The church enchained

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Dedication

To all those who pray for a perfect willingness to suffer the loss of all things "that they may win Christ, and be found in Him" ; who, as Prophets, proclaim the truth that makes men free, "come whence it may, and cost what it may"; who, as Priests, consent to offer costly sacrifice, that all may come "into the glorious liberty of the children of God" ; and who, as servants of Christ, desire to express a comprehensive faith in co-operative service to the Glory of God in the extension of His Kingdom among men; these pages, devoted to the search for truth and freedom, and an ultimate divine order, are humbly dedicated.

Preface

The thoughts relative to Christ and His Church and the world's great need expressed in this book are communicated because of the hope that, through the blessing of the Spirit of truth, they may minister to the building up of the Body of Christ in love.

We seek the truth under human limitations. Often, in its pursuit, we follow false trails. Sometimes right trails are wrongly followed. The by-path is mistaken for the King's highway. The point we reach is heralded as the ultimate viewpoint. The further and more far-reaching viewpoints not yet attained are not postulated as possible. A stake is driven down ; a barrier is built, and seekers after truth are warned and prohibited from venturing beyond the limit fixed.

vii viii PREFACE

The truth incarnate has ever been enchained. We hear the clank of the chains by which the Church has been bound as we trace her history through the centuries. Sometimes these bonds have been imposed upon the Church, and upon seekers after truth, from without. As men "took Jesus and bound Him," as they chained St. Paul, and John Huss, and Jerome, and Lattimer, and John Bunyan, so the world powers, and the powers of darkness, have bound the Body of Christ. These chains, externally imposed, have ever served to test and manifest the power of the life divine, and have been the means of giving witness to the conquering strength of the spirit of liberty and truth.

The chains that have really bound the Christ, and which have delimited the freedom of the Church, and hindered her in the fulfillment of her divinely given mission to be His witness, have been forged in the mind and heart and will of the members of His Body.

The chains forged by the logical processes of thought which seek to confine the boundless love

PREFACE ix

of God, and the free grace revealed in the Great Gospel of redemption ; the chains forged by the narrow definitions and exalted pride and bigotry of ecclesiasticism, which bind the creative and redemptive forces of Christianity; the chains wrought out of the Church's trust in material power; the iron chains of bigotry, and the golden chains of luxury, and self-indulgence and the love of pleasure ; and the chains which are unconsciously forged by the habits of neglect and indifference and procrastination ; these are the bonds which have ever bound the Body of Christ.

These chains bind His Church to-day. Called and challenged by the world crisis to help and heal sorrowing and suffering millions, and to restrain the ambition and wrath of man, the Church finds herself enchained. She stands unprepared in the presence of her greatest opportunity and responsibility. Sent to minister in His name to the poor, the broken-hearted, the captives, and to give men liberty, she hears the call, "Come over and help us," but she is not xii PREFACE

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Cordial appreciation is expressed, and grateful acknowledgment is here made of the kindness of the Right Reverend Doctor David H. Greer, Bishop of New York, for reading the manuscript, and for writing the introduction to this book ; to the Rev. Dr. Cosby Bell, Professor of Theology of the Theological Seminary in Virginia ; the Reverend Editor of the Southern Churchman; and Mr. George Wharton Pepper of Philadelphia, who were kind enough to read the manuscript, and who offered valuable and helpful suggestions. This acknowledgment does not carry with it any intention of making these honoured churchmen in any way responsible for

the views set forth.

William A. R. Goodwin.

St. Paul's Church,

Kochester, N. Y.

Easter, 1916.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction by Bishop Greer .... xvii PART I— THE CRISIS AND THE CALL

CHAPTER

Part Ii— Ecclesiasticism And Christian- Ity. Form And Spirit

VII The Purpose Previewed . . 83 VIII Logic and Catholicity ... 90 IX The Intention and Extension

of the Church 93

X The Atmosphere of the Syllogism 98

XI The Reformation a Distinctly

Catholic Movement .... 102 XII Can the Church be Defined? 105

XIII The Church Under a Descriptive Title 113

XIV The Message of the Transition 126 XV The Terms "Catholic" and

"Catholic Sanction" . . . 134 xiii xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVI The Appeal to the Past . . 155

XVII The Ancient Paths .... 159

XVIII Individualism 163

XIX The Horns of a Dilemma . . 167

XX The Paradoxes of Truth . . 174

XXI The Central Ground Position 177 XXII The Language of Courtesy

and of Controversy . . . 182

XXIII The Fence Through the Middle Ground 186

XXIV The Priest and the Monk . 188 XXV The Prophet and the Denominational Minister .... 197

XXVI Necessary Restrictions Upon

Liberty . 202

XXVII The Perils of Protestantism 217

XXVIII The Peril of Orders ... 227 XXIX What Would Become of the

Prayer Book 234

XXX The Defence and the Exemplification of the Power of Orders 238

XXXI What We May and What We

Cannot Hold . . . . . . 243

XXXII Ancient Land Marks ... 247

Part Iii— Conference- Unity -co-operation

XXXIII Are We Prepared? .... 251

XXXIV The Challenge 257

XXXV "The Church' ' and "This

Church" 260

XXXVI Conference and Co-operation 263

XXXVII Movements Toward Unity . 277

Chapter XXXVIII

XXXIX

XL

XLI

XLII

XLIII

XLIV XLV

XLVI

XLVII

XLVIII

XLIX

L

CONTENTS xv

PAGE

Ouk Position with Refekence to the Orthodox Eastern

Church 285

Our Position with Reference to the Roman Catholic Church 289 Conference and Co-operation with Protestant Communions . 305 The Recognition of the Layman by this Church. . . . 311 The Way Prepared for this

Church 320

The World, the Work, the Waste, Co- Workers .... 324 The Restraint of Power . . 333 A Conference and Co-operative

Commission 338

The Temporary Nature and the Mission of Federated Movements 342

Federation and Religious Education 353

The Price of Consistency . . 363 The Question of Unity . . 366 The Vision of the Son of Man 371

Introduction

BY

The Rt. Rev. David Hummell Geeeb, D. D., LL. D.,

Bishop of the Diocese of New York.

DR. GOODWIN has given us in the following pages a strong and timely word. It is positive and forceful but not polemical and contentious. He speaks with conviction but not with intolerance, and whether or not we agree with him we cannot fail to recognize and admire his courtesy and fairness towards those who differ with him. In this respect, he not only sets an example which, in these days of much heat and little light both in Church and State, it would be well for the rest of us to follow, but also strikes the true catholic note and expresses

xvii xviii INTRODUCTION

or reflects the true catholic mind. For what is catholicity? — that very much mooted and much disputed word and about which there seems to be, as Dr. Goodwin shows, no catholic agreement. In what does it consist? Not in a fixed and rigorous definition or dogmatic declaration established once for all. That is the definition of the sectary with the seeds of schism in it. It is not so much a declaration as a disposition : not a disposition to surrender its convictions or to hold them lightly, but one which, while adhering to them, is not delimited by them, but has learned the secret, the catholic secret, of how to keep and hold without any break or excision in it a fellowship beyond them. A recent reviewer has said of Charles Lamb that he was certainly never surpassed and probably not equalled by any contemporary for understanding those with whom he did not agree. That is the catholic mind, which, if rarely found in literature, is still more rarely found in theology and religion or the Councils of the Church. It is, however, a type of mind in which the hope

INTRODUCTION xix

of the ultimate unity of Christendom resides and which should be sedulously cultivated by all schools of thought in the Christian Church. That is the type of mind reflected in Dr. Goodwin's treatise, which, while expressing definitely and clearly and with no uncertain sound, his deep and strong convictions, is written in a truly catholic tone and temper. It is a notable book, both in what it says and the spirit in which it says it, and will well repay a close and careful reading.

David H. Greer.

t (

PAST I THE CRISIS AND THE CALL Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?"

Chapter I The Crisis And The Church

IN the presence of the great world crisis, Christianity and the Christian Chnrch stand for judgment. It is asked by many, "Has Christianity f ailed !" When asked this question by a young student, the president of one of our universities answered: "It has never been tried.' ' This question cannot be answered and dismissed with a "ves" or "no." Christianity has succeeded in doing many things ; in many things she has deplorably failed. That she failed to stem the forces which culminated in the present world catastrophe is apparent. Yet it is evident that the desires, the ambitions, the materialism, the inordinate

greed, and the will to power, which have combined to cause the greatest war of the world, are all motives and impulses directly contrary to her fundamental principles, and to the Spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ. The great war is, indeed, the most striking vindication in human history of the truth of the Christian contention. As nothing has ever done before, it manifests the necessity for obeying the spiritual laws proclaimed by Christ, and of living life in the power of His Spirit, if a just and abiding peace is to be established among the nations of the earth.

It is well that thinking men should pause and carefully consider in what ways, and for what reasons, the Christian Church has failed to impress the consciousness of the races at war, and the world consciousness at large, with a force and intensity sufficient to guide into the paths of integrity and peace the desire of the nations, and the wills of those who are now working their will in devastation, wholesale slaughter and mutual destruction.

The causes for this failure in the Church, in so far as they still inhere in the Church, exist there as a tragedy. If, in view of the call which now comes to the Christian Church, these causes of weakness are allowed to continue to retard her influence and paralyse her power, the world will, when it pauses to take inventory, condemn and despise the Church for her lack of vision ; for her impotence, born of pride, prejudice and arrogance; for her lack of power because of her lack of unity; for having proven recreant to her trust; and for having utterly failed to speak and exemplify the mind and heart of the Christ to the world in the darkest hour of her life, and in the day of her deepest distress, and of her profoundest need.

It is the solemn duty of the Christian Church, and of all Christian men, to ask the causes of the tragic failure of the one force which might have prevented this tragedy had it been vital, united, and consecrated fully to its Christ-given mission to the world. This duty is imperative, and must be faced with great sacrificial renunciation unless we are willing that the causes of the Church's failure shall be written in the book of doom which will tell future generations why suddenly the whole world fabric seemed to collapse. It is imperative for the reason, also, that we face a future pregnant with the most vital and stupendous problems and responsibilities which have ever challenged the thought, and will, and faith of man.

" WHERE IS NOW THY GOD?"

Infidelity, skepticism, materialism, heathendom turn to-day to the Christian Church and ask, ' ' Where is now thy God ! ' ' Browning has answered,

''God's in His heaven — All's right with the world.' '

But Zeppelin bombs were not then dropping around him out of the blue Italian sky upon the ancient glories of Venice. At present all's wrong with the world, and God, where is He now? The doors of many parts of His heaven are closed to Him. By neglect, He is to-day being excluded, here in America, from the minds of millions of His children by the ignorance that is in them by reason of the entire lack of all religious education, both on Sundays and on week days. Sectarian strife and ecclesiastical bigotry have shut Him out of our public schools. Materialism, agnosticism and infidelity have banished Him from the laboratories and class rooms of many of our most renowned universities.

Greed and covetousness have forced Him out of conference and co-partnership relation with many of our banking, commercial, and industrial corporations. It is said they have no soul. If the directors of big business fail to feel their responsibility to incorporate their souls into their business, then corporations have no point of contact with God. The exiled God is not satisfied. Through His broken laws, and in the brutal passions of men, He is uttering His protest. Through the cannon's mouth, He is appealing for His divine right to be enthroned in the hearts of His children, and to govern the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. With the roar of artillery He would wake the slumbering souls of His children, and deafen the voice of prejudice and bigotry that keeps His Church from being one in its witness-bearing power, and in its readiness to serve, even though, as yet, she cannot become one in formal and organic unity. Through the appalling need of the world, through the carnage and blood of far-scattered battle fields, through the cry of fatherless children, through the lamentation of widows left desolate, through the pallor of death on the faces of the splendid youth who lie fresh slain beneath the silent stars, through the songs which float from bivouacked hosts encamped ready for to-morrow's ordeal of slaughter; from hunger and famine, from pestilence and death, from souls in their flight to Paradise, and from the open gates of Hell (for "war is hell"), the voice of God is calling to His Church to consider what her neglect, and what man's neglect of her and of Him, have brought to pass in the earth.

THE CALL OF THE NEAR FUTURE

We cannot tell when over the battle fields there will be unfurled flags which will tell that the fight is done. The guns will be rolled away. Swords, encrimsoned with blood, will be sheathed. The mind and the heart of man will still pulse and throb. What voice shall speak to them? Shall it be the voice of ancient animosities ? Shall it be still the voice of the will to power! Shall material ambition still call most loudly to the nations? Shall memories of ravished women and of ruthless devastation appeal to the spirit of revenge ? Shall the blood of brothers and fathers slain cry aloud for vengeance to the childhood of to-day, and to the youth of to-morrow ? Shall the nations hear no other voices than these ?

Shall they hear America's voice? What will it say to them? Will it be guttural with the fat of the gain it has gotten out of the tragedy of its brothers over the seas? Shall it be the covetous voice of commercialism that shall first sweep over the ocean and break upon the desolate and deathly calm of prostrate and impoverished peoples? Shall it be the voice of Shylock or of Portia that shall pass from our shores to ring through the encreped halls of judgment when the nations shall come at last to face their creditors? What will America have to say, and what will she have to give in that day?

Will she stretch out clean hands, and speak with a great purity of heart to the nations when the day of opportunity comes?

America must be very clearly told that this day of her opportunity will be, also, the day of her greatest judgment. The nations will, on that day, be prepared, in part at least, to forgive her wavering neutrality. They will understand the perplexities with which her mind was surrounded. They will pardon mistakes of judgment. But they will be in no humour to pardon cupidity. If America goes as a vulture, seeking what she may devour; if she goes as to a bargain counter of a house which has fallen under disaster; if she goes as a merchant with outstretched hands to get more gold out of the bargains which she may force by reason of human needs and human misfortune, she will have then doomed herself to the scorn and lasting contempt of prostrate nations. America will then have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. She will then have given evidence of a prostitution of spirit so base that perhaps nothing short of the purification of the fires of war could purge her own life from the dross of selfishness and materialism.

And what voice shall speak to the heart and conscience of America? Is there a power in the Christian Church at this crisis moment for adequate leadership? Is there a priestly voice to call America to the altar of self-sacrifice, that she may there make a great renunciation? Is there the possibility of a solidarity of life, and a practical unity of forces, out of which the prophet's voice may call America to a great consecration to a Christlike service. If many voices are to speak, they must speak as one voice. Back of the many voices there must be a consciousness of solidarity of mind, and heart, and purpose. If the nations are to be built into a deep and abiding consciousness of their interdependence; if they are to be bound by ties of brotherhood into a lasting peace, the spirit of the Prince of Peace must lead them. Shall America voice that spirit ? That she is armed for defence will make her voice more potent. Her own preparedness will give to her appeals for brotherhood a clearer note of sincerity. If she is herself adequately strong, she can strongly appeal for the weak. But will her preparedness be in her armament alone, or in her prepared spirit also? Surely out of the open heavens alone can come this spirit of leadership. Who shall call it down? Who shall point the nation to the vision of those things essential to her true greatness, and to her permanent and honourable peace 1 Who shall lead America that America may lead the world? What has the Christian Church in this land said that has counted for anything in bringing to bear upon our National Government a compelling sense of its duty arid responsibility to protest in the name of Christ and humanity against the fiendish and brutal Armenian massacres, which have stained the earth with perhaps more Christian blood than was shed during all the persecutions of the Early Church? If it does not act, it is because it assumes that its constituents do not care. Have we cared? What voice, potent to compel protest, has spoken? If ever the challenge to speak and to help, or else forfeit the claim to be called a Christian nation, was made to a people, it was made, and is now being made, through the martyred, massacred Armenian Christians, by allies of civilised and Christianised nations of Europe, in the presence of silent and complacent America, neutral even to the cause of the Christ, whose Body we have witnessed tortured, without a word of protest in their defenceless helplessness.

The curse and the crime of such silent sanction rests upon the Church, made impotent by division, more, perhaps, than it does upon the government of the nation, left without Christian guidance and a compelling Christian influence.

In spite of the dire failures of the Church, the Christ Spirit is still regnant in the Heavens, and waiting, with infinite patience, to become embodied and expressed in the life of the Church. He waits to lead the way. He needs a consecrated Body in which, and through which, to speak and to work His will to peace. This Body must be one. Some day it may be one in its organic and formal unity. This must bide the time till more humility of mind prevails, and when pride and prejudice are less rampant in the heart and mind ecclesiastic. For this the world in its present crisis cannot wait.

Has the world in its need the right to ask and to expect that the Christian Church in America, and all over the world, shall respond to its call out of the darkness and come to its aid! The S. 0. S. call sounds over the seas through the storm and the darkness. Shall we stand apart? Shall we be hindered by discussions as to the regularity of Orders, and the validity of Sacraments, by the kind of Baptism, and questions of Church government, from going with one clear voice, and with one united purpose, to speak, and to lead and to help? United in purpose; in desire; in the great consciousness of world mission ; in a consecrated willingness to serve, the Christian Church could, in this day of her greatest opportunity, do much to lead America, and through America, help to lead the other nations of the earth.

Never before was the tragedy of disunion in the Church more appalling than to-day as she stands almost impotent in the presence of the great catastrophe of the nations. To remain out of co-operative unity in the face of this call, imperious and appealing, which comes to her for moral and spiritual leadership; to remain impotent to speak with one consent, when the day comes for international reconstruction, and the creation of new world ideals, will be criminal, and desperately faithless to her divinely given mission.

WHY THE CHURCH IS NOT READY

It is worth while that we should pause, in the face of this vital call, which comes in the presence of the world's tragedy, and, in the dawn of the world 's crisis of reconstruction, to consider how it has come to pass that the Church has failed so largely, and why, in the face of her greatest opportunity, she stands to-day divided, and seemingly impotent for the world task and responsibility, which she should, for every reason, assume. She cannot lead because she is divided. And why is she divided! What processes of mind have led her into the tragedies of her failures, and into her present impotence to lead the thought of the world, and to determine the international idealism of the future?

As we review these processes of thought and attitudes of mind, it would be well to keep two questions constantly before our judgment.

*£KE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 1?

First: Cannot the reasons for our organic disunion be surmounted for the sake of a spiritual unity of service and co-operation, and a solidarity of spiritual leadership in the presence of the crisis that faces us?

Second: Can we not, as we serve together, cultivate a spirit of sympathy and understanding that will create an atmosphere in which we may candidly confer and co-labour in an effort to create a comprehensive Church, inclusive and truly catholic in its divine life and spirit, and in its outlook towards ultimate organic unity?

Chapter II The Mission Of The Church To Imperilled America

A NATION is often unconscious of its real imminent perils until it is too late to avert them. They are generally inherent in the life of the nation itself. In ways that are insidious, and by the working of forces which blur the vision, and dull the national consciousness, these perils make their approach, and win their grip upon national life and character. The chief peril is that which comes of forgetfulness. It has ever been the fore-runner of disaster.

" Beware,' ' wrote the inspired writer to ancient Israel, "Beware that ye forget not the Lord thy God. 9 ' The temptation will come with

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 19

the increase of silver and gold. It will creep upon you in your hours of ease. It will assail you in the days of your luxury and pleasure. It will steal upon you in your consciousness of your prosperity. In that day, "Beware lest thou forget."

The peril lies in the temptation to materialism. Things take the place of God. In the process of treasure gathering, the needs and the values of the soul are lost sight of. Gradually the sight of the soul is lost. The senses become dominant in their appeal, and fasten consciousness, and hope and desire and the will upon the things that are seen, and faith, unused, becomes atrophied. In the process of gaining the world the soul is lost. It is a gradual process. Few men sell their birthright at the first sight of the mess of pottage. They do not sell out until hunger has grown very strong and imperious. The hunger for gold, for fame, for success, fed by the call and the cost and the intoxication of high living, make the sensual appeal that materialises the standards of character building. Honour, and truth, and the square deal are imperilled in the presence of this ravenous sense of hunger. Virtue is blinded, and standards are relaxed in the presence of the dominating lure of pleasure; and souls fall in the inevitable rebound from overstimulated senses, and overtaxed nerves. America is imperilled by the immorality which grows out of fatigue, and from the weariness of pursuit after false gods.

One is not unmindful of the splendid intellectual, moral, and spiritual achievements which have characterised our nation and people. There are many signs that by very many God is not forgotten.

When, however, the contributions made to the Glory of God and the public good are analysed, it is found that generosity of spirit is the characteristic of a very small minority of the people; and that those also are in the minority who consider life a stewardship, and time an opportunity for lending to others the helping hand.

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 21

To-day, as of old, to the great masses that go by absorbed in selfish unconcern of their brothers' need, the question is asked, "Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by?" Is it nothing to you that class distinctions are growing more intense, and that gulfs, unbridged by understanding and sympathy, are widening between man and man? Is it nothing to you that materialism is gripping the souls of men and throttling the spirit of brotherhood? Is it nothing to you that great, ill-gotten wealth engenders great hatred, and that men are combining in industrial war against each other and are too blind to see that their interests are common interests, and that, in the end, capital and labour must stand together, or fall together in a fight where neither one can win a lasting triumph over the other? Is it nothing to you that prejudice and bitterness are engendered between man and man, and between class and class, because material interests are hardening the hearts of men, and blinding their minds so that they cannot see afar off?

If they could see, they would look backwards. They would there perceive ambition and selfishness and greed and covetousness, prejudice, passion, hatred, and revenge, armed with clubs, then with iron, then with powder, and then with dynamite and poison gases, and aircraft and all the implements of hell. If they could see, they would look backward and behold the corpse-strewn battle fields of the world. Bones bleached white and blood and carnage would tell of man's inhumanity to man when love and brotherhood had become dominated by the will to power inflamed by the greed for material possession.

If we could see, we would look forward* There on the fields of the future, we would see the forces, born from the forgetfulness of God, armed, as they always, in the end, do arm themselves for a deathly grip, and a ghastly struggle. There is no permanent coherence in the forces which battle for dominance in the struggle for material supremacy. They are forces at enmity with each other. They set man

THE MISSION OI 1 THE CHURCH 23

against man. They have always ended in war. By what reason, and for what cause, sKall America be exempt?

Every war which has been fought on this continent has had its origin in some question growing out of property rights. As one to-day feels the pulse of public life, are there signs that this malignant fever has been entirely cured! As one to-day endeavours to diagnose the health of the body politic, are there no signs that give warning of a great heat of blood and passion, and of the presence of forces disordered and poisonous, which may, if unchecked and unhealed, produce a great eruption? By what token may America hope to be exempt from the consequences that have always followed from forgetting God?

The catastrophe may not immediately come. It may never come. If it does not, it will be because we have learned a lesson from looking over the seas, and from listening to the voices which come to us from the battles born out of the will bent on material power. The battle does not of necessity have to be between nation and nation, or between section and section. The most dire struggles are sometimes the ones which arise among those who had given them the chance to be brothers and became enemies.