THE CLERGY, THE ARTICLES AND TRUTH
By the REV. MICHAEL GEDGE
PACIFISTS among the Clergy may get some melan- choly satisfaction from the speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Canterbury Diocesan conference. They have been (quite justly) accused of not adhering to the last clause of Article 37, "It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons, and serve in the wars." Now it appears that the Archbishop himself adheres with his heart only to the Latin version, " Christian is licet ex nzandato magis- tratus arnza portare, et justa bella adnzinistrare." It is impossible to believe that in the days when these Articles were translated men were unable to translate the word "justa"; and in fact the Parker Society's edition of the Articles published in 1553 contains the world " lawful " as a somewhat . equivocal translation of " justa" ; it follows that the subsequent omission of the word alto- gether was quite deliberate, and the conclusion of this digression is that the Archbishop of Canterbury does not believe in the English 37th Article au pied de lettre. Yet he has declared that he believes it.
This raises the perennial question : Are all the Clergy liars ? At their ordination and licensing, and at their induction to any cure of souls, the Clergy declare " I :assent to the 39 Articles of Religion and believe the doctrine of the Church of England, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the word of God." I have never yet met a single clergyman of the Church of England among those whom I have questioned on the matter who meant this oath except with a great deal of mental reservation. Two courses are open : (1) To say--what seems to be an admitted fact—that these Articles were worded equivocally with deliberate intention (though as a matter of fact I have never seen an attempt to justify this assumption in a proper historical fashion) ; the clergyman taking the oath then mentally puts upon each Article whichever of the two or more possible interpretations he prefers. (2) To say to one's Bishop, as I myself once did, "I just don't believe some.of these Articles. What am I to do ? " To this question his parti2ular Lordship replied " If you accept the general position of the Church of England as therein outlined, I will allow you to take the oath without worrying about details." The very obvious dangers and inconsistencies of this position need not be described, and the Bishop agreed that this attitude could only be justified if one was avowedly and openly working for the amendment of the Articles. I took the oath—and there the matter rests.
But what would the .man in the street say ? The man in the street would say that this is just a dishonest " wangle " of the Clergy ; and he would be right. These Articles were a product of the age of particular local " Confessions," and an attempt to elaborate the special position of the Church of England as distinct from Rome on the one hand and Geneva on the other. What is to be done with them now ?
Three lines of action are possible : (1) Retain the Articles as they are. I don't believe there could be found a single advocate for this position (assuming that the oath of assent still had to be taken— and without it there would be no point in retaining the Articles, except as a museum piece). The fact is that probably not one man believes them exactly as they arc; and it is certain that not one man knows exactly what they mean.
The arguments against retention are stronger than this. There is in the Church of England a growing number of people who are keen to assert her Catholicity—basing their assertion on her use of the Catholic Creeds and Sacraments. No one can possibly pretend that the 39 Articles are a Catholic document, or that reunion with any episcopal branch of the Catholic Church could be brought about if all the clergy continually asserted their heartfelt belief in the Articles. For instance, the Catholic attitude to the Sacraments is compromised, to say the very least, by the extremely cold attitude of Article 25 to what are said to have "grown partly out of the corrupt following of the Apostles." I wonder if this Article is set forth in a prominent place at all conferences with the Orthodox Churches ? And then, on the other hand, those who are disposed to maintain our similarity to some of the Free Churches might find it hard to assert to the Lutherans in Germany that "General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes." For Princes, read "Hitler." Is this the faith for which the Martyrs died under the Roman Empire ?
(2) Revise and amend the Articles. On the face of it, this seems a reasonable solution. The Archbishops have a Doctrinal Commission which has been sitting for some fourteen years. Rumour has it that the Commission is not revising the Articles. And if they did, who would be satisfied ? We all of us hope that our particular bugbears would be removed. But would the pacifists find Article 37 to their liking ? Would those who believe in Transubstantiation be able to get Article 28, which condemns it as "repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," removed ? And remember that once the Articles had been revised, we should no longer be able to assent to them without meaning what we say with an even relatively clear conscience. Would the Archbishops be prepared to drive all pacifists and all extreme Anglo- Catholics out of the Church of England ministry ? And who would be left ?
(3) Remove the Articles altogether. For one thing the Clergy are now expected to assent to Articles which the laity need neither know nor believe, which is in itself a ridiculous position. And then, is not our position as distinct from Rome and Geneva already sufficiently clear from the Prayer Book itself—which is also assented to ? The Creeds express the faith of the Catholic Church, and by simple omission of any reference to the Papacy and the Immaculate Conception, they do not force these on' the conscience of believers. For those who think this not enough, an amendment to the oath of canonical obedience to the Bishop and Archbishop might provide an explicit repudiation of the alleged universal authority of the Pope ; while no one, surely, would wish to forbid belief in the Immaculate Conception, as long as it was made clear that there was no right to preach it in the Church of England as de fide. The Ordinal of the Prayer Book, again, makes our Episcopal position quite clear, as distinct from non-Episcopal bodies. And for the rest, a revised, or non-revised, Catechism would seem to contain all that is necessary. Presumably it is to this revision that the Doctrinal Commission is turning its attention.
In short : who wants the Articles ? What good do they do ? Who even reads them unless they have to ? At present they are merely a source of scandal : the Clergy are liars to every plain man except themselves : and they, before all men, should be forward to put themselves in a position of common honesty.
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