“We declare, therefore, that the Church of England now holds,
teaches, and insists upon, all things whether of belief or practice,
which she held, taught and insisted on before the year 1540, unless
she has since that time, plainly, openly and dogmatically asserted
the contrary. This we declare in general. And in particular, as
regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the
various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add: that
whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church
of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any
subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the
one) hand fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more
than it signified before the revision of the ritual.” {51}
* * * * *
“Few persons will deny that the existence of a doctrine known,
acknowledged, and taught in the Church of England at the beginning of
the sixteenth century, coupled with the fact that no reformation or
alteration of that doctrine has at any time since been made—and
therefore that it was intended to be still known, acknowledged and
taught, is strong evidence by itself that such a doctrine must be
true. The obligation to enquire accurately into it, and if possible
overthrow it, is in the first place, upon the shoulders of those who
are inclined to doubt or to dispute. It will then be for us to see
if it can be defended. One thing only I am bound to say before I
pass on. And it is this: that, equally on this matter of absolution,
as upon all other essential portions of the One Faith once delivered
to the saints, I believe that the Church of England holds the true
and complete doctrine of the holy gospel, and follows in her practice
of it, the example of the primitive age. Our Church now claims, in
right of her succession, all the ordinary powers and privileges which
the Apostles received from their and her Almighty Lord; now offers to
her children all the means whether in aid of, or as being necessary
to, the salvation of each one which were offered from the beginning;
and now, as of old and ever, either insists upon the reception, or
entreatingly urges the acceptance, according to their various nature,
of all and every of those means of grace.” {52}
I think I am justified in saying that you admit yourself, by inference,
in your second letter, that if the principle of these passages can still
be sustained, the case and position of the Church of England will be
tenable against the charge of being without necessary dogmatic teaching.
But you explain in your recent letter that you feel you must give up the
soundness of these views; that you cannot now believe the same things
concerning our Church’s rule of faith. Let me give this comment in your
own words:—
“Here, very probably, some one may object against me my own language,
published rather more than a year ago. I allude to my book on the
doctrine of absolution. Let me quote it.” Then follows the quotation I
have already made as to our Church retaining the teaching she held
previous to 1540, except where expressly repealed; upon which you add:
“When that passage was written, it was written in entire assurance that
every word might be established. I do not think so now. And with
whatever pain I say this, it is not because my belief has altered from
accepting the fixed principle that all essential Christian truth is one
and eternal; and that every part of the Church-Catholic is bound of
necessity to hold it whole and undefiled. Believing, as at that time I
did, with the strongest confidence and trust that the Church of England
was a living and a sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church, _I
could not but assert_, as being capable of undeniable proof, her claims
to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the
Catholic faith. If I searched into her foundations it was with no shadow
of fear lest they should be seen not to be resting on the rock, but much
rather in the undoubting hope that the more she was tested and examined
the more triumphantly she would declare herself to be divine.
“If the end of long enquiry and consideration has resulted in
disappointed hope, and what seems to be evidence of the fallacy of former
expectations; if I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified
in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and
teaches’ &c., but—that the Church of England how _suffers_ and _permits_
to be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the
prayer book, not ‘_must_ be understood,’ but ‘_may_ be understood:’ let
none suppose that I have lightly yielded up that ground upon which alone
a minister of the Church of England, as a minister of the Church
Catholic, can stand securely.” {54}
Now, the first observation which hereupon occurs is this:—you state you
can no longer think that ground tenable; but you do not sufficiently give
a reason why you thus change your mind. I do not say you give _no_
reason, because I suppose we are to take the whole of your second letter,
as in fact the reason; but I mean, you do not go into the particulars of
the matter, nor in detail state the grounds why you should think the
Church of England does not still appeal to her doctrine before the year
1540, wherever unrepealed, to supply the defect or short comings (if any)
of her later teaching. You seem to have condemned her on her _practical_
or _external_ deficiencies, not as going into and proving her to have
changed her internal rule. Indeed, it seems to me you have hardly
weighed at all, either in asserting or denying the principle you formerly
maintained and now yield up, the external evidence for its truth. This,
perhaps, was originally not an unnatural omission, since you held the
view co-ordinately with, and as an essential part of, your belief in the
Catholicity of the English Church, not as a proof of it, nor as an answer
to objections. You then so unhesitatingly believed the Church of England
to be “a living and sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church,” (and
were not engaged in _proving_ any thing about this at that time, your
argument quite allowing you to assume it;) that, as you say, “_you could
not but assert_ her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every
single doctrine of the Catholic faith.” It followed directly as a
natural and necessary consequence from the position you assigned her,
that she _must_ be able so to teach; and, I repeat, you had no need to do
more than assume it, because none of those with whom you were arguing,
denied it; and your point was to show what followed from this
unquestioned statement as to the particular doctrine you were then
treating of, not to give the proofs of it in detail, if at all. That the
Church of England was a true and living branch of the Church Catholic was
therefore your premiss: that she taught necessarily the one essential
Christian truth, all necessary dogmatic teaching, was your natural and
just inference. And to show what this Christian truth was on absolution,
you referred to the prior teaching of the Church of England, and of the
Church Catholic as received by her before the reformation. But no
wonder, when upon other grounds your premiss was shaken, the truth (as
_I_ still believe it) of the inference was shaken also in your mind. It
could not be its own proof. If you are no longer certain the Church of
England _is_ a true and living branch, you lose _your_ evidence, I mean
the evidence adduced by you in that treatise, and on which you were then
resting, that she embraces all necessary dogmatic teaching. But if _I_
can shew by plain reasoning in the nature of things, or by external
proof, without first assuming her Catholicity, that she _has_ this rule
of faith; that she is linked up to, and holds on by, the whole of her
teaching previous to the reformation, except where she has “plainly,
openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary,” I shall have just so
much proof to give that she does not fail in point of dogmatic teaching,
and therefore so far an answer to your difficulty and your enquiry, “What
am I to teach as the faith and doctrines of the English Church?” If by
this process I can make it reasonably clear that, “by the great grace of
God,” the Church of England has had preserved to her a strict rule by
which she does teach the whole Catholic faith, then shall I meet all the
objection of your recent letter, so far as _principle_ is concerned, and
sustain, as _my_ conclusion, what was _your_ premiss, that (in so far, at
any rate, as her dogmatic teaching is concerned,) we have no right to
doubt her claims; but that she is still what you so unhesitatingly
believed her to be in 1848, a living portion (though it may be now a
wounded one) of the one holy Catholic Church.
You have touched upon, though without entering into proofs to sustain it,
(which as I have said before, your argument did not there require,) the
principle by which the said dogmatic rule is to be established; viz. “the
Church of England now holds and insists upon all things, whether of
belief or practice, which she held, taught, and insisted upon before the
year 1540, unless she has since that time plainly, openly, and
dogmatically asserted the contrary.” . . . Again:—“Whatsoever we find
handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and
neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or
article, must be understood to signify (on the one hand) fully and
entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before
the revision of the ritual.”
You do not say precisely _why it must_ be so received, unless we are to
understand (a position with which I make no quarrel) that common sense
and the nature of things declare it to be a self-evident truth,
immediately the proposition is announced. But I venture to think, beyond
this strong support it has other and more particular evidence, and so
rests altogether upon a much wider basis than is overthrown by the
general and sweeping rejection of it in your assertion, that you do not
now think it tenable. It appears to me in the first place, as I have
said, to rest on principles of reason and common sense, and next to admit
of particular proof, that the Church of England does retain such
teaching.
Let me ask you to examine with attention the evidence I am about to
adduce. I would arrange it under the following heads:—