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.”