Freedom in the church; or, The doctrine of Christ as the Lord hath commanded

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Book Jv5

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Chapter I Ruling Principles Of The Anglican Church In The Age Of The Reformation

Among the more important changes which the Church made at the Reformation constituting its characteristics as the national Church of England, with which the American Episcopal Church is in agreement, are these : —

In the first place the Augustinian theology in its dogmatic limitation was rejected, by making the emphatic assertion, which went to the root of Augustinianism and of the Calvinism then rising into power, that humanity had been potentially redeemed in Christ, or in the words of the Church Catechism, "I learn to believe in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind" For this was the negation of both Augustine and Calvin, that mankind had not been redeemed; that the world still lay under the curse and was a lost and ruined world even after the advent of Christ; that redemption

B I was still something to be achieved, — it had been made possible for some, it had not actually been accomplished for all mankind or for the world. This thought of an actual and universal redemption occurs again in the prayer of general thanksgiving: "We thank Thee for the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ." In the light of this truth, the dogmas of election, pretention, or reprobation lose their severity and change their character; embodying the inevitable comment on the realities of life, demanding recognition for their spiritual value ; their modification or rejection w T hen they become hinderances to the Christian life. (Article XVII. 1 )

Having got rid of the great negation which had kept the world in bondage in the Middle Ages, and was again in its Calvinistic form

1 One of the common objections to the Thirty-nine Articles is that they teach (Art. XVII) the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. But when this Article is prefaced, as it should be, by the larger doctrine of the Church Catechism, that Christ "hath redeemed me and all mankind" its language assumes the tone of common life, of literature, rather than of dogma. It is true, and who would have it otherwise, that the assurance of being called (vocation) is a most blessed one; while those who have it not are warned against the danger involved in dwelling upon its absence from their experience. Theology like this is not Calvinistic, nor Arminian; it is the attitude of a great Church, based upon the Gospel and illustrated by the realities of life.

threatening human freedom in the age of the Reformation, the Anglican Church reproduces the ancient Catholic charter of human freedom, — the doctrine of the Trinity. In no other church in Christendom is so great prominence given to this central all-inclusive doctrine. In almost every part of the Prayer Book it appears, it is the constant, ever-recurring refrain, it opens the service, it is appended to every psalm and canticle, it is the essence of the creeds, the formula of blessing. It would not have been made so prominent if it were not closely connected with that which is most dear to every human heart, freedom from fear in the inner life of the soul, and freedom from the shackles without, from every tyranny whether of church or state. For the doctrine brings freedom by the proclamation of the coequality of the Son with the Father ; since Christ therefore is placed above kings; and thrones must henceforth retain their power by obedience to the will of Christ, — as the Lord Christ hath commanded. On this basis kingship in the English nation rested, and on this foundation it stood secure.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the Magna Charta of ecclesiastical and religious liberty as against any invasion of liberty proceeding from the secular throne. So long as kings acknowledge Christ as their head and master, the process must be toward emancipation of peoples from every form of bondage. But there were other forms of bondage which hampered the intellect and the conscience and prevented men from entering into the full possession of their inheritance. And one of these was an ancient error which obscured the Lordship of Christ and tended to make His presence and power inoperative. The Anglican Church set forth anew the doctrine of the Incarnation, and placed it again on an historic basis, by refusing any longer to ascribe to the Virgin Mother titles or attributes which exalted her above her Son — or led to her worship and finally to her practical installation in the place of Christ. This was one of the chief sources of evil in the Church before the Reformation, nullifying the Christian faith, tending to reduce it to the old nature worship of the heathen world. The Anglican Church directed the axe to the root of the evil when it rejected from its formularies the title Mother of God (OeoroKos) as applied to Mary. Another designation of Mary, as "ever Virgin/' was also rejected. The absence of these designations is striking, when one compares the Anglican ritual with the unreformed ritual of

S the Greek and Roman churches, where, and especially in the Greek offices, the terms " Mother of God" and "ever Virgin" are of frequent occurrence. Allowance should be made for a certain exuberance among Oriental peoples, where Western Christendom is more reserved. Thus in the Greek Church, the title "Brother of God" is given to St. James. St. Jerome did not hesitate to call a certain woman whose daughter had become a nun the "mother-inlaw of God"; Joachim and Anna were the "grandparents of God." But whether the title "Mother of God" is or is not restricted in its use, it is misleading, and the Anglican Church rejected it altogether. On this point more will be said hereafter. The rejection of the term "Mother of God," as applied to Mary, and the rejection of her worship as well, left the way open for a more historic and intelligible view of the incarnation by which the power of Christ, as the Word made flesh, was enhanced.

The use of the phrase "Mother of God" (Oeorokos) had been sanctioned by General Councils in the ancient church ; but the Church of England was not intimidated by this circumstance in the effort to promote the freedom of her children from every form of bondage. Thus in regard to the authority of General Councils, it is declared in Article XXI : —

" Forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed by the spirit and Word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred y even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordered by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." 1

1 Something of the attitude of the English Reformers, in regard to General Councils, may be inferred from the circumstances that the famous words of Gregory of Nazianzum were cited when the call of the Pope for a General Council at Mantua was under discussion in 1537. That Gregory was prejudiced and sore at heart over his own personal experience does not diminish the significance of recalling his words at the moment when it was attempted to heal the difficulties of the time by resort to a council. In writing to the Emperor, Theodosius, Gregory had remarked that he shunned all councils: "I have never yet seen that any synod had a good ending, or that the evils complained of were removed but were rather multiplied. Since the spirit of dispute and the love of power (and do not think I am using too strong language) are exhibited there beyond all powers of description. 99 And again, "I keep myself at a distance from them, since I have found by experience that most of them (to express myself in moderation) are not worth much. ,, Cf. "Life of Gregory/' by Uliman, p. 241 ; and Burnet, "History of the Reformation," i. 353.

From this statement coupled with the rejection of the phrase "Mother of God" from her formularies, it is to be inferred that on this point the Anglican Church regarded the Fourth General Council as having actually erred in things pertaining to God. The implications of that unfortunate phrase led to the degeneration of theology and to the lowering of the tone of spiritual and moral life, from the fifth century onward. The designation " Mother of God " was rejected at the Reformation not only by the Anglican Church, but by the Lutheran Church, and by the Reformed Church in all its branches.

The Anglican Church subjected the decisions of General Councils to the authority of Scripture ; but she went further than this in the effort to get rid of that vague, undetermined, and indeterminable authority known as " Catholicity," which haunted the Reformers as it haunts their descendants to-day. And again, in Scripture, as the Word of God, the relief and escape were found. In the VHIth Article it is declared that "The three creeds, the Nicene Creed, Athanasius's Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture."

What is significant here is the abandonment of the authority of the Catholic Church as the ground or warrant for their acceptance. 1

The Anglican Reformation gave a new definition of the "Catholic Church" as that phrase finds expression in the creeds. Hitherto it had been understood in different ways, — the Greek Church and the Roman Church each claiming to be exclusively the Catholic Church, each denouncing the other as heretical and schismatic. According to this new, enlarged and Biblical conception given in the XlXth Article, —

"The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same."

The Catholic Church is further defined in the "Prayer for all sorts and conditions of men" : —

"More especially we pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church ; that it may be

1 The American Episcopal Church omitted the Athanasian Creed, but retains the VHIth Article in other respects unchanged.

so guided and governed by thy Good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." 1

In the "Bidding Prayer," given in the Canons of 1604, set forth by authority of Convocation, the definition of the Catholic Church is more explicit still : —

"In all sermons, lectures, and homilies, the preachers and ministers shall move the people to join with them in prayer in this form or to this effect as briefly as conveniently they may: Ye shall pray for Christ's holy Catholic Church, that is, for the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world." {Canon 55.)

Of this Church, composed of all Christian people, it is further alleged that no organized branch is infallible : —

1 In the American Episcopal Church, the word "universal" is substituted for " Catholic. " The same usage had been adopted in the creeds by the Lutheran Church.

"As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Roman Church hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith." (Article XX.)

The infallibility which the Anglican Church refuses to the ancient historic churches, she does not claim for herself. Infallibility is no longer to be held as a mark of the Church. Everything must be tested by the appeal to Scripture. There are things, however, which are not contained in Scripture, such as rites and ceremonies. In respect of these, the Church of England claimed authority, — "the power to decree rites and ceremonies, and also authority in controversies of faith." But here again, the higher authority is invoked: "It is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written." (Article XX.) And of the discipline and worship, as w T ell as of the doctrine, the Anglican Church has ordered that they be ministered "as Christ hath commanded," and "according to the commandment of God," which means that the commandments of men have been set aside.

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It must be borne in mind that in the Reformation, the old scholasticism of the ancient church and the Middle Ages still bore heavily upon the minds and consciences of those who had received the "new learning/' and who, by the study of Greek, had seen a new meaning in Scripture. The tendency of the Reformation was away from dogmatic subtleties and refinements to the intellectual freedom and the larger life of the modern world. The purpose of the Reformation was primarily religious and ethical ; and wherever in the Prayer Book the reformers introduced comment or exhortation, the stress was laid upon the moral duties of life and the character of the Christian man. No contrast in the history of theology is more striking than this oasis of the epoch of the Reformation, between the cumbrous scholasticism of the mediaeval world, as developed, for example, by Thomas Aquinas, where unwarranted intellectual inferences were raised to the equality with divine revelation; this, on the one hand, and the scholasticism of the seventeenth century, whether in the Anglican Church, the Lutheran, or the Reformed. The hyper-orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, with its excessive intellectualism, represented among the Puritans by the Westminster Confession, or by such writers as

Pearson in the Church of England, or by the more luxuriant forms which the same tendency took in Germany, prepared the way for the descent of the eighteenth century into every phase of scepticism or unbelief. Deism was the natural sequence of the ultra orthodox, dogmatic spirit which has made the seventeenth century unattractive, obnoxious, and almost unintelligible.

The Church of England cannot be understood or appreciated unless this circumstance be borne in mind. The influence of Erasmus was felt in England more powerfully than in his own country, and the Erasmian tendency was toward the ethical and undogmatic side of the Christian faith as brought out in his Enchiridion. His Paraphrase of the New Testament was placed in the churches, to be read for the light it threw on Scripture. During the first half of the sixteenth century the warfare was kept up against the old scholastic dogmatism, till it became discredited and fell into the obloquy from which it has never emerged. This dogmatic bondage was one of the evils which the men of the "new learning" were seeking to overcome; among them Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom we owe the Book of Common Prayer, and whose influence pervades the Thirty-

J 3 nine Articles. The result is a certain undogmatic character in the formularies of the Anglican Church, which has been one of its greater charms for thoughtful minds. The Christian verities are there and each in its due proportion, but they are stated in undogmatic ways, in the language of religion and of life, rather than of theology. The atonement of Christ is impressively set forth in the office for the administration of the Lord's Supper, but nowhere is any theory or doctrine of the atonement presented, — Anselmic, Grotian, or any other. And did we not keep this point in view, it would seem extraordinary that the Anglican Church, while giving supreme importance to Scripture, nowhere lays down any rule for the interpretation of Scripture or any theory of inspiration. Puritans and Lutherans and Romanists might look askance, as indeed they did at such a church, but wisdom is justified of her children. The Anglican Church became in consequence the most comprehensive church in Christendom, free in spirit and in truth, trusting to the instincts which demand the Christian faith in its simplicity, and for the rest, building upon and appealing to " sound learning," as at once her justification and defence. What Lord Bacon was to science in opening up a new world of thought and research,

FREEDOM IX THE CHURCH free from the trammels of the preceding ages, that the Church of England was for true religion and piety and a consecrated learning, whose aim was truth and reality as more important than any figments of imagination however imposing. Scripture became the guarantee against an ecclesiastical rationalism claiming to improve on God's Word written; a strong tower of defence, from the invasion of the scholastic tendency, — "the Word of God" and "containing all things necessary to salvation. " The Church of England, says Bishop Creighton, "did not commit the fatal error of erecting a system, strong in an appearance of unchangeable organization, possessed with an answer to every question, and claiming infallible authority. It laid down decidedly enough the truths of the Catholic faith, it retained every vestige of primitive practice and of primitive organization; but it left ample room for liberty and did not pretend to remove from the individual his due share of responsibility. Its great process of reformation was carried out by the recognition of a growth of knowledge. The wisdom of that decision has been abundantly proved by its results."

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The undogmatic attitude of the Church of England may be further illustrated when the comparison is made with other churches. The Roman Church has a voluminous Catechism set forth by the Council of Trent, covering almost every point of controversy in the experience of a thousand years, and another large treatise containing the numerous theological definitions of Trent, together with the long dogmatic creed of Pius IV, which was thought necessary in addition to the shorter ancient creeds. And these large commentaries are in striking contrast with the very short Catechism of the Church of England and the brief Articles of Religion, contained in a few pages of the Prayer Book. The same contrast is noted in the case of the Greek Church, where, in addition to the definitions and decrees of eight General Councils held to be infallible, there is the "Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church/' containing one hundred and twentysix questions answered at great length; the elaborate "Confession of Dositheus," being "the eighteen decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem"; and the "Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church," which is in itself alone a considerable volume. Or, in the case of the Puritan churches, it is suggestive to note how Catechism and Articles in the Prayer Book form less than a hundredth part in length of the Confession and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms set forth at Westminster.

The contrast is still more impressive when we turn to the order and discipline of the Anglican Church. Here the reformers were engaged in emancipating the Church from the authority of the Papacy and also from that hard fixed dogmatic system of the Middle Ages, — the work of monastic students shut up in their cloisters and detached from the larger realities of life. Let any one turn to the office for consecrating a bishop in the Roman Church, and compare it with the same office in the Prayer Book, and the depth and extent of the revolution accomplished will be manifest. In the Roman ordinal, out of 'seventeen interrogations put to the bishop-elect, nine are concerned with his faith on individual points of belief. It is not enough to ask if he accepts the Xicene creed, but each article is recited, and expanded to cover ancient doctrinal controversies, and to each of these the elect must answer, "Credo." In the Anglican ordinal all this is omitted, and these interrogatories are substituted : —

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"Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ ? And are you determined out of the same Holy Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge ; and to teach or maintain nothing as necessary to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the same ?

"Will you then faithfully exercise yourself in the Holy Scriptures and call upon God by prayer for the true understanding of the same ; so that you may be able by them to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine and to withstand and convince the gainsayers ?

"Are you ready with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's W ord ; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the same ?"

Even more illuminating is the contrast between the "Ordering of Priests/' in the Anglican Church, and the "Ordaining of a Presbyter" (De Ordinatione Presbyterii), in the Roman

Church. In the latter, the candidates for ordination standing before the altar make the profession of their faith by reciting the Apostles' Creed. It is not expected of them that they be familiar with the intricacies of doctrine or the history of heresies. That is reserved for the bishop alone. No promise is exacted of them that they shall study Holy Scripture or recognize their responsibility to defend the faith.

In the Anglican office the candidate recites no creed, as a profession of the faith he is to preach. The vows he takes are modelled after those in the office for consecrating a bishop, and they give the supreme place, not to creeds or doctrines, but to Holy Scripture.

"Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ ? And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge; and to teach nothing as essential to salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture ?

"Will you then give your faithful diligence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church hath received the same according to the commandments of God ?

"Will you be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's W ord?

"Will you be diligent in prayers and in reading the Holy Scriptures and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same ?"

In these two offices, the "Consecration of Bishops " and the " Ordering of Priests/' we have the emancipation of the bishop and the presbyter from ancient or mediaeval Catholicism. The bishop is set free from the domination of the papacy, to which for hundreds of years a vow of subjection had been taken; and the original equality of the episcopate is restored. In the case of the presbyter, a great step forward was taken when the responsibility was placed upon him equally with the bishop to defend the faith, as the Lord hath commanded and as this Church hath received the same according to the commandments of God. This was the presbyter's emancipation from an ignorance and irresponsibility which had weakened and discredited the Church before the Reformation; and Holy Scripture was to be the agency which should bring the freedom.

Nowhere in the formularies of the Anglican Church is it creeds on which the stress is laid, but rather the Scriptures, as the word of God containing all things necessary to salvation. On this point the Reformers had learned a lesson from the formularies in the reign of Henry VIII, where it was shown what an agent for the tyrannical suppression of thought and freedom of inquiry, a creed, even the Apostles' Creed, might be. For a man also might recite creeds and dogmas, and be most loyal in defending without understanding them; but when Holy Scripture became the test and standard, it must needs be carefully and closely and continuously studied in order to its interpretation, and "sound learning" became essential.

This change in the position of the presbyter of the Anglican Church as compared with the Roman priesthood or the Greek, has been commented on by Dr. Hampden, late bishop of Hereford, and the comment is important and deserves to be cited: —

"Among other solemn pledges which they [the clergy] are required to give at their ordination to the Priesthood, is that very remarkable one, that they will ' banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word/ ... I call this a very remarkable injunction of the service for the ordination of Priests ; because in no other Church is the like commission given to any but to the highest order of the Ministry, the bishops of the Church, exclusively. Neither in the Greek forms of ordination, nor in the Roman Pontifical, do we find any such charge given to the Ministers of the inferior orders, but only to the bishops. All that is exacted of the priest and deacon, according to the formularies of the Greek and Roman Churches, is the promise of obedience to the bishop. ... At the Reformation, accordingly, a great change was introduced in this respect. . . . Under the previous system the mass of the clergy were incapable of instructing the people. ... It was rare to find any who could preach to the people. . . . The Reformation corrected this evil."

The Church of England is preeminently a layman's church, more so than any other church in Christendom. If bishops and clergy were emancipated and set free from what had become the bondage of Rome, still greater was the emancipation secured to the laity. In the ancient Church and in the mediaeval they had no part in the government of the Church or in the determination of its formularies. It was a common mode of speech to designate the clergy as spirituals, the laity as carnales. All this was changed at the Reformation. It was the laity who took the first steps toward separating the English Church from the authority of Rome, and who finally completed the process. It was by the laity that the Prayer Book was approved and its use made binding. The prominence of the laity in all the changes wrought at the Reformation gives a distinctive character to the Anglican Church as compared with the other reformed churches.

But in no respect was the revolution made so manifest as in the one supreme act by which the Book of Common Prayer was put into the hands of the people, as the laymen's book no less than that of the clergy. Hitherto such a thing was unknown. Primers were sometimes issued for the instruction of the laity, but at the Reformation, all the offices of the Church, rendered into English, were placed in their hands. What had hitherto been the priests' book was henceforth to be the possession of all, men, women, and children alike. In the unreformed offices, the clergy responded to the clergy, and to say "Amen" was the only participation of the people. In the Prayer Book the people respond to the clergy on equal terms. The clergy appear acting as the people's representative.

There is a profound spiritual principle involved in this far-reaching change. It is sometimes said by those who are ignorant of the Anglican Church, that in the Reformation she put forth no distinctive doctrine. The Zwinglian Church magnified the glory and majesty of God ; the Lutheran Church set forth as its controlling principle, the truth of "justification by faith"; the Reformed Church built upon the Divine will as expressed in decrees of predestination. But a great act characterizes the Anglican Church — the making of a book whose possession by the people becomes a means of education, of enlightenment, and of Christian nurture. And beneath this act lies a doctrine or truth, which involves what is essential in the teaching of Christ — the priesthood of all Christians ', who now offer spiritual sacrifices to God, of themselves, and not through another. In the light of this truth, the agency of the clergy is subordinate. In the mutual response of people and clergy lies the visible and outward sign of Anglican worship, as contrasted with Greek or Roman or Puritan worship, where the isolated officiant at the altar or in the pulpit alone is speaking and the people are silent.

It is another distinguishing mark of the Reformation in the Church of England, that it was not overcome by a reactionary tendency, as was the case in the Reformed Church, and to a certain extent also in the Lutheran Church. The Anglican Church retained what Christian piety had accumulated during the Christian ages in the line of devotion and in the Christian ordering of time, or in the aesthetic and impressive arrangement of its worship. But there was a cleansing and a purification; whatever was contrary to the Word of God was rejected; whatever harmonized with it was retained. The Prayer Book was not an accidental or fortuitous production, but the work of one who devoted many years to liturgical study, and who by practical experience knew the impressive points in breviary or missal, and felt the impressive features which carried a religious and Christian appeal. The Prayer Book became through Cranmer's influence a constructive work of literary skill and of artistic merit as well as a summary of religious devotion. It was done also at the right moment in history, a moment which unavailed of would have been lost forever. The juncture of the new and the old constituted a plastic creative hour; and the man met the hour, who was devoted to the Christian faith as revealed in Scripture, but who without prejudice or reactionary tendency was able and glad to discern in the religious consciousness of the past whatever bound it to the present or to the future. No great and pure religious instinct was overlooked. Indeed there was some concession to the weakness of those with whom past associations were too sacred to be sundered sharply or rudely.