LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
SACERDOTALISM.
[TO TIM EDITOR Or THE " SPEC riTOlt."] Sin,—I ask permission to answer the imputation of priesteraft which has been made in your columns somewhat loosely by my valued friend, Mr. Llewelyn Davies, against those with whom I agree in the opinions which he " vehemently " denounces., We are charged with that offence in that we "train Christians to seek God's forgiveness habitually through the priest's absolution, and in the assumption that the priest performs a miracle at every Eucharist." To the first of these
charges "babes confitentes," though we utterly deny that there is in our teaching any " bringing of the conscience into captivity to the priest's voice "; and, as to the second, we declare it to be as extravagant as it is unfounded. Had Mr. Llewelyn Davies's singularly able letter stopped abort of its last two paragraphs, I should have had very little to say against it. It is the summing up with which he concludes that, for want of due exception, vitiates the good which has gone before.
(1) "The training of Christians to seek God's forgiveness habitually through the priest's absolution." Why, Sir, this, I submit, is precisely what every devout worshipper in the English Church, whether or not trained to it by his clergy, will learn to do on every occasion of joining in Common Prayer, and partaking Holy Communion. Moreover, when the minister, reading from the Prayer-book, as he is bound to do more or less frequently, counsels any who cannot quiet their own consciences to come to him with a view to "the benefit of absolution," he no doubt proposes one alternative; but what is that alternative? Simply that of resort " to some other discreet and learned minister"—minister, be it observed, not person—not parent, or friend, or Christian layman, how- ever experienced in the devout life and trustworthy as spiritual comforter and counsellor. It is, indeed, an open question whether the absolution contemplated in that ex- hortation be special and extraordinary, like that provided in the Visitation of the Sick, or such as can be received in the Church's public services, which I myself have always thought sufficient ; but it is, at any rate, only from the priest of the Church that the Prayer-book represents it to be obtainable. Is this, let me ask, an illustration of sacerdotalism or priest- craft in the Anglican Communion?
(2) I confidently deny that holding the consecration of the Eucharistic elements to effect a virtual change in them, is to ascribe a miraculous agency to the priest who consecrates them. Here I will avail myself of what has been said by Alexander Knox in his admirable and exhaustive " Treatise on the Use and Import of the Eucharistic Symbols." Not- withstanding a few over-strained expressions and far-fetched illustrations, that treatise will well repay the closest attention. Referring to St. Paul's words in 1 Cor. x. 16, he writes : —" That which makes the commemorative celebration of the Eucharist peculiarly beneficial and venerable is that in this ordinance the aliments which Christ has appointed become, through His designation and blessing, the direct vehicles of His own divine influences to capable receivers." Nothing short of this notion would accord with the: ascribing of spiritual virtue, specially, to each visible sign; and, what is still more, to each, not as becoming efficacious through the act of receiving, but as endued with efficacy through the act of consecration. For we must observe, it is not " the cup of blessing which we drink," nor " the bread which we eat," that are declared to be the communion of the blood, and the com- munion of the body of Christ; but it is said "the cup of blessing which we bless and the bread which we break."
I forbear trespassing on your space with any attempt to argue sufficiently this point of consecration making a change in the elements, and will content myself with a few words by way of illustration. A Bishop with " the priests present" laid their hands upon me in my ordination to the priesthood, the Bishop saying therewith : "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God." Do I imagine that in so doing they changed me, or any one who was ordained with me, into a more spiritual-minded and holy man than we were when we knelt down to receive that imposition of hands? In short, that they wrought any kind of miracle? They did, neverthe- less, make a great change in us, for they set us apart from numberless of our fellow-Christians to become "ambassadors of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God"; they gave us an authority which no layman can claim, to " preach the word of God and to minister the holy sacraments in the congregation," an authority which every true Churchman and Churchwoman is bound to recognise; and they solemnly assured us that " whose sins we did forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins we did retain they are retained." Whatever may be the precise meaning of these words, they were spoken too deliberately, too solemnly, and with sanctions of too great antiquity and too catholic acceptance to be lightly pat aside
nowadays as meaning little or nothing. Did it call for a superstitious belief in the power of that Bishop and those priests to work a miracle upon us in order to avoid our so treating them? I will offer another illustration. For the benefit of some one needing such a reminder, I dip my pen in ink and write out a passage or portion of Scripture—e.g., the Lord's Prayer—to be taken away and used as a means of obtaining God's grace. The ink I have so employed is changed by my action into a spiritual agency, whether or not it be received as such by him or her to whom I gave my writing. If I said when giving it, "These are Christ's own words for you," should I use any violence of language, and still less, should I arrogate to myself any miracle-working power? If not, where is the difference in principle from such assertions as that of Alexander Knox respecting the change effected by the consecration of the Eucharistic elements P-
Previous page
