THE TESTING OF CHURCH PRINCIPLES.*
Tars thoughtful book is written from the standpoint of the Church Self-Government Movement. It ie characterized by an exceptional candour ; the writer explains the tendencies and aspirations of the movement so clearly that no one who supports it can plead that he does so in ignorance, or acts under any misconception as to its aims. He desires a reconstruction of the Church, and regards Self.Government as the first condition • The Testing of Church Principle.. By Oliver Chase Quick. London: Jots Mans,. 161.1 of this reconstruction. The note which he emphasizes is that of " the authority which the Church of England ought to exercise over her own members " ; he enlarges on " the disastrous consequences of the present invalidation of authority in faith " ; and, turning from faith to observance, he finds " a similar failure on the Church's part to use authority aright." And he takes the recent discussions in the Representative Church Council more seriously than some of us are inclined to do. " This is a eriticat hour in the life of the Church of England. Decisions must shortly be taken which will affect the whole course of her future development ; for it is a time when even a postponement of decision will itself be decisive." By " Church Principles," or " the full religion of the Church of England," he appears to understand a distinctively Anglican rendering of Christianity, neither quite Cat belie nor quite Protestant, but something between the two. "The Eucharist must be restored as the normal and characteristic act of worship for every Christian congregation" ; all members of the Church " should be within reach of priests who are experts in direction " ; the hierarchy is to be provided with power to decide controversies, and to enforce its decisions- " the official guardians to whom the momentous verities have been committed possess authority to preserve them by dogma from interpretations which would, in effect, destroy them." He does not attempt to disguise the restrictive character of these proposals, which, he tells us, involve "real danger" of a schism. For, "However the question of the franchise in a self-governing Church is determined, the effect of freedom from State control would undoubtedly be to give the majority of real Members of the Church more power than it has at present. It is this unde- niable fact which to some minds constitutes the chief argument for the retention of State control ; and to others makes the removal of this control the one essential preliminary to reform."
The Church Times warns Liberal Churchmen that in a disestab- lished Church "their position would instantly become precarious." And Mr. Quick, arguing for the communicant franchise, reminds us that
" if we decide to include in an equal membership all those who have received Christian baptism, a majority of our nominal ■ members will be composed of those who at present own, and desire to own, no real and effective loyalty to our Church. . . . The main objection to giving our franchise so wide a range is insufficiently understood. If once we recognize the class of people mentioned as members of our body, it will be, to say the least, very difficult to refuse them the ministrations for which they ask [i.e., baptism for their children, marriage, and burial]. On the other hand, to go on performing these minis- trations for all corners, as is the general custom at present, would endanger the whole principle of the reform which we contemplate."
This is an admission of the first importance. In order that "Life and Liberty " may be secured for a small body of enthusiasts, the mass of theEnglieh people is to be unchurched—i.e., refused baptism, marriage, and burial. Can we wonder that Bishop Thirlwall denounced "Liberty," in the clerical sense of the word, as "a grinding tyranny, and the worst calamity that could befall the Church " ? Such a " Reform " would be the undoing of the Reformation Settlement. under which Englishmen have lived for nearly four hundred years. It would disestablish the Church—the Church of England as we have hitherto known it— and establish a narrow sectarian Anglicanism in its stead. If Parliament knew what it was about, it is certain that such proposals would have short shrift. Should they become law— and the tendency is to leave matters of this sort to the permanent officials, in this case the two Archbishops—they will represent, not the reasoned will of the community, but its intellectual and moral apathy, its culpable ignorance of the matter in hand.
The fact is that Mr. Quick has taken for granted a con- ception of .Anglicanism which has no real content. The statesmen of the spacious age to which we owe the Reformation Settlement never dreamed of setting up a religious tedium quid in this country. Historically "the full alligion of the Church of England" was the Protestant religion ; the Bishop of Here- ford's King's College Address on "The Anglican Version of Christianity " is conclusive on this point. When-Hooker speaks of " the French Church," he means the Calvinist body, with which the Church of England was in communion ; and it is painful to reflect that so eminent a man should have thought it necessary to apologize for the belief that Roman Catholics, in spite of their heretical tenets, could be saved. George Herbert is the pattern of seventeenth-century Anglican piety ; but hi regards the Pope as Antichrist ; and his " Country Parson." celebrates the Communion " five or six times a year, as at rsZplasirum Easter, Christmas, Whitsuntide, afore and after harvest, and the beginning of Lent." And this (he adds) he doeth, "not only for the benefit of the work, but for the discharge of the Churchwardens "—that they may be better able to " present " such parishioners as fail to discharge the legal obligation of receiving the Sacrament three times in the year. Piety of this type, sincere as it is, is not Catholic. To the English Churchman of the Caroline period the Eucharist is an Occasional Office : we are a long way from the Lord's own Service on the Lord's own Day." Mr. Quick has no leanings to Romaniem. But the defecated Catholicism which attracts him exists only on paper. Catholicism, in the European sense of the word, has been too long in the world to be treated as an abstraction; it is a concrete fact whose roots lie deep in human nature and in history. A half-way house offers no real solution of the problems presented by this great religious system. It is safe to say that neither those who are attracted nor those who are repelled by it will be permanently satisfied with a substitute ; the logic both of thought and of things will take them either on or back.
Previous page
