CHAPTER XIV.
Those Divines whom I have already imperfectly described, may be characterized as High Anglicans. There remains for consideration, a second class, whom I venture to denominate semi-Anglicans.
Sanderson’s fame as a theologian rests mainly upon his treatment of casuistical questions, and upon his noble volume of sermons. The latter compositions (1659–1674), which exhibit great vigour, compass, and patience of thought, expressed in massive but tedious eloquence,—are chiefly practical; but also, they here and there reveal doctrinal opinions, and, together with the reports of his friends, and extracts from his MSS., indicate some of the leading points in the preacher’s system of divinity. He affords an instance of that change of opinion which we find to have been so common at the time. In early life, having adopted the sublapsarian scheme, he afterwards renounced it, “as well as the supralapsarian, which he could never fancy.”[421] To use his own words, “We must acknowledge the work of both (grace and free-will) in the conversion of a sinner. And so, likewise, in all other events the consistency of the infallibility of God’s foreknowledge at least (though not with any absolute but conditional predestination), with the liberty of man’s will and the contingency of inferior causes and effects.”[422] He made strong objections to some leading points in Twiss’ Vindiciæ Gratiæ, a book written against Arminius. But one of the characteristic principles held by the Divines of the school, to which Sanderson in earlier life belonged, he seems to have retained to the last, for he expresses, in one of his sermons, published by himself not long before his death, the following account of Christian faith:—“The word faith is used to signify, that theological virtue or gracious habit, whereby we embrace with our minds and affections the Lord Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God and alone Saviour of the world, casting ourselves wholly upon the mercy of God through His merits for remission and everlasting salvation. It is that which is commonly called a lively or justifying faith; whereunto are ascribed in Holy Writ those many gracious effects, of purifying the heart, adoption, justification, life, joy, peace, salvation, &c. Not as to their proper and primary cause, but as to the instrument, whereby we apprehend and apply Christ, whose merits and Spirit are the true causes of all those blessed effects.”[423]
The life of Sanderson requires us to consider him as sympathizing in some respects with Anglican Divines, but their distinguishing dogmas are not at all conspicuous in his sermons.
HAMMOND.
Hammond, the friend of Sanderson,[424]—associated with him scarcely less in doctrinal opinions and ecclesiastical sympathies, than in the closest intimacy and warmest affection,—has been described as one—
“Whose mild persuasive voice
Taught us in trials to rejoice
Most like a faithful dove,
That by some ruined homestead builds,
And pours to the forsaken fields
His wonted lay of love.”
And the calm, tender strain of his theology harmonizes with the spirit which the poet has thus so touchingly characterized. Like Sanderson, Hammond is more practical than scientific. Like Sanderson, he shines with richer lustre as a Christian casuist, than as a systematic Divine. In his Practical Catechism, however, he appears to advantage both as an evangelical moralist and a doctrinal teacher: it contains expositions of the Creed, of the Ten Commandments, and of the Sermon on the Mount. Exhibitions of principle are skilfully interwoven with the enforcement of precepts; moderation is blended with orthodoxy; and in his conclusions touching the critical points of theology which we have selected as tests for elucidating distinctive opinion, he closely approaches his beloved companion Sanderson. With Hammond faith is the condition of justification; he scruples to call it the instrument, lest he should ascribe to it any undue efficiency;[425] but in faith he includes the germ of all Christian obedience, all Christian virtue; he describes it as a cordial, sincere, giving up oneself to God, particularly to Christ, firmly to rely on all His promises, and faithfully to obey all His commands. Hammond broadly distinguishes justification from sanctification,—defining the first as God’s covering or pardoning our iniquities, His being so reconciled unto us sinners, that He determines not to punish us eternally;—and the second, as the infusion of holiness into our hearts, the turning of the soul to Himself. Into the relation between the two blessings, and the order of their bestowment—which of them is conferred first—he enters, with a subtlety of analysis unusual in the Anglican school; and whilst, with exemplary candour, he suggests what he allows to be an orthodox rendering of the Puritan doctrine of justification before sanctification, he himself prefers to place the latter first in the order of time; yet, in doing this, he so qualifies his statement as not to alarm even the Puritan, who ventures upon this abstruse, perplexing, and not very profitable path of speculative inquiry. Hammond believed that justification flows from the mediatorial priesthood of the Lord Jesus; but he distinctly denied that the Redeemer’s active obedience is imputed to men.[426]
PEARSON.
Pearson’s Exposition of the Creed (1659) is a well-known theological treatise. He implicitly pursues an Anglican course, citing the Fathers in support of his positions; but he nowhere distinctly defines what authority he attaches to them, or, indeed, formally lays down as a principle that they are his guides at all. Pearson must have been moderate in his ecclesiastical views, or he could not have pursued the course he did during the Commonwealth; and his position as Lecturer at St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, and the association into which he would necessarily be brought with his Puritan brethren, might have the effect of widening his sympathies, and of preventing, in his case, those controversial asperities which embitter the writings of extreme Anglicans. In his article on the Church, he refers to its unity, its perpetuity, its holiness, and its Catholicity, meaning apparently by the Church the aggregate of Christian professors, whether they be good or bad.[427] Under the last head, he touches upon the authority of the Church in the following brief remark:—“They call the Church of Christ the Catholic Church, because it teacheth all things which are necessary for a Christian to know, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth, whether they concern the condition of man in this life, or in the life to come. As the Holy Ghost did lead the Apostles into all truth, so did the Apostles leave all truth unto the Church, which teaching all the same, may be well called Catholic from the universality of necessary and saving truths retained in it.” Even this scarcely amounts to an assertion of Church authority in the Anglican sense; it might be explained consistently with Puritan principles, it never would have satisfied Thorndike or Heylyn, or even Bull. To baptism, however, Pearson attributes great efficacy, coupling it, as Heylyn and others do, with the article on Forgiveness of Sins, according to the teaching of the Nicene and other Creeds. Unlike Thorndike, he does not propound any theory of justification in connection with baptism; nor does he, any more than Heylyn, dwell on the subject of justification in any way: he confines himself to the idea of remitting sins, which perhaps, in his opinion, is equivalent to justification. He uses strong expressions in speaking of the Atonement,—referring to “the punishment which Christ, who was our surety, endured,” as “a full satisfaction to the will and justice of God.” “It was a price given to redeem”—something “laid down by way of compensation.” “Although God be said to remit our sins by which we were captivated, yet He is never said to remit the price, without which we had never been redeemed, neither can He be said to have remitted it, because He did require it and receive it.” A Calvinist could scarcely have marked the point more strongly. Pearson also says “that Christ did render God propitious unto us by His blood—that is, His sufferings unto death—who before was offended with us for our sins; and this propitiation amounted to reconciliation, that is, a kindness after wrath. We must conceive that God was angry with mankind before He determined to give our Saviour; we cannot imagine that God, who is essentially just, should not abominate iniquity.” Pearson’s definition of faith is very different from Thorndike’s. It is a habit of the intellectual part of man, and therefore of itself invisible; and to believe is a spiritual act, and consequently “immanent and internal, and known to no man but him that believeth.” We find in Pearson’s exposition none of those peculiarly High Church views in which Thorndike and Heylyn so much delighted; and, what is very remarkable, as far as I can find, he only in a cursory way mentions the Lord’s Supper. Certainly he does not dwell upon it in any part of his treatise.[428]
Pearson’s common sense, mastery of learning, clearness of thought, perspicuity of style, and directness of reasoning, have secured and will retain for him a high place amongst English theological teachers. His orderly arrangement of topics, and his compact and forcible method of expression, render him popular with all students of his school of theology; and there are few points on which they can consult him without finding what they want in a shape convenient for use. Those who differ from him may read him with advantage; and they will discover that, for the most part, his faults are only defects which may be supplied by repairing to other sources of information.
BARROW.
Isaac Barrow devoted long years to the study of mathematics, for which he has acquired high renown; and he travelled in Turkey, and resided twelve months in Constantinople, where he read the whole of Chrysostom’s works near the spot upon which many of his sermons were delivered—a course of reading which must have been of immense service to him as an expounder of Christian morality. His favourite scientific studies left upon his mind a stamp of precision and order, apparent in his writings; and his familiarity with Greek patristic eloquence may be traced in the stately flow of his copious diction. His theology lies close to the boundary line between Anglicanism and the Divinity of the Cambridge school. After holding a mathematical professorship at Cambridge, he devoted the remainder of his life to theology, in which he achieved a reputation equal to that which he had won in the pursuit of science.
In his sermons on the Creed, instead of confining himself, as Pearson and Heylyn have done, to the exposition of Christian truth, he carefully employs himself in constructing defences of the faith. He begins his task with an exposure of the unreasonableness of infidelity, and with an assertion of the perfectly rational nature of belief in the Gospel. He afterwards dwells, at length, upon proofs of the existence of God; upon the Divinity and excellence of the Christian religion, as compared with the impiety and imposture of Paganism and Mahometanism, and the imperfection of Judaism; and upon the evidence that Jesus is the true Messias. Thus Barrow appears as a Christian advocate. He habitually bases his arguments upon Scripture texts, but he also habitually weaves into these arguments threads of reason, so as to commend what he advances to the understanding of his readers, ever avoiding what is mystical, or merely imaginative. Yet he does not neglect the dogmas of revelation, but brings many of them out with a clearness and precision which has been overlooked by some critics. His disquisition upon the nature of faith is as exhaustive as that of any Puritan, and will be found a wearisome piece of reading by some modern students. He dwells much upon the difficulties of faith, and upon the moral virtue involved in overcoming them; and when we compare his opinions with those of Thorndike and Bull, we discover in him a general similarity to them, in connection with shades of difference. In common with Thorndike, he resolutely opposes the idea that faith consists in any belief of our being pardoned, or in any assurance of salvation, or in any persuasion that a true Christian cannot fall from grace. His representations of the virtuousness of evangelical belief are obviously in harmony with that writer’s statements; and he also, in accordance with them, associates faith and the baptismal covenant, saying, “Faith is nothing else but a hearty embracing Christianity, which first exerteth itself by open declaration and avowal in baptism.”[429] Barrow, however, of all men, requires to be judged, not by isolated expressions, but by a comparison of one part of his teaching with another. Turning, then, to the following passage, which is complete in itself, and which I quote as an example of his diffuse and affluent style, we meet with an account of Christian faith, such as would scarcely have satisfied the demands of Thorndike’s baptismal theology:—“By this faith (as to the first and primary sense thereof) is understood the being truly and firmly persuaded in our minds that Jesus was what He professed Himself to be, and what the Apostles testified Him to be, the Messias, by God designed, foretold, and promised to be sent into the world, to redeem, govern, instruct, and save mankind, our Redeemer and Saviour, our Lord and Master, our King and Judge, the great High Priest, and Prophet of God—the being assured of these and all other propositions connexed with these; or, in short, the being thoroughly persuaded of the truth of that Gospel which was revealed and taught by Jesus and His Apostles. That this notion is true, those descriptions of this faith, and phrases expressing it, do sufficiently show; the nature and reason of the thing doth confirm the same, for that such a faith is, in its kind and order, apt and sufficient to promote God’s design of saving us, to render us capable of God’s favour, to purge our hearts, and work that change of mind which is necessary in order to the obtaining God’s favour, and enjoying happiness; to produce that obedience which God requires of us, and without which we cannot be saved: these things are the natural results of such a persuasion concerning those truths; as natural as the desire and pursuit of any good doth arise from the clear apprehension thereof, or as the shunning of any mischief doth follow from the like apprehension; as a persuasion that wealth is to be got thereby makes the merchant to undergo the dangers and pains of a long voyage (verifying that, Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos, Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per saxa, per ignes); as the persuasion that health may thereby be recovered, engages a man not only to take down the most unsavoury potions, but to endure cuttings and burnings (ut valeas, ferrum patieris et ignes); as a persuasion that refreshment is to be found in a place, doth effectually carry the hungry person thither; so a strong persuasion that the Christian religion is true, and the way of obtaining happiness, and of escaping misery, doth naturally produce a subjection of heart and an obedience thereto; and accordingly we see the highest of those effects, which the Gospel offers or requires, are assigned to this faith, as results from it, or adjuncts thereof.”[430]
BARROW.
The strong moral power attributed to faith places Barrow’s description of it in nearly strict coincidence with the teaching of Bishop Bull upon the same subject. Yet from Thorndike, and from other Anglo-Catholic Divines, with exceptions already pointed out, Barrow differs in his definite and sharp distinction between holiness and justification. No Puritan could more precisely mark off the latter from the former. Admitting, he says, that whoever is justified is also endued with some measure of intrinsic righteousness—“avowing willingly that such a righteousness doth ever accompany the justification St. Paul speaketh of—yet that sort of righteousness doth not seem implied by the word justification, according to St. Paul’s intent, in those places where he discourseth about justification by faith, for that such a sense of the word doth not well consist with the drift and efficacy of his reasoning, nor with divers passages in his discourse.”[431] But to the distinction he so clearly makes he attributes less importance than many theologians are wont to do.
BARROW.
Although Barrow does not copiously discuss the doctrine of the Atonement—although he dwells chiefly on the moral effects of Christ’s death—yet he uses very strong expressions as to the effect of our Lord’s sacrifice upon the Divine government, speaking of it as “appeasing that wrath of God which He naturally beareth toward iniquity, and reconciling God to men, who by sin were alienated from Him, by procuring a favourable disposition and intentions of grace toward us.” “Christ died, removing thereby that just hatred and displeasure.” “The non-imputation of our sins is expressed as a singular effect, an instance, an argument of His being in mind reconciled and favourably disposed towards us.”[432]
In five sermons, entirely devoted to the subject, this Divine asserts and explains the doctrine of universal redemption, saying that salvation is made attainable, and is really tendered unto all, upon feasible and equal conditions; and that a competency of grace is imparted to every man, qualifying him to do what God requires.[433]
His account of the Divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit is the same as is generally given by orthodox teachers. As to the work of the third Person in the Trinity, Barrow’s line of thought coincides more with Anglican than with Puritan writers. Besides much of a general character upon the Spirit’s assistance, in the thirty-fourth sermon on the Creed, Barrow remarks—“It hath been the doctrine constantly with general consent delivered in and by the Catholic Church, that to all persons by the holy mystery of baptism duly initiated into Christianity, and admitted into the communion of Christ’s body, the grace of the Holy Spirit is communicated, enabling them to perform the conditions of piety and virtue which they undertake.”[434]
Barrow appears to have been a Low Churchman, and, in the fragment he has left us upon “the holy Catholic Church,” omits those assertions respecting ecclesiastical authority which were the joy of Thorndike and Heylyn. He explains the different senses in which the word “Church” is used in the New Testament; and, in its larger sense, applies to it the epithets “holy” and “Catholic,” winding up all he has to say with practical remarks which commend themselves to candid Christians of all denominations.[435] It may be added that, in his discourse concerning The unity of the Church, he opposes the idea of any such ecclesiastical authority as is contended for either by Papists or Anglo-Catholics.
The Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy, from the same pen—too long to be described—places the author amongst the chief defenders of Protestantism, and deserves the eulogium of Tillotson,—what “many others have handled before, he hath exhausted.” The student can find arguments against the assumptions of Rome nowhere so fully and powerfully stated as on Barrow’s pages. Those arguments are, perhaps, like Saul’s armour, too cumbrous for the Davids of the present day; but there are in Barrow’s armoury stones from the brook for simple shepherds, as well as spears and shields for veteran warriors.
The feeling of Barrow towards the Romish Church is plain from what has now been said, and it is desirable, before we leave the opinions of the Anglicans, to inquire what their feeling generally was upon this subject; and also how they expressed themselves in reference to Protestant communities.
OPINIONS RESPECTING POPERY.
Thorndike calls the Romish a true but corrupt Church, in which salvation may be obtained, although it be clogged with difficulty. It is not Antichrist. It is not formally idolatrous; yet, after referring to its abuses, he says, “to live under them, and to yield conformity to them, is a burden unsufferable for a Christian to undergo: to approve them by being reconciled to the Church that maintains them is a scandal incurable and irreparable.”[436]
Bishop Bull observes, referring to certain doctrines held by Romanists, “I look upon it as a wonderful both just and wise providence of God, that He hath suffered the Church of Rome to fall into such gross errors (which otherwise it is scarce imaginable how men in their wits that had not renounced not only the Scriptures, but their reason, yea and their senses too, could be overtaken with), and to determine them for articles of faith.”[437]
Heylyn concedes to Rome the character of a true Church; yet after referring to the argument for image worship, he remarks:—“Though perhaps some men of learning may be able to relieve themselves by these distinctions; yet I can see no possibility how the common people, who kneel and make their prayers directly to the image itself, without being able to discern where the difference lieth between their proprie and improprie, or per se and per accidens, can be excused from palpable and downright idolatry.”[438]
The same writer, describing the Reformation, and contending for the continuity of the English Church, reflects, by implication, severely upon its previously Romanized state:—“Whereas, the case, if rightly stated, is but like that of a sick and wounded man, that had long lain weltering in his own blood, or languishing under a tedious burden of diseases, and afterwards by God’s great mercy, and the skilful diligence of honest chirurgeons and physicians, is at the last restored to his former health.”[439]
Taylor is much more decided in his condemnation of Rome:—“Now let any man judge whether it be not our duty, and a necessary work of charity, and the proper office of our ministry, to persuade our charges from the ‘immodesty of an evil heart,’ from having a ‘devilish spirit,’ from doing that ‘which is vehemently forbidden by the Apostle,’ from ‘infidelity and pride;’ and, lastly, from that ‘eternal woe which is denounced’ against them that add other words and doctrines than what is contained in the Scriptures, and say, ‘Dominus dixit, the Lord hath said it,’ and He hath not said it. If we had put these severe censures upon the Popish doctrine of tradition, we should have been thought uncharitable; but, because the holy fathers do so, we ought to be charitable, and snatch our charges from the ambient flame.”[440]
Bramhall, whose Protestantism went further than that of Thorndike or Heylyn, says:—“That Church which hath changed the apostolical creed, the apostolical succession, the apostolical regiment, and the apostolical communion, is no apostolical, orthodox, or Catholic Church. But the Church of Rome hath changed the apostolical creed, the apostolical succession, the apostolical regiment, and the apostolical communion. Therefore the Church of Rome is no apostolical, orthodox, or Catholic Church.”[441]
RESPECTING UNEPISCOPAL CHURCHES.
In reference to Protestant communities abroad, the same writer expresses his opinion thus:—
“I cannot assent that either all or any considerable part of the Episcopal Divines in England do unchurch either all or most part of the Protestant Churches. No man is hurt but by himself. They unchurch none at all, but leave them to stand or fall to their own master. They do not unchurch the Swedish, Danish, Bohemian Churches, and many other Churches in Polonia, Hungaria, and those parts of the world who have an ordinary, uninterrupted succession of pastors—some by the names of Bishops, others under the name of Seniors, unto this day. (I meddle not with the Socinians.) They unchurch not the Lutheran Churches in Germany, who both assert Episcopacy in their confessions, and have actual superintendents in their practice, and would have Bishops, name and thing, if it were in their power.... Episcopal Divines do not deny those Churches to be true Churches, wherein salvation may be had. We advise them, as it is our duty, to be circumspect for themselves, and not to put it to more question, whether they have ordination or not, or desert the general practice of the Universal Church for nothing, when they may clear it if they please. Their case is not the same with those who labour under invincible necessity.... This mistake proceedeth from not distinguishing between the true nature and essence of a Church, which we do readily grant them, and the integrity or perfection of a Church, which we cannot grant them, without swerving from the judgment of the Catholic Church.”[442]
“Wheresoever, in the world,” observes Cosin, “Churches bearing the name of Christ profess the true, ancient, and Catholic religion and faith, and invocate and worship, with one mouth and heart, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, if from actual communion with them I am now debarred, either by the distance of regions, or the dissensions of men, or any other obstacle; nevertheless, always in my heart, and soul, and affection, I hold communion and unite with them—that which I wish especially to be understood of the Protestant and well-reformed Churches. For the foundations being safe, any difference of opinion or of ceremonies—on points circumstantial, and not essential, nor repugnant to the universal practice of the ancient Church, in other Churches (over which we are not to rule)—we in a friendly, placid, and peaceable spirit, may bear, and therefore ought to bear.”[443]
Morley is cautious:—“Our Church is not so liberal of her anathemas as [Rome] is. We are sure our Church is truly apostolical, and that for government and discipline, as well as doctrine. Whether the Christian congregations in other Protestant countries be so or no, Ætatem habent, respondeant pro semetipsis et Domino suo stent vel cadent. In the mean time our Church hath declared, that no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest or Deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to exercise any of those sacred functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according unto the form hereafter following; or unless he had formerly Episcopal consecration, or ordination.”[444]
RESPECTING UNEPISCOPAL CHURCHES.
Of Nonconformists, Thorndike speaks in distinct and decided terms. Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, are guilty of schism. This he asserts over and over again; and of his opinion respecting schism, he leaves us in no doubt. Schism may, indeed, be unjust on both sides,—a favourite idea with Thorndike;—and it may be such as that salvation may be had on both sides; but this lenient view of the subject, he expresses only in relation to the differences between the Eastern and the Western Churches, between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. Schism, as committed by Nonconformists, he ever represents in the darkest colours. Presbyterian baptism, he affirms, to be no baptism. Their service is an imposture; in opposing Episcopacy, and setting up their synods, they erect altar against altar. It is mere equivocation to call their congregations Churches, and their ordinances sacraments. It was unwarrantable, he maintains, under the Commonwealth, to communicate with Presbyterians and Independents; although the moral impossibility of communing with them could not justify communing with Papists. The theory of the Independents he holds to be more suitable to Christianity than that of the Presbyterians, but he says it is impracticable, without Scriptural authority, and not less free from schism.[445] He counts the doctrine of justification, as he supposed it to be held by some Nonconformists, no other than a dreadful heresy, worse even than the Romanist doctrine of justification. Yet we find, in one place, this cold gleam of charity:—“I confess, as afore I allowed the Church of Rome some excuse from the unreasonableness of their adversaries; so here, considering the horrible scandals given by that communion in standing so rigorously upon laws so visibly ruinous to the service of God, and the advancement of Christianity, and the difficulty of finding that mean in which the truth stands between the extremes (as our Lord Christ between the thieves, saith Tertullian), I do not proceed to give the salvation of poor souls for lost, that are carried away with the pretence of reformation in the change that is made, even to hate, and persecute, by word or by deed, those who cannot allow it.” The book in which this passage occurs was published in 1659.
Anabaptists, Thorndike pronounces to be schismatics, if not heretics:—“As for the ground of that opinion, which moves them to break up the seal of God, marked upon those that are baptized unto the hope of salvation upon the obligation of Christianity, by baptizing them anew, to the hope of salvation, without the obligation of Christianity; whether they are to be counted heretics therefore or not, let who will dispute. This, I may justly infer, they take as sure a course to murder the souls of those whom they baptize again, as of those whom they let go out of the world unbaptized.”[446]
As Thorndike is more full and explicit in the statement of his views respecting the schism which he believed to be involved in Nonconformity, so also he goes beyond some other Anglicans in denouncing its principles, and censuring its professors. Perhaps certain writers of his class might think less unjustly, and more charitably, of Dissenters; yet none of them, consistently with their own Church notions, could regard Independent societies as Churches, whatever favourable opinion they might entertain of individual members.
Anything like intercommunion with communities not Episcopalian, seems, in the estimation of such a man as Thorndike, utterly out of the question; and therefore by him, and by those who think with him, the Episcopal Church of England is placed in an entirely isolated position, in reference to the rest of Protestant Christendom, except where Bishops are retained; such instances being few and doubtful.
THE PRAYER BOOK.
Cosin, in his Confession, declares very strongly against sectaries and fanatics, amongst whom he ranks “not only the Separatists, the Anabaptists, and their followers, alas, too, too many, but also the New Independents and Presbyterians of our country, a kind of men hurried away with the spirit of malice, disobedience, and sedition, who by a disloyal attempt (the like whereof was never heard since the world began) have, of late, committed so many great and execrable crimes, to the contempt and despite of religion, and the Christian faith: which, how great they were, without horror cannot be spoken or mentioned.”[447]
Connected with love for the Anglican Church, with dislike of the Papacy, and with alienation from unepiscopal communities, there existed a strong attachment to the formularies of faith, and of worship, contained in the Book of Common Prayer. That Book was used in secret during the Commonwealth; and before being reviewed in 1662—indeed previously to the Restoration—it received comment and eulogy from the pen of Hamon L’Estrange,—who published, in 1659, an elaborate and learned work on The Alliance of Divine Offices, in which he compared other Liturgies with that of the Church of England since the Reformation. His book is based upon the study of Whitgift and Hooker, who had answered Cartwright’s objections to the Anglican services, and who had convinced the author that they did not lie open to the charge of unlawfulness, but were of a nature to command obedience. L’Estrange also studied the previous records, as he calls them, of the first six centuries; the result being a conviction, that the noblest parts of the Liturgy were used by the Primitive Church, before a Popish Mass had ever been said; and that an admirable harmony obtained, even in external rites, between the Church of England and the ancient Fathers. This volume did not reach a second edition before the year 1690; but until it was supplemented or superseded by later works, it continued to be the chief authority on the subject, and has been, in our own time, thought worthy of republication in the library of Anglo-Catholic Theology.
A new publication appeared, partly in 1651, and partly in 1662, bearing upon the Anglican controversy with Puritanism, of too important a character to be passed over in silence. The first five books of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, had long been the admiration of Episcopalian Churchmen,—the rest of the treatise, supposed to be lost, remaining to them an object of desire. At the periods now mentioned, there came to light the last three books of this great work as possessed by posterity.
HOOKER’S WORKS.
The sixth book, included in the part which issued from the press in 1651, is, according to the title, a disquisition upon ecclesiastical power and the question of lay eldership; but the reader does not proceed many pages before he finds the disquisition going off in a tangent, from the subject of Church jurisdiction, to pursue inquiries relative to the Popish dogmas of confession and penance. Such a method of composition is so unlike that of “the judicious Hooker,” that there can be no doubt his last accomplished Editor is right in concluding, that we have here some compositions from the author’s pen not intended for insertion in the Ecclesiastical Polity. Notes remain showing that he had drawn up a plan for this department of his task, which would have methodically and pertinently disposed of it, but no MS. has been discovered filling up the carefully-digested outline. It has been suspected that the Puritan relatives of the Church champion in Elizabeth’s reign were guilty of foul play in this matter, and that after destroying most of the genuine copy, they vamped up the mutilated remainder with dissertations selected from other papers. Such a thing may be possible, but certainly it is not proved. I can find no satisfactory positive evidence in support of the suspicion,[448] and it is quite unaccountable how, if the Puritan manglers of his MSS. had made away with what related to lay eldership, they should leave in existence a long Essay, containing a lengthened defence of Episcopal order. This defence, which appeared in 1662, under the Editorship of Gauden, who does not say where he obtained it, presents abundant internal proof of its genuineness, showing nevertheless the absence of that careful revision and correction, which the Author would have bestowed, had he lived to complete his own publication. It forms the seventh book.
In the fourth and fifth chapters there is a discussion of the main point, “whence it hath grown that the Church is governed by Bishops.” In the fifth, Hooker says:—
“It was the general received persuasion of the ancient Christian world, that Ecclesia est in Episcopo, ‘the outward being of a Church consisteth in the having of a Bishop.’ That where colleges of presbyters were, there was at the first, equality amongst them, St. Jerome thinketh it a matter clear: but when the rest were thus equal, so that no one of them could command any other as inferior unto him, they all were controllable by the Apostles, who had that Episcopal authority abiding at the first in themselves, which they afterwards derived unto others. The cause wherefore they under themselves appointed such Bishops as were not every where at the first, is said to have been those strifes and contentions, for remedy whereof, whether the Apostles alone did conclude of such a regiment, or else they together with the whole Church judging it a fit and a needful policy, did agree to receive it for a custom; no doubt but being established by them on whom the Holy Ghost was poured in so abundant measure for the ordering of Christ’s Church, it had either Divine appointment beforehand, or Divine approbation afterwards, and is in that respect to be acknowledged the ordinance of God, no less than that ancient Jewish regiment, whereof though Jethro were the deviser, yet after that God had allowed it, all men were subject unto it, as to the polity of God, and not of Jethro.”
In the course of the entire argument respecting Episcopacy, Hooker changes his standing again and again; sometimes taking higher, and sometimes lower ground; now insisting upon the Divine origin of Diocesan Bishops, and then, supposing their origin not to be immediately Divine, attempting to show the inherent authority of the Church to determine its own frame of government, and to establish the sufficiency of such evidence as may be drawn from patristic sources.
HOOKER’S WORKS.
The eighth book treats of the Royal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and is intended as a reply to certain Puritan objections brought against the form of that supremacy as established by the laws of the land. It is a curious circumstance that one chapter contains a vindication of the title, “Supreme Head of the Church;”[449] although this did not remain the parliamentary title of the sovereign, according to the statute of supremacy in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign: and such being the fact, it may be inferred, that Hooker used the title as an equivalent to the statutable appellation of “Supreme Governor in all spiritual and ecclesiastical causes.”
Hooker’s vindication of the Royal supremacy contains a course of elaborate reasoning in support of the prerogative with regard to Church assemblies, and Church legislation, the appointing of Bishops, and the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts. Finally, he discusses the Royal exemption from ecclesiastical censure, as well as from all other kinds of judicial power. This topic is handled with much caution, and some reticence, and the chapter in which it is considered remains in an unfinished state. I have not lighted upon any controversial publications arising out of the appearance of these recovered writings, but I notice that Kennet says, Bishop Gauden “doth, with great confidence, use diverse arguments to satisfy the world that the three books joined to the five genuine books of the said Mr. Hooker are genuine, and penned by him, notwithstanding those poisonous assertions against the regal power, which are to be found therein.”[450] To what in particular the closing words refer is not plain; they can scarcely point to a fragment on the limits of obedience, which Gauden attached to the eighth book, but which Keble transfers to an Appendix, since the author there enforces subjection to civil governors as a conscientious duty. It is not a little remarkable, that Thorndike makes no use either of the earlier or later editions of the Ecclesiastical Polity.
The Anglican Divines included distinguished sermon writers. They followed in the wake of Andrewes and Donne, whom they resembled in their theology, from whom they differed in their style. Like the Puritans after the Reformation, they were generally cut off from public preaching during the Interregnum; but they wrote sermons, and some abroad had liberty to preach,—as for example Cosin, who, at Paris, during his exile, delivered several discourses, which are included in his works. The chief of them were prepared for the festivals of the Church, and treat of the Nativity, the Resurrection, and the Ascension: subjects which are handled sometimes in a cold orthodox manner, sometimes with forcible and original reasoning, and now and then with strokes of vigorous eloquence. It is remarkable that we have no sermons by Cosin, written after the Restoration; and indeed there is a general paucity of homiletic literature by members of the Episcopal bench for twenty years before the Revolution.
ANGLICAN SERMON WRITERS.
The Irish bench supplied one brilliant sermon-writer—whose compositions in that department are above all praise. Jeremy Taylor’s theology has been already considered, space here only permits the remark that his theology appears in his sermons, that he is the true Anglican throughout, and that all his opinions are there arrayed in robes of bewitching grace and splendour. His practical works,—for example The Life of Christ and Holy Living and Dying,—may be classed with his discourses; and abound in rich specimens of that golden eloquence—stamped with an Anglican mint-mark—which he was wont copiously to issue from the pulpit. Sanderson’s sermons are exhaustive treatises, in which the homiletic character sometimes fades, but orthodox doctrine is always implied; the casuistry of Christian experience is handled sometimes in almost a Puritan spirit, and Christian ethics are ever treated in a clear, manly, incisive style. Barrow’s sermons are also treatises, many of them most decidedly doctrinal, orthodox and argumentative. But, of all these Divines, it may be said—not excepting Jeremy Taylor, who exerts a charm of another kind—that they lack the evangelical unction, the softness and fragrance of which is felt to be suffused over the Puritan homilies.
Controversy tinges more or less most of the sermons of that period; but, for invective, Dr. South has won an unenviable notoriety. No one can admire more than I do, the good sense and masculine style of this author. There are sermons of his which are perfect models of pulpit address; but on reading others, who but must feel that perhaps there never was another man who could so well enforce the truths of Christianity, who also did so flagrantly violate their spirit. He never misses, or rather, he never fails to make, when he had any pretence for it, an opportunity of attacking his Puritan contemporaries; although he must have lived on terms of civility with them when at Oxford. As in a sermon by Chrysostom, preached at Antioch, one scarcely ever gets to the end, without finding him rebuking swearers, so South in his sermons preached at Westminster Abbey, and in other places, rarely concludes without assailing English schismatics, who were not less bad in his eyes, than were the most profane Syrians in the eyes of the orator of the Eastern Church. Men destitute of South’s power manifested a similar temper, vilifying the Nonconformists “as far more dangerous enemies than the Papists;”[451] and thus, in the treatment of opponents, they imitated and even exceeded the worst polemical vices of such men as Vicars and Edwards, under the Commonwealth.
ANGLICAN CRITICS.
Before the Restoration there appeared a book on practical piety, which attained to an extraordinary degree of popularity. Every one has heard of the Whole Duty of Man; and most people given to religious reading have met with a treatise bearing that title; probably on examination it has proved to be what is entitled, the New Whole Duty of Man, a work proceeding on different principles from the original treatise—only the name of which it bears, only the form of which it imitates.[452] The original treatise, from the pen of an anonymous author,[453] bears a commendatory letter, written by Dr. Hammond, a circumstance which alone would suggest our ranking it amongst the productions of the Anglican school of theology. Its contents justify our doing so. It proceeds upon the theory, so largely illustrated by Thorndike, that by baptism men are brought into a gracious covenant with God; and that men become, not by merit, but by mercy, entitled to the blessings promised in the Gospel. A Christian life is the fulfilment of vows and obligations incurred in baptism. The book recognizes the doctrines of the Trinity, the Divinity of our Lord, the Atonement, and other related truths under Anglican forms of expression; but the stress of the work, indeed every page, except a few at the beginning, consists in an inculcation of human duty, considered under a threefold aspect—so common once in the pulpits of the Establishment—our duty towards God, our duty towards ourselves, and our duty towards one another. All the precepts of devotion, of virtue, and of beneficence are ranged under these heads. The great motives to godliness and goodness are not overlooked; but the proportion in which they are exhibited is very small compared with the space allotted to a prescriptive treatment of the subject. Of the fulness and variety of the practical advice given no one can complain; but the scanty reference to the distinctive doctrines of the Gospel, will be acknowledged by most Divines as a serious defect. The defect is explained, but not justified by the circumstance, that the book is a reaction against a theological tendency, needing to be checked—“the fanatics were shamefully regardless of good works, and preached up faith as all-sufficient.”
The Whole Duty of Man has been more condemned and more praised than it deserves. It presents a large amount of moral advice, but it lacks the main motive power which produces Christian virtue; and as to style, it is hard and unattractive from beginning to end, utterly lacking tenderness, and exhibiting practical religion only in a dry light.
Some of the Anglican Divines zealously devoted themselves to Biblical criticism. In the matter of exegesis, the Puritans achieved much; but they looked with suspicion upon all attempts to amend the sacred text. In this department, certain of their theological opponents laid their own age and posterity under immense obligation. Bryan Walton, perhaps, is not to be numbered with Anglicans; and amongst his most efficient helpers, was Lightfoot, more of a Latitudinarian than an Anglican,—but Castell and Pocock, Herbert Thorndike, and Alexander Huish, if not Thomas Hyde and Samuel Clark,[454] all of them eminent scholars, were more or less Anglican, certainly they were all Episcopalian, in their views; and it is to them, assisted by Oliver Cromwell, who permitted the paper for the purpose to be imported duty free, that we owe the English Polyglott,—which competent judges have pronounced superior to its more splendid predecessors, published on the Continent. Castell was enthusiastically devoted to critical studies, to which he sacrificed his property, his time, and his energies, with small reward, in the way of Church preferment. His Lexicon Heptaglotton is a monument of astonishing learning, and worthy of being associated with his friend’s Polyglott Bible.
After the Restoration, an idea was entertained of printing the famous Alexandrian MS., which had been sent as a present to Charles I. from the Greek Patriarch Cyrillus; and the editorship was to have been entrusted to Dr. Smith, an Oxford scholar, to whom Charles II. promised a Canonry at Windsor or Westminster for his labour; but the design was abandoned. Dr. John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, published, in 1675, an edition of the Greek New Testament, with various readings, taken from Walton and others; his object being to show the substantial correctness of the received text, and how little its integrity is affected by the numerous lections accumulated by an industrious collation of MSS.
ANGLICAN CRITICS.
To these critics must be added the well-known commentator Dr. Hammond, who, instead of following the Fathers and the Reformers in their schemes of mystical interpretation, struck out a path for himself, and sought to illustrate the grammatical sense of the sacred writings. He studied the Hellenistic dialect, compared Greek MSS., examined ancient manners and customs, and employed the opinions of the Gnostics to elucidate references in the Epistles to early heresies. This is very remarkable in an Anglican Divine, and it indicates what some who sympathized with him in other respects might have regarded as a rationalistic tendency—certainly they would have so regarded it in any one not belonging to themselves. Hammond’s Paraphrase and Annotations, published in 1659, may be taken as constituting an epoch in the history of exegesis; the more so on account of his influence, for his name stood so high with the Episcopalian clergy, “that he naturally turned the tide of interpretation his own way.”[455]