The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

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.