[113] In Bishop Andrews's answer to Bellarmine, he says: Præsentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram; de modo præsentiæ nil temere definimus. And soon afterwards: Nobis vobiscum de objecto convenit, de modo lis omnis est. De hoc est, fide firmâ tenemus quod sit, de hoc modo est, ut sit Per, sive In, sive Cum, sive Sub, sive Trans, nullum inibi verbum est. I quote from Casaubon's Epistles, p. 393. This is, reduced to plain terms: We fully agree with you that Christ's body is actually present in the sacramental elements, in the same sense as you use the word; but we see no cause for determining the precise mode, whether by transubstantiation or otherwise.
The doctrine of the church of England, as evidenced by its leading ecclesiastics, underwent a change in the reign of James through Andrews, Casaubon, and others, who deferred wholly to antiquity. In fact, as I have elsewhere observed, there can be but two opinions, neglecting subordinate differences, on this famous controversy. It is clear to those who have attended to the subject, that the Anglican reformers did not hold a local presence of Christ's human body in the consecrated bread itself, independent of the communicant, or, as the technical phrase was, extra usum: and it is also clear, that the divines of the latter school did so. This question is rendered intricate at first sight, partly by the strong figurative language which the early reformers employed in order to avoid shocking the prejudices of the people; and partly by the incautious and even absurd use of the word real presence to mean real absence; which is common with modern theologians.
[114] Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 212. He probably imbibed this, like many other of his prejudices, from Bishop Andrews, whose epitaph in the church of St. Saviour's in Southwark speaks of him as having received a superior reward in heaven on account of his celibacy; cœlebs migravit ad aureolam cœlestem. Biog. Britannica. Aureola, a word of no classical authority, means, in the style of popish divinity, which the author of this epitaph thought fit to employ, the crown of virginity. See Du Cange in voc.
[115] See "Life of Hammond," in Wordsworth's Eccles. Biography, vol. v. 343. It had been usual to study divinity in compendiums, chiefly drawn up in the sixteenth century. King James was a great favourer of antiquity, and prescribed the study of the fathers in his Instructions to the Universities in 1616.
[116] Andrews gave scandal in the queen's reign by preaching at court, "that contrition, without confession and absolution and deeds worthy of repentance, was not sufficient; that the ministers had the two keys of power and knowledge delivered unto them; that whose sins soever they remitted upon earth, should be remitted in heaven.—The court is full of it, for such doctrine was not usually taught there." Sidney Letters, ii. 185. Harrington also censures him for an attempt to bring in auricular confession. Nugæ Antiquæ, ii. 192. In his own writings against Perron, he throws away a great part of what have always been considered the protestant doctrines.
[117] Hall, Bishop of Exeter, a very considerable person, wrote a treatise on the Divine Institution of Episcopacy, which, according to an analysis given by Heylin and others of its leading positions, is so much in the teeth of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, that it might pass for an answer to it. Yet it did not quite come up to the primate's standard, who made him alter some passages which looked too like concessions. Heylin's Life of Laud, 374; Collier, 789. One of his offences was the asserting the pope to be Antichrist, which displeased the king as well as primate, though it had been orthodox under James.
[118] Collier, 764; Neal, 582; Heylin, 288.
[119] Collier, 753; Heylin, 260.
[120] Clarendon, iii. 366; State Papers, i. 338. "Lord Scudamore, the English ambassador, set up an altar, etc., in the Laudean style. His successor, Lord Leicester, spoke to the archbishop about going to Charenton; and telling him Lord Scudamore did never go thither, Laud answered, 'He is the wiser.' Leicester requested his advice what he should do, in order to sift his disposition, being himself resolved how to behave in that matter. But the other would only say that he left it to his discretion. Leicester says, he had many reasons to think that for his going to Charenton the archbishop did him all the ill offices he could to the king, representing him as a puritan, and consequently in his method an enemy to monarchical government, though he had not been very kind before. The said archbishop, he adds, would not countenance Blondel's book against the usurped power of the pope." Blencowe's Sydney Papers, 261.
"To think well of the reformed religion," says Northumberland, in 1640, "is enough to make the archbishop an enemy; and though he cannot for shame do it in public, yet in private he will do Leicester all the mischief he can." Collins's Sydney Papers, ii. 623.