Proposed Surrender of the Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of England / A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on Professor Stanley's Views of Clerical and University "Subscription"

by William J. Irons

The Athanasian Creed.

(4.) In discussing the “practical evils” of Subscription, I observe that Dr. Stanley occasionally singles out parts of our “Formularies,” as involving special difficulty, and embarrassing “subscribers” in a more painful way than others. More than once he mentions the Creed of St. Athanasius as a peculiar hardship. In the first place, he somewhat roughly and unfairly charges falsehood on the Article for calling it St. Athanasius’s (p. 13); but surely he would not mean to charge falsehood on the Prayer-book, for speaking of the “Apostles Creed”—and yet the Apostles did not write it,—or of the “Nicene Creed,” although the latter part of it be not Nicene? The meaning is so plain and easy, that I own that I wonder at the tone of Dr. Stanley here. [32] The Creed “commonly called Athanasian” is surely a good description of a document which expresses well the truth which Athanasius defended, and the Church, by saying “commonly called,” expressly refrains from certifying his authorship. But the admission of the Creed itself is the evident grievance, and so there is anger at the very name. To this, then, I will address myself.

“As a doctrine most explicitly asserted by the Liturgy,” Dr. Stanley mentions “the condemnation of all members of the Eastern Church, as maintained by the clauses of the Athanasian Creed, which appear to declare that those who refuse to acknowledge the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son, without doubt perish everlastingly.” An “eminent prelate” twenty years ago, we are told, expressed a devout hope that, “for the honour of human nature, no one now would deliberately aver” this! I hope I shall not seem to be harsh if I say I would here put in one word “for the honour” of common sense, which seems shocked by such treatment of such subjects. We might as fairly say, that the words, “Whosoever will be saved must thus think of the Trinity,” consign all infants, and persons of little understanding, to everlasting perdition, because they cannot “think” of it at all. It is trifling to confound the intellectual reception of a doctrine with its saving reception, and it is saying that none but very clever people will be saved. Such confusion is equivalent to a rejection of even the simplest form of Creed. Take for example the Ethiopian’s confession, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” on which he was baptized (Acts viii. 37). For the intellectual conception here demands explanation at once. In what sense is He the Son of God? Are we not all “His offspring?” Is Jesus the Son of God as man? or as God?—or both? If His Son, is He Eternal?—and soon. Such questions are inevitable, if we would really know our meaning in saying, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” But important as a right understanding of truth assuredly is, no Church ever thus taught that intellectual reception of truth could be attained by the multitude, for whose salvation we labour. If, indeed, we could look into the mind of the majority of good Christians, and see the shape which doctrines there take, we should often find the greatest amount of heresy of the intellect co-existing with orthodoxy of heart. A statement thus drawn out at length in a Creed is the Church’s intellectual exposition, as far as it goes, of the Doctrine professed. The million may not know this; but the Church tells them—“If you hold the true doctrine, this is what, consciously or not, you are holding.” The Athanasian Creed is a statement of that truth which dwells in every Christian heart. We know that God’s grace in the soul is always “orthodox;” but “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;” but the Creed forbids the intellect to misinterpret what the heart has savingly known.—The agreement with the Eastern Church attempted at the Council of Florence illustrates this; for it was evidently on this basis. The Greeks were not told that their forefathers had all perished, but that their expression of the truth which they held was less perfect than the Latin.

It may be very easy to misrepresent what is thus said; but few, on reflection, will venture to say the opposite. Dr. Stanley would not say that no truth in Scripture is “necessary to salvation?” He would not say that no doctrine of any Creed is “necessary to salvation?” But yet he would not say that right intellectual conceptions of any truth, or of any doctrine, are “necessary to salvation?” And as he would own that some faith is necessary, or a “grace of faith” (the “Habitus Fidei” of the Schools), he must own, therefore, that saving faith, however unintellectual, is, as I said, orthodox. To “hold the Faith” is one thing; to apprehend its intellectual expression is another. And if all this be undeniable, what sad unreality it is, to write and speak, as so many do of the Athanasian Creed, as if it required a comprehension of all the terms which it uses!—instead of a pure “holding” of the Truth, which it would explain to all capable of the explanation.

I have dwelt at this length on a single point because, even in our journals and periodicals, so much obstinate nonsense—pardon me, my Lord, for such plainness—is frequently uttered against a Creed to which, under God, England now probably owes her undeniably deep faith in the Trinity.—To sign the Athanasian Creed being thus beyond dispute to sign the Doctrine, and not to say that each expression of it is infallible, or down to the level of all men, there can be no more objection to Subscription of that Creed, than of the Apostles’ or the Nicene.

Equivocal subscribing.

(5.) Yet one more “evil” alleged to flow from the present practice of “Subscription” must be noticed,—the necessity which it throws on all of us to sign in a qualified, and therefore not straightforward sense. “From the Archbishop in his palace at Lambeth to the humblest curate in the wilds of Cumberland,” says Dr. Stanley, “all must go out,” if only the “obvious” and “natural” meaning of the whole Prayer-book be insisted on.—I really feel, my Lord, on reading these words, very much as I should on hearing from a foreigner anything very ultra and impossible about England—e.g., that “we have no religion at all in England;” (we are told, indeed, that in Spain we are thought to be an infidel people). The only answer, in such case, is to inform the foreigner as to the facts; point to our churches, our schools, our parishes, our homes. In truth, Dr. Stanley here seems to me to write like one who does not know us at all. I say for myself (and I believe that thousands would do the same), that I subscribe both Articles and Prayer-book in their obvious, easy, and most congruous sense, and believe them to express, if not always in the words which I should have chosen, yet always in suitable words, my inward convictions of Christian truth. Indeed, my Lord, I can understand nothing else. I have moved very freely for many years among my brethren, and I can but say that my experience of them as a body does not in any degree correspond with the representation which Dr. Stanley makes, which I think will surprise both our friends and our enemies. I can do no more, of course, than simply protest [36] against it with all my heart; believing fully that when the Articles and the Prayer-book are interpreted, not with “Chinese” perverseness, but honestly and humanly, they are ordinarily found accordant with reason, with Scripture, and with themselves.

The possible haste with which Dr. Stanley seems to have written, may account, perhaps, for statements so unqualified as these, and some others that he has made. Indeed, there are things put out in the Letter which can only be thus explained. I refer, for instance, to such assertions as that, (p. 4) which,—forgetting the whole calendar of Lessons, (and also the Article vi.), says,—“The Articles and Liturgy express no opinion as to the authorship of the disputed [37] or anonymous books of Scripture,”—and then in a note mentions the “Visitation of the Sick” as the only portion of the “Liturgy” (sic)—which refers a disputed book (the “Hebrews”) to its author; though the service for Holy Matrimony equally refers that Epistle to St. Paul. Or, as another instance, I may name Dr. Stanley’s conceiving the indiscriminate use of our Burial Service to imply some theory about the happiness of all hereafter. (So I understand him, at least, p. 19.)—Or, yet another; his supposing (p. 45) that the description of our “Canonical Books” as those of whose authority there was no doubt “in the Church,” could possibly mean “no doubt in the minds of any individuals!” But, my Lord, my object is not to find fault with any one; I had to show, as I hope I have shown, the fallacy of the grounds on which the surrender of Subscription to the Prayer-book has been urged.

Summary.

It has been seen that the “Comprehension” scheme of the Revolution,—the design of the English Reformation,—and the custom of the Early Church, which had all been appealed to, all fail to give the least support to the theory of license now put forward. It has been seen, that no real argument against Subscription has been deduced from the practice of it among ourselves, or from the character of our Formularies. I might have gone farther. I might have marked the Providential nature of the events which held our vessel by the anchor of Subscription, at a time when it must have otherwise drifted on rocks. I might have pointed to the unhappy results which thus far have attended relaxations of Subscription, in a change of tone among a large number of the younger members of the Church and the University, and an acknowledged failure at length of the supply of candidates for Holy Orders. But there is no need that I should enlarge on details which are patent to all observation. It is becoming that I should bring these remarks to a conclusion.

I should be sorry, indeed, my Lord, if it could be thought from my deprecating the proposed abolition of Subscription, that I regard the condition of the Church among us as a normal or satisfactory one. But I feel, as thousands do, that whatever changes may lie before us, they should be towards increased organization of our Body; while the present proposal would disorganize us at once, and break away the traditions by which, in an undisciplined age, Providence protected us. This proposal, I am aware, unhappily falls in with the spirit of our times—a spirit of independence and freedom, rather than of holiness and faith, and therefore I fear that it will find a wide advocacy among those who desire not the maintenance of our Church’s distinctive position among the Churches of Europe. Your Lordship’s eloquent hope—admirable and strong—that we may yet “maintain that Eternal Truth of which the Church is the depository, and that Form of sound words in which that Eternal Truth has been handed down,” I fain would share. But I stand in doubt. I feel very much like one who is asked to take leave of a peaceful abode—a haven of long Providential refuge; and I take, perhaps, a partial, because parting look at the solid advantages hitherto secured—the homely, perhaps, but very real blessings of a Fixed Faith for our people in general, with Means of Grace, capable of enlargement everywhere according to our need, venerable Traditions protecting our noble English Bibles, our glorious English Offices, our restored English Churches. The thought of turning one’s back on all, and pushing out on the boundless ocean of opinion, may well fill the heart with foreboding—if not for oneself, yet for others!