Section VI. — The Modern Interpreters of Prophecy.

** The constitution of Society cannot be right and divine now, for Christ at His second coming will make all things new " — **The Jewish nation is tke divine nation" — **The Latin Church is apostate, and will be cut off" . . . . 264 part

THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE SYSTEMS WHICH DIVIDE IT

Chapter I

introductory

HOW far this subject is connected with those previously discussed

What the inquiries of the English Churchman ought to be . . 277 xii

Contents

PAGE

Section I.— Do the Signs of a Universal and Spiritual Constitution exist in England? All the Catholic institutions exist here 278

The meaning attached to these deduced from the Liturgy — The meaning of the Liturgy from the complaints of those who object to it . . . . . . . . . . 279

The relative claims of the two sets of persons in England who

call themselves Catholics, to represent the Church . . 286

The Articles — The first division of them sets aside the Calvinistic system — The second division the Romish — The Calvinistica) principle asserted in the one as the Catholic is in the other . 288

Section IL— Does the Universal Church in England exist

APART from its CiVIL INSTITUTIONS IN UNION V^ITH THEM?

The answer to this question unanimous ..... 291

The nature of the union determined from history . . . 292

How affected by the Reformation ...... 293

How affected by subsequent events . . . . . . 294

Section HI. — What is the Form of Character which belongs

ESPECIALLY TO ENGLISHMEN ? To WHAT DEPRAVATION IS IT

LIABLE?

The ordinary answer that Englishmen are essentially political^

We cannot throw ofi^ this character ...... 299

That part of our literature is the noblest which exhibits it most

It is not unfavourable to the highest virtue and devotion . . 300

It belongs equally to all parties ....... 302

How it was depraved in the period between the English and the

French Revolution ........ 303

Form which it assumed in the reign of George III. . . . 304

Attempt to discover a substitute for it . . . . . 305

Chapter II The English Systems

Section I.— The Liberal System— The Evangelical System— The High Church or Catholic System.

The Liberal protest against English orthodoxy—*' It is opposed

to all improvement and comprehension " . . . . 305

Contents xiii

PAGE

The Evangelical protest against it — " It substitutes conduct for

faith " 306

The Catholic protest against it — " It confounds the Church with

the civil power 306

Section II.— Reflections on these Systems and on our Position generally

Importance not of one, but of all these protests .... 307 Value and truth of the Liberal principle ; it is contradicted by the

Liberal system ......... 308

Value and truth of the Evangelical principle ; it is contradicted

by the Evangelical system ....... 309

Value and truth of the Catholic principle ; it is contradicted by

the Catholic system . . . . . . . .310

Mutual charges of these parties, how far true . . . "313 How they may be made useful to our old English feeling — How

they actually threaten to destroy it . . . . .314 How an English Churchman may serve his country without

belonging to a party . . . . . . . -319

Note on the Athanasian Creed ....... 333

CHAPTER IV.— (Continued.) THE SIGNS OF A UNIVERSAL AND SPIRITUAL SOCIETY

Section II. — The Creeds.

In the last section I defended my view of Baptism as the sign of admission into a Spiritual and Universal Kingdom, grounded upon our Lord's incarnation, and ultimately resting upon the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, against the different Quaker, Protestant, Philosophical, and Romanist theories, which are current respecting it. But I have very much failed of my purpose, if I have not led the reader to observe that Baptism, according to this idea of it, is also the justification of many of those Quaker, Protestant, Philosophical principles, which were considered in the first part; one step towards the satisfaction of that great idea of a Church, one, indivisible, and imperishable, to which the Romanist clings with such honourable tenacity.

That man is a creature prone to sense, rising above it by virtue of a union with an invisible Teacher, is the doctrine of Quakerism. Baptism embodies that doctrine, and converts it, as Fox wished that it should be converted, from a mere doctrine into a living fact. The only foundation, says the Calvinist, for faithful action and for sound hope, is the belief that we are God's elect children. Baptism offers to men that foundation; it tells them that they are chosen of God, and precious. It makes this foundation, what Calvin and all earnest Calvinists have felt that it ought to be, not dependent upon our feelings, apprehensions, and discoveries, but on the will and word of God. At the same time the distinction which it draws between the

VOL. II. B new and the old man, the man in Christ who alone can be raised and glorified, and the old man which is to be utterly abolished, is a far finer, clearer, more practical distinction than any which the exclusive Calvinist has been able to reach. It denounces the unclean living into which the believer in an absolute separate election for him is in such danger of falling, as absolutely incompatible with the knowledge and enjoyment of God which is eternal life; and yet it does not treat any living man as lying beyond the pale of God's covenant. Philosophers say that man can only be that or do that which is according to his constitution ; he cannot be made by some miraculous process something else than he is ; or, if he can, that power must be an injurious one. Baptism declares man's true and right constitution to be that of union with God, and separation from Him to be a violation of that only order according to which, as reason and experience alike show, he can live. It is a fact that men are living anomalously; it is their own testimony that in doing so they are following their natures. Baptism declares that those who will are taken out of that inconsistent condition to which they are prone, and are taken into a reasonable condition, in which they may live so long as they remember the covenant of God. Finally, Romanism demands that by some direct, visible, permanent token, which all may acknowledge, it shall be felt that God has established the true. Divine, Catholic body upon earth ; that it is the same from age to age; that the members are brought under a condition of Divine and spiritual discipline, are invested with mighty privileges, are laid under mighty responsibilities, are trained for a high and glorious condition. Of this demand. Baptism is the //"accomplishment, in a larger, fuller sense, than the ^ Romanist will at all admit. By this sign we claim him, and hundreds of thousands in the East and West, whom he has anathematized, to be members of the Church and body of Christ; by this sign we protest against him and them, when by any acts or any theories they degrade the spirituality, or narrow the universality, of that fellowship into which they have been admitted, and so (as far as in them lies) make void the covenant and the purpose of God.

I wish now to consider whether there be any other notorious facts which can only be explained on the same principle as this of the existence of Baptism ; facts appearing- on the face of them to import that there is a spiritual and universal constitution of society for mankind ; facts denied to have that significance by a number of warring parties ; facts which establish their claim to be what they seem to be, by the help which they afford us in justifying and realising the leading principles of each of these parties, and in reconciling them with each other. The first which presents itself is this : —

There is actually found at this present day, in every Christian country, a certain document called a Creed. It is not necessary to inquire minutely at what time it was formed. Let it be admitted that there is an obscurity over its origin ; that we cannot say who put it into that shape in which we now see it. From whatever quarter it may have come, here it is. It has lasted through a great many storms and revolutions. The Roman empire has passed away; modern European society has risen out of its ruins. Political systems have been established and overthrown ; religious systems have been established and overthrown. Even the physical world has undergone mighty alterations, and our conception of its laws is altogether changed. The very languages which were spoken in all parts of the world when the Gospel was first preached, have given place to others; but this, I believe,'' remains. It is substantially what it was, to say the very least, sixteen hundred years ago. During that time it has not been lying hid in the closet of some antiquarian. It has been repeated by the peasants and children of the different lands into which it has come. It has been given to them as a record of facts with which they had as much to do as any noble. In most parts of Europe it has been repeated publicly every day in the year; and though it has been thus hawked about, and, as men would say, vulgarised, the most earnest and thoughtful men in different countries, different periods, different stages of civilisation, have felt that it connected itself with the most permanent part of their being-, that it had to do with each of them personally, and that it was the symbol of that humanity which they shared with their brethren. Reformers who have been engaged in conflict with all the prevailing systems of their age, have gone back to this old form of words, and have said that they lived to reassert the truths which it embodied. Men on sick beds, martyrs at the stake, have said that because they held it fast, they could look death in the face. And, to sink much lower, yet to say what may strike many as far more wonderful, there are many in this day, who, having asked the different philosophers of their own and of past times what they could do in helping them to understand the world, to fight against its evils, to love their fellow-men, are ready to declare that in this child's creed they have found the secret which these philosophers could not give them, and which, by God's grace, they shall not take away from them.

Now a man who has noticed these facts, and has settled it in his mind that, whatever they mean, they must mean something, would certainly wish to inquire into the nature of this document which has been diffused so widely, has lasted so long, and has seemed to so many different persons of so much value. He will find, I think, that it differs from all the digests of doctrines, whether religious or philosophical, which he has ever seen. A man is speaking in it. The form of it is, I believe. That which is believed in is not a certain scheme of divinity, but a name — a Father, who has made the heaven and the earth : His Son, our Lord, who has been conceived, born, and died, and been buried, and gone down into hell, who has ascended, and is at the right hand of God, who will come to judge the world : a Holy Spirit who has established a holy universal Church, who makes men a communion of saints, who is the witness and power whereby they receive forgiveness of sins, who shall quicken their mortal bodies, who enables them to receive everlasting life. The Creed is evidently an act of alleg-iance or affiance; and since it has ever been connected with Baptism, one must suppose that from Baptism it derives its interpretation. If by that act we are acknowledged as spiritual creatures, united to a spiritual Being, by this act we claim our spiritual position, we assert our union with that Being. The name into which we are adopted there, is the name we confess here. Those acts which, having been done for all mankind, were the warrant for our particular admission into the covenant, are the acts which we here proclaim to be the warrant of our faith and our fellowship. So far the form is consistent with its apparent object. But is it also consistent with the idea of Christ's kingdom which the Bible develops to us? There we found the primary postulate of such a kingdom to be a condescension of God to man, a cognizance taken of the creature by the Creator; the second, an apprehension of God by men, a recognition of the Creator by the creature. By grace are ye saved; by faith are ye saved. The position is freely given ; a position of union and fellowship with another, a position of self-renunciation ; the power is given wherewith to claim it : then comes the claim itself. Such seems to be the testimony of Scripture : and the relation in which the Creed stands to Baptism, and their common relation to that name and that kingdom which Scripture is revealing, surely expounds, in a remarkable way, that testimony.

But there is another creed possessing apparently equal authority with the one of which I have spoken, adopted perhaps into earlier use in the Eastern part of Christendom, and recognised by the Western ever since the age of Constantine. If it should be found that these two creeds clash with each other, or that they are not constructed upon the same principle, or that they do not both connect themselves with the idea of which we have spoken, the evidence from the preservation of either would certainly be weakened. Or if, these differences not appearing, it should seem that one could be conveniently substituted for the other, that there Is nothing distinct and peculiar in each, one might be puzzled to account for the existence of both, at least as universal symbols. To see whether any of these objections apply, I would urge the reader to a thoughtful com^parison of the two documents. First I would ask him whether in reading that which we call the Apostles' Creed, considering it as a declaration of the name into which he is baptized, he do not feel that it is meant to proclaim the distinct personality of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, as signified by certain relations in which they have been manifested to men? Then whether another question do not arise in his mind, which he may perceive from history has arisen also in other men's minds : — Is there not a more mysterious and awful relation implied and prefigured in these? Does not the name express such a relation? Is not the knowledge of this, as the ground of those relations, part of the revelation which has been vouchsafed to us ; one of the deep things which cannot indeed be understood (for who understands the mystery of his own ordinary human relations?) but which lies so immediately beneath those facts which most concern us all, is so needful as the interpretation and reconciliation of those facts, has been so eagerly felt after in all ages, that if it be not disclosed to the heart and reason of man, they will be tormented with such dreams and imaginations concerning it, as must make the acknowledgment of the Divine Unity impossible?

Now the Nicene Creed agrees with the Apostles' altogether in its form and principle. It is still / believe; it is still belief in a name, and not in notions. It differs in this, that it unites with a declaration of the Divine relations to men, a declaration of the relations in the Godhead.

To every peasant and child it speaks of this marvellous subject. Certainly a strange fact, doubly strange when one knows how much it has been the tendency of teachers and priests in all ages to believe that only a few initiated persons are fit to know anything which concerns the name and nature of God ; and how much this tendency did actually mingle itself with the awe and reverence of those ages by which these creeds have been transmitted to us. That the doctors of the Church should have allowed the Apostles' Creed to be heard in every cottage is strange; that they should not have said that this deeper creed, though embodying the principles and data of the other, was only for 'theologians, is scarcely credible : yet so it was. Now if it were the purpose of God that His name should be revealed to men ; if His name, which seems to most of us to be connected with the highest and most esoteric abstractions, be really the only ground of a universal society, we can interpret these facts. What other explanations have been found for them, I wish now to consider.

Objections. — 7"/^^ Quaker.

To the Quaker it seems quite evident that the invention of creeds is one manifest symptom of the working of that mystery of iniquity which has been always arising to counterfeit and to destroy the kingdom of Christ. The faith which a Christian man exercises in the Divine Invisible Teacher is entirely of an inward spiritual kind. Here it is thrown outward, turned into propositions, made the language of a whole body or congregation, reduced into a nullity.

One side of this objection I considered when I was speaking of the differences between the Quaker and the Lutheran. It is precisely the objection to the acknowledgment of the manifested Word, and arises from a desire, more or less consciously entertained, to divorce the idea of a spiritual object from that of an actual person.

There is, however, mixed with this radical dislike, a feeling of a most different kind — a feeling that mere conceptions, opinions, notions, are most inadequate to the wants of a spiritual being, mere pictures and poor pictures of that which is real. To this doctrine I assent most heartily ; there is none which I have been so anxious to maintain throughout this book. The problem how we may be delivered from opinions and notions, how we may rise out of them into another region, is the very one which I am investigating. The history of Quakerism I have found most helpful to me in the inquiry, at least in a negative way ; for it shows us, I think, that there is no such certain and direct road into mere notionality, as that of rejecting all common and united forms of utterance. The apprehensions and conceits of each man's mind, being those which he regards as alone sacred, become his tyrants; and so far as he is able to give expression to those apprehensions and conceits, they become the tyrants over the minds of others. In no society are there so many traditional phrases which have had a meaning once and have lost it, or are rapidly losing it, as in the Quaker society; in no society is there greater bondage to these phrases, a greater dread of exchanging them for any equivalents. And, therefore, without pressing the point again, that by this means all universality is lost, that a body which professed to be for mankind became in a very few years the narrowest and most peculiar of sects, I maintain that the experiment of dispensing with a Confession as a means of promoting spirituality has been made, and has failed utterly. Once more I claim our strongest opponents as witnesses in our favour. By the character of their arguments, and by the results of their practice, they have increased the probability that if there is to be a kingdom of Christ on earth, a creed, which should present a living object as revealed in living acts to the faith of all men, would be one of the divinely-appointed means of its preservation.

Modern Protestant Objections.

But the moment we use the phrase, divinely -appointed means, the modern Protestant, or Evangelical, steps in, and demands how we dare to claim such a dignity as this for a mere human composition, a mere ecclesiastical tradition? The Bible is the Divine document; it is a gross intrusion upon the rights of the Bible to assert that character for any other.

I would beseech the person who proposes this objection, to ask himself whether he seriously believes that the Bible is the only document, the only thing, which has been preserved to men by Divine care and providence? If he will say boldly, I do think this,'' all debate is at an end. We are reasoning- with a person who is separated by the very narrowest plank from absolute Atheism; a plank so narrow and so fragile, that in a very short time, it will be broken down. For, that he should believe this, and yet continue for any length of time to acknowledge a book which is characterised by nothing so much as its strong assertion, that whatever men possess they are to attribute to God's care and providence, is impossible. But supposing he disclaims, as he no doubt will, very indignantly, any such wicked hypothesis, I would beg him next calmly to consider what asertion of mine it is which offends him. Have I said that the creed is a substitute for the Bible? Have I urged that the creed is necessary, because it supplies information which the Bible does not supply? Have I said that the creed corrects or qualifies anything which the Bible asserts? I have maintained none of these propositions. I have said, I find a document which has lasted for sixteen centuries or more. It is a document which explains to me the meaning and purpose of the Bible, which shows me that it has done what it proposed to do. As a declaration of the name of God, it proclaims that that which the Bible undertakes to reveal, has been revealed ; as an act of faith on the part of men, it proclaims that that faith by which the Bible affirms we are saved, can be exercised."

Is the doubt, then, why the creed, seeing that it only aflfirms the principles and facts of the Bible, should be necessary to those who already possess the Bible? The history of Protestantism gives the answer. The Bible, in the hands of its orthodox teachers, was reduced into a set of dry propositions, about the limitations of which they were perpetually fighting. The Bible, in the hands of its Unitarian and Rationalistic teachers, was reduced into a set of dreary truisms, not worthy to be fought about. You talk about the Bible, and the Bible only; but when you are brought to the proof, you give us, in lo The Kingdom of Christ