The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

CHAPTER I.

THE CHURCH ON EARTH.

Christus Dilexit Ecclesiam: "Christ loved the Church"[[1]]—and if we love what Christ loved, we do well.

But three questions meet us:—

(1) What is this Church which Christ loved?

(2) When and where was it established?

(3) What was it established for?

First: What is the Church? The Church is a visible Society under a visible Head, in Heaven, in Paradise, and on Earth. Who is this visible Head? Jesus Christ—visible to the greatest number of its members (i.e. in Heaven and in Paradise), and vicariously represented here by "the Vicar of Christ upon Earth," the Universal Episcopate.

Next: When and where was it established? It was established in Palestine, in the Upper Chamber, on the first Whitsunday, "the Day of Pentecost".

Then: What was it established for? It was established to be the channel of salvation and sanctification for fallen man. God may, and does, use other channels, but, "according to the Scriptures," the Church is the authorized channel.

As such, let us think of the Church on earth under six Prayer-Book names:—

(I) The Catholic Church.
(II) The National Church.
(III) The Established Church.
(IV) The Church of England.
(V) The Reformed Church.
(VI) The Primitive Church.

(I) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

The Creeds call it "the Catholic Church" and describe its doctrine as "the Catholic Religion," or the "Catholic Faith". The Te Deum, Litany, and Ember Collect explain this word "Catholic" to mean "the holy Church throughout all the world," "an universal Church," "thy holy Church universal"; and the Collect for the King in the Liturgy defines it as "the whole Church". The "Catholic Church," then, is "the whole Church," East and West, Latin, Greek, and English, "throughout all the world ".[[2]] Its message is world-wide, according to the terms of its original Commission, "Go ye into all the world".

Thus, wherever there are souls and bodies to be saved and sanctified, there, sooner or later, will be the Catholic Church. And, as a matter of history, this is just what we find. Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in Italy?—there is the Church, with its local headquarters at Rome. Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in Russia?—there is the Church, once with its local headquarters at Moscow. Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in England?—there is the Church, with its local headquarters at Canterbury. It is, and ever has been, one and the same Church, "all one man's sons," and that man, the Man Christ Jesus. The Catholic Church is like the ocean. There is the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean: and yet there are not three oceans, but one ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is not the Indian Ocean, nor is the Indian Ocean the Pacific Ocean: they are all together the one universal ocean—"the ocean".

But, after all, is not this a somewhat vague and nebulous conception of "The Church". If it is to go into all the world, how, from a business point of view, is this world-wide mission, in all its grandeur, to be accomplished? The answer is seen in our second name:—

(II) THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

For business and administrative purposes, the world is divided into different nations. For business and practical purposes, the Church follows the same method. The Catholic Church is the channel of "saving health to all nations". As at Pentecost the Church, typically, reached "every nation under heaven," so, age after age, must every nation receive the Church's message. The Universal Church must be planted in each nation—not to denationalize that nation; not to plant another National Church in the nation; but to establish itself as "the Catholic Church" in that particular area, and to gather out of it some national feature of universal life to present to the Universal Head. Thus, a National Church is the local presentment of the Catholic Church in the nation. As Dr. Newman puts it: "The Holy Church throughout all the world is manifest and acts through what is called in each country, the Church Visible".

As such, the duty of a National Church is two-fold. It must teach the nation; it must feed the nation. First: it is the function of the National Church to teach the nation. What is its subject? Religion. It is to teach the nation religion—not to be taught religion by the nation. It is no more the State's function to teach religion to the authorities of the National Church[[3]] than it is the function of the nation to teach art to the authorities of the National Gallery. Nor, again, is it the function of a National Church to teach the nation a national religion; it is the office of the Church to teach the nation the Catholic religion—to say, in common with the rest of Christendom, "the Catholic religion is this," and none other. Thus, the faith of a National Church is not the changing faith of a passing majority; it is the unchanging faith of a permanent Body, the Catholic Church. Different ages may explain the faith in different ways; different nations may present it by different methods; different minds may interpret it in different lights; but it is one and the same faith, "throughout all the world ".

A second function of the National Church is to feed the nation—to feed it with something which no State has to offer. It is the hand of the Catholic Church dispensing to the nation "something better than bread". When a priest is ordained, the Bishop bids him be "a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of His holy Sacraments," and then gives him a local sphere of action "in the congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto".[[4]] Ideally, this is carried out by the parochial system. For administrative purposes, the National Church is divided into parishes, and thus brings the Scriptures and Sacraments to every individual in every nation in which the Catholic Church is established. It is a grand and business-like conception. First, the Church's mission, "Go ye into all the world"; then the Church's method—planting itself in nation after nation "throughout all the world"; dividing (still for administrative purposes) each nation into provinces; each province into dioceses; each diocese into archdeaconries; each archdeaconry into rural deaneries; each rural deanery into parishes; and so teaching and feeding each unit in each parish, by the hand of the National Church.

All this is, or should be, going on in England, and we have now to ask when and by whom the Catholic Church, established in the Upper Chamber on the Day of Pentecost, was established in our country.

(III) THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

The Catholic Church was established, or re-established,[[5]] in this realm in the year 597.[[6]] It was established by St. Augustine, afterwards the first Archbishop of Canterbury. How do we know this? By documentary evidence. This is the only evidence which, in such a case, is final. If it is asked when, and by whom, our great public schools were established, the answer can be proved or disproved by documents. If, for instance, it is asked when, and by whom, Winchester was established, documents, and documents only, can answer the question—-and documents definitely reply: in 1387, by William of Wykeham; if it is asked when, and by whom, Eton was established, documents answer: in 1441, by Henry VI; if it is asked when, and by whom, Harrow was established, documents respond: in 1571, by John Lyon; if it is asked when, and by whom, Charterhouse was established, documents again reply: in 1611, by Sir Thomas Sutton. It can all be proved by, and only by, documentary evidence. So with the sects. Documents can prove that the Congregationalists established themselves in England in 1568, under Robert Brown; Quakers in 1660, under George Fox; Unitarians in 1719, under Samuel Clarke; Wesleyans in 1799, under a Wesleyan Conference. Records exist proving that these various sects were established at these given dates, and no records exist proving that they were established at any other dates. So with the Church. Records exist proving that it was established by Augustine, in England, in 597, and no records exist even hinting that it was established at any other time by anybody else.

"As by Law Established."[[7]]

A not unnatural mistake has sometimes arisen from the phrase "as by law established". Where is this law? It does not exist. No law ever established the Church of England. The expression refers to the protection given by law to the Catholic Church in England, enabling it to do its duty in, and to, the country. It tells of the legal recognition of the Church in the country long before the State existed; it expresses the legal declaration that the Church of England is not a mere insular sect, but part of the Universal Church "throughout all the world". A State can, of course, if it chooses, establish and endow any religion—Mohammedan, Hindoo, Christian, in a country. It can establish Presbyterianism or Quakerism or Undenominationalism in England if it elects so to do; but none of these would be the Church of Jesus Christ established in the Upper Chamber on the Day of Pentecost. As a matter of history, no Church was ever established or endowed by State law in England.[[8]] If such a tremendous Act as the establishment of the Church of England by law had been passed, it is obvious that some document would attest it, as it does in the case of the establishment of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in the reign of William III. No such document exists. But an authentic record does exist proving the establishment of the Pentecostal Church in England in 597. It is this old Pentecostal Church that we speak of as the Church of England.

(IV) THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Who gave it this name? The Pope.[[9]] It was given by Pope Gregory in a letter to Augustine. In this letter[[10]] Gregory speaks of three Churches—the Church of Rome, the Church of Gaul, and the Church of the English, and he bids Augustine compile a Liturgy from the different Churches for the "Use" of the Church of England.

We see, then, that the Church of England is the Catholic Church in England. As the Church of Ephesus is the Catholic Church in Ephesus, or the Church of Laodicea is the Catholic Church in Laodicea, or the Church of Thyatira the Catholic Church in Thyatira, so the Church of England is the Catholic Church in England. Just as St. Clement begins his Epistle to the Corinthians with, "The Church of God, which is at Rome, to the Church of God which is at Corinth," so might Archbishop Davidson write to the Italians, "The Church of God, which is at Canterbury, to the Church of God, which is at Rome". It is in each case, "the Church of God," "made visible," in the nation where it is planted.

But, being national (being, for example, in England), it is, obviously, subject to the dangers, as well as the privileges, of national character, national temperament—and, in our case, national insularity. The national presentment of the Catholic Church may err, and may err without losing its Catholicity. The Church of England, "as also the Church of Rome, hath erred";[[11]] it has needed, it needs, it will need, reforming. Hence we come to our fifth name:—

(V) THE REFORMED CHURCH.

The name is very suggestive. It suggests two things—life and continuity.

First, life. A reforming Church is a living Church. Reformation is a sign of animation, for a dead organism cannot reform itself. Then, continuity. The reformed man, must be the same man, or he would not be a reformed man but somebody else. So with the Church of England. It would have been quite possible, however ludicrous, to have established a new Church in the sixteenth century, but that would not have been a reformed Church, it would have been another Church—the very last thing the Reformers contemplated.

A Reformed Church, then, is not the formation of a new Church, but the re-formation of the old Church.

How did the old Church of England reform itself? Roughly speaking, the English Reformation did two things. It affirmed something, and it denied something.

First, it affirmed something. For instance, the Church of England affirmed that the Church in this country in the sixteenth century was one with the Church of the sixth century. It affirmed that it was the very same Church that had been established in Palestine on the Day of Pentecost, and in this realm by Augustine in 597. It reaffirmed its old national independence in things local just as it had affirmed it in the days of Pope Gregory, It re-affirmed its adherence to every doctrine[[12]] held by the undivided Church, without adding thereto, or taking therefrom.

Then, it denied something. It denied the right of foreigners to interfere in purely English affairs; it denied the right of the Bishop of one National Church to exercise his power in another National Church; it denied the claim of the Bishop of Rome to exercise jurisdiction over the Archbishop of Canterbury; it denied the power of any one part of the Church to impose local decisions, or local dogmas, upon any other part of the Church.

Thus, the Reformation both affirmed and denied. It affirmed the constitutional rights of the Church as against the unconstitutional claims of the Pope, and it denied the unconstitutional claims of the State as against the constitutional rights of the Church.

Much more, very much more, "for weal or for woe," it did. It had to buy its experience. The Reformation was not born grown up. It made its mistakes, as every growing movement will do. It is still growing, still making mistakes, still purging and pruning itself as it grows; and it is still asserting its right to reform itself where it has gone wrong, and to return to the old ideal where it has departed from it. And this old ideal is wrapped up in the sixth name:—

(VI) THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

Re-formation must be based upon its original formation if it would aim at real reform. It is not necessarily a mechanical imitation of the past, but a genuine portrait of the permanent. It is, then, to the Primitive Church that we must look for the principles of reformation. If the meaning of a will is contested years after the testator's death, reference will be made, as far as possible, to the testator's contemporaries, or to writings which might best interpret his intentions. This is what the English Reformers of the sixteenth century tell us that they did. They refer perpetually to the past; over and over again they send us to the "ancient fathers,"[[13]] as to those living and writing nearest to the days when the Church was established, and as most likely to know her mind. They go back to what the "Commination Service" calls "The Primitive Church". This "Primitive Church" is the Reformed Church now established in England. The Reformers themselves never meant it to be anything else, and would have been the first to protest against the unhistoric, low, and modern use of the word "established". In this sense, they would have been the sturdiest of sturdy "Protestants".

And this word Protestant reminds us that there is one more name frequently given to the Church of England, but not included in our scheme, because found nowhere in the Prayer Book.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH.

The term is a foreign one—not English. It comes from Germany and was given to the Lutherans in 1529, because they protested against an edict[[14]] forbidding them to regulate their own local ecclesiastical affairs, pending the decision of a General Council.

It had nothing whatever to do with "protesting" against ceremonial. The ceremonial of the Church in Lutheran Germany is at least as carefully elaborated as that seen in the majority of English churches.

Later on, the term was borrowed from the Germans by the English, and applied to Churchmen who protested (1) against doctrines held exclusively by Rome on the one hand, and by Lutherans and Calvinists on the other; and (2) against claims made by the King over the rights and properties of the Church. Later still, it has been applied to those who protest against the ancient interpretation of Prayer-Book teaching on the Sacraments and Ceremonial.

There is, it is true, a sense in which the name is fairly used to represent the views of all loyal English Churchmen. Every English Churchman protests against anything unhistoric or uncatholic. The Church of England does protest against anything imposed by one part of the Church on any other part of the Church, apart from the consent of the whole Church. It does protest against the claims of Italy or of any other nation to rule England, or to impose upon us, as de fide, anything exclusively Roman. In this sense, Laud declared upon the scaffold that he died "a true Protestant"; in this sense, Nicholas Ferrar, founder of a Religious House in Huntingdonshire, called himself a Protestant; in this sense, we are all Protestants, and in this sense we are not ashamed of our unhistoric name.

In these Prayer-Book names, then, we see (1) that the Church on earth is a society, established in the Upper Chamber on the Day of Pentecost; (2) that it was established to be the ordained and ordinary channel through which God saves and sanctifies fallen man; (3) that, in order to accomplish this, and for business and administrative purposes, the Church Catholic establishes itself in national centres; (4) that one such national centre is England; and (5) that this Pentecostal Church established in England is the Church which "Christ loved," the Sponsa Christi, the "Bride of Christ":—

Elect from every nation,
Yet one all o'er the Earth.

[[1]] Eph. v. 25.

[[2]] The primary meaning of the word Catholic seems to refer to world-wide extension. St. Augustine teaches that it means "Universal" as opposed to particular, and says that "The Church is called Catholic because it is spread throughout the whole world". St. Cyril of Jerusalem says: "The Church is called Catholic because it extends throughout the whole world, from one end of the Earth to the other," and he adds, "because it teaches universally all the doctrines which men ought to know" ("Catechetical Lectures," xviii. 23).

[[3]] "Foul fall the day," writes Mr. Gladstone, "when the persons of this world shall, on whatever pretext, take into their uncommissioned hands the manipulation of the religion of our Lord and Saviour."

[[4]] Service for "The Ordering of Priests".

[[5]] There was, of course, an ancient British Church long before the sixth century, and there is evidence that it existed in the middle of the second century. It sent bishops to the Council of Arles in 314, and there is a church at Canterbury in which Queen Bertha's chaplain celebrated some twenty-five years before the coming of Augustine. But its origin is shrouded in mystery, and it had been practically extinguished by Jutes, Saxons, and Angles before Augustine arrived. "Of the ancient British Church," writes Bishop Stubbs, in an unpublished letter, "we must be content to admit that history tells us next to nothing, and that what glimmerings of truth we think we can discover in legend grow fainter and fainter the more closely they are examined. Authentic records there are none." Some ascribe the first preaching of the Gospel in Britain to St. Peter, others to St. Paul, or St. James, or St. Simon Zelotes, and the monks of Glastonbury ascribe it to their founder, Joseph of Arimathea, who was, they say, sent to Britain by St. Philip with eleven others in A.D. 63. Cf. letter of Dr. Bright to "The Guardian," 14 March, 1888, and see "Letters and Memoirs of William Bright," pp. 267 seq.

[[6]] i.e. the English, as distinct from the British Church.

[[7]] "The word Establishment," writes Bishop Stubbs, "means, of course, the national recognition of our Church as a Christian Church, as the representment of the religious life of the nation as historically worked out and by means of property and discipline enabled to discharge, so far as outward discharge can insure it, the effectual performance of the duties that membership of a Christian Church involves. It means the national recognition of a system by which every inch of land in England, and every living soul in the population is assigned to a ministration of help, teaching, advice, and comfort of religion, a system in which every English man woman and child has a right to the service of a clergyman and to a home of spiritual life in the service of the Church" ("Visitation Charges," p. 303).

[[8]] A State can, of course, endow, as well as establish, any form of religion it selects. It has a perfect right to do so. But the State has never endowed the Church of England, and it can only disendow it in the sense that it can rob it of its own endowments—just as it can, by Act of Parliament, rob any business man of his money. It has done this once already. At the Great Rebellion, the Church of England was, in this sense, disestablished and disendowed. By the Act of Uniformity of Charles II, it was reinstated into the rights and liberties from which it had been deposed. But it remained the same Church which Augustine established in England all the time. Its reinstatement no more made the Church a new Church, than the restoration of Charles II made the monarchy a new monarchy.

[[9]] It is sometimes asked, Does not the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords constitute an Established Church? No. Representatives from all the sects might, and some probably will, sit there without either making their sect the established Church of the country, or unmaking the Catholic Church the Church of the country. Bishops have sat in the House of Lords ever since there has been a House of Lords to sit in, but neither their exclusion, nor the inclusion of non-Bishops, would disestablish the Church of England.

It is also asked, do not the Prime Ministers make the Bishops? Prime Ministers, as we shall see, do not make but nominate the Bishops.

[[10]] Augustine is worried, as we are worried, by the variety of customs in different Churches, and asks Pope Gregory "why one custom of masses is observed in the Holy Roman Church and another in the Church of the Gallic Provinces". "My brother knows," replied Gregory, "the custom of the Roman Church in which he was brought up. But my pleasure is that you should, with great care, select whatever you think will best please Almighty God wherever you find it, whether in the Church of Rome, or in the Church of Gaul, or in any other Church, and then plant firmly in the Church of the English that which you have selected from many Churches.... Choose, then, from each individual Church things pious, religious, righteous, and having, as it were, collected them into a volume, deposit them with the minds of the English as their custom, their Use."

[[11]] Art. XIX.

[[12]] "I protest," wrote Archbishop Cranmer, "and openly confess that, in all my doctrine, whatsoever it be, not only I mean and judge those things as the Catholic Church, and the most holy Fathers of old, with one accord, have meant and judged, but also I would gladly use the same words which they used, and not use any other words, but to set my hand to all and singular their speeches, phrases, ways, and forms of speech, which they did use in their treatise upon the Sacraments, and to keep still their interpretation."

[[13]] See Preface to the Prayer Book.

[[14]] The Edict of the Diet (or Council) of Spires.