England herself, and among the bishops of the Church. True; but could it
establish itself there? No; the Lambeth Articles were recalled and
suppressed, and Archbishop Whitgift was threatened with the penalties of
a _præmunire_ for having published them. Again, it was usual from 1552
onwards to print in the English Bibles a catechism asserting the
Calvinistic doctrine of absolute election and reprobation. In the first
Bibles of the authorised version this catechism appeared; but it was
removed in 1615. Yet the Puritans had met James the First, at his
accession in 1603, with the petition that _there may be an uniformity of
doctrine prescribed_; meaning an uniformity in this sense of strict
Calvinism. Thus from the very commencement the Church, as regards
doctrine, was for opening; Puritanism was for narrowing.
Then came, in 1604, the Hampton Court Conference. Here, as usual,
political historians reproach the Church with having conceded so little.
These historians, as we have said, think solely of the Puritans as the
religious party favourable to civil liberty, and on that account desire
the preponderance of Puritanism in its disputes with the Church. But, as
regards freedom of thought and truth of ideas, what was it that the
Church was pressed by Puritanism to concede, and what was the character
and tendency of the Church's refusal? The first Puritan petition at this
Conference was 'that the _doctrine_ of the Church might be preserved in
purity according to God's Word.' That is, according to the Calvinistic
interpretation put upon God's Word by Calvin and the Puritans after him;
an interpretation which we have shown to be erroneous and unscriptural.
This Calvinistic doctrine of predestination the Puritans wanted to plant
hard and fast in the Church's formularies, and the Church resisted. The
Puritan foreman complained of the loose wording of the Thirty-nine
Articles because it allowed an escape from the strict doctrine of
Calvinism, and moved that the Lambeth Articles, strictly Calvinistic,
might be inserted into the Book of Articles. The Bishops resisted, and
here are the words of their spokesman, the Bishop of London. 'The Bishop
of London answered, that too many in those days, neglecting holiness of
life, _laid all their religion upon predestination_,--"If I shall be
saved, I shall be saved," which he termed a desperate doctrine, showing
it to be contrary to good divinity, which teaches us to reason rather
_ascendendo_ than _descendendo_, thus: "I live in obedience to God, in
love with my neighbour, I follow my vocation, &c., therefore I trust
that God hath elected me and predestinated me to salvation;" not thus,
which is the usual course of argument: "God hath predestinated and
chosen me to life, therefore, though I sin never so grievously, I shall
not be damned, for whom he once loveth he loveth to the end."' Who will
deny that this resistance of the Church to the Puritans, who, _laying
all their religion upon predestination_, wanted to make the Church do
the same, was as favourable to growth of thought and to sound
philosophy, as it was consonant to good sense?
We have already, in the foregoing treatise, quoted from the complaints
against the Church by the Committee of Divines appointed by the House of
Lords in 1641, when Puritanism was strongly in the ascendent. Some in
the Church teach, say the Puritan complainers, 'that good works are
concauses with faith in the act of justification; some have oppugned the
certitude of salvation; some have maintained that the Lord's day is kept
merely by ecclesiastical constitution; some have defended the whole
gross substance of Arminianism, that the act of conversion depends upon
the concurrence of men's free will; some have denied original sin; some
have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate
doctrine, that late repentance,--that is, upon the last bed of
sickness,--is unfruitful, at least, to reconcile the penitent to God.'
What we insist upon is, that the growth and movement of thought, on
religious matters, are here shown to be in the Church; and that on these
two cardinal doctrines of predestination and justification, with which
we are accused of unfairly saddling Puritanism alone, Puritanism did
really want to make the national religion hinge, while the Church did
not, but resisted.
The resistance of the Church was at that time vanquished, not by
importing strict Calvinism into the Prayer Book, but by casting out the
Prayer Book altogether. By ordinance in 1645, the use of the Prayer
Book, which for churches had already been forbidden, was forbidden also
for all private places and families; all copies to be found in churches
were to be delivered up, and heavy penalties were imposed on persons
retaining them.
We come to the occasion where the Church is thought to have most
decisively shown her unyieldingness,--the Savoy Conference in 1661,
after King Charles the Second's restoration. The question was, what
alterations were to be made in the Prayer Book, so as to enable the
Puritans to use it as well as the Church party. Having in view doctrine
and free development of thought, we say again it was the Puritans who
were for narrowing, it was the Churchmen who were for keeping open.
Their heads full of these tenets of predestination, original sin, and
justification, which we are accused of charging upon them exclusively
and unfairly, the Puritans complain that the Church Liturgy seems very
defective,--why? Because 'the systems of doctrine of a church should
summarily comprehend all such doctrines as are necessary to be
believed,' and the liturgy does not set down these explicitly enough.
For instance, 'the Confession,' they say, 'is very defective, not
clearly expressing original sin. The Catechism is defective as to many
necessary doctrines of our religion, some even of the essentials of
Christianity not being mentioned except in the Creed, and there not so
explicit as ought to be in a catechism.' And what is the answer of the
bishops? It is the answer of people with an instinct that this
definition and explicitness demanded by the Puritans are incompatible
with the conditions of life of a historic church. 'The Church,' they
say, 'hath been careful to put nothing into the Liturgy but that which
is either evidently the Word of God, or what hath been generally
received in the Catholic Church. The Catechism is not intended as a
whole body of divinity.' The Puritans had requested that 'the Church
prayers might contain _nothing questioned by pious, learned, and
orthodox persons_.' Seizing on this expression, wherein is contained the
ground of that _separatism for opinions_ which we hold to be so fatal
not only to Church life but also to the natural growth of religious
thought, the bishops ask, and in the very language of good sense: 'Who
are _pious, learned, and orthodox persons_? Are we to take for such all
who shall confidently affirm themselves to be such? If by orthodox be
meant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholic consent of
antiquity, we do not yet know that any part of our Liturgy has been
questioned by such. It was the wisdom of our reformers to draw up _such
a liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except
against_. Persons want the book to be altered for their own
satisfaction.'
This allegation respecting the character of the Liturgy is undoubtedly
true, for the Puritans themselves expressly admitted its truth, and
urged this as a reason for altering the Liturgy. It is in consonance
with what is so often said, and truly said, of the Thirty-nine Articles,
that they are _articles of peace_. This, indeed, makes the Articles
scientifically worthless. Metaphysical propositions, such as they in the
main are, drawn up with a studied design for their being vague and
loose, can have no metaphysical value. But no one then thought of doing
without metaphysical articles; so to make them articles of peace showed
a true conception of the conditions of life and growth in a church. The
readiness to put a lax sense on subscription is a proof of the same
disposition of mind. Chillingworth's judgment about the meaning of
subscription is well known. 'For the Church of England, I am persuaded
that the constant doctrine of it is so pure and orthodox, that whosoever
believes it and lives according to it, undoubtedly he shall be saved;
and that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any
man to disturb the peace or renounce the communion of it. _This, in my
opinion, is all that is intended by subscription._' And Laud, a very
different man from Chillingworth, held on this point a like opinion with
him.
Certainly the Church of England was in no humour, at the time of the
Savoy Conference, to deal tenderly with the Puritans. It was too much
disposed to show to the Puritans the same sort of tenderness which the
Puritans had shown to the Church. The nation, moreover, was nearly as
ill-disposed as the Church to the Puritans; and this proves well what
the narrowness and tyrannousness of Puritanism dominant had really been.
But the Church undoubtedly said and did to Puritanism after the
Restoration much that was harsh and bitter, and therefore inexcusable in
a Christian church. Examples of Churchmen so speaking and dealing may be
found in the transactions of 1661; but perhaps the most offensive
example of a Churchman of this kind, and who deserves therefore to be
studied, is a certain Dr. Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford
and Dean of Gloucester, who was put forward to thwart Tillotson's
projects of comprehension in 1689. A certain number of Dr. Janes there
have always been in the Church. There are a certain number of them in
the Church now, and there always will be a certain number of them. No
Church could exist with many of them; but one should have a sample or
two of them always before one's mind, and remember how to the excluded
party a few, and those the worst, of their excluders, are always apt to
stand for the whole, in order to comprehend the full bitterness and
resentment of Puritanism against the Church of England. Else one would
be inclined to say, after attentively and impartially observing the two
parties, that the persistence of the Church in pressing for conformity
arose, not as the political historians would have it, from the lust of
haughty ecclesiastics for dominion and for imposing their law on the
vanquished, but from a real sense that their formularies were made so
large and open, and the sense put upon subscription to them was so
indulgent, that any reasonable man could honestly conform; and that it
was perverseness and determination to impose their special ideas on the
Church, and to narrow the Church's latitude, which made the Puritans
stand out.
Nay, and it was with the diction of the Prayer Book, as it was with its
doctrine; the Church took the side which most commands the sympathy of
liberal-minded men. Baxter had his rival Prayer Book which he proposed
to substitute for the old one. And this is how the 'Reformed Liturgy'
was to begin: 'Eternal, incomprehensible and invisible God, infinite in
power, wisdom and goodness, dwelling in the light which no man can
approach, where thousand thousands minister unto thee, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stand before thee,' &c. This, I say, was to have
taken the place of our old friend, _Dearly beloved brethren_; and here,
again, we can hardly refuse approval to the Church's resistance to
Puritan innovations. We could wish, indeed, the Church had shown the
same largeness in consenting to relax ceremonies, which she showed in
refusing to tighten dogma, or to spoil diction. Worse still, the angry
wish to drive by violence, when the other party will not move by reason,
finally no doubt appears; and the Church has much to blame herself for
in the Act of Uniformity. Blame she deserves, and she has had it
plentifully; but what has not been enough perceived is, that really the
conviction of her own moderation, openness, and latitude, as far as
regards doctrine, seems to have filled her mind during her dealings with
the Puritans; and that her impatience with them was in great measure
impatience at seeing these so ill-appreciated by them. Very
ill-appreciated by them they certainly were; and, as far as doctrine is
concerned, the quarrel between the Church and Puritanism undoubtedly
was, that for the doctrines of predestination, original sin, and
justification, Puritanism wanted more exclusive prominence, more
dogmatic definition, more bar to future escape and development; while
the Church resisted.
And as the instinct of the Church always made her avoid, on these three
favourite tenets of Puritanism, the stringency of definition which
Puritanism tried to force upon her, always made her leave herself room
for growth in regard to them,--so, if we look for the positive
beginnings and first signs of growth, of disengagement from the stock
notions of popular theology about predestination, original sin, and
justification, it is among Churchmen, and not among Puritans, that we
shall find them. Few will deny that as to the doctrines of
predestination and original sin, at any rate, the mind of religious men
is no longer what it was in the seventeenth century or in the
eighteenth. There has been evident growth and emancipation; Puritanism
itself no longer holds these doctrines in the rigid way it once did. To
whom is this change owing? who were the beginners of it? They were men
using that comparative openness of mind and accessibility to ideas which
was fostered by the Church. The very complaints which we have quoted
from the Puritan divines prove that this was so. Henry More, saying in
the heat of the Calvinistic controversy, what it needed insight to say
then, but what almost every one's common sense says now, that 'it were
to be wished the Quinquarticular points were all reduced to this one,
namely, _That none shall be saved without sincere obedience_;' Jeremy
Taylor saying in the teeth of the superstitious popular doctrine of
original sin: 'Original sin, as it is at this day commonly explicated,
was not the doctrine of the primitive church; but when Pelagius had
puddled the stream, St. Austin was so angry that he stamped and puddled
it more,'--this sort of utterance from Churchmen it was, that first
introduced into our religious world the current of more independent
thought concerning the doctrines of predestination and original sin,
which has now made its way even amidst Puritans themselves.
Here the emancipation has reached the Puritans; but it proceeded from
the Church. That Puritanism is yet emancipated from the popular doctrine
of justification cannot be asserted. On the contrary, the more it
loosens its hold on the doctrine of predestination the more it tightens
it on that of justification. We shall have occasion by and by to discuss
Wesley's words: '_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant, the
ransom paid for thy proud stubborn soul!_' and to show how modern
Methodism glories in holding aloft as its standard this teaching of
Wesley's, and this teaching above all. The many tracts which have lately
been sent me in reference to this subject go all the same way. Like
Luther, they hold that 'all heretics have continually failed in this one
point, that they do not rightly understand or know the article of
_justification_:' 'do not see' (to continue to use Luther's words,)
'that by none other sacrifice or offering could God's fierce anger be
appeased, but by the precious blood of the Son of God.' That this
doctrine is founded upon an entire misunderstanding of St. Paul's
writings we have shown; that there is very visible a tendency in the
minds of religious people to outgrow it, is true, but where alone does
this tendency manifest itself with any steadiness or power? In the
Church. The inevitable movement of growth will in time extend itself to
Puritanism also. Let it be remembered in that day that not only does the
movement come to Puritanism from the Church, but it comes to Churchmen
of our century from a seed of growth and development inherent in the
Church, and which was manifest in the Church long ago!
That the accompaniments of the doctrine of justification, the tenets of
conversion, instantaneous sanctification, assurance, and sinless
perfection,--tenets which are not the essence of Wesley, but which are
the essence of Wesleyan Methodism, and which have in them so much that
is delusive and dangerous,--that these should have been discerningly
judged by that mixture of piety and sobriety which marks Anglicans of
the best type, such as Bishop Wilson,[105] will surprise no one. But
years before Wesley was born, the fontal doctrine itself,--Wesley's
'_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant!_'--had been criticised by
Hammond thus, and the signal of deliverance from the Lutheran doctrine
of justification given: 'The solifidian looks upon his faith as the
utmost accomplishment and end, and not only as the first elements of his
task, which is,--_the superstructing of good life_. The solifidian
believes himself to have the only sanctified necessary doctrines, that
having them renders his condition safe, and every man who believes them
a pure Christian professor. In respect of solifidianism it is worth
remembering what Epiphanius observes of the primitive times, that
_wickedness was the only heresy_, that impious and pious living divided
the whole Christian world into erroneous and orthodox.'
[Footnote 105: For example, what an antidote to the perilous
Methodist doctrine of instantaneous sanctification is this saying of
Bishop Wilson: 'He who fancies that his mind may effectually be
changed in a short time, deceives himself.']
In point of fact, therefore, the historic Church in England, not
existing for special opinions, but proceeding by development, has shown
much greater freedom of mind as regards the doctrines of election,
original sin, and justification, than the Nonconformists have; and has
refused, in spite of Puritan pressure, to tie herself too strictly to
these doctrines, to make them all in all. She thus both has been and is
more serviceable than Puritanism to religious progress; because the
separating for opinions, which is proper to Puritanism, rivets the
separatist to those opinions, and is thus opposed to that development
and gradual exhibiting of the full sense of the Bible and Christianity,
which is essential to religious progress. To separate for the doctrine
of predestination, of justification, of scriptural church-discipline, is
to be false to the idea of development, to imagine that you can seize
the absolute sense of Scripture from your own present point of view, and
to cut yourself off from growth and gradual illumination. That a
comparison between the course things have taken in Puritanism and in the
Church goes to prove the truth of this as a matter of fact, is what I
have been trying to show hitherto; in what remains I purpose to show
how, as a matter of theory and antecedent likelihood, it seems probable
and natural that so this should be.
A historic Church cannot choose but allow the principle of development,
for it is written in its institutions and history. An admirable writer,
in a book which is one of his least known works, but which contains,
perhaps, even a greater number of profound and valuable ideas than any
other one of them, has set forth, both persuasively and truly, the
impression of this sort which Church-history cannot but convey. 'We have
to account,' says Dr. Newman, in his _Essay on Development_, 'for that
apparent variation and growth of doctrine which embarrasses us when we
would consult history for the true idea of Christianity. The increase
and expansion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations
which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and
churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which
takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or
extended dominion. From the nature of the human mind, time is necessary
for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas. The highest
and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all
by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the
recipients; but, as admitted and transmitted by minds not inspired, and
through media which were human, have required only the longer time and
deeper thought for their full elucidation.' And again: 'Ideas may remain
when the expression of them is indefinitely varied. Nay, one cause of
corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the course of doctrine
as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past. So our Lord
found his people precisians in their obedience to the letter; he
condemned them for not being led on to its spirit,--that is, its
development. The Gospel is the development of the Law; yet what
difference seems wider than that which separates the unbending rule of
Moses from the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ? The more
claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various will be its
aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, the more
complicated and subtle will be its developments, and the longer and more
eventful will be its course. Such is Christianity.' And yet once more:
'It may be objected that inspired documents, such as the Holy
Scriptures, at once determine doctrine without further trouble. But they
were intended to create _an idea_, and that idea is not in the sacred
text, but in the mind of the reader; and the question is, whether that
idea is communicated to him in its completeness and minute accuracy on
its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and intellect, and comes
to perfection in the course of time. If it is said that inspiration
supplied the place of this development in the first recipients of
Christianity, still the time at length came when its recipients ceased
to be inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall
as in other cases, at first vaguely and generally, and would afterwards
be completed by developments.'
The notion thus admirably expounded of a gradual understanding of the
Bible, a progressive development of Christianity, is the same which was
in Bishop Butler's mind when he laid down in his _Analogy_ that 'the
Bible contains many truths as yet undiscovered.' 'And as,' he says, 'the
whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so, if it ever comes to
be understood, before the restitution of all things and without
miraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural
knowledge is come at,--by the continuance and progress of learning and
of liberty, and by particular persons attending to, comparing, and
pursuing intimations scattered up and down it, which are overlooked and
disregarded by the generality of the world. For this is the way in which
all improvements are made; by thoughtful men's tracing on obscure hints,
as it were, dropped as by nature accidentally, or which seem to come
into our minds by chance.' And again: 'Our existence is not only
successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our life and
being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another, and that to
be the means of attaining to another succeeding one; infancy to
childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient
and for precipitating things; but the author of nature appears
deliberate throughout his operations, accomplishing his natural ends by
slow successive steps. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence,
God operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of
Christianity; making one thing subservient to another, this to somewhat
further; and so on, through a progressive series of means which extend
both backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of
operation everything we see in the course of nature is as much an
instance as any part of the Christian dispensation.'