THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION.
ACORRESPONDENT takes us to task this week for affirming, in our article on the Bishop of Liver- pool, that " such denunciations of the Mass as are to be met with in the literature of the Reformation do not apply to the doctrine of the Presence in the sacrament at all, but to the corrupt accretions which gathered round that doctrine, such as Indulgences, Pardons, the sacrilegious sale of masses, and the like." Our correspondent, however, is in error in imputing to us the opinion " that the Reformers accepted ' with one voice' the name 'Mass,' and only differed from the Papists as regarded the thing to which the name applied, in being less dogmatic as to its character and. significance." The sentence which we have just quoted from our article admits in plain terms that " denunciations of the Mass " do occur in the writings of the Reformers. What we maintain is that the word " Mass," when so denounced, does not mean the doctrine of the Real Presence in any sense, or any particular attitude or vestment used in celebrating the Lord's Supper. It means a system of popular doctrines and prevalent practices which had grown round the doctrine of the Real Presence, and which had become a gross abuse. We quoted the application of the word. " Mass " to the Lord's Supper in the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI., not for the pur- pose of proving that the Reformers never spoke against the Mass, but as a proof that the word was, in their opinion, susceptible of an innocent meaning. And our point was that Dr. Ryle's condemnation of " the Mass " was a mere controversial platitude until he explained his meaning. Mr. Whitaker's quotations from Latimer are irrelevant. Latimer was a rough and vigorous popular preacher, but he had no pretension to the character of an accurate theologian, and he had no hand in the compilation of the Prayer-Book, or in the shaping of Anglican doctrine. Mr. Whitaker calls Latimer " a typical English Reformer, and the one whose memory is still dearest to those who, in Bishop Ryles phrase, are against going behind the Reformation.' " It is high time that we should in this matter have a definition of terms. What do Bishop Ryle and Mr. Whitaker mean by " the Reformation"? Do they accept the Prayer-Book as embodying in brief the doctrines and principles of the Reformation ? If they do not, let them say so frankly, and act honestly on their convictions. But if they do, they must repudiate the wild and crude language which Mr. Whitaker has quoted from Latimer. Does Mr. Whitaker really think that "this sacrifice [of the Eucharist] a woman can offer as well as a man ; yea, a poor woman in the belfry has as good authority as hath the Bishop in his pontificalibus?" Mr. Whitaker has, of course, a perfect right to agree with Latimer ; but let him clearly understand that in doing so he is " going behind the Reformation," and is advocating doctrines which are explicitly repudiated by the Church of England. How does he reconcile Latimer's doctrine with the Ordination Service and the Twenty-third Article ? It is really neces- sary to press the question. This posturing as champions of the Reformation by men who trample the settled doctrines and principles of the Anglican Reformation under foot is a public scandal. The doctrine which Mr. Whitaker has adopted from his "typical Reformer" can no more be reconciled with the historical position and authoritative statements of the Church of England than Red. Republicanism can be reconciled with Constitutional Monarchy. The simple truth is that Dr. Ryle and his sympathisers are altogether in a false position. They do not believe in the Church as a divine institution at all. In their view, it is merely a well-endowed organisation for the propagation of certain opinions for which they claim the authority of the Bible. On such a view sacraments have no more virtue or sanctity than the rules of a club. The Christian ministry is like a club committee, to which men and women are equally eligible, and whose official acts derive their sole authority from approval by the members of the club. We do not quarrel with Dr. Ryle and his friends for holding that opinion ; but they have no moral right to hold it as accredited officers of the Church of England. Still less have they a right to agitate for the sup- pression of doctrines and practices which are covered by the authority of the Prayer-Book and of the representative divines of the Church of England. To show that we are not exaggerating, we will quote a passage from a divine who will not be suspected of either Popery or priestcraft. The late learned Bishop Thirlwall, in a charge delivered in the year 1866, discusses the accusations made against the Ritualists on the subject of the Holy Communion, and emies to the following conclusion :— " The Church of England has dealt with this subject
in a spirit of true reverence as well as of freedom and charity. She asserts the mystery inherent in the institution of the Sacra- ment, but abstains from all attempts to investigate or define it, aud leaves the widest range open to the devotional feelings and the private meditations of her children. And this liberty is so large, and has been so freely used, that apart from the express admission of Transubstantiation, or of the gross carnal notions to which it gave rise, and which, in the minds of the common people, are probably inseparable from it, I think there can hardly be any description of the Real Presence, which in some sense or other is universally allowed, that would not be found to be authorised by the language of eminent divines of our Church ; and I am not aware, and do not believe, that our Ritualists have, in fact, out- stepped those bounds."
This passage is, in reality, an understatement of the fact. All through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the leading divines of the Anglican Church, while re- pudiating the doctrine of Transubstantiation for them- selves, were quite willing to leave it open as "a question of the schools." This is the language of such men as Andrewes and Bramhall, and, at a much later period, of so moderate a Churchman as Archbishop period, " Abate us Transubstantiation," says Bramhall, " and those things which are consequent on this determination of the manner of the Presence, and we have no difference with them on this particular." He even goes so far as to accept Bellarmine's view of " the Sacrifice of the Mass." The Holy Eucharist," he says, " is a commemoration, a representation, an application of the all-sufficient pro- pitiatory Sacrifice of the Cross Bellarmine knew no more of the Sacrifice than we ;" and he quotes Bellar- mine in proof of his assertion. In his correspondence with leading ecclesiastics in France on the subject of a union between the Anglican and Gallican Churches, Arch- bishop Wake proposed to get both Churches " to agree to communicate in everything we can with each other and yet leave one another in the free liberty of believing Transubstantiation or not, so long as we do not require anything to be done by either in pursuance of that opinion. It is unquestionable that neither in the reign of Edward. VL, nor in that of Elizabeth, would any clergyman have been molested. for believing Transub- stantiation, provided he did not attempt to force it upon others, and provided also that he used the Book of Common Prayer and demeaned himself as a loyal sub- ject. The great Anglican divines of that period laboured to make the Church comprehensive, not narrow ; and they objected to Transubstantiation, on the ground. that the- imposition of an objectionable metaphysical term as an article of faith was a narrowing of Christian liberty.
If the Church of England. is to be preserved, it can only be by the continuation of this policy. There is ample room in it for all who loyally accept the Nicene Creed and the Prayer-Book. Men will differ to the end of time about the precise meaning of words •which have in their day formed the battle-cries of controversialists. What sensible Churchman does not now regret the whole' series of ecclesiastical prosecutions, from Tract Ninety to- the attack on the Bishop of Lincoln ? Each of the three Church parties has in turn tried to silence one of the others ; and every attempt of the kind has happily failed. hitherto. Few High Churchmen now, we imagine, will look back with satisfaction on the Gorham prosecution or on the assault on " Essays and Reviews." What reader of Newman's " Apologia ' does not see the folly as well as cruel injustice of the persecution of the early Tractarians ? A few years hence, the various prosecutions of the Ritualists will appear equally futile and unwise. The only party which has learned nothing by experience is the party repre- sented by the Church Association. It is surprising that the extreme Low Church party do not see the absurdly untenable position which they occupy in prosecuting the Bishop of Lincoln. Of all parties in the Church, they are the most vulnerable. None are so little in sympathy with the historical Church of England as they : none so flagrantly disregard her teaching and set at naught her injunctions. Yet we should strenuously oppose any attempt to expel even them from the Church of England, so long as they are content to live and let live. If, however, they were by evil chance to succeed in their suit against the Bishop of Lincoln, we have little doubt that their victory would prove a Py I ihic one. An internecine conflict would begin which would be certain to end in Dir. establishment ; and the first result of Disestablishment would be the disintegration of the Evangelical party ; for, apart from the centripetal force of the Establishment, that party has no principle of cohesion. Moderate Evangelicals would be absorbed into the High Church and Broad Church parties, and the rest would vanish among the various forms of Nonconformity.
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