The price of unity

Front matter

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AR DAY

Preface

I HAVE committed the following pages to the press with much hesitation and some misgivings. They were begun some three or four years ago and then laid aside, as it seemed to me a thankless task to add one more to the many books already written on the subject. Controversial books seem generally to have the effect rather of rousing the animosity of those for whom they have been written, than of convincing them. They look out for flaws in the arguments, and are often disedified by language that sounds harsh in their ears, even though it be used only for the purpose of clear statement of fact, and are antagonized by what appears to them a lack of fairness in the statement of their position. And these books are sure to call forth answers, and thus deepen the antagonism and bitterness, and end, perhaps, in setting people farther apart, rather than in drawing them together. Ifa man is vanquished by the dialectical skill of his opponent, or by the stronger array of facts and arguments which he is able to bring forward on his side, he is not generally in a very receptive state of mind, but is probably rather looking about for other

Vv vi PREFACE arguments and weapons of attack and defence, than laying his mind open to the force of the arguments by which he has been silenced.

And this is especially the case when the writer has once belonged to the party he attacks. It is difficult for anyone, however well intentioned, to avoid a tone that, under the circumstances, sounds offensive, and not to seem to be betraying the confidences of those with whom he has lived on terms of intimacy, and with whom he has often talked over the question. He knows exactly how these difficulties were regarded, how some of them were answered, and others were looked upon as trials that must be borne, and others again as anomalies that were not of their making, but which it was their part and their privilege to help to mend.

And it is almost impossible to avoid, at any rate, the appearance of bad taste in dragging out to the light the weaknesses and inconsistencies of a religious system that for many years claimed one’s reverence and respect. The memories of religious experience do not easily pass away, and these memories are sacred, and lend some of their hallowing effect to the circumstances and surroundings in which they were felt. I have never been able to understand the attitude of mind of those who speak with bitterness, still less with ridicule, of that which once had been their religious home. One of the Fathers speaks somewhere of Christianity giving

PREFACE vii a decent burial to Judaism. It was not to be huddled into the ground and heaped over with ridicule and contempt.

And perhaps it might be thought more becoming in one who has spent the greater part of his life in the Church of England, to remain silent in regard to what he believes to be its defects, and to be content with the enjoyment of what he has. Why should he not, if he must needs leave it, give it at least an honourable burial in his memory,and allow it to doits work in peace, while he tries to do his in the new sphere of his choice?

But religion—at any rate religious systems—are not merely personal matters. They are public property, and ought to be considered apart from personal associations, and the persons concerned, The grounds upon which their claims are based stand apart from the persons who yield or withdraw their allegiance from this body or that, and must be considered upon their own merits. Though doubtless one who has taken part in its life, sees and feels its weaknesses and its strength more keenly and more vividly than do those who study it from outside.

There is no body so exposed to attack and criticism and misrepresentation as the Catholic Church. And I think many are kept back from it by arguments and devices that are not fair. There are few that are able to look at it with an unprejudiced eye. To one who has so regarded it for years, and then sees it from pe eee eee

Viii PREFACE within, the difference is immeasurable. He feels its life, is immersed in its atmosphere, understands its motives and the springs of its action. The change is something like that which takes place between the judgment which one passes upon a man whom one scarcely knew and did not like, and upon the same man with whom one has become an intimate friend. Again, the Catholic party in the English Church is, I believe, little understood, either within or outside of their own Church, They are generally looked upon as a party amenable to no law, who are a law to themselves, disregarding all ecclesiastical authority, and unfaithful to the teaching of the Church to which they profess allegiance. And their position is regarded by Catholics, largely as that of men who are playing at being Catholics, but are not prepared to make the sacrifices which are necessary to become Catholics in Truth, They are, it is believed, too selfwilled to submit to authority, and yet dissatisfied with the conditions of the Church to which they belong. Such criticisms, I believe, are most unjust and superficial, Many of the men who have taken part in the movement have proved their sincerity by what _ they have had to suffer in its cause. They would have had, humanly speaking, an easier and a happier time if they had entered the Catholic Church. But I am sure that, to many of them, such a thought has never even presented itself, as a way out of their diffi-

PREFACE ix culties ; to some others, I know, it has only seemed to come as a temptation, and to a large number it has seemed simply an impossibility, to a certain extent because they misunderstand what it teaches and what it is,

It does not, therefore, seem to me unbecoming, that one who for many years has been intimately associated with many of those who have taken a leading part in the High Church movement, and who, whatever he may think of their position, has nothing but the kindliest memories and the greatest respect for the characters and motives that inspire them, and who has now been a Catholic for fifteen years, to present the movement exactly as he regarded it for many years, with the arguments that he was wont to use in its defence, and the reasons, so far as he can analyse them, that, at last, drove him forth from it. So far as I can remember, I have never seen the subject discussed sympathetically from this point of view. In most of the controversial books that I have read a good deal of time is spent in refuting arguments that no High Churchman would use, and in attacking positions that they do not hold.

It seems to me, therefore, that it is worth while to consider the question from the standpoint of that party in the Church of England which at the present moment is the strongest, the most zealous and the most devout; and to say what I have felt to be its x PREFACE strong and its weak points, where it seems to me to be inconsistent, and whither some of the arguments used in its defence may unexpectedly lead.

It is neither my object nor my desire, merely to upset the faith of those who believe in what they have, but to help, so far as I may be able, any who feel the instability and insecurity of their position, and yet have so far been unable either to settle down where they are, or to take the step which, I believe, would give them, as it has given me, all that their hearts desire.

I have considered the whole question, therefore, only from one point of view—viz. that which I held myself while I was in the Church of England; the difficulties which presented themselves to my mind, as well as many of the attractions which held me where I was, and the reasons which finally led me to act as I did. I am quite aware that to many types of High Churchmen these reasons will seem wholly inadequate. They are enthusiastically convinced of the security of their own position, and, I believe, outside of the reach of any arguments, and they are equally certain that Rome is so astonishingly different from what she really is, that the idea of any intelligent person submitting to her is, to their minds, unthinkable. It must be accounted for on other grounds than reasonable conviction. But, on the other hand, I know that there are a considerable number of people who feel, on the whole subject, much as I used to feel, who hold their

PREFACE xi position much on the same grounds, and who are troubled with many of the difficulties with which I have attempted to deal. '

It is often urged upon such persons that the temptation to Rome arises from an undue desire to be strictly logical, but that in most of the things of life, and especially in religion, we have to be content to accept facts and truths that are difficult, if not seemingly impossible, to reconcile. Heresy, it has been said, has often arisen from the effort to be logical, and from pressing one truth to its logical results, ignoring another that seemed, on the face of it, to be opposed to it. Inthe controversies that gathered around the doctrine of the Trinity and the Person of our Lord, the Church always held the balance between the extreme parties that pressed one side of the Truth to the neglect of the other. Both must be held, even though individuals may not be able to see how they can be co-ordinated.

This is undoubtedly true, so far as it goes, but it may be pressed too far. We have to hold at the same time the Unity of the Godhead, and the Threefold Personality. We have to believe the perfect Manhood of our Lord and His co-equality with the Father. We have to hold the doctrine of St. Paul that ‘‘ we are justified by faith alone without the works of the Law,” and the doctrine of St. James that “by works a man is justified and not by faith alone,” and so on. Our xil PREFACE

Faith is full of such apparent contradictions. But the contradictions are only apparent. They are paradoxes, not direct contradictions, two sides of Truths that have to be held together, if the Truths themselves are to be preserved.

But it is impossible to hold, or to expect that any man’s religion should require him to hold, two doctrines that are directly opposed and mutually exclusive of one another.

It is, for instance, impossible to believe that our Lord instituted the Papacy as an integral part of the Divine constitution of the Church, and, at the same time that anything could justify a breach with the Papacy. That a man may believe, as a matter of faith, the divine authority of the Holy See, and at the same time the right of the English Church, which categorially denies it; or, while denying with the English Church the claims of the Holy See, may still assert that the Roman and Anglican bodies are each of them living parts of the same Catholic Church. If the English Church is right in this matter, the Roman Church is wrong, and in teaching such a doctrine as a Truth of Revelation, and insisting upon its acceptance as a condition of Communion, she is in heresy, and has ceased to be any part of the Body of Christ.

For it must be borne in mind that Rome does not allow, in this matter, a distinction between what is of the esse, and what is of the dene esse of the

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Church. Some Anglicans maintain that the Papacy is indeed of the dene esse of the Church, and that it is their prayer and hope that one day they may be restored to their true allegiance to it. But this is not what Rome teaches, nor what she could accept as a condition of reconciliation. She does not recognize such distinctions in a matter which she believes to be divine, and if an Anglican holds this view, that Union with and submission to the Holy See is desirable, but not necessary, he is really no nearer to clearing Rome from the charge of teaching, as Truth, what is not true, than one who denies the authority of the See of Rome altogether.

It is, therefore, a direct contradiction—a holding of two things as true, which are mutually exclusive of one another—to assert that the Roman Church teaches as an article of faith that which is untrue, and insists upon it as one of the conditions of Communion, and at the same time to maintain towards her the attitude that most High Churchmen do maintain.

This is one of many instances of the overstraining of the statement which is undeniable, viz. that life and religion are full of Truths which though apparently contradictory are not really so, and that a passion for logic may lead one far astray in matters of faith. It is one thing to demand that you may be able to see how every truth fits in with every other truth, But it is not overmuch to expect that you should not be xiv PREFACE called upon to believe two things that are directly contradictory.

And I think that this distinction is sometimes overlooked or forgotten, in an ecclesiastical system like that of the English Church, which, without disrespect, may be regarded as full of anomalies, Many real contradictions are dealt with in this way, and included under the general assertion that you must not allow yourself to be carried away by a passion for logic.

Again, people are warned against Rome on the ground that it is a dangerous thing to create an ideal in their own minds, of what the Church ought to be, and to judge the existing Church by its failure or success in conforming to such an ideal.

The history of the Church, they are told, like that of our Lord Himself, is very different from all that we should have antecedently expected. The Jews had formed, partly from some of the Prophecies separated from others, an ideal of the Messias, whom they rejected because He so completely failed to correspond to it.

And, we are told, that if we idealize the Church, perhaps basing our ideal upon some isolated passages in Holy Scripture, or upon some words of our Lord, separated from their context or from other qualifying sayings of His, and so expect of it what it does not give and what it cannot be, we have only ourselves to blame if we go forth from that part of the Christian

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Church in which we have been placed, in quest of an ideal that does not exist, and if, as we are warned is likely, we are driven to return from whence we went, sadder but wiser men.

But it is one thing to create an ideal, which is largely the work of a fervid and pious imagination, and Quite another thing to turn from a reality which we know and have tested, and which we feel has failed us,—failed to inspire us with any confidence in her authority, which leaves us to drift about amongst various schools of thought within her fold to find out our faith for ourselves, and which at last forces upon us the tardy and unwilling conviction, that her present condition and her past history are themselves the strongest arguments against the truth of her claim to be even a severed and isolated portion of the Kingdom of God, It is surely quite another thing, to turn from this to another reality at our side and before our eyes, with its long unbroken history and its unfaltering ~ claim to be the Church of God, which satisfies, so far as anything here on earth can satisfy, our ideal of what the Church should be,

People often talk as if those whom, I am forced to say, the Church of England drives from her fold, are idealists and dreamers, who go forth in search of the realization of some fair dream that their unpractical minds have formed, largely out of contrast to the defects of the system to which they belong, and out of

Xvi PREFACE their impatience with the conditions which attach to human life. An ideal which has no existence upon earth, a dream which is shadowy, unsubstantial, and impossible of realization, But they are wrong. These people are drawn by no deceptive vision, but by seeing actually before their eyes a living Church which does the very things which their own Church claims, and fails to do, A Church which they see at work, which they can examine and question for themselves, which is not surrounded by a halo of mystery, but living under the elare of aconstant and unfriendly criticism, and which is acknowledged by those who are least friendly to her, to accomplish the work which she sets herself to do, viz. to teach to the poor what she believes to be the Truth committed to her, in a way that they are able to understand, and to imbue her people with an enthusiastic and devoted faith, not only in what is taught, but in the authority of the Teacher. And they find that those who go from their Communion to hers, with few and rare exceptions, are satisfied that she fulfils all that they expected of her.

The ideal is not, therefore, the result of a fervid imagination, or one that is formed in solitude and away from the strife of tongues, but a reality that is doing its hard task with unflinching courage and unfailing zeal, exacting and receiving an amount of personal self-sacrifice that all must admire, and often under conditions the most sordid and uninspiring.

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He who goes forth from the position in which circumstances have placed him, in quest of a perfect Church which bears no traces of human imperfection, will surely be disappointed, The Church is a divine institution existing in a sinful world and composed of frail human beings, with their personal failings and ambitions, their narrowness and bigotry ; and there will always be found men who make the greatest things as small as their own small minds. And the Rulers of the Church are not angels but men. And human nature will always be strong and assertive, however divine the institution to which it belongs, and there is, and I suppose always will be, plenty of human nature in the Church. But for myself I can only say, without exaggeration, that if our Lord founded a Church such as is depicted for us in Holy Scripture, I cannot conceive of it as differing much from that which is represented by the Roman Catholic Church of to-day. With all that human nature contributes of human imperfection, I feel more and more every year that passes the power of that Kingdom of God upon earth, combating with, and holding in check, the sins and imperfections, the worldliness and personal ambitions of its members, and its power of keeping untarnished the faith, the standards, and the ideals, which were committed to it. It dominates, in spiritual things, the intellect as well as the heart of a vast multitude of people of different nationalities and temperament and ; |

XVill _ PREFACE traditions, as no other form of Christianity has ever been able to do. And it results in producing and preserving a widespread spiritual life such as is scarcely known outside.

But once more it is said: The Church is not a government, it is a life. The means by which, if it be so, the Church is to be kept in unity are not coterminous with that unity itself. ‘In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me and I in you.” Ths is the essential unity of the Church, in regard to which the external unity and its relation to Rome are not on the same lines as Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, etc., by which we are first united with Christ, and then kept in growing Communion, and union with Him.

I have dealt at some length with this argument in the text. But one word may here be added as to the relation of the government and organization of the Church to its life,

But first it must be said that the whole subject which I have been discussing is not as to our Lord’s dealings with zudividual souls, but with His Church. With that Body which He created as the covenanted way through which men were ordinarily to be brought into and kept in ever closer union with Himself.

There are, no doubt, all over the world, many devout individuals who either know nothing about the Church, or who through no fault of their own, do

PREFACE xix not believe in its claims, who, loving God with all their hearts, and living faithful to the light they have, are united to our Lord, and belong to the soul of the Church even though they do not belong to the outward organization. There is even the Baptism of desire, by which men receive many of the graces of Baptism, though they have never received the Sacrament. It is possible even to receive the grace of a ‘Spiritual Communion, without Orders or Sacraments,

There is therefore, and of course High Churchmen will not deny this, such a thing as essential union of individual souls with our Lord, without any visible Church at all.

And this applies much more to the many who have been baptized by those who belong to various Christian bodies who have not, and do not profess to have, the Apostolic Succession.

But this, I take it, is not what is meant by the distinction which is drawn between the government of the Church and that vital unity involved in our Lord’s words which are quoted above: “ In that day ye shall know that Iam in the Father and ye in Me and I in you”. What is meant I suppose is this: that there is a danger of pressing the importance of Church government too far, and confusing the idea of sacramental union with our Lord, with what may be called ecclesiasticism and ecclesiastical order, And that the ideal of ecclesiastical order may fail of its completeas |

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XX PREFACE ness, without a corresponding failure of sacramental union with Christ. That even granting the Roman ideal to be the highest, it can scarcely be maintained that it is essential to the perfect union of the soul with Christ, and that a portion of Christendom which has lost this, but still has preserved the Priesthood, has all that is essential. It is said that Rome has inherited the old idea of organization, and that it has pressed this to a degree that it will not stand. The essential spiritual life of the Church is one thing, but its organization is another that must be kept quite distinct.

Is this true? Is it true that the life of the Church is quite distinct from its government? That the most that can be said of it is that the one is of the essence, the other only of the well-being of the Church, I do not believe that such a position can be maintained for a moment. I do not think that any High Churchman, whatever the exigencies of controversy may drive him to say in dealing with the claims of Rome, would grant it, in dealing with Nonconformists. What is their essential difference from the Nonconformists? Is it not just this very point, that in tampering with the principles of Church government’ they have lost the Sacraments? that, in other words, the governors of the Church are also the channels of its sacramental life? that, though separate in idea, they are one in fact? That the cohesion and unity of the Church is so essential to its existence, that our Lord made the spiritual

PREFACE Xxi life of the Church dependent upon the preservation of its government as He planned it? There is not a High Churchman who will question this. He claims that the whole position of the English Church stands or falls with its Orders, and the Orders of course depend upon the preservation of the Episcopal succession, i.e. the government, which he asserts has been preserved without a doubt.

The idea then, that the principles of Church government, and the spiritual life of the Church through sacramental union with our Lord, have no inherent relation to one another, whatever he may say in controversy with Rome, is one that he does not hold as a matter of fact. And whatever he may say to the contrary, High Churchmen and Roman Catholics are, as a matter of fact, so far, entirely at one on this matter, Both maintain that the organs by which the life of the Church is transmitted to its members, are the same as those by which its divinely constituted government is preserved. To abandon the Episcopate is to cut the arteries and stop the flow of the blood, which is the life.

It is not therefore fair for them to use an unsound argument that appeals to the ignorance of many of their people, and to draw a broad distinction between the ecclesiasticism of Rome, and their own more spiritual emphasis upon the vital union of the soul with our Lord; and to teach them that the chief xxii PREFACE care of Rome is for government, theirs, for the essentials of the spiritual life. It may seem astonishing that such an argument could possibly be used by men who belong to a Church that has been throughout its whole history, since its separation from Rome, so careless in its teaching, and so lax in its ministration of the Sacraments, while no one has ever denied that, in this matter, Rome has never faltered, either in her exalted standard of teaching or the scrupulous care with which she has guarded. their ministration—but so it is,?

Tt will be seen then that the main point at issue between High Churchmen and Roman Catholics is not as to the relative importance of the principles of

1A few instances of this, which I have come across myself, may not be out of place. I was told by one of the Priests of a parish in Dublin where I was preaching not long ago, that at one of the many Masses that morning there had been 1200 Communicants, and that at all the Masses on a Sunday the average attendance was about 20,000. I was informed through one of the clergy connected with the Jesuit Church in Chicago that, on the first Friday in the month, and again on the following Sunday, the Communicants on each of these days numbered generally about 5000, and in their printed report it was stated that the number of Confessions heard in the year, were between 200,000 and 300,000. Some twenty years ago the Priest who had charge of the Altars in a certain parish church in London, said that the average number of Communicants daily—exclusive of Sundays—was about too, and this in one parish, out of a Catholic population numbering, - in the whole of London, some quarter of a million at most, and this was many years before the late Bull exhorting the faithful to daily Communion.

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Church government and the union of the soul with Christ. It is really upon quite a different matter. Upon the further question as to whether the Papacy is really any part of the divinely constituted Government of the Church at all. What possible relation can there be, it is asked, between the spiritual life of the Christian, and the right or wrong of the Papal claims? This, at most, can be said to be a detail of Govern- - ment that may or may not be for the welfare of the Church as an organization, but can have little to do with that of the individual. Is this true?

Now Catholics hold absolutely, Anglicans theoretically, that perfect union with Christ is dependent, not only upon the gift of His Life, through the Sacraments, but also upon the submission of the intellect to the Truths of Revelation in their entirety. “Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.” If you are a partaker of His Life, but are not in full harmony with His Mind, so far as He has revealed it, the union cannot be said to be complete. Indeed there are, in such a union, elements that may lead to a rupture. A son, in whose veins his father’s blood is flowing, may have differences with him that may lead to a final breach. ,

And Rome maintains that for the preservation of the completeness and unity of the Faith, our Lord created a centre of unity in His Church, a final and absolute authority which resides in the See of

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Rome. He foresaw, she says, what has in fact taken place, that a number of Bishops might break away from the unity of the Episcopate, and claim the right of acting independently. And that if such a degree of independence were allowed to one body, it could not be denied to another, and thus the unity of the Church would be destroyed, and there could be no certainty that the members of these separate bodies would be taught the fullness of the Truth once committed to the Church,