THE AWKWARD DILEMMA.
In the whole catalogue of sin, there is hardly one so detestable in itself, or so withering in its effects, as the sin of heresy. Consequently, though we feel a great love as well as a great interest in the Church in England during the thousand years in which she formed a part of the Church of God, we can have little love for the present Church of England, as by law established, cut off, as she is, from the only true Church, which Christ, the Incarnate God, was pleased in His infinite wisdom to build upon St. Peter, and upon those who should succeed him in his sublime office, and who have received the Divine Commission to rule over the entire flock, to hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and to confirm their brethren to the end of time.
Besides, a careful study of the origin and genesis of the present Anglican Establishment is scarcely calculated to predispose any one particularly in its favour. It is not Catholics only who might be thought biased upon such a point, but others also who feel this. In fact, it is precisely impartial men, unaffected by any interest either way, who most fully realise from what a very shady beginning the new state of things arose. As Sir Osborne Morgan puts it, "Every student of English history knows that, if a very bad king had not fallen in love with a very pretty woman, and desired to get divorced from his plain and elderly wife, and if he had not compelled a servile Parliament to carry out his wishes, there would, in all human probability, never have been an Established Church at all."
This gentleman is a Protestant, and the son of a Protestant clergyman, so we may be quite sure that he harbours no special leanings towards us, yet he speaks impartially as one who has not only read history, but read it without coloured spectacles. Perhaps Lord Macaulay puts the case as bluntly as any one, and we may as well quote him because he, too, was no Catholic, and held no brief for the Church of Rome. This brilliant writer, who was, perhaps, an historian before all things, tells us that the work of the Reformation was the work, not of three saints, nor even of three ordinary decent men, but of three notorious murderers! These are not our words, but Macaulay's, and it is not our fault if this is his reading of history. We merely summon him as a Protestant witness. He calmly and deliberately states that the Reformation was "begun by Henry VIII., the murderer of his wives; was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother; and was completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest". Not a very auspicious beginning, it must be confessed, and scarcely suggestive of the Divine afflatus. Those who planted the Catholic Church used no violence, and did not inflict death. No! on the contrary, they endured death, and their blood became the seed of the Church. And that is quite another story. In former days every one admitted the present Anglican Church to be the child of the Reformation. It was, to quote the Protestant historian, Child, "as completely the creation of Henry VIII., Edward's Council, and Elizabeth as Saxon Protestantism was of Luther." But now? Oh! now, "nous avons changé tout cela," and history has received a totally different setting. A certain section of Anglicans, in these modern times, are labouring hard to persuade themselves and others that they can trace their Church back to the time of St. Augustine. They will by no means allow that they started into being only in the sixteenth century. In fact, it is quite pathetic to watch the strenuous efforts they make, and the extravagant means to which they have recourse, in order to lull themselves into the peaceful enjoyment of so sweet and consoling a delusion.
A delusion which a candid study of past history must sooner or later ruthlessly dispel, and which has not a shred of foundation in fact to support it. But we promised to point out why, in spite of its absolute absurdity, these good men, like the Bishop of London, persist in repeating and restating with ever-increasing vehemence that there has been no break in the continuity, and that the present Church of England is one with the Church of St. Bede, of St. Dunstan, of St. Anselm, of St. Thomas, and of other pre-Reformation heroes; though they must surely know that there is not one amongst these glorious old Catholic saints who would not a thousand times sooner have gone to the stake and been burnt alive, than have accepted the Thirty-nine Articles, or than have joined the present Bishop of London in any of his religious services. Why do Anglicans make such heroic efforts to connect their Church with the past? Why do they advance an impossible theory? Why will they stubbornly affirm what history utterly denies? Why do they assert, and with such emphasis, what no one but they themselves have the hardihood to believe? Why? For precisely the same reason that will induce a drowning man to grasp at a straw. In short, because even if they did not realise it before, they are now beginning to see that their very position depends upon their being able to make out some sort of case for continuity. They realise that to admit that the Church of England began in the sixteenth century is simply to cut the ground from underneath their feet. Therefore, purely in self-defence, they feel themselves constrained to cling to the continuity theory. It may be absurd, it may be unhistorical, it may be impossible and utterly repudiated by every impartial and honest man. That cannot be helped. Impossible or not impossible; true or false, it is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the hollow theory of continuity. Sometimes, when off their guard, and in a less cautious mood, they will confess as much themselves. And what is more, we can provide our readers with an instance of such a confession. Many will well remember a well-known and distinguished Anglican divine, named Canon Malcolm MacColl. He died a few years ago, and we do not wish to say anything against him. Well, he wrote to The Spectator in 1900. His letter may be seen in the issue of 22nd December for that year. In the course of this letter he makes the following admission: he declares that "to concede that the Church of England starts from the reign of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth is to surrender the whole ground of controversy with Rome. A Church," he continues, "which cannot trace its origin beyond the sixteenth century is obviously not the Church which Christ founded."
The late Anglican Canon MacColl is, of course, perfectly right, and his inference is strictly logical. A Church, however highly respectable and however richly endowed, which came into existence only 1,500 years after Christ, came into existence just 1,500 years too late, and cannot by any intellectual manoeuvring or stretching of the imagination be identified with the one Church established by Christ 1,500 years earlier. Consequently every member of the Anglican community finds himself, nolens volens, impaled on the horns of a truly frightful dilemma. For either he must frankly confess that his Church is not the Church of God, i.e., not the True Church, which (human nature being what it is) he can hardly be expected to do; or else he must assert that it goes back without any real break to the time of the Apostles; which though absolutely untrue, is the only other alternative. In a word, he finds himself in a very tight corner. He knows, unless he is able to persuade himself of the truth of continuity, the very ground of his faith must slip from under his feet, and that he must give up pretending to be a member of Christ's mystical body altogether.
No wonder there is consternation in the Anglican camp. No wonder that sermons are preached, and history is re-edited and facts suppressed, and pamphlets are circulated to prove that black is white and that bitterness is sweet, and that false is true. No wonder there are shows and pageants and other attempts to prove the thing that is not. Poor deluded mortals! It is really pitiable to witness such straining and such pulling at the cords; as though truth—solid, imperturbable, eternal truth—could ever be dislodged or forced out of existence! No! They may disguise the truth for a time, they may hide it for a brief period; just as a child, with a box of matches and a handful of straw, may, for awhile, hide the eternal stars. But as the stars are still there, and will appear again when the smoke has blown away, so will the truth reappear and assert itself, when men grow calm, and put aside pride and passion and prejudice and self-interest. "Magna est veritas, et prevalebit!"
It has been said: "Mundus vult decipi"; the world wishes to be deceived; certainly the Anglican world does. But no one else is taken in. The Dissenter, the Nonconformist, and others who have no axe to grind, know well that "fine words butter no parsnips," and are far too shrewd to be deluded. Why, even the old Catholic cathedrals with their holy-water stoups, their occasional altars of stone, still remaining, their Lady chapels, and their niches for the images of the saints, as ill befit the present occupiers, and their modern English services, as a Court dress befits a clown.
That the sublime grotesqueness of the whole contention is clearly visible to other besides Catholic eyes is clearly proved by the occasional observations of the non-Catholic Press. Here, again, we will offer the gentle reader a specimen. The Daily News is one of London's big dailies. It has a wide circulation. It is representative of a large section of the English people. Let us select a passage from one of its leaders. Speaking of the arrogance of the Anglican Church, which, as compared to the Catholic Church, is but a baby, still in long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following caustic lines. One might almost imagine it were the Tablet or Catholic Times that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the kind, it is the Nonconformist organ, the Daily News. It writes: "The Anglicans may still persist in patronising the Roman Catholics as a new set of modern dissidents under the old name. It is the sort of vengeance which, under favourable circumstances, the mouse may enjoy at the expense of the elephant. If he can mount high enough by artificial means, the smallest of created things may contrive to look down on the greatest, and to affect to compassionate his want of range. For purposes of controversy, the Anglican could talk of himself as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation, which led, not, of course, to his separation from Rome, but to Rome's separation from him! So the pebble, if determined to put a good face on it, might wonder what had become of the rock, and recite the parable of the return of the prodigal to the Atlas Range"; and so forth. The fact is that every unprejudiced man, who has so much as a mere bowing acquaintance with the facts of history, knows perfectly well that before the sixteenth century the Church in England was united to the Holy See, and rested where Christ Himself had built it, viz., on Peter, the rock. Whereas, after the sixteenth century, it became a State Church, dependent, not on Peter, but upon Parliament, and as purely local, national, and English as the British Army or the British Navy. Bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did divest the Pope of, they invested the King with" (Schism Guarded, p. 340).
We dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the pre-Reformation Archbishops and Metropolitans and the Pope, and we saw how each in turn swore obedience to the Vicar of Christ as his spiritual sovereign. We will now conclude the present chapter by transcribing a typical address presented by another representative body of men to the Pope, in past times. It is the year 1427. Now Chicheley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been accused at Rome of some fault or indiscretion, so the other Bishops of the province met together for the purpose of defending him. With this end in view, they address a letter to Pope Martin V. It begins as follows:—
"Most Blessed Father, one and only undoubted Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, with all promptitude of service and obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth. They then proceed to defend their Metropolitan, and in doing so declare that "the Archbishop of Canterbury is, Most Blessed Father, a most devoted son of your Holiness and of the Holy Roman Church". Nay, more; they go on to testify that "he is so rooted in his loyalty, and so unshaken in his allegiance especially to the Roman Church, that it is known to the whole world, and ought to be known to the city (i.e., Rome) that he is the most faithful son of the Church of Rome, promoting and securing, with all his strength, the guarantees of her liberty".
Now, what we wish to know is, how in the world can a man be "the most faithful son of the Church of Rome," so rooted in his loyalty to her that "his allegiance is known to the whole world," and yet not be a Roman Catholic? The Bishops then add that "they go down upon their knees" to beseech the Pope's favour for the Archbishop, and in doing so declare that they are "the most humble sons of your Holiness and of the Roman Church".
Then Archbishop Chicheley follows up their letter, by writing one himself, in which he says: "Most Blessed Father, kissing most devotedly the ground beneath your feet, with all promptitude of service and obedience, and whatsoever a most humble creature can do towards his lord and master" (i.e., domino et creatori—literally "creator," in the sense that the Pope had made or "created" him archbishop) and so forth. Then he goes on to explain that "Long before now, were it not for the perils of the journey and the infirmities of my old age, I would have made my way, Most Blessed Father, to your feet, and have accepted most obediently whatsoever your Holiness would have decided" (see Wilkins, vol. iii. pp. 471 and 486). Surely, no Archbishop or Bishop could use language of such profound reverence and of such perfect loyalty and obedience, unless he recognised the Pope as the true representative of Christ upon earth, invested with His divine authority ("To Thee do I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven"). There is a whole world of difference between such men and the Anglican Prelates of to-day who take the oath of homage to the King, and say: "I do hereby declare that your Majesty is the only supreme governor of this your realm, in spiritual and ecclesiastical things, as well as temporal".