The Visible Society
THE GOSPEL AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Arthur Michael Ramsey. (Longmans, 15s.) THE little phrase 'Holy Catholic Church' is tucked away in the third paragraph of the Creed, and few people give it much thought as they turn to the East and repeat the symbol of their faith. If they did, they might shrug their shoulders. A London preacher who gave a course of sermons received an anonymous letter before his address on the Church : 'Let me tell you, this week you're on a very sticky wicket!' And this was not entirely unrepresentative.
It is easy to carp at any human institution, and no one with a sense of history—least of all a churchman—can deny that the Christian Church makes a good target for criticism. But the Church still exists, with an amazing power of resurrection, and this fact alone suggests that it is not a mere human organisation, but a living organism which, despite the sins of men, is controlled and energised by divine grace and power. Roman Catholics, of course, have always emphasised—I would say overemphasised—the prime place of the Church; and if this century has seen a revival of biblical studies in the Roman Church, it has also been marked by a recovery of the doctrine of the Church by Protestant scholars. It was therefore perhaps fitting that these two currents should have flowed together under the pen of an Anglican divine. It is hard to believe that the Archbishop of York's book, recently republished, was first written twenty years ago. It fits so well into contemporary writing that it seems to have been born out of due time; and Anglicans may well feel proud, not only that they have a scholarly Archbishop, but also that he is such a comprehensive and original thinker.
The sad disagreements between Anglicans over the Church of South India, the 'recent speech of Dr. Fisher to the National Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the opening of official con- versations between Anglicans and Methodists—these all point to the contemporary relevance of a true doctrine of the Church. All too often, however, the matter is discussed in terms of convenience and organisation. It is the great merit of Dr. Ramsey's book that it goes back to the Bible, and his approach is not only theological but also deeply religious. The death and resurrection of Christ— there lies the heart of the Christian faith. The Church, Bible, creeds, sacraments, ministry, worship and liturgy are all seen as setting forth this Gospel of Christ, humbling the pride of men and exalting the graciousness of God. Dr. Ramsey sees them all form- ing an organic unity, given to us by God. The claim of the Church of England to be the Catholic Church of this land is seen to be based on its membership of the universal Catholic Church, and on its preservation of the fulness of revelation, with its 'strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning.'
The Abbot of Downside has recently submitted this book to an appreciative but searching review in which he not unnaturally takes issue with Dr. Ramsey. He agrees with him that the Church is a visible society and that baptism admits to membership of the Church. But what about the disunity of the Church? Abbot Butler suggests that a dissociated society is a contradiction in terms, and that the Church of Rome alone can claim to be the visible society of the Catholic Church. 'The divisibility of the Church, on which the whole of Dr. Ramsey's apologia depends, so far from having the consensus of the undivided Church, . . .can find support only from the non-Papal communions of the modern West.'
I do not think that this criticism can stand; for judgements
coming down from the early Church need revision before they can be applied to a very different situation; while the sinfulness of mere makes the Church an ambiguous society, one in Christ yet divided by our human failings. In any case, some Anglicans who have been inspired and stimulated by the Archbishop's book—and the present writer counts himself among them—would put a different interpretation on the unity which Dr. Ramsey finds betv een Gospel and Church. The outward form of a society can obs ore its meaning without destroying it. Because episcopacy sets forth the Gospel of Christ (as I believe that it does), that does not necessarily imply that the Church could not exist without it. A recent book on the Church is in some ways strikingly sin de to Dr. Ramsey's, but while the latter deals with concepts, Fr' Thornton is more concerned with the correlation and exposition of biblical images. The author is a distinguished member of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection, and this volume cool' pletes a classic trilogy on 'The Form of the Servant.' Fr. Thorntalt treats the Bible as a single whole, and he extends the unity betv eett Christ and His Church so as to include within it the biblical images of Creation and the Last Things. His conclusions are generally the same as those of Dr. Ramsey, but he is concerned only with the exposition of scripture. As often with Fr. Thornton's works, ibis book is more suited to prayerful meditation than to quick analysis; while the author's method of using scripture and the connect i0 which he finds within it are at times open to question. Yet this is a great book and a profoundly religious work. The author approach raises the whole question of the relation of symbcl doctrine, and this is a question which in the field of scripture could with profit be further explored. HUGH MONTEE
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