THE PROBLEM OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The words " wholesale submission " and Mr. Gardner's comments on them in the Spectator of March 21st may well serve to remind us that there is still on t_lie Statute Book an Act of Parliament entitled " The Submission of the Clergy and Restraint of Appeals "-25 Henry VIII., Cap. 19. His letter suggests to me the question : Where do we find this fundamental change in the problem of Anglo-Catholicism ? It certainly is a very large component part in the relationship of Church and State in England, since it authoritatively, if arbitrarily, changed the centre of gravity of doctrinal discipline, superseding clerical by Parliamentary authority. Compare the following short extracts :- " Be it therefore now enacted by authority of this present Par- liament."—Act of Submission.
" Quippo quos legum suarum Petrus ligat vinculis in summi of ccelestis Imperatoria palatio stint ligati."--Const. Jo. Peckham, ob exordia.
Archbishop Peckham was actually consecrated to the epis- copate by the Pope, Nicholas III., at Rome. His Constitu-
tions, 1281, are frequently cited in Anglo-Catholic apologetics on some detail to justify or regulate, I think, reservation. He was a Franciscan and resolute opponent of the lay or
secular powers. In harmony with Peckham's principles " The Act of Submission " was repealed by 1 and 2 Philip & Mary, Cap. VIII., Sec. 8, to be revived and restored by 1 Elizabeth, Cap. I. This is the state of things, atmosphere, if you will, in which Anglo-Catholicism exists, for, in accordance with the principle of clerical submission, Elizabeth's Act of Uni- formity became the law of the land by the narrow majority of three, every peer who voted for it being a layman, while every ecclesiastic who had a seat in the House of Lords, nine in number, voted (" non content ") against the measure, one of their number, Bishop Scot of Chester, emphatically maintaining that laymen were disqualified by their condition to legislate on ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline. " Neyther done it appertaine to their vocation." Notwithstanding, the Book of Common Prayer became by a lay vote the Schedule of 1 Elizabeth, Cap. 2, and, just because it was, and still is, part and parcel of a Secular Act of Parliament, in defiance of the recognized ecclesiastical official authorities, we are told individual innovation and change is Church Order. Thus " usage," the jus commune, the lay safeguard of the canon law, goes by the board, leaving to innovation the warning ex nihilo nihil fit.—I am, Sir, &c., 7 Pashley Road, Eastbourne.
P. G. CAWLEY.
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