Richard Hooker. By Vernon Staley. (Masters and Co. 3s. 6d.)
—This is the first volume of a series which Mr. Staley is to edit under the title of "The Great Churchmen Series." Lives of Andrewes, Laud, eosin, and others are to follow. The idea is a good one, and timely. Nothing could be more profitable than to set before the "Anglo-Catholics " of the twentieth century faithful pictures of the Anglo-Catholics of the seventeenth. But the pictures must be faithful. Mr. Staley cannot but be aware that, as a matter of fact, some of his friends have gone far from the seventeenth-century tradition. We must own that the specimen now before us is not wholly satisfactory. It is ominous that the author goes out of his way to speak of J. H. Newman as the " most distinguished theologian of the English Church." This seems a strange thing to say of a man whose theology, if accepted generally in its logical and actual conclusions, would bring that Church to destruction. When we turn to the teaching about the Eucharist, the thing which should unite us most, but actually most divides, Mr. Staley fails to satisfy us. He goes so far as to attribute to Hooker an "economy of truth" which he would, we feel sure, have abhorred. "Had the question been put to Hooker point-blank : ' Do you believe that our Lord is spiritually present in, or sacramentally identified with, the elements by means of Consecration, and this previous to the reception of the Sacrament ?' he would in all probability have replied: I believe such to be the case, but since the matter is one seriously disturbing the peace of the Church, I do not say so.' " What Hooker does say is this ("Eccl. Pol.," V. 67): "The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not there- fore to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament." He answers, therefore, Mr. Staley's question with a very plain "No." Are questions of this kind to be put to the other divines, and answered in the same fashion ?
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