MARGINAL COMMENTS
By ROSE MACAULAY
ABISHOP has conic opportunely to the aid of the War Office against pacifist clergy, referring the Minister for War to a passage in one of those Articles of Religion which have, since Edward VI's Privy Council bound them round the neck of the Church of England, hung there with such firm inconvenience. One may imagine the eagerness with which the War Office sent out a messenger to purchase a Prayer Book, with what curiosity the department turned the pages of this un- expected ally until, at its end, they came on these thirty- nine bland affirmations, with their so intriguing headings.- Passing by Original Sin, Works done before Justification, Works of Supererogation, Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided, Homilies, Predestination and Election, and many other excellent and wholesome matters, they have arrived, doubtless, by now, it Article 37, Of the Civil Magistrates, and been gratified to read, after an affirmation of the lawfulness of capital punishment, that " It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in the wars." (There seems to be a certain resigned acceptance in the phrase, as of a chronic feature in life ; as, in this country, one speaks of " the rain.") " Which seems," says Bishop Southwell, " to settle the matter," and to dispose of the Bishops' Lambeth Resolu- tion on the unchristianity of war. Let us hope that this will help the Minister for War with his recruiting.
It is an interesting miscellany of assorted matters which the Articles " seem to settle "for ,: . the clergy Article 37 itself is boldly monarchical, and asserts, in longer words, the divine rule of kings. Article 33' is firm about excommunicate Persons, who must be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as Ikathens and Publicans (our forefathers were very sound on tax-' collectors) until they be openly reconciled to the Church by penance. Then, the clergy must diligently and dis, tinctly (but we are not told how often) read aloud in Churches the second Book of Homilies. It is to be hoped that these wholesome and forthright Edwardian exhorta..- tions are never neglected or curtailed. As to what the clergy must believe, this was laid down by the Reformers of 1552 with some elaboration, and not all Queen Elizabeth's Arminianism could do more than slightly modify their Zwinglian firmness on Predestination, Election and Works before Justification, which " we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." Predestina- tion has been held by some interpreters of the Articles to be slightly under a cloud, since, though its consideration " is full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons," yet " for curious and carnal persons . .
to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living." Still, on the whole Predestination seems to come well out of the Articles, wherein the vain and erring Pelagius faintly raises his voice but once, to be firmly put in his place by those triumphing continental Calvinists who so infected the mild and rational Crammer with their wild, unearthly fantasies. Bound to these, as also (Article 8) to the Athanasian promise of everlasting fire for those who do not keep whole the Catholic faith, the humanitarian subscriber to the Articles should feel little difficulty about " the wars."
Finally (says the royal preface) should any member of either University (dons have always been rightly suspect) affix any new sense to any Article, " We will see there shall be due Execution upon them."
In how great quandaries have the world's clergy always found themselves !
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