after Newman's secession. Many High Churchmen, in speaking of the
English Church, became apologetic or patronising or lukewarm.
Progressive members of the party professed a distaste for the name
Anglican, and wished to be styled Catholics pure and simple. The same
men began to speak of their opponents in the Church as Protestants; no
longer as ultra-Protestants. Other changes soon manifested themselves.
The archaeological side of the movement lost its interest; the appeal to
antiquity became only a convenient argument to defend practices adopted
on quite other grounds. The _epigoni_ of the Catholic revival are not
learned; they know even less of the Fathers than of their Bibles. Their
chief literature consists of a weekly penny newspaper, which reflects
only too well their prejudices and aspirations. On the other hand, they
are far busier than the older generation. The movement has become
democratic; it has passed from the quadrangles of Oxford to the streets
and lanes of our great cities, where hundreds of devoted clergymen are
working zealously, without care for remuneration or thought of
recognition, among the poorest of the populace. Of late years, the more
energetic section of the party has not only abandoned the 'Church and
King' Toryism of the old High Church party, but has plunged into
socialism. The Mirfield community is said to be strongly imbued with
collectivist ideas; and the Christian Social Union, which is chiefly
supported by High Churchmen, tends to become more and more a Union of
Christian Socialists, instead of being, as was intended by its founders,
a non-political association for the study of social duties and problems
in the light of the Sermon on the Mount. This attitude is partly the
result of a close acquaintance with the sufferings of the urban
proletariat, which moves the priests who minister among them to a
generous sympathy with their lot; and, partly, it may be, to an unavowed
calculation that an alliance with the most rapidly growing political
party may in time to come be useful to the Church. Their methods of
teaching are also more democratic, though many of them make the fatal
mistake of despising preaching. They rely partly on what they call
'definite Catholic teaching,' including frequent exhortations to the
practice of confession; and partly on appeals to the eye, by symbolic
ritual and elaborate ceremonial. Their more ornate services are often
admirably performed from a spectacular point of view, and are far
superior to most Roman Catholic functions in reverence, beauty, and good
taste. The extreme section of the party is contemptuously lawless, not
only repudiating the authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, but flouting the bishops with studied insolence. A glaring
instance is to be found in the correspondence between Mr. Athelstan
Riley and the Bishop of Oxford, which followed the Report of the Royal
Commission on ritual practices.
Doctrinally, the modern Ritualist is prepared to surrender the old
theory of inspiration. He takes, indeed, but little interest in the
Bible; his oracle is not the Book, but 'the Church.' What he means by
the Church it is not easy to say. The old Anglican theory of the
infallible undivided Church is not repudiated by him, but does not
appeal to minds which look forward much more than backward; he is not
yet, except in a few instances, disposed to accept the modern Roman
Church as the arbiter of doctrine; and the English Church has no living
voice to which he pays the slightest respect. The 'tradition of Western
Catholicism' is a phrase which has a meaning for him, and he probably
hopes for a reunion, at some distant date, of the Anglican Church with a
reformed Rome. It is therefore essential, in his opinion, that no
alteration shall take place in the formularies which we share with Rome;
the Bible may be thrown to the critics, but the Creeds are inviolable.
The Thirty-nine Articles he passes by with silent disdain. They are, he
thinks not unjustly, a document to which no one, High, Low, or Broad,
can now subscribe without mental reservations.
The theory of development in doctrine, which, in its latest application
by 'Modernists' like Loisy and Tyrell, is now agitating the Roman
Church, is exciting interest in a few of the more thoughtful
Anglo-Catholics; but the majority are blind to the difficulties for
which the theory of two kinds of truth is a desperate remedy. Nor is it
likely, perhaps, that the plain Englishman will ever allow that an
ostensibly historical proposition may be false as a matter of fact, but
true for faith.
This party in the Church has a lay Pope, who represents the opinions of
the more enterprising among the rank and file, and is president of their
society, the English Church Union. It has the ably conducted weekly
newspaper above referred to, and it has the general sympathy and support
of the strongest man in the English Church, Charles Gore, Bishop of
Birmingham. This prelate, partly by his personal qualities--his
eloquence, high-minded disinterestedness, and splendid generosity, and
partly by knowing exactly what he wants, and having full courage of his
opinions, has at present an influence in the Anglican Church which is
probably far greater than that of any other man. It is therefore a
matter of public interest to ascertain what his views and intentions
are, as an ecclesiastical statesman and reformer, and as a theologian.
Bishop Gore exercised a strong influence over the younger men at Oxford
before the publication of 'Lux Mundi.' But it was his editorship of this
book, and his contribution to it, which first brought his name into
prominence as a leader of religious thought. The religious public, with
rather more penetration than usual, fastened on the pages about
inspiration, and the limitations of Christ's human knowledge, which are
from the editor's own pen, as the most significant part of the book. The
authors are believed to have been annoyed by the disproportionate
attention paid to this short section. But in truth these pages indicated
a new departure among the High Church party, a change more important
than the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, which was being made
smoother for the religious public by the brilliant writings of Aubrey
Moore. The acceptance of the verdict of modern criticism as to the
authorship of the 110th Psalm, in the face of the recorded testimony of
Christ that it was written by David, was a concession to 'Modernism'
which staggered the old-fashioned High Churchman. Liddon did not conceal
his distress that such doctrine should have come out of the Pusey House.
But the manifesto was well timed; it enabled the younger men to go
forward more freely, and sacrificed nothing that was in any way
essential to the Anglo-Catholic position. Since the appearance of 'Lux
Mundi,' the High Church clergy have been able without fear to avow their
belief in the scientific theories associated with Darwin's name, and
their rejection of the rigid doctrine of verbal inspiration, while the
Evangelicals, who have not been emancipated by their leaders, labour
under the reproach of extreme obscurantism in their attitude towards
Biblical studies.
As Canon of Westminster, and then as Bishop of Worcester, and of
Birmingham, Dr. Gore has written and spoken much, and has defined his
position more closely in relation to Anglo-Catholicism, to Church
Reform, and to the social question. It will be convenient to take these
three heads separately.
This Bishop regards the excesses of the Ritualists as a deplorable but
probably inevitable incident in a great movement. He quotes Newman's
remonstrance against some hot-headed members of his adopted Church, who,
'having done their best to set the house on fire, leave to others the
task of extinguishing the flames.'[26] But he reminds us that there has
always been 'intemperate zeal' in the Church, from the time of St.
Paul's letters to the Church at Corinth to our own day. 'It must needs
be that offences come,' wherever persons of limited wisdom are very much
in earnest. The remedy for extravagance is to give fair scope for the
legitimate principle. In the case of the so-called Ritualist movement,
the inspiring principle or motive is easily found. It is the idea of a
visible Church, exercising lawful authority over its members.
This is the key to Bishop Gore's whole position. It rests on the
conviction that Jesus Christ founded, and meant to found, a visible
Church, an organised society. It is reasonable, the Bishop says, to
suppose that He did intend this, for it is only by becoming embodied in
the convictions of a society, and informing its actions, that ideas have
reality and power. Christianity could never have lived if there had been
no Christian Church. And, from the first, Christians believed that this
society, the Catholic Church, was not left to organise itself on any
model which from time to time might seem to promise the best results,
but was instituted from above, as a Divine ordinance, by the authority
of Christ Himself.[27] The witness of the early Christian writers is
unanimous that the conception of a visible Church was a prominent
feature in the Christianity of the sub-apostolic age, and it is plain
that the civil power suspected the Christians just because they were so
well organised. The Roman Empire was accustomed to tolerate
superstitions, but it was part of her policy to repress _collegia
illicita_. The witness of the New Testament points in the same
direction. Jesus Christ committed His message, not to writing, but to a
'little flock' of devoted adherents. He instituted the two great
sacraments (Bishop Gore will admit no uncertainty on this point) to be a
token of membership and a bond of brotherhood. He instituted a _civitas
Dei_ which was to be wide enough to embrace all, but which makes for
itself an exclusive claim. The 'heaven' of the first century was a city,
a new Jerusalem; Christians are spoken of by St. Paul as citizens of a
heavenly commonwealth. The distinction between the universal invisible
Church and particular visible Churches is 'utterly unscriptural,' and
was overthrown long ago by William Law in his controversy with Hoadly.
As for the 'Apostolical Succession,' Dr. Gore thinks that its principle
is more important than the form in which it is embodied. The succession
would not be broken if all the presbyters in the Church governed as a
college of bishops; and if something of this kind actually happened for
a time in the early Church no argument against the Apostolical
Succession can be based thereon.[28] The principle is that no ministry
is valid which is assumed, which a man takes upon himself, or which is
delegated to him from below. That this theory is Sacerdotalism in a
sense may be admitted. But it does not imply a _vicarious_ priesthood,
only a representative one. It does not deny the priesthood which belongs
to the Church as a whole. The true sacerdotalism means that Christianity
is the life of an organised society, in which a graduated body of
ordained ministers is made the instrument of unity. It is no doubt true
that in such a Church unspiritual men are made to mediate spiritual
gifts, but happily we may distinguish character and office. Nor must we
be deterred from asserting our convictions by the indignant protests
which we are sure to hear, that we are 'unchurching' the non-episcopal
bodies,[29] We do not assert that God is tied to His covenant, but only
that we are so.
Dr. Gore has no difficulty in proving that the sacerdotal theory of the
Christian ministry took shape at an early date, and has been
consistently maintained in the Catholic Church from ancient times to our
own day. It is much more difficult to trace it back to the Apostolic
age, even if, with Dr. Gore, we accept as certain the Pauline authorship
of the Pastoral Epistles, which is still _sub judice_. The 'Didache' is
a stumbling-block to those who wish to find Catholic practice in the
century after our Lord's death; but that document is dismissed as
composed by a Jewish Christian for a Jewish Christian community. After
the second century, the apologists for the priesthood are in smooth
waters.
The conclusion is that 'the various presbyterian and congregationalist
organisations, in dispensing with the episcopal succession, violated a
fundamental law of the Church's life.'[30] 'A ministry not episcopally
received is invalid, that is to say, it falls outside the conditions of
covenanted security, and cannot justify its existence in terms of the
covenant.'[31] The Anglican Church is not asking for the cause to be
decided all her own way; for she has much to do to recall herself to her
true principles. 'God's promise to Judah was that she should remember
her ways and should be ashamed, when she should receive her sisters
Samaria and Sodom, and that He would give them to her for daughters, but
not by her covenant.'[32] The 'covenant' which the Church is to be
content to forgo in order to recover Samaria and _Sodom_ (the 'Free
Churches' can hardly be expected to relish this method of opening
negotiations) is apparently the covenant between Church and State. 'In
the future the Anglican Church must be content to act as, first of all,
part and parcel of the Catholic Church, ruled by her laws, empowered by
her spirit.' The bishops are to be ready to maintain, at all cost, the
inherent spiritual independence which belongs to their office.
Such a theory of the essentials of a true Church necessarily requires,
as a corollary, a refutation of the Roman Catholic theory of orders,
which reduces the Anglican clergy to the same level as the ministers of
schismatical sects. Bishop Gore answers the objection that the Roman
Church is the logical expression of his theory of the ministry, by
saying that Roman Catholicism is not the development of the whole of the
Church, but only of a part of it; and moreover, that spiritually it does
not represent the whole of Christianity as it finds expression in the
first Christian age or in the New Testament.[33] The Roman Church is a
one-sided outgrowth of the religion of Christ--a development of those
qualities in Christianity with which the Latin genius has special
affinity. It has committed itself to unhistorical doctrines, involving a
deficient appreciation of the intellectual and moral claim of truth to
be valued for its own sake no less than for its results. Much of its
teaching can only be explained as the result of an 'over-reckless
accommodation to the unregenerate natural instincts in religion.'[34]
The fact that the largest section of Christendom has become what Rome
now is, is no proof that theirs is the line of true development. We can
see this clearly enough if we consider the case of Buddhism. The main
existing developments of Buddhism are a mere travesty of the spirit of
Sakya Muni.[35] In this way Dr. Gore anticipates and rejects the
argument since then put forward by Loisy, and other Liberal Catholic
apologists, that history has proved Roman Catholicism to be the proper
development of Christ's religion. In short, the Anglican Church, which
indisputably possesses the Apostolic Succession, has no reason to go
humbly to Borne to obtain recognition of her Orders.
So far, in reviewing Bishop Gore's published opinions, we are on
familiar High Anglican ground. But what is the Bishop's seat of
authority in doctrine? He has shown himself willing, within limits, to
apply critical methods to Holy Scripture. He has very little respect for
the infallible Pope. And he would be the last to trust to private
judgment--the _testimonium Spiritus Sancti_ as understood by some
Protestants. Where, then, is the ultimate Court of Appeal? Bishop Gore
finds it in the two earliest of the three Creeds, 'in which Catholic
consent is especially expressed;' and in a half apologetic manner he
adds that this Catholic basis has been 'generally understood' to imply
'an unrealisable but not therefore unreal appeal to a General
Council.'[36] No revision, therefore, of the Church's doctrinal
formularies can be made except by the authority of a court which can
never, by any possibility, be summoned! The unique sanctity and
obligation which Bishop Gore considers to attach to the Creeds have been
asserted by him again and again with a vehemence which proves that he
regards the matter as of vital importance. 'There must be no compromise
as regards the Creeds.... If those who live in an atmosphere of
intellectual criticism become incapable of such sincere public
profession of belief as the Creed contains, the Church must look to
recruit her ministry from classes still capable of a more simple and
unhesitating faith.'[37] And, again, in his most recent book: 'I have
taken occasion before now to make it evident that, as far as I can
secure it, I will admit no one into this diocese, or into Holy Orders,
to minister for the congregation, who does not _ex animo_ believe the
Creeds.'[38] Dr. Gore has not spared to stigmatise as morally dishonest
those who desire to serve the Church as its ministers while harbouring
doubts about the physical miracle known as the Virgin Birth, and one of
his clergy was a few years ago induced to resign his living by an
aspersion of this kind, to which the Bishop gave publicity in the daily
press.
Now it has been generally supposed that the Anglican clergy are bound to
declare their adhesion not only to the Creeds, but to the Thirty-nine
Articles, and to the infallible truth of Holy Scripture. Bishop Gore,
however, holds that when a new deacon, on the day of his ordination,
solemnly declares that he 'assents to the Thirty-nine Articles,' and
that he 'believes the doctrine therein set forth to be agreeable to the
word of God,' he 'can no longer fairly be regarded as bound to
particular phrases or expressions in the Articles.'[39] And further,
when the same new deacon expresses his 'unfeigned belief in all the
canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,' 'that expression of
belief can be fairly and justly made by anyone who believes heartily
that the Bible, as a whole, records and contains the message of God to
man in all its stages of delivery and that each one of the books
contains some element or aspect of this revelation.'[40]
The Bishop himself has affirmed his personal belief that some narratives
in the Old Testament are probably not historical. It may fairly be asked
on what principle he is prepared to evade the plain sense and intention
of a doctrinal test in two cases while stigmatising as morally
flagitious any attempts to do the same in a third. For it is
unquestionable that a general assent to the Articles does not mean that
the man who gives that assent is free to repudiate any 'particular
phrases or expressions' which do not please him. A witness who admitted
having signed an affidavit with this intention would cut a poor figure
in a law court. And it is difficult to see how adhesion to the
antiquated theory of inspiration could be demanded more stringently than
by the form of words which was drawn up, as none can doubt, to secure
it. These things being so, either the accusation of bad faith applies to
the treatment which the Bishop justifies in the case of the Articles and
the Bible, or it should not be brought against those who apply to one
clause in their vows the principle which is admitted and used in two
others.
There are some honourable men who have abstained from entering the
service of the Church on account of these requirements. But there are
many others who recognise that knowledge grows and opinions change,
while formularies for the most part remain unaltered; and who consider
that, so long as their general position is understood by those among
whom they work, it would be overscrupulous to refuse an inward call to
the ministry because they know that they will be asked to give a formal
assent to unsuitably worded tests drawn up three centuries ago. Dr. Gore
himself would probably have been refused ordination fifty years ago on
the ground of his lax views on inspiration; and the Bishops who approved
of the condemnation of Colenso, who condemned 'Essays and Reviews,' and
who would have condemned 'Lux Mundi,' were more 'honest' to the tests
than their successors. But an obstinate persistence in that kind of
honesty would have excluded from the ministry all except fools, liars,
and bigots. Again, it might have been supposed that the laity also, who
at their baptism and confirmation made the same declaration of belief in
'all the articles' of the Apostles' Creed, and who are bidden by the
Church to repeat the same Creed every week, are in the same position as
the clergy. But the Bishop again attempts to draw a distinction. 'The
responsibility of joining in the Creed is left to the conscience of the
layman,' but not to the conscience of the clergyman, nor, we suppose, of
the choir.[41] This plea seems to us a very lame one. The Church of
England has never thought of imposing severer doctrinal tests on the
clergy than on the laity, and assent to the Creeds is as integral a part
of the baptismal as of the ordination vows.
No loyal Christian wishes to impugn a doctrine which touches so closely
the life of the Redeemer as the account of His miraculous conception,
which appears, in our texts, in two books of the New Testament. If the
tradition is as old as the Church, which is very doubtful, it must, from
the nature of the case, rest on the unsupported assertion of Mary, the
mother of Jesus; for Joseph could only testify that the child was not
his. It is therefore useless to reinforce the Gospel narrative by
appealing to 'Catholic tradition,'[42] as if it could add anything to
the evidence. It is significant, however, of the Bishop's own feelings
about tradition, that he quietly sets aside the plain statement of the
Synoptic Gospels that Joseph and Mary had a large family of four sons
and more than one daughter by their marriage. This statement, which is
doubtless historical, became intolerable to the conscience of the Church
during the long frenzy of asceticism, when marital relations were
regarded as impure and degrading; and in consequence the perpetual
virginity of Mary, though contradicted in the New Testament, became as
much an article of faith as her conception of Jesus by the Holy Ghost.
We have no wish to criticise the arguments for the Virgin Birth which
Dr. Gore has collected in his 'Dissertations.' But when a strenuous
effort is made to exclude from the ministry of the Church all who cannot
declare _ex animo_ that they believe it to be a certain historical fact,
it becomes a duty to point out that, on ordinary principles of evidence,
the story must share the uncertainty which hangs over other strange and
unsupported narratives. The Bishop expresses his doubt whether those who
regard this miracle as unproven can be convinced of the Divinity of
Christ. This only shows how difficult it is for an ecclesiastic in his
high position to induce either clergy or laity to talk frankly to him.
To most educated men there would be no difficulty in believing that the
Son of God became incarnate through the agency of two earthly parents.
The analogy of hybrids in the animal world is not felt to apply to the
union of the human and divine natures, except by persons of very low
intelligence. We should have preferred to be silent on this delicate
subject, but for the fact that some men whom the Church can ill spare
have been advised officially not to apply for ordination, on account of
their views about this miracle. Fortunately, the practice of demanding
more specific declarations than the law requires has not been adopted
in most dioceses.