PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC
The last chapter sketched the ideal of the Church and her essential
mission. The realization of that ideal in the existing Church, visibly
embodied here in earth is extremely fragmentary and imperfect. The
Church that is one, and holy, and apostolic, and catholic, the
brotherhood in Christ of all mankind, knit into unity by the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit, remains a vision of the future, though
a vision which, once seen, mankind will never relinquish until it be
accomplished. "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," it has been
said, "but I regret that she does not as yet exist."
What does exist is a bewildering multiplicity of competing
"denominations," whose points of difference are to the plain man
obscure, but whose mutual separation is in his eyes an obvious scandal
and an offence both against charity and against common sense. Why
cannot they agree to sink their differences, and to unite upon the
broad basis of a common loyalty to Christ? To what purpose is this
overlapping and conflict? The reluctant tribute of the ancient
sceptic--"See how these Christians love one another"--has become the
modern worldling's cynical and familiar jibe; and when to the
spectacle of Christian disunion is added the observation that
professing Christians of all denominations appear to differ from other
men, for the most part, "solely in their opinions" and not in their
lives, the impulse to cry "A plague upon all your Churches" may seem
all but irresistible.
Yet the problem is not susceptible of any cheap or hasty solution.
Unity is the Church's goal; but the Church cannot arrive at unity by
mere elimination of differences. Agreement to differ is not unity: an
agreement to pretend that the differences were not there would not
even be honest. What is needed is a sympathetic study of the divergent
traditions and principles which lie behind existing differences, with
a view to discovering which are really differences of principle, and
which rest merely upon prejudice. Unity, when it comes, can only be
based upon mutual understanding and synthesis. The task will not be
easy, and the time is not yet.
Meanwhile the individual's first duty is to be loyal in the first
instance [Footnote: Of course in the last resort no loyalty is due to
any lesser authority than that of truth, wheresoever it is found and
whatsoever it turns out to be.] to the spiritual tradition and
discipline of the "denomination" to which he in fact belongs, unless
and until he is led to conclude that some other embodies a fuller and
more synthetic presentation of religious truth. It is a mistake for a
man to be content either to remain in ignorance of his own immediate
spiritual heritage or to refuse to try to understand what is
distinctive and vital in the religious heritage of others. Most fatal
of all is the attempt to combine personal loyalty to Christ with the
repudiation of organized Christianity as a whole. True loyalty to
Christ most certainly involves common religious fellowship upon the
basis of common membership in the people of GOD.
As a matter of fact, so soon as the various sects and denominations
into which modern Western Christianity is divided are seriously
examined, they are seen to fall into three main types or groups.
Standing by herself is the Church of Rome, venerable, august,
impressive in virtue of her unanimity, her coherence, her ordered
discipline, and her international position, representing exclusively
the ancient Catholic tradition, and making for herself exclusive
claims. At the opposite end of the scale there are the multitudinous
sects of Protestantism, differing mutually among themselves but
tending (as some observers think) to set less and less store by their
divergences and to develop towards some kind of loosely-knit
federation--a more or less united Evangelical Church upon an
exclusively Protestant basis. Between the two stands the Church of
England, reaching out a hand in both directions, presenting to the
superficial observer the appearance of a house divided against itself;
representing nevertheless, according to her true ideal, a real attempt
to synthesize the essentials of Catholicism with what is both true and
positive in the Protestant tradition.
Protestantism stands for the liberty of the individual, for freedom of
thought and of inquiry, for emphasis upon the importance of vital
personal religion, for the warning that "forms and ceremonies" are of
no value in themselves, but only in so far as they are the expression
and vehicle of the spirit. Protestantism proclaims the liberty of
Christian prophesying, the free and unimpeded access of every human
soul to the heavenly Father, the spiritual equality of all men in the
sight of GOD. The Protestant tradition is jealous for the evangelical
simplicity of the Gospel, and in general may be said to represent the
principle of democracy in religion.
Catholicism, on the other hand, bears witness to the glory of
Churchmanship, to the importance of corporate loyalty to the Christian
Society, to the value of sacramentalism, and the rich heritage of
ancient devotional traditions, of liturgical worship and ordered
ecclesiastical life. For Catholicism rites and sacraments are not
anomalies, strange "material" excrescences upon a religion otherwise
"spiritual." They are themselves channels and media of the Spirit's
operation, vehicles of life and power.
Catholicism is more inclusive than Protestantism, including, indeed,
some things which Protestants are apt to insist should be excluded.
The future would seem to lie neither with the negations of pure
Protestantism nor with a Catholicism wholly unreformed; but rather
with a liberalized Catholicism which shall do justice to the truth of
the Protestant witness. For the present the best opportunity for the
working out of such a liberalized Catholicism is to be found within
the Church of England: and it is from the point of view of an English
Churchman that the remainder of this book will be written.