More "Copy"; a second series of essays from an editor's drawer on religion, literature and life

Front matter

mm

Chap. Copyright No.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Contents

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Church and Sects— I. 17

Church and Sects— II. 24

I. Church And Sects

VI7HAT price is Christian Unity worth ?

" " Any price, we answer, short of the sacrifice of principle.

That is the measure to guide us.

Any Churchman, who knows the nature of the Church and her business here, will answer as we have — anything for Christian Unity short of the sacrifice of Christian Truth.

For so shameful are our divisions, so utterly disgraceful and disgusting in the face of rampant worldliness and sin, and especially in the face of a world four to one heathen yet, that it is no longer possible for any man, not sold to some deluding cheat (like John Calvin's " Invisible Church," which is all one, though split into two hundred fragments, a greater contradiction than even Leo the Third's Transubstantiation Invention !), to hope for any progress in Christianity, any advance in the Kingdom of Heaven, till the curse is removed.

We have said there are two things — they are distinct enough — the Faith and the Church's methods of propagating and teaching the Faith — Doctrine and Discipline.

The first is out of the Church's hands. It is the deposit from above. She is only a trustee for it.

The other is absolutely, under the guidance of the Divine Wisdom which she has the right always prayerfully to claim, in her own bands to deal with as she sees best for her needs.

We put the first, therefore, out of the question. Indeed, it does not come practically into the question at all. The mass of sects are not heretics. They hold the deposit of the Faith; at leastthey mean to. The few who do not may practically be counted out of the question. They are not numerous enough to suggest, if all the rest were one, a division among Christians. 2 (17)

18 Chitech and Sects.

It remains then that discipline is the matter on which we have the right and power to propose terms of reunion. That is the Church's own department to conduct according to the exigencies of times and occasions. The forms and modes of worship, the outward guise and manner of the priesthood, the ceremonial services which clothe the Sacraments — all these are in the Church's power.

She may love them and prize them. She may consider them wisest and best. They may be so without a question. She may enforce their observance on those within her with all the might of her authority, because she has deliberately established them, and her children should submit, for the wisdom of the whole is wiser than the conceit of one, or a score, or even seventy and two. But, should the question come in the shape of a relaxation, or abrogation even, of some of them, that schism may be healed and the knots of peace and love be knit among Christian people, we humbly submit that "too much stiffness in refusing" is not wisdom.

Such stiffness, now at least, is a little out of place in the American Church. Her purpose is to conciliate, heal and unite. Stiffness and strong refusals are means to that purpose. She is pledged, by the demands of her place, to gentleness and the temper that yields in all things but truth.

We do not know that the time has come for any marked influence yet upon the outside. We are certain, however, that such time will come, and perhaps, so rapidly do events march, sooner than we expect. But our purpose in writing is to set ourselves inside to considering, to prepare our own minds for the exigencies of the future.

We submit our opinions with deference. We speak under correction, and desire them to have only the weight that attaches from the reasons given.

That millions in the land are strongly prejudiced against Liturgic forms is the fact. They prefer to pray extempore. They consider, rightly or wrongly, (hat there is more of unci ion and prevailing earnestness in such prayers. We do not believe it. We are perfectly sure, they are entirely mistaken, and that an acquaintance with the better way would disgust them with extempore deliverances for good.

But certainly, whether a man pray with a book or without a book, is no part of the Faith. It is, after all, a matter of discipline, and though all ancient writers, and the Holy Scriptures themselves, are on the side of the discipline of a Liturgy, we do not doubt that the strongest Churchman will admit that the Church was just as much a Church before its elaborate Rituals were formed as it was afterward.

While, therefore, we would not give up or seriously change our Liturgy, while the " Book of Common Prayer " would still remain as the standard and model of worship, and while it would be used in all Churches regularly served, as it is now, would it be any sacrifice of principle to allow those who might come to us from without, provided they so desired, to use, at other times, in prayer meetings, missionary meetings, and such like, their own extempore gifts till the influence of the Prayer Book, working on them quietly, taught them a better way ?

We instance this question because it has been largely the fashion to represent the Church as a sect, one of whose " distinctive doctrines " is to pray by a book. The Churchman understands that the Prayer Book was made for the Church and not the Church for the Prayer Book, and that if the question is between dividing Christianity or allowing extempore prayers, there should be no long hesitation.

Piiz ; ng the Book of Common Prayer as we do, as the next book to the Bible in the English tongue, we are not Prayer Bookolators, and would compromise even on that most precious jewel of the Church's crown, for the sake of unity with our brethren.

But if there are those who are prejudiced in favor of extempore prayers, there are those more prejudiced in favor of coat-tails. At present the surplice is a good deal of a stumbling block to the sectarian mind.

It thinks "the Episcopal sect " has a distinctive doctrine about wearing a piece of white linen ! Of course, it admits its right to have such a distinctive doctrine. It is quite according to sectarian experience that it should have. On about such issues have sects been formed before now, and will possibly continue to be. It would be news to the sectarian mind to tell it that we have no law about wearing the surplice at all !

If the surplice should turn out to be an objection we would make no sacrifice of principle in conforming with our brethren, anxious to unite, and allowing them to be officiated for in black coats, or even brown ones, should that color be more convenient.

In good time they would, as we have, without any law, take the surplice from a natural sense of the fitness of things. But we should certainly make no difficulty with them on that ground. The Kingdom of God consists not in garments. We Churchmen confess that as freely as anybody. And though we have a taste for fit and appropriate vestments in the House of God, we will not divide Christians, or give occasion to schism, by forcing our tastes on people whose education has been different.

We have instanced these two things because they are striking and palpable as distinctions peculiar to us. They are in the Church's hands to deal with as she may wisely judge in the face of the question of uniting brethren, and if it depended on her to heal the divisions which are our burning shame, she would allow no taste or preference of hers to stand in the way.

A Catholic Church must be large and liberal. She must allow free room for individual preferences under the law, not only for individual preferences in the matter of doctrinal appreciations, but for them also in that of Christian activities and works.

It was so originally. It must be so again. In the early Church, as we know, such freedom existed. A sect cannot allow it. It is the very purpose of a sect to destroy individuality, to make every man cut his coat after the sect pattern. And as soon as anybody wants to cut his garments after another fashion, he must leave the sect and organize another whose coats shall all be like the model he has invented. The Primitive Church contained expressions and manifestations of individuality enough to furnish a couple of hundred modern sects with an outfit of distinctive principles " to last them each a century !" And yet that individuality and personal preference lived and worked in the great bosom of the Catholic Church and created no division.

It is one of the most noticeable characteristics of Catholicity in the American Church that she allows such large liberty of private preference under law. Herein is one broad difference between her and the denominations about her.

And yet she may, and, perhaps, ought to, carry this much farther than she has yet ventured. She must allow, in matters indifferent, the widest latitude of individual choice, and must be very liberal in what she is prepared to consider indifferent. A true Catholic Church will never try the preposterous absurdity of making all men think alike or act alike. She will be large enough to find place for the most divergent tempers and opinions, so that all live beneath the law of Faith and Charity.

Why, then, should it be impossible to permit, yea, even to welcome, into the Church the different forms of activity and the different methods of the Christian life which men find outside to be of use and good, and for the lack of which they misjudge the Church, as though her essential character consisted in refusing or forbidding them ? Why should they not all be allowed if people find them good, or even if they have but the good of old custom?

Is it any essential of Catholicity to refuse the social " prayer meeting," a means of spiritual growth dear to many, and which the experience of good men in thousands has found a blessing ? Is the Church not large enough and strong enough and controlling enough to welcome this or any like form of the development of the Christian life as a legitimate thing ? The Methodist need not stay out to have his " class meeting." We must not forget that the class meeting was organized and worked for half a century in the Church by Churchmen, and the highest sort of Churchmen known. May we not assure our brethren outside when the time comes, that their class meetings need not be abandoned if they find them good for their souls?

" But," we shall be answered, " with extempore prayers, with class meetings, with prayer meetings, with conferences, etc., what will become of the Church?" We answer, she will be just where she was before, holding the same Creeds, teaching the same Faith, having the same order, administering the same discipline. These things are all of the accidents. They are not of the essence of the Church. And the Church should be a field large enough to allow all right methods of cultivation and all forms of work which effect any good for the souls of men.

"But if you would allow Prayer Meetings and Classes, must you not also allow Retreats and Oratories?" Why not, we ask again? What is there in a name to frighten men? Why should not all these be allowed and kept for good uses by the strong, controlling influence and spirit of the Church ? If men find themselves the better, if these things evidently sanctify men and bring them nearer to God, if they enkindle devotion and influence zeal, and save souls, why not ?

Again we reach the fact that it is of the nature of the sect to train the plants in God's garden after one artificial fashion. It is

22 Chukch and Sects.

the nature of the Church to offer as large a variety in the kingdom of grace as God gives in the kingdom of nature.

The oak is needed, so, also, is the lily. They may both grow together. We must not insist on making the oak a lily or the lily an oak.

To change the figure, it is sectarianism pure and simple, to insist that God can be served in only one artificial method. It is of the essence of Catholic Christianity to see that He can be served acceptably in scores of methods, that even " they also serve who only stand and wait;" that the variety of service, as different as are those who serve, joins at last and makes the perfect harmony.

Must we not grow up to see that it must come to this at last if unity ever comes at all ? That the unity meant, the unity alone possible, is a unity in diversity, a unity made out of multiplicity, and that the attempt to make a unity in sameness is just the rock on which Christianity has struck and broken ?

We do believe that whenever the Church grows up to see this, and to take the broad ground, of which she is terribly afraid, there are waiting for her returning thousands, who in their secret hearts have been longing and waiting for this very thing, and have been unable, so far, to find it.

We need to-day a variety of services which we do not possess. The need has been felt for long, and often expressed, and will be more and more expressed until we get it supplied. We need scores of methods and activities which we do not have. They should grow spontaneous from the life of a living Church. They did grow so, some of them, in the Church of England, and she threw them over the wall as weeds, and they rooted themselves in the best soil they could find. Is it not time that we unlearned the narrowness of the Establishment, and began to seek the free life and development of a free Church? "But for what good?" For the good of unity, the one good for which the world waits, and without which we are seeking to convert it without the Lord's promise.

To bring it to the Christianity of America is our business. We sincerely believe we have been providentially put here for that work, and that in due time we shall see it, and set about it as the one thing, without which all other works are mere makeshifts. To see it and do it, we must get far away from the sectarianism of mere "Protestant Episcopalism," whether of the "low" type or the " high" type, and must rise to something like faith in the American Church Catholic.

But in the question of unity it may be said that, after all, these matters are not the main trouble. The difficulty, after all, lies in the position of the clergy of the various denominations, and how in any proposed step to unity we could deal with them. Even this is not so difficult as it may at first seem. We shall state our opinion of how that difficulty may be met in another paper.