12 MAY 1933, Page 7

Tractarianism and the National Life BY THE RT. REV. BISHOP

KNOX.

[An article on "The Oxford Movement : Our appeared in last Debt to the Tractarians," by .Lord Hugh Cecil, week's SPECTATOR.] IT is not proposed in this article to discuss the Tracta- rian Movement in its spiritual aspects. Such a dis- cussion belongs rather to the religious Press. The Church of England is, however, a national institution existing for the religious and moral welfare of the Nation, and so reacting favourably or unfavourably on the national life. Its functioning well or ill affects a far wider circle than t he body. of its immediate adherents. It is therefore legitimate to attempt a valuation of the Tractarian Move- ment from the national point of view, and to inquire whether its effect has been advantageous or not to that wide public which has a right to expect from the Church the advancement of true religion and sound morality. For this purpose it will be convenient to distinguish three periods.: (1). that of the original Movement from 1830 to 1850 ; (2) that of the ritualistic agitation from 1850 to 1900; (3). that of the Anglo-Catholic victory from .1900 to the present time. The dates are Only approximate, but sufficiently accurate for our purpose.

The period 1833 to 1850 was of exceptional im- portance, because England then held a European position unique in her own history. De Maistre, the pioneer of Iltramontanism in France, had declared that "in spite of a religion that is as palpably false as that the sun is shining, .England is meant to lead the world into a new epoch that will be sacred in the minds of mankind." France was smitten with acute Anglomania, and Ger- many also, though in a less degree. Europe was looking to England for guidance in a religious revival. It was an opportunity for religious service such as the Church of England never had before or since. At home, England was passing into a new social order, and was crying out passionately for the reform of manifold abuses ; for final abolition Of slavery ; for the cleansing of her statute-book from laws of barbaric savagery ; for rescue of her infants from exploitation of their labour by greedy manufac- turers; for abolition of rotten boroughs and their twin sisters, ecelesiastical sinecures and pluralities, which allied the aristocracy with a clerical plutocracy ; for a national system of education. What contribution did the Oxford Movement make to this golden opportunity ?

From Continental Protestantism it shrank as Brahmins shrink from the Untouchables. From the Roman Church it suffered a deadly wound. On English Liberalism and the whole Reform movement it looked with positive aversion. The cry of the devout Keble was for a power like that of Joshua "to backward move the Avaves of time." In- the demand for reform he detected nothing but a symptom of National Apostasy. Schools and chapels Of Dissenters were buildings which no devout Churchman should enter. The Church of England was in his eyes the only Church in the realm which had a right to be quite sure that it had the Lord's Body to give to the people. This faith of his, shared by Newman and Pusey, was founded on the Apostolic Succession, the threefold order of Bishops, Priests and Deacons to which our Lord had committed the rule of the Church, and which He had set in authority over all Christendom.

This, the earliest form of Tractarianism, was rudely shaken by Roman controversialists, who pointed out that the English claim to Apostolic Succession was less secure than the Roman, and her boast of Catholicity forfeited by separation from the chair of. St. Peter. The TraetarOns were driven back on expressing disapproval of that State interference with the Church which we know as the Reformation. They had to confess that the Church of England was " in bondage," an " erring spouse " who must return with penitence to her old home. So the first step was taken in the direction of regarding the State as inimical to the Church, a position which was full of most serious consequences to national life.

In the second period (1850 to 1900) this antagonism between Church and State was rapidly and acutely developed. The English conception of the relation between Church and State is to be found in the words of the Ordination service, which call upon the ordinand " sa to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Dis- cipline of Christ, as the Lord bath commanded, and as this Church and Realm hath received the same." It is there assumed that this Realm has faithfully accepted and set forth in its Book of ComMon Prayer, the Doctrine, Sacraments and Discipline of Christ. But the Tracta- rians, when challenged by Rome, resorted to an interpre- tation of the Prayer Book and XXXIX Articles which they called "Catholic." To Englishmen generally it seemed simply dishonest. This " Catholic" section of the clergy took on themselves, not by any common con- sent or , recognized authority but as individuals, to restore what they called " Catholic " interpretation and practice. It was in vain t hat the Bishops pointed out to them that this " licence was wholly incompatible with any uniformity of worship whatsoever, and at variance with the universal practice of the Catholic Church, which has never given to the of ficiating .ministers of separate congregations any such large discretion in the selection of ritual observance." (Episcopal Address, 1851.) The tenacity of the Ritualists to their " Catholic '7 innovations, resented by congregations, led to prosecu- tions, in which loyal Churchmen were put in the odious position of persecuting men for religious opinions. It is, however, an entire misrepresentation of fact to speak of this conflict as a conflict between Church and State. The ritualist clergy had no right to regard themselves as " the Church." Whether we define the Church as the clergy, or as the clergy and devout laity, it was the Church of England as a body that opposed the auto- cratic innovations of the " Catholic " clergy. It was the Church of England which refused to accept their claim to be representatives of the Church Catholic. It was the Church of England which strove to maintain the order of Doctrine, Sacraments and Discipline of Christ as received by the Church and Realm of England. There was much more at stake than the question of vestments, or lights or incense. It was the right of the English nation to order its worship according to the Word of God that was in dispute. The surrender of that right threatened the secularizing of the State, a matter of supreme importance to national welfare.

In the third period (1900 to the present date) an attempt to readjust relations • between this Church and Parliament has been made by the Enabling Act. The value of this attempt has been tested with most un- satisfactory results. The Revised Prayer Book, declared by the Bishops, the Church Assembly and the Diocesan Conferences to be approved by these several assemblies and necessary for Church government was, under the condi- tions of the Enabling Act, rejected by Parliament. The rejection was due to alterations of the Prayer Book which appeared to Parliament to be inconsistent with the doctrine of Christ received by this Realm. The consequence is that Bishops are found requiring of their clergy a solemn declaration that they will use the Prayer Book of 1662, and no other, while it is well known that the 'clergy have no intention of conforming to this de- claration; and that the Bishops will not enforce it. This position is plainly contra bonos mores. It leaves the Church under a cloud in a definite matter of not speaking the truth in most solemn declarations. The position is intolerable in the interests of plain morality. Steps are being taken to remedy it and to seek for the Church of England complete self-government. But will it be possible for a nation, Protestant at heart, to give to a National Church largely dominated by anti-Protestant influences complete self-government? It seems, at all events, more probable that the difficulty will be solved by -severing the bonds 'which Amite -Church and State, and this rupture means the secularizing of the State.

Without attempting - to predict the consequences of such secularization, we are safe in saying that it is far nearer to an act of National Apostasy than either the Reform Bill, or the attempt of Parliament to reform the Church, which Keble in his Assize Sermon designated as National Apostasy. This Apostasy, inherent in the severance of Church and State, seems to be the goal to which" the Tractarian Movement is inevitably directing the national life. Could any more formidable indictment be framed against that Movenient from the viewpoint of national interests?